SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - 2019's Political Contest Is Suffolk County Executive Race

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The leading political contest in Suffolk in 2019 will be the race for county executive, the top post in Suffolk County government.

As the new year begins, the most likely Republican candidate against Democratic incumbent Steve Bellone is one of two county officials from the Town of Smithtown: either Suffolk County Comptroller John M. Kennedy, Jr. or Suffolk Legislator Rob Trotta—although the entry of other would-be nominees is possible.

Both Messrs. Kennedy and Trotta have strong views on Mr. Bellone, considering him inept particularly on county financial matters. “We have a complete absence of leadership in this county and we are balanced on the precipice of financial crisis,” said Mr. Kennedy after his re-election to the comptroller’s post in the past election.

The county’s fiscal watchdog, Mr. Kennedy has described Mr. Bellone’s county budgets as “fraught with peril. It is not unlike what we see to the west of us,” referring to the financial problems that have occurred in neighboring Nassau County resulting in the state imposing a Finance Authority to oversee Nassau fiscal matters. “It’s as if,” maintains Mr. Kennedy, “he [Bellone] is standing on the 12^th floor” of the county’s H. Lee Dennison Building, where the county executive has his office, “with a megaphone calling on the state to ‘take us over.’”

Mr. Kennedy is considering but hasn’t yet made up his mind about running for county executive. 

Mr. Trotta has decided “to test the waters” for his making a run. A retired detective with the Suffolk County Police Department, Mr. Trotta in criticizing Mr. Bellone’s fiscal policies has zeroed in on his pushing increased fees in order to balance the county budget. He has called it “nothing more than a tax disguised as a fee. It’s death by a thousand knives.” Increasing fees for general county purposes, says Mr. Trotta, “is not even a grey area. The New York State comptroller has stated you can’t do this, and there is case law stating it can’t be done…It’s a recipe for disaster.”

Both Messrs. Kennedy and Trotta are experienced in Suffolk government

Mr. Kennedy, an attorney from Nesconset, served 10 years as a county legislator before first being elected county comptroller in 2014. He was minority leader of the legislature. He previously worked in the county clerk’s office. He has a master’s degree in business administration with a concentration in capital budgeting from Adelphi University. 

Mr. Trotta, of Fort Salonga, was first elected to the Suffolk Legislature in 2013. For 25 years he was a member of the county police force. For over 10 of those years he also served on the FBI Violence Crimes Task Force. He graduated from C.W. Post with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and got a master’s in labor management relations from Stony Brook University.

Mr. Bellone, of North Babylon, was first elected county executive in 2011. He had been Babylon Town supervisor and earlier a member of the Babylon Town Board. He received a bachelor’s degree in political science and communications from Queens College, a master’s in public administration from Webster University in Missouri attending classes at night during his Army service in Missouri as a communications specialist, and a law degree from the Fordham University School of Law.

Mr. Bellone’s re-election drive is beginning. Last month he raised $400,000 at a fundraiser attended by 300 people adding to a campaign war chest of $1.65 million already.

He will likely emphasize in his campaign his efforts at boosting the economy of Suffolk with the “Ronkonkoma Hub” and other programs and will staunchly defend his fiscal management. 

If Mr. Bellone wins re-election this year, it would be his last term as county executive due to the county’s term limits law that restricts being county executive to 12 years.

Mr. Bellone was re-elected in 2015 after what some in politics have regarded as a “free ride.” His GOP opponent was unknown in Suffolk. James O’Connor was a former member of the North Hempstead Town Board and moved from Nassau to Great River in Suffolk in 2004 so his wife could be closer to her cardiology practice. He received the GOP nomination for Suffolk County executive after those whom the party considered stronger challengers declined to run. Mr. O’Connor also scored Mr. Bellone over what he termed the “precarious” shape of county finances charging that county government under Mr. Bellone “is not heading in the right direction,” indeed was “hurtling over a financial cliff.” 

Although either Messrs. Kennedy and Trotta are now considered the most likely candidates against Mr. Bellone this year, other possibilities are State Senator John J. Flanagan of East Northport, majority leader of the State Senate from 2015 until last year—and with Democrats having just gained a Senate majority losing that position, and Suffolk Legislator Tom Climi of Bay Shore who has been the minority leader of the Suffolk Legislature.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - 2018 Suffolk County News Events

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Among the major events in Suffolk in 2018 was the midterm election which saw Lee Zeldin, the two-term incumbent in the lst Congressional District which includes most of Smithtown, win re-election—but not by the margins he had won by before. Also, Suffolk Legislator Monica Martinez of Brentwood became the first woman ever elected to represent Suffolk County in the State Senate.

In Suffolk as throughout the nation there was heavy voter turn-out.

Republican Zeldin of Shirley was opposed by Democrat Perry Gershon, a Democrat from East Hampton, who waged a strong, well-organized campaign. A newcomer to politics, Mr. Gershon received 46% of the lst C.D. vote doing better against Mr. Zeldin than previous challengers. 

There was a free press issue during the race which received wide attention.

In an unprecedented incident in Suffolk County history, journalists were kicked out of a political rally, a “kickoff” rally for Mr. Zeldin. Pat Biancaniello, editor of Smithtown Matters, described in an editorial of how she was “invited to attend the rally by the Zeldin campaign and was credentialed by the Zeldin campaign.  Upon arrival I was told to go anywhere I wanted to take photos, again by the Zeldin campaign. I stood in the same spot, with my credentials plainly in sight, for roughly an hour and a half before, out of the blue, I was told to leave without an explanation. I was forced to climb over a rope to get to the path leading to a door—(one woman sneered and said ‘bye bye’ as I walked past).  Once out the door and in a backyard area, I was mocked by a group of people. A man upset that I was taking photos smacked my camera and I was told by security to leave the Elks Club premises. All the while I was wearing the press badge supplied by the Zeldin campaign and telling everyone I was an invited press person.”

Mr. Zeldin apologized and the Press Club of Long Island issued a statement declaring that although “we appreciate” Mr. Zeldin’s apology “we do not believe” the two journalists “should have been removed from the event in the first place. We see this most recent incident as part of a larger pattern of mistreatment of the press.” The club, one of the largest chapters of the national Society of Professional Journalists, linked it to President Trump calling the press the “’enemy of the people.’ It was a phrase often used in the past by communist dictators to refer to dissidents, or political opponents….As a nation, we must afford journalists the protections that we have from the time of our founding, thus allowing them to reveal important truths.”

The year 2018 saw a misguided lawsuit brought against the county’s landmark Farmland Preservation Program. The lawsuit filed by the Long Island Pine Barrens Society was supported by a state Supreme Court justice but the state’s Appellate Division overturned that ruling.

The program, begun in 1974, was conceived by Suffolk County Executive John V. N. Klein of Smithtown and based on the then new idea of purchase of development rights. Farmers are paid the difference between the value of their land in agriculture and what they could get for it if they sold it off for development. In return, the land is kept in agriculture in perpetuity. It has been a key to keeping Suffolk a top agricultural county in New York State and much of it green. Mr. Klein, before becoming county executive was Smithtown town supervisor and a county legislator representing Smithtown and in that position presiding officer of the Suffolk Legislature.

The Pine Barrens Society challenged the allowing of “structures” on preserved farmland, as permitted by amendments to the program approved by the Suffolk Legislature. 

Legislator Al Krupski of Cutchogue, a fourth-generation Suffolk farmer, said: “There is great diversity in agriculture, and not everyone understands what is needed to operate a productive farm or agricultural operation…Different farming techniques, new technology and methods are emerging, along with the opportunities they present. Infrastructure needs may change. We need to adapt to accommodate these changes if we want to preserve agriculture and farming.” 

And the state’s highest court, its Court of Appeals, has just rebuffed the Pine Barrens Society in its request for an appeal to it.  “Great news!” says Lisa Clare Kombrink, who handled the case for the Riverhead-based law firm of Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley and Quartararo retained by the county to challenge the lawsuit. A partner in the firm, she has a specialty in farmland preservation as former Southampton Town attorney. Indeed, great news!

However, the Pine Barrens Society has until late this week to decide whether to “re-argue” its bid for the Court of Appeals to consider its appeal.

The year 2018 saw a continuation of opposition to the use of plastics in Suffolk. On Independence Day, Legislator Kara Hahn of Setauket joined with environmentalists and the county’s Single Use Plastic Reduction Task Force in calling for Suffolk to “declare independence” from plastic straws. Said Ms. Hahn: “In Suffolk County, which boasts some of America’s most beautiful beaches, a thousand miles of shoreline, and waterways teaming with marine life, the innocuous plastic straw has become a tangible threat to the county’s tourist-driven economy, littering our beaches with debris and threatening turtles, birds and other marine life.” 

This attack on plastics in Suffolk has included restrictions on single-use plastic bags and a first-in-the-nation law barring the sale in Suffolk of baby bottles, sippy cups, pacifiers and other products used by children that contain the plasticizing agent Bisophenol-A, acronymed BPA. Research has found BPA to be a cause of cancer and other maladies and especially toxic to the very young.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - NYS Legislators Have A Plan To End Robocalls

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

      People in Suffolk County, indeed folks all over New York State and the United States, have been besieged increasingly by robocalls.

      According to the online Robocall Index, there have been 141,184,300 robocalls made to Suffolk’s 631 area code so far in 2018. Last year, there were 108,161,200. And in 2016, there were 79,705,500 robocalls. This trend sharply upward sure isn’t good.

      Nationally, the number has risen to more than 4 billion robocalls a month.

      But a rescue from these annoying, obnoxious, time-consuming robocalls could soon be on its way in New York State.

      As the federal government mulls over bills and new regulations—and the touted federal “Do Not Call Registry” does not cover the situation—a bill has just been introduced in the New York State Legislatures, the “Telephone Consumer Privacy Protection Act.”

      It is sponsored by Yuh-Line Niou in the Assembly and Brad Hoylman in the Senate. Both represent Manhattan districts. 

      We called State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Suffolk about the new bill and after he researched it, he promptly returned our call to say he has signed on to it as a co-sponsor. “It’s a great bill,” said Mr. Thiele. “These calls are insidious. Many seem to be local on the caller ID and then you pick up the phone and it’s a robocall. There was a time when the ‘Do Not Call Registry’ was effective, but those behind robocalls have gotten way ahead of laws and regulations.”

     The proposed state law requires telephone service providers to offer free robocall-blocking equipment to their customers. This would not seem to be difficult.

     With our Verizon phone service, some—not all—of the robocalls are flagged on my caller ID as “spam.” Well, if phone companies can identify robocalls, they sure can block them.

     “These technologies exist,” notes Mr. Thiele.

     Further, the proposed law mandates that there must be “consent” from the consumer to receive non-emergency autodialed calls.

     “Like so many New Yorkers, everyone in my family has been annoyed by robocalls on a near daily basis,” Senator Hoylman states. “These robocalls are a scourge on the public-at-large, and my constituents have been vocal about the extent to which these calls infringe on their privacy and interrupt their daily lives.”

      Mr. Thiele said complaints he has been receiving from constituents about robocalls “are way up.”

     People in the Greater New York Area have been “disproportionately affected” by robocalls,  says Senator Hoylman. 

     Along with the federal “Do Not Call Registry” there’s a New York State “Do Not Call Law,” adopted in 2001. But, says State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, a Long Islander, the state’s Division of Consumer Protection has not been adequately enforcing it.

    “Without enforcement of the law, telemarketers will continue to bother people,” says Mr. DiNapoli. “There are only five positions behind New York’s ‘Do Not Call’ program.” And the position of its director “had been vacant for 18 months until recently,” he said in September.

    The publication Bottom Line Personal in a November article, “How to Outwit Robocallers,” told of how many robocalls “are scams meant to draw you in so that a live operator can get on the line and convince you to hand over money or personal financial data.” It suggested ways “to fight back” that stressed people getting call-blocking devices.

    My wife’s new answering machine, made by Panasonic, offers a blocking feature. When a robocall is made to her line, she can press a button and block future calls from that number. However, the total amount of blocked numbers is 250—which I fear is not enough.

      The venerable Consumer Reports of Consumers Union in November ran a story headed “Robocalls and Scams Are Now One-Third of All Calls.” It quoted Paul Florack, vice president of Transaction Network Services, as saying “we’re being trained not to answer our phones.” 

    Unwanted calls are now the subject of the most complaints to both the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. Consumers Union is pushing for strong and needed federal action.

    Indeed, there ought to be a law—laws on the state and federal levels—to end the scourge of robocalls.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - "Race Doesn't Exist-It's A Social Construct"

Suffolk Closeup

By Karl Grossman

“How Do We Build A Just Long Island?” That important question is being asked at a series of five public forums organized by the organization Erase Racism.

Creating a “just Long Island” is quite an undertaking—considering a history in which the KKK was a major force on Long Island in the 1920s, it’s where Nazis from all over the New York Metro came and marched at their Camp Siegfried in Yaphank in the 1930s and where African-Americans have been consigned through real estate “steering” to communities aptly called “ghettoes.” Further, antagonism toward the latest immigrant group, Latinos, has been intense. 

Moreover, the composition of students at schools here is based on neighborhoods, and with their make-up being extremely different, most schools are nearly all-white and several nearly all African-American and Latino. 

(R) Elaine Gross, executive director of Erase Racism, Laura Goode, retired nurse (L)I went to the forum in Riverhead last week held by Erase Racism, based in Syosset. Its executive director, Elaine Gross, opened it by noting that Long Island has been determined to be “among the top 10 segregated metropolitan regions in the country.” The purpose of the forums, she said, is to “try to activate the public” and cause change. 

First there was a panel of three experts, then the 100 people in attendance formed into discussion groups and then a representative of each came forward with proposals of her or his group.

“All humans alive today share a common ancestor in Africa 150,000 years ago,” said panelist David Micklos, executive director of the Dolan DNA Learning Center at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a world leader in genetic research. 

“All humans share 99.9 percent of their genetic material,” said Mr. Micklos. “Biologically there’s very little difference between any two human beings.” He contrasted the slight genetic difference between people of only “one-tenth of one percent” to the genetic differences between types of corn in Mexico which range from 5 to 10 percent. .

“Race doesn’t exist—it’s a social construct,” said panelist Anthony Zenkus, senior director of education and communications at the Victims Information Bureau of Suffolk and a professor at Columbia University. “White is a skin tone, not a racial identity.”

There was the “invention of whiteness,” and this “props up supremacy….Long Island is one of the most segregated regions because we have some of the richest, most elite communities in the country. Economic inequality and racial inequity, class and race are inextricably linked.”

Miriam Sarwana, a graduate student in psychology at Stony Brook University, spoke on the results of racism, how “nonwhites on Long Island are five times more likely to be arrested as a result of traffic stops” and in Suffolk County 53 percent of all arrests and 67 percent of felony arrests in the past decade were of people of color. 

Involved, said Ms. Sarwana, is “structural racism.”

On Long Island, said Ms. Gross before the break-out session, “we are structured to be racially separated. We can’t let this stand.”

After a re-assembly of attendees, representatives reported their group’s recommendations. “We need to look deeply inside ourselves and identify different biases that we have,” said Laura Goode, a retired nurse at Riverhead High School. If “we can acknowledge this we should be able to overcome it.”

We need to “break our generational curses,” said Lawrence Street, a leader of the Eastern Long Island chapter of the NAACP. “If we don’t do that…things will remain the same.” We must “begin that dialogue and talk about it.”

“Schools are silos, breeding grounds, of segregation,” said long-time teacher and former Suffolk County Legislator Vivian Viloria-Fisher. The pattern of schools lacking diversity needs to be changed, she said. Needed, too, she said, is affordable housing which has routinely been stopped by a ‘few loud voices…and politicians got nervous.”

The need for diversity in schools so young people can get to know young people of other backgrounds is critical, I’d say, based on my 40 years of teaching at SUNY/College at Old Westbury. The college for a half-century has had a goal of having diversity be a key part of the educational experience. It’s among the most diverse colleges in the U.S. There are equal amounts of white, African American and Latino students as well as Asian-American, Native American and foreign students. The faculty and administration is comparably diverse. No group is in a majority. It’s wonderful to see the students get to know each other and get along beautifully. 

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

Legislator Trotta Seeks To Recoup $1.5 Million From Former Police Chief Burke

Suffolk County Legislator Rob Trotta 13th L.D.The Ways & Means Committee will meet Thursday at 12:30pm in Hauppauge. One of the topics that will be discussed will be Legislator Trotta’s bill to recoup, from the former Chief of Police James Burke, $1.5 M paid by Suffolk County taxpayers to settle a lawsuit with Christopher Loeb.  

Legislator Trotta has been very vocal in his outrage and recently expressed his criticism saying “Crime Does Pay in Suffolk County …Christopher Loeb, a petty thief, gets $1.5 million from the Taxpayers, and James Burke, convicted criminal and former Chief of Police, earns $600,000 pay out and a Multi-million Dollar Pension from the Taxpayers.”

Earlier this year, the Suffolk Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee settled a federal lawsuit brought by Christopher Loeb against Suffolk County. Mr. Loeb was beaten, while handcuffed, by then Suffolk County Chief of Police James Burke. For his actions, Mr. Burke was arrested and convicted on civil rights violations and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Burke was sentenced to almost four years in Federal prison. 

According to Suffolk Legislator Rob Trotta, a retired Suffolk County Police Detective and 10 year member of the FBI Violent Crime Task Force, “As Police Chief, James Burke took an oath to fulfill the obligations of the office of Chief of Police and to up hold the laws of this county and this state and he did not. His admitted criminal activity and gross misconduct constituted not only a violation of the law, but also a breach of the agreement he made with the county. Burke’s actions have harmed the county and its taxpayers. Upon leaving the county, Burke received a lump sum payout of $630,000 and he receives a yearly pension of almost $150,000. It’s clear that he has the means to pay the taxpayers back and he should pay. The taxpayers should be outraged that County Executive Bellone allowed this conduct to go on and did nothing about it.”

Legislator Trotta’s legislation directs the County Attorney to commence legal action to seek reimbursement from Mr. Burke to recover the 1.5 million dollars of taxpayer money that was paid to Mr. Loeb to compensate him for Burke’s illegal actions. “I believe as an elected official we have a fiscal responsibility to recoup the taxpayers’ money from Mr. Burke,” said Legislator Trotta.