With less than a month before Election Day, Republican Ed Romaine and Democrat Dave Calone, fielded voter questions on public safety, housing affordability and the Brookhaven landfill this week.
They traded some jabs on policy Wednesday in a televised debate hosted by Newsday — the first time the candidates have squared off face-to-face ahead of the November election.
They have appeared separately during several candidate forums.
Romaine and Calone presented similar goals for directing the county for the next four-year term:
- Suffolk County should have cybersecurity insurance and constant testing to prevent a future ransomware attack like last September’s that still has the government reeling.
- The region needs to protect clean water in its drinking water aquifer by approving legislation to attract billions of dollars in state and federal funding for septic tank replacements and new sewer connections.
- The candidates agree that the county cannot support an influx of migrants from New York City.
The takeaways from these events could help inform the voters’ choice to replace Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone in January. Bellone, a Democrat, is term-limited.
Public safety
Crime is a top concern for Calone, a former federal prosecutor turned businessman, and Romaine, a long-time public servant.
Calone said all schools will have safety plans in his administration, and he would fully fund law enforcement.
“We also have to get guns off our street,” Calone said. “We need to make sure that we are addressing the root causes of crime by investing in communities.”
“And we need to push back against Washington and Albany when they do things that will not keep us safe. Bottom line, if you care about public safety in Suffolk County, trust the prosecutor, not the politician,” he said.
Romaine, the Brookhaven Town Supervisor, said he would hire dozens more police detectives, and attacked his opponent for supporting cashless bail — on stage, as well as in campaign ads, which Calone refutes.
The Suffolk County PBA endorsed Romaine this month marking the first time in two decades that the police organization has endorsed a Republican for county executive.
Housing stock
Over the past decade, Suffolk County has funded nearly 2,100 new affordable housing units, which has kept the region lagging behind as rent and homeownership becomes increasingly out of reach for residents.
Romaine said he’ll take his experience on redevelopment projects in Port Jefferson Station, East Patchogue and North Bellport to the County Executive’s office.
He took credit for Jefferson Plaza — a long-sought plan of the Port Jefferson Station-Terryville Chamber of Commerce to turn one of Long Island’s oldest shopping centers into a mixed-use downtown with hundreds of apartments. Islandia-based Staller Associates Realty is the owner and developer of the 10-acre site.
“When you have someone that knows how government works on a local level, someone that is willing to work across party lines, you can get things done,” Romaine said. A former history teacher, he was elected Suffolk County Clerk for 16 years, then legislator, before serving as Brookhaven Town supervisor since 2012.
“My opponent is a partisan that attacks,” he added, “and I question his ability to bring people together to get things done.”
During his tenure, Romaine has created programs to reduce property taxes for emergency service volunteers, and wants to create a homestead program for the county to “make land available for people who wanted to own homes or for development for multi-family homes.”
As a Brookhaven resident himself, Calone, of Setauket, blamed Romaine for raising his property taxes over the last eight years — while remaining under the 2% cap set by the state.
Calone cited his record as chair of the Suffolk County Planning Commission. He said he’ll tackle the affordable housing crisis by cutting bureaucratic red tape, and creating a chief housing officer to work with local governments.
“We already have the infrastructure we need to put housing in quickly whether it's the water, roads, wastewater, and that could be in downtowns. It could be redeveloping strip malls. It could be repurposing government properties,” he said.
“We also need to cut down the permitting process,” Calone added. “In Brookhaven, you have to hire an expediter to get anything done.”
Calone said he would cut taxes by returning money to residents from the county surplus, and take a pay cut as county executive.
