For the first time since 1976 the Democrats control Suffolk County. Ever since the election of Steve Levy (D) to Suffolk County Executive (I have met Steve and I think he’s a fighter), there have been the rumblings of change. Although Newsday reports that most of the republican seats were being vacated because of term limits – I think folks were just fed up with 30 years of Republican cronyism and corruption and with Levy leading the charge, the Dems have finally taken back the county. Brookhaven Town (notoriously referred to as ‘Crookhaven’ by people all over the Island) has also ‘thrown the bums out’ and elected Brian Foley to the post of Town Supervisor. Foley ran on a ‘root out the corruption’ platform which tells you how this resonates with people. Over-development, congestion, and big-tax breaks and loopholes for big business has left most working folks who can barely afford their home taxes anymore looking for different leadership.

Since Brookhaven enacted the ‘council districts‘ paradigm in 2002 where Brookhaven residents no longer vote for the town board ‘at large’ but rather each resident votes for only two town board members – the supervisor and the member to represent his or her neighborhood – the town board has been shifting Democrat also. The Republican Town Board had fought the change vigorously, claiming that it would cause divisivness on the board and that town board members would only consider their own constituents interests and put them above the ‘good’ of the town. In reality, the Board was always dominated by people who lived in well-to-do neighborhoods and so the ‘good of the town’ meant put all the stuff the rich people don’t want in the poor people’s back yard.

A proposal to call for a special election when there is a vacancy on the board passed. Republicans fought this one hard too – they liked being able to just appoint whomever they wanted when a vacancy appeared. Of course, now that the Town in no longer Republican dominated this would have been a nice card for the Dems to play – but it’s fixed now so, good. The Republicans claimed that it would cost the town too much money to hold a special election – what is the price of democracy?

We still vote with the machines we grew up with in school – you pull the lever to open the curtains (they need washed!), you step inside and flick little mechanical levers and when you’re done you slam the lever back which supposedly punches some card deep in the bowels of the machine (hanging chad anyone). I think people will have a real tough time switching to another method around here after the spectre of the 2000 and 2004 elections where ‘black box’ machines had no paper trail in Ohio which effectively won the election for Bush (hmmm. no way to recount, no paper trail, the head of elections in Ohio was a Bush supporter who had publicly promised to see Bush win it – obvious conflict of interest I thought). Oh well, they’ll have to pry our machines from my cold dead fingers…

I noticed my brother’s name was still on the voting list. If he had come out from New Jersey, he could have voted in our election! He hasn’t lived here in years! This leads me to wonder how inaccurate the rolls really are. It was almost 7 years before they removed my parents – they could have come down from Vermont to vote all that time without any questions. Just ‘sign your name’ and go right in. There must be some way to reform that system. I think I’ll write an email to Brian Foley about that right away!

Newsday

Steve Levy page


Election Results