By Karol Grossman
This year will see a hotly contested race for Suffolk County executive likely pitting incumbent Steve Levy against Steve Bellone. Mr. Bellone is already on the campaign trail. A “Bellone 2011” organization has been formed and it has announced that $1 million in campaign funds has been raised. Mr. Levy, meanwhile, has a campaign chest of more than $4 million. It’ll be a well-financed as well as hard-fought contest.
Mr. Bellone, the supervisor of Babylon Town for the past 10 years—popular, he won re-election in 2009 with 73 percent of the vote in a town where all the officials a few decades back were Republican—is moving around the county making appearances. Recently, he was at a gathering of the “Conservators” in East Hampton.
He has the strong support of Suffolk Democratic Chairman Rick Schaffer whom he succeeded as town supervisor. They grew up on the same street in North Babylon and the troubles the Schaffer administration was undergoing were Mr. Bellone’s inspiration to run for office.
The Schaffer Democratic town administration was under heavy attack by highly partisan Suffolk DA James M. Catterson, Jr. GOPer Catterson was bringing charges against Babylon officials.
“I was watching people being persecuted over politics. This cemented my belief that we needed good people in public life,” recounted attorney Bellone. So he ran for councilman and won and Democrats expanded their town board majority to 4-to-1. The Catterson probe fizzled. Mr. Schaffer became Suffolk Democratic leader and enlisted a former assistant Suffolk DA, Tom Spota, to run against Mr. Catterson. Mr. Spota made the centerpiece of his campaign Mr. Catterson having politicized the DA’s office, and Mr. Catterson lost.
A big element of a Levy-Bellone race will be the different styles of the two men. Mr. Levy is combative, pugnacious, while Mr. Bellone is a friendly-faced, easy-going fellow who says he strives to “bring people and communities together to solve the problems we face.”
“Bellone 2011” strikes that chord in a recent press release quoting Babylon Town Democratic Chairman Robert Stricoff , who it’s noted, is “a Bellone advisor,” as saying Mr. Bellone “agrees that there has been a growing need to bring the best and brightest of Suffolk County together, rather than continuing a highly polarizing environment that prevents our deeper problems from being solved.”
Mr. Bellone explains that “he [Mr. Levy] and I have different styles of governing….The truth of the matter is that I’ve taken on a number of fights as town supervisor” including a successful battle with state court hierarchy for Babylon to establish New York’s first Suburban Community Court which focuses on “quality of life” issues like housing code violations. And, he cited a winning fight with the U.S. Postal Service over a new post office in Wyandanch which the town sought to be in harmony with its revitalization program for the community. The Postal Service wanted a post office with obnoxious features such as it being “surrounded by barbed wire.”
Still, he said, “there’s a way to solve problems without butting heads, although that makes for interesting press…We’ve taken on these fights as a last resort. These battles take huge resources….I have the ability to work with anyone if it means helping us move forward.”
He emphasizes “the very serious challenges we face” in Suffolk County. “If we don’t address them, our future prospects are at risk. We continue to lose young people at record numbers. We’re bleeding jobs and not creating high-paying jobs to keep young people here. People can’t afford to purchase a home. These are things that have only gotten worse…. They’re very complex issues and if you are going to make progress, as we have in Babylon, you have to pull people together.”
Mr. Levy hasn’t announced yet that he will seek a third four-year term, but it’s expected that he soon will. This will be the first time he’ll be running as a Republican, having switched his lifelong Democratic enrollment last year in an unsuccessful bid to be the GOP candidate for governor. It will be quite a change from his last run when he had the endorsement of both major parties and a slew of minor ones. Also, he might face a GOP primary challenge to secure the GOP nomination.
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