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Supervisor candidates go head to head
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January 29, 2009 | 11:37 AM
Brookhaven voters packed the Middle Country Public Library in Selden Monday night as they came to size up the two candidates competing to replace Brian Foley as town supervisor.
A special election necessitated by now-state Senator Foley's departure to Albany is scheduled for March 31. Town voters will decide whether he is replaced by Councilman Tim Mazzei (R-Blue Point), the leader of the Republican Town Board majority, or Democrat Mark Lesko, a federal attorney until his resignation three weeks ago to run for supervisor.
Questions by the audience drove the discussion. Initially, the candidates found themselves sparring over the town's embarrassing nickname, Crookhaven.
"It is a term for the culture of corruption that has existed in the Town of Brookhaven and no one who lives here can say it has not been corrupt," Lesko said. "The town still has a culture of corruption that needs to be rooted out. I've done that in my career as a prosecutor and I will do it as town supervisor."
Mazzei denied that a culture of corruption exists in the town. "No one's palms are getting greased in Brookhaven," he said. "If a project is good, it will get done. If it's not, it won't."
The candidates were also questioned about the balance between preservation of open space and the need for responsible development.
Mazzei touted his participation in the $100 million land-preservation bond plan, which Brookhaven residents agreed to in a 2005 referendum.
However, the fund is nearing exhaustion, he said. "This town is going to get built out within the next 10 years. Now is the time to buy," Mazzei said. "Unfortunately with less funds coming in from the transfer tax and the mortgage tax, we're not getting as much as we had been in prior years to do that, but it is certainly something the whole board has voted for and I'm sure will continue to do so."
Brookhaven included another $10 million for land preservation in the 2009 capital budget, Lesko pointed out, but the board has offered no indication of where and when it would be spent.
"I would ask, 'What are we planning to do with it?'" Lesko said. "We need to get about the business of focusing on those historical and open spaces and start preserving that land."
Mazzei noted that the $10 million had not yet been spent as it was only recently bonded. "But we have a laundry list" of anticipated open-space purchases, he said.
Lesko countered, "Folks should know what's on the list."
That would not facilitate paying the lowest costs for properties, Mazzei responded. "With all due respect, if everyone knew the laundry list, the price would go up," he said. Lesko disagreed, saying such price escalation was unlikely in the current depressed housing market,
Given the supervisor's role as the town CEO, residents also questioned the candidates' administrative experience.
Lesko said that in the second half of his decade-long career with the U.S. Department of Justice, first as an assistant U.S. attorney in D.C. and then for the Eastern District of New York, he supervised all the federal prosecutors on Long Island.
"One task force had over 100 NYPD detectives, and if you think it's easy to manage 100 NYPD detectives, you'd be wrong," he said. "But that's the type of experience I bring to bear as a leader in the Town of Brookhaven."
Mazzei acknowledged not having as much supervisory experience as Lesko described, but did point to his former role as bureau chief of the Suffolk County District Attorney's homicide division. He added that, in any case, he thought a business background was more appropriate for the town supervisor position.
"I'm a small businessman," Mazzei said. "I had my law practice and ran another business in the Town of Brookhaven. You have to understand how to run a business and understand that you have to pay the secretary; you have to pay the light bill and the water bill. If you don't understand that, you will have difficulty running the Town of Brookhaven."
In closing, Mazzei said that he stands on his record as a town councilman since 2003.
"I have a record," Mazzei said. "You may like it or you may not but I do have a record. I am very proud of the things we have done in a bipartisan fashion. We've accomplished a lot and brought up our parks and done a lot of other good things."
Lesko said the election offers voters "a choice between a town board which has not been fiscally responsible and a supervisor who will bring a Steve Levy model of fiscal responsibility to the town board."
"If you think the town has been run in a bipartisan fashion and work got done on the citizens' behalf, then ... vote for Councilman Mazzei," he added. "But if you think what was going on in Town Hall was bickering and flat-out nonsense that led me to run for this, and we need someone to get in there and change things and get about the business of solving problems … then I urge you to vote for me."
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