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Town board candidates squeezed for voter attention

BY MITCHELL FREEDMAN | mitchell.freedman@newsday.com

October 20, 2008

Sally Pope was trying to get the attention of the voters in Speonk.

The Democratic candidate for Southampton Town Board stood at a railroad station in September with graphs and charts, condemning the town's Zoning Board of Appeals for ignoring the possible health effects of a plume of underground contamination when it approved a new residential development.

But trucks rumbled by on North Phillips Avenue. John McCain and Barack Obama were trading charges on the radio. The national economy was in trouble, and taxes were a problem for every candidate.

The small crowd listened attentively, but some of their demands went far beyond the powers of the Southampton Town Board. A demand from some of them that the town simply overrule its independent appeals board were clearly illegal under state law.

As Pope walked the line between attacking the zoning board and defending its right to independence, her Republican opponent, Daniel A. Russo, also had his problems.

Russo was hand-picked for his seat on the Southampton Town Board by a majority of the board, and he is running as a reformer of past Republican town fiscal practices.

The GOP-dominated town administration changed last year after Linda Kabot ran a successful primary against former town Supervisor Patrick Heaney. Kabot, too, has been beating the drum for fiscal reform, even though her proposed 2009 budget would increase taxes.

And, Kabot was instrumental in getting the town board to name Russo to fill her open seat. Russo, in turn, supports Kabot but says her spending proposals still have to be reduced. It's a subtle disagreement for him to convey to voters.

As Southampton's town board candidates deal with their complex issues, their biggest problem may simply be that voters are being inundated by the ads for races for the State Senate and Assembly, by the presidential campaign - and by national economic problems that Southampton can't fix but are creating big fiscal problems in the town.

A similar campaigning overload exists in Babylon, where first-time candidate Joseph Barone, a Republican, is fighting an uphill battle to defeat Democrat Antonio Martinez for an unexpired term on the town board. Along with having an enrollment edge of 6,700 voters, Martinez is the also the candidate of four minor parties.

There is no single weekly newspaper that serves the entire town, and neighborhood issues that may seem important in Lindenhurst do not necessarily have the same impact in East Farmingdale or North Babylon.

Town council candidates aren't the only ones in local contests in this year's election, but none of the others are running for policy-making positions - elections in which the winner will actually get to write laws and change the town code.

There is a contested race for town justice in Southampton, and for town clerk in Babylon. And, there are also elections for town justice in Riverhead and Shelter Island, but only one candidate - endorsed by both major parties - on the ballot in each of those towns.

SOME NOTABLE LOCAL RACE

Babylon

TOWN CLERK

Carol Quirk: Democratic, Independence, Conservative, Working Families, The Bellone Team

Alice T. Cone: Republican

TOWN COUNCIL

Antonio A. Martinez: Democratic, Independence, Conservative, Working Families, The Bellone Team