Suozzi thanks supporters while GOP brawls

Daily Point

Nassau Dems’ feel-good moments

Rep. Tom Suozzi and fellow Democrats held a month-after victory gathering of sorts at Leonard’s Palazzo of Great Neck Monday night, which an organizer said drew more than 500 people, including labor union members who helped Suozzi’s return in a special election last month.

“It was a thank-you for the volunteers, not a fundraiser,” an operative for the Nassau County Democratic Committee told The Point, paid for by the Suozzi campaign. For those following the longer version of the story, the gathering underscored the fact that the newly resurrected congressman and county chairman Jay Jacobs have long since buried the hatchet over Suozzi’s 2022 refusal to seek reelection and run a futile primary for governor against incumbent Kathy Hochul to whom Jacobs must answer.

With qualifying petitions for different candidates circulating until the first week of April, Suozzi looks out on what can only be described as a positive landscape for his reelection in November. His 3rd Congressional District has been realigned under the state’s unique off-cycle redistricting to exclude a GOP stronghold in Massapequa, which the Republicans’ designated challenger Mike LiPetri had represented during his single term in the state Assembly.

Another twist this time out is internal Republican rivalry in the congressional race. LiPetri, until recently a lobbyist for ex-Sen. Al D’Amato’s Park Strategies firm, ran a primary four years ago against now-Rep. Andrew Garbarino in neighboring CD2. Garbarino trounced him 64%-36%.

Some of the Suffolk GOP’s negative campaign attacks on LiPetri are still up on social media, casting him as a Democrat who turned Republican just to run for Assembly in 2018. Garbarino is now the most senior of Long Island’s three Republican House members, and LiPetri joining them could be quite awkward.

This and other barbs are reflected in CD 3’s insurgent campaign by political newcomer Greg Hach, who has called into question LiPetri’s degree of support for Donald Trump, who will be at the top of the GOP ticket in November.

One of Hach’s Nassau supporters noted to The Point a New York Times story linking LiPetri to a strange business deal that prospectively involved indicted ex-Rep. George Santos, whose fluke election and subsequent expulsion from Congress added up to a huge GOP fiasco.

The Times reported last July: “Mr. LiPetri, now a lobbyist at the firm Park Strategies, sought to minimize his role in the venture, saying that while he was aware of Mr. Santos’s efforts, he was not involved ‘in detail,’ and suggested that no deals ultimately materialized.”

On the other side, Hach, an attorney in the Manhattan-based personal-injury firm Hach Rose, has not run for office before, and if he wins the June 25 primary, is expected to face an uphill battle against the seasoned Suozzi.

The Nassau GOP organization has been signaling that its congressional priority this season is not CD3 but the reelection of first-term Rep. Anthony D’Esposito in CD4 who won in the 2022 “red wave.”

On that score, Suozzi at his gathering gave shout-outs to former Hempstead Town Supervisor Laura Gillen, who’s preparing for a rematch against D’Esposito — who defeated her 52%-48% in 2022 — and to Kim Keiserman, who seeks this year to recoup the 7th Senatorial District seat for the Democrats from GOP incumbent Jack Martins. Keiserman faces a primary first from Brad Schwartz.

Of the Hach-LiPetri fighting across the partisan aisle, the Democratic operative said Tuesday: “It’s good for us” and the GOP isn’t expected to invest heavily in the Santos-stained CD3. Perhaps just for the giggles it brings, Santos himself says he’s a candidate in Suffolk’s CD1 against nemesis Rep. Nick LaLota.

— Dan Janison dan.janison@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Still shaky

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Final Point

Electric progress on the LIRR

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is soliciting bids for the construction of the new Long Island Rail Road Yaphank station — one of the first steps toward moving the station and then, potentially, electrifying the line east of Ronkonkoma.

Bids opened in January and are due March 25.

The “East Yaphank Station” will be accessible and include a parking lot with 50 spaces, along with a kiss-and-ride loop for drop-offs. The project also will include building access roads to connect the station to existing roads. Once the new station is up and running, the winning bidder will have to demolish the old Yaphank station.

The contract is valued between $10 million and $50 million. Construction could start later this year.

The new Yaphank station is expected to be located in the vicinity of Brookhaven National Laboratory, east of its current spot.

The general effort to move the station has been discussed and studied for more than a decade, but it was jump-started in 2021, when then-County Executive Steve Bellone and then-Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine chose a specific location, about a mile east of the current station, just east of William Floyd Parkway, south of the Long Island Expressway.

While the new location is expected to increase ridership and, in particular, provide a better public transit option for BNL employees, the real goal is a larger one: electrifying the LIRR line past Ronkonkoma, to the new Yaphank station, which could expand use of the line further east while also alleviating pressure on the Ronkonkoma station.

The Yaphank bidding process comes as a separate, but related, effort to electrify the Port Jefferson branch has ramped up, too, with the finalization of a contract to build a new MTA rail yard at the old Lawrence Aviation site.

The Yaphank station work and the Port Jefferson branch efforts come as the MTA is slated to establish its next five-year capital plan later this year. Whether elements of either or both projects, or future steps toward electrification on either line, will be included in that capital plan remains to be seen.

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

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