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One reporter's look at Suffolk Life

Rick Brand

June 19, 2008

When I worked at Suffolk Life in the mid-1970s, a starting reporter made $125 a week, got a free tank of gasoline from the company pump and all the fried chicken they could eat on Monday nights when the paper was laid out.

David Willmott Sr., son of a Riverhead gas station owner and a self-made publisher, may have been a tightfisted businessman, but for nearly a half century he was a fiercely independent voice in the pages of his free newspaper.

He understood the pulse of new homeowners who made Suffolk boom, struggling with their mortgages, property taxes and politicians who often failed to listen. A deep sea fisherman, he wanted to preserve the rural lifestyle that he grew up with. An odd mix, he could be a Kennedy Democrat and a Buckley conservative, and was usually at odds with those in power.

Willmott started in the business by selling ad space on trash cans he supplied for free to Patchogue Village. He opened his free newspaper in the Riverhead area. It later went countywide and, for a while, twice weekly.

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The original formula was simple - his take-no-prisoners editorials and photos of ordinary people who, he felt, would become friends for life. Later, he added more news, with stories disclosing school board convention trips to Disneyland and county officials who were quartered in park houses for $115 a month.

At election time, Willmott printed in full candidate surveys with more than 100 pointed questions that allowed yes or no answers.

But it was his editorials - called "Willmotts and Why Nots" - that made him a political force. He labeled then-Suffolk County Executive John V.N. Klein, "King John," and the county "The Land of Suffering." He later took on Brookhaven Republican boss Richard D. Zeidler, who tried to stop his paper with an anti-loitering law.

But he also had allies. He backed Suffolk's first Democratic District Attorney Henry O'Brien to victory in the mid-1970s, and stood by him when the police commissioner claimed O'Brien was gay. O'Brien denied it and raised counter charges of wrongdoing. A special prosecutor found no evidence to support any of the charges. O'Brien lost his re-election bid but won in Willmott's circulation area.

Another longtime ally was former Republican Suffolk County executive Peter F. Cohalan until he dropped his opposition to the opening of the Shoreham nuclear plant. After Cohalan's switch, Willmott ran a front page picture of Cohalan as Pinocchio.

News of the closing shocked many, including former Democratic Suffolk County executive Patrick Halpin, who said, "It was a huge influence on elected officials and the political landscape. In a weird way, I will miss him."