Levy revisits housing bias, without Shaniqua

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy circled back Monday on the brouhaha he raised at a local Martin Luther King Jr. celebration last year with a comment on his commitment to fair housing that included a generic reference to "Shaniqua."

To his credit - and because the controversy over the reference dogged him before and after his failed run for governor - Levy stepped back up to speak at the Riverhead Baptist Church event in an Hauppauge hotel to clarify.

He said he wanted to plant within a firm context what he meant when he told last year's gathering that "Even Shaniqua could file a complaint" or buy a house.

The original comment offended some, but not all, at the event, which for 26 years has been the largest King commemoration gathering in the county. And it unleashed a firestorm of criticism from the Long Island NAACP and black elected officials and others in New York City and around the state.

"What I was talking about last year, and what I am hoping we can focus on this year, is the issue of housing discrimination, and that is a very, very serious matter," Levy said during almost five minutes of comments.

He said he had first talked about housing discrimination during his 2004 inauguration speech, when he said he wanted a county that assures "that people with names as diverse as Diaz, Chen, Patel, Ali and Smith share the same neighborhood."

He said he had given a variation of that same speech several times with no issue until last year's gathering, when, he said, he incorporated "an African-American ethnic name for the purpose of making the point that studies have shown if you are an individual calling for an apartment or calling for buying a house, if you have an Anglo-sounding name, it is far more likely to get a return call than if you have an ethnic name."

He went on, among other things, to tell the crowd that Suffolk has made progress on issues relating to minorities.

He said the county has slowed the rate of infant deaths in minority communities, decreased civilian complaints against the police department by 50 percent, increased "the number of police of color" on the police force and helped minority women-owned companies get contracts with the county.

The crowed applauded when his remarks were finished.

Levy wins an A- for attempting to even try to clean up the mess, and for demonstrating that he's learned something over the past year: Not once Monday did he say "Shaniqua."

"I did not use the name," Levy acknowledged in an interview afterward. "I did not want it to be a distraction."

Smart move. Especially since Democrat-turned-Republican Levy - who is up for re-election this year and whose likely opponent, Babylon Town Supervisor Steve Bellone, a Democrat, was seated among the many elected officials in Monday's audience - is likely going to have all of that, and more, tossed at him during a Democratic campaign/vendetta against his leaving the party fold.

Still, Levy missed the top mark, because ever-stubborn Levy could not bring himself to apologize to those in the room who were offended by last year's comments.

"I'm glad you cleaned up that stuff, man," said George Woodson, Riverhead's highway superintendent, as he walked up to shake Levy's hand outside the hotel ballroom.

Woodson said that he understood what Levy had been trying to say last year, but that he knew residents who had been offended and that he believed Levy's comments would help.

Should Levy have apologized? No, Woodson said, adding: "It seems that anything you do these days is 50/50. No matter what you do, it's 50/50. You can't make everyone happy."