1st Assembly district hopefuls ready to fight for change

The battle for the 1st Assembly District pits one-term incumbent Marc Alessi, a Wading River Democrat who says he fought for change at LIPA and the MTA, against Suffolk Legis. Dan Losquadro, a Conservative Republican legislator who says he wants to apply business best-practices to dysfunctional state government.

Alessi, an attorney who served as director of the state comptroller's Long Island office, has had a busy first term. He pushed the Long Island Power Authority to open its books and put big contracts out to bid, has championed causes for local farmers and wineries, and fought to undo a plan to end rail service to the North Fork. This summer, LIPA opened the bidding for the $2-billion plus management services contract - it's largest - with National Grid, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority scrapped its North Fork plan.

Constituent focus

Alessi, a married father of two with a home in Shoreham, said he's most proud of his record in helping individual constituents fight back against big business and government.

He points to the case of the Garcia family of Manorville, whose insurance company fought claims of property damage after a fire in the home. Alessi's efforts helped win them a $30,000 settlement, according to the Press of Manorville.

Alessi also has personally (and unsuccessfully) sued the Public Service Commission to force it to examine LIPA's books when the authority increased bills through a fuel surcharge.

He said his causes and successes have crossed partisan lines. "My community knows that I'm not partisan," he said. "I'm willing to buck the trend, buck my own party, sue the leadership."

He's also led a campaign to force the Federal Aviation Administration to rethink flight routes for helicopters that frequently send them over North Fork neighborhoods.

"I started a website, and we sent 2,000 e-mails to the Federal Aviation Administration," he said. "Now they are taking the issue seriously. I got them to agree to come out to Suffolk to deal with helicopter traffic in a fair and equitable way."

Alessi said although he worked under former State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who recently pleaded guilty to a single felony charge related to a corruption investigation of the state pension fund, he said he was hired by prior comptroller Carl McCall. Nevertheless, he said of Hevesi, "Obviously I'm disappointed by what I'm hearing. Anyone who breaks the law and violates the public trust needs to be punished."

Record criticized

But Losquadro, pointing to Alessi's vote for this year's state budget, accuses his opponent of falling in line behind the Democratic leadership and a budget that cost Long Islanders $173 million in school aid. Losquadro also notes Democrats allowed the removal of the STAR rebate for homeowners, and for state fees to double or triple.

"My opponent voted for this budget," said Losquadro, who is the Suffolk Legislature's Republican minority leader and represents the 6th Legislative District.

One of the biggest targets Losquadro plans to take aim at is the state pension system. In place of the defined benefit system, Losquadro wants the state to turn to a defined contribution system, essentially a 401(k) plan offered by most businesses, for all new state employees. Those already in the system, he said, would continue to receive their benefits. He criticized Alessi for failing to consider change to a system Losquadro considers broken, particularly when local school districts face increased payments, with taxpayer dollars, to keep it afloat.

"Having school districts at the local level double their contribution to the state retirement system is unsustainable," Losquadro said. Alessi "very much seems to be a status quo individual on that issue. This has to be addressed." Alessi said he wants reform, but that's no reason to toss the current system.

Losquadro also wants to cut out waste in state government by reducing the size and the number of state authorities, largely by combining those with similar functions. "We need to consolidate those public authorities and get some of those employees to the new tier of the pension system I'm talking about," he said.

While he'd push for corporate-like policies on state-employee sick time to prevent abuses, Losquadro also wants to tackle Medicare fraud and will use his business background to do it. He had served as a claims estimator for an insurance company.

"The lack of what the state has done to address Medicare fraud is staggering," he said.

Losquadro said that while this year's budget is passed, next year's could offer a breaking point, and he wants to bring his "line-by-line" expertise in reviewing the county budget to the larger state process.

District facts

The 1st Assembly District covers the towns of Riverhead, Southold and Shelter Island, as well as a small part of eastern Brookhaven. There are 96,107 registered voters in the district, including 26,405 Democrats, 36,431 Republicans and 25,913 not registered with any party.