Teachers union plays role in three-way race

Three candidates are vying for an Assembly seat in the 5th District, after Sayville businessman Kenneth Mangan beat incumbent Ginny Fields in the Democratic primary.

Fields is running on the Independence and Working Families lines, while Alfred C. Graf, an attorney and retired New York City police officer, holds the Republican and Conservative lines.

Mangan secured the Democratic line with the help of an endorsement from the state teachers' union after Fields suggested the union's members take a pay freeze to save 14,000 jobs from the chopping block. Then in October, the Working Families Party, which endorsed Fields before she lost the Democratic primary to Kenneth Mangan, issued a letter to members asking them to vote for Mangan on the Democratic line.

Now, the three candidates are sparring over who is best equipped to represent the district in a time of financial crisis.

Unpopular stances

Fields, 64, of Oakdale, said she has pushed against "Albany dysfunction" by taking unpopular positions, including her suggestion that teachers open their contract during the state's budget crisis.

Mangan, 55, of Sayville, would limit property taxes to 6 percent or 7 percent of income for families making less than $250,000.

He proposes property tax grace periods after home renovations to help growing families stay on Long Island and put local contractors to work.

Graf, 52, of Holbrook, said he would draw on his experience as supervisor of a small upstate town to seek creative funding solutions.

He said he would work to repeal the Metropolitan Transportation Authority payroll tax and reinstate the STAR rebate checks for middle-class homeowners.

Fields is seeking a fourth full term in the Assembly, where she has served since winning a special election in March 2004. She had served two terms in the Suffolk County Legislature.

If re-elected, she said she would form a suburban and rural caucus to marshal votes against "city-centric" legislation, such as the MTA payroll tax, which she has tried to repeal.

Fields favors a spending freeze and a property tax cap set at 4 percent or lower.

"If your salary freezes or goes lower, you have to live by that, but that's not what the mentality is in Albany," she said. "I'm walking the walk. I go to work trying to fix it."

Mangan, who ran unsuccessfully for Islip Town Council in 2003, has owned and operated several businesses and most recently worked as a counselor to people on public assistance for the Suffolk County Department of Labor.

"I've created over 250 jobs" as a business owner, he said. "I know how to create jobs.

"We cannot cut our way out of this very difficult economic time," he added. "We need to stimulate the economy."

He is the founder of "Every Child's Dream," a nonprofit that hosts 500 homeless children for a day on Fire Island. He also serves on the board of the Nassau Suffolk Coalition for the Homeless.

Small-town work ethic

Graf, who grew up in South Farmingdale, is a retired New York City police officer and attorney with a private practice in Patchogue.

He served four years in the Navy and two terms as supervisor of Brighton, a town of about 1,700 in the Adirondacks, where he said he managed an annual budget of $500,000.

"I was chief cook and bottle washer," he said. "When I say I wrote my budget, I wrote my budget."

Graf, a member of the Holbrook Chamber of Commerce, said Albany must rein in "out-of-control" spending.

He said he would employ a "common sense" approach: "What do I really need? How can I get it as cheaply as possible? And can I get someone else to pay for it?"