Suffolk exec candidates meet in 1st debate

In their first face-to-face debate, Democrat Steve Bellone and Republican Angie Carpenter kicked off their eight-week sprint for Suffolk's top job as they tussled on economic development issues while distancing themselves from County Executive Steve Levy's plans to lay off 709 county workers.

Bellone, Babylon supervisor for the past decade, and Carpenter, the two-term county treasurer and the first woman to run for county executive on Long Island, faced off for 70 minutes Thursday before more than 500 business leaders at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury.

Both are vying to fill the vacuum left by Levy's decision not to run again after prosecutors raised questions about his campaign financing.

The debate, sponsored by the Long Island Association and the Association for a Better Long Island, came the day after Levy unveiled his final budget, which calls for 709 layoffs -- 464 of which could be averted if unions agree to pay a $31 million share of health premiums.

Levy's layoff proposal is "no recipe for success," Carpenter said, arguing that resources must be directed to critical areas to keep county government running. "Just like in business, if you are not sending out the invoices, you are not getting the accounts receivable," said Carpenter, a former business owner.

Bellone backed Levy's property tax freeze but said, "Layoffs are not the best approach. I would look for other alternatives." Bellone said he had negotiated with town unions to gain concessions, which aides say resulted in workers paying 15 percent of their health premiums.

Neither candidate offered specific plans to avoid layoffs. However, each stressed that the Suffolk economy needs to expand because county government relies so heavily on sales taxes, which bring in $800 million annually. The general fund property tax generates just $49 million.

The contest pits Bellone, 42, a lawyer and Army veteran, against Carpenter, who served 13 years as a county lawmaker after running a private marketing business. As of July 15, Bellone had raised $1.9 million to Carpenter's nearly $315,000.

Carpenter said she would hire an ombudsman to help speed county permit approvals. She pointed to the 40-unit Cortland Square development in Bay Shore, which took five years to get approvals. "That's totally unacceptable," she said.

Bellone called himself the only Suffolk official in a decade to bring a major regional project to completion -- Tanger Outlets at the Arches in Deer Park. He said that on his first day in office he would appoint a deputy county executive for economic development and go to the county Health Department, which issues wastewater permits, to tell workers "to take projects by the hand to help them happen."

The candidates also addressed law enforcement issues.

Carpenter noted a school board decision last year to close Huntington Station's Jack Abrams School to classroom activities, following continuing violence in the neighborhood. "I mean, it was a white flag . . . to gangs," she said.

Bellone accused Levy of using the police department as "as political football." He also assailed Levy's "overheated rhetoric" about undocumented immigrants, saying it "divides and is harmful to people."

A Levy spokesman responded: "You were not likely to ever see Steve Levy's face on a [Police Benevolent Association] billboard, because he's cut costs in the department while crime has dropped."