Suffolk's Bellone took flight to guv's address

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone has joined the jet set.

Bellone's latest campaign finance report, filed last month, shows a $10,000 in-kind contribution from 400A Holding LLC at Republic Airport in Farmingdale so that the county executive could take a jet to Albany for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's State of the State message.

Robert Stricoff, Bellone's chief fundraiser, said the county executive used the jet "to cut down what would have been a seven-hour trip to 1 1/2 hours" so he could get back to his Hauppauge office before the end of the day and work. Had Bellone used a propeller plane, Stricoff said, the in-kind contribution would have been about half the amount.-- Rick Brand