Letter: Steve Levy: I accomplished my goal

In "The amazing rise and fall of Steve Levy" [Opinion, Nov. 8], columnist Bob Keeler seeks to psychoanalyze what I will be doing with my future. But mostly Keeler was critical of what he terms my "combative style." Keeler is correct if he was suggesting that I was not the same old business-as-usual, go-along-to-get-along politician. I saw enormous inefficiencies in government and committed myself to weeding them out. As is so often said, you don't create major change in an entrenched system by whispering.

Before my tenure, the municipal unions ran the county, which is why taxes had grown out of control. Indeed, I created enemies by having the audacity to demand that employees contribute to their health care, that cars not be doled out as political perks, and that people here illegally not drain our public resources.

Keeler thinks it is sad that because my independent, politically incorrect voice rubbed the political and media elite the wrong way, I won't be able to obtain a future job through the political bosses. If that is so, so be it. I didn't get involved in government to ingratiate myself with other officials so that I could get a job after politics.

My goal was not to please party or union bosses or legislative colleagues -- it was to fight for taxpayers. That was the one group I sought to please, and after eight consecutive years of tax cuts or freezes, I feel proud to have accomplished that goal.

Steve Levy, Hauppauge

Editor's note: The writer is the Suffolk County executive.