Suffolk exec race and local issues

Now that Steve Levy is no longer a candidate for re-election as Suffolk County executive, it's time to start thinking about what the campaign to replace him should look like. Not the names of the candidates, but the issues they'll debate.

Start with the budget. What cuts will the new executive have to make, after Levy's eight years of tight-fistedness, to plug the hole he or she finds on Jan. 1? How much more cutting can county government withstand? How can police and other unions help in the trimming?

Then there's a whole set of questions rooted in the future of county facilities in Yaphank.

One is Levy's proposal for about 1,000 units of housing, Legacy Village, on county-owned land. The plan is mostly dead, and the county legislature wants to sell the property. The executive must also face the debt and other matters from the construction and opening of the new jail, which the state's Commission of Correction forced the county to build over Levy's objections. And the future of the county's John J. Foley Skilled Nursing Facility, which Levy has been trying to sell to a private operator, may still be up in the air on Jan. 1.

On top of those dollars-and-cents issues, there's the matter of legislative-executive relations. When Levy was a Democrat, the discourse between him and the legislature ranged from testy to shrill -- even more in the years since Democrats took control of it in January 2006. And when he became a Republican last year, it didn't get better.

Levy's approach has been to argue that he's the only grown-up in the room, and the legislators are the spendthrift teens. So, whether the new legislature elected on Nov. 8 remains in the control of Democrats or goes Republican, it's fair to ask how the county executive candidates plan to relate to a coequal branch of government.

In other words, there are many real issues for the candidates to debate. But one subject they shouldn't waste any time on is Levy's King Charles' head.

The phrase comes from the Charles Dickens novel "David Copperfield." One of its characters can't keep the beheading of England's King Charles out of his thinking. So the phrase has come to mean an obsession that often intrudes irrelevantly into other matters. For Levy, that obsession has been immigration.

It wasn't always part of his plans -- at least not those he made public when he was first running for county executive in 2003. Levy released a 16-page document called "A Vision for Suffolk County's Future," and to his credit, he has actually done a lot of it. But where did immigration -- legal or illegal -- fit into that grand scheme? The index? Page 1? Page 2? Not exactly. It didn't rate a single sentence.

Once he was in office, however, Levy began talking about illegal immigration -- a lot. He wasn't wrong to point out that the federal government has not done its job. It hasn't. But it isn't simply about border controls. It's about the legal immigration system, the one Levy and his supporters want all immigrants to use. The trouble is, it's hopelessly broken. That dysfunction is a crucial factor leading people to enter the country illegally.

Levy's rhetoric on the issue caused opponents to accuse him of creating an atmosphere leading to violence. His supporters hailed him for being willing to use the "illegal" word and talk fearlessly about the issue.

But Levy's emphasis on immigration has brought no real change. Nor could it. County officials can comment, as Levy has, but county government can't significantly alter the reality.

So let's use Levy's departure from the race as a starting point to make this campaign about the things county government can really do -- from policing highways to caring for the poor -- and not about an urgent issue that's basically beyond its control.