Newsday endorses Lesko for Brookhaven supervisor
Brookhaven Town Supervisor Mark Lesko announces his Blight to Light innitiative (April 26, 2010). Credit: Joseph D. Sullivan
Too often in past years, serious questions of how to govern the huge and still-growing Town of Brookhaven have taken a backseat to partisan bickering. Happily, that has changed. And this year's election for supervisor offers hope that the new calm can continue.
Both the incumbent, Democrat Mark Lesko, and his Republican challenger, M. Cecile Forte, are serious, high-quality candidates who focus intelligently on the issues.
Lesko, 44, of East Setauket, won a special election in March 2009 against Tim Mazzei, the leader of the town board's Republican majority. That November, he defeated Martin Haley, the town's buildings and fire prevention commissioner, for a full two-year term.
Lesko's political deftness in naming Kathleen Walsh, a Republican councilwoman, as his deputy, plus a commendable spirit of cooperation by Mazzei, led to calmer times.
Forte, 65, of Port Jefferson, served 31 years as a professor and administrator at Suffolk County Community College. She's deputy chair of the planning board, which she chaired in 2005. She narrowly lost a 2009 race for town clerk.
One of Lesko's key initiatives has been Blight to Light, a campaign to revitalize eyesores. The most visible has been his effort to convert the dreary streetscape near the Ronkonkoma Long Island Rail Road station into a real downtown, with residences, restaurants and shops. Forte supports the idea.
Lesko was a key player in launching Accelerate Long Island, a still-evolving initiative that aims to keep high-tech firms here. He played a positive role in the development of a plan to protect the headwaters of the Carmans River. But he faces opposition from environmentalists over development in the area. He'll have to work hard to strike a balance between the environment and the economy there.
Forte considers preserving our water second only to job creation. She wants to make the town more business-friendly, with a customer-service attitude.
She has lived in Brookhaven since 1970, and she has an admirable personal passion for it. Forte has a solid grasp of the issues, but she disagrees with Lesko on few of them. As impressive as she is, she did not make a compelling case for replacing an effective incumbent. Newsday endorses Lesko.
