Fill MTA board vacancies with advocates for Long Island

As Steve Bellone’s reign as Suffolk County executive came to an end over the weekend, so too did the term of Bellone’s representative on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board, Sammy Chu.

It's unclear whom new County Executive Ed Romaine might pick to fill the seat, which is crucial to ensuring Long Island's needs are heard by the mammoth transportation bureaucracy. 

Thanks to a 2019 change in state law signed by former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, MTA board members’ terms are directly tied to the person who appoints them. But that doesn’t mean Chu is quite done yet. The law provides a 60-day grace period, so Chu can continue to attend MTA board meetings in January and February. An MTA spokesman said that for Chu, the grace period ends Feb. 28.

In the meantime, Romaine has some work to do. He will need to submit three names to Gov. Kathy Hochul, who then chooses one. That person then must be confirmed by the State Senate. All of that has to happen by the end of February in order for Suffolk to continue to have representation on the board after Chu’s grace period ends. It will take a sense of urgency and quick action from Romaine, Hochul and the State Senate  fo r the new representatives to be in place by the end of next month.
Meanwhile, Hochul, too, has six seats on the MTA board, one of which is vacant. And the time is ripe for her to appoint a Long Islander, which she has never done.

There’s precedent for that. Developer Scott Rechler served on the board as a gubernatorial appointee — but his ties to Long Island often made him an important voice for the region especially on significant capital projects and Long Island Rail Road operating needs.

Romaine must also carefully vet his three candidates for Hochul's review in order to give Hochul three good choices, instead of one viable choice and two ego-burnishing, fundraising thank-you notes.

That has been the easy and mistaken path in Nassau. Every Nassau County executive since Thomas Gulotta made real estate executive and philanthropist David Mack their MTA board pick, although former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo rejected him at times. But former County Executive Laura Curran’s recommendation led Cuomo to reappoint him in 2019. Current County Executive Bruce Blakeman and Hochul followed suit.

As we said in a 2022 editorial, Mack had given thousands of dollars to those county executives. We wrote, “he hasn’t used that power to advocate substantively for the region’s public transit system. He rarely speaks up publicly and at times hasn’t participated in working groups of which he is a member. When Long Island Rail Road riders have needed his voice, he has mostly been silent.” 

Romaine's MTA candidate could very well be the first glimpse of how strong the county executive's voice will be on public transportation.