In Suffolk, we need the details
Suffolk County executive candidates Angie Carpenter and Steve Bellone before their debate in Woodbury (Sept. 15, 2011) Credit: Newsday / Karen Wiles Stabile
In their debut debate in the campaign for Suffolk County executive, the two candidates both wanted government to stop being an obstacle to economic development. That's a good start, but they need not only to sharpen the details on that, but also to answer the bigger question of how to make that government work at all in this down economy.
For an hour, Suffolk Treasurer Angie Carpenter, the Republican, and Babylon Supervisor Steve Bellone, the Democrat, both had a business-friendly message in a business forum, a debate hosted by the Long Island Association and the Association for a Better Long Island.
Both candidates correctly identified long delays in issuing permits for development as a real problem; both pointed a finger at the county's Department of Health Services.
To fix that, Bellone touts a record of doing more with less, making his town departments more efficient. Carpenter hinted that the health agency's problem in turning out permits may partly be understaffing.
To fix it, they have to look at the whole government, in case they need to shift resources from elsewhere into the health agency, to make it less of a bottleneck.
But how can they do that, or anything, at a time of increasing jail and pension costs? Do they believe County Executive Steve Levy's 2012 budget is right on sales tax and on one-shot revenues? How will his layoffs impede their plans? As the race goes on, those are the details we have to have.
