Former Suffolk County Executive and Smithtown Town Supervisor John V.N. Klein passed away on December 23 in his Lexington, Virginia home. Klein was a political powerhouse for two decades, starting his career in government service as a Smithtown Town Attorney just three months after passing the bar exam.
He later lost an election for Smithtown Justice of the Peace by merely 83 votes. This first election loss would not discourage Klein from pursuing further office.
Only five years after becoming the Town Attorney, Klein’s political fortunes would soon turn when he ran for Smithtown Town Supervisor in 1963. After beating his Democratic challenger, Klein would serve two terms as the Town Supervisor.
During his tenure as supervisor, the Town of Smithtown was transformed along with most of western Suffolk as more people began to move to Long Island. From 1960-1970, Smithtown experienced 127% population growth to 114,000, where the population has hovered ever since.
It was this rapid population growth in western Suffolk that would heavily influence Klein’s decision[1]making as a county leader.
In addition to Supervisor, Klein served as the last Chairman of the Suffolk County Board of Supervisors. The Board of Supervisors preceded the current county government of legislature and county executive.
After the one-man-one-vote lawsuits of the 1960s, the Suffolk County Board of Supervisors was ruled unconstitutional because it gave each supervisor one vote irrespective of how many constituents were in each town. The board of supervisors awarded Shelter Island the same political power as Babylon or Islip, the two most populous towns at the time.
Klein then successfully ran for the newly established Suffolk County Legislature in 1969, the only member of the Board of Supervisors to do so. Klein was able to bring vital experience to the new body.
Klein was not initially keen on the position of County legislator, preferring to represent his constituents as Town Supervisor. However, political currents at the time already favored him for the position of County Executive and beyond.
Former Smithtown GOP Chairman Nick Barbato was reported by the Messenger in 1969 after Klein’s election as saying, “this may be a future president of the United States.” Before Barbato’s statement, the crowd that gathered in Frevola’s Restaurant that Tuesday evening on November 4, 1969, started chanting “Klein for Governor” upon his introduction as the victor.
More than experience, Klein brought with him a degree of collegiately and bipartisanship, making himself known as a problem solver. Then at the legislature’s first-ever organizational meeting, he was elected the Chairman of the legislature (the equivalent of today’s Presiding Officer). He also enjoyed a friendship and positive working relationship with the first County Executive and Democrat H. Lee Dennison.
In his capacity as Chairman, the two were able to work closely to solve problems that faced the newly organized government entity.
Klein was only a legislator for one term before running for county executive, a position which former Suffolk County Chairman Edwin M. Schwenk desired him to run for as reported by the New York Times. “His horizons are unlimited,” said Edwin M. (Buzz) Schwenk to the New York Times in 1972. “I had that feeling when I first knew him. I’d like to see him stay as county executive. But we have a man of a great deal of talent.”
Klein swept into office as a fiscal conservative promising to lower Suffolk County’s then rising welfare
rolls. While New York City struggled with solvency, he kept Suffolk County fiscally upright, delivering surplus budgets.
During his tenure, he also met Nixon in his only campaign stop to New York in 1972. Nixon landed in MacArthur Airport and was greeted by a contingent of local officials.
Throughout the decade, Klein would advise Presidents Carter, Ford and Reagan. The political sense of Schwenk and Barbato was certainly correct at first. Klein is most fondly remembered today for a program still run by the county to this day— the Farmland Preservation Program.
This first in the nation land preservation program was proposed in 1973 and passed in 1974. The program allows the county to purchase land development rights from farmers. The farmers retain ownership of the land and the ability to sell the land for agricultural purposes. The plan was used as a blueprint for municipalities across the nation to deal with the pains of overdevelopment.
In a 1973 letter that accompanied the original proposal, Klein wrote that “Eastern Suffolk today is, as Western Suffolk was 40 years ago, and it is on the same clear and inevitable collision course with ‘progress’ which confronted Western Suffolk in the 1930’s.”
He noted that while some argue that Suffolk should meet the demands of the entire metropolitan area by rapidly developing and others urged no development, his job was to chart a “course sensible between those two extremes.”
The plan he proposed did just that and slowed growth to a manageable pace that has allowed Long Island to keep much of its treasured natural beauty. Suffolk County is currently pledging 100 million dollars over the next ten years for land preservation and has already spent over 1 billion dollars on the endeavor.
However, Klein’s fortunes would turn in the 1979 election for county executive as the scandal that loomed over the construction would soon be targeted at his administration.
While not connected to the scandal, the damage had been inflicted on his campaign. The issue divided the Suffolk GOP, with Islip Town Supervisor Peter F. Cohalan rallying disaffected Republican voters from the Townships that would have received the sewer lines, Islip and Babylon.
Cohalan was also able to garner institutional support from the Babylon GOP Vice Chairman Anthony Prudential, in addition to Islip and Babylon leaders.
Klein attempted to recast the election as control over the Suffolk GOP, trying to convince the eight other GOP town leaders in Suffolk that they would be effectively sidelined by a Babylon-Islip alliance. To cement his eight-town alliance, Klein utilized a significantly high degree of party leaders as advisors and campaign leaders for the time.
Cohalan’s tactic of conflating Klein to the sewer blunder proved successful in the primary. Klein lost the Republican line by a 2-1 margin, with the exact count being 41,590-19,042. Klein also lost the conservative party line by a much smaller margin.
While Klein would never seek public office again, his time as a power broker was not yet over. After his defeat, he joined the highly influential law firm Meyer, Suozzi, English and Klein in 1980 as head of its real estate department. He became the managing attorney in 1984 for 12 years. During this period, the Mineola law firm would expand to have offices in Albany, New York City and Washington, D.C.
He is remembered well by clients who often commented on his professionalism and attentiveness in his business dealings. And even from outside of elected office, he was frequently asked to weigh in on the state of affairs of Long Island politics.
Current Smithtown GOP Chairman Bill Ellis remarked that “John Klein was a legend in Suffolk County.”
Furthermore, Ellis added that “He took Suffolk County forward and did a fantastic job as Smithtown Supervisor and Suffolk County Executive.”
Klein was predeceased by his beloved wife of 62-and-a-half, Audrey Rowe Klein. He was the son of the late W. Royden Klein and Elmira Van Nostrand Klein. He was the brother of the late William Klein Jr. and Douglas Klein.
He is survived by nephew William Klein III, and nephew Douglas Klein, and their respective families.
Editor’s Note: The illustrious career of Klein was one that afforded him the opportunity to advise Presidents and create lasting programs that continue to benefit the people of Suffolk County. We at the Messenger were deeply saddened to hear about the loss of this Long Island icon, who we had the privilege of covering for decades.
