Candidate: Legislator Leslie Kennedy
Residence: Nesconset
Office: Suffolk County Legislature District Twelve
Committees: Health (Chair); Budget & Finance (Vice Chair); Ways & Means (Vice Chair); Education & Labor; Environment, Parks & Agriculture; Fire, Rescue, and Emergency Medical Services & Preparedness; Public Safety; Veterans & Consumer Affairs
First Elected: March 2015 Special Election
Party Endorsements: Republican, Conservative
Notable Endorsements: All police unions, Suffolk Association of Municipal Employees (AME), Communication Workers of America (CWA), Suffolk County Community College Faculty Association
Initially elected in a March 2015 special election to succeed her husband, then-Legislator now-County Comptroller John Kennedy (R-Nesconset), Legislator Leslie Kennedy is running for a fifth full term this November in the Smithtown-based Twelfth District.
Kennedy’s opponent, Denis Graziano (D), is not actively campaigning.
Legislator Kennedy sat down with The Messenger for a one-on-one interview.
Q: What is your professional background before being elected to the Legislature and does it equip you for another term?
Legislator Leslie Kennedy: First, I’m a mother of four, a grandmother of eight. I was a registered nurse for thirty years. I also managed a 1950s ice cream store. I learned how to make cakes and pizzas and all sorts of goods to keep it running. I also kept the books and handled the finance and ordering of supplies.
I did whatever it took to sustain a family of four in Smithtown, as well as educating them, which is a tremendous haul.
Q: What would you say is your best or proudest professional accomplishment?
Legislator Leslie Kennedy: I’m most proud of the streambed remediation project that was started under John Kennedy when he was a Legislator and I was his aide. We developed the whole project. We did the walkthroughs and measurements of the streambeds for a whole summer and saw what was occluded. We chose five tributaries of the Nissequogue River that needed to be cleaned so that the surface water would flow, so that when groundwater came up, it had a place to go besides into someone’s basement.
He got two streambeds done when he was a Legislator, I’ve done one-and-three-quarters done so far. The current one is very high, which is one it’s still a quarter-unfinished. Once it’s done, I will get right to work on the fifth and final streambed. Next year, I will start on the next one even though this current one is not finished. The streambed is from Maple Avenue to Brooksite Drive. There are phragmites occluding the streambeds that were not there when we did the walkthroughs. We think it came from the backflow from Hurricane Sandy. Once phragmites are involved, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has to be involved with the plan. Removing phragmites is horrible because the roots are so bulbous and the plants grow so much and so quickly.
The DEC wants us to create a streambed around the phragmites and dam them off.
Q: What do you think is the most important political issue facing Suffolk County today?
Legislator Leslie Kennedy: Finances is by far the most important political issue facing the County right now. We have to be extremely careful because if you read the economic forecasts, which I have been doing for a long time, things do not look rosy. In 2018, we were due for the market to crash. Many things happened to prevent it, including the federal government creating money. We’re due for the crash now. People are seeing the market fluctuate, but the first three quarters of next year are expected to continually dip into a recession and possibly into a depression.
I think we have to monitor how we spend every nickel in our government. I have been monitoring that and just because something doesn’t pass right doesn’t mean it won’t pass. Just like my own home budget, I have to know where we stand before we expend large sums of money. People should be doing that in their own homes as it is.
I am dealing with more homelessness in my district, which is mostly upper-middle class, than I have ever seen. Seniors and young people are having the most difficulty with affordability right now. I am seeing more food pantry referrals than I have seen before. It’s either you eat or you take your medication; it’s frightening. My seniors have sold their cars because they can’t afford the gas or the insurance. I have constituents who can’t afford oil because the oil companies require a minimum of 60-gallon orders.
Q: What is your top priority if you win this election?
Legislator Leslie Kennedy: My goal would be the same things I’ve been working on all along: constituent services, taking care of our environment, being judicious about development, and making appropriate financial decisions. I just saw a news segment about how New York City is sinking because of overdevelopment. New York City is built on granite. We are built on an aquifer and sand, so I’m conservative when it comes to overdevelopment. I believe people moved here because we are a suburb, but we also need to make sure we have truly affordable housing.
Q: What were your reasons for voting against the sewer bills earlier this summer?
Legislator Leslie Kennedy: The finance is the majority of the reason I voted them down. Despite that, you have a whole “sewer” bill that does not mention sewers. You had at least 75% of the funds going to Innovative and Alternative Wastewater (I/A) Systems and another 10% going to personnel, and the remaining 15% going to items not mentioned. My assumption is that it would have gone to more I/A systems and staff.
Right now, an I/A system is a fiberglass tub with a blender in it. It blends up the waste and shoots it out for it to percolate. The problem is when you put the blended waste into the ground as a liquid, it percolates faster so it gets into the groundwater faster. In my view, you’re not doing much to save the groundwater and take out the bad chemicals. I’ve talked to people much smarter than me scientifically, and they say that while nitrogen is bad, it’s not enemy number one. Other compounds like 1,4-Dioxane cause cancer. I want filters to catch all those bad chemicals. Why can’t we wait a little while longer and put in the filters that are awaiting patents?
These I/A systems can cost $15,000 and they’re most needed on the East End. Why are we not focusing on Lake Ronkonkoma, which is the upper glacial layer of our aquifer?
Q: What’s your favorite quote, motto, or work ethic?
Legislator Leslie Kennedy: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” -Theodore Roosevelt
Q: What’s your favorite way of connecting with the Twelfth District?
Legislator Leslie Kennedy: I believe that, especially in times like this, you think globally, but you shop locally. I grew up in Commack and I love this area. I have no intention of retiring to Florida. This is a great place to raise a family and I want to help keep it that way. I want to protect the environment as much as possible. This is my home, I love it, and I want to see it cared for.
The Messenger thanks Legislator Kennedy for taking time to sit down with us for this candidate spotlight.
The Messenger’s forecast for Suffolk Legislature’s Twelfth District: Safe Republican
About the Twelfth District
The Twelfth District of the Suffolk County Legislature covers southern Smithtown and parts of western-central Brookhaven. In Smithtown, the district includes the Village of the Branch, Nesconset, Hauppauge, Lake Grove, and parts of St. James and Commack. In Brookhaven, the district has parts of Lake Ronkonkoma and Centereach.
This is one of the most intensely Republican areas of Suffolk County. The thinnest margin for any Republican between now and 2009 was that of Leslie Kennedy’s 2019 campaign, in which she took 65% of the vote.
