Candidate Spotlight: Supervisor Angie Carpenter and Ken Colón

Q: What is your professional background and how does it prepare you for Town of Islip Supervisor? 

Supervisor Angie Carpenter: I was first elected to the County Legislature in 1993. I chaired many committees and served on almost all of them during my tenure. We worked on many initiatives, notably including property tax alternatives. I then received the opportunity to run county-wide for Treasurer. I was elected in 2005 and re-elected in 2009 and 2013. At the Treasurer’s office, I did a lot of updating, assessments, and community outreach. 

For many years, Islip was neglected by Peter McGowan (R). When I came in, I had an opportunity to build up the town and address infrastructure needs and bond ratings. Being a County Treasurer, I was very intimate with the budget and understanding of investments. We increased the number of depositories we have. Our bond rating was decent but it could have been better. We got it up to triple-A with a stable outlook.  

Our triple-A bond rating has been reaffirmed eight times since I’ve been here. When we go to market to bond, we get the best rate possible. We had about $6 million in outstanding debt, but because of our great rating, we were able to refinance at a rate of 0.27%, which is very low. What that enabled us to do was to go out to the market for long-overdue borrowing; we paved our roads and improved our parks.  

I inherited 40,000 tons of debris that had been illegally dumped in a town park and the community pool was closed. The Olympic-sized pool is now rebuilt, and we put in a beautiful skateboard park, splash park, sidewalks, curbing, and a parking lot. I worked with Assemblyman Phil Ramos (D-Brentwood) on this project and he gave us a tremendous amount of funding to do what we needed for that park.  

In Brentwood, Ross Park – once called Needle Park – was an open-air drug market. There were five bus shelters in front of the park. If you drove by on any day, people would be there selling and doing drugs. The police department and I determined the only way to fix this was to close the park. I embarked upon a campaign to do this right. We cleaned out the underbrush, took out garbage, tents, beds, couches, etc. We put in a new parking lot, a brand new playground with safety surface. The park is 99% complete as of now and we are currently fencing the perimeter. We have delivered back to the Brentwood community a park that they hadn’t had in generations.  

On the east side of town, we have Byron Lake, which hadn’t been touched in sixty years. Right after Labor Day last year, we closed it and started construction. Everything is going well and we’ll hopefully we open next year. We expanded the concession area, made a better rental venue for parties and gatherings, and added handicapped-accessible parking. We worked with the DEC on dredging and cleaning the lake as well. 

Islip has three pools, three golf courses, and each facility is in much better shape than it was when I got here. We’re also well-known for our pickleball courts. We’ve been able to do it with a tax-cap compliant budget. We’ve also fostered a culture of worker appreciation. I instituted staff celebration barbecues, at no cost to the taxpayer. 

In Central Islip, we’ve had the Downtown Revitalization Project. It was a very competitive process that required perennial applications and petitioning. I went three years in a row – under promise of returning a fourth time – and got $10 million in funding for. That creates a sense of downtown in Central Islip along Carleton Ave. With the $10 million, we’ve seen a lot of renovation of existing properties and we can connect more incoming restaurants to sewers. COVID delayed the efforts but things are moving now. 

MacArthur Airport, a regional economic generator, was not being used as such before I got here. The Cradle of Aviation based in Uniondale will be using space at the airport for classes. They will address dwindling aviation careers, which is part of the reason why we haven’t had as many flights, others due to new FAA regulations. We’ve done capital projects at the airport totaling over $100m, almost exclusively funded through airport grants. During the pandemic, it never closed. We immediately installed the state-of-the art air filtration systems.  

After last year’s county hack, Islip was hacked on Friday morning after Thanksgiving, someone was immediately alerted and we turned off our systems. We convened at town hall with IT, Public Safety, and others and we planned out a strategy. We took advantage of that to fine-tune our procedures. Unlike the county, we had cyber-insurance and we had representatives from the company here, so we were able to check all of our boxes. By Monday morning, we were up and running. We used that opportunity to check each and every piece of equipment and computer.  

We have excellent credit worthiness. We have revitalized or are revitalizing our parks and downtowns. We have invested in our community and are looking for new ways to do so. We responded excellently to COVID and cybersecurity concerns. All in all, this is not a place for on-the-job training. 

Ken Colón: I got my professional start in the business world, starting my first company during my undergraduate — a multi-award winning platform for student suicide prevention — and holding other senior roles in small and medium-sized tech companies. I then took my tech and business knowledge into the realm of government and policy, working as a consultant in Washington, publishing economic analysis of federal health policy at Yale, and helping shape opioid overdose prevention policy for Montgomery County in upstate NY. 

Most recently, I managed data for suicide prevention initiatives at the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, focusing on identifying trends in youth suicides and potential interventions — a role I left to dedicate myself to this race full-time.  

I believe that this experience, in the private, public, and academic sectors, equips me to effectively lead the Town of Islip, and in particular to deal with our challenges relating to the opioid and mental health crises. Those have been my life’s work to address – I am ready to use the levers of our town government to address them at home. 

It’s time for a fresh perspective. I’ve had experience in crafting policy, managing opioid overdose response for a municipal government, in the tech world, and elsewhere. I feel I am prepared for this role – and that in a town where our master plan hasn’t been updated in fifty years, we need a Supervisor who hasn’t been in an elected office since 1993. I am equipped to deal with 21st century challenges, with 21st century solutions. 

Q: What would you say is your best or proudest professional accomplishment? 

Supervisor Angie Carpenter: When COVID hit, we didn’t have a workshop or a manual for a pandemic. We followed the state mandate for essential workers. My office and constituent services booked appointments for the COVID tests and later the vaccines; we worked closely with the hospitals for both. People were directed to call the Town to book appointments. Brentwood was one of the communities that had triple-digit net increases of COVID cases per day. We set up a huge tent with Wi-Fi and used it as a testing center. It was later transitioned into a vaccine center and it was up for months. Our employees came back to work immediately when they were legally allowed to. The residents aren’t getting the quality service when an employee is working from home. To this day, there are people still working for the state, county, and federal government who still aren’t working in person. It’s not fair. 

Ken Colón: Back when I was running my first company, there was a student who had used the platform I’d created to connect with professional mental healthcare treatment. She had reached out to share her story with me: how she had been sexually assaulted on-campus, had been turned away by her campus counseling center for treatment (told her case was too complex), and was on the verge of ending it all — that was when a friend recommended our app. Through the platform, she was able to connect with a local therapist who took her insurance, and started receiving treatment. She told me I saved her life. There have been other stories like that throughout my professional career, but that one sticks with me to this day as the first. 

Q: What do you think is the most important political issue facing Islip today? 

Supervisor Angie Carpenter: Cost of living and keeping our young people here. The Midway Project is really transformative. Midway is all development-centric. It consists of relocating the terminal at MacArthur to the north side adjacent to the train at Ronkonkoma. Midway also includes a Life Sciences building. We already have a letter of commitment from Northwell and tech-driven firms for a convention center where the brightest minds across the country- or even the world – can come and share strategies and ideas.  

I got a little bit of a taste of it when I went to Northwell’s location in Lake Success, where they have a mini version of what it’s like. I saw diagnostic machines that cost millions of dollars, mannequins that model the human body, and exciting innovations in the science field that we educate our students for. Too often, they leave and go to other parts of the country. This is what can keep our young people and high-paying jobs here.  

Ken Colón: A neglectful Town Hall. Currently, Islip residents have no meaningful representation. Small business owners are forced to face layers of pointless bureaucracy to acquire permits. Luxury apartment complexes are approved left and right while community input is ignored and our infrastructure falls into disrepair. Those struggling with addiction were abandoned when the Town of Islip shuttered its Department of Health and Human Services. Town hall has made it clear the only people it cares about are corporate developers and wealthy political donors. 

  Q: What is your top priority if you are elected Town Supervisor? A day-one phone call, objective, meeting, etc. 

Supervisor Angie Carpenter: Getting the budget adopted and continuing working with the airport to put ourselves out there. We have discussed this with the proper people when there are talks of tourism, hotels, and convention centers, especially with developments at Nassau Coliseum. I talked with the CEO of Sands about flying people into Islip instead of the city airports. MacArthur Airport is totally self-sufficient and no taxpayer dollars go into it. The airport’s sustainability also shows why Midway is a worthwhile investment. 

Ken Colón: I place priority on addressing our dual crises of addiction and mental health, as these are areas I have deep personal experience with. When I was a teenager, I intentionally overdosed on prescription pills. This personal experience drove me to make suicide prevention and overdose prevention my life’s work. 

In 2013, the Town of Islip defunded and abolished our Department of Health & Human Services. Fast-forward to 2023, and Islip spends only 0.14% of its municipal budget on health. That’s roughly 83-cents per Islip resident. We see the effects of that under-investment. 

  Town of Islip has three of the top six hamlets for overdose deaths, Suffolk County-wide. Between 2019 and 2021, the Town of Islip saw 194 overdose deaths. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Our neighbors in Babylon and Brookhaven have well-funded HHS Departments. Millions of dollars in state and federal grants are available – we just have to go after it. Some things don’t even require funding. New York State makes fentanyl testing kits available for free; we should be bulk ordering these kits and distributing them as far and wide as possible. 

Q: What is your favorite quote, motto, or working philosophy? Alternatively, do you find a certain figure particularly inspiring and for what reasons? 

Supervisor Angie Carpenter: “Everything old is new again.” When I ran for the very first time, my first slogan was “Make Suffolk County a place to live, not leave.” I’m still fighting for that. Time is money, and I don’t waste people’s time. Additionally, don’t spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on models and metrics. Consult with the correct people and find out your course of action before wasting time and money.

Ken Colón: My father, Ken Colón Sr., is my biggest inspiration. It was just before my fifth birthday when my father rushed in as a first-responder on 9/11. He retired after twenty years with NYPD, reaching the rank of detective in the narcotics detective. He deals with heart and lung issues related to his time at Ground Zero till this day, but continues to serve, working as an investigator for child protective services. Everything I know about public service, I learned from him. 

Q: Please discuss, at your own comfort and discretion, your personal background, ie. family, hobbies, how you like to connect with your community and what you like best about Islip (restaurants, parks, businesses, etc.) 

Supervisor Angie Carpenter: I love reading, I love to play golf – although I haven’t played in a while – and I love the beach. 

Overall, I love our Town. There’s everything you can possibly want here. Even though we’re the third-largest town in New York by population, there’s that small-town feel where everyone knows everyone and we all care about each other.  

Ken Colón: My wife Maria and I met in our undergraduate at Notre Dame, and she is my world. After graduating from medical school, she is now completing her residency training in emergency medicine. I could not be more proud of her, and proud to be her husband. 

My parents, grandparents, and two younger brothers have also been immense sources of support to me throughout my life and in this race. 

My wife and I enjoy attending the various fairs and festivals across Islip – the Holbrook Chamber of Commerce Fair, Central Islip Fire Department Carnival, Summerfest in Sayville, Alive by the Bay in Bay Shore, just to name a few. We also love perusing our hamlets’ downtowns, particularly downtown Sayville, with must-stop shops, restaurants and cafes like Tiny Raccoons Books, the Sayville Bean, and The Wayward. In terms of hobbies, I enjoy boxing, having boxed at Notre Dame, and swimming, having swam for Central Islip Aquatics. As of late, most of my time is spent in conversation with thousands of voters at their doors across each of Islip’s hamlets. 

The Messenger thanks Ken Colón and Supervisor Angie Carpenter for sitting down with The Messenger for this candidate spotlight. 

The Messenger’s forecast for Islip Town Supervisor: Likely Republican 

 Explaining Our Forecast 

Islip is the third-largest municipality by population in New York State. Islip is a traditionally Republican town in south-central Suffolk County. Democrats took control in the mid-to-late 2000s after Peter McGowan’s (R) various corruption scandals and neglect of the Town. Currently Republican Legislators Steve Flotteron (R-Bay Shore) and Trish Bergin (R-East Islip) were key figures in restoring the GOP brand in Islip.  

Phil Nolan (D) served one term from 2012-2016 until he was narrowly defeated by Tom Croci (R). Croci was succeeded by now-Supervisor Angie Carpenter (R-West Islip). While Democrats typically lose consistently town-wide in Islip, they don’t usually get blown out of the water in the more political races. In 2019, Carpenter defeated Tom Murray III (D) for a second term by thirteen points, a decent margin that was only relatively weak because of the Democratic-leaning environment. Murray is now running for Town Council District Four.   

This year, Carpenter appears to be in the driver’s seat and will probably win by a more significant margin due to the more Republican-leaning year. The working-class towns that dot Islip’s landscape will likely turn out heavily for Ed Romaine (R-Center Moriches), as well as Supervisor Carpenter.