With just a little under a month to go until Election Day, Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine (R-Center Moriches) is sparing no expense on the campaign trail.
Whether it be meet-the-candidates nights at various civic groups and community chambers, in-person acceptances of notable endorsements, or Q&A sessions that put his long governmental experience and sharp wit on public display, Romaine has been everywhere almost seemingly all at once.
Romaine also landed a coveted endorsement earlier this week, one with historic implications: the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association (PBA).
The Suffolk PBA has not endorsed a Republican candidate for county executive in twenty years, since they endorsed Romaine over winner Steve Levy, then a Democrat, in the 2003 election.
Romaine clinched the endorsement and accepted it in-person at the PBA Headquarters in Brentwood on October 6.
A spokesperson for the PBA touted Romaine’s proactive, pro-law enforcement record throughout his career, stating that Romaine understands the challenges faced by law enforcement agencies today.
Romaine then took the podium.
“Thank you to the men and women of law enforcement. I stand with you this day, as I will stand with you every day,” said Romaine. “This campaign concentrates on two things: building a county that is more affordable and one that is safer. We need law enforcement doing their jobs. We don’t need cashless bail, we don’t need clean slates for felons, and we don’t need efforts to defund the police. What we need is to invest in our public safety to ensure that all of our residents stay safe, keep crime away from our doors, and do what’s necessary to have a great county. You can’t have a great county if you are living in fear that crime may affect you. These men and women who wear the uniforms, our police officers, detectives, superior officers, corrections officers,and deputy sheriffs, they all stand together united to do the job that we ask them to do. We need to give them the tools so that they can do the job, be effective, and protect us. I’m running for county executive to do exactly that. These are the people who stand for us and against those who would harm us. I stand with them every day. Should I be fortunate enough to win this office, I will stand with them every day. Remember: they are servants to the residents of Suffolk County.”
Romaine said in a final remark to the members of law enforcement: “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for what you do. It is appreciated and it is not forgotten, and I will stand with you, as all of Suffolk should, for your service to them.”
The PBA endorsement comes off the heels of another critical endorsement for Romaine, that of the Association of Municipal Employees (AME), Suffolk County’s largest public-sector union. The PBA endorsement now completes Romaine’s list of critical law enforcement endorsements ahead of Election Day.
The Messenger caught up with PBA President Noel DiGerolamo after the press conference.
“This was not a difficult decision for us,” says DiGerolamo. “Ed Romaine’s history in government, from the County Legislature, the County Clerk, and now Brookhaven Town Supervisor, he has always been pro-public safety. He’s always done what’s important to the residents of the county and town to ensure their safety. He always supports the men and women who provide that service on a regular basis. He doesn’t just say the word, he votes for them, he puts forth legislation, he has worked throughout his tenure to show his support with actual action, not hollow words.”
When asked about the top priority facing law enforcement and the next county executive, DiGerolamo didn’t mince words.
“The top priority for the next county executive is going to be recruitment and retention of law enforcement positions,” says DiGerolamo. “We’ve never seen a decline in applicants to the extent we have in recent years. It’s echoed by this most recent test this year. We had the lowest numbers in decades of people applying for the test and the highest number of people declining to start the police academy in this last class. That’s not by chance, that’s because of the environment being created by politicians in Albany and Long Island who are affiliated with the Democratic Party who have failed to vote for what’s right for constituents. They would rather keep their jobs than do their jobs. They’re disgraceful and should be ashamed of themselves.”
Romaine started the newsweek with this critical endorsement and ended it with a strong performance at a county executive candidate forum sponsored by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), WABC, and Schneps Media at Stony Brook University Tuesday evening.
Both Romaine and his opponent, former prosecutor Dave Calone (D-Setauket), answered the six same questions separately in a timed fashion in a one-on-one session with moderator Chantee Lanes.
While Calone railed against Romaine’s experience in government, labeling him a career politician, blasted Brookhaven’s reputation for corruption, and expressed his own achievements in the private sector, Romaine’s natural charisma and humorous wit gained traction with the audience as he answered the set of questions that were mostly geared towards concerns of older residents in Suffolk County.
Romaine used his opening statements to display his record as long-time elected official of various offices, most notably pertaining to his tenure as Brookhaven Town Supervisor:
“When I came to the town, it had some financial problems,” said Romaine. “Within two years, we not only had structurally balanced budgets, but we received a triple-A bond rating from all the rating agencies in Wall Street, saving the taxpayers a ton of money. Every year, every municipality gets a report from the state comptroller regarding fiscal and environmental stress. Brookhaven Town scored a “zero” for both fiscal and environmental stress, which is probably the best rating for any town on Long Island.”
Regarding affordable housing, Romaine said:
“We have built over four thousand housing units in Brookhaven Town in the last eleven years. There is a program called Section 202/8 housing; seniors who are over the age of sixty-two can pay 30% of whatever their income is towards rent. We have seven or eight housing units like that, but we haven’t seen federal funding like that. Long Island has been shortchanged in so many ways, I intend to be a very strong advocate for Section 202 housing.”
Romaine also said that he would not auction off county-owned property in low-to-moderate income areas, saying that when those properties are auctioned, it leads to absentee landlords, overdevelopment, and luxury properties that are unaffordable for most Suffolk residents. Instead, he would give those houses to housing agencies, such as Habitat for Humanity and the Long Island Housing Partnership, so people can “enjoy actual homeownership.”
When asked regarding his plans to protect vulnerable seniors from being scammed in the wake of cyberintrusion, Romaine quickly shot up his hand and said: “I’m one of them!”
Romaine then explained how he was a county employee, the county was hacked, and his Social Security number is now out on the dark web. “I’m not too happy about that,” said Romaine. “I run a very large town. We have cybersecurity insurance, we have our data center in the cloud, we do periodic penetration tests to discover our weaknesses and shut our backdoors; none of these have ever been done at the County. I scratch my head wondering why none of this was done.”
Romaine also discussed his plan to address high taxes that are burdensome to many residents, including seniors. Contrasting his opponent’s take on property taxes, saying that Calone forgot to mention his “accomplishment” of raising LIPA rates when he was on the board, Romaine says that Suffolk is one of the few counties in the state that taxes home-heating fuel, natural gas, and propane.
“That is one of the most regressive taxes that falls most on those on a limited income,” said Romaine. “I am making a commitment to work on repealing those taxes. You should not be taxing energy.” His commitment was greeted with large applause from the audience.
When the moderator asked Romaine for an example of ageism he has seen, he mentioned Calone:
“Without being cute, my opponent is an example of ageism, because he criticizes my experience. I may have to get my knee replaced in the future, but if I do that, I’m getting an experienced surgeon, not someone with new ideas,” a remark that was greeted with laughter and applause from the audience.
“I’m old, by some standards, and my opponent would like to dismiss me because of my long record in government. But the one thing I’ve learned over a long life is that as you grow more experienced, there’s a certain wisdom that comes with that. There isn’t enough wisdom in my business. I’m going to listen to all people, but most particularly, I’m going to listen to people who have experience.”
During Romaine’s closing statements, two known agitators stood up in front of the audience holding signs, one that showed Romaine’s face pasted onto a cartoon of a burglar underneath the word “Crookhaven,” and another that read “Mr. Romaine, you put profits over people.” The two were escorted out by security, with one agitator saying she would leave, but security “just had to ask,” instead of grabbing her sign. This agitator was known for heckling Congressman Nick LaLota (R-NY-01) over Suffolk County’s response to the migrant crisis in May.
Overall, the first week of the final month of the campaign seems to have been extremely beneficial to Romaine’s candidacy as he and other candidates enter the home stretch.
