The knives are out in the race for county executive, with Democrat Dave Calone and the PACS supporting him hitting the air with negative ads while his opponent, Ed Romaine, responds in kind.
"They're desperate," said Romaine, who's running on the Republican and Conservative lines. "They have seen the poll numbers and know they are going to lose. They will say anything to win. It's a desperation move by a candidate who's losing his election."
"One thing you learn running against a 40-year politician is that they will say and do anything to hold onto power. Enough," Calone said in summing up his campaign. "Let's move past the lies, Crookhaven scandals, and tax increases. As a prosecutor and businessman, I know what it takes to fight crime, create jobs, and move Suffolk forward."
Romaine castigates his opponent, a Democrat, for running with the Working Families Party, which supports cashless bail, defund the police, and the open border policies he said are responsible for the crime wave and drug overdoses affecting many Suffolk families. "Did he tell the Working Families leadership one thing to get their nomination, and now he's telling the voters something else?" Romaine asked.
The Calone camp counters by highlighting his experience in the state Attorney General's office and with the U.S. Attorney, where he was part of a team that went after an Al Qaeda terrorist. "They're lying about Dave. He is a former prosecutor who knows what it takes to hold criminals accountable," said Calone's campaign manager, Shane Wolfe. "It's maybe because the Republicans have some imaginary candidate they wish they were running against, but it's not former prosecutor Dave Calone."
The candidates are also going at it over campaign donations, with Romaine having raised $1,548,216 to Calone's $1,620,974. The latest financial statements filed with the state Board of Elections October 6 show the Republican with $1,539,351 left in his war chest and the Democrat with $1,019,684, with $750,000 coming from personal loans Calone made to his campaign.
"Calone's donations are drying up because people think he's going to lose," Romaine said, noting that his opponent has taken significant contributions from out-of-town sources, including the governor of Colorado, a college friend who enlisted him to run his business operations when he entered public office. "My opponent spent his time creating tax shelters for billionaires," Romaine stated, "leaving the rest of us to make up the difference." The Republicans point to $10,000 donated by Elliot Spitzer as suspect, the former governor who left office after a scandal involving prostitution. Calone scoffs at the connection, saying he used to work for Spitzer when he was the Attorney General and hasn't spoken to him recently.
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| Ed Romaine File Photo |
Romaine panned Calone's promise to make such a drastic cut in county taxes. "It would affect everyone, including child protective services, the health department, the police. He truly wants to defund the police. He hasn't given up on that idea," Romaine charged, adding, "He's aggravated that none of the law enforcement groups have endorsed him, and therefore, he's putting out a huge tax cut proposal that would include cutting the police."
Romaine proposes to eliminate the county's tax on energy as a way to bring financial relief to Suffolk taxpayers. "These are extremely regressive taxes that fall most heavily on the poor and those with limited income," the candidate explained. "I want to remove this tax. That's doable. That's something that's intelligent; that's something that's targeted that would work." According to Romaine, cutting county taxes by draining surplus funds would also impact the county bond rating, which county Executive Steve Bellone recently announced was increased by the government rating agencies.
Both candidates promised to go through Bellone's budgets line by line to extract savings. The current county executive, who's prohibited from running for reelection due to Suffolk's term limit law, has endorsed Calone. In addition to every county law enforcement organization, Romaine has been endorsed by the New York League of Conservation Voters and the Environmental Voters Forum, as well as various labor unions. Calone also has labor unions in his camp, along with the National Organization of Women, Planned Parenthood, and the gun violence group, Moms Demand Action.
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| Dave Calone File Photo |
"Romaine's campaign filing is filled with a who's who of his vendors and people who know the Crookhaven way of needing to go along to get along," Calone's campaign manager says. "Everything in Dave's ads is truthful and based on facts and reality, which is not the case for the ridiculous ads that the GOP is running against Dave. They're crying foul because they're running a candidate who has a failed record of raising taxes eight years in a row and fostering a culture of corruption. And they don't like that. That's the reality."
The GOP rings up Calone for his ties to Gov. Kathy Hochul, who wants to take over local zoning authority to build multi-family housing in the suburbs and perpetuates a pro-criminal, anti-law enforcement atmosphere, they say. They've also dragged President Joe Biden into the race, associating Calone with his open border policy and requiring those fleeing Israel following the Hamas attack to repay the U.S. government for helping them. "We can't trust Hochul Democrats," the GOP ads read. "We can't trust Biden Democrats. Why should we trust Liberal Dave Calone?"
Suffolk Democrats are also hurling mud at their opponents over the town landfill in Yaphank, keying in on a recent media report charging that Covanta, the company that incinerates Brookhaven's garbage and sends the ash to the Horseblock Road facility for disposal, mixed different types of residue from its Westbury plant in order to get by state requirements. Calone campaign ads charge that "The Landfill's toxic ash has caused fatal cases of asthma in children, been described as a textbook case of environmental racism, and reminds us that we cannot trust the leader of 'Crookhaven' to run our county." He's organizing a protest at the site on October 17.
"The DEC has a monitor at Covanta 24 hours a day, as they do at the landfill," Romaine said of the Department of Environmental Conservation, the state agency that licenses the two waste management facilities. "The town doesn't test ash, but everyone's going after the town instead of the DEC or Covanta. The DEC tells me they have done their job. So who am I to believe: The protesters who want to make a political statement or a state agency who's charged with this?"
The supervisor said he earned the support of the environmental groups, in part, for his plans to close the landfill to construction and demolition debris in 2024 and close it to ash as space allows under the existing DEC permit. He has put forth plans to convert the property to an energy hub with solar and other forms of green energy. Brookhaven GOP Chairman Jesse Garcia noted that it was a previous Democrat administration in the town that wanted to raise the landfill height by 55 feet and made a deal to accept sludge from New York City, both of which were blocked by the Republicans.
"Do they want someone who makes crazy proposals that are unrealistic, or do they want someone who's going to govern carefully and sensibly with a common sense approach to government?" Romaine concluded.
"It all just goes to the same point if you want to save communities like a prosecutor, and if you want jobs and affordability, elect a business person," Wolfe said. "If you're happy with corruption and tax hikes as usual, feel free to go with the career politician."
The candidates are vying for Suffolk's top elected post and would be limited to serving three four-year terms. The job pays $234,124 per year. The Republicans are looking to occupy the county executive seat for the first time in 20 years and hold on to the majority in the county legislature, which they have wrested back from the Democrats over the last few election cycles.