Romaine can drive big change in Suffolk

Suffolk County Executive-elect Ed Romaine knows how local government works and how personal relationships and trust can help solve difficult challenges. He will need those skills to quickly address the myriad issues facing the county: affordability, housing, water quality, solid waste, an eroding shoreline, and recruiting and retaining talented workers in county government.

Romaine campaigned on his experience which should include a long memory of the fraught relationships prior county executives have had with the Suffolk County Police Department. Outgoing County Executive Steve Bellone, who like Romaine had endorsements from police unions, rewarded them with a very generous six-year contract in 2019. One of his Romaine's first jobs should be negotiating a new contract that will both attract and retain qualified and diverse law enforcement officials while finding operational efficiencies to control costs.

He must also find a new police chief to replace the departing Rodney Harrison, the latest in a revolving door of top cops in the Bellone administration that began with the corrupt James Burke, an insider selected after the promise of a national search. Romaine should look far to find a chief who is incorruptible and who will continue the laudable move away from the old boys networks, a change started under recent chiefs including Harrison and Geraldine Hart.

Romaine should benefit from a GOP supermajority in the county legislature, despite its lively history as a counterweight. As he promised, Romaine must revive the water-quality measure to expand sewers and replace septic systems that the legislature recently torpedoed. Part of Romaine's appeal is his focus on consensus and bipartisanship, not only in politics but with other municipal governments. In his prior roles, Romaine learned how a regional approach can accomplish big goals such as devising strategies for towns to get their solid waste off-Island and prepare for rising sea levels. Finding a way for the county and towns to share some services for roads, public health, and especially addiction and veterans affairs, could produce better results with less cost. 

In Nassau County, Republicans kept control of the legislature, as expected, and now must elect a new presiding officer. It's an opportunity to find a strong leader willing to assert the legislature's power as a coequal branch of government that will perform its oversight role. County Executive Bruce Blakeman, also a Republican, is in the middle of his four-year term, and could use help developing a more robust agenda that includes rescuing Nassau University Medical Center, appointing a credentialed tax assessor, and identifying and prioritizing aging drainage and sewer infrastructure that should be replaced. Most urgent, however, is using the money awarded the county in opioid settlement cases to battle the mental health and addiction problems of Nassau residents.

Long Islanders consistently vote for those who can work in a bipartisan way to deliver efficient, affordable and competent government services. Those promises need to be kept.