Leslie A. Kennedy for Suffolk Legislative District 12
Leslie Kennedy, Republican candidate for Suffolk County Legislature District 12. Credit: James Escher
Find out the candidates Newsday's editorial board selected on your ballot: newsday.com/endorsements2023
The 12th District covers central and southern Smithtown Town eastward to parts of Centereach.
Leslie A. Kennedy, 67, of Nesconset, is a seasoned legislator who makes her way focusing on the granular details of constituent service. That’s where her best contributions can be found.
The county, she acknowledges, faces many issues with few grand solutions. “It’s little pieces that we can do at this point in time to sustain people,” she says. Ask her what’s going on in the community, where she’s out and around on familiar terrain, and Kennedy talks about practical problems such as making ends meet. She tells of the elderly woman she recently advised on accessing available services after hearing her ask at the pharmacy for only 12 pills from her 30-day prescription, with plans to save money by cutting each one in half.
Kennedy says the 12th District, where she’s seeking a fifth term, includes more low-income residents since the latest redistricting.
She has distinctive views on those daunting big issues. One is that the delay in enacting a sales-tax referendum to support the installation of new “innovative/alternative” septic systems around the county should allow the funding deal to include small 1,4-dioxane filters she says are about to be patented. But she wants more funding to go to sewers as well, a topic on which she’s been involved for years.
Kennedy sees plenty of other challenges ahead. The county’s computer-hack crisis has far from ended, with many questions unanswered and many fixes still needed to bring functions in different agencies up to speed. The Brookhaven landfill needs to close, she notes, and alternatives now are still to be developed. And the district needs more affordable and senior housing.
During the pandemic, Kennedy, who was a nurse for 30 years, spoke sensibly and logically about the workings of the COVID-19 vaccine without talking down to anyone, at a time when many constituents were caught up in an anti-vax wave. Reluctance still lingers among some residents, she says.
Democratic challenger Denis M. Graziano, 52, of Centereach, is not actively campaigning.
Newsday endorses Kennedy.
ENDORSEMENTS ARE DETERMINED solely by the Newsday editorial board, a team of opinion journalists focused on issues of public policy and governance. Newsday’s news division has no role in this process.
