Steven C. Englebright for Suffolk Legislative District 5

The 5th District covers northwestern Brookhaven Town south to Stony Brook and Terryville.

The 5th District sits with its northern border on Long Island Sound and right in the crosswinds of the region’s partisan politics. This fall it offers a unique contest between Steven C. Englebright, 77, of Setauket, a Democrat long known statewide as a leader on environmental causes, and Anthony M. Figliola, 42, of East Setauket, a Republican consultant and lobbyist seeking his first elected office.

Both are back on the campaign trail after election losses last November. Englebright was unexpectedly swept out of his 30-year Assembly seat in a regional red tide. First-time candidate Figliola ran third in a three-way congressional primary against the eventual winner, Republican Rep. Nick LaLota. The county seat became vacant in August when term-limited Kara Hahn was named Long Island deputy director for the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

The timing is fortuitous for Suffolk. The county's environmental challenges are enormous, and Englebright, a geologist, was perhaps the most influential proponent of environmental causes in Albany. Now he seeks to continue that work in the county legislature, where he’s served before. He's frustrated by the chamber's 11th-hour failure last month to send a referendum to voters to fund wastewater treatment that would stop cesspool damage to the aquifer system. Figliola says the GOP majority was right to table the proposal — which calls for a .125% bump in the county sales tax — saying more “flexibility” is needed in allocating funding between new septic systems and sewer expansion.

To encourage housing development, Englebright supports a plan he proposed years ago that would create hundreds of units around three adjacent shopping centers in Setauket. Figliola is less than specific when he calls for housing “based upon what the community wants” in a particular place, such as Port Jefferson Station.

Englebright speaks of pushing to get more equitable taxation between more and less expensive houses. On solid waste management and landfills, both candidates say regional coordination is needed to meet the challenge. But Englebright has been a legislative pioneer in recycling plastics and as sponsor of cutting-edge climate legislation in Albany; he has a sophisticated sense of how to prepare for ecological storms ahead.

In assailing the Island’s lack of affordability, Figliola offers only small suggestions to solve it, such as reducing fuel taxes and chucking red-light cameras so residents don't have to pay fines. The latter, he says, “have not increased safety to the level we would have hoped.” Figliola, who runs Empire Government Strategies in Uniondale, also evokes the rise of a “new class of citizen legislators” by citing bromides about community, family and country. He calls for thinking “outside the box” — but it’s tough to say just what new things he’d initiate.

Newsday endorses Englebright.