No committee chairmanship for Solages in Assembly; Bynoe, Martinez get Senate slots

Daily Point

Mixed fortunes for LI on legislative panels

The State Assembly’s announced committee chair list, unveiled Thursday, had a disappointing surprise for Long Island — a name that wasn’t there.

Assemb. Michaelle Solages had hoped for a committee chairmanship — and as of earlier this week, Long Island advocates were hearing that she was going to head Corporations, Authorities & Commissions — a powerful panel that, among other things, oversees the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Her name was included in press reports speculating about Assembly committee leadership positions. And local MTA board members and advocates were excited, hoping for a Long Island voice on the Long Island Rail Road, capital funding needs and more.

But Thursday morning, the Assembly committee chair list came out — and Solages’ name wasn’t on it. Queens Assemb. Edward Braunstein, whose district covers northeast Queens and includes Long Island Rail Road territory, was named the committee’s chairman.

Long Island did get two other committee chairs, as Assemb. Charles Lavine will head the Assembly’s judiciary committee, and Assemb. Steve Stern will head the veterans committee.

An Assembly spokesman did not return calls for comment. But the decision not to name Solages, who will remain deputy majority leader and the elected chair of the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus, disappointed Long Island advocates.

"She is a fantastic legislator with an outstanding future, and we’re disappointed she didn’t get a chairmanship, but she is ... a strong voice for all of our issues in the region," said Suffolk County MTA board member Marc Herbst, a former assemblyman who once served on the corporations committee. "I think it’s been evident that when we lack the leadership ... that we have seen the inability to provide the results in transportation. So, it’s a disappointment."

Herbst said he has already reached out to Braunstein to connect on MTA-related issues.

Solages told The Point that she is "committed to making a difference in the lives of New Yorkers."

"Leadership is about what we accomplish together, not about titles," she said. "I look forward to collaborating with my colleagues to drive meaningful change and continuing my work as deputy majority leader to champion the issues that matter most to our community."

The move comes just weeks after Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins vetoed the five-year MTA capital plan, leaving its future uncertain and likely up for discussion during the legislature’s budget process.

As for the State Senate, Long Island’s only two Democrats each have chairs. State Sen. Monica Martinez will head the local government committee, which addresses municipal government needs along with special districts, industrial development agencies and more. Newly elected State Sen. Siela Bynoe, meanwhile, will chair the body’s libraries committee. Bynoe told The Point she also will serve on the mental health, consumer protection, environment and conservation, education, and investigations and government operations panels — along with transportation, which often works with the Senate’s corporations committee on MTA- and transit-related issues, too.

That may leave Bynoe as one of the key voices for the region during the upcoming MTA capital plan conversations.

"It’s important to Long Island’s ridership and to the economic sustainability of the region," Bynoe said. "I’m more than ready to dig in and get granular on it."

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Going nowhere

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Reference Point

Local delivery

The best stories, it is said, are local. That’s been a guiding principle for Newsday’s editorial board since the paper’s inception in 1940. And it’s evident in a random perusal of the archives on any date in the paper’s history.

Go back 78 years, for example, to Jan. 9, 1947, when the board was advising in a headline, "Look at Patchogue!" Nowadays, such a cry references the village’s smart downtown development. Back then, the topic was parking meters, a concern all across rapidly developing Long Island. Various "traffic laden villages," as the board called them, were considering the "experimental installation" of meters, of which the board approved.

But the rollout was going badly in Great Neck Plaza, where an increase in parking violation fines produced "irate citizens" who wanted the fines cut. Merchants were "wondering if the meters may not be working against them instead of for them." In Patchogue, on the other hand, meters had been operational for a month and "the general public attitude toward them is favorable."

The difference, the board decided, was municipal courtesy. Patchogue police were giving drivers a grace period of 10 minutes after their meter expired before writing a ticket. If you stopped for "five minutes" to get a newspaper or pack of cigarettes, the meter was free. The board advised the apparently zealous Great Neck Plaza police to "ease up a bit" on their summons-writing, predicting that the metering plan "can win public as well as police approval if it is properly put into effect."

One year later, on Jan. 9, 1948, the board weighed in on what it called a "hot little tempest" captured in the Shakespearean question: What’s in a name?

A lot, as it turned out, for William J. Levitt. Back then, Levitt was in the midst of building America’s first suburb, in an area long known as Island Trees. The name, the board related in a piece called "Something About a Tree," came from "a clump of virgin forest that from a distance resembled an island in the broad, flat stretch of treeless potato-land around it."

By then, Levitt had built 1,200 of his "smart, small rental homes for ex-GIs" with another 4,000 to be added in 1948, which the board vigorously applauded.

"But somebody’s fulsome gratitude got the better of his judgment," the board wrote. "Mr. Levitt was sold on the idea of changing the name of Island Trees to ‘Levittown.’"

After supporters of the idea announced that "a polled majority" of Island Trees residents approved of the name change, opposition quickly rose in Island Trees. Petitions were circulated. Meetings were held. The board noted that after many residents backed Levitt’s quest the previous year for a building code variance to speed construction, it would be wise for Levitt to "return the favor, in the interests of peace and good will."

“’Island Trees’ is a nice, euphonious name, and already famous. Why change it any more than the name of Arkansas?" the board wrote.

The board and protesting residents lost that battle, of course, and the community indeed became Levittown. But the name "Island Trees" lives on in one of the local school districts, formed in 1902, five years before Levitt was born. It began as a one-room schoolhouse and by the beginning of the 1945 school year, still had only 23 students. By 1950, thanks to Levitt, the school had 965 students in grades K-8.

In the ensuing years, Island Trees has stayed in the news, as have disputes over downtown parking, now mostly controlled by apps, just two of the many local stories that have defined Long Island.

— Michael Dobie michael.dobie@newsday.com

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