Candidate forum draws large crowd
A lively hour of questions-and-answers with the five candidates for two seats on the Town Board may have been the highlight of Sunday’s candidate forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Shelter Island Association.
The three-hour forum also featured questions for the three supervisor candidates and the two candidates for highway superintendent.
Moderated by Abigail Field, the forum drew what some said was a record crowd for the traditional campaign-season event in the school auditorium. Some Town Board members later said it was the best attended forum they’d ever seen.
Supervisor Jim Dougherty, who is seeking a third two-year term, told the crowd he’d been “laughed at” when he had said “the days of wine and roses are over” at his swearing-in in January 2008. “The days of wine and roses remain over,” he said in his closing statement Sunday. “My town team,” including the Town Board members, the police and highway departments and others, had all “worked well to keep” spending in check. He said he had no intention of “blowing the tax cap” set by the state at a maximum increase of 2 percent in the 2012 budget.
Citing his experience and connections in government, he asked, “Why give up an asset in challenging times? Keep the old man around another two years and I’ll see you through the financial mess right smartly.”
Veteran Councilman Glenn Waddington, one of two challengers, said he could “better serve the community as supervisor” than as a councilman. He knew how to budget and knew the Island’s history, he said. “A lot has been made of budgetary acumen,” he added, referring to Mr. Dougherty’s campaign advertising, but it’s the “unions, department heads, employees” who work with the Town Board so “we come to a final figure” for the budget. “The only thing owned by the supervisor is the preliminary budget,” he said. “It’s not an ‘I,’ it’s a ‘we,’” he said, that is responsible for the final budget and the town’s fiscal health.
“I pledge to you,” Mr. Waddington concluded, not to be “rude and dismissive” or to tell colleagues to “shut up” or resort to name-calling, which Mr. Dougherty now famously did at the start of a morning budget work session last week, referring to Mr. Waddington and Councilman Peter Reich as “bobbleheads” and telling Mr. Reich to shut up.
Mr. Waddington said he’d treat everyone with the “courtesy and respect they deserve.”
Bob DeStefano, also seeking the supervisor’s job, invited everyone to an open house at his home at 13 Dinah Rock Road on Saturday, November 5 from 1 to 5 p.m.
“Outside of my wife, everyone else believes I’m a good listener,” he said, adding that he also was “not afraid to make tough decisions. If voters were looking for empathy in their supervisor and a more compassionate government, “I’m your man for the next two years.”
Complete accounts of the supervisor and highway superintendent segments of the forum will be covered in separate stories in next week’s edition due to space limitations this week. Also Reporter questionnaires answered by the supervisor candidates will be published next week; this week the five council candidates’ answers appear, beginning on page 4.
Voters can watch the candidate forum on Channel 22 or on demand online at townhallstreams.com. Also, a blog of the forum can be found on line at the Reporter website, sireporter.com, where it was live-blogged on Sunday.
Cablevision’s News 12 will televise a debate among the Island’s supervisor candidates on Saturday, November 5 at 11 a.m. and Sunday, November 6 at 7:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. The three-way debate was recorded at Cablevision’s studios on October 19.
COUNCIL CANDIDATES
Council candidates Will Anderson, Dan Fokine and Ian Weslek all said on Sunday they opposed the Town Board’s proposal to revise the zoning code’s restrictions on pre-existing non-conforming business uses in residential zones. Paul Shepherd said of the current code that the board is working to revise and clarify at the request of the Zoning Board of Appeals, “I wouldn’t change much of anything.”
The only incumbent on the panel, Councilman Peter Reich, defended the process of revising the code.
He said that “the process has been working” as the board collects “lots of input” for a rewrite of its pending proposal.
He said he favored lengthening the time to determine “abandonment” from one to two years.
ENFORCEMENT
Answering the next question, Mr. Anderson said the town “could be more vigorous” in its enforcement of the town code but the Building Department is “overburdened” and that he wanted to be “very careful we don’t give our rights away creating new laws.”
Mr. Reich said he had campaigned for election in his first run for office opposing legal restrictions but “things change when you get in office … Things start coming at you.” Mr. Shepherd said the laws were being enforced “quite aggressively” despite misconceptions to the contrary and Mr. Fokine said there has been “unbalanced enforcement” with some constituencies “feeling preyed upon.”
CODE, CAUSEWAY
Asked if the town code successfully balances public and private rights with the safety and welfare of the community, Mr. Fokine said it was “a big issue” that depends on the Town Board’s philosophy and a question of “interpretation.” Mr. Reich said the code was balanced. Mr. Anderson defended the non-conforming business community and said the Town Board should not “be involved in petty disputes between individuals.”
Mr. Shepherd said the code was “quite balanced overall”; he added, “I’m not a rabid ‘rights person.’”
Of the Town Board’s proposed regulations to limit causeway development, Mr. Reich said, “I think it’s just about right … It’s as restrictive as we can get without it becoming a take.”
Mr. Fokine favored the proposal’s notion of a separate zoning district just for the causeway and Mr. Anderson said the proposal “was as restrictive as you can get” without risking lawsuits that could leave the town “holding the bag” by having to purchase the property. Mr. Weslek commented that the town was doing a good job regulating and preventing development.
According to Mr. Shepherd, the only way to prevent development on the causeway is to “own it.” The current effort to determine how much of it is wetlands will determine the lot yield and the price, he added. “It’s the only way if you want to sleep at night,” he said.
FINANCES, BUDGET
Asked about the town budget and financial situation, Mr. Shepherd said it was a problem that the budget had doubled in the last 10 years. There are mandates and “constant pressure upwards,” he added. The budget, as it was first proposed, “was missing some pieces … It will be more realistic” when the Town Board revises it. Meanwhile, there are “politics going on.”
Mr. Reich said department heads had done “an excellent job” keeping costs down. Mr. Weslek said the Town Board was “doing a fantastic job” keeping taxes low. In Mr. Anderson’s view, the budget review process “is a little convoluted and hard to follow,” which creates a lot of “rumor.” He said a preliminary budget “probably shouldn’t even come out” before it is corrected and revised. Mr. Fokine said the town had to address the issue of “our expectations for government” programs and services and that volunteerism was crucial; Mr. Shepherd noted simply that a budget that goes up seven percent a year doubles every decade.
TOWN HEALTH BENEFITS
Mr. Weslek was asked about current salaries and benefits for council members: $35,000 plus 75 percent of the cost of health insurance (85 percent for those in office in 2004 or earlier) or a 100-percent stipend in lieu of coverage, as well as full health care for retirees after 10 years on the job. The candidate said he had been surprised to see the numbers after he had bought a copy of the budget. They “need to be renegotiated,” he said, because the rise in health insurance premiums is “ridiculous.” He said it was “fair to ask employees to pay into the system.”
Mr. Reich said he had been on the Town Board that changed the minimum service for lifetime health coverage from five to 10 years and cut back 100-percent coverage for active employees. “We made progress but there’s more to be done,” he said.
Mr. Fokine said simply that service on the Town Board should be a “civic duty” and salary and benefits shouldn’t be important to a councilperson. It was “unethical,” he added, for the Town Board “to have anything to do” with setting its own salary. Mr. Anderson commented, “I’d love to have free health insurance for the rest of my life” but that was “not tenable for Shelter Island … I’m not interested [as a councilman] in supporting health insurance after 10 years.”
Mr. Shepherd has “lived without health insurance for 20 years,” he said, so he said it was “better for him to take the stipend than pay half” the costs of coverage.
CONSENSUS AS A GOAL
Ms. Field’s last question for the panelists was whether they’d strive for consensus or be “an independent voice” on the board. All except Mr. Shepherd said they’d seek consensus.
“We try to work as a team because it’s for the good of Shelter Island,” Mr. Reich said. According to Mr. Weslek, the job was “about talking and working as a unit.” Mr. Fokine said “being able to function in a group” was the “main job description.” Mr. Anderson said he’d be an independent voice “on occasion” but that consensus was “more important.”
“I have to go with the independence thing,” said Mr. Shepherd after the others had answered. “I’m not known to argue for the sake of it” but staking out a position on the issues was important. “I didn’t go into this to fight with people; it just turned out that way,” he said.
4-POSTER PROGRAM
Among questions from the audience, there was one asking candidates if they supported a bigger 4-poster program.
Mr. Fokine called the current program “a tragedy of bureaucracy over common sense” and it should be only a small part of a tick-control plan that includes burning, a practice that was halted by the state DEC. Mr. Anderson fully supported the program. “Tick diseases aren’t fun,” he said. Mr. Reich said he wished the program could be expanded “if we had the money” and Mr. Shepherd said the 4-poster program has “much improved” the tick situation. “I’d really like us to find the money” to expand the current program. Mr. Weslek also favored an aggressive 4-poster program and suggested that every homeowner association on the Island raise funds among its membership to pay for expanding it.
