Election 2011: Supervisor candidates field forum questions; Dougherty, Waddington and DeStefano face off

The three candidates for town supervisor answered questions before a packed school auditorium for an hour on Sunday, October 23, in a program sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Shelter Island Association.

Incumbent Jim Dougherty, who is seeking a third two-year term on three ballot lines — Democratic, Independence and Working Families — urged the audience to keep him on as a valuable asset to the town. Councilman Glenn Waddington, running on the Conservative and Island Unity Party lines, promised civility and an end to name-calling. Republican Bob DeStefano, in his first run for town office, offered “empathy” and “a much more compassionate government.”

In his opening statement, Jim Dougherty said he “had to create budgets all the time” in his career as a corporate lawyer and top executive. He said he did “a very good job” and was “a very good team player.”

“I ran interference for my subordinates,” he said, adding that he had found municipal accounting very different from corporate accounting. “I am very comfortable with it now,” he added, and in a position to see the town through the “financial maelstrom” of the ongoing fiscal downturn.

Bob DeStefano said he’d had 50 years experience running his own business, the pro shop at Gardiner’s Bay Country Club, as well as many years as a member and president of the Shelter Island School Board. “I proposed 15 budgets. They had to be approved by the entire town, which they were.” He also negotiated teacher contracts, he said.

PREPARING BUDGETS

Of preparing budgets, Glenn Waddington said that, with 12 years on the Town Board, “I understand how it works.” He said the supervisor “sits with the department heads to come up with expenditure forecasts. “You become the budget whisperer” figuring out what the town “can live with.” He said the town needs to be run the way he runs his own household. “You don’t spend more than you make,” he said.

Asked the top three priorities they’d set if they were elected, Mr. DeStefano listed a more open government; managing the town’s waterways, with its landings “opened up”; and “this problem of the ticks and permethrin.”

Mr. Waddington said his first goal was to “keep our population diverse” and make sure seniors, working families and second-home owners all remained the key elements of keeping a “three-legged stool” steady. His second priority was water and protecting the aquifer, which requires open space preservation. Summing up, he said keeping taxes low was his first priority, which insured diversity.

Mr. Dougherty listed keeping taxes low, keeping government “open and fair” and not a “haven for cronyism,” and protecting “Shelter Island’s quality of life and sole-source aquifer” with more environmental regulation and stronger enforcement.

ENFORCEMENT ISSUE

Asked if the town adequately enforces its local codes “without discrimination,” Mr. Waddington said the town was doing “a good job.” He said the Building Department staff “may be overtaxed. I don’t see a lot of sitting around doing nothing.” He said he didn’t believe there was “a sense of cronyism on Shelter Island. “We’re too small a community for that to survive.”

Mr. DeStefano said he didn’t see a problem. Of the charge of cronyism, “You hear it constantly,” he said, but “I haven’t sensed it. It’s not a big problem.”

Mr. Dougherty said the Building Department did “an excellent job” of enforcement. “The issue lies with the Town Board. We’re much too compliant in granting waivers” from the regulations.

Asked to comment on the town’s budget and “financial situation,” Mr. Dougherty said, “I think the town’s in tremendous financial shape,” with general fund reserves “perhaps in excess of $2 million” with $125,000 added this year. He said the 2012 budget will call for a spending increase of 1.5 to 2 percent. He said the budget was “a team effort” and “a great team working together.”

Mr. DeStefano asked “if this is really hard times” and “bare bones, how are we getting so much fund balance each year?” That is the money that belongs to the townspeople, he said.

Mr. Waddington challenged Mr. Dougherty for claiming credit for the town budget over the past three years when “it is a group effort.”

Mr. Dougherty responded that it was “nonsense” to argue that the preliminary budget he is responsible for preparing “has to be the final budget.” He said he’s asked his colleagues on the Town Board to join him in foregoing a raise and his invitation has been “met with a deafening silence.”

“The Town Board members haven’t put in for a raise either,” Mr. Waddington retorted. “As for the supervisor’s preliminary budget, it is his responsibility to present an intact and complete budget. It should be something we can work from.”

“It is,” said Mr. Dougherty.

Mr. DeStefano pledged to delay any increase in the supervisor’s salary until his term in office has expired.

PROTECTING BAYS

Asked if the town’s rules needed to be revised to better protect the bays from nitrogen loading caused by septic systems and other sources, Mr. DeStefano felt the town was “doing a good job” working on new regulations. Mr. Waddington said, “We are moving in a good direction on that. It has to be done by legislation. We will do it by law not by whim.” Said Mr. Dougherty, the town faces two crises: finances and threat to its aquifer. “We’re not handling that well,” he said of the environmental issue. “We do need legislation, as Glenn said. We need enforcement. We have to do more … we have to do a lot more.”

All three candidates opposed a reduction in the term of council members from four years to two, a proposition that will be on the November 8 town ballot because of a petition drive. Mr. Waddington said the longer term was needed to assure continuity on the Town Board. Mr. Dougherty criticized him for “having your cake and eating it” because last year Mr. Waddington favored extending the term of supervisor from two to four years — a hot topic that voters soundly rejected at the polls.

COMMITTEE INPUT

Asked if the Town Board should “overrule” the recommendations of its advisory committees, Mr. Waddington said the board had “the added knowledge” gleaned from holding a public hearing on its proposals. The committees “haven’t had the luxury of sitting through the hearing.”

“I have a strong feeling for the committees,” said Mr. DeStefano. They are the experts, he added. “I’m in favor of following the recommendations of the committees.”

“I agree with Glenn and Bob,” said Mr. Dougherty. Noting he’d been the Town Board’s liaison to the Conservation Advisory Council, he said, “I’ve learned so much.” “I lean over backward to go with the committees” “but we have to make our own judgment.” He noted that he had agreed with the CAC’s recommendation to deny a new wetlands permit to replace the expired permit of Andrew Gitlin for a house on a small waterfront parcel on Silver Beach.

Mr. Dougherty said he firmly believed in the state’s new 2-percent cap on annual property tax increases. He said two councilmen were in favor of breaking it while he was not. “It’s the law of the land,” he said. Mr. Waddington said it was “very easy” for the state to mandate a cap but it would be disingenuous to endorse “a feel-good law.” He said, “We will do the best we can. We don’t want to handcuff ourselves. Nothing is ironclad.” Mr. DeStefano said the law “sounds wonderful” but it only needs a 3-2 vote of the Town Board to pierce it and, he noted, that vote was needed to pass “anything.” He said the state should “clear up some of the mandates they’re throwing down at us” before legislating a cap on tax increases.

CLOSING STATEMENTS

In their closing statements, Mr. Dougherty said he did not “intend to blow the tax cap” and that his expertise, experience and state and local contacts were assets. He asked why voters would give them up “in challenging times. Keep the old man around another two years and I’ll see you through this financial mess right smartly.”

Mr. DeStefano invited everyone to an open house at his home at 15 Dinah Rock Road on Saturday, November 5 from 1 to 5 p.m. He said he was “not afraid to make tough decisions.” He had “empathy” and would bring a much more “compassionate government.”

Mr. Waddington said he did not seek re-election as a councilman because he could better serve the community as supervisor. He pledged he would not treat voters in a “rude and dismissive manner” or tell his colleagues to “shut up” or revert to “name-calling.” He said he would treat people “with the respect and courtesy they deserve.”

AUDIENCE QUESTIONS

Among the questions from the audience was one asking if the candidates had read the town’s Comprehensive Plan. All said yes, with Mr. Waddington adding that he had taken part in its creation and Mr Dougherty said, “I not only read it; I helped write it.”

Mr. Dougherty, answering a question about efforts to preserve the causeway, said he had tried very hard to make acquisitions there when he was chairman of the town’s 2-Percent Committee but the asking prices were too high. Mr. DeStefano said the Zoning Board of Appeals should have been more “proactive” about protecting the causeway years ago. Mr. Waddington said overtures were made but the town needed willing sellers.

Both Mr. Dougherty and Mr. Waddington defended hiring Town Attorney Laury Dowd to manage the town’s compliance with the state MS4 stormwater runoff abatement program. “She’s holding our feet to the fire,” Mr. Waddington said. Mr. DeStefano said maybe someone even better qualified for the job could have been found if the position had been advertised.

Supervisor Dougherty said it was not clear scientifically that the 15 4-posters the town deployed this year and plans to fund in 2012 won’t be enough to keep the tick population suppressed. “Fifteen a year should work in certain areas,” he said, but he added he was hoping to see private funding to support an expanded program, as urged by the Deer & Tick Committee. Mr. Waddington agreed a 15-unit program was “the proper thing to do” considering the town’s budget constraints. He also favored maintaining the “culling program” for the deer herd.

Mr. DeStefano said he was concerned about the tickicide permethrin getting into the environment and would urge the state to allow controlled burning to kill ticks in fields.

The candidates were asked if seaplanes should have access to Louis’ Beach.  “Yes, but way down Louis’ Beach, said Mr. Waddington; Mr. DeStefano said no and Mr. Dougherty called it “A problem waiting to happen … I am concerned about it.”

The candidate forum can be viewed on demand at townhallstreams.com, selecting Shelter Island in the drop-down menu and chosing “town council” or navigating by calendar to the date of the forum, October 23.  Also, video interviews with the candidates appear on the Reporter website, sireporter.com. For the past three editions of the paper, the candidates’ answers to a Reporter questionnaire have been published for the highway, Town Board and supervisor races. This week’s paper features the supervisor candidates, beginning on page 4.