We Mark Our Ballot: Suffolk County Legislature

The 2021 elections gave the Republican Party a majority on the Suffolk County Legislature for the first time in 16 years. Eleven of the county’s 18 districts are held by a Republican or Conservative legislator; only six have a Democrat. (Another, District 5, was represented by Democrat Kara Hahn until she took a state appointment in August and vacated the seat.)

Two of those seats, District 1 and District 2, held by Democrats, Al Krupski and Bridget Fleming, represent the East End — and both will see new faces in office this November.

County politics are partisan, and that was never clearer than the County Legislature’s majority opting this year not to send to voters a referendum that would add one-eighth of a cent to the sales tax, with the resulting proceeds earmarked for new sewer and low-nitrogen septic systems. There is no more important issue in Suffolk County, and the GOP simply dropped the ball, whatever the excuse.

In looking at the two races — District 1 focusing on the North Fork, Riverhead, Shelter Island, and a northern sliver of Southampton Town, District 2 encompassing the rest of the South Fork — the proposal to jump-start the county’s response to water quality looms over both races. Not surprisingly, that helps clarify who deserves to get the opportunity to represent the region in Hauppauge.

In District 2, Ann Welker seems custom made for this moment. The Democratic Party candidate is a Southampton Town Trustee, the first woman in history to oversee the town’s water resources in over 400 years. She is a child of the local waters, and of the concern for their health: Her father, Dr. John Ralvan “Ral” Welker, who died in 2012, founded the marine science program at what was then Southampton College in 1965.

In District 1, meanwhile, Catherine Kent is a former Riverhead Town Board member who makes a good team with Welker to pick up where Fleming and Krupski left off, and perhaps to accomplish even more when it comes to the region’s water crisis. She presents a calm, reasonable approach that would be tested in county government but also could be effective on a deeply divided panel. Both women have been attending legislative meetings and are knowledgeable about the issues, and they seem poised to pressure their colleagues not just to talk water quality but act.

The Republican candidates present a strong case as alternatives: Both are qualified and have solid points in their favor. Catherine Stark, though a Republican, was Krupski’s chief of staff and has a long career of service in local government, so she could be seen as a natural to take over the District 1 seat. But her hesitancy about the sales tax proposal — hinging on how the money is divided between sewer projects and innovative/alternative systems, very much an east-west divide — is unsettling.

Likewise, Manny Vilar has a long history in East Hampton Town politics, and he offered one outstanding idea during his campaign: the creation of an East End transportation authority to take over management of local rails, buses and other transportation systems, seeking better service and coordination from systems that are ill-fitted to local needs. But Vilar’s contention that the sales tax proposal “needs more work” seems a recipe for further inaction.

Kent’s varied background in local government and in education — and often as the rare Democrat at the table in Riverhead — and Welker’s encyclopedic understanding of water issues and the region’s maritime culture are major selling points. They promise to “lead with hope,” and both women’s demeanor suggests that’s what they offer the region. On a panel that both women described as “toxic,” it would be a welcome addition.