Steve Bellone is New Suffolk County Executive

    In other words, he wins the hornets nest as William Lindsay, the Presiding Officer of the Suffolk Legislature puts it. Time will tell how much of a honeymoon he has but maybe not as much as in better times when the county hasn't faced the budget issues it faces today.

    Bellone, the Democratic Babylon Town Supervisor defeated Republican Suffolk Treasurer Angie Carpenter, who was seeking to become the first female county executive on Long Island  57-42 (Today's Newsday, pg A2)
  
   http://libn.com/2011/11/09/bellone-elected-suffolk-county-executive/

    Many complain about vicious mudslinging in American campaigns, this one was free of that, where both candidates focused more on getting their name out there than attacking their opponent. Bellone largely ran on his record as Babylon Town Supervisor to argue he will do more of what he did there: according to him that's holding the line on taxes, eliminating wasteful government spending and making county government more business friendly. As a liberal Democrat of course I'm happy he won(his is not my county, I'm in Nassau) yet can't help but notice that this platform of his sounds very much something that any conservative could more than accept.

    I also can't help but notice that where he did try to attack Carpenter it was on her failure to cut social spending and that she supposedly raised taxes. Of course this is Long Island where to run a campaign and not speaking out against tax hikes regardless of party just isn't done.

  The real question is what he does when gets to the Big House. The time for a honeymoon may well be short. He will right a way have to make a decision on the budget. Outgoing County Executive Steve Levy recently suggested a budget that would initiate 710 cuts out of a total of 10,000 Suffolk County employees-7.1 percent with no new tax increases. The Legislature, led by Presiding Officer Lindsay along with Minority Leader John Kennedy (R-Nesconset)  came up with a bipartisan proposal that would cut only 88 county jobs- .88 percent: is this a lot or a little? Obviously it seems small in comparison- while raising police property taxes to their statutory maximum allowed by the state of 2 percent.

   For the original story please see http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2011/11/whoever-wins-is-walking-into-hornets.html

    The question is where is Bellone gonna be-closer to his predecessor or the Legislature? Both he and Carpenter were noncommittal that at this point we don't really know.