Editorial: Time For Real Democrats To Stand Up

If you are a registered Democrat in the Town of Huntington you need to mark the date of September 10, 2015 on your calendar.  That is the date of the Democratic primary.  It is the first time in many MANY years that Huntingtonians may be able to elect a candidate that is not connected to the establishment.  You will have the opportunity to vote for two out of four candidates. Two of the four candidates are not, and more than likely will not be controlled by the establishment.

That is significant because if the right individuals are selected in the Democratic primary it is more than likely that there will be no establishment candidates with any major party lines on the ticket for town council race in November.   That’s extremely exciting.  You can base your decision on what the candidates stand for rather than who is the least corrupt.

That is huge.  It is huge because it is the first step in seeing the cycle of corruption; cronyism and abuse of power finally begin to unfold. Don’t get too excited, you can only have an impact locally and it won’t break up the cronyism in our judicial system or county but at least you can affect change in your town.

How?  Well first, there may finally be a chance of our council members appointing individuals to various boards that are more concerned with the residents of this town than protecting their fellow cronies.  The ZBA, HHA, CDA, Ethics Board to name a few are all manned by politically connected individuals who hold a multitude of positions throughout this town, it’s Hamlets and Villages.   They are not concerned with doing the business of the people, they are concerned with doing the business of the establishment.

Another HUGE problem is that most (The Huntingtonian excluded of course) of the small local papers are controlled by the current town board members.   This is because some individuals are employed by the town and run the local paper as well. Most of the small local papers survive by the legal notices that they are awarded by the town board and would go out of business without them.  It’s hard to bite the hand that feeds you.  Needless to say The Huntingtonian does not receive any money from legal notices.

The cronyism and corruption runs deep and it is more than most people’s brains can absorb although we have and will continue to try to explain it. The only way to combat it, even in a small way is to elect candidates that are not a  part of the inner circle.

Here are your choices (see if you can figure out who you should be supporting):

Susan Berland, who we will describe as an establishment crony, has been in her seat since 2001 and either never had or at some point lost her genuineness.  She often behaves in public in a way that most people would find inappropriate and has a warped sense of entitlement.  She has proven to have a lack of concern for certain parts of town.

Keith Barrett is a longtime crony of the local Democrats in power.  He is such a “yes man” to the establishment that some insiders tell us the cronies want him even more than Susan.  Susan is concerned about Susan.  They believe that Keith will be concerned with the party establishment.  After all, he politely waited his turn when Tracy Edwards found dirt on the party and jumped in line ahead of him.

William Naughton – After 26 years as the Town’s Highway Superintendent he never became a party insider and they hated him for it.  Some may feel that he is too old for the job but we there has been many elected officials that served in their 80’s including current members of Congress.  As newspaper editors, the only town departments that always complied with FOIL requests is the Town Clerk’s under the direction of Jo-Ann Raia and the Highway Department while Naughton was there.  He often called the town board out for ethics issues. It would be fun to watch Frank (Petrone) and Mark’s (Cuthbertson) expressions if they had to sit on the dais with him at Town Board meetings.

Andrew Merola –One of our Editors recently sat down with Merola to find out more about him. You will be reading the full interview soon but she described him as the Democrat counterpart to Councilman Cook.  He is anything but a “yes man” and is not seeking the nod from the party to run.  This is probably a good thing because he would never get it anyway.

So, what can you do?  Well, the least you can do if you are a registered Democrat is to vote on September 10, 2015.  If you feel compelled to affect change, then reach out to Andrew Merola and William Naughton and offer to sign their petitions.  The other two will have lots of help from party insiders and town employees that were politically appointed.

If you want to take it a step further, you can offer to host a “Meet and Greet” or make a donation to their campaigns.

In the last democratic primary out of a potential 44,000 registered democrats, only approximately 3,400 bothered to vote.  It won’t take many new votes to decide the election.

If you are from School District 3 or 13 or from Huntington Station and you feel that you are treated unfairly by this town board, this may be your one chance to be heard.  BTW, if you are from School District 3 or 13 and you don’t feel you are treated unfairly, you have not been paying close enough attention.

Also read: https://thehuntingtonian.com/2013/10/16/editorial-will-the-real-democrats-please-stand-up/