Most of you are probably not aware that there was another significant special election going on in New York State today. Back in November, Democrat and Brookhaven Town Supervisor Brian Foley beat longtime octogenarian State Senator Caesar Trunzo to give New York a Democratic majority in its State Senate.
Today, Brookhaven, located in Suffolk County, on Long Island, had a special election to fill the town supervisor role Foley vacated. To give you some perspective on the significance of this election, Brookhaven is the town of 450,000 people. That's a figure comparable to the smallest states in the union. If you include its submerged lands, it is also the largest town in the state of New York. It is also a longtime Republican stronghold.
Today, Mark Lesko, Democrat and former federal prosecutor, beat Republican longtime town councilman Tim Mazzei (pronounced Maz-zee) to keep the chief executive position of a municipality of nearly half of million people in Democratic hands.
From Newsday:
Democrat Mark Lesko, a political newcomer and little-known former federal prosecutor, stymied Republican attempts to take commanding control of Brookhaven's town board with a stunning victory Tuesday night over veteran councilman Tim Mazzei in a special election for supervisor.
With all 294 election districts reporting, Lesko received 55 percent of the votes cast - 22,345 to 18,195, according to unofficial results from the Suffolk Board of Elections. Mazzei even lost his own Blue Point district, 108-69.
Lesko's victory allows Democrats to retain control of the supervisor position won by Brian X. Foley in 2005. Republicans still hold a 4-3 edge on the board of Suffolk's largest town.
To give you some historical perspective, Republicans have long considered Brookhaven to be their own personal fiefdom. If you wanted to do business with the town, you had to be a Republican. If you wanted to get a job with the town, you had to be a Republican. Brookhaven, or Crookhaven as it was sometimes called, was patronage central for Long Island.
Brian Foley, the previous town supervisor, was elected to office in 2005 on a promise to clean up the town. For two years, with the support of a 4 to 3 Democratic majority on the town council, he tried to make good on that promise, but in 2007 the Republicans regained control of the town council and promptly returned to their old ways. The Republican in this race, Tim Mazzei, was a longtime member of the Brookhaven Town Council.
Our new Brookhaven Town Supervisor, Mark Lesko, is a cut above politics as usual on Long Island. From his website:
Mark has served for ten years in the U.S. Department of Justice as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington, DC and for the Eastern District of New York.
He most recently served as Deputy Chief of the Long Island Criminal Division, where he ran the U.S. Attorneys Office on Long Island leading all federal investigations and prosecutions in Brookhaven. He has worked with local, state, and federal law enforcement to target corruption, racketeering and gang violence on Long Island.
Before law school, Mark was a court-appointed counselor at the Sasha Bruce Foundation, an inner-city, non-profit in Washington, D.C. that worked with at-risk youth in the criminal justice system, providing them intensive transitional services after their incarceration, including foster care, educational assistance and therapy. He was also an instructor at the Close Up Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based government studies program for high school students from every state in the nation.
Mark is a graduate of Yale University, and he received his law degree from Georgetown University Law School. At Yale, Mark played quarterback on the varsity football team.
Today is a good day for Brookhaven and Long Island. It marks another turning point in Long Island's shift from red to blue, and a great sign that the people of Brookhaven want change, not more of the same.
Congratulations, Town Supervisor-Elect Mark Lesko!