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Ed Romaine and David Calone are going head-to-head to lead Suffolk County.
News 12’s Rich Barrabi asked the tough questions and held both Suffolk County executive candidates accountable in a debate on Tuesday night.
Further Coverage: DEBATE BREAKDOWN: Where the Suffolk County executive candidates stand on key issues
Heated at times, the back and forth was an eye-opening dialogue, informing the voters where Romaine and Calone stand on the issues. There are two issues in particular that News 12 did additional digging into.
Calone stated, “The idea about developing around a community college, I have actually done that elsewhere; I have proposed that here, you can go to suffolkforward.com and read my proposals.”
This isn’t exactly true. While there are extensive housing proposals on the Democrat’s website, nowhere does it mention developing around community colleges.
The campaign responded saying, “Dave's robust plans for affordability and opportunity, linked on his website, include exploring what county land that can be re-purposed for workforce housing, including land around the community college. Dave has been talking about this idea with stakeholders since last year. Creative and actionable plans are what voters can expect when they elect a businessman as county executive. We're glad that Mr. Romaine likes the idea, too, but after 40-years in government, it would be nice if he had some plans of his own to bring to the table.”
Romaine stated, “We don’t take NYC garbage.” This isn’t exactly true, according to a source in the DEC, the Brookhaven landfill does not take municipal waste. However, they are allowed to take construction demolition and nonhazardous ash from New York City. His campaign responded saying Brookhaven Town does not accept NYC garbage and does not have a contract with the City of New York to accept waste. Supervisor Ed Romaine committed to not accepting NYC sewer sludge at the landfill under his tenure and has never accepted this material.
