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Suffolk County executive candidate Ed Romaine discusses the issues facing Suffolk County. 

Long Island

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I'm meteorologist Rich Hoffman, hyperlocal weather forecast. We've had some chilly weather conditions. The last 24 hours we had some snow yesterday. So the cold weather still out there with a high of 39 degrees, kind of mostly sunny to a mixture of sun and clouds. And then tomorrow mostly sunny some afternoon clouds, a high of 48 degrees and we're looking at some fifties heading towards the weekend. So a little bit of that warmer weather coming our way after the deep chill the last 24 hours, you can see feels like temperatures have been in the twenties out there for this afternoon. So cold weather running errands leaving work bundle up. You have the cold numbers, the rest that say feels like temperatures in the twenties. The evening rush hour will be dry with a temperature around 34 degrees in corm 31 at 8 p.m. and down into the twenties when you wake up tomorrow morning. So we have one more morning of the cold weather, wind chills around 20 degrees and you can tomorrow afternoon in Riverhead at one o'clock, it's around 47 degrees sunshine, dry conditions, so some nice weather with that warm up coming away on Thursday before we start to see some wet weather for Friday, a few clouds around four this afternoon, that mixture of sun and clouds, it's breezy and it's cold and you can see now we're dry today. Tomorrow, we're looking at some nice weather. Thursday afternoon, temperatures will be in the mid forties. Some clouds come in Thursday night. And then by Friday morning, we're starting to see more clouds developing not as cold Friday morning. And then for your Friday afternoon, highs will be in the fifties tracking some wet weather. Now, Friday evening, some showers coming in and they're gone rather quickly. It's about a four hour window of some wet weather highs today are in the thirties. It's sun and clouds, it's cold twenties. Four tonight. Fifties. By the time we get towards Friday now, wet weather, more rain, Sunday into Monday.

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Weather

ED ROMAINE THUMBNAIL

Extended interview: Suffolk County executive candidate Ed Romaine

ROMAINERAW

All right, Ed. So, uh first off, why did you decide to get into the race? Uh because I think the county needs uh some guidance and directions. I've run Brookhaven town now for the last 11 years, the largest town in the county, there was an opening. I was encouraged to run. I thought about some of the issues and I'm excited. What are the big issues to you this year? I think affordability, public safety, clean water transportation. These are key issues in this county when you look at affordability. The first thing people yell are taxes, but it's more than that. What would be your approach here to try to fix this place more affordable, particularly for young people trying to stay here. Well, the first thing you want to do is take a look at your tax structure. Uh Right now we tax energy. So when you get a home heating, fuel delivery or natural gas or propane or you get your uh lipa bill, we tax that. We're one of the few counties in the state that does that, that we should take a serious look at because that's a very regressive tax that falls hardest on people with limited income. The other thing is in Brookhaven Town, we give a 10% tax reduction to anyone that serves their fire department or ambulance company for more than five years. I think that should be expanded to the County General and County police tax as well because that's a tremendous incentive to encourage people to join their fire department. The ambulance company who are volunteers, things like that, initiatives like that to make it a little bit more affordable. I think the county has to work with not for profits, to build affordable housing for the young, particularly for our veterans. So I am very interested in doing that. How about in terms of public safety? It's always top of mind for public safety. We have a number of vacancies that we're being taxed for in the police department. For example, there's 51 detective positions that everyone's paying taxes for that have been left vacant that hurts checking out, you know, the who the criminals are tracking them down and holding them accountable for their crimes. We need to have those positions filled, we're paying for them. So why not fill them? Look, I've been endorsed by every police organization, every law enforcement organization in this county and beyond. So there's a reason for that because I've been a supporter of public safety initiatives, uh, in terms of water quality, you've been a supporter of that as well. But, you know, uh, it's been a, a battle to get this through the Suffolk legislature. How do you think this moves forward? I think it moves forward. It's I had the same problem when we came to the Comm River preserving the car river in Brookhaven Town. Before I came, there was a twoyear debate. Nothing happened. I came in, we put together a coalition. We in six months, we preserved the entire Commons River without transferring development rights, just preserving it straight out. It's one of the reasons that most of environmental organizations have endorsed me, including New York State League of Conservation voters. I have always been a strong supporter of the environment and will continue to be if I have the good fortune to be elected county executive. And then lastly, where do you think you and your opponent differ? Because on a lot of the, there's overlap in, in where you stand, whether it be water quality, public safety, et cetera. I think my opponent differs because he took the working families line which talks about the funding the police, which talks about uh cashless bail and clean slate for felons. I disagree with that. He now has changed his position but he took the line. And that is if you run on a, on a party line, you usually adhere to their positions. OK. Anything else you want to add? Uh I would encourage everyone to vote. We live in a democracy. Democracy only works. If people participate, please come out and vote. County executive election is an important one. County legislators, town positions are up. Your local government has more impact on your life than what happens in Albany sometimes. Definitely what happens in Washington. And hopefully, we don't have the chaos that's happening in Washington or Albany. Because I have to tell you in my town, we all work together regardless of political party. It's important that we put our communities first and the people that live in them. And I think that will be true when I, if I have the good fortune to become county executive, to work with our county legislators to get the things done, including clean water, sewers and things of that nature.

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