SOURCE:
https://www.newsday.com/opinion/newsday-opinion-the-point-newsletter-1.47870080
August 7, 2020
The postponement of a statewide vote this fall on a $3 billion environmental bond act leaves only one environment-related referendum on the November ballot for Suffolk County residents. It’s a proposal by County Executive Steve Bellone to divert about $190 million from a sewer fund to plug holes in the county’s always-creaky but now pandemic-afflicted budget.
A little background is needed here to understand the state of play. Previously, the Association of Municipal Employees, the county’s largest employee union, joined local environmental groups to force Bellone to pull a second proposal to beef up his budget. That one sought to divert at least $75 million over three years from an open-space preservation program. The union, which feared job losses if both diversion proposals were defeated in November, helped derail the second proposal after enviros said they would launch a public campaign against the proposals if both were on the ballot but would walk away from the fight if only the sewer fund diversion was up for a vote. That’s because the environmental groups really wanted to target their limited resources on getting the state bond act passed.
But after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo pulled the bond act, the question loomed: With only the sewer fund diversion on the ballot, would the local groups change their minds and campaign against it?
Short answer: Mostly no.
“We’re not going to launch an active campaign,” Citizens Campaign for the Environmental executive director Adrienne Esposito told The Point. CCE works closely with groups like The Nature Conservancy and Group for the East End. “Although if people ask us, we will tell them that we believe it’s an anti-environmental referendum. But we don’t have the funding to do an active campaign on it.”
One exception would appear to be the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, which has been an ardent foe of Bellone’s proposals and has frequently challenged his administration in court.
“The Pine Barrens Society board has to make a decision on anything involving litigation on the one hand and a campaign on the other hand,” executive director Richard Amper said. “But it’s unimaginable that the Pine Barrens Society will say we’ll do nothing.”