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newyork

News 12 Staff

LIPP128B_2024-12-08-11-55-50

Welcome back. Suffolk County is pumping the brakes on its red light camera program. The Red Life program has ended. Yes, goodbye and down. It goes. Suffolk legislator Rob Trotta, just one of the lawmakers proudly saying goodbye to the 14 year old program that gives tickets from red light cameras to Suffolk drivers. Don't you know it, the county is about 100 of them. They've generated an average of $39 million a year. Critics say the cameras did not prioritize safety. The program does continue in NASA but now the cost of a red light ticket is going down there. NASA was tacking on an additional $100 in administrative fees which a court ruling found illegal. The ruling would have also affected Suffolk voters in Suffolk also passed prop two last month. Now the county sales tax will go up by an eighth of a penny to create funding for waste water and clean water treatment projects. Legislator Shada was one of the people against it arguing that the county already has the funds needed. This is nothing more than developers trying to overdevelop and make Suffolk County into Queens. Make no mistake about it. We have the money we need to manage it more effectively. And Suffolk will now have funding for clean water projects to according to that fund through 2060 joining us right now to talk about all of it is the Suffolk County Republican legislator Rob Trotta. Good to see you, Rob. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for having me. Let's talk red light cameras. First. You've been talking about this for years. How did it feel to push that sign over and say this thing is done? It felt great, but rest assured we're not against, we want people to get tickets if they run red lights. Unfortunately, that wasn't happening in this situation. 95% of these were just not stopping on a right on red and just rolling through sort of the equivalent of driving 57 on the Long Island expressway and a ticket would come out of your dashboard. This was nothing more than a money grab. This was to balance the budget. It ended in a kind of strange way. There was talk of, you know, will a senator carry it to get new approval at the end of the day? Kind of just lapsed? Do you think we've seen the end of it for good? As far as I'm concerned, we've seen the end of it for good. It's not a good program. It was horrible. And the reality is if the four or five or six people who ran a red light dangerously during the day. Got a ticket. We'd be ok with that, but it wouldn't fund the camera program. It wouldn't be profitable. So that's why it, it was a, it was a scam, it was a scam from the beginning and it's really no different than the school bus cameras program. What about this ruling? Now about the fees that had been attached to the red light camera tickets? Do you think Suffolk County could have to pay tens of millions of dollars in back fees to people who had to dole out these administrative fees? Not only do I think they, they will, I think they should because we told the Republicans told them early on this fee was illegal. You see, n county just eliminated their fees when this was put in place by the state of New. It was only supposed to be $50. But guess what the prior County executive Malone got himself involved in contracts. He couldn't afford to pay. So, what did he do? He put these fees on the same thing with the sewers, um, lawsuit that's going on. He knew he was getting out in 2024. So he knew these lawsuits would take after that. I feel sorry for county executive Romayne. He's left holding the bag. Well, the county's left holding the bag now trying to figure out where or how to balance his budget. This is a significant amount of income that's going to be uh, no longer in the mix. How do you think the county deals with it? Well, fortunately, inflation solved that problem because our sales tax revenue increased greatly. And the fact that we lowered the fee by $30 last year, we only budgeted a small amount this year and we didn't budget anything for next year because we knew we were gonna kill it. Prop Two, you had been outspoken against it. Um, at the end of the day, it did pass. What do you think that means for the future of the county? Ultimately? You know, opponents say clean water, improving wastewater technology. How could you be against it? Well, guess what? I was against it. And here's the reason we already have a quarter cent sales tax that's been diverted. We took $200 million. We didn't alone took $200 million out of the clean water fund to balance the budget. He diverts $40 million a year from that fund into the general fund. And then with the remaining money, he started people paying people paying, paying people's salaries out of it. So the money was there, the money still is there. This is nothing more than a ploy by developers to, to overdevelop Suffolk County to build these apartments. And when you build apartments, you deprive young people from building equity. This is about making the rich people rich and the poor people poor. If they wanna be building, they should be building condos. Did you ever ask yourself, why aren't they building small condos? Because they want recurring revenue and, and the clean water fund, this is what they do. They, oh, it's for clean water. Oh, it's for children's safety with the school bus. They use key words that, that, that tug at your heart and say, oh, how can I vote against that? But my, my constituents are paying me to look behind the curtain and see what's really going on and what's really going on in my mind is institutional corruption. It's a very, very small group of special interests that are controlling the government. And I, I'm an outspoken critic of it and, and myself and legislator Picarello and legislator uh Trish Bergen. Well, we'll be pushing for this forward and we're gonna expose all these things. Well, you have a year left before you're term limited and your time in the legislature will come to an end. You have seen it with a democratic county executive, Steve Bolo, who you mentioned Democrat m majority in the legislature. Now it's completely f flipped. You've got remains a Republican republican majority. Um This could be your opportunity to do something about all these things you've been calling out. Do you think you'll have support? No, I don't because it's about institutional corruption. The people listening to this don't contribute to politicians. It's, it's big business. It's, it's unions, it's developers. Those are the ones who control the legislature. I'm sorry. It's the way it is. It's the, it's the nature of it. You know, I'm fortunate. I don't care. I have thankfully, and by the way, I'm a union guy. I give a pension. But guess what, I'm looking out for the little guy, I'm looking at the guy who's paying these people's salaries. I don't want people, young people stuck in a $3500 a month apartment and never be able to afford something. I want these developers to build a condo that's somewhat affordable, maybe small that they can gain some equity and move on. We are killing the American dream in Suffolk County and I'm gonna try to stop it. We have about 20 seconds left. You've got another year legislature, but have you thought about potential public service after that? You know, I've, yeah, honestly, I think about maybe going work for the das office and come back and arrest some of the people that I'm dealing with because when in my old job, guess what? I used to arrest people, you know, for taking large sums of money then doing something for it. Apparently it's like legal bribery here in politics. All right, we're gonna be watching all of this legislator Shana. Good to see you as always. Thank you so much. Thank you and still to come on power and politics. A new sewer project to revitalize downtown Central Islip is complete. It will help make life easier. For business owners in that area. Stay with us.

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LIPP128C_2024-12-08-12-02-43

Welcome back. A Lawrence mother has been fighting to save lives for years and now change may be finally on the horizon. In Nassau County, Georgina Carnego joined NASA leaders to unveil a county bill that would require NASA police vehicles to carry epipens and provide officers with training on how to use them. It's in memory of her 14 year old son Geo who died from an allergic reaction in 2013. Geo's law was passed by the state legislature in 2019 and was modified to allow larger counties like Nassau and Suffolk to adopt it. NASA lawmakers hope to approve it later this month. A $12 million project is now pumping new life into one Suffolk community. 321, a brand new sewer system is now complete in downtown central Islip. Officials say this project to replace wastewater infrastructure will make it so businesses along Carlton Avenue won't have to rely on individual septic systems and they say that means the project is vital for the growth of the downtown area. If you don't have the sewer connection available, you can't get the wet usage, you can't get the restaurants, you can't get buildings over two stories and that project was paid with by paid for rather with funding from a town of Islip downtown revitalization project concerns from neighbors in Wading River over a proposed cell tower in their area did not sway the Riverhead town board. It voted unanimously in favor of the tower which will stand 200 ft tall next to the firehouse. Neighbors believe it violates zoning laws. The fire district though says it is needed to improve radio communications for fire police and other emergency services. There is a need for improved communication but the cell tower does not have to be here. We are down in the valley if you will of Wading River, that's where we have the biggest problem. And fire officials also claim the tower will increase the cell signal in the area which they say often drops out entirely near the station. Action is being taken to help minority owned businesses in Nassau get an equal shot at county contracts. A recent study shows that more than 90% of the county's contracts went to white male business owners between 2015 and 2019. So to change it, the county started using an electronic certification process and is reaching out to more minority and women owned businesses. Some lawmakers believe the work is only beginning. We have to correct that wrong by having hearings, policy changes, a task force and honestly having a separate entity being responsible for this right now, less than 10% of county contracts go to minority owned businesses. The county wants to change that to 15%. It's all the time we have this week. We'll see you again right here next week for another edition of News, Fells, power and politics. I'm Rich Barab. Have a great rest of your day.

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Rep. Anthony D’Esposito on his future in politics and Legislator Rob Trotta on the end of Suffolk County red-light camera program and the passage of Prop 2 - this week on Power & Politics. 

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Power & Politics: 1:1 with outgoing Rep. D’Esposito; Trotta on red-light cams, Prop 2 passing

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito on his future in politics and Legislator Rob Trotta on the end of Suffolk County red-light camera program and the passage of Prop 2 - this week on Power & Politics.

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