Savoring a Majority: Immigrants, taxes are issues for Steve Levy

County Executive Steve Levy may not have been up for re-election this year, but with the political makeup of the Legislature hanging in the balance, he had a lot on the line. Clearly, he sees the Democrats' victories in 10 of 18 legislative races as his own.

"We targeted five legislative races and won four of them," Mr. Levy said last Thursday during a visit to The East Hampton Star. The one the Democrats lost was in the Second Legislative District, where the incumbent Jay Schneiderman of Montauk beat a former Levy aide, Tim Motz.

Mr. Schneiderman does not fit the mold of the classic Republican, but nonetheless has voted to override Mr. Levy "95 to 98 percent of the time," the county executive said. The differences between Mr. Levy and Mr. Schneiderman are no secret, but Mr. Levy said he likes the county legislator even if he has difficulty working with him.

Over all, Mr. Levy and the Democrats had a lot to smile about last week. In the wake of the elections, the county executive made the rounds of the East End newspapers, touting his accomplishments since taking office almost two years ago and painting a bright picture of the next two years with him and his fellow Democrats at the wheel.

Often county-level initiatives are felt little on the South Fork, but the South Fork has seen the effect of lower taxes and Mr. Levy was quick to point out that the East End has had two general fund tax cuts in a row under his administration. Mr. Levy, who described himself as a reformer and ran on a platform that called for making county government more efficient, came into office with a clear plan for what he would change.

"I knew exactly what I wanted to do, where the problems were, where the waste was," he said, adding that streamlining county government helped make the tax cuts possible.

He has taken less pay than his predecessor, Robert Gaffney, cut cars in the county fleet, and reassigned the three police officers who once drove the county executive's car back to the County Police Department. "Those little symbolic things added up in all the different line items," the county executive said.

He also credited himself with "revitalizing the scandalized open space program" and hiring more lawyers to handle closings on county open space purchases. "Between our finances being very sound and our environmental programs being back on track, we feel very good," he said.

On the environmental front, Mr. Levy said his administration will be the first to start weaning the county off pesticides. Here it is possible that Mr. Levy and Mr. Schneiderman could find common ground. The legislator made pesticide reduction a cornerstone of his efforts when he was East Hampton Town supervisor and has introduced several versions of a bill seeking to ban the retail sale of certain pesticides, all of which failed to pass.

Last Thursday, Mr. Levy pledged a 75 percent reduction in overall pesticide use and said the county will begin integrating biological methods to control pests. Rather than relying on spraying and ditching to eliminate mosquitoes, the county will, for example, start introducing predators that feed on mosquitoes and creating areas where those fish predators can congregate.

The county has also initiated an effort aimed at restoring 4,000 to 5,000 acres of wetlands in the next 10 to 12 years. A draft of that management plan has just been completed. "It is the most thorough study in the nation," said Michael Deering, the county's director of environmental affairs.

To help ease traffic on the county's roads, Mr. Levy said he would like to see freight shipped to Long Island by rail rather than by truck. He plans to lobby to have the money currently earmarked for a $8 billion connection from Lower Manhattan to John F. Kennedy Airport reassigned to a rail freight project.

The county is also calling on the state to take over County Road 39, where improvements are expected to cost $70 million. "It has to be done, but it's outside the parameters of the county," Mr. Levy said.

He is considering, as well, a Southampton Town proposal to use the railroad right of way as a bypass road. "I'm not sold on the concept yet, but that may be our only answer," Mr. Levy said.

The county executive has taken a lot of heat in the past year for his efforts to address problems associated with illegal immigration and the rapid influx of immigrants into communities around Suffolk.

He drew fire from immigrants and their advocates for a proposal to give county police some of the powers of immigration officers and has drawn criticism from those same groups for the county's involvement in evicting mainly immigrant workers from overcrowded houses in Brookhaven and Farmingville.

In both cases, Mr. Levy said, his administration's efforts were wrongly characterized by the media. "Some of what I've been doing is misunderstood, but when I get a chance to explain myself, I think people get on board. The vast majority are happy that someone is dealing with this issue," Mr. Levy said.

On the police proposal, "we feel very strongly that we're on the right side of the issue. We think we have a very even-handed approach." He said he "never suggested that cops be given authority to go out on the street and start checking papers."

Rather, he wanted the police to try out a policy in which, "upon arrest of an individual for a felony, we would start cross-referencing" against other lists to see if that person had previously been charged with a felony, or if they were in the county illegally and could be deported.

Despite all the protest, the county has begun to do this, he said, and "we got a lot of bad people out of the county."

Mr. Levy has also targeted contractors who employ illegal immigrants without paying workers' compensation and taxes for those employees. Such contractors "put out of business the guys who are playing by the rules," he said.

The evictions were handled by the towns, not the county, but the county did offer help. In one case, he said, the district attorney and the police department had already issued a court order directing the landlord to bring the house into compliance. "We went in there for the purpose of arresting the slumlord," he said, and found 60 people living in a 900-square-foot house.

"Upon going in, the Town of Brookhaven, accompanied by the police department, sees 60 sleeping people, sees candles, sees propane tanks. The next day, Brookhaven closed it down. What I would have done, was get the propane tanks out and say, you've got 72 hours."

He maintains that the evictions were not anti-immigrant. "The average people in Farmingville, they don't want people urinating in the backyard because there aren't enough bathrooms in the house," Mr. Levy said.

He believes the immigration system is not working and that "we've got to go back to a system that worked," when migrant labor could get seasonal passes.

"Do it in a way that's legal," he said. The county is working with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to get the flexibility to allow for more legal seasonal workers.

"We could . . . recognize that a lot of these laws are outdated, so we should fix the laws and enforce the laws," Mr. Levy said.