Schiavoni Wants To Follow in Thiele's Footsteps

Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni, 61, who has been in public service his entire adult life, has his eyes set on replacing longtime 1st District Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. in Albany.

A Democrat, Schiavoni said he was honored that Thiele had endorsed him but acknowledged that filling his shoes would be a tall order.

“With the amount of experience that he has, local knowledge, municipal knowledge, he has served the East End of Long Island well,” Schiavoni said.

Thiele, who is stepping down at the end of this term, has had the advantages of seniority and serving in the majority, Schiavoni said, adding that he is also chairman of the important Local Government Committee. “Anyone who gets elected is going to be a freshman assemblyman,” he said.

Schiavoni, a retired social studies teacher in the Center Moriches School District, served on the Sag Harbor School Board and the North Haven Village Board and Zoning Board of Appeals before serving a stint on the Southampton Town ZBA. From there, he has served two terms on the Southampton Town Board.

A top priority if he gets elected will be the establishment of an advisory committee for the Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund that would weigh in on proposed purchases with money from those funds. A bill sponsored by Thiele passed in the last session and is currently on Governor Kathy Hochul’s desk.

In the past, Schiavoni said, the East End “had the good fortune of having the author of the bill,” Thiele, available to provide a measured opinion on various proposals.

Another priority for Schiavoni is to “maintain and grow the funding” for local school districts.

He noted that school districts in the 1st District tend to be on the small side. “Because of the housing crisis, we are losing young families and losing students and may be in danger of losing funding for our schools,” he said.

Getting the legislature to fund the line in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s five-year capital plan that was designated for expanding Long Island Rail Road service — specifically the South Fork Commuter Connection — will be another priority, he said.

“If we had more train service, we would certainly have more commuters,” he said, noting that about 400 people take the commuter trains each morning now with only limited service.

Schiavoni’s Republican opponent, Stephen Kiely, has made the issue of deporting illegal immigrants, especially those who are found guilty of crimes, a central point of his campaign, saying if elected he would seek to have the state end its “sanctuary” status.

But Schiavoni said immigration is a federal issue that is not germane to the Assembly race.

“It’s the purview of the federal government, and I would call on our national legislature to make comprehensive immigration reform a priority,” Schiavoni said of the issue.

He pointed out that “immigration law has not been changed since Ronald Reagan was president,” and criticized Republicans, who, he said, “spend more time campaigning on it than actually trying to solve it.”

And he added that as a member of the minority party in the Assembly, Kiely would face “quite the challenge” to get any legislation passed, let alone immigration reform.

Schiavoni said he would rather focus his attention on issues that he can do something to solve, including the pressing need to address water quality. “Both surface and groundwater are quite literally the lifeblood of who we are here on the East End,” he said. “There is no viable alternative.”

He said state funds would be needed for everything from the fitting of Suffolk County Water Authority wells with filters to remove emerging contaminants to addressing pollution caused by effluent. “There are some areas where IA systems make sense,” he said, “and others, where you need a sewer district like the one we created in Riverside.”

Southampton Town has received $45 million in grant money that will allow it to provide sewer lines to three mobile home parks. “This is a high price tag,” he said, “but it’s 150-year infrastructure.”

Schiavoni said he would continue to work on farmland preservation and helping Long Island’s commercial fishing fleets at the state level. He noted that the Town Board has purchased a number of farming properties that in the past would have been turned into subdivisions, and he said the board had purchased the Hampton Bays commercial pier from Suffolk County and poured millions of dollars into refurbishing it.

“These are legacy industries, and it’s important to help them,” he said.

Coastal resiliency is another issue affecting the East End, Schiavoni said. “Climate change is real and we are feeling the effects of it firsthand. The state is going to be an important player in how that is going to work out in conjunction of with local governments.”

He said the state would play a role in helping fund the strengthening of infrastructure, replenishing shorelines, or retreating, if necessary.

Schiavoni said he is a proponent of building affordable housing and pointed to a number of steps Southampton Town has taken, including no-interest loans for accessory apartments; first-time homebuyer assistance; and the purchase of affordability easements.

“I believe the local government, village or town, are the entities that should be deciding on housing and how housing is laid out in their communities,” he said, while adding he supported a community’s right to sign on to the governor’s “Pro Housing Community” program, which would open the door to state grants, but which Kiely has criticized, saying it would allow the state to overrule local zoning laws.

“We have done a lot of different things to address housing,” Schiavoni said. “I wouldn’t want anyone to think we are going to build our way out of this because that is not going to happen.”

Schiavoni, whose wife, Andrea Schiavoni, is a Suffolk County Family Court judge, has two children and lives in North Haven, where he was born and raised. He said he was proud of the many endorsements he had received — including Thiele’s — and promised to represent the district well if elected.