Kevin Peterman distributes the FA document "College Stats and Faculty Facts" during a political screening with county Democratic legislators, including Majority Leader DuWayne Gregory. (photo by Dante Morelli)

Next Tuesday is Election Day, and we need to make sure we support County Executive Steve Bellone and the candidates running for election or re-election on November 3.

As we do every two years we have reached out to our 50,000 fellow New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) colleagues who work in Suffolk County and asked them to support the candidates we have endorsed. We have a structured endorsement process in which the FA’s Political Action Committee (list of members below) screened and educated the candidates. We make it clear to the candidates that in order to receive an FA endorsement they must appear before the PAC to be screened. During the screening we discuss our issues regarding the college budget, capital projects and labor issues.

As Sean Tvelia and Dante Morelli point out in this issue of The WORD, we use our VOTE/COPE funds—which consist of the voluntary contributions many of you make—to support our PAC in advocating for the college and the FA. We mail endorsement letters to our NYSUT colleagues in many of the districts encouraging them to support our candidates. We make the connection that the county executive (CE) and the county legislature are similar to their local school district’s school board: the CE proposes both the college and capital budgets every year and we negotiate our contract (collective bargaining agreement, or CBA) with the college and the county director of labor relations who works for the county executive. The county legislature votes on these budgets every year and has final approval of our CBA.

The FA PAC conducted a political screening with county Republican legislators (from left) Leslie Kennedy, Kevin McCaffrey, Tom Muratore and Rob Trotta. (photo by Dante Morelli)

As shown in our list of endorsed candidates below, seventeen of the eighteen candidates we endorsed are incumbents. The 2nd Legislative District (LD) is an open race because our long-time supporter Jay Schneiderman has served six two-year terms and has reached his term limit. Therefore he cannot run again for the legislature. We screened both candidates running for Jay’s seat and have endorsed Bridget Fleming in the 2nd LD. Jay is running for supervisor of Southampton, and we wish him well.

Over the last two years all of the sitting legislators have supported the college and in May 2014 they unanimously approved our CBA, which is in effect until August 31, 2019. In addition to the mailings mentioned above, we will be utilizing NYSUT’s robocall operation and will

FA members who walked the 6th District on September 19 in support of Sarah Anker (third from left) include, from left, Cynthia Eaton, Tim McHeffey, Katelynn DeLuca, Jane-Marie Wright and Maureen Arma. (photo by Roger Clayman of LI Federation of Labor)

make calls to some 20,000 NYSUT members living in districts where there could be some close races.

So please vote on November 3 and support our candidates. We need to support candidates who support us! We need to remind friends and family that local elections matter. We are stronger when we work together and we need to work to elect candidates who support education and the needs of our student and faculty.

ACTIVISM WORKS!

FA Endorsements in the 2015 Suffolk County Elections