Brookhaven's Third Council District Race is a Rematch

Looking to hold on to the seat he won in April, Brookhaven Councilman Neil Manzella is facing a rematch with his special election opponent, Alyson Bass. The 3rd District Post was up for grabs when its long-time occupant, Kevin LaValle, became town clerk.

Both candidates have been campaigning for months as they go before the voters twice this year in an election with all seven town board seats up for grabs, as well as the town clerk and superintendent of highways. There will be a change in the town's highest office with long-time Supervisor Edward Romaine running for county executive.

Running with Romaine at the top of the November ballot is Manzella, a Selden resident who's worked as an IT specialist with the William Floyd and Longwood school districts, as well as the Middle Country Library. Manzella, one of six Republicans that make up the seven-member town board, also worked at the Suffolk Board of Elections and with the town Assessor, where he said his skills in Internet Technology enabled him to bring some efficiencies to the office.

"When I started going door-to-door in my first election, I found that residents were most concerned about getting their roads repaved," Manzella recounted. "We don't have any coastline in the Third District, except Lake Ronkonkoma, if you want to count that as a beach, so people go to the many pocket parks that we have. So if you asked me what my top three priorities are, I'd say number one is paving, number two is probably paving, and number three would be taking care of the parks, and mix that in with some development issues," the candidate said.

Manzella's opponent did not respond to numerous requests for information about her campaign and turned down an opportunity to discuss the race with the South Shore Press Editorial Board. According to a blurb posted on the Brookhaven Democratic Party's website, Bass said she "is an attorney with 17 years of experience advocating for others and meeting the needs of my community." She's had a law practice for over 15 years, and during this time, she "worked with both large property developers and managers on multimillion-dollar transactions and also with single parents who were struggling with everyday needs."

A father of two, Manzella stated, "My job is completely reactionary; I rely on the public to bring the information to us so that we can then react to it. While it's great to help put out fires here and there, I want to be more proactive to avoid the fires from starting in the first place." 
He said he was criticized for attending a press conference with his fellow Republicans on the Suffolk Legislature calling for the hiring of a special legal counsel to provide options on the migrant crisis. "This is something that could potentially affect my district and the town, and so my belief is that I'm in favor of anything proactive so we can prepare for it," Manzella said. 

The councilman noted that the Third is the town's smallest district but is the most densely populated. "It's a great little district that I can get familiar with everything going on here, the issues that are important to the residents," he said, noting that Middle Country Road and Portion Road run through the entirety of the district. "I wouldn't say it's a unique issue, but I deal with vacant storefronts and vacant commercial properties and what can happen with them," Manzella said. "So anytime somebody pitches an idea, my focus is if you're redeveloping something, I'm going to be more in support of that than new development." He added, "We don't have a basket to pick what businesses come into our district. If somebody's coming in with an idea to spend money and invest in our community, I'm going to hear them out."

Bass worked in the Suffolk County Attorney's Office, in addition to having her own practice. She is a graduate of Longwood High School, Cornell University, and St. John's University School of Law. She has been a CYO and SYAG coach, PTA mom, and Arts In Education Chair of the Suffolk Region PTA. "I see and experience the needs of our town up close," her bio says. "I understand that the little problems can be as monumental to a person as the big community problems are to society." 

The Third District encompasses Centereach, Lake Grove, and Selden and includes parts of Lake Ronkoma, Farmingville, and Port Jefferson Station, with a piece of Holtsville. The town council job pays $76,742 per year.

The representative in Brookhaven's 6th District, Councilman Daniel Panico, is running for the town's top spot on a ticket that also includes Superintendent of Highways Daniel Losquadro and Louis Marcoccia, receiver of taxes.