By Scott Brinton
In March, he pushed his Roosevelt School District takeover bill through the Senate, which eventually staved off a possible state breakup of the ailing school system. State Education Commissioner Richard Mills had proposed dismantling Roosevelt and ferrying its students to surrounding districts, such as Bellmore-Merrick, Baldwin and East Meadow.
Parents in and out of Roosevelt decried the plan.
Negotiating with Assemblywoman Earlene Hooper, a Democrat, Fuschillo got the takeover bill passed in both houses of the state Legislature, and Gov. George Pataki signed it in April. The measure removed the Roosevelt School Board and provided $6 million to the cash-strapped district. Thus far, the takeover is reported to have restored order to Roosevelt Junior-Senior High School.
Also in April this year, Fuschillo scored what many say is his greatest triumph since taking office in 1998. He and Richard Kessel, the Long Island Power Authority chairman of Merrick, negotiated shutdown of Freeport Power Plant No. 2.
Hundreds of Merrick and South Shore residents called for the plant to close, fearing that the diesel exhaust it spewed into surrounding neighborhoods caused cancer. The federal Environmental Protection Agency labels diesel exhaust as a "likely carcinogen."
In 2001, Fuschillo became the first elected leader -- and the only Republican -- to call for the plant to shut down immediately.
According to the deal hammered out by Fuschillo and Kessel with the Village of Freeport, Plant No. 2 will be replaced by a clean-burning, gas-fired power plant that will meet modern Clean Air Act standards, while continuing to provide low-cost energy to Freeport rate payers.
Of Plant No. 2, Fuschillo said, "I came to the conclusion this was a health hazard...I always felt there was the need to close it down. I felt there was no way to clean it up."
Today, Fuschillo, 42, speaks modestly of the part that he played in both the Roosevelt takeover and Plant No. 2 shutdown. "I'm happy we were successful on both," he said during an interview with the Herald.
The senator said the Roosevelt and Plant No. 2 campaigns demonstrate his "responsiveness" to issues of concern to his constituents. That, he says, is in large part why he should be returned to office this November.
His Democratic opponent, Kenneth Dash Sr., 65, of Freeport, speaks highly of Fuschillo. "I think he's a wonderful person," said Dash.
Dash said he's running for the Senate because he believes he has reached a point in life when he can and should "give back" to the community.
Dash wants to bring affordable health care for all New Yorkers, and he wants the state to pay for it, regardless of age. He said he doesn't have a plan to finance state health insurance for all, but he said, "My gut feeling is that it's all paper. The money is there. The money is still there -- even after Sept. 11." He did say that premiums would be based on a sliding scale according to ability to pay.
He also said, "You have many people who are working poor, many immigrants. There should be open, walk-in hospitals."
Dash would like to see better accountability over how state monies are spent, and he cited the Roosevelt School District as an example. He noted that the state had provided funding for Roosevelt, but student performance only continued to languish after the district received the subsidies.
"Money was sent by legislators who are responsible [for it], but there was no monitoring, no accountability" of the Roosevelt district, said Dash.
Dash said that Democratic Party leaders had asked him to speak out against Freeport Power Plant No. 2 during the protracted battle against it. Dash, however, remained silent over the issue because, he said, "It never bothered us [in Freeport]," adding, "Because you know why? The wind blew to Merrick," sending diesel exhaust eastward away from Freeport.
Fuschillo said that, if elected, he would continue to fight for targeted tax cuts, such as the state's Star property-tax relief package.
As he has in the past, he would fight for state funding for downtown revitalization projects, such as those that have been developed in Bellmore-Merrick and Baldwin.
He would focus on creation of high-technology jobs for Long Island. Fuschillo noted that he played a major hand in developing the state's multi-million-dollar Broadhollow Bioscience Park on grounds of the State University of New York at Farmingdale. The park is quickly becoming an "incubator" for emerging technologies.
And Fuschillo said he would seek reform of the state's budget-development process. The governor and state Legislature have turned in the budget late for 18 straight years, which Fuschillo believes is unacceptable.
The senator said that one of the greatest troubles with the budget process is that the Legislature and governor rarely agree on the state's spending projections from the very start. So, this past year, he and other Republican senators proposed that the state set a date by which the projections must be agreed upon. If they are not, the budget would go to the state comptroller, who would decide on the projections.
Fuschillo, who is also running on the Conservative and Independence lines, is married with three children. He grew up in Westbury and graduated from Adelphi University. He then served as an aide to state Sen. Michael Tully and Assemblyman Michael Balboni, who is now a senator.
Fuschillo went on to become chief Nassau County deputy clerk and later chief operating officer for the Educational Assistance Corporation, a social-service agency. At the EAC, he oversaw 500 employees.
Dash, who is also on the Liberal line, has served as a Democratic committeeman, zone leader and poll inspector in Freeport. For several years, he was a paid administrative assistant to Assemblywoman Barbara Patton, who represented the 18th District. He was later campaign treasurer for Assemblywoman Earlene Hooper during the primaries.
Under Gov. Mario Cuomo, he was appointed to the Martin Luther King Jr. Commission, which decided upon state-wide activities celebrating the national MLK Day. He is now a public-relations liaison and affirmative-action officer for the Democratic Party at the Nassau County Board of Election. He is divorced with three grown children.
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5.
