By Doug Miller
With pomp and circumstance -- and a little bit of drama -- the City of Long Beach installed its new City Council Jan. 1 at a ceremony at City Hall.
The historic meeting was attended by a standing-room-only crowd of citizens, family and dignitaries. Three new councilmembers, who ran on a coalition ticket of Republicans and dissafected Democrats, had upset the storied Democratic "machine" and seized control of the council. The three, Republicans Mona Goodman and James Hennessy and Democrat Thomas Sofield Jr., took the oath of office to standing ovations.
Denise Ford, the coalition's victorious candidate for Nassau County legislature, was in attendence but took office in a seperate ceremony. Ford defeated Democrat incumbent Michael Zapson, himself a former councilman.
At a special organizational meeting after the inductions, Hennessy was elected the council's president and Sofield its vice president, though by no means smoothly. Sofield was nominated by Goodman as temporary president. He received three coalition ayes, but the two remaining Democrats on the council, Denis Kelly and Leonard Remo, abstained.
When nominations were sought for president, Kelly renominated Sofield, citing his integrity, intellegence and honesty. Kelly had in fact broken ranks with his party to endorse the coalition (and Sofield in particular), which many cited as a major factor in the upset. But the three coalition councilmembers voted against the nomination.
Goodman then rose to nominate Hennessy, who had been the election's top vote-getter. He received the three coalition votes, and despite nos from Remo and Kelly, the city had itself a new council president.
"Believe it or not, what you just saw was very good," Hennessy said to the public after the split partisan vote. "This is how it's supposed to work."
The election of Hennessy and not Kelly put to bed Democratic rumblings of quid pro quo between Kelly and the coalition. The victors kept the leadership in-house, and Kelly remains part of the loyal opposition.
"I hope for the best for Jim, this council and the city," Kelly said in a statement Monday. "However, I am concerned that one political machine may be attempting to replace another. If [it] does, then all will have been for naught."
The ceremony itself was an event that defied precedent, with the city's Republican chairman, former Councilman James V. Moriarity, presiding over the fruits of a three-year struggle. The GOP hasn't run city hall in anyone's memory.
In celebration, several Republican politicians of note made the pilgrimage to the ceremony, including Rep. Peter King, who represents the city in Congress, and state Senator Dean Skelos, neither of whom visits Long Beach when he needs to raise money or count noses. Skelos, in fact, joked in his remarks that he now regrets his attempts to gerrymander Long Beach out of his district. King quipped that if he hadn't lent his name to the Coalition's literature, the slate might have won unanimously.
The ceremony's central theme seemed to be family. Sofield's extended clan of siblings, cousins and in-laws, he said, seemed to fill the left half of the room. Hennessy was sworn in by Judge Alan Beldock, grandfather of Hennessy's wife, Bonnie.
When Judge Beldock mentioned that connection during his remarks, Moriarity jumped to the microphone and said "Hey, that's Long Beach."
In that vein, full disclosure: a distant cousin of Councilman Sofield married this reporter's brother in 2002.
