Contentious Southeast town races come to a close.

By MARCELA ROJAS
THE JOURNAL NEWS


(Original publication: November 4, 2007)
SOUTHEAST - Dozens of accusatory mailers have flooded mailboxes. Phones have rung repeatedly with troublesome robocalls. Personal attacks have fomented community dissension.


On Tuesday, the election process that has consumed Southeast for months will end once voters decide on the contest for supervisor and Town Board.


The three-way supervisor race features Brewster Mayor John Degnan, Southeast Councilwoman Lorraine Mitts and Save our Southeast candidate Michael Rights. Candidates running for two Town Board seats include James DiBella, Roger Gross, John Riley and Dwight Yee.


"It's been a very long race. I think people are sick of this, and I don't blame them," said Mitts, who is running on the Independence line. "A lot of us are worried about when this is over, how do we pick up the pieces and work together again?"


The Southeast town races have been fraught with political tensions. The hot-button issue of illegal immigration has largely fueled that climate, causing unrest and overshadowing other town concerns.


"When I reflect back on this season, one of the things that sticks out in my mind is how many people were alienated," said Degnan, who is running on the Democratic and Conservative lines. "At the end of the day, no one is served by campaigns that don't focus on the issues."


From the outset, Rights' SOS ticket, which includes Yee - the GOP primary's top vote-getter - seized on illegal immigration, appealing to residents' fears and frustrations about day laborers who wait for work along Brewster's Main Street. Rights, who handily defeated Mitts and Degnan in the Republican primary, charged his opponents with being incompetent in dealing with an issue that has fired up voters nationwide.


"Revitalization of Brewster and Southeast is the key to our community's future," Rights said last week when asked to comment on the election.


SOS sent fliers and made computerized phone calls claiming "illegal aliens" were responsible for bringing a violent gang to Brewster and sullying a town beach while not paying taxes. They also accused Degnan, who owns several apartments in the village, of being a slumlord and linked Mitts to a racketeering case involving trash magnate James Galante, who is under federal indictment and house arrest for alleged mob corruption in the industry. Southeast has a garbage contract with Advanced Waste Systems, a Danbury, Conn., carting company owned by Galante.


Both Degnan and Mitts vehemently denied the allegations and fought back, issuing mailers on Rights' recent run-ins with the law, including a drunken-driving charge and a foreclosure action on his Southeast home. The SOS team has run a tough, law-and-order campaign.


"SOS set the agenda. We tried to respond to their lies," Mitts said. "Certainly trying to get your own message out was not easy."


On June 30, Rights was charged with driving while intoxicated after he flipped his Jaguar on Milltown Road. A blood test taken later in the hospital showed his blood-alcohol content to be 0.12 percent, 1.5 times the legal limit. Rights pleaded not guilty to the charges and is due in court Nov. 19.


In early October, Putnam County records showed that Wells Fargo Bank filed a foreclosure action against Rights and his wife for failure to pay their mortgage since July on their Southeast home.


In a call to voters, Rights said the bank mistakenly credited mortgage payments on the Southeast house to a second home he and his wife own in Windsor, Conn.


On Oct. 18, he provided The Journal News with a copy of a $261,299.66 bank check, saying he paid off the entire mortgage. On Friday, Rights faxed The Journal News a copy of a letter from the bank acknowledging receipt of his payment.


But as of late Friday, no papers had been filed with Putnam County indicating that the foreclosure matter had been discontinued.


As of early October, SOS had spent some $128,000 on the race, with Rights lending the campaign a total of $123,500. Mitts and her Unite Southeast team, which includes Gross and DiBella, spent about $89,000 on their campaign, state filings show. Mitts and her husband loaned that committee and a second one roughly $65,000.


Degnan has spent about $11,300 on his campaign.


Recent forums attended by most of the candidates have called attention to other issues, including taxes, consolidation of the town and village and commercial development. Riley, who is on the Democratic, Conservative and Working Families lines, urged better cooperation between the Southeast and Brewster governments. DiBella said he supported smart growth and the construction of a Route 22 bypass to lighten congestion and make more commercial space available.


Gross, who has the Republican, Conservative and Independence lines, favors consolidating services in the schools and the town and hiring a grant writer to tap funding sources. Gross, a Brewster school trustee, said he would remain on the school board if elected.


Democrat Cathy Croft, who also has the Working Families line, is challenging incumbent Town Clerk Ruth Mazzei, who is running on the Republican, Independence and Conservative lines. Highway superintendent candidates are Michael Bruen, who has the Independence line, and Mike Fila, running on the Democratic, Republican, Conservative and Working Families lines. Incumbent James Borkowski is running uncontested for town justice.


In Brewster, SOS team member William Mangieri is waging a write-in campaign for mayor against village Trustee James Schoenig. Christine Piccini and Trustee Teresa Stockburger are running uncontested for two village board seats.


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