Romaine, Beedenbender to Face Off On Environment

The region's two candidates for Brookhaven Town supervisor will square off on Oct. 30 as a panel of regional environmentalists lead a forum discussion with the candidates about the green issues facing Brookhaven.

The event will be run by the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, a nonprofit that promotes environmental policy in the state, and will be held at the Charles Wang Center at Stony Brook University. The forum, held in Lecture Hall 1, kicks off at 6:30 p.m.

Patch has signed on as media sponsor at the event, and will be onhand to report on the forum and bring our own questions, posed by readers of Patch's Town of Bookhaven sites on Long Island.

Since former supervisor Mark Lesko abruptly announced he was stepping down in August to lead regional think tank Accelerate Long Island, Romaine, a Suffolk County Legislator, and Lesko's chief of staff Beedenbender were tapped by party heads to seek the town's top post. The campaign, however, has been quiet since the short timeline ahead of Election Day, and more established races on the federal and state level have eclipsed the supervisor race.

If Romaine wins, he would return the top job in town to the Republicans, something the party had held for decades before Brian X. Foley won in 2005. He later resigned when he won a seat on the New York State Senate.

However, Beedenbender, a former county legislator, hopes to keep the town's helm in Democratic hands.

When it comes to environmental issues in town, the fragile Carman's River Watershed District and the town landfill in Yaphank loom large, but the county's largest town has a host of issues on that front. It is the only town on Long Island that has Long Island Sound and Atlantic Ocean shorelines, and it also encompasses much of the protected Pine Barrens preserve.

So, ahead of the debate, help us gather questions for the candidates. Share them in the thread below and we'll narrow them down to a few we'll pose at the event.