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Image provided by: East Hampton Library
FOURTEEN THE EAST HAMPTON STAR, EAST HAMPTON, N.Y., SEPTEMBER 15, 1977 Warhorse Offers Views A warhorse of Suffolk politics and government, Lester Albertson, is re tiring as County Clerk with a distinct view of what government has become: “too big.” Whether it’s Federal, State or Coun ty government, it’s “grown out of all proportion,” Let Albertson was saying last week. It has been caused by a mix, said one of Suffolk’s longest surviving Republican public officeholders, of people demanding “government do everything for them” and many bureau cracies developing and becoming en trenched. “The cost of it all is beyond what the people can stand,” Mr. Albertson said. Only Town and Village governments, he feels, have “remained constant.” After The War Mr. Albertson began his long distance run in public office after World War Two, during which he was a master sergeant and head of a tank section of “mechanized calvary” which at “high speed,” he said, raced through France, Holland, and Germany. Born in Southold in 1918 (in the house next '’oor to the one in which he now lives car ’ me after the war and took over h. ate father’s retail food business—in the family since 1840—and, as was also the family tradition, got into politics. “Why, two of my ancestors with long beards were Town Supervisors . . . we’ve always been involved in politics,” said Mr. Albertson, who started as a Justice of the Peace and became Town Councilman, Supervisor and, nine years ago, County Clerk. Party choice in the family has much to do with parental influence. “I became a Republican because my father was a Republican,” said Mr. Albertson simply. Things could have been different if he was the son of either of his father’s two brothers. “He’s Mine” They were Democrats “because their father was.” But Mr. Albertson said his paternal grandmother was a Repub lican and upon the birth of the third boy, “she said, ‘He’s mine. He’s a Republican.’ ” Mr. Albertson was on the County Board of Supervisors as it headed in the middle and late 1960s toward disbandonment in favor of a Suffolk Legislature. The County Board was composed of the Supervisors of each of Suffolk’s ten Towns. This, it was decided, was in violation of the United States Supreme Court’s “one-man, one-vote” edicts. A Legislature, of 18 members representing new Districts of equal population, which were laid out, was created. “It’s a tremendously expensive type of government for the County,” said Mr. Albertson. He said he would have preferred to see the County Board remain, but with the Supervisors’ votes becoming “weighted” based on their Towns’ populations. “The old Board of Supervisors got more done for less money and was closer to the community than the Legislators are,” he said. Nassau The Board had been advised that weighted voting would be seen as “illegal,” said Mr. Albertson, “but Nassau County has been doing it and getting away with it for years.” In hi§ days in office, too, the County went (in 1960) to a County Executive form of government and he also has misgivings about this. He thinks it might be better to have an appointed “County manager” who would “take the direction of the County Legislature or County Board of Supervisors” rather than an elected County Execu tive. Now, the Executive and Legisla ture are each “dreaming up their own projects.” Mr. Albertson says he hasn’t been impressed by the rhythm of most government. He said he sees himself as a “businessman,” preferring “to do things today, not three months from now.” He has operated the County Clerk’s office \as a business,” he said. “We used only $3 million and made $30 million for the taxpayers last year,” he said, “this year it’ll be $35 million.” The Clerk’s office, in Riverhead, is charged with issuing and preserving vital records in Suffolk. Yellow Pads “When I came here,” he was saying, “they were still using pens and pencils and yellow pads writing things down.” Now, he said, records are computerized and bookkeeping automated. Suffolk has gone through intense population growth and development in the post-war years and Mr. Albertson believes “our West End neighbors were too late to get into . . . planning and zoning.” He feels Towns’ “adhering to master plans, keeping their zoning up” is crucial if what is still “unspoiled” is to be saved. He also stresses the County’s farmland preservation pro gram. What is his secret of political longevity as Democrats have made steady inroads in recent years into what had been traditionally Republican Suffolk? The principal reason for GOP de feats, Mr. Albertson feels, has been some Republican figures themselves. “Public officials should be satisfied with the salary they get and not involved in other things” like “land deals and selling zoning,” he said harshly. “I’ve always kept away from it and I never made the papers and never lost an election, and I think that has a lot to do with it.” He also cites Watergate as a factor for GOP losses locally and nationally. Ups and Downs But, “each party has its ups and downs,” said Mr. Albertson, and “the Republican Party will come back,” he said. He pointed to the controversy sur rounding President Jimmy Carter’s budget director, Bert Lance, and declared it would do “no good” for the Democratic national administration. Of New York’s Democratic Gover nor, Hugh Carey, who has a vacation home on Shelter Island a ferry-ride from his hometown, Mr. Albertson said he’s “known” Mr. Carey for almost 40 years. The Governor, he said, was a private with him in the 101st Cavalry Regiment. Mr. Carey “worked in the maintenance shop as a parts procure ment man,” said Mr. Albertson. “I slept in the next bed to his.” And, he happened to find in his desk a photo of the Governor, in a notably undistinguished pose, “in the woods of North Carolina in 1941.” He declined to give a judgment on Mr. Carey, the politician, but clearly didn’t envision him while in the Army as a leader of men. Peconic County Let Albertson is a supporter of creation of a new Peconic County out of the five East End Towns. Separation of the eastern Towns from Suffolk “has a great deal of merit,” said the County Clerk. There are “two different lifestyles” in the two areas. “We’re more or less rural,” he said, while west Suffolk “is real suburban living, smaller lots and more people, and industry. Our only industries are agriculture, resorts and fishing.” Mr. Albertson will after Jan. 1 become chairman of the board of the Southold Savings Bank, with which he has been associated as a board member for 22 years, he said. During that period, he added, he refused invitations to join the boards of commercial banks, which government might use to deposit public monies. Karl Grossman Let Albertson: It’s a Tremendously Expensive Type of Government. . . Karl Grossman
