Mary McCaffery is running for a council seat on the Oyster Bay Town Board on the Democratic and Working Families Party Lines. McCaffery, a longtime resident of Bethpage, said her community involvement and innovative ideas make her well suited for the position.

McCaffery said she is running for the town board for several reasons. She said that in her experience of being out in the neighborhood campaigning, she has heard several complaints from Oyster Bay Town residents about the planning board, receiving permits and certificates of occupancy and the zoning board. In addition, McCaffery feels that the town board does not help taxpayers as much as it should and that it takes too long to get things accomplished.

McCaffery, a member of the Bethpage Chamber of Commerce, noted that she also ran into problems with the town in regard to the railroad station in Bethpage. She said the chamber has been attempting to beautify the area around the train station, especially since the US Open is coming to the Bethpage State Park next summer. In addition, she cited several safety issues concerning the railroad station that need to be addressed. McCaffery said that once she and fellow chamber members approached the town board regarding a clean-up project and safety issues concerning the railroad station, they received no support.

"If you want to generate corporate support, especially federal and state monies, you need to have some backing from a government source," McCaffery said. "People in the chamber care about the town, they wanted to get some money to improve the look of downtown."

She said that those personal experiences, including others she had heard about from her friends and neighbors, made her decide to run again. McCaffery ran for town board before in both 1995 and 1997.

"Bottom line, I really think it's time for a change. We really need both Democrat and Republican representation," McCaffery said. "It's pretty clear in Nassau County especially and also in the Town of Oyster Bay, which is not as visible, that one party rules. If you have two [different] opinions then you'll have some dialogue and you won't have such control from one party."

McCaffery added that overcrowding is becoming a large issue throughout the town. She said that there has been too much development with too many houses expanding, leaving areas throughout the town with few places to bring their children to play. She mentioned some areas near her neighborhood, where one house used to stand now have two houses.

"I care about the community. I've lived here (in Bethpage) for 38 years and raised my family here. We've lived here all our married life and my husband taught in the schools for 40 years," she said. "You see these changes creeping in and it's disturbing. The other thing that's disturbing of course is the cost of living here which is going up higher and higher."

McCaffery said that while taxes may not have increased, the amount of debt bestowed upon residents has increased and that debt is going to fall to the next generation. In addition, she noted that the town has several bonds to pay. She added that while the town's budget appears to be balanced, she does not think that the state aid the town anticipates will come through.

"That's not fair, (having the debt fall on the next generation), it's hard enough to get started without having such a large debt," she said. "Right now, the state is spending a lot of money on the recovery efforts at the World Trade Center and what we anticipate in state aid is probably going to be diminished. But the state aid is in the budget which shows that the budget is in balance. There's no provision for less state aid than you anticipated."

McCaffery said she has been very involved in her community. In addition to being a member of the Chamber of Commerce, she has also been a soccer coach, class mother and involved in Cub Scouts when her children were younger. She is also one of the founders of the Bethpage St. Patrick's Day Committee, of which she was the grand marshal last year, helped establish Walk About, a home for homeless young men (ages 16 to 19) which was open for 25 years before closing down due to the county's budget problems. She was also on the Family and Children's Association Board for 25 years and is involved with the Institute for Student Achievement, which provides low functioning children with support services. In addition, McCaffery is a member of the Bethpage Community Council and the Bethpage US Open Committee.

"All of these programs were initiated by the people of the community and then the government came on board to supplement the cost of operations," McCaffery explained. "So you have a public/private partnership, a public/private initiative, and I think that's the way things are supposed to work. Government is supposed to be there to serve us, to be our advocate."

McCaffery, who holds a masters degree in nonprofit management currently devotes her time to the Society of St. Vincent De Paul, which runs seven homes for homeless people. The organization has 1,200 volunteers from all over Long Island who help people locate jobs, rehabilitate and find their own places to live once they make enough money.

"Things happen and people's lives fall apart but I'm grateful that we have places like St. Vincent De Paul," McCaffery said. "The volunteers are really great and it feels so good to be able to help people. I'm happy to be [there]."

McCaffery said that her diverse background in community service makes her a well suited candidate.

"I think that I bring a very different background in working with communities at different levels, in the human services, in the arts and business. I think I bring a diversity that no other candidate has and I think it's important to have diversity," McCaffery said.

"We're headed for some really serious difficult decisions and times and we have to rely on the resources within the community to solve these problems. The big thing is balance on the [town] board," McCaffery said. "That would help bring balance to town issues; and a woman's perspective wouldn't hurt."

McCaffery lives with her husband in Bethpage. The couple has six children, who were all raised in Bethpage, and 10 grandchildren.

"There's a lot of wonderful things here," McCaffery said of the Town of Oyster Bay, particularly noting the beachfronts as a great asset to residents. "There's a lot of beautiful areas and they're being gobbled up. You see all these things that have come up from the grass roots level to improve the quality of life here," she said, adding that support from the town board is crucial in bettering the quality of life for town residents. "I'd like to see those things continue."

Democratic Town of Oyster Bay candidate David O'Brien wants to see the Town of Oyster Bay restored to the town that it once was, and, in his opinion, should and can be. If elected this November, he plans to lead the town in this direction.

O'Brien was born and raised in Syosset and now resides in Woodbury with his wife and son. Something that prompted O'Brien to run for office is his belief that the Town of Oyster Bay is no longer the town that he grew up in. "It came to the point that they were building on every square inch of land in the town, there was clearly no environmental plan and places like Cerro Wire and the Liberty Site were just totally being ignored by the Town Board," said O'Brien. "It is frustrating to me."

Twenty-eight year old O'Brien didn't expect to run at this stage in life as some felt he was too young, but he did not want to sit by any longer and watch the problems in the town get worse. "I am absolutely ready and I can make a difference," said O'Brien.

Having grown up in Syosset, O'Brien was very familiar with the Syosset, Jericho and Woodbury areas and originally O'Brien and his wife, who is from Hicksville, owned a house in Wantagh familiarizing himself with the Massapequa area. O'Brien worked very closely with the Massapequa Democratic club and got to know some of the issues there.

To enhance his involvement in the community, O'Brien holds a position as a board member of Summer Camp Opportunities Provides an Edge (SCOPE) where he raised over $49,000 to give children a chance to escape their urban surroundings and experience the benefits of camp. In addition, O'Brien is a member of American Camping Association's safety task force and the co-founder of a Christmas Fund where last year, he raised $30,000 for underprivileged children to receive gifts during the holidays.

If elected, O'Brien, who currently serves as the chief of operations for the Timber Lake Group, which is a conglomerate of Children's Summer Camps, has set three goals for himself. The first is to deal with the fiscal problems in the town, which is a big concern for O'Brien, who claims that the town's finances mirror that of Nassau County.

O'Brien has a letter from the State Comptroller's Office admonishing the town of Oyster Bay for poor budgeting practices. "Last year in the Supervisor's budget, they budgeted for $3.6 million in real property rental as well as the cell tower deal," explained O'Brien. "The cell tower deal was never signed and when it is in your budget, and the revenue does not come in, you run a short fall. It is simple math... I bet it is in the Supervisor's budget again this year and if that deal is not signed, he went from a $3.6 to a $7.2 million deficit, and that is what we know about. The State comptroller is saying that we can't do this - we can't budget for revenues when there is no contract signed. That is the information that we can actually ascertain and everything else is a guessing game with the town of Oyster Bay because they do not open up their books."

The second item on his agenda is to focus on open space and over-development. "We need to preserve our open space and we need to ensure that we are not overdeveloping the town of Oyster Bay as we have been the last five years," said O'Brien.

The third and final goal for O'Brien is to make a real effort to improve local downtowns, areas O'Brien describes as 'falling apart.' This was a topic brought up at a recent Syosset Chamber of Commerce meeting at which local politicians, including O'Brien, had the opportunity to voice their opinions and express their ideas. "People spoke about what the town is doing and whom they are working with," said O'Brien. "The problem is that the people and the storeowners in Syosset had no input in what the town is doing. I directly oversee 260 staff and I know this very well as I have learned from experience - if you hand anything top down, it is going to explode - it is not going to work. You need to get the input from the community." O'Brien suggested opening a storefront in Syosset, or in any area looking to revitalize their downtown, allowing people access to their government, storeowners and civic associations and providing a forum for input.

In an attempt to remedy the fiscal situation in the town, O'Brien looked into some town spending. "When our parks are in the worst condition that they have ever been, when our roads are in horrible condition wherever you live, except for Massapequa, when you have all of these issues and we are going out and buying fully loaded Ford Explorers for the top-level Republican employees instead of taking that $300,000 and putting it into a park - it is an abuse and it is wrong," he said

O'Brien is looking at the economy in a realistic way and anticipating that Federal and State aid is going to be diminished if not cut almost entirely due to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "What are we going to be doing to make up for that?" he asked. "This Supervisor increased spending by five percent this year even given what happened at the trade center. That is unbelievable. His budget was submitted after the trade center. He knew full well what he was doing. The last three years he raised taxes."

The events of Sept. 11 affected O'Brien personally as he lost many friends in the World Trade Center. He says the tragedy put this campaign and what it means into perspective for him. "As important as it is for me to run in this election because I want to improve the Town of Oyster Bay, a town that I love very much, it put what is important and not so important in perspective," he said. "It has affected my campaign as you don't want to bang on doors and send literature out to people who like me, lost family and friends and you want to respect people's privacy. I don't think it affected just the committee to elect David O'Brien, it affected everybody."

Energetic, young and absolutely committed to doing the job is how O'Brien describes himself. "I have no political interests," he said. "I don't need the job - I am in private business and, in fact, this probably will hurt my business, but I am doing this because I have a real love for the Town of Oyster Bay. I want to see it restored to the place that it should be and can be and every single one of the people that is on that board and those who are running all have business ties directly related to the Town of Oyster Bay and that is unacceptable. I have no ties."

O'Brien believes the same faces have been on the town board for too long. "It is the same old faces, the same old machine and the same old culture day in and day out," said O'Brien. "All that has gotten us is in the same place it has gotten us in Nassau County - deficits, environmental problems and left with faltering downtowns. I don't think the problems in the Town of Oyster Bay are insurmountable, I just think we need people who are committed to doing the job. I am committed to doing just that."

Josephine Reder, new to the political scene, is seeking election as a council member in the Town of Oyster Bay. Reder, a resident of Massapequa for 25 years, believes that her extensive experience as member and president of the Plainedge School Board would bring strength to the town council if she were elected.

Reder was a former president of the Plainedge School board for several years and a board member for 18 years. She was also a member of the Executive Board of the Nassau/Suffolk School Boards Association, where she gained experience representing a large part of Long Island at the state level. While a member of the School Boards Association, she lobbied and worked with state legislators to implement the STAR program, which currently exists in New York State today. Reder also created a consortium of local school districts to plan and share services, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars for local taxpayers.

Reder emphasized her experience negotiating contracts that have been very successful for both management and labor. "I have been involved in many win/win situations," she said. "I believe my ability to work with people across lines and to form a consensus would really benefit the Town of Oyster Bay."

The biggest challenge facing the Town of Oyster Bay today, according to Reder, is balancing the budget with limited New York State aid. "The TOB has a budget of $148 million, $8.7 million of which was supposed to come from the state. They are balancing their budget with anticipated revenue they don't have," Reder explained. "Even before the Sept. 11 World Trade Center disaster, the economy wasn't good. Right away, we weren't going to get the same aid we got from the state in the past. Now that aid probably doesn't exist at all."

Reder believes that the ability to take the budget apart is one of her strengths. If elected, she pledged to do away with the patronage jobs she claims are strangling the town the same way they are strangling Nassau County. "We need to look at all those deputy commissioner positions and determine if they are really necessary. Why do we need so many town attorneys getting salaries plus medical benefits? Why not have an attorney on retainer? Those are ways we can streamline the budget without taking away from people who are actually doing the work," Reder said.

Reder's long range plan for the future growth of the Town of Oyster Bay includes innovative ways of thinking about senior housing, as well as taking a firm stance on the oversaturation of housing that she sees occurring in the town.

Her ideas for senior housing involve converting empty stores in downtown areas to townhouses for seniors, rather than looking for large tracts of land, as is customary. This would really benefit seniors, Reder explained, as they would be living in the middle of town and would no longer need to seek out transportation to get around. "I think we could look at towns across the country, towns right here on Long Island, that have taken part of their downtown areas and turned them into affordable senior housing," Reder said. "The problem is no one is thinking beyond what has always been done. No one has a vision for what could be done."

Oversaturation of housing is another problem Reder sees as threatening the quality of life in the Town of Oyster Bay. Illegal apartments are a stress on the school districts, the environment, resources, garbage pick-up, and water supply. "We are all paying taxes," she said, "so why aren't zoning codes being enforced?" Situations in which one house is taken down and two are built on the same property are also having a negative impact on services, Reder claims.

"Mr. Venditto says the quality of life here in Oyster Bay is so wonderful, and property values have gone up so tremendously. The fact of the matter is it has nothing to do with the town. It has everything to do with the good school districts that exist in the Town of Oyster Bay," she explained. "These school districts are now being negatively affected by oversaturation of housing and illegal multiple dwellings."

Reder highlighted Hicksville, Bethpage and Massapequa as areas where the housing situation is particularly dire. "I think we need to have a certain amount of control, where if someone buys a house, they should have to live in that house, and not be able to just rent it out."

Also on Reder's platform is her plan to promote open government for the people of the town. "Mr. Venditto will tell you they have their roving town hall, and that's wonderful. But no one of any importance is inside who can make a decision or give a straight answer." Reder suggested taking further advantage of Town Hall South, which already exists in Massapequa, for town meetings.

"When I was a school board president, I started something that was very effective. We would have monthly meetings in each one of the elementary schools. They were just dialogues with the community, where everyone could learn what was going on," she said. "Older people especially are not going to travel long distances up to town hall. They want something local."

When asked why she called herself "a new and independent voice," Reder said that, as a Democrat, she is exempt from the political patronage that she sees plaguing the Republicans in government today. "If you look at the Republican Party," she said, "they have their party machine. We are not part of a machine at all. There is no money coming in, we are not beholden to anyone."

Part of her independence stems from the fact that the Democrats do not have anyone depending on them for jobs, Reder said. "Even when I was a school board president, I never promised a job for anyone. I always told potential candidates that I could get them an interview, but I could never get them a job. That's the independence I am talking about."

Finally, Reder said that being a woman would give her a unique advantage in government. "Women wear more hats than men do," she explained. "They work harder and they know how to juggle more things. As a career person, I juggle my career with responsibilities in the home. Men go off to work and they put the kids, the house, out of their minds. Women don't have that luxury."