Candidate Profile: Andrea Stolz For Brookhaven Town Council

LONG ISLAND, NY - Suffolk County residents will be hitting the polls next month to elect several local representatives.

In addition to local town and village races, residents should look into who will be running to represent one of the 18 legislative districts in Suffolk County. This year, Election Day falls on Tuesday, November 5.

In anticipation of the big day, Patch asked candidates in the contested races to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles as election day draws near.

Andrea Stolz, 52, of Patchogue is running for election to Brookhaven Town Council.

She will be challenging incumbent Neil Foley (R) for the District 5 seat which consists of Blue Point, part of Lake Ronkonkoma, part of Holbrook, part of Holtsville, part of Medford, North Patchogue, Patchogue, East Patchogue and Davis Park on Fire Island.

Stolz (D) and her husband John, 54, have two children ages 20 and 23.

She received her Bachelor's in English & Written Communication in 1989 from the University of Mary Washington and her Family Peer Credential from Families Together NYS in Coordination with Columbia University.

She has worked as a Family Peer Advocate in children's mental health for the past 10 years.

Check out Patch's full Q&A with Stolz below:

Patch: The single most pressing issue facing our community is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

Stolz: We need to address financial and environmental problems around the town landfill, slated to close in 2024. This closure will result in a 30 million dollar shortfall in our budget and begs the question: what will happen to our garbage after the landfill shutters? I would work to create an intergovernmental task force to explore how Brookhaven can establish bench marks to move toward a zero waste goal. I believe that establishing zero waste as a goal will benefit our environment and the roads our waste would otherwise get shipped out on, while also telegraphing to businesses that Brookhaven is a forward-thinking region in which to set up a business. Elements of moving toward zero waste will include re-establishing a robust recycling program with weekly glass, paper and plastic curbside pick-up, community outreach and education in order to examine consumer patterns, incentivizing zero waste retail offerings, diverting wet garbage into anaerobic or home composting to reduce the waste stream and implementing pay-as-you-throw pricing for garbage pick up. The alternative to this would be to send our ash off-island to landfills up-state or out-of-state. This will result in an increase in our taxes to pay for carting and tipping fees, and will negatively impact both our environment and our already-battered roads.

This landfill is also an environmental and quality of life issue for the surrounding community, including the students and teachers of Frank P. Long School. Resident concerns need to be addressed with regard to odor and better control of off-gassing needs to be explored.

P: What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

S: I plan on being a full time council person that responds to the needs of all the communities I represent, from East Patchogue to Lake Ronkonkoma. Our current council person has a full time job as a pharmaceutical representative. As a result, he is challenged in attending local civic meetings and he and his office have a reputation for being unresponsive to resident requests. Brookhaven is facing complex issues with regard to housing, our aging population, our economy, and our environment. We cannot simply continue to employ "tried and true" solutions or kick our problems down the street for another election cycle. We need someone who will work to solve our problems. We deserve a better return on the $200,000 in tax money that we currently spend on salaries for our council person and his staff. We deserve full time council representation.

Additionally, I promise to have someone who is bilingual on my staff, in order to better understand and meet the diverse needs of our community.

P: If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)?

S: The town has no plan in place to bring back glass recycling, address our looming garbage crisis when the landfill closes in 2024, or create housing that is affordable for young people just starting out or those working in minimum wage or caregiving fields. We spend more than almost any other locality in the country in order to educate our children and then lose that investment when our young adults move away from the region. Without these young adults in the regional work force, businesses are going to find our region unattractive and continue to move elsewhere, shifting an ever-larger portion of our tax burden onto homeowners. Without a clear plan for retaining more of our young people in the region, the town is contributing to problems that will only become more intractable.

P: Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

S: I am deeply concerned about affordability, particularly with regard to housing for young people and seniors on Long Island. I support Suffolk County's efforts to create transit oriented development with mixed use housing hubs, however I think that the rental prices for apartments in developments like the Ronkonkoma Hub are still too expensive for people on a fixed income or people just starting out. I think that expanded use of accessory apartments where the homeowner continues to use their house as a primary residence could help both of these populations: rents could be more affordable for young people and seniors could use rental dollars to offset their tax bills so that they can stay in the communities they have helped develop.

I am also concerned about the quality of our water. Nitrogen loading that contributes to algal blooms, a growing problem, occurs primarily from our outdated septic systems, but also from runoff from lawn fertilizer. Town government could use the Holtsville Ecological Center as a model for designing and creating green spaces that use native plants and move homeowners away from fertilizer hungry lawns. The town can also partner with the county and the state to support and remove obstacles toward replacing aging septic systems with nitrogen exchange septic systems.

Finally, for town government to be responsive I believe that it should represent the values and voices of the community it serves. As a woman, as a wife of a veteran, as a parent to a young adult on the autism spectrum and another with an autoimmune disorder, and as a care coordinator for both of my parents as they aged in place in their home, I can bring all of those perspectives to town decision-making. As a full-time council person I will make sure that residents voices are heard in town decisions.

P: What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

S: As a family peer advocate in the Suffolk County mental health system, my job was to answer the phone when people called, sit with them while they explained their problems, link them to community resources and help them navigate systems. I also helped create educational programming, taught classes, organized community outreach events, and sat on committees that identified obstacles and implemented solutions to the challenges our families faced. A town council person does all of these same tasks, just for a broader population.

P: The best advice ever shared with me was ...

S: Find your tribe. One person can be ignored. Five people united in a common cause? Are called a committee.

P: What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

S: I have been married for 30 years to a Navy veteran and together we have raised two young people in Patchogue that we are very proud of, one on the autism spectrum and another who lives with an autoimmune disorder, both now in college. I am and have always been a hard-working, everyday resident, just like the constituents I seek to represent. During the ten years my husband was active duty in the Navy we lived in all four corners of the United States, and through it all, I said, "I want to go home to Long Island. I want to raise my children near their family." I am proud to be a native Long Islander and I am committed to staying here and working on the complex challenges our region faces because this is my home.