Here are the candidates in Tuesday's race for the 17th district of the Suffolk County Legislature:
ROBERT S. COOK, REPUBLICAN
BACKGROUND: Cook, 45, of Melville is making his first run for elected office. A real estate development investor, Cook is chairman of the board of directors of the Plainview Fire Department, where he has been a volunteer firefighter for 23 years. He is also a critical-care emergency medical technician and was an on-the-scene responder to the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks and the 1991 Avianca air crash. He is a 1984 political science graduate of Binghamton University and has a bachelor’s degree in fire service administration from Empire State College.
ISSUES: Cook wants to use the county’s $150-million surplus to provide tax relief and wants to eliminate “hidden taxes” such as the mortgage tax. He also said the county should fill job vacancies that taxpayers have funded, such as 911 operators. He opposes Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to give driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants and advocates planning to ease traffic at the new Tanger outlet in Deer Park.
LOUIS D’AMARO, DEMOCRAT
BACKGROUND: D’Amaro, 46, of North Babylon is also running on the Conservative, Independence and Working Families lines. An attorney specializing in commercial real estate, D’Amaro is seeking his second term in the legislature, where he chairs the Ways and Means Committee. Before his election he also spent a decade as a member of the Babylon Zoning Board of Appeals, seven of them as chairman. He was an aide to County Executive Steve Levy when Levy served as a county lawmaker. He is a graduate of Stony Brook University and St. John’s University Law School.
ISSUES: D’Amaro touts property tax cuts in the county’s general fund and keeping the police district taxes below the rate of inflation. He said he also backed an initiative to hire more police recruits than Levy wanted and backed a measure to keep sex offenders away from schools, playgrounds and day care centers. He also backed a bipartisan reapportionment commission.