In last week's column we took you on a quick tour of Long Island, stopping at Montauk, the easternmost point of this place once called Pommanauk by some of the island's earliest settlers. Pommanauk is Montauket for "fish-shaped," an apt description made by a people who never saw the island from above treetop level but could still describe the twin forks as being like the tail of the blue fish that mass in the surf off the southern shore.

Montauk Point may be the end of Long Island but it is not the furthest east you can go in Suffolk County. Remember last time when we mentioned Southold Town, one of the 10 towns that make up Suffolk? Well, if you look on nay map, it seems that Southold ends at Orient Point on the North Fork. In fact the easternmost part of Suffolk is actually Fishers Island a small spot of land near the Connecticut coast. For some reason, Fishers Island is part of Southold Town. In fact one of the town boardmembers lives there, two long ferry rides away from Long Island. There is no direct ferry service to the island for most of the year, so travelers have to take the Orient Point Ferry to Connecticut and then take a second boat to Fishers Island. Talk about commuter stress!

But we promised in this week's edition to talk more about the politics of Long Island specifically of Suffolk County.

This is a topic we will come back to many times in the future because there's a lot of politics in Suffolk and this is a big political year. Let's start at the top.

Suffolk County is governed by a county executive and a county legislature. Further, each of the ten towns has a town board and a town supervisor who acts as the chief executive of the town. This year, 1999, the county executive's seat is up for election and so are the seats of all 18 county legislators. The county executive serves a four year term and the legislators must run for reelection every two years.

This is also a town election year, Most town supervisor's face election this November and some town board seats, also called town council seats, are up for election as well. A lot of these seats will be decided on Election Day, the first Tuesday in November. Already the posturing that leads up to election has begun. Expect to see a lot more pictures of smiling politicians in your local newspapers in the coming months.

Suffolk County Executive Robert Gaffney is running for reelection. While no Democrat has yet stepped forward to oppose him, that party is beating the bushes looking for a likely candidate. Some Republicans are also looking at the seat, notably Sheriff Patrick Mahoney who is considering challenging Gaffney in a primary in September.

Things will begin to get really hot in the next few weeks as local party committees meet to consider prospective candidates. As temperatures rise, count on us at LIPS to be here to give you the full story.

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