Additional reporting by Katie Watt  Facing yet another round of state budget cuts, Stony Brook University took the drastic step of announcing that by summer’s end, the Stony Brook Southampton campus would no longer operate as a semi-independent college, leaving the school’s 500 students to find a new university by the fall.  “Everything will [...]

So, it’s that time of the year again: Election Day has come and gone, and its time for politicos of all stripes to analyze — and spin — the results. As an “off year” with few state races and no federal races other than special elections, 2009 leaves us with relatively little to talk about. [...]

Democrat Mark Lesko emerged from Tuesday’s special election with an overwhelming and surprisingly large victory over Republican counterpart Tim Mazzei for Brookhaven’s town supervisor.

Polls closed at 9pm, and within an hour Mazzei was offering his concession speech while Lesko supporters were keeping close tabs on the official numbers, celebrating only after the last district reported its numbers. In the end, Lesko defeated Mazzei by over 4,000 votes, or roughly 11% of the more than 14,000 residents who voted.

Special elections typically see a greatly diminished turnout, usually about 10% of the turnout for regular November elections. But both campaigns invested heavily in canvassing, and the turnout surpassed 14%, still low but historically higher than in other similar elections.

Higher turnout was not the case at Stony Brook, where fewer than 100 students voted. Of the 93 that did vote, 87 cast their votes for Lesko.

At the Lesko campaign headquarters in Farmingville, Suffolk County Democratic Committee Chairman Rich Schaffer and Brookhaven Democratic Committee Chairwoman Marsha Laufer thanked several organizations, including many local union chapters, for helping over the last 90 days on the campaign trail.