An Awesome Legacy

Friday felt like a moment out of time: In a partisan world, there were no political divides large enough that they could not be bridged in service of paying tribute to Kenneth P. LaValle, who will end his 44-year career representing the 1st District in the State Senate in 2020. The senator is from a different era, and in at least this particular instance that was a compliment, not a criticism. His is an era of cooperation, of service, of setting aside petty disagreements in favor of finding common ground, of aiming big but sweating the small stuff, of understanding that a true legacy is a mountain built one shovelful at a time over many, many years.

Kevin McDonald, a policy advisor with The Nature Conservancy, who worked with Sen. LaValle for many years on a great many environmental initiatives, in an interview on Friday noted that some of the projects they worked on two decades ago are still paying benefits for 1st District residents — and their children, and grandchildren. “When a person looks at their life and can say that the things they were working on are still coming to fruition, that must be extremely gratifying,” he said. “Ken is a historian. He thinks in historical terms. Ken viewed his role in a historical context. That’s an awesome legacy.”

And he still has a year to go.

At 80, Sen. LaValle can look back on a long list of remarkable accomplishments, including playing a key, or the key, role in so many sweeping measures: the Long Island Pine Barrens Act, the Community Preservation Fund Act, the STAR program. He has been integral to the success of Stony Brook University as a regional educational institution. He has made a career in education, and he was a voice of common sense on school consolidation, even though the impact of his words has been limited to a single merger.

On the South Fork, he helped rescue the former Southampton College from the scrap heap, and he has made it his mission to bolster the region’s health care system by connecting the former Southampton Hospital to the larger Stony Brook Health System. In the coming years, it will result in a new state-of-the-art hospital that would not have been built without his resolve, and his direct and passionate advocacy.

When a person documents his or her successes in life, rarely does that tally include the kind of projects and programs that bear Ken LaValle’s fingerprints — they are historic, in that they changed the landscape for decades and even generations to come. An awesome legacy, indeed.

But it was clear on Friday that the senator had a personal impact on so many people as well. He’s known as a true statesman who regularly crossed party lines to put his constituents first, and was generous in sharing the spotlight. Many saw him as a teacher, a mentor. In that way, his legacy will continue in the actions of others he touched, not to mention those he will inspire.

If any elected official has earned a “victory tour,” it is Ken LaValle. In 2020, with a reelection campaign now off the table, here’s hoping the 1st District pays him the respect he deserves. That effort stumbled out of the gate when Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni, a Democrat who had already announced plans to run for the 1st District seat, uncharitably called his announcement “long overdue” and labeled him “an ineffective leader the entire time.”

The comment is petty, outrageous and laughable. In truth, whoever follows Ken LaValle will find a well-trodden path with very deep footprints. Whoever compares legacies with him in the end will find themselves wanting. Better to use him as a guidepost and hope to get as close as you can.