Candidate Profile: Domenici Finds New Calling in Running for Office

If you’ve been to a meeting, a meeting or have been involved in local environmental improvement projects, you’ve most likely seen and heard Mattituck resident Marie Domenici.

Domenici, who is running on the , is known for the phrase she is sure to say at almost every meeting: “I want to be able to live in my house until I die, but the way my taxes are going, I’ll be dead in three weeks.”

A lifelong Republican, Domenici is currently in the process of registering as a Democrat. She said that it’s just time for change.

“I’ve seen government do what they do here because that’s what they’ve always done,” she said. “Sometimes you need to think outside the box.”

Keeping taxes low is only one platform issue for Domenici, a first-generation Italian-American who was born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens. After a career working for a New York City Fortune 500 company, her main political focus since moving to Mattituck 10 years ago has been environmental advocacy in roles such as a member of the Southold Town Stormwater Run-Off Committee, chairwoman of the Southold Town Renewable Energy Committee and a volunteer for the Sierra Club.

Her house is powered by solar panels, and, Domenici says she is acutely aware of the impact of the environment on human health. From her point of view, for example,over the North Fork en route to South Fork landing pads aren’t just noisy.

“It’s unbelievable how much CO2 is dropped on our community from those flyovers,” she said. “The FAA needs to take more responsibility here — there is no reason why the entire North Fork community has to suffer because of a few who have the means to come out here to retreats by helicopter.”

If elected, Domenici said she will work to ensure that each department in local government works more cohesively on a daily basis — more like the business world she was trained in. This way, far-reaching federal issues like the helicopter routes and the aging Millstone nuclear power plant — located 11 miles away across Long Island Sound in Connecticut — can be addressed more effectively.

“If something catastrophic happens here — if what happened in Japan happens here — it’s over,” she said of the “The old mentality about nuclear power needs to change.”

Domenici said that her experience working as a legislative aide for former has given her a good sense of the ins and outs of how local government works. And having lived for years in Medford, then Dix Hills, Domenici said she decided to get more involved raising awareness in local government because she does not want to see this agricultural community become overdeveloped.

She and her husband, Al, moved here simply because it’s beautiful, she said.

“We came out here every day for a week for a vacation one year and absolutely fell in love,” she said. “If you don’t get involved in your community, then nothing will happen. The farm has been taken out of Farmingdale, and I don’t want that to see that happen here.”

Marie Domenici is endorsed by the Long Island Environmental Voters, Eleanor's Legacy, Gay and Lesbian Democratic Committee, and the Long Island Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Services Network.