Vetoed: Legislature Can't Muster Overrides for Sunday Bus Service and Sex Offender Plan

After County Executive Steve Levy vetoed resolutions in January that would have provided Sunday bus service to Suffolk residents and spread homeless sex offender housing throughout the county, the county legislature failed to get enough votes for a veto override on Tuesday. 

Twelve votes were required for an override. The bus service vote tallied 10-8 in favor of overriding the veto, while nine legislators voted to override Levy's veto of the homeless sex offender housing legislation against eight.

The Sunday bus service legislation would have raised fares for all bus riders, seven days a week, from $1.50 per ride to $2 in order to pay for the increase in service.

On Dec. 21 last year, the legislature , a private contractor that offered a new plan to house the county's homeless sex offenders throughout the county. Currently, all of them — roughly 20 — are housed in trailers in Riverside and Westhampton Beach.

However, Levy favors a voucher system, which would provide the homeless sex offenders a $90 housing voucher each day. Levy touts the voucher system as successful in Nassau County, and the CHI plan as a legal liability.

"[Presiding Officer William] Lindsay's concept of creating undisclosed sites for housing homeless sex offenders will undoubtedly wind up in court, leading to no real resolution for months if not for years," Levy said in a statement last month. "The voucher system solves this housing problem immediately."

Legislator Jay Schneiderman, I-Montauk, had proposed the legislation to expand bus service after last year' public hearings regarding MTA service cutbacks. While Schneiderman argued that Sunday service is necessary for many service class workers, especially during summer months, others said that the relatively high fare hike — 33 percent — would be unsustainable for the lower wage earners who generally rely on the bus.

"It would require a $1 increase to properly fund Sunday service," said Levy in December. "This is far too much for 100 percent of the riders to bear for a service that will benefit only 12 percent of the routes. While I support Sunday bus service, funding should come through federal and state aid, not from the working class riders."