News

Town candidates collect ballot lines

Supervisor candidate Glenn Waddington and Town Board candidate Paul Shepherd recently filed nominating petitions with the Suffolk County Board of Elections to win independent lines on the town election ballot on November 8. Both already have the Conservative Party line.

Mr. Waddington said this week he’d heard from the Board of Elections that his petitions had been accepted.

Mr. Shepherd faced a technical challenge filed by Bob Reylek of the town’s Democratic Committee. Mr. Shepherd said on Tuesday that he’d been assured “by people who know” that the challenge would be rejected and his petitions accepted.

Heather Reylek, chair of the Democratic Committee, said on Wednesday that 87 of the 145 signatures on Mr. Shepherd’s nominating petition were invalid because Mr. Shepherd, who witnessed them, had also witnessed signatures for his Conservative nomination, which she said is disqualifying. He needs 74 valid signatures to obtain his independent line.

She said it was “a glaring error” and she didn’t think his petition would succeed as a result of it. “He isn’t disenfranchised because of it,” she said, “because he still has the Conservative line, so I don’t feel too awful about it.”

If the error had not been such a major one, she said, the committee would not have filed a challenge, but candidates “must do their due diligence” to follow the rules.

Meanwhile, the statewide Independence Party and the Working Families Party made Shelter Island endorsements this summer. The Independence Party is backing six candidates here — the entire Democratic slate — and the Working Families Party backed three, two of them Democratic nominees.

Supervisor Jim Dougherty, candidate for reelection on the Democratic line, won the backing of both statewide parties as did the Democratic candidate for Town Board, Ian Weslek.

The Independence Party also backed Democratic candidates Dan Fokine for Town Board and Jay Card Jr. for highway superintendent as well as the unopposed candidates for tax receiver and town assessor, Nancy Kotula and BJ Ianfolla, who have the Democratic, Republican and Conservative endorsements as well as those of the Independence Party. Assessor Al Hammond has those endorsements and the Working Families line.

If the Conservatives win second lines on the ballot, Bob DeStefano and Will Anderson — the GOP’s candidates for supervisor and Town Board, respectively — will be the only town candidates running on one line. Their running mate, Councilman Peter Reich, also has the Conservative Party endorsement.

After the Independence Party and Working Families endorsements were announced earlier this summer, supporters of her party’s candidates collected the signatures necessary to win the ballot lines, said Heather Reylek, chair of the town Democratic Committee.

Mr. Waddington calls his independent slate the Island Unity Party; he  needed 74 signatures to qualify for the ballot spot and said he had “stopped at 180” when he and his allies sought signatures.

Mr. Shepherd calls his independent slate the Local Liberty Party — a variation on the Local Liberties name he used in his 2009  race for supervisor. He said he had collected about 150 signatures.

A recent registration tally for Shelter Island still gave Republicans the edge despite steady gains in recent years by Democratic registrations. There were 819 voters registered as Republican, 779 as Democratic, 553 as blanks and 11 with no registration checked off. There were 122 who identified themselves with the Independence Party, 62 as Conservative, 8 as Green Party, 4 as Working Family and 1 as Libertarian.

In other political news, the New York League of Conservation Voters this week endorsed James Dougherty for re-election, praising him for his work as chairman of the Open Space Committee and as founding chairman of the board of the Peconic BayKeeper from 1998-2004. “Shelter Island will continue down an environmentally friendly, sustainably developed path with Dougherty as its leader for another term,” said Mitchell H. Pally, chair of NYLCV’s Long Island Chapter.