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Lupinacci Leads Insurgent Ticket In Republican Primary

Huntington Republican Brooke Lupinacci completed a break with her party leaders last week when she an-nounced she’ll challenge Ed Smyth in the Supervisor’s race.

In fact, Lupinaci, a first-term Coun-cilwoman, will lead a ticket challeng-ing all of the party’s picks for Town Board races.

Huntington Republican Committee designated Smyth as its candidate for Supervisor, and backed Councilman Dave Bennardo to seek re-election to the Council seat he currently holds.

In a cross-endorsement deal, the party also named Conservative Party Chairman Gregory Grizopoulos its can-didate for a second Council seat up in November after Councilman Sal Ferro decided not to seek another term.

Lupinacci has recently broken with her party over the recently enacted code change to allow redevelopment of a portion of Melville as a walkable down-town. The code change was backed by the remaining board members and will allow developers to submit proposals for mixed use developments that in-clude commercial spaces and apart-ments.

Lupinacci was critical of the plan saying it lacked studies and concrete plans. Smyth has argued the costly en-vironmental reviews and planning stud-ies should be produced and paid for by the developers.

Since breaking with the party on the Melville vote, Lupinacci has distanced herself from the all-Republican board, according to Smyth.

Emboldened by support from some in the Melville community who opposed the code change, Lupinacci enlisted a fellow renegade, Gene Cook, and for-mer zoning Board chairmans John Posillico to join her in a primary chal-lenge.

Cook is a former town councilman who ran won his seat as a member of the now-defunct Independence Party and then switched his registration to Republican. He often broke with Re-publican colleagues on the board.

A land use attorney, Posillico was ap-pointed chairman of the Zoning Board in 2018 after the Republicans won the majority, but was subsequently de-moted to vice chair and replaced by Gerard Asher as chairman. When his term expired he was not reappointed.

The trio has mounted the challenge unde the banner of “Save Huntington.” A website Savehuntington.com solicits volunteers and signatures on petitions.

Primary election day is June 24. The general election is on Nov. 4.