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Election Season In Huntington Off To An Explosive Start

Huntington Supervisor Ed Smyth (Left), facing a primary from Councilwoman Brooke Lupinacci (Middle), says his opponent is gaslighting Huntington voters with misinformation and “alternative facts. Lupinacci, along with former Councilman Gene Cook and former zoning board chair John Posilicco announced they had secured enough signatures to be on the primary ballot in June. North Shore Leader’s ‘de facto’ publisher Grant Lally and wife Deborah Misir (Together in Right Picture) , represented the paper at a New York Press Club awards night where the paper was recognized for its coverage of disgraced Congressman George Santos.

By Peter Sloggatt

Buckle your seat belts. Maybe wear a hel-met, even. Election season in Huntington is off to an explosive start – and that’s just among Republicans.

An insurgent ticket challenging the GOP’s designated candidates for the November elec-tion announced this month it had gathered enough signatures to get on a primary ballot.

The party-backed candidates for town of-fices have Supervisor Ed Smyth and Coun-cilman Dave Bennardo seeking re-election, and Conservative Committee Chairman Gre-gory Grizopoulos getting the nod to run for the seat currently held by Councilman Sal Ferro.

Ferro announced he will not seek another term amid fallout from the controversial leg-islation approving a code change to allow re-development of a commercial corridor in Melville. The code change, approved in De-cember of last year, created an overlay dis-trict in an 800+ acre area south of the Long Island Expressway. The rezone would allow redevelopment of the industrial and com-mercial zoned properties as a walkable downtown that could include up to 1500 apartments.

The vote to approve the legislation came after three public hearings and, according to Smyth, numerous sit-downs with civic lead-ers and area stakeholders.

And it came amid controversy. Opponents called for the town to do environmental studies and prepare a development plan. Smyth says the overlay district only creates a framework for development projects, and the costs of stud-ies and plans should be borne by developers.

Councilwoman Brooke Lupinacci – the sole vote against creating the overlay district – launched the primary campaign that could turn the tides of power. She’s after the Su-pervisor’s job and enlisted former Councilman Gene Cook and past zoning board Chairman John Posilicco to join the ticket as candidates for town board.

Campaigning under a “Save Huntington” banner, Lupinacci said she “has fought to protect our suburban quality of life by op-posing the current Supervisor’s effort to build thousands of high-density rental apart-ments in Huntington, which will hike taxes by over $20 million to pay for it,” according to the campaign’s website.

Smyth refutes Lupinacci’s claims.

“I always opposed over-development, and I have the receipts to back it up,” he said. He referenced no vote on what he called “the ‘Gateway Giveaway’ at 1000 New York Av-enue.”

In May 2018, Smyth voted against a resolution to transfer the deed to land it had ac-quired by eminent domain at a price of over$700,000 to a private developer as part of Renaissance Downtowns’ revitalization of Huntington Station.

Smyth was a minority Council member at the time. Gene Cook, who was elected to the town board as an Independence Party mem-ber but had since switched his enrollment to Republican, “voted ‘yes’ to give away a multi-million-dollar parcel of vacant land, which developer Greg DeRosa (G2D Group LLC) built 66 apartments on,” Smyth said in a letter to The Long-Islander. “I’ve never ac-cepted a penny from Greg DeRosa or G2D Group, but G2D is a major political donor to my opponent.”

DeRosa figures prominently in this pri-mary challenge.

The Huntington based developer who built the Gateway apartments is embroiled in numerous lawsuits by investors who claim he defrauded them. He was recently arrested for passing a bad check.

Councilman Ferro was among his alleged victims, acknowledging he had likely lost the $1 million he loaned DeRosa.

The councilman’s ties to DeRosa, as well as those of former county legislator Paul Tonna have been the subject of a series of articles in the Nassau-based North Shore Leader newspaper that fueled opposition to the Melville legislation.

It also sparked a libel suit from Tonna who is seeking $50 million in damages along with retractions for a series of pieces on his ties to DeRosa (a past lobbying client), friendship with disgraced Suffolk Police Chief James Burke, and leadership of the Energeia Partnership. Tonna founded the partnership to address “the serious, complex and multi-dimensional issues challenging the Long Island region.”

North Shore Leader publisher Grant Lanny characterizes it as “a cult,” and in an editorial published last week claimed “DeRosa’s ties include huge favors - free land giveaways from Huntington pole; $19 million in IDA tax rebates; rezoning giv-aways from Supervisor Ed Smyth; and under-the-table payoffs to Huntington politi-cians.”

In a near-unprecedented response, Hunt-ington Republican Committee Chairman Tom McNally called out the newspaper “and its de facto publisher, Grant Lally, for or-chestrating a politically motivated misinfor-mation campaign targeting Town Supervisor Ed Smyth. The newspaper has published a series of anonymously authored, unsourced articles—under the byline ‘Leader Staff’ –intended to smear Smyth and bolster his GOP primary opponent, Brooke Lupinacci.”

The newspaper is owned by Grant Lally’s mother, retired Nassau Supreme Court Jus-tice Ute Lally, but McNally claims “it is Grant Lally who appears to direct the paper’s editorial content, raising serious concerns about transparency and accountability in its operations.”

Furthermore, “Lally not only influences the paper’s editorial slant—he also person-ally gathered 169 petition signatures to place Lupinacci on the ballot against Supervisor Smyth,” McNally said. “He has since used his media platform to promote her candidacy and attack Smyth through misleading cover-age.”

It’s personal, according to Smyth.

“What you are witnessing now in town politics is dishonesty motivated by revenge,” Smyth said. “Revenge by people who had jobs and lost them, or wanted jobs and did-n’t get them.”

Smyth didn’t name names, but Grant Lally’s wife Deborah Misir was Town At-torney under Smyth, but abruptly resigned in 2023 after 18 months on the job.

McNally refuted the Leader’s claims about Smyth.

“Among the most egregious falsehoods are claims that: Huntington is experiencing an ‘unprecedented wave’ of mass apartment construction” and “the Melville Town Cen-ter proposal would lead to overdevelop-ment.”

“These assertions are demonstrably un-true,” he said. “Under Supervisor Smyth’s leadership: the Town has enacted stricter apartment regulations; large-scale residen-tial projects have been blocked; the Melville proposal is aimed at revitalizing a commer-cial corridor, not residential sprawl.

“If Mr. Lally wishes to serve as a cam-paign operative,” McNally continued, “he should leave the newsroom behind. The peo-ple of Huntington deserve a fact-based press – not a partisan echo chamber.”