Term limits for town board, four-year term for supervisor angers Riverhead’s longest-serving councilman

With many of the same faces on the town board year after year, council members are considering term limits for the first time – a suggestion that angered Councilman John Dunleavy, who would be serving his last two years if the law were enacted.

The law would also make the town supervisor’s term length the same as the rest of the town board’s, increasing it from two years to four.

All members of the town board, including the town supervisor, would be limited to serving 12 consecutive years under the proposed law. The law would immediately affect two town board members – Dunleavy, who is against imposing term limits, and James Wooten, who has already said he does not plan to run for re-election.

“He wants to get rid of us and increase his time to four years,” Dunleavy said at the work session today. “I think the public should be the one to decide whether you should be in or out.”

The rest of the town board seemed to be in favor of imposing term limits, including Wooten, who said he had already decided a “self-imposed term limit” for the end of his term.

“I’m a huge supporter of term limits,” Town Supervisor Sean Walter said. “I think it provides an opportunity for new ideas to come in. It breaks the cycle of political power.”

“We’ve got new ideas,” Dunleavy shot back, gesturing to Tim Hubbard. Hubbard was elected in November fill the seat vacated by former councilman George Gabrielsen, who chose not to seek re-election. “We have a new member right here.”

“But that’s because another person decided not to run,” Councilwoman Jodi Giglio said.

Before Hubbard’s election this year, the town board had consisted of the same five members since 2010.

Term limits have also become a discussion on the state-level recently after a federal investigation led to the arrests of major officials in both the New York State Senate and Assembly. “I don’t think you’d have the problems they’ve had in Albany if you had term limits,” Walter said.

“You become complacent,” Giglio agreed.

But Dunleavy argued that Riverhead town board members are different from state representatives.

“We’re a small town and we have contact with the townspeople every single day,” he said. “They’re the ones who should make these judgements, and not five people, and that’s how I feel.”

All town board members but Dunleavy expressed support for holding a public hearing on the matter.

The board also discussed increasing the length of the town supervisor’s term from two years to four years. The number of terms the supervisor could serve would also be affected by the 12-year term limit in the proposed law.

“This year nobody’s running, so it’s not about me,” Walter said. “I’m not telling you I’m running again. It’s about the term of office.”

The law would not affect his current two-year term, but would extend the supervisor’s term to four years after the next election.

Walter, who has been embattled politically during his tenure, has said in interviews prior to today’s discussion that he supports increasing the term of the supervisor’s office so that the person holding that office does not have to worry about running for office nearly as soon as the oath of office is taken.

Unlike imposing term limits, which could be approved by a town board vote, increasing the length of the supervisor’s term would need to go to a public vote.

Riverhead voters have previously rejected the extension of the supervisor’s term twice before, in 2005 and 2007.  Voters approved a four-year term for the town clerk in 2007 and a four-year term for the highway superintendent  in 2009.

“You’ve got a good voter turn-out this year, because it’s a presidential election year,” Walter said. “It’s not about Sean Walter or anybody else.”