Longtime Riverhead Zoning Board chairwoman Patricia Tormey, 91

A pillar of the Riverhead community passed away yesterday.

Patricia S. Tormey, longtime chairwoman of the Riverhead Zoning Board of Appeals, died at the Riverhead Care Center at age 91.

Tormey was the first person to hold the position of ZBA chairperson after the town adopted a zoning code in 1959. It was a post she would hold for more than 35 years.

“She was wonderful, a first-class lady,” said ZBA member and former town councilman Otto Wittmeier, who served on the ZBA with Tormey before he was elected to the town board. (He has since returned to the ZBA.) “She never raised her voice. She was very respectful to the people that came before us. It was a pleasure working with her.”

“Our town lost a true public servant. We were so fortunate to have benefitted from her leadership,” former councilwoman and former planning board member Barbara Blass said. “She and Miles Fairley co-anchored the land-use decisions of the town,” Blass said, referring to 20-year planning board chairman Miles Fairley. Tormey and Fairley both retired from their posts at the end of 1994.

Tormey was known for her wealth of knowlege, fairness and attention to detail.

“She was meticulous,” said Jane Stromski, longtime clerk to the zoning and planning boards. “She was very thorough. She looked at the overall picture of every application and visited every site.”

The town never lost an Article 78 appeal of a ZBA decision during Tormey’s long tenure.

“She believed that when we judge a case, we have to look at what the benefit would be if we grant an appeal,” Stromski recalled.

Tormey had been a member of the committee that wrote the town’s original zoning code; decades later, sidelined by a back injury, she spent time during her convalescence drafting revisions to improve it.

“She was the best of Riverhead,” former councilman Victor Prusinowski said.

She had also served as Riverhead Town historian and was the historian for the First Congregational Church of Riverhead, where she was an active member for many years.

“She was such a wealth of knowledge. She knew everything about the church — the bylaws, the history, the governance,” Councilman James Wooten, who is chairman of the board of deacons there. “She was soft-spoken yet very firm in her leadership.”

Though strong-willed and a trailblazer as a woman chairing a board like the ZBA in Riverhead — Tormey even ran for town supervisor in the 1960s, something that was very rare at the time — she was kind and compassionate.

“She was like your mother besides being your boss,” Stromski said. “She took a deep interest in people that worked for her. She was a phenomenal woman.”

Tormey suffered from congestive heart failure, but managed it well until the last few months, said her daughter, Janis Meyer.

She was sharp-witted and remained a voracious reader right up until the end, Meyer said.

A reference librarian at Riverhead Free Library who retired at the age of 80, Tormey learned braille and volunteered translating books into braille.

Tormey and her husband Robert loved to travel and visited many places around the globe. Aug. 17 would have been their 69th wedding anniversary. They met as college students; he attended Rutgers and she attended the New Jersey College for Women, which was part of Rutgers University.

She was born on May 9, 1924 in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Corrinne (Andrews) and William Amberson Sexton.

In addition to her husband, Tormey is survived by her daughter Janis and son-in-law, Raymond Meyer, of Ridge, by her granddaughter Annette Moller and great-grandchildren Gianna, Chiara, Dahlia and Kendall.

The family will receive visitors on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. at Reginald H. Tuthill Funeral Home in Riverhead. A funeral service will be held Thursday at 11 a.m. at the funeral home.

Memorial donations may be made to the First Congregational Church General Fund, 103 First Street, Riverhead NY 11901.