After colleagues pass law preventing him from running for a fourth term, an ‘angry’ Councilman John Dunleavy lashes out

A 12-year term limit is now the law for the Riverhead Town supervisor and council members following a 4-1 vote by the Town Board last night.

Councilman John Dunleavy, the only sitting board member who will be term-limited out of office at the end of his current term, cast the lone dissenting vote.

Dunleavy has offered an alternative version of the legislation that would carve out an exception for himself and allow him to run for one more four-year term. That measure failed 4-0, with Dunleavy abstaining.

As the longest-serving councilman on the board, Dunleavy was first elected in 2005 and re-elected in 2009 and 2013. He’d like the option of seeking a fourth four-year term on the board next year, when his current term expires.

He was not happy with the town board’s vote to impose term limits in a measure that would affect only him, but says he’s really opposed to term limits for town board members in general.

“I just think we’re a small town and the electorate should make that decision,” he said. “They know when someone isn’t doing the job and when someone is. I think five people shouldn’t make a decision for the 8,000 or 9,000 people who vote,” Dunleavy said in an interview this morning.

Then he lashed out at both Supervisor Sean Walter and the board’s newest member, fellow retired Riverhead police officer Tim Hubbard.

Hubbard, who was elected in November and served part of one term on the Riverhead school board a decade ago, has “carried over the school board mentality” with him to the town board, according to Dunleavy.

“On the school board, whatever the superintendent wants, the board does,” Dunleavy said. “Whatever the supervisor wants, Hubbard does. He hasn’t done any thinking on his own. He has always followed what Sean wants.

“I know Sean wanted to get rid of me,” Dunleavy said, “I’m the only one this applies to. I won’t go along with everything he wants.”

Dunleavy said he doesn’t support extending the town supervisor’s term to four years from two — though he voted in favor of a resolution to do that last night, because it will give voters the chance to decide in the mandatory referendum required by state law.

“Sean wants a four-year term because he says with a two-year term he has to spend a year knocking on doors,” Dunleavy said.

“It’s a lot of crap to say a year is taken up by knocking on doors. That’s if you’re not doing a good job,” the councilman said. “If you’re doing a good job, the electorate knows and you don’t have to spend that kind of time out campaigning,” he said.

“He’s concentrating on Main Street and EPCAL, not the problems of the people in the rest of the town,” Dunleavy said.

The supervisor said his support for term limits was nothing personal.

“It’s unfortunate that term limits affect a councilman almost immediately,” Walter said.

“I believe that after 12 years of public service you should return to the private sector. That’s a principle this country was founded on. You get off the plow, you serve for a time and then you get back on the plow,” he said. “Somewhere along the way, that changed and we wound up with career politicians. It’s not good for the country. Career politicians being so entrenched is a big part of what’s wrong with Washington and Albany,” Walter said.

“My vote had nothing to do with John Dunleavy. There should be a normal turnover so you don’t have this elite class of politicians that stay in office forever,” Walter said.

Hubbard said Dunleavy is just angry at him — angry about him supporting a four-year term for the supervisor, angry about him talking to downtown business owners about installing parking meters — “He feels I stepped on his toes,” Hubbard said — and angry about his support of term limits.

“That’s what this is about,” Hubbard said.

“He’s dead wrong. I don’t know what to say. I’m not interested in getting into a back and forth in the press. That’s not who I am. If we have a problem, we should discuss it face to face,” Hubbard said.

Term limits are good because they allow for “fresh ideas, fresh thoughts, new blood,” Hubbard said. “People get stale after a while. Look, I got stale toward the end of my police career. It happens. Twelve years is more than enough time to accomplish what you want to do.”