Anthony Coates, who ran for town supervisor a year ago, leaves Riverhead

Anthony Coates, the 2015 Democratic candidate for Riverhead Town supervisor, has moved out of town.

Coates and his partner Cleo Beletsis have purchased a house in Head of the Harbor, a North Shore community near Stony Brook, the former candidate said in an interview Saturday.

“Cleo and I find that more and more, our professional lives take us to points west,” he said. Commuting from the East End can be burdensome and tiring, so they decided to look for a new home up-island.

“I grew up in Stony Brook and Setauket, I love the history here, I published a newspaper here, I went to school here, I love the quaint villages, the culture, I have cherished friends here and so it is in many ways this is a very comfortable move,” he said.

Coates said he’s sold the coffee shop in Wading River he opened this spring, Hudson Market.

“When I was campaigning in Wading River in 2015, I felt the hamlet center needed a small touchstone coffee shop as a gathering place, so, I set up Hudson Market. I couldn’t have been more proud, the community embraced it, we were profitable, I enjoyed it… But, I certainly never planned on making the Market my career. I feel I built something special, I pushed the boat away from the shore, now it’s someone else’s turn to sail the ship forward and Marty and Karen Accardi will be a great owners,” Coates said.

Coates, an investment advisor and consultant, said he’s been very busy with his investment and consulting clients and didn’t have time to devote to running Hudson Market.

“Marty approached me about buying the shop and eventually he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I knew with such a hectic professional life, I couldn’t devote the time I wanted to the shop,” he said.

“I arrived in Riverhead in 2003 and in the past 13 years, I’ve made many lifetime friends,” Coates said. “I feel I worked hard to improve my community and make it a better place and that’s satisfying,” he said.

Supervisor Sean Walter, his onetime friend and consulting client, whom he challenged in an acrimonious three-way race in last year’s election, said today he wished Coates well.

“I wish him much success in his future endeavors,” Walter said. “I want nothing but the best for him and his family.” Walter said he called Coates late last week when he heard he’d sold the market and was moving away.

“It takes too much energy to be ticked off at anybody,” Walter mused.

Riverhead Democratic Committee chairperson Marge Acevedo said she was sad to see Coates go.

“As far as I know he was not considering running for any office next year,” she said today. But he was a member of the Democratic committee and an asset to the committee, she said.

“He’s a very intelligent guy who brought a lot to the committee,” Acevedo said. “I hate to see him go. I’m going to miss him terribly.”

Acevedo, who was elected to another term as chairperson of the local Democratic committee Monday night, said she has no idea yet who will run for local office next year.

“We’re trying to put a search committee together,” she said. With the presidential campaign in full swing, everyone is focused on that now and will be for the next month, she said.

As for Walter, he says he’s not sure yet if he’s going to seek another term — his fifth. He also doesn’t know if the next term will be for two years or four. Voters will decide that in a referendum in November, when a proposition is on that ballot that would make the supervisor’s term of office four years, like the rest of the town board; it has always been two years in Riverhead.

“I enjoy the job but going through elections like last year is pretty stressful,” he said. He lost the Republican committee’s support at its nominating convention, which chose Councilwoman Jodi Giglio as the party’s standard-bearer, then lost a hotly contested primary election to Giglio. Running on the Conservative line, he came out on top in a three-way general election contest last November.

“The presumption is I’m going to run but I’ll make a decision in January,” he said.

Coates, who said he was honored to be the Democratic candidate for supervisor in 2015, said he won’t be advising Walter again. He has been an outspoken critic of the man he once worked to get elected. “While I have been very critical of Town Hall, I have been a loving critic,” he said. “My love for Riverhead, its people and my desire to see Riverhead be a better place is what has motivated me to be involved.”