Riverhead Town Supervisor-elect Laura Jens-Smith will step down from the Mattituck-Cutchogue next month, she said in an interview yesterday.
Jens-Smith, a Democrat, defeated four-term Republican Supervisor Sean Walter in Tuesday’s election. She will assume the supervisor’s post on Jan. 1.
Jens-Smith’s term on the Mattituck-Cutchogue Board of Education is up in July 2018. The board has the option of filling the vacancy until the May school board election.
Jens-Smith was first elected to the Mattituck-Cutchogue school board to fill a vacancy on that board in May 2011. She was elected to her own three-year term the following year and re-elected in May 2015. Jens-Smith has served as president of the school board since July 2015.
The Laurel resident will be the first woman to serve as Riverhead town supervisor in the town’s 225-year history and the first Democrat to be elected to the post in a decade. Elected with Democratic running-mate Catherine Kent, Jens-Smith will take the helm as a minority party supervisor, since the re-election of Councilwoman Jodi Giglio Tuesday means Republicans retain control of a split town board.
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