Senior assessment clerk Dana Brown was appointed by the Riverhead Town Board to fill the vacancy on the board of assessors created by the retirement of Mason Haas in February.
The vacant seat will be filled in the November general election.
Brown, a seven-year employee in the assessor’s office, is the Riverhead Republican Committee’s pick to run for the assessor post, which currently pays $83,846 per year and carries a four-year term.
Brown will face Democratic candidate Tara Taylor, an accountant who sought the position in 2019, but placed third in a four-way race behind two Republican candidates, three-term incumbent Haas and newcomer Meredith Lipinsky.
Yesterday the town board also approved Brown’s request for an unpaid leave of absence from her current Civil Service position in the assessor’s office, effective from April 6 through Dec. 31.
The leave of absence is longer than that allowed under the Civil Service Employees Association contract with the Town of Riverhead, which provides for a maximum of six months, but both the union and the town board agreed to grant Brown the additional time “on a one-time, non-precedent setting basis,” according to the resolution unanimously adopted by the board at the April 6 meeting.
