State Assembly
The New York State Assembly is the lower chamber of the New York State Legislature, the upper chamber being the State Senate. The assembly has 150 members, each representing an assembly district comprising roughly 130,000 residents.
Assembly Members are elected to two-year terms with no term limits, and the elections are held in even-numbered years. The base salary for state senators is currently $142,000 per year. In addition, they are entitled to per diem allowances for each day they are in session, plus travel reimbursements for travel related to their official duties, including mileage, tolls and other costs when they use their personal vehicles.
Currently 101 of the 150 assembly seats are held by Democrats.
First Assembly District
New York’s First State Assembly District is located on the East End of Long Island, encompassing the towns of East Hampton, Southampton, Shelter Island and Southold, as well as parts of southeastern Brookhaven.
Politically, the First Assembly District has leaned Democratic. It is represented by Democrat Fred Thiele of Sag Harbor, who has been in office since 2013. Earlier this year, Thiele announced he would not seek re-election in November and would retire from public office at the end of the year.
Tommy John Schiavoni, Democrat of North Haven, will face off against Republican Stephen Kiely of Mattituck, in a race to fill the vacancy created by Thiele’s retirement.
Kiely, 48, was raised in Brookhaven Town, lived in Southampton and for the past 15 years has lived in Southold Town, where he resides with his wife and four children.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in justice and policy studies at Guilford College in North Carolina, and a law degree from Hofstra University School of Law in 2004. He has practiced land use and criminal law for 20 years and is currently the Shelter Island Town Attorney, Mattituck Park District Attorney, and a member of the East End Justice Court Assigned Counsel Program. Additionally, he has been a municipal lawyer for the Towns of Southampton, Southold, and Brookhaven, as well as the Villages of Greenport and Westhampton Dunes.
Schiavoni grew up in Sag Harbor. He earned a bachelor’s degree in secondary education in social studies from SUNY Cortland and later earned a master’s degree from SUNY Stony Brook. He worked as a high school social studies teacher in the Center Moriches school district from 1988 until his retirement in 2018. He was appointed to the North Haven Village Zoning Board of Appeals in 2008 and was elected to the North Haven Village Board in 2014. He was appointed to the Southampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals in 2016 and was elected to the Southampton Town Board in 2017. He also served on the Sag Harbor school district board of education from 2014 to 2017.
Schiavoni says he’s running for assembly to advocate for the East End’s environment and quality of life. He expresses concerns about community health issues like tick-borne illness, opioid addiction and mental illness.
Kiely emphasizes protecting and preserving home rule against progressive legislative overreach and executive actions that seek to urbanize and overdevelop the local communities. He says he will be a “bullwark” against those who are advocating for high density housing developments on the East End. He says he will push to amend criminal justice reform measures, which he calls “dubious.”
Kiely and Schiavone met in a debate hosted by the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island and North Fork on Oct. 7. Watch the video.
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