Law requiring odd-year local elections adopted by Riverhead Town Board

The Riverhead Town Board passed a local law Tuesday night requiring elections for town supervisor, town council members and other local officials be held in odd-numbered years.

The law was passed in direct response to a state law enacted last year that mandates most local elections in counties outside of New York City be held in even-numbered years, which would make them coincide with state and federal elections. 

New York Democrats, who control both chambers of the state legislature and the governor’s mansion, said the law will increase participation in local races, since turnout is typically higher in even-year elections. The state law was passed in the closing hours of the legislative session in June of last year and signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul just before the year ended.

Republicans have argued the law was an attack on local control and that holding local contests in the same year as state and federal electrons would drown out local issues. Several municipalities across the state, including Nassau and Suffolk counties, sued the state to invalidate the law. 

Their challenge to the law was successful when a State Supreme Court judge in Onondaga County ruled on Oct. 8 that the new election law was void because it violates the local home rule provisions protected by the state constitution.

As expected, that decision is being appealed. On Nov. 7, Dustin Czarny, a defendant in the case and Onondaga County’s Democratic election commissioner, filed a notice of appeal with the trial court.

Riverhead’s new local law adds a new section to Chapter 103 of the town code, pertaining to biennial town elections. It would require elections for the offices of supervisor, town council, town clerk, receiver of taxes, highway superintendent and assessors to be held in odd-numbered years, as they are currently held now. 

A separate local law to keep the elections for town justice as they are presently scheduled is expected to be voted on by the Town Board at its next meeting. The town’s two justices are elected for four-year terms — one during an odd-year election and one during an even-year election. 

“We realized that we shouldn’t have town justices both vacating the position at the same time and having two new justices,” Town Attorney Erik Howard said during Thursday’s public hearing on the law. 

The state law being contested in court would change the length of the terms of town officials in the coming years. Town supervisors with two-year terms like Riverhead’s would be forced to stand for election to a one-year term in 2025 and to run again for a two-year term in 2026. 

Riverhead Supervisor Tim Hubbard, who was about to take office when the governor signed the bill, called forcing a town supervisor to have a one-year term in 2026 “absolutely ridiculous.”