Southold Town Council Member Greg Doroski has announced his candidacy for county legislator in the First Legislative District.
Doroski, 44, of Mattituck is a Democrat looking to unseat first-term incumbent Republican Legislator Catherine Stark.
He was first elected to the Southold Town Board in 2021, after mounting an unsuccessful challenge to then-incumbent Southold Supervisor Scott Russell, a race he lost by just 117 votes.
Doroski said his campaign will focus on promoting public safety, preserving agricultural land and open space, protecting and improving local waterways and our aquifer, addressing housing affordability and improving infrastructure to support both residents and small businesses.
Doroski has small business experience as a beer brewer. He was a managing partner in Threes Brewing in Brooklyn before moving back to the North Fork. He is now the brewer at Riverhead Brew House in downtown Riverhead.
Working in town government gives him “a special understanding of the challenges facing local municipalities and the solutions that work on the local level,” Doroski said.
He said he is not afraid to stand up for what he believes in and to stand up with the community on issues of concerns. He cited as an example Riverhead’s proposed agritourism resort zoning for land north of Sound Avenue.
“There’s no mystery to what I’m thinking on an issue,” Doroski said in a phone interview Monday.
Doroski said the county legislator representing the district must work to ensure the local towns are getting their fair share of tax revenue from Suffolk County. That’s not true in Southold Town, where the town is not getting a fair share of the tourism tax dollars generated in the town, according to Doroski.
Doroski’s term on the Southold Town Board is expiring at the end of this year. He decided to seek the Democratic nomination for county legislator instead of running for re-election to the Town Board.
He said he has the endorsement of Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski as “the best person to continue the work I was doing in the Legislature for the people of our district,” according to Doroski’s press release.
Stark worked as Krupski’s aide in the legislature for 10 years. When told of Krupski’s endorsement in the race, she expressed surprise, noting that she sat next to him at State Sen. Anthony Palumbo’s environmental roundtable for more than two hours last week in Riverhead and he didn’t mention anything. Their interaction was cordial, she said.
Krupski could not be reached for comment.
Stark, 61, said she intends to run on her record and her three decades of experience working in county government.
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