Meet the candidates: town council

Riverhead Town is governed by a five-member Town Board comprising the town supervisor and four council members. Each is an equal voting member of the board under state law, but the town supervisor has certain additional powers and duties. 

In addition to its duties as the town’s legislative and governing body, the Town Board sits as the governing body of the Riverhead Community Development Agency, the Riverhead Water District, Riverhead Sewer District, Calverton Sewer District, Riverhead Business Improvement District and Riverhead Ambulance District. 

The office of council member in Riverhead has a four-year term. In this election only, council members will be elected to a three-year term, in compliance with the Even Year Election Law.

The position of council member is, under state law, a part-time position. The salary of a council member in Riverhead is $50,558 per year, plus benefits.

Two incumbents and two challengers seek election to the two open council seats on the Riverhead Town Board this year. 

Robert Kern ( R)

Robert Kern, of Aquebogue, is seeking a second term of office as council member. 

Kern touts his business experience and expertise as qualities needed to steer the town into the future. He owns a marketing and branding company, 2XS, and previously was the operations manager at Martha Clara Vineyards from 2000 to 2010. 

He was the president of the Riverhead Chamber of Commerce before his election to the Town Board in 2021. He was chairman of the town’s Business Advisory Committee, a member of the town’s Agricultural Advisory Committee, and a member of the boards of the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency, the East End Tourism Alliance, the Long Island Farm Bureau and the Long Island Wine Council.

As a council member, he says he has worked to increase out-of-date  fees charged to businesses for various permits and applications. Taxes paid by  residents should not underwrite those activities, Kern says. He has continued his advocacy for agriculture as a council member and supports code changes to enable farmers to process their produce on site, creating products to sell, the way grapes grown on farmland are processed into wine.

Kern says the town needs to grow its industrial tax base. Tax revenue from industrial land in Riverhead is only $2.5 million annually, he said, which lags far behind what it should be, considering the town has 400 acres of industrially zoned land outside of EPCAL. 

He initiated the Emerging Technologies Committee to attract new, 21st century industry. 

Kern also advocates allowing smaller homes than the 1,200-square-foot minimum presently required by town code. He said that was a recommendation of the comp plan update and should be implemented to make housing more affordable.

Kenneth Rothwell (R )

Kenneth Rothwell of Wading River is seeking election to a second full term as council member. He was initially appointed to the Town Board in January 2021 to fill a vacancy created when Jodi Giglio was elected to the State Assembly. He won his first full term in November 2021.

Rothwell owns funeral homes in the area, including the Alexander-Rothwell Funeral Home in Wading River. He is a longtime volunteer first responder, serving as a firefighter in the Southampton Fire Department. He also serves as an EMT in the Wading River Fire Department. 

Rothwell said he supports land preservation, but stresses the need to balance preservation with the right kind of development that produces property tax revenue as well as high tech, high paying jobs. Those jobs belong at the EPCAL site, he said. The town needs to expand the receiving areas for development rights in the transfer of development rights program and EPCAL is a good location as a TDR receiving area, he says.

He fully supports the downtown revitalization efforts the town has undertaken, including development of the town square. The town has been implementing plans developed with the assistance of the Army Corps of Engineers to mitigate the impacts of flooding, he said. 

Rothwell supported opting out of cannabis sales in Riverhead, but was in the minority, so the town did not opt-out. However, he agreed to lead the town’s efforts to develop rules for siting cannabis dispensaries in Riverhead. The town acted within its authority to regulate the time, place and manner of those sales, but now finds itself in conflict with the state’s Office of Cannabis Management, which recently determined that the town’s regulations exceeded the town’s authority and made cannabis sales “unreasonably impracticable.” The town is now going to sue the state over this determination, which Rothwell supports.

Kevin Shea (D)

Kevin Shea, a 20-year Baiting Hollow resident, is a retired NYC firefighter who responded to the  Sept. 11 terror attack on the Twin Towers. He was seriously injured in the collapse of one of the towers.

He supports maintaining Riverhead’s rural character by continuing to preserve farmland. It’s also important to make sure Riverhead is a community that’s affordable for people to live in. “I’ve been knocking on doors of people saying they just were a paycheck away from not being able to afford their home,” Shea said.  

While the town needs more tax revenue from businesses, that kind of development should be located where they don’t pose a risk to the safety and health of residents, he said. safe and healthy and not worry about them intruding in.”

Shea said he likes the downtown revitalization efforts so far, but large-scale development doesn’t project the town’s rural heritage. He said the town needs to make sure it doesn’t forget its rural character, which, he said, can be incorporated into the buildings, too.

Also, he said, a lot of people can’t afford the apartments being built downtown, which can cost $3,000 a month to rent. He said he likes the idea of allowing  accessory dwelling units because they might be more affordable for people earning $45,000 a year.

Shea said he is focused on public health and safety and that means protecting the environment and making the town more resilient as it faces the challenges of extreme weather and flooding brought by climate change.

This is his first run for elective office. He only registered Democrat of the three candidates running for Town Board on the Democratic line this year, Shea is a member of the Riverhead Town Democratic Committee and the Long Island chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. His running mates on the Democratic ticket have sought to distance themselves from Shea on account of the DSA affiliation. 

Mark Woolley (D)

Mark Woolley of Riverhead is seeking elective office for the first time. 

Woolley is a former journalist and retired aide to state and federal elected officials. He has worked for six Long Island congressmen, most prominently Republican Lee Zeldin, for whom he worked as district director from 2013-2023, while Zeldin served both as a state senator and congressman. 

Woolley also worked for former Republican Rep. George Santos, who was expelled from the House in 2023 after being hit with a slew of criminal charges. Woolley stayed on after Santos was expelled to work for his replacement, Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi; Woolley retired from that position in January.

He has been outspoken in his criticism of the Town Board, including the supervisor, who is his brother-in-law. 

He calls for a forensic audit of the town budget and says he will work to stay within the tax cap. 

He says he will “work to end the EPCAL debacle”  so the town can bring meaningful jobs to the area, making use of emerging technologies. The town has “miserably” mismanaged redeveloping the site, which it got from the federal government “for a buck” years ago.

Woolley is harshly critical of the town’s downtown revitalization efforts. He says the five-story buildings being built are too large and the rental apartments being offered are too expensive for local workers. The town also isn’t properly addressing flooding downtown, he says. Woolley said the town never should have allowed cannabis dispensaries in Riverhead. The board’s decision was colored by the prospect of tax revenues from cannabis sales, he said. He accuses the Riverhead IDA of “squandering” money by making poor decisions about which projects to support with benefits. 

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