Meet the candidates: town supervisor

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 town supervisor is a voting member of the Town Board. In addition, the supervisor acts as treasurer of the town, responsible for custody of funds and for the financial records and books of the town. The supervisor is responsible for filing annual financial reports and for preparing the tentative budget for each fiscal year.

The town supervisor is also the commissioner of the town police department.

The town supervisor presides over all meetings of the Town Board, and of the Community Development Agency and governing bodies of various town districts for which the Town Board is responsible.

In addition to the powers and duties of the town supervisor spelled out by state law, the Town Board has delegated to the town supervisor the powers and duties required for the day-to-day administration and supervision of all town and special district facilities and employees.

The town supervisor’s term of office in Riverhead is two years. In this election only, the supervisor will be elected to a one-year term, in compliance with the Even Year Election Law.

The Riverhead supervisor’s salary is $118,148, plus benefits.

Jerome Halpin ( D)

Jerome (Jerry) Halpin of Riverhead is making his first run for elective office. He is running on the Democratic line but is not registered to any political party. 

A native of Kentucky, he has been a pastor for 30 years and is the lead minister at North Shore Christian Church, which he founded more than 20 years ago. He said over the past 30 years, he’s led churches and nonprofits.

He has experience in managing budgets, mobilizing volunteers and organizing community initiatives, which he says are all skills a town supervisor needs.

Halpin says being a pastor has taught him “the dignity of people” and the importance of listening to people. 

“I know how to connect people from all different parts of life, and it helps me to bring people to the table that sometimes don’t agree,” he says, and he’s able to forge resolutions of disputes that are “good for everybody.”

Halpin says he knows how to bring financial stability to organizations. He advocates budgeting within the 2% property tax levy cap required by state law, which, he says, is there to protect residents.  Halpin vows “to create a stable budget that is not dependent on the over-taxation of …residents.” He promises to “rescind the raises” given to Town Board members in the last two years. 

He also pledges to allow more time for public comment at board meetings and to allow people who attend meetings to bring signs into the meeting room. 

“I will create new opportunities for communication and community dialogue that are truthful and solution-driven,” Halpin said.

“I will also work hand in hand with our fire, school district, our volunteer ambulance corps and our community development to make sure that we are not only developing but sustaining an infrastructure that works for every resident,” he said.

Halpin says the town needs to move more quickly to fully codify the recommendations of the comprehensive plan update. Adopting codes to implement the plan’s recommendations will help protect farmland. Clear, adopted codes will also allow developers and businesses to understand what they can and cannot do. He said if he’s elected, building first and asking for forgiveness later will be a thing of the past. 

The town should “review” the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency to ensure that it is fulfilling its mission, which he says is to focus on creating jobs and tax base specifically in “blighted areas and only those blighted areas.”  The Town Board, through its ability to appoint members of the RIDA board, can provide guidance to the agency about the town’s development goals. 

Halpin said the town needs to “end the lawsuit” with Calverton Aviation & Technology.  Once the lawsuit is concluded and the town gets the land back, he says, the town should subdivide, because that would increase the value of the land. He advocates pursuing the possibility of relocating the current Terminal Radar Approach Control facility (TRACON) in Westbury to Long Island. 

Timothy Hubbard (R)

Tim Hubbard, a lifelong Aquebogue resident, is seeking a second term as town supervisor. 

Prior to being elected supervisor in 2023, he served two four-year terms as a council member.

Hubbard is a retired 32-year veteran of the Riverhead police department. He retired in 2014. He was a member of the department’s street crime unit and was the commanding officer of the Juvenile Aid Bureau. He is also a past member of the Riverhead Board of Education.

A Riverhead High School graduate, he studied criminal justice at Suffolk County Community College.

Hubard says he’s seeking re-election because he loves the Town of Riverhead. “I really care for this town. I care for my job, and I do it because I want to do it, not because I have to do it. I want to make Riverhead the best place that it can be,” he said.

Hubbard says the state property tax cap is “antiquated” and it is impossible to budget within the 2% tax levy growth allowed by state law. “The cap was put into place in 2012. It no longer suits the needs of an economy in 2025. It just does not,” he said. 

He maintains that increased expenses for employee pensions, health insurance, and contracted salary increases by themselves require the town to pierce the tax cap. “Do yourself a favor. Look at the budget. Educate yourself,” he says. The budget is posted on the town’s website. “Look at the figures. It’s all there in front of you. The costs have gone through the roof. We can’t control health care costs. We can’t control the retirement system. These things are automatically done, and they’ve gone up, just as everything else has,” he says. 

Hubbard touts hiring more police officers and code enforcement officers than the town has ever before had. It has improved public safety, from less crime on the streets to more enforcement of building and fire codes,  he says. 

The town has also increased fines for code violations so that they are no longer just a cost of doing business, which encourages compliance up front. 

Hubbard defends the Riverhead IDA. It is “its own entity” and the Town Board has “absolutely no control over how they vote, what they do,” he says. By law, the Town Board “can’t tell them what to do. People need to understand that,” he said. In any case, he believes in the IDA’s mission and praises its performance. The IDA has increased employment and tax revenues from the properties it has granted benefits to, he said. 

As for EPCAL, Hubbard said it’s unrealistic to say the town just has to get out of the lawsuit. “The only way you’re going to get out of the litigation is to settle. And I would never settle with Triple Five —never, ever, ever,” Hubbard said.  “You have to let the court do its due process, and that’s where we’re at right now.”

There has been interest in the site, he said, including from a defense contractor he would not name that would bring “very high-paying jobs” to EPCAL and would be  “environmentally friendly” and a “win-win” for the town.

“Whatever goes into EPCAL has to be something that’s going to [be] that economic generator” the town has sought since it lost Northrop Grumman. 

The town needs a tax base and can’t preserve everything, Hubbard said. When land is preserved, there’s no tax revenue coming from it, so the town must look at ways to develop land while preserving land at the same time, Hubbard said. 

That was the intention of the agritourism resort code advanced by the town last year, he said. “It was a 70/30 presentation, where 70% would stay preserved, 30% could be developed. You would have tax base come out of that scenario while you’re still preserving land. Those are ideas we have to look at,” Hubbard said.  “There’s got to be an even road taken, with development and preservation, and an idea like the agritourism project that you were talking about that’s getting the ball rolling. We need to think harder on that and make sure it works out best.”

Hubbard said he is proud that his leadership has brought “common sense and civility” back to Town Board meetings, as he promised.  There’s no more arguing among board members, he said. “We cleaned that up…We don’t have people coming in and hijacking our meetings. We are the Town Board. We run the meeting, and we’ve taken that control back, and I have to tell you, it’s working out very well.”

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