By Stacey Altherr
A Conversation with Smithtown Supervisor-Elect Edward Wehrheim
Supervisor Elect - Ed WehreimAfter a grueling 4-month campaign, where he beat a 40-year incumbent in a primary and two candidates in the general election, Smithtown Supervisor-Elect Edward Wehrheim is now beating back a cold. But he is still eager to start his work leading Smithtown. What is first on his agenda?
“I’ve already started working on this; it is to mend fences,” he said of the currently fractured town board. “I am confident we will be unified going in to work for the taxpayers.”
He said he has had conversations with Councilman Thomas McCarthy and Councilwoman Lynn Nowick, two of his political opponents throughout the years, and “they agree,” he said.
Wehrheim beat the longest running town supervisor on Long Island, Patrick Vecchio, in a close primary, by 84 votes after absentee ballots were counted. In the general election earlier this month, he outvoted both his Democratic opponent, attorney Bill Holst, and an independent candidate Kristen Slevin. His current council seat will either be appointed by the rest of the town board after January 1, or remain vacant for the remainder of the year for the rest of the term, which ends Jan. 1, 2019.
In addition to making the board more cohesive, the supervisor-elect has downtown revitalization on his mind, as well. It was foremost during his campaign.
“We have too many vacancies,” Wehrheim said of the current state of the town’s downtowns. “They are run down. There hasn’t been a lot of attention paid to them.”
One of the biggest obstacles to developing healthy downtowns is sewer capacity. The state has allocated $40 million to sewer Smithtown and Kings Park, he said, and with some communication between Suffolk County and the town, Wehrheim said Kings Park is just about “shovel-ready.”
“We anticipate Kings Park being about $20 million because we already have a county sewer plant there,” Wehrheim explains. The county has done all the engineering work, with the last piece of the puzzle the alienation of a 400,000 square-foot area located near the parks department.
Smithtown’s downtown may take a bit longer, said Wehrheim, since a spot needs to be determined for the sewer disposal plant. In the meantime, the Smithtown downtown will get some development, including the lumber yard, a site of much controversy over the past 12 years; it has been set for development several times and then dropped.
Bringing the community into the process of government will also help move projects along, he said. He said he wants to put together a business advisory council made up of members of the community – officials from fire districts, business owners, developers, and town representatives.
He also plans to add a public relations position. The town has not had a communications position in recent memory, with Vecchio himself being the town’s spokesman. This new position will allow information to be shared directly with the community.
“We have done some wonderful things that no one ever knows about,” he said, including being the first town in the country outside of California to run garbage trucks on compressed natural gas.
Having a public relations person and being more transparent with the public will cut down on false information and scare tactics when it comes to large development projects, he said. He cites the recent public protests against 250 apartments at the former New York Avenue Elementary School, saying that, if the town board was involved, it could have negotiated with the developer to make it more amenable for the residents.
“It’s the unknown factor,” he said. “I understand. I live here, too. But if you educate people, they will understand more. And everyone will have a stake in it.”
One of his biggest frustrations was side discussions on important matters among board members that would lead to important items showing up at the work sessions, only to expect those not in the know to vote on it later that day. Wehrheim intends to hold work sessions several days before, which will give board members and department heads time to research the agenda item in time for the board meeting vote. Department heads will also be told to convey all information on a particular subject to all board members at the same time, so that no one person is left out of the conversation.
“None of that ‘Gotcha’ politics,” he said. “I have despised it for years. We get elected by the public to go there and work for them.”