By Stacey Altherr
Edward Wehrheim 2017 Smithtown Republican Nominating ConventionSmithtown Councilman Edward Wehrheim knew he would run for the seat held for four decades by his former friend and political party colleague when he realized that the town was not moving forward because of infighting and side-taking.
“I spent a fair amount of time being disillusioned with the board,” he said. “No communication, work sessions with no agenda… always hit with something you weren’t privy to before. I always thought it was no way to run a government.”
So he ran a primary against his former friend Patrick Vecchio. Wehrheim was backed by the Smithtown Republican Committee, and unseated the longest serving town supervisor in Long Island history in the dramatic primary, winning by 85 votes after the absentee ballots were counted.
If he beats his Democratic opponent, attorney Bill Holst, and independent candiate Kristen Slevin, his council seat will be an appointed position, with someone else filling out his term.
Wehrheim is a lifelong Kings Park resident. A Vietnam veteran who served in the U.S Navy, he started in Smithtown as a laborer, eventually becoming director of the town’s parks, buildings and grounds department. He was tapped to fill an empty seat on the town board in 2003, and has been on that council for 14 years.
Working on a platform of getting things done for businesses and residents, he includes a source of irritation to many residents, a real revitalization of the downtowns –Kings Park, St. James, Smithtown. He got frustrated with movements forward that would be stalled for years, he said, despite sporadic talk by the board on downtown redevelopment.
“It took a few years to realize, because there were promises made, which would happen in the election cycle, and then it all went away,” Wehrheim said.
“Look at the municipalities that border us,” he said. “Huntington, Brookhaven… Those downtowns are all thriving. They are getting grant money, putting in sewers…they are putting in a lot of planning for those walkable downtowns. I think it is particularly important to those ones who are raising children here. And I think they see it is not part of the growth.”
Wehrheim is also running on the Independence and Conservative party lines, as are his two running mates: Tom Lohmann and Robert Doyle, who were running for council seats. Both Lohmann and Doyle will stay on those minor party tickets, both lost the primary to Republican incumbents Lynn Nowick and Thomas McCarthy.
If he wins the supervisor seat, Wehrheim wants to work to repair relationships between the council members, and improve transparency, especially the way meetings are held. Often, he said, the lines were blurred in what was discussed in executive session that should be held in a public forum. A case in point was a discussion held in executive session recently by the comptroller, he said, on capital project money.
“I said, ‘You can’t discuss that now,’ and it stopped,” Wehrheim said. He also vows that all council members will be privy to the same information and discussions.
Pointing to an expensive brush and leaf collection program that failed, and that he was never told about, despite his experience in that area, he knows what is like to not be privy to important conversations. The candidate vows to include all council members in the decision-making process.
“I was being left out of major decisions, in my estimation, and it was getting worse and worse, he said. “I thought, ‘Maybe I need to step up and change that, because it’s wrong.’”
“You are elected by the people. You have the right to know everything going on.”
Stacey Altherr is a former Newsday reporter now living in Sarsasota, Florida. Her beats included Smithtown, where she covered governmental affairs. She now runs a café in Longboat Key near her home and writes freelance. Altherr has won many awards, including a 2010 Society of Silurian Award for community service journalism for a multi-part series, “Heroin Hits Main Street,” and a third-place National Headliner Award for public service for a multi-part year-long investigation on spending at fire districts on Long Island.