Long Island elections: 5 supervisor races to watch

From North Hempstead to Southampton, town supervisor races highlight local election slates this fall, with incumbents seeking to ward off challengers in five contested heats.

In all, voters will head to the polls in seven of the Island's 13 towns to choose who will hold the top job in their respective town. The contested races are in Riverhead, North Hempstead, Hempstead, Oyster Bay and Southampton. Supervisor races in East Hampton and Shelter Island are uncontested.

Local budgets and future development are among the prominent issues. 

A marquee matchup in Riverhead pits Councilman Ken Rothwell against Supervisor Jerry Halpin, while in North Hempstead, Supervisor Jennifer DeSena squares off against a Port Washington police commissioner, Sean McCarthy. In Hempstead, incumbent John Ferretti is in a rematch with challenger Joe Scianablo just a year after they faced off in a bare-knuckle campaign.

Early voting statewide began Saturday and runs through next Sunday. Election Day is Nov. 3.

Here's a preview of the Island's contested supervisor races.

Riverhead

Rothwell, 55, is a Republican appointed to fill a board vacancy in 2021. He owns three funeral homes on the East End.

Halpin, 54, is an independent elected on the Democratic line last year. He is a pastor who founded a nondenominational Christian church in 2005.

Halpin is serving a one-year term due to a recently enacted state law mandating that supervisor elections, and many others, be held in even years. The term is for two years.

Rothwell said he would run the town “more like a business” and budget within the tax cap while maintaining services. He wants to resolve wastewater lawsuits with Suffolk County and clean up the Duck Pond in Wading River.

He said development at the Enterprise Park at Calverton, known as EPCAL, shouldn't include distribution or data centers. While there are no specific plans for those centers at EPCAL, there are concerns in the community that the site's future could include those uses.

“There's a lot of great high-tech companies that are looking for exactly the land that Riverhead has,” Rothwell said in an interview. “They give a tax base, and that’s what Riverhead has needed for a long time.”

Halpin said he’s had a strong start and wants to continue working on fiscal responsibility.

“We have things headed in the right direction for the first time in over four years,” he said, citing his preliminary budget that won't pierce the tax cap.

Halpin also led a voluntary retirement incentive that's poised to save the town about $819,000 in payroll costs next year. “I want to continue to build on that and also focus on how to bring quality of life to the individual taxpayers,” he said, while addressing EPCAL, downtown revitalization and preservation.

Halpin said he, too, opposes data centers and large warehouses at EPCAL and was interested in pursuing options that include manufacturing, agricultural exports and industries that could use existing freight rail infrastructure at the site.

North Hempstead 

DeSena, a registered Democrat who caucuses with Republicans, is seeking reelection to her two-year seat. She is running on the Republican and Conservative lines.

DeSena is challenged by McCarthy, a Port Washington police commissioner and former commanding officer of two Nassau County police precincts. He's running on the Democratic line.

DeSena, 57, first won election in 2021 and has been reelected twice, most recently last year for a term shortened by the state's even-year election law. 

DeSena has pitched herself as a steward of fiscal responsibility, having proposed tax cuts or freezes for the past five years. The town also has recently taken on several infrastructure projects, including a reconstruction of the town dock and its sea wall. It has turned the Harbor Links Golf Course into a steady revenue stream.

She said in an email that, if reelected, she would look to find "new ways to generate revenue for the Town and restructure contracts to ensure we’re operating more efficiently and getting the best possible return for taxpayers." 

McCarthy, 64, said if he was elected, he would install foreign-language speakers at the town's 311 call center to meet the area's expanding diversity, as well as institute more reforms to the building department.

He said the town's decision to use $16 million in reserve funds to make up for a budget deficit was "alarming."

"That's something that should be addressed, hopefully, by increasing revenue," he said. 

Oyster Bay

Republican Supervisor Joseph Saladino, who was first appointed to the role in 2017, is seeking reelection to a two-year term. 

Saladino, 65, said the town has maintained strong financial security during his nearly decade-long tenure and that he has led the revitalization of downtown Hicksville, which has attracted hundreds of millions in private investment. 

"This shows that the Town of Oyster Bay's template is the successful way to create mixed-use development in downtown areas," Saladino said. 

He said the town is continuing a push to improve shellfish numbers in its waterways with a plan to create a new hatchery at Tobay Beach and has drawn a firm line in its battle against Northrop Grumman over the remediation of Bethpage Community Park. 

James Hoyle, the Democratic challenger, works as a supply chain analyst and previously worked for a hedge fund after receiving a political science degree from Boston University. 

Hoyle, 28, of Glen Head, said his logistics and finance experience would help him manage and assess the town's spending. He said he would push to improve affordability in the town immediately by rolling back costs for annual parking and beach stickers. 

"It seems like a no-brainer to me," said Hoyle, who noted those costs are effectively annual expenditures for town residents. "It's a tax decrease. You're putting money back in working people's pockets."

Hoyle said he wants to improve representation for parts of the town without direct local leadership and serve as "a more effective megaphone" for those parts of Oyster Bay. 

Southampton

Town Supervisor Maria Moore, an attorney and former mayor of Westhampton Beach, is seeking a third term, running on the Democratic and Conservative lines. She is being challenged by Republican Richard Carozza, a building and real estate consultant. The term is for two years. 

Moore, 66, was reelected last year to a term shortened by the even-year election law.

Moore, a Democrat, said she wants another term to help complete ongoing projects, including a wastewater treatment plant in the hamlet of Riverside to spur revitalization. She also wants to continue using the Community Housing Fund to help first-time homebuyers fund purchases and to create new housing.

Carozza, 63, said he wants to help bring sewer systems to Hampton Bays and Riverside — ongoing projects that he said have been slow to be realized. He criticized Moore’s budgets increasing the tax levy above the state’s cap.

“There's definitely a situation where something wasn't done right or isn't being done right to do that much of an increase,” Carozza said.

Moore said the increases in the budget help fund paving roads, maintaining town buildings, funding new police officers and fulfilling contractual obligations for town employees. 

“I didn't want to raise taxes — nobody does — but I feel that in order to have the budget deliver the kinds of services that people want, that it was necessary to do it,” Moore said.

Hempstead

The dynamic of the race has shifted since Republican Ferretti defeated Democrat Scianablo last November. A third candidate, former Lawrence Mayor Martin Oliner, is on the ballot but not campaigning.

Ferretti's term also is truncated because of the state law shifting local elections to even years. The term is for two years.

Scianablo, 49, a former prosecutor, combat veteran and police officer, has acted the gadfly to Ferretti’s policies at town board meetings in recent months, hammering his opponent on what he sees as a lack of transparency.

Ferretti, 43, a former county legislator, has steered clear of big controversies and released a budget that keeps the tax levies directly controlled by the town board flat, although it relies on using reserves and selling town property.

Ferretti was appointed by the town board in August 2025 after former Supervisor Donald X. Clavin Jr. suddenly resigned. Scianablo sued over the appointment, and a judge ruled that it had violated state transparency laws but did not overturn it.

Like last year, Scianablo has challenged Ferretti to a debate, but to date, none has been scheduled.

The uncontested races

In East Hampton, incumbent Kathee Burke-Gonzalez is running unopposed on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines.

In Shelter Island, Amber Brach-Williams is running unopposed on the Republican and Conservative lines.

The supervisor terms in those two towns are for two years.