Smithtown Town Council Member

<p>Robert P. Doyle,&nbsp;Amy L. Fortunato,&nbsp;Thomas Lohmann,&nbsp;Thomas J. McCarthy,&nbsp;Lynne C. Nowick,&nbsp;Patricia Stoddard</p>

News 12 Staff

Oct 28, 2017, 6:23 PM

Updated 2,593 days ago

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Smithtown Town Council Member

Doyle, 66, of Nesconset, is seeking his first term on the town board. He is running on the Conservative and Independence party lines. President of the Country Pointe Homeowners Association, he is retired from nearly 38 years in law enforcement with the Nassau County Sheriff’s Department and the Suffolk County Police Department, where he spent the bulk of his career as a homicide squad supervisor. He graduated from New York Institute of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. He is married and has two children.

Doyle said he would focus on infrastructure, from parks to roads to curbs. “We still need to improve our infrastructure, because it’s failing us,” he said. He would go to the bond market to fund work, taking advantage of what he said were historically low asphalt prices. His experience running Country Pointe’s sewage treatment plant would be an advantage as the town looks to expand sewer system coverage of downtown business districts, he said.

Fortunato, 57, of the hamlet of Smithtown, is running for public office for the first time. She appears on the Democratic, Working Families and Women’s Equality party lines. Fortunato is a former youth pastor and is a caregiver for her grandchildren. Originally from Freeport, she graduated from Fashion Institute of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and from New York Theological Seminary with a master of divinity degree. She is married and has three children.

Fortunato said that she would work on a comprehensive development plan for the town if elected, starting with a survey of residents to find out needs, wants and perceived problems. The goal, she said, is “not to be driven by a general contractor who comes in and says, ‘We want to build three stories.’ We do the driving.” She would also expand the town’s recreation programs and add youth volunteer and work programs, she said.

Lohmann, 59, of Smithtown, is seeking his first term on the town board. He is running on the Conservative and Independence party lines. Lohmann is an investigator with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office and a part-time police officer with the Head of the Harbor Village Police Department. He served 20 years with the NYPD, retiring as a detective in 2002, and later served as regional director for the National Insurance Crime Bureau, a position he left in 2013. He graduated from Suffolk County Community College with an associate degree in criminal justice. He is married and has three children.

Lohmann said he “would bring transparency and effective full-time town council work for the residents in our township.“ He said he would prioritize downtown revitalization and revamping the town code, outsourcing the work to specialists and drawing on contributions from town hall meetings. He would also outsource and centralize the town’s grant efforts. He would seek to place town representatives on the boards of overlapping tax districts with the goal of reducing residents’ overall tax bill.

McCarthy, 59, of Nissequogue Village, is seeking his sixth term on the town board. He is running on the Republican Party line. He serves as deputy supervisor. He graduated from Smithtown High School East and worked for the Smithtown Parks Department marine division as a deputy sheriff patrolman and in maintenance. He later owned a marine repair and sales business, boat slip marina and boat salesroom. He sold those and ran new car franchises in Smithtown and Huntington and developed waterfront property. He is married, with four children.

McCarthy said he would push for town budgets that freeze or reduce property taxes while enhancing community activities such as the summer beach concert series. He would work on downtown revitalization projects and marina and boat ramp improvements. He would also take part in a rewrite of the town code scheduled to start next year that he said will “cut red tape on residents.”

Nowick, of St. James, is seeking her second term on the town board. Before her election, she served for 12 years in the Suffolk County Legislature, representing the 13th district. Before that, she was Smithtown tax receiver for six years. Nowick graduated from Suffolk County Community College with an associate degree in business. She has two daughters.

Nowick said she would work to keep town taxes low while maintaining quality of life for residents. Recreational facilities would be a priority, as would roads and sidewalks, she said. Keeping the town’s AAA bond rating is critical, she said, to fund improvements to the animal shelter and senior center. For bigger projects, like sewer systems, town officials will have to build and keep close relationships with county and state leaders. “That’s how you get money filtered down,” she said, adding that funding is important for the town’s economic health. “Downtown revitalization depends on sewers.”

Stoddard, 64, of Nesconset, is making her first run for town board. She is running on the Democratic, Working Families and Women’s Equality party lines. Stoddard, a retired math teacher at Nesaquake Middle School, graduated from SUNY Oswego with a bachelor’s degree in education and math. She graduated from Stony Brook University with a master’s degree in liberal arts. She is married, with three daughters.

Stoddard said she would push for more information on town board agendas and resolutions, as well as more discussion of items before board votes. She would create citizens’ advisory committees on major issues such as land use and capital projects. She would push for faster completion of the town’s master plan, hiring consultants if needed. She said she would commission an appraisal of the town’s satellite office buildings, which she said could be sold, with those departments moved to a central location. She also said she would push for an evaluation of traffic problem spots.