No one can remember Republican Hempstead Town Board members ever siding in a public vote against a Republican supervisor.
Until Tuesday, that is, when five Republican board members in the GOP stronghold killed Supervisor Kate Murray’s plan to drop health benefits for the all-Republican zoning board.
“This is unprecedented,” marvelled one longtime town Republican.
Democrats assumed Nassau and state GOP chairman Joseph Mondello gave Murray permission to break from the party’s lockstep to help her save face amid taxpayer anger over the expensive benefits given to a panel that meets two to four times a month.
“Supervisor Murray and the Republican members of the town board vote the way they’re told to vote by Joe Mondello,” said Jeff Gold, vice chair of the Town Democratic Committee.
But Mondello denies having discussed the vote with Murray or board members. And town Republicans insist Murray, who declined comment, did it on her own. She’d publicly pledged to eliminate benefits for the zoning and civil service boards and then stood by her promise even when Mondello’s top aide, Town Board Member Anthony Santino, proposed exempting the zoning board — on which former U.S. Sen. Alfonse D’Amato’s wife Katuria sits.
Celeste Hadrick
Some say Mondello is feeling heat from the Albany GOP for losing a recent special state senate election and ordered the benefits be retained as a way to curry favor with former U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato, a state powerbroker whose wife Katuria sits on the zoning board.
Not true, Mondello said. “I’ve had no part in this whatsoever, none, not even any conversations.”
Retaining the zoning board's benefits “was purely my idea,” Santino said. “It had everything to do with the time involved and the nature of their responsibilities.”