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Friday, January 12, 2024
Vol. 73, No. 2
SCHOOLS & EDUCATION
SUOZZI TOUTS RECORD, HITS PILIP ON DEBATES
SOUTH SHORE’S KOPEL NEW PRESIDING OFFICER
PAGES 19-26
PAGE 3
PAGE 6
Town GOP axes 6 Bosworth-era staff members
SWEARING-IN CEREMONY
Changes made at first meeting after GOP takes control of governing body BY B R A N D ON D U FF Y The North Hempstead Town Board Tuesday night voted to terminate multiple town employees who have been working for the municipality since at least the Judi Bosworth administration. Tuesday night’s meeting was the first meeting this century where Town Republicans hold a majority on the seven-member town board with four seats. Democrat Christine Liu was not in attendance Tuesday night due to a sickness, officials said. Rich Nicolello, the former Nassau County Legislature presiding officer, was also officially hired Tuesday night to be the North Hempstead town attorney. He replaces John Chiara and will earn an annual salary of $185,000, $4,215 more than what Chiara made. The terminations include Deputy Commissioner of Parks and Recreation John Darcy, Commissioner of Public Safety Shawn Brown, Chief Research Assistant Jeanine Dillon, Administrative Assistant to the Town Board Rebecca Cheng and Public Information Officer Gordon Tepper. Mitchell Pitnick, the secretary to the commissioner of finance, resigned from the town and Planning Commissioner Michael Levine retired, according to the resolution. Tuesday’s terminations and resig-
nations come just over two years after Republican Supervisor Jennifer DeSena’s first meeting as head of the town after defeating Town Clerk Wayne Wink in an election. Bosworth had chosen not to run for re-election. At the meeting, Democrats, who held a 4-3 majority, approved a personnel resolution that moved six employees from the supervisor’s office when Bosworth was in office to apolitical town positions. Included in that Jan. 6, 2022 resolution was Jennifer Eberhardt, who moved from the supervisor’s office to the Department of Parks and Recreation, Sagar Mehta, who moved from the supervisor’s office to the Department of Parks and Recreation, Julie Schoch, who moved from the supervisor’s office to become secretary to the town board, Dillon, who was Bosworth’s chief of staff and became chief research assistant for the town, Pitnick, who moved from the supervisor’s office to the secretary to the commissioner of finance and Rachel Brinn, who moved from the supervisor’s office to the a secretary for the town board. As of Tuesday night, all six of those employees are no longer working for the town. Eberhardt and Schoch left North Hempstead in 2022 and Mehta and Brinn left in November. Continued on Page 34
PHOTO COURTESY OF KAREN RUBIN
Newly elected Councilmember Ed Scott is sworn into his seat on the Town of North Hempstead Board at the Jan. 3 inauguration.
Adhami not listed as owner of home on permit BY C A M E RY N O A K ES North Hempstead Town Councilman David Adhami’s mother was recently the sole signer of a Village of Great Neck Estates building permit that asked for the signatures of all owners of a home in which he has said he resides. When reached by phone, Adhami told Blank Slate Media that he owns two homes – one in Merrick and one in Great Neck – but that the Merrick home is not his “primary
residence.” He said the Great Neck home he owns is his domicile. A town councilman in North Hempstead is required to reside in the town. If Adhami was not eligible to serve under the requirement the Republican party’s current 4-3 majority would be threatened. Blank Slate Media reported in November that Adhami, a lawyer with a Great Neck practice, signed a notarized Town of Hempstead Buildings Department document that said “David Adhami, being duly sworn,
deposes and says: that he or she resides” at the address in Merrick. The notarized application signed by Adhami goes on to say that the applications and plansand “all the statements herein contained are true to deponent’s own knowledge.” When asked by Blank Slate Media why he signed the affidavit for the Town of Hempstead Building Department in October 2021 stating that he lived in Merrick and did not sign the building permit application Continued on Page 35