Dunne to take Hudes’s seat on Town Board

The Town of Hempstead Board was set on Tuesday night to appoint Legislator Dennis Dunne, who stepped down as a Nassau lawmaker on Monday, to fill longtime Councilman Gary Hudes’s seat.

With an election for the seat in November, however, Dunne’s Democratic opponent spoke out against the appointment on Tuesday, calling it a “back room deal” that will allow Dunne, a Republican, to run as an incumbent.

“[Republicans] aren’t giving their constituents a fair shot at electing people,” Democratic candidate for the seat Sue Moller said on Tuesday. “It’s just … the top trying to push their agenda, shuffling people around … Now he can run as an incumbent against me while Gary just retires and moves on his way. It’s definitely not fair.”

Hudes, a Levittown Republican who owns a business in Bellmore and sat on the board for more than 15 years, announced his plans to resign in March.

“Seventeen years is a long time to do this and it has come to the point now where I have four grandchildren and my wife would like me to go to things with her,” Hudes told the Herald at the time. “I missed out on a lot of things when my own kids were growing up and now I don’t want to miss out on my grandchildren.”

The Herald endorsed Hudes for re-election to the council in 2013, stating that he had “worked tirelessly to respond to the needs of his constituents … personally visiting residents to answer their complaints rather than talking on the phone.”

Dunne has sat on the County Legislature since its inception in 1996, and represents portions of East Meadow, Bethpage, Wantagh and Seaford.

He serves as chair of the Public Safety Committee, vice chair of the Veterans & Senior Affairs, and the Planning, Development and the Environment Committees, and a member on the Minority Affairs and Rules Committees.

If Dunne is supported by a majority of the Board. He will take Hudes’s place in representing parts of Bellmore, Merrick, East Meadow, Wantagh and Seaford.

Dunne will then face Moller in the November election.

A high school guidance counselor in Lynbrook, Moller said that she grew up in North Merrick and has lived in the Town of Hempstead for most of her life.

She also said that Dunne’s appointment would make the composition of the Town Board “undemocratically selected in secret.”

“It should come as no surprise that voters are ready to throw out the politicians who treat politics like their personal piggy banks,” she added.

Dunne could not be reached for comment by press time on Tuesday, but was quoted in published reports as saying that he had “done everything [he’d] set out to accomplish in the legislature.”

The Town of Hempstead Board was set to vote on Dunne’s appointment at their meeting Tuesday night.

The state and county general election will be held on Nov. 7.