Previously Published in The Messenger
By Matt Meduri
On the general election ballot this year, voters will be afforded the opportunity to elect two members of Smithtown’s at-large Town Council.
Incumbents Councilman Thomas J. McCarthy (R-Nissequogue) and Councilwoman Lynne Nowick (R-St. James) are running for re-election. They are being challenged by former Smithtown Central School District (CSD) Board of Education Trustee Michael Catalanotto (D-Smithtown) and political newcomer Jesse Phillips (D-St. James).
The Fairfield at St. James Civic Association hosted a debate between the four candidates last Friday afternoon.
Opening Statements
Councilman McCarthy was first elected to the Council in 1997 and has served as Deputy Supervisor since 2018. He pitched himself as a former businessman who built car dealerships, a marina, and other forms of land development. Upon retirement, he said it was “time to give back to the Town”, and that he “didn’t like how the Town was treating the residents.”
“I brought my customer service background to Town Hall. Over the last decade, it’s made a big difference,” said McCarthy. “Because I handle all the land use departments, if a resident has an issue, they are given my cell phone number and we’ll figure out how to solve the problem. It’s not about ego or title; it’s about doing the job and helping the residents of the town.”
Michael Catalanotto is a life-long attorney with a practice in Nesconset. In 2019, he was elected to the Smithtown CSD Board of Education. He served two terms with 2024 and 2025 served as Board President. He said that’s where he “started to learn the importance of being a good steward for taxpayer money”, and that it was “always a priority to continue to add programs and opportunities for students”, while ensuring students’ safety and keeping “the taxpayers in mind.”
“Every year that I was there, we made sure to do all of that while remaining at or below the tax cap,” said Catalanotto. “I’m running for Town Council because I feel that the current board is prioritizing developers rather than prioritizing residents. Our downtowns are vacant and I believe that term limits are necessary for all of our elected officials. Everything seems to be going through with a 5-0 vote with little discussion.”
Jesse Phillips got his start in the U.S. Navy, becoming an officer in 2001. The first week of his education, the September 11 Attacks occurred. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps and enlisted as an infantry rifleman, which resulted in two combat tours in Iraq in the late 2000s. Upon his return home, he joined the FDNY and has been a fireman out of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, ever since. He is set to be promoted to Lieutenant in January.
“I went through the rigors of trying to build a brand-new house. I know what it’s like to deal with the permits in Town,” said Phillips, mentioning “term limits and proper downtown development” as core issues.
Councilwoman Nowick, a life-long St. James resident, has twenty-three years of experience in the New York State Courts System. She spent six years as the elected Smithtown Receiver of Taxes, before starting her stint in the County Legislature in 2002. She served the maximum of six terms, before starting her tenure on the Town Council in 2014.
“There is nothing like working for your town, your local town,” said Nowick. “You’re never off-duty.”
Budget Hikes and Bond Ratings
The first question was of the newly-proposed budget, in which the Town proposes a tax hike of 10.7%.
“Right now, I’m in the process of going through the budget and trying to figure out where we’re at,” said McCarthy, adding that the budget stands to be amended after the public hearing on November 4. “The problem with the budget right now is unfunded mandates. Between State fees and insurance fees, you have $7.2 million in unfunded mandates that put us over the cap, and we’re only allowed to raise taxes just a little over $2 million. Either that or you lay off forty employees and cut a lot of services.”
McCarthy added that there are some provisions in the proposed budget that he and Nowick support, but that support is compulsory since the provisions are mandated.
“Do we want to give up taking care of our parks and beaches and give up our great concerts? We still have to take care of our youth,” said McCarthy. “After we have our public hearing, we have to make decisions of what to cut. Some things yes, some things no.”
Catalanotto countered that the Smithtown School Board “dealt with increasing unfunded mandates every single year.”
“We made sure that we would remain under the tax cap of 2% because that was important to our residents. That’s my position on this budget,” said Catalanotto. “This Town spent nearly $100 million on our parks, which is great; they look beautiful. But if I read correctly last year, the revenue from those parks was $55,000. We have a sewer to nowhere in St. James, and a welcome center that no one is going to use.”
Phillips concurred, adding, “we don’t need Town jobs that are given to party loyalists.”
Nowick held up a photo of a dollar bill divided by jurisdictional tax levies.
“69% of your property taxes go to the school district. You pay six cents on the dollar to the Town,” said Nowick.
“We’ve got a County grant to hook up the ‘sewer to nowhere’ going down Woodlawn Avenue to the sewage treatment plant. Lake Avenue [in St. James] was totally revitalized. In 2018, 40-50% of the properties were empty,” said McCarthy.
Catalanotto said that he sees “foot spas and vape shops”, and that the school district has been a large draw of residents to Smithtown.
“We have one of the best school districts in the country. What the Town is not doing is a good enough job to keep that investment here,” said Catalanotto. “You want us to assume that because the parks look beautiful and there’s all these turf fields, that we should be happy that you’re raising our taxes?”
McCarthy said that the redevelopment of the parks are built “in conformance with today’s standards”, specifically regarding injuries, which result in liability claims against the Town. Further, he said that the work on the parks was bonded through capital bonds, not funded with taxpayer dollars.
The Town has also demonstrated success in retaining their AAA bond rating, the highest such rating obtainable.
“We can maintain it by meeting our obligations and making sure our reserves are strong,” said Catalanotto. “I’m concerned now with the fiscal mismanagement. Our interest rates and taxes are going. When I was on the School Board, we maintained the AAA bond rating and Jesse [Phillips] and I will when we are elected.”
McCarthy held up a series of papers showing the $42 million worth of grants the Town has received.
“Before you open your mouth, maybe you’ve got to do your homework,” said McCarthy. “We have the lowest capital debt of any of the western [Suffolk] towns. Other towns bond their whole programs and massage the numbers. We don’t do that. We don’t make up $1.7 million NYS retirement costs. We don’t mandate $1,472,000 in insurance. We have both full-time and part-time unions, about $1.9 in contractual obligations. Debt services are $659,000; that’s it. We don’t spend a penny that we don’t have.”
Downtown Revitalization and Open Space
One resident expressed displeasure of three residents – two homeowners and one business owner – who would “beg to differ that things are better” due to “permitting disasters”, one business being the Smithtown Democratic Committee Headquarters. The owner, according to the resident, has been waiting for three years.
“You give me those three names, and I’ll give you answers to every single one of them and tell you why, when, and where and how, why they’re waiting. There is no way your landlord is taking three years to get a permit for a renovation in a building on Main Street,” said McCarthy. “Absolutely not.”
Phillips said that downtown revitalization should consist of “incentivizing landlords and owners to fix up their properties and getting those permits approved as quickly as possible.”
“All these buildings are dilapidated and falling apart,” said Phillips, also pitching “pop-up stores”, citing “local breweries, wineries, and artists” who would start pop-ups throughout the downtowns to help “beautify” Main Street instead of keeping the buildings vacant and blighted.
“If a building has been sitting vacant for twelve months, there’s got to be something we can do to fine these owners,” said Phillips, adding that the permitting process should be overhauled. “I built my house [in St. James] with the help of a friend who’s a contractor, and I was tasked with doing all the permits. Is it a process? Absolutely.” He added that “in 2025 and with the Internet”, there could be ways to “streamline” the process between the various departments, although he understands the “redundancy of hard copies.”
Of open space concerns, McCarthy said that while the Town is 97-99% developed, the Town has been redeveloping existing spaces to raise the tax base, including the Tesla dealership on NY-347, the lumber yard across the street from Town Hall, and the old concrete plant that now hosts a corporate headquarters for CarMax.
“We offered homeowners and business owners a matching grant to redo their buildings with all dollar-for-dollar federal monies after the pandemic,” said McCarthy. “But none of the landlords wanted to spend a dime.”
Catalanotto said that redevelopment is the “smart play”, but the property that is now undeveloped must remain so, invoking the Gyrodyne property in St. James.
“Beechwood in Kings Park was zoned for 133 residential single-family homes. The Town decided it wasn’t enough and went for 288 homes,” said Phillips. “Townhomes, mixed-use, 55-and-over residential – that’s not saving the little bit of open space that we have.”
Nowick said that homes don’t add the traffic that other tenants can, and warned that Amazon “wants to come in”, which would bolster the tax base but add a significant amount of truck traffic. She also countered against opponents’ claims that they “love Patchogue and Huntington.”
“I can’t sell that idea to my constituents because nobody wants Smithtown to be Patchogue or Huntington,” said Nowick. “We want a nice small town with stores and foot traffic.”
Phillips clarified that he “loves visiting Patchogue”, but that it’s not something he wants for Smithtown, pointing to other “vibrant” downtowns like Cold Spring Harbor.
The Arthur House, a historic property owned by the Smithtown CSD, came into contention.
“The district has been doing a ton of work to get the funding to fix that up,” said Catalanotto. “They don’t have the financial wherewithal to fix a historic building like that.”
Catalanotto countered that the while Town officials are “entitled to a raise”, but he takes issue with the “27% increase in wages for elected officials since 2018.”
Nowick countered that the district had an opportunity to take a matching grant for the Arthur House, but they refused.
Odds and Ends
The Democratic slate has made term limits a key campaign issue. Currently, Smithtown has no term limits on its elected positions, a voter-approved referendum, something none of the four candidates are opposed to. McCarthy said that over the past twenty years, twelve officials were voted out for “not doing their jobs, not showing, and doing things that weren’t proper.” He argued that term limits could be a “slippery slope”, particularly when an entirely new board aligns without institutional expertise.
On roadwork and better traffic flow for NY-25 and NY-347, two of Smithtown’s arterial roadways that are owned by the State, all candidates agreed that work can be done, but working the State Department of Transportation can be a laborious process. McCarthy said that they “never call back.”
“I drove on better roads in Iraq than I do in St. James,” Phillips quipped. “We should look to divert money that goes to building millions and millions of dollars of turf ball fields to maybe roads that are used by everybody, not just families with kids.”