Civiletti: How I’m voting in the Riverhead supervisor’s race and why

Why I’m not voting for Jodi Giglio

Jodi is a politician who will say whatever she thinks she needs to say in any given circumstance. I’ve witnessed it over and over and over again. She massages her positions on issues to suit her needs of the moment. This is a good way to make “friends” but a very bad way to govern.

The information she provides about her past employment and the businesses she’s been involved in changes also.

At one point, she presented herself as a principal in a steel business she later said she worked for as a steel broker, then said she worked with as an independent contractor.

She’s always said she’s had a permit expediting business. She said she does most of her work in Brookhaven. She stopped working in Riverhead, she said. She said she handed off her clients in Riverhead to Vic Prusinowski. Recently she said she doesn’t do any expediting work at all.

Most recently she touts being “in construction” for 24 years. Her resume says otherwise. (I’m referring to the one she submitted when she screened for the Republican nomination for county legislator for last year’s special.) It lists her expediting business, Bennett Enterprises (1997-present) and it lists “freelance expediter” (1994-1997).

There was a three-year stint (1991-1994) as “on-site superintendent” for Amityvillas Townhouses, where, she says, she oversaw the development of affordable housing “as On Site Construction Superintendent.”

Before that, she was an “executive relocation specialist” (1990-1992) for United Van Lines. I guess this is when she was a long distance truck driver, another thing she’s said she’s done.

Prior to that she was a “Platinum Card service representative” for American Express (1989-1990) and before that worked as a building manager for a real estate company (1988-89) and an office manager for another real estate firm (1985-87)

That about covers 24 years. I don’t see “24 years in construction” there, do you?

Details, details.

Speaking of which, details are things Jodi seems to have trouble with, regardless of subject.

Let’s start with the budget, since she’s campaigning to be the town’s chief fiscal officer. From my observations, when it comes to the budget, the lack of knowledge and depth of understanding she exhibits as a six-year incumbent is inexcusable. When you press her for specifics, she either says she won’t disclose them or she just tries to talk her way around it. If you press some more, she gets mad.

As Councilman George Gabrielsen noted, she’s come up with nickels and dimes — nothing that’s going to shed the $1.23 million necessary to avoid piercing the tax cap, which she opposes.

Also, the councilwoman talks like she’s been a spectator for six years instead of a trustee.

She and her fellow board members have tried to act like spectators as concerns the budget. And in doing so, as far as I’m concerned, they’ve breached their fiduciary duty as trustees to the citizens and taxpayers of this town.

They are obligated by state law to adopt a budget. They’ve only done so once in six years. ONCE. They’ve only had meaningful discussion of the supervisor’s tentative budget during one of those six budget seasons. Led by Ms. Giglio, they went around in circles for hours on end and, when all was said and done, did nothing. They have not once adopted a preliminary budget prior to the mandatory public hearing. Jodi told me last week she doesn’t think that’s necessary.

Isn’t there some kind of a primer for newly elected town council members? Oh, right. There is. It’s published by the state comptroller. It’s available online. And I once sent Jodi a copy of it myself.

As a businessperson, Jodi comes from the “you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours” culture of Brookhaven Town. Her years as a permit expediter in Brookhaven included the era of disgraced chief building inspector Vincent Dragone, who pleaded guilty to 58 charges, including grand larceny, receiving bribes and unlawful gratuities, perjury, money laundering and conspiracy. He was sentenced to 2.5 to 7.5 years in prison in 2006.

Apparently Vinny is (or was) a close personal friend of Jodi and her husband Mike. She told me so herself, in a conversation we had in 2009 — I was then the executive editor of Times/Review Newspapers — before she was a declared candidate for office.

I barely knew who she was at the time, when she asked me to meet her for lunch at the Jamesport Country Kitchen. (Yes, I paid my own way.) She wanted to know if I’d heard anything about her that concerned me. She said she wondered if I’d heard anything about her and her husband and Vincent Dragone. I had not. Honestly I wasn’t even sure who Vincent Dragone was. Clearly, she was fishing. But, OK, maybe she just wanted to make sure she’d answer my questions. I shrugged it off.

But from what I’ve seen of Jodi since she was elected, her Brookhaven contacts, past and present, trouble me.

She has a propensity to play fast and loose with the facts.

She can be charming — and equally vicious. I’ve witnessed and been subjected to both.

I don’t trust her protestations about the police union’s involvement in this campaign. She knows nothing about this? Has never spoken to anyone in L.I. Law Enforcement Foundation? Has never promised them anything? Then what the hell are they doing in Riverhead’s election? It’s the only town race they’re involved in, according to the Super PAC’s campaign finance disclosure reports. She told me the other day my statement to that effect was wrong — despite what the reports say.

“They are also involved in Jay Schneiderman’s campaign, from what I am told.”

“Told by whom?” I asked.

“I’d rather not say,” she answered.

Uh-huh.

The budget is another area where her trouble telling the truth has surfaced.

Eliminating the deputy supervisor’s post and using some of that money to hire “some” part-time code enforcement officers, buying computers so the building department can communicate more efficiently with the assessors and reducing police overtime “by better management” (which was already reduced in 2014 by almost $228,000) isn’t going to significantly change the budget or avoid piercing the cap.

She wouldn’t disclose any other changes, she said, until she has the agreement of two other board members, whom she said won’t agree until after the election.

Problem is, all three of the other councilmen say she never even talked to them about it and they said no such thing to her.

I’ve had enough of this kind of malarky.

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