Rick Martel, running on the Republican and Conservative tickets, defeated John Leonard, a Democrat who also ran on the Working Families line, in Tuesday's special election for the Southampton Town Board seat vacated by Tommy John Schiavoni, who was elected in November to the New York State Assembly.
According to an unofficial tally on the Suffolk County Board of Elections website, Mr. Martel garnered 3,092 votes, nearly 53 percent of the total cast, to Mr. Leonard's 2,738. He will fill the seat until November, when he will have to defend it.
Earlier this month, Mr. Martel, a Hampton Bays business owner who previously served on the town board from 2020 to 2023, and Mr. Leonard, a civil litigator who serves on the town's zoning board of appeals, engaged in a League of Women Voters debate at which they discussed issues such as affordable housing, the Westwoods parcel where the Shinnecock Nation plans to build a gas station and travel plaza, the town's responsibility in addressing illegal immigration, the continued construction of monster homes, the fate of the Stony Brook Southampton campus, cannabis dispensaries within the town's limits, and the future of the community preservation fund.
Gordon Herr, the head of the Southampton Town Democratic Committee, did not respond to a text asking if Mr. Leonard would be the Democratic candidate again come November.
