ETHICALLY CHALLENGED: Cergol Votes NO on Term Limits After Taking $45,965 Payout of Taxpayer Dollars

Joan Cergol cashed out $45,965 taxpayer dollars when appointed to her third unelected government job in sixteen years -- and then she voted NO to enacting term limits! Cergol took that $45,965 payout -- meant to be taken by employees leaving the Town payroll -- while she still sits on the government dole.

On the Town website, the Community Development Agency's 2017 Financials with Independent Auditor's Reports, which reports on the financial status of the CDA as of December 31, 2017, references "an increase to accrued liabilities related to accrued sick and vacation time to be paid to the former director" on numbered page 4. That pretty much sums it up. On numbered page 6 (2017 column, “Accrued liabilities: $45,965”) it shows the $45,965 amount of the payout Cergol took of unused sick and vacation time, even though this practice is meant for people leaving Town employment, not people staying on the Town payroll, as she did as an appointed, unelected member of the Town Board.

As a 16-year unelected bureaucrat, Town employment has been very lucrative for Cergol, aside from her premature cashing in on $45,965 in unused sick and vacation time. According to Newsday.com, Cergol's yearly pay on the government dole averaged at $121,914 for the past 7 years, totalling $851,328, all the while the agency she was responsible for incurred $1 million dollars of debt to Huntington's taxpayers under her management of questionable business practices. Public salary information for Cergol's years of Town employment from 2002-2010 was not published on Newsday, which only maintains records as far back as 2011.

But there's more!

Naturally, this career bureaucrat didn't want to give up the perks of appointed office: one of Cergol's first official acts was voting against term limits -- for her position!! -- when Supervisor Chad Lupinacci, Councilman Gene Cook and Councilman Ed Smyth delivered this New Direction campaign promise in January 2018. (Source: Huntington Town Board Meeting, January 23, 2018, Resolution 2018-35. ENACTMENT: ADOPT Local Law Introductory No. 52-2017 amending the Code of the Town of Huntington, Chapter 13 (Public Officials). which set term limits of three four-year terms for Town of Huntington elected officials.)

Cergol wants you to pay for her to be a career politician, like the outgoing Democrats on the Town Board that appointed her -- when no one was watching -- at the final Town Board meeting of 2017 (December 13, 2017 to be exact -- at 10:46pm) in their final act as a Democrat majority, which ruled the Town of Huntington for 24 years.

HuntingtonGOP, December 14, 2017:

On Election Day, the citizens of the Town of Huntington voted overwhelmingly for a new direction for the Town and new leadership at Town Hall. They voted for transparency, accountability, and ethics reform. The events of last night are a slap in the face to all those who believed that our Town government desperately needed change. Late last night, at the final Town Board meeting of the Petrone administration, three Democratic members of the Town Board voted to appoint a member of the Petrone administration to the seat vacated just minutes ago by Susan Berland. This midnight appointment was done without notice to the public (as it was not an original agenda item) or consultation with Supervisor-elect Chad Lupinacci or Councilman Eugene Cook. It is this type of politics-as-usual chicanery that the public soundly rejected on Election Day, and is further evidence of the need for strong ethics reform and measures to promote open government.

Voters rejected the policies of these career Democrat politicians when Huntington voted for Supervisor Chad Lupinacci and Councilmember Ed Smyth to take our town in a New Direction of transparency, term limits, ethics reforms and efficiency.

Joan Cergol's questionable ethics and flawed decision-making will take Huntington backwards in the wrong direction! Vote Republican