Shelter Island swears in new supervisor, council members

Community housing, deer and tick management and water quality and quantity top the agenda of new Shelter Island Town Supervisor Gerard Siller, he said on Thursday.

Siller, a Democrat and former two-term supervisor who served from 1998 until 2001, beat incumbent first-term Republican Supervisor Gary Gerth in the November election. Siller received 700 votes, or 58%, to Gerth’s 514 votes and was sworn in at Town Hall for a two-year term.

“We are going to try to put together an affordable housing project,” Siller said in an interview shortly after taking the oath of office. “You know, get it started, stop talking about it.”

Siller, 65, said he’d like to expand the town’s deer cull program and cut financing for its four-poster program, feeding stands that brush deer with permethrin, an insecticide.

Water quality is also an ongoing issue for the Island, especially in the Island Center neighborhood, where nitrate contamination in private wells is a growing concern. Nitrates carry health risks for all, but are of specific concern regarding infants under 6 months old. Babies that age could become seriously ill or die if they drink water with excessive levels, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  

Ninety percent of Shelter Island's approximately 2,500 full-time residents get their water from private wells, which do not require regular testing and could pose a costly expense for homeowners if contamination is found.

Siller said he hopes to meet with representatives of the Suffolk County Water Authority, the county’s largest public water provider, to talk about options for Shelter Island.

Newly elected Councilman Michael Bebon, a Democrat, was also sworn in Thursday, as well as a slew of other elected officials.

“We have an agenda,” Siller told the audience gathered for the ceremony. “We’re going to move on it, we’re not going to get bogged down in minutia. We’re going to get things done.”