Suffolk Conservatives continue battle

Suffolk’s war of Conservative succession is not over by a long shot.

Warring factions had cameras taping proceedings at the county party’s closed-door convention last week. Loser Kenneth Auerbach disputed the voice vote of winner Frank Tinari, and vowed to file lawsuits this week.

Both sides also are battling over the legality of the Brookhaven Conservative convention which elected Auerbach ally Frank Profetta as chairman. Tinari forces say that convention was held illegally because no meeting notice was sent out five days ahead of time as required in party bylaws.

Auerbach said the notice for the town convention normally goes out along with those for the county convention, but said Tinari forces intentionally left out Brookhaven. That made it impossible for the town party to give five-day notice because they did not know when and where the county convention was to be held, Auerbach said.

The Brookhaven committee members, Auerbach said, voted to waive the five-day rule before electing Profetta. He said Tinari’s failure to include Brookhaven in the county meeting notice makes him guilty of trying to obstruct town committee members from voting.

Tinari backers say the Brookhaven party was not included in the notices because they were not properly organized under party rules. They also say the Brookhaven Conservatives did not have enough committee members for a quorum.

Rick Brand