Thomas Knobel quits as East Hampton GOP chair

Thomas Knobel, the East Hampton Republican chairman who was fired last month from his $78,453-a-year post at the Suffolk Board of Elections, has resigned from his unpaid party position.

Knobel, 60, submitted a resignation letter to the board of elections yesterday. He will temporarily be replaced by town party vice chairman Reggie Cornelius, who also works as a senior elections clerk at the board making $64,846 a year. The party must hold a convention of committee members to elect a new chairman, who will fulfill the remainder of Knobel’s two-year term which began in September.

John Jay LaValle, Suffolk GOP chairman, declined comment on Knobel’s resignation other than to say the party accepted it. Knobel did not return calls for comment to this home.

Knobel, who had worked at the board for 16 years, was fired from his patronage job four months after Smithtown GOP chairman William Ellis last October was fired as the board’s $120,400 a year deputy commissioner and Conservative Party secretary Michael Torres was fired from his $105,000 a year job as assistant deputy commissioner.