Huntington supervisor defends handling of email, suspension

Huntington Supervisor Chad Lupinacci said proper protocols were followed and he was within his authority to decide to suspend the town’s public safety director over sending an explicit email without consulting other board members.

Peter Sammis was suspended earlier this month for sending an email to two subordinates that contained language about sex acts involving dogs and a female colleague in November.

Lupinacci, a Republican, was criticized by the two Democratic council members, Mark Cuthbertson and Joan Cergol, for only notifying one town board member about the email and then taking the advice of outside counsel and the town's personnel director to suspend Sammis for two weeks without pay and allowing him to serve his punishment more than two months after the infraction.

“We took it very seriously,” Lupinacci said. “We looked into it right away, and we followed the advice of our outside employment counsel in rendering a decision.” 

Sammis, who was appointed to his position in January 2018, resigned Feb. 10.

Lupinacci said when the Nov. 26 email was first flagged by workplace software, the head of personnel, Lisa Baisley, brought it to town attorney Nick Ciapetta and the matter was then referred to outside labor counsel.

He said the outside counsel, along with Baisley, recommended the punishment eventually be meted out, and he agreed with it.  

Town officials said sexual harassment or racial discrimination accusations are investigated by the town's equal employment opportunity officer. When an employee complains about something such as insubordination or bullying, discipline is handled by the department head as a violation of the employee code of conduct.

Lupinacci said the email was handled as a violation of the employee code of conduct. 

State Sen. Jim Gaughran (D-Northport) characterized Lupinacci's action as a "cover up" and proposed legislation that would require notification of an entire governing body if certain policies are violated.

Gaughran on Feb. 6 introduced legislation that will require notification to any governing body of violations of a municipality's sexual harassment policy or the human rights law, which in New York State is the civil rights law.

“It’s reprehensible that duly elected board members can’t carry out their responsibility to protect taxpayers because they don’t know that the problem exists because it was covered up,” said Gaughran, who previously served as a Huntington Town Board member.

Lupinacci disagreed, saying such broad disclosure could trigger privacy concerns.

“As supervisor, I’m the chief financial officer and the chief administrative officer and these are the day-to-day operations that we do here,” he said. "That could be a hindrance for people to bring things forward if they know that more people know about the situation.”

Lupinacci said employee conduct and a safe working environment is very important to him. He said after coming into office in 2018 and examining sexual harassment and discrimination policies that were in place, he and his administration decided there was something missing, so they created an employee code of conduct.

“It was an excellent addition to our code,” he said. “We do a lot of education to let people know they have venues that they can safely report instances that they feel are hostile or make them feel uncomfortable.”