Waddington in lead for Shelter Island supe

Shelter Island Councilman Glenn Waddington, who's leading the race to become the town's next supervisor, and incumbent Supervisor James Dougherty -- the man Waddington wants to replace -- voted the same way last Thursday when the board adopted a 2012 town budget.

The adversaries also voted alike on every other resolution before the board that night.

But their agreement stops there as they wait for the Board of Elections to open more than 300 absentee ballots to see whether Waddington's 61-vote lead over Dougherty holds up. That process, the two men say, is likely to begin on Wednesday.

Politics on Shelter Island, with its year-round population of about 2,300, rarely follows the same kind of party-line voting seen elsewhere on Long Island.

Waddington, a Conservative who also ran on his own Island Unity line, received 549 votes, according to the Board of Elections' initial tally. Dougherty, a Democrat also running with Working Families and Independence party endorsements, got 488 votes, while Bob DeStefano, the Republican candidate, won 221 votes.

But there was unanimity Thursday night on every resolution that came before the town board. Shelter Island adopted its 2012 budget after making several minor changes that had the net impact of cutting the proposed tax rate by about 1 percent. Dougherty's original proposed budget called for the tax rate to remain unchanged from last year.

The changes reflect additional nontax money coming into the town, as well as reduced expenses. In all, they amounted to about $72,000 in revenue.

The board also set a public hearing for Dec. 2 at 5 p.m. on a proposed zoning code change that would severely limit development on the causeways leading to Ram Island.

In the seven-page proposal, the board declares that the environmentally fragile causeways need to be protected from development, and that newly created building lots would have to be at least 200,000 square feet -- about 4.5 acres -- compared with the current 80,000 square feet -- a little more than 2 acres.

The full code change is on the Town of Shelter Island website, shelterislandtown.us, in the upcoming hearings and laws section.