Huntington Conservative Party names its slate

The Huntington Conservative Party  has named its slate for town offices in the fall elections.

For two town board positions, the party is nominating Huntington Bay Mayor Herb Morrow and Greenlawn resident Gene Cook. Both also have the endorsements of the town Republican committee.

Town Clerk Jo Ann Raia, a Republican, and Receiver of Taxes Ester Bivona, a Democrat, also got the Conservative endorsement.

Conservative Party chairman Frank A. Tinari said both Morrow and Cook had done well in screenings and deserved the opportunity to be endorsed. Morrow has been a good public servant for almost two decades, Tinari said, and Cook lost election to the town board by a narrow margin in 2009.

As for Raia and Bivona, Tinari said the committee felt that they have done a good job and deserve to be re-elected.

“They run very efficient offices, and they both do a great job,” Tinari said, “so the committee felt, let’s put them back into office.”

He said the candidate-screening season had been exciting, coming after a period when finding candidates for local office had been difficult.

“This year I guess, with all that’s going on politically on the national level, we had 16 people screen for town board,” he said. “We had business people, political people. It was exciting for our committee — they had all of these people who really wanted to get involved.”

He said a number of candidates had screened well, “and that’s a good sign.”