New Port Jeff trustee has history of elected service

LAURENCE LAPOINTE

LaPointe, a Port Jefferson trustee, is the newest member of the Board of Trustees. The board -- four trustees and the mayor -- meets every other Monday.

Have you held elected office before?

"I served 10 years as elected trustee of the Port Jefferson Free Library, in the 1990s, and six years on the Port Jefferson school board from 1998 to about 2004. I grew up in East Islip, went to Dowling College, went to SUNY-Buffalo and got my law degree there, and moved back and settled in Medford, where we raised a family. We finished raising our family in Port Jefferson."

You're a retired lawyer. What kind of law did you practice?

"Most of my career was spent in the public sector. I was an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, the deputy chief in the rackets bureau. Then I went to work for the state of New York as the director of the tax department's revenue crimes bureau. We investigated income tax, sales tax, corporate tax fraud. After five years at the tax department, I spent time at the [state] insurance department as director of the insurance fraud bureau. My career's been mostly in white-collar investigations and prosecutions."

What drew you into running for village trustee?

"I consider it a public service. If you want your community to thrive, you need to contribute to it. This is my opportunity to help make my community better."

On weekends, where might someone find you in Port Jefferson?

"You'll find me early in the morning on Saturday going downtown to get my coffee and newspaper. I usually take a good long Saturday walk. Almost all my family still lives here. My hobbies are mostly things like carpentry: Most of what I do is renovations. I live in a Victorian fixer-upper that I've been fixing for 25 years and will probably continue fixing up for the rest of my life. It keeps getting better and better.