Smithtown engineer appointed on provisional basis
Smithtown Town Hall is at 99 West Main St. Credit: Erin Geismar
The Smithtown Town Board provisionally appointed Mark Riley, former assistant town engineer, as town engineer through Dec. 31 — filling the unexpired term of Ted Sanford, who retired.
The board unanimously approved the appointment at its meeting Thursday. Riley’s position of assistant town engineer was preserved in case he is not appointed to the town engineer position after the term ends.
“The town engineer is required by state law,” town Supervisor Patrick Vecchio said. “The town engineer has to sign off on many projects — all certificates of occupancy .?.?. A project comes in, they have to design the roadways.”
The town had been without an engineer for about two months, said Councilman Robert Creighton, who is running for town supervisor. Creighton said he and councilmen Kevin Malloy and Edward Wehrheim had interviewed candidates for the job.
Vecchio said the town lacked an engineer because no union contract was in place at the time. The board unanimously approved a collective bargaining agreement with the Smithtown Administrator’s Guild on Thursday, paving the way for Riley’s appointment.
“The union says you have to negotiate a new salary,” Vecchio said. “Because there was no contract, we couldn’t hire him at any salary.”
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