Women made history on Long Island this Election Night

Suffolk Closeup |

In Suffolk County, as all over the United States, last week’s election saw great victories for women, and let me note — highly qualified women, to enter government.

There were many breakthroughs.

Laura Jens-Smith, for example, who was raised in Port Jefferson Station, was elected supervisor of the Town of Riverhead — the first woman to be elected supervisor of Riverhead since the town was founded 225 years ago! Through the centuries, only six women have ever been elected to the Riverhead Town Board.

Winning with Ms. Jens-Smith last week to take a seat on the Town Board was Catherine Kent.  Ms. Jen-Smith is president of the Mattituck-Cutchogue Board of Education and a project director with the North Fork Alliance, which combats substance abuse among area youngsters.  For 31 years she was a teacher in Riverhead.

In the Town of Southampton, Ann Welker was elected to the Southampton Board of Trustees— the first woman to become a Southampton Trustee since establishment of the panel in 1686. Yes, 331 years ago!

The Southampton Trustees predates the United States and was created by the royal Dongan Patent. It’s one of the oldest governing bodies in North America. The Trustees serve as stewards for the more than 25,000 acres of bay bottoms, shorelines, waterways and marshes for the “freeholders and commonality” of the Town of Southampton.

In neighboring Nassau County, Laura Curran was elected the first female county executive in the history of that county.

Women still have far to go on Long Island and in the nation in achieving government office. Here in Suffolk, for instance, there has never been a female county executive or a woman representing Suffolk in the U.S. House of Representatives or the state Senate. There’s now only one female town supervisor among Suffolk’s 10 towns (with Ms. Jens-Smith there will be two).

Still, as a story last week in The Washington Post was headlined: “Women Racked Up Victories Across the Country Tuesday. It May Be Only the Beginning.”

The first woman to become a town supervisor on Long Island was Judith Hope when she was elected to the helm of East Hampton town government in 1973. It was a time when all levels of government were a virtual men’s club.

Looking at the results of last week’s election, I smiled when I saw the name Lynne. Nowick and her being re-elected with the most votes of any candidate for Smithtown Town Board. I first got to know Ms. Nowick 50 years ago, She was then Lynne Cannataro, the daughter of Eugene Cannataro, a farmer who for 24 years was a member of the Smithtown Town Board.

I was covering Suffolk cops-and-courts for the daily Long Island Press and Lynne was a secretary in the District Court Bureau of the Suffolk DA’s Office. All the assistant DA’s working in the bureau, as I recall, were men, all the secretaries women — a gender division widely existing in government and business then.

There would be change — fortunately for Lynne and us — in her time.

She ran for Smithtown receiver of taxes and then for the Suffolk Legislature, on which she did a superb job focusing on environmental preservation, consumer issues and fighting teen drug use. Term-limited after 12 years on the Legislature, she first ran for the Smithtown Town Board.

The Washington Post story began by noting that “until yesterday, only 17 of the 100 members of the Virginia House of Representatives were women. Now the number will surge to nearly 30. “

There has been an “explosion of women candidates who have entered the political stage since Donald Trump was elected president one year ago,” the story reads. “The wave is likely to continue.

“In 2018, 40 women are already planning to run for governor. Dozens more are considering congressional and other statewide office bids. And Tuesday’s results have already become a rallying cry for activists seeking to draw even more women into the public square.”

Credit: Laura Jens-Smith on Election Night in Riverhead. (Credit: Kelly Zegers/Riverhead News-Review)