Village Uproar: More Political Turmoil Hits Greenport

Greenport, the lone village in the Town of Southold, has once again found itself in a political controversy, which has become a perennial event in the North Fork outpost.

This time the issue is surrounding Mayor Kevin Stuessi’s alleged mismanagement in village hall and Trustee Mary Bess Phillips’s apparent indebtedness to the village. It all came to a head in the run-up to the most recent village elections.

“There have been some failings recently,” Stuessi said during a March 27 village board meeting after facing a barrage of criticism from residents.

It’s far from the first turmoil in a village where a former mayor, David Nyce, once nearly called the police on a belligerent citizen during a board meeting — and not even the first controversy involving Stuessi. More recently in its 2023 mayoral election, then-Mayor George Hubbard, who was seeking a third term, was accused of trying to keep his opponents — Stuessi and Richard Vandenburgh — off the ballot. Hubbard denied this, and a lawsuit was filed in time to get Stuessi, Vandenburgh, and a slew of trustee candidates back on the ballot for the election that Stuessi won in a landslide.

A trustee in debt

Phillips, recently re-elected to a sixth four-year term, had served as the village’s deputy mayor until several weeks ago, when Stuessi demanded her resignation in a March 14 letter that claimed she was deeply in debt to the village.

“While I am disappointed in having to request and accept Trustee Phillips’s resignation as deputy mayor, I felt it necessary after I became aware of significant indebtedness to the village, which in the aggregate exceeds $100,000 and has accumulated over many years and remains unpaid,” Stuessi wrote.

Phillips agreed to resign her position. As of press time, the village still has no deputy mayor.

Her colleague, Trustee Patrick Brennan, expressed concern with her conduct at the board meeting.

“I’m deeply troubled by Trustee Phillips’s conduct,” Brennan said. “I feel that she has failed to meet her responsibilities as trustee, and I’m concerned that she’s lost the ability to distinguish between what’s in the public interest and what’s in self interest. I just want to put a little bit of context around what the magnitude of the indebtedness is. We’re talking about something in excess of $100,000 that’s equivalent to almost 1% of our village annual budget. That’s probably two times the average village resident’s annual income.”

But despite the issue of Phillips’s finances, she won re-election with the most votes of any of the five candidates running for seats on the board. Trustee Julia Robins, a veteran of the real estate industry, won her fifth term in the race.

“I have apologized. I have worked for the last year and a half, refinancing things, and as Trustee Brennan said, there are funds that are now coming in that weren’t available,” Phillips said at the meeting. “The mayor knew I was trying to work things out. As I said before, we’ve had some financial issues since Covid, and at this point, I have always worked to do for the village. I don’t feel that this was an entitlement. I feel part of a community that’s trying to stay here, and my family and I are committed, and always have been working towards keeping our home here.”

The mayor’s troubles

But despite Mayor Stuessi’s efforts to keep scandals out of village hall, he is not exempt from the controversy in Greenport.

Stuessi, who put his professional career on hold to treat the mayoralty as a full-time job, also took on the role of building administrator for the village. While commendable, the results of this dual role have been disastrous, according to residents.

“I have a stop work order on two projects, and I’ve been trying to get the mayor to call me back for three months, and you refuse,” David Murray, who owns Murray Design & Build, said to Stuessi. “You say, ‘legal counsel,’ every time. He refuses to call me back. Legal counsel means two things to me. One, you don’t know anything about the building department. Two, it’s costing me and everybody here a fortune.”

Stuessi responded saying he had emailed Murray but was met with further response.

“Kevin, you are acting administrator,” Murray said. “Act like him. Everything’s coming out now. Call me back. [There is] no building department whatsoever. I had all approvals from historic zoning. Don’t even go there, Kevin, you are so wrong. It’s not even funny.”

Other residents spoke of the dysfunction in the local government tied to the building department.

“We just experienced our second consecutive election marked by drama and political intrigue,” resident Tricia Hammes said. “For a small community like Greenport, this is overwhelming. Two years ago when the mayor and several members of this board were first elected, many of the village community hoped for course correction that would bring increased transparency, improved communication and fair, unbiased administration of village affairs. Unfortunately, instead of progress, we now face a crisis of confidence in our government.”

Hammes added that the board needs to hire a city manager who can act in the village’s interest separate from any political turmoil.

“Such a manager would provide crucial expertise in budgeting, project management and oversight of day to day operations of the village, including ensuring code enforcement in a professional and unbiased manner,” Hammes said. “A professional manager would ensure continuity and consistency of village operations, even as the composition of this board may change in the future. Equally vital is the urgent need for at least one full time code enforcement officer who is versed in the code of this village. The recent allegations of selective enforcement and preferential treatment demand that we have a dedicated individual who understands both our community and our code to further promote accountability.”

Said allegations of preferential code enforcement were made by Alex Bolanos, a former code enforcement officer who claims he was wrongfully terminated while on medical leave. Bolanos has claimed to the press and in a village Facebook group that he was told to target only Zach Erdem of Z’Erdem on Main Street for a code violation with regards to fenced-in garbage bins. Bolanos claimed that when he said would have to give this ticket to everyone, Stuessi told him, “Only Zach,” Bolanos said to Dan’s Papers.

“I was wrongfully terminated while on medical leave because I tried to expose everything,” Bolanos said at the meeting. “They’re trying to cover up and expose and lie about, because these are all lies to me. I was here before them, and I will be here after them.”

Stuessi addressed concerns about confidence at the meeting.

“What is important to me, and I know to the rest of the board members as well, is that we not only earn your trust, but we keep your trust, and in many ways, there have been some failings recently that we have taken steps to address,” Stuessi said. “Each of us have a responsibility as an elected official and a member of this board to keep that public trust, disclose if there’s an issue where we might have a conflict, and then potentially recuse ourselves from a vote if there is a conflict that reaches a certain level as part of that.”