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Politics & Government

Williams Breaks with Fischer's Third Party

Marlando Williams says he now opposes Fischer's candidacy and fully supports Cardinale for town supervisor.

Town Council candidate Marlando Williams forcefully renounced Greg Fischer, the political maverick from Calverton who last month formed the Riverhead First Party in order to run for supervisor on a third-party line. Fischer for the Nov. 8 general election two weeks ago, an alliance Williams said he is now rejecting.

“I completely, totally and irrevocably oppose Greg Fisher’s candidacy for Riverhead town supervisor and wholly endorse and support [former supervisor] Phil Cardinale, both in this year’s Democratic primary and in this year’s general election,” Williams, already the Riverhead Democratic Committee’s nominee for a council seat, said in a statement.

In an interview, Williams said his break with Fischer was prompted by Fischer’s behavior over the past couple of weeks, including his interrupting a Democratic press conference and being accused of fraud by the Democrat’s Committee chairman, Vinny Villella, in obtaining signatures on nominating petitions, a charge Fischer denies.

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Fischer said he was disappointed in Williams's action, and accused him of bowing to political pressure.

“Basically, Marlando [Williams] lied to me repeatedly,” Fisher responded. “He files an acceptance and then disavows it. He actually signed a notarized acceptance of the nomination while he was on vacation in Jamaica, and I delivered it to the board of elections."

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“I’m very disappointed," Fischer added. “We worked very hard for him, and he just wasn’t honest.”

The reversal by Williams, however, doesn’t end the problems for the Democrats.

For Cardinale to run as their candidate for supervisor in November, he must first defeat Fischer in the Sept. 13 primary because Fischer, in addition to his third-party ballot designation, is on the ballot for the Democratic nomination in opposition to Cardinale, already the Democratic Committee’s choice for supervisor.

Williams is also running in the Democratic primary in a three-way race for two council seats against Matthew Van Glad, the Democratic Committee choice for the second seat, and Ruth Pollack, who is aligned with Fischer.

This situation could lead to some strange possibilities. Should Williams come in first or second in the primary, for example, he would be the Democrat’s candidate on November’s ballot as well as a candidate for both the Working Families Party and Riverhead First Party.

But his name would not appear on a separate Riverhead First line. Instead, his third-party candidacy would show up on the ballot with a small Riverhead First logo next to his name on either the Democratic and Working Families line, whatever his choice.

That’s because, according to state election law, the names of candidates for municipal office can only appear on a maximum of two party lines.

On the other hand, if Williams were to come in third in the Democratic primary, his name would appear on the ballot on a separate Riverhead First line along with Fischer.

As for Cardinale, should he win the Sept. 13 primary, he would run in November as a Democrat facing both Fischer, running as the Riverhead First Party candidate, and Sean Walter, the incumbent supervisor and the Republican’s unchallenged nominee.

Should Cardinale lose the primary, he would still be on the ballot, but as a candidate on only the Working Families line in a three-way race with Fischer and Walter.

On Tuesday, Cardinale expressed confidence in winning the Democratic primary.

“I think anything could happen, and therefore I’m urging all Democrats to get out and vote,” he said. “But I think that Democrats in the Town of Riverhead are wise enough to separate the wheat from the chaff and understand that Fischer would be a very unfortunate representative of the Democrats in the general election.”

Cardinale also said that neither he nor his committee-nominated running mates, Williams and Van Glad, would show up at the candidates debate that Fischer has arranged for Thursday evening at Polish Hall.

“I’m not going to give Fischer yet another opportunity to do what he has constantly done in the past, which is to distort the truth and distort the facts,” Cardinale said.

Fischer said he and Pollack would show up at the event anyway “and debate empty chairs.”

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