Huntington Town Candidates, November 2023 Election: Republicans

The Huntington Republican Committee has designated its four candidates for the November 7, 2023 election. There will be two vacant seats on the town board; Councilwoman Joan Cergol (a Democrat) and Councilman Eugene Cook (an Independent) have both announced they won’t be seeking re-election. Positions for town clerk and collector of taxes are also up for election this year.

The Republican candidates for each of these seats, and their professional backgrounds, are described below. Candidates designated by the Huntington Democratic Committee can be found in a separate article, here.

Huntington Town Board
Brooke Lupinacci
Brooke Lupinacci is a lifelong Town of Huntington resident currently raising three sons with her husband Stephen in Lloyd Harbor. Lupinacci is a St. Anthony’s High School graduate, and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from New York University and a juris doctor from Touro Law School. She is a trustee of the Huntington Lawyers Club and a graduate of Leadership Huntington.

Lupinacci began her career in public service as an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, prosecuting felons for financial crimes. According to her website biography, she secured criminal convictions related to embezzlement, fraud, home improvement scams, welfare fraud and money laundering while serving in the Economic Crime Bureau.

Lupinacci changed career paths in 2015, after having her son, and joined the Town of Huntington as an assistant town attorney. She was most recently appointed to serve as Huntington’s director of labor relations, where she oversees the day-to-day relations between management and the town’s workforce, which includes over 900 employees.

Lupinacci said that she is “determined to protect our neighborhoods from urbanization plans that threaten to increase crime, drain emergency services, overcrowd classrooms and increase taxes.” She plans to “hold the line on property taxes” and invest in local parks and our waterways.

Find out more about Brooke Lupinacci here.

Theresa Mari
Theresa Mari is an attorney who has been in private practice for 30 years. She graduated from Hofstra University Law School and began her career as assistant general counsel and then general counsel for Covidea, Inc., an online computer banking company. She then co-founded Ecotyre Technologies, Inc., a publicly traded tire-remanufacturing business, where she served as the company’s general counsel and executive director.

Mari later became the founding partner of her own law firm, Theresa A. Mari, P.C., where she concentrates her practice in family, real estate and matrimonial law, focusing on the representation of children.

Mari has held leadership positions with the Suffolk County Bar Association (SCBA) and the Suffolk County Women’s Bar Association. She served as a member of the SCBA’s Judicial Nominating Committee, and is a former president of the Suffolk County Matrimonial Bar Association and the Huntington Lawyers Club.

As a Huntington Town Councilwoman, Mari wants to hold the line on taxes and ensure the highest quality of services through increased government efficiencies, work with public safety and police to enforce quality of life issues, and protect our environment and water quality by investing in the town’s infrastructure.

Find out more about Theresa Mari here.

Town Clerk
Andrew Raia
Andrew Raia has served as Huntington town clerk since January 2020 and prior to that, was a New York State Assemblyman from 2003-2019, serving nine terms representing the east side of Huntington.

Raia has made it a priority to keep the town’s records secure, while exploring ways to utilize new technology to enhance office productivity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the town clerk’s office prided itself on being the only town department that remained fully operational from the outset, according to the Huntington Republican Committee website.

Raia’s mission is to “maintain the reputation of the Huntington Town Clerk’s Office as being the best in the state in delivering professional, courteous and expeditious service to the town’s residents.”

Find out more about Andrew Raia here.