Town board member walks out during Gillen's ovation

Democratic Hempstead Supervisor Laura Gillen chaired her last official town board meeting Tuesday after losing last month's election to Republican Town Tax Receiver Don Clavin.

Partisan animosity continued to the end.

Republican Town Board member Anthony D'Esposito walked out when Deputy Supervisor Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who endorsed Gillen's election  two years ago but not this year, transformed a moment of silence for a late constituent into a standing ovation for the departing supervisor.

At the end of the board meeting, Blakeman stood up and said, "I'd like to rise to a point of personal privilege. I would ask everybody to stand for a moment," according to a video of the meeting.

After the audience and board members dutifully stood up, Blakeman asked for a moment of silence to honor the passing of a retired NYPD deputy chief Vincent DeMarino of North Valley Stream from 9/11-related cancer.

When the moment ended, Blakeman quickly said, "While we are standing, I would like at this time to recognize our supervisor and town clerk for their two years of service to the town of Hempstead....I  would like to congratulate them...Lets give applause to our two outgoing" officials.

At that point, D'Esposito, who was near the exit, walked out.

"I have the utmost respect for the outgoing clerk," D'Esposito said later, referring to Democratic Town Clerk Sylvia Cabana who also lost her bid for re-election. "But giving a standing ovation to Supervisor Gillen,  who I believe used her office to take out and handle personal vendettas, who used people's families and livelihoods as pawns, I don't think deserves a stand ovation. She made personal attacks towards member of my family and other families who work for the Town of Hempstead."

D'Esposito said nobody asked why he left. "Anybody who was watching got a clear indication of how I felt."

Gillen spokesman Michael Fricchione said, "I don't know where he's getting that from."

Fricchione said, "Maybe when he voted to give his mom a raise." Gillen wasn't supervisor yet, but "at the time, she spoke out against it."

In 2017, D'Esposito voted to approve a group of personnel changes that included a raise for his mother, a secretary in the highway department.  Democrats and others blasted the move as nepotism, but D'Esposito, then-Supervisor Anthony Santino, a Republican, and then-town spokesman Michael Deery denied the vote was improper or a conflict.