Fiore Is Winner In Three-Way Race For North Haven Mayor

Chris Fiore, a newcomer to North Haven politics when he was appointed a trustee to fill a vacancy on the Village Board in 2020, only to lose it when Terie Diat soon challenged him, easily sailed past her and former Mayor Jack Reiser to win a raucous and unprecedented three-way race for mayor on Tuesday, June 21.

Fiore collected 164 votes to Diat’s 106 and Reiser’s 105 after a meticulous hand count of paper ballots by four election volunteers that took until well past midnight.

It was the first contested election for mayor in the village in three decades, and it proved a slugfest, with Diat calling out Fiore for missing a deadline to file a campaign finance report and forcing him off the air as a part-time WLNG disc jockey when she asked the station for equal time. Fiore labeled her campaign “nasty” and called for “kindness and decency” in village government.

The 385 votes cast for mayor, including six that were voided and four that were spoiled, were not a record, though they surpassed the 275-vote total when Diat took away Fiore’s trustee seat in 2020. The next year, the two cross-endorsed each other and ran without opposition as running mates for two open board seats.

In Tuesday’s voting, two trustees sought reelection without opposition, the usual scenario in North Haven: Dianne Skilbred, the deputy mayor and Fiore’s running mate on the North Haven Party line, took 302 votes — far exceeding Fiore’s count on the same line — and Claas Abraham, who was appointed to the board to fill a vacancy and ran on his own Hog Neck Party line, garnered 242.

There were many “blanks” in the trustee results as some voters made only one choice for trustee or skipped choosing either candidate.

None of the candidates attended the long vote count in Village Hall.

“I am completely thrilled with the results!” Fiore commented in a text message Wednesday morning. “Thanks to all the voters in North Haven. We have a lot to do, so let’s get back to work!”

Diat, who retains her seat as a trustee, said she was “confident the board will work together for the good of North Haven.” She congratulated Fiore and wished him success.

She added in a phone interview Wednesday morning, “The fact that there was a choice and a lot of communication going on about that choice may have had the impact of dividing the community. Now we need to come back together as the nice, small, close-knit, friendly community that we are.”

Unlike his two opponents, Reiser did not actively campaign and only a few signs supporting him appeared among the many Diat and Fiore had placed. They aggressively campaigned door to door, sent email blasts, and ran ads in print and on the radio. Fiore also hung campaign banners on his collection of antique vehicles, rotating them in a spot alongside Ferry Road at the corner of his property.

Reiser described the race as fun but said he was surprised not to have come closer to Fiore in the balloting. He confirmed a story circulating in the supercharged pre-election grapevine that Fiore had stopped by his house and told Reiser that, as mayor, he would appoint him to Fiore’s vacant trustee seat if Reiser dropped out of the race.

Fiore vehemently denied it. “That is patently false,” he wrote in a text. “I never did that. I stopped by Jack’s house two Saturdays ago while I was campaigning door to door. I thought it would be good to introduce myself since I didn’t know him at all.

“He was home, it was about 3:30. I said to him one of us is going to be mayor and if it is you I will be your trustee. If I win, do you want my trustee seat? He said no. He said he’d rather be on one of the boards.

“I never — underline never — asked him to drop out of the race, never.”

Reiser confirmed he would rather be named to a seat on the Zoning Board of Appeals or the Planning Board, which he described as “much harder” work.

On Election Day, June 21, Mayor Jeff Sander — whose decision not to seek reelection touched off the mayoral race in March — sent out an email questioning Reiser’s candidacy. He wrote that in his four two-year terms as mayor and as a trustee before that, he’d seen Reiser attend a Village Board meeting only once.

Sander reiterated his confidence in both Fiore and Diat, saying they were both highly effective as board members and stuck to his decision not to endorse either.

In Tuesday’s balloting, there were eight names submitted as write-in choices for trustee, each with one vote except for Peter Boody, who received three. Other write-in votes were for Jefferson Murphree, Jeff Sander, Jason Witt, Conor McCarthy, Adriana Barone, Diane Sjoholm and Leslie Shatz. There were no write-ins for mayor.

Village Clerk-Treasurer Eileen Tuohy reported that there were 337 walk-in voters on Tuesday and 52 absentee ballots submitted, of which four were voided. The total was far below the apparent record of 488 votes cast in 1996.

Among other contested elections, there were 392 cast in 2007; 354 in 2004, and 365 in 1997. There are more than 800 registered voters in North Haven, which has a population of less than 900.