North Haven Mayor Candidate Pulled Off Radio So Opponent Can Have Equal Time

The first contested race for mayor in 30 years in the small village of North Haven took on the aura of big-league political hardball last week, as radio station WLNG in Sag Harbor suspended candidate Chris Fiore’s twice-weekly oldies radio show in response to a request for equal time from one of his opponents, Terie Diat.

Diat also filed a complaint with the State Board of Elections when she learned through a Freedom of Information request that he and his running mate for trustee, Dianne Skilbred, had not filed required campaign financial reports by the May 20 deadline.

Both Fiore and Diat are village trustees looking to succeed Mayor Jeff Sander, who is not seeking reelection. Jack Reiser, a former mayor, also is running.

North Haven’s mayoral candidates have all run without opposition since 1992, when Mr. Reiser faced an opponent and won a third term.

Diat, a retired corporate financial officer, confirmed in an interview that WLNG is giving her 120 60-second spots to balance the time that Fiore had access to the airwaves while the campaign was underway.

A retired retail executive, Fiore has been a part-time disc jockey at WLNG for 18 months. He worked for a time as a disc jockey in Dayton, Ohio, before he began his career in retail.

“It’s an FCC rule,” said station program director Bill Evans in a phone interview, that equal time must be given to candidates who ask for it if their opponent has had access to the airwaves.

He said Diat had sent the station “a very nice email” requesting equal time. “She’s entitled to equal time, so we’ll give her equal time,” he said, confirming that Fiore would remain off the air until after the village election on June 21.

Fiore had “never mentioned” anything about his candidacy during his broadcasts, Evans added.

Diat also said she had filed a complaint with the State Board of Elections citing Fiore and Skilbred for failing to file a required campaign financial report by the May 20 deadline. All the other candidates on the ballot filed theirs, Diat said. They include Trustee Claas Abraham, who, like Skilbred, is seeking reelection unopposed.

Asked for comment, Fiore said in a phone interview he had been unaware of the requirement for a financial report to be filed and was surprised it hadn’t been mentioned to him by the village clerk, who administers election paperwork. He also said he had no receipts to report, because he’s funding his campaign himself.

“That’s an interesting comment from Chris,” Diat said, because the filing requirement “was communicated to all the candidates running for public office when we picked up our paperwork” in Village Hall.

Reports are required even from candidates who receive no campaign contributions and pay all expenses themselves. In a subsequent text message, he said he had complied by filing his disclosure form on the afternoon of Friday, May 27.

Village Clerk-Treasurer Eileen Tuohy commented by email: “The village provides an election packet for those interested in running for office. Each candidate picks up an election packet that has all the necessary forms and an election calendar, with all the necessary dates, in the packet. (This calendar is prepared by using guidelines from NYCOM — NY Council of Mayors.) I highlighted the first date that campaign receipts and expenditures had to be filed for their reference. It is not my job to inform candidates when forms are due.”

Dianne Skilbred commented by email on May 30 that she believed Fiore had “completed the form last week, and as far as I know there is no problem.”

Concerning the hiatus in his show at WLNG, Fiore wrote in a May 28 email to his supporters, “I never once spoke about the mayor’s race on the air — just talked about Bob Dylan and Tom Petty …”

Diat’s call for equal time, he wrote, “was followed up by an inquiry to the media about why I haven’t yet submitted a financial contribution form to the village. That’s because I have no contributions. I’m funding the campaign myself.”

In his email to supporters, Fiore wrote, “We clearly need to ‘kick ticks out of North Haven’” — a reference to one of Diat’s projects as a village trustee — “but we shouldn’t kick out kindness and decency as well. I am a very competent guy who feels he is the most qualified to lead this village in a skillful, smart, unbiased way. There is nothing petty about my campaign. Let’s keep our village a peaceful place and stay on the high road.”

Diat commented, “I think it’s important that every candidate running for public office adhere to the rules … [and] there needs to be a level playing field. This is an important election. People need to trust the integrity of the candidates.”

When Diat and Fiore were both running unopposed for two open seats on the Village Board last year — in that election, they cross-endorsed each other — Diat said Fiore had mentioned the FCC rule to her, and told her he was relieved it would probably not be an issue, because there were no opposing candidates. “I guess he thought I’d forget about that,” she said during the phone interview.

Asked to respond, Fiore wrote in a text: “No matter how you justify it to yourself, media investigations and federal regulation invocations are simply nasty. Nasty doesn’t belong in our village.”

Diat also ran against Fiore in September 2020 for the remaining term of the vacant trustee seat to which he had been appointed. She won that contest by a vote of 148-120. There are 882 registered voters in North Haven.