Candidate Profile: As Supervisor, Meguin Would LIke to See Focus on Issues, Not Family Roots

said that in this day and age he doesn't understand why deep family ties to the North Fork matter in order to get elected into government.

With an extensive background in law and the perspective of a transplanted North Fork resident, lifelong Democrat Meguin said he feels like he’d bring a fresh point of view to Southold Town Hall as

“It doesn’t bother me so much to see these ‘North Fork Native’ bumper stickers but it does seem awfully myopic to think that the world ends at Route 105,” he said. “I might not have been born here, but I chose to live here.”

Meguin, 63, is a native of Lindenhurst who moved to Southold in 1991 so his son, Christopher, could experience education in a He was working as a law secretary to a judge in Riverhead and the commute was getting longer from up west.

“The area was turning into Queens, the drive was taking over an hour instead of 45 minutes, and Southold seemed like the right thing to do,” he said.

Meguin graduated from Boston University with a bachelor's degree in business administration and served in the U.S. Army Military Police Corps and the Army Reserves. He studied law at St. Johns University and began practicing in 1975. He has served as the director of finance in the Town of Babylon and as a principal clerk to three Suffolk County court judges in Riverhead. Meguin has also served as a member and as chairman of the Southold Town Board of Ethics and a member of the Anti-Bias Task Force in Southold.

Aside from careers in the health care industry, Meguin said he does not see many sustainable jobs here. Instead, he’s been running on the issue of the on the existing Long Island Rail Road infrastructure. A more consistent train service to and from the North Fork from the hub in Ronkonkoma would be a convenience to commuters — and to tourists who are now getting stuck in longer and longer lines of traffic during the height of seasonal harvests.

“We’ve reached a saturation point — it’s become a traffic nightmare and a public safety issue and soon tourists will stop dealing with it and stop coming out here,” he said.

If elected Supervisor, Meguin said that he would be friendly to all thriving businesses but would expect that each proprietor would make adjustments in order to fit in with the overarching goals of the business community. He said that in Mattituck and in Cutchogue have come to a point of success where they need to start policing themselves due to problems such as associated with routine business.

“Other successful businesses have adjusted and are just as busy,” he said. “has at least addressed parking. I think Southold Town needed to address that same situation at Harbes years ago.”

Even if he is not elected, Meguin said that his run at the very least has helped revive the Southold Town Democratic Committee — and has gotten people to think about how their government is run.

“Regardless of what happens, we’re trying to get people to think," he said.