Cornelia Elected East Hampton Republican Committee Chairman

Reg Cornelia, an 18-year member of the East Hampton Republican Committee and its vice chairman since 2014, was elected to lead the committee on Wednesday night, prevailing over Amos Goodman, a recent, unsuccessful candidate for the Suffolk County Legislature.

Mr. Cornelia had moved into the position of interim chairman last month following the abrupt resignation of the committee's chairman, Tom Knobel. Mr. Knobel resigned from the committee one month after being fired from his position at the Suffolk County Board of Elections and four months after a resounding defeat in his campaign for East Hampton Town supervisor.

Mr. Cornelia said that rebuilding morale was among the first items of business, after the lopsided losses the party incurred in November when Supervisor Larry Cantwell was re-elected by a 2-to-1 margin. Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc and Councilwoman Sylvia Overby also defeated their Republican challengers by wide margins, and the composition of the town trustees swung from a 5-to-4 Republican majority to a 3-to-6 minority.

"We have our work cut out for us," Mr. Cornelia said on Thursday. "Morale has suffered from last fall's elections; there's been some disarray."

But the energy to rebuild is palpable, he said, and East Hampton Republicans can take heart and find inspiration in the larger campaigns now under way. "For the first time in a while we have a Republican congressman to re-elect," he said of Representative Lee Zeldin of New York's First Congressional District. In his second attempt, in 2014, Mr. Zeldin, a former state senator, defeated Tim Bishop, a six-term Democrat.

"I admire Mr. Zeldin quite a bit," Mr. Cornelia said. "I worked with him in 2008 when he ran the first time. I was impressed by him then and am more impressed now. He's hard-working, diligent, cares, and pays attention. And sooner or later, we'll have a presidential candidate." New Yorkers will vote in the Republican and Democratic Parties' primary election on Tuesday.

Mr. Cornelia said the East Hampton Republicans would harness the energy generated by those campaigns to "continue to do what Republicans try to do: keep government efficient, as inexpensive as possible, not go off on half-baked schemes, and make sure people have places to live and jobs to work at. And," he added, "that they have access to the beaches they pay for." He also pointed to the town's recently enacted rental registry, a law that he said would prove "a bureaucratic nightmare."

Mr. Goodman did not hide his disappointment on Thursday. "I think the winner last night was Larry Cantwell, Kathee Burke-Gonzalez," a Democratic councilwoman, "and the Democratic trustees. I think the losers are the East Hampton taxpayers and folks who are interested in good government, accountability, transparency, and value for the money," he said.

The committee, he said, "had an opportunity to change, to evolve, to begin the process of rebuilding and becoming competitive in this town, and decades' loyalties and senses of entitlements and other things that are less honorable than that seemed to prevail. . . . I don't view it as a reflection on anybody personally, I just think it's a shame that the status quo, which has not proven to be the successful one, will be the path forward."

Mr. Goodman "has a lot of great qualities," Mr. Cornelia said. "He's intelligent, energetic, very good with computers and data analysis. I think he can be a great asset to the committee." But the committee, he said, "wanted someone familiar and who they are more comfortable with" in the chairman's role. He referred to his activism as a member of the Springs Citizens Advisory Committee and former member of the hamlet's school board, and on issues including veterans' care and after-school programs. "I'm a known entity, and I think I've built a reputation as trustworthy."