‘We are struggling here.’ News 12 uncovers rash in vandalism targeting Newburgh auto shops

Alleged gas station car thief caught trying to flee police in Newburgh

Police: 22-year-old man fatally shot in Morris Heights

Police: Patchogue man arrested, charged for leaving 2-year-old son in vehicle during extreme heat

Lacey police quack the case of the storm drain ducklings

Police: Fentanyl, crack cocaine found in Port Jervis raid

newyork

News 12 Staff

LItrotta624_2025-06-24-05-24-13

Of course that arrest comes as voters in the town of Smithtown head to the polls for primary day. Yes, and legislator Trotta is running against fellow Republican Ed Wareheim, hoping to unseat the incumbent supervisor, and the legislator joins us live from our newsroom this morning on this primary day. Good morning, Rob. Uh, let's get right to this new news late last night about this arrest. Uh, well, you know, it was going on for the past couple of weeks. What happened was over the, over the course of 4 or 5 days that we woken up in the middle of the night, sounded like a jet engine at certain times. Uh, what happened was I went out to my car the next day and my neighbor came over almost in tears given what happened in Minnesota. She said, You better be careful. So without telling my wife, I called the Suffolk County police. They set up a surveillance on my house and, uh, shortly within 30 hours, uh, this happened again. They caught the individual, uh, in front of the current supervisor's house. Um, the current supervisor put out a statement denying this, uh, even though it was in front of his house. The daughter's boyfriend was involved in this. I believe the daughter was probably there. It's an ongoing investigation. uh, there's possibility of more arrests. It's just something that shouldn't be in politics, not the reason that's not the reason I ran, uh, you know this should be about the, the, the overdevelopment of the town. Well, we have a statement from Ed Wareheim that his office put out last week. We're going to talk to him in the next half hour, but here's what he said last week. No member of my family, no campaign volunteer, no friend was questioned, detained or arrested. So that was from the supervisor's office. That was before the arrest yesterday. Again, we're going to talk to the supervisor about this, but legislator Trotta, let's talk about the issues at play here in this race, the issues voters are focused on today. You've made. The focus of your campaign overdevelopment in the town, what would you do differently? You know, when you get sewers, it's supposed to be about clean water and revitalizing downtowns, but when the developers see this, they pile money on the politicians and what happens is you have 3 and 4 story apartment buildings. That's not what suburb is about. The town of Smithtown is about that, a picturesque town, not traffic, not people piled on top of each other. They want to live somewhere like that, people live in Queens now listen. I can't tell you how many people's doors I've knocked on over the past couple of months where they say they do not want this. Unfortunately it's the David and Goliath syndrome. They have over $400,000 of developers' money. They're pumping stuff out, counting their, you know, touting what they've done in the parks. Now if you consider putting astroturf down like that picture right there, ironically, that's not what we want in the town of Smithtown. We want nice parks, you know, one of my running mates is, uh. Uh, Joanne Varello, her two children played Division One lacrosse, and you know what she says? Guess what, one went to Syracuse, one went to the, uh, Naval Academy. They never played on turf once, you know, they spent $83 million on things like that, which is in some parts OK, but if they spent $40 and replace those wires you see and makes our downtowns beautiful, we have one of the highest, uh, zoned people per acre in the country. So we don't need that. We need the right revitalization of downtown so the 117,000 people who live in the town of Smithtown will frequent our downtowns. Legislator Rob Trotta, thanks so much for joining us this morning. Good luck to you on this primary day. Thank you.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/9f9671c4-a2f9-4cb9-ab52-aaaccc216c46/9f9671c4-a2f9-4cb9-ab52-aaaccc216c46.transcribe

LIWerheim624_2025-06-24-05-40-06

Supervisor Ed Wareheim is with us this morning joining us live right now. Ed, thanks for joining us. We're gonna start here with this arrest because I know you put out a statement last week saying that whoever was responsible for this had nothing to do with your family. Trotter was just on and people close to Trotta have been telling us that it's your girlfriend's, I'm sorry, your daughter's boyfriend who was arrested here. Uh, can you comment on that? Is that true? Well, the only comment I will make is, um, we, we have heard about it late last night. Um, our campaign is compiling all the details, Rich, um, and at the time we receive all those details, we'll be putting out a statement. Um, uh, is, is your, can I just simply ask you, is your daughter's boyfriend named Josh Smith? She, it's a friend of my daughter's, yes. OK. All right, let's get to the fact that it's primary day. You have a big challenge ahead of you today. It is an important day. What do you want the people of Long Island, especially the people of your town, to hear from you? Well, listen, we're, we're gearing up, um, at headquarters for a very exciting day today. What I want them to know is that we have run our campaign strictly on the merits and on our record um we've continued to do that from the start and we will finish that way as well um as most people know we've been out there in the community, um, letting them know that we have a very fiscally stable town we are working on infrastructure. Uh, projects in all three business districts which are underway as we speak and we have aggressively, uh, began to restore all of the parks, beaches, and recreational facilities in the town of Smithtown and that has been very, very well received, uh, by the community. Ed, your opponent Rob Trotter says too much with the parks. He says, uh, the money could have been cut in half. He just said that a half hour ago. He also says overdevelopment is his chief concern. What's your reaction to that? He says this is going to turn into Queens, and I know you've talked about it before. Yeah, Rich, I really have, um, that's just a false fact. It, it is not going to turn into Queens because development in the business districts, which is what he's referring to, is all controlled. It's done by professional planners and height and yield, um, is controlled by the comprehensive master plan. So 2 3-story buildings, 4 stories in the downtown Smithtown business district. Um, those are all put together by professional planners and engineers, and it's also done with, with a vast amount of community input. So we feel this is what the community wants. Um, we have started already, um, and it's been well received and what we have accomplished so far seems to be working well in the business districts to bring them back to life as far as the parks go, um. I'm gonna vehemently disagree with my opponent. Parks are a mainstay of the community. Uh, that's what makes a community. Um, our parks were probably 25 to 30 years old, extremely deteriorated, um, and we went on an aggressive, uh. Plan to upgrade the mall. We're about 70% complete this time, and I can tell you that thousands of parents and children are utilizing those facilities every single day. Supervisor Wareheim, thanks for joining us and good luck to you on this primary day. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thanks.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/ba19e699-7d74-4f11-a03b-f107b62ee0c2/ba19e699-7d74-4f11-a03b-f107b62ee0c2.transcribe

Police say Joshua Smith parked his pickup truck in the driveway of Legislator Robert Trotta’s Northport home multiple times.

Smithtown supervisor confirms man charged with stalking primary opponent is 'friend' of his daughter

Police say Joshua Smith parked his pickup truck in the driveway of Legislator Robert Trotta’s Northport home multiple times.

More Stories

‘We are struggling here.’ News 12 uncovers rash in vandalism targeting Newburgh auto shops

Alleged gas station car thief caught trying to flee police in Newburgh

Police: 22-year-old man fatally shot in Morris Heights

Police: Patchogue man arrested, charged for leaving 2-year-old son in vehicle during extreme heat

Lacey police quack the case of the storm drain ducklings

Police: Fentanyl, crack cocaine found in Port Jervis raid

‘We are struggling here.’ News 12 uncovers rash in vandalism targeting Newburgh auto shops

Alleged gas station car thief caught trying to flee police in Newburgh

Police: 22-year-old man fatally shot in Morris Heights

Police: Patchogue man arrested, charged for leaving 2-year-old son in vehicle during extreme heat

Lacey police quack the case of the storm drain ducklings

Police: Fentanyl, crack cocaine found in Port Jervis raid

More from News 12

LIRR delays and cancellation disrupt service amid extreme heat

Fire official: Rear of tour bus falls through parking garage in North New Hyde Park

East Ramapo school community concerned about keeping schools cool during hot weather

Long Islanders working outside take extra precautions amid heat wave

HEAT ALERT: Brutal heat continues through Wednesday in Brooklyn

HEAT ALERT: Brutal heat continues through Wednesday in The Bronx