Joking about having ignored dire warnings issued just a few months before the arrival of the Covid-19 epidemic, the Huntington Town Board voted Tuesday to again bill the town as Hauntington for the Halloween season.
Last November, a man who identified himself as a bail bondsman and a cultural anthropologist had sternly warned the Town Board against the renaming, saying, “We don’t want to be known as a town that celebrates visitations from the dead. If that is our crowning virtue, then we ought to march out right now with a bunch of shovels and dig up everybody in Huntington’s historic cemetery and parade them around on our shoulders” and warned that the board could be “ushering in some sort of paranormal tornado.”
Tuesday, Councilman Ed Smyth and Supervisor Chad Lupinacci engaged in a mock debate, with Smyth initially saying he opposed the change. “We were warned,” Smyth said. “I will not make the mistake twice. I am voting NO.”
But Lupinacci praised the Halloween decorations he’d seen around town and added, “After all we’ve gone through, know that this is something residents can do with safety. The freedom of trick treaters shall not be infringed.”
Smyth relented and the renaming was approved unanimously.
Town Board Notes: ‘Spiritual Cleansing,’ Free HART Day, Typewriter Donation