The plan by the four Democratic North Hempstead council members to appoint a controversy-tainted pick as the new town highway superintendent over the objections of Supervisor Jennifer DeSena is instructive in several ways.

The first lesson is that the four Democrats, who now comprise the majority of the seven-member town board, have the legal right to select Thomas Tiernan six years after he resigned as highway superintendent following probes into his overtime compensation.

Under state law, town supervisors are not like governors, county executives or mayors with executive power to do things like appoint department heads.

Surprising as this might seem to voters, the power of the executive falls to the majority of the town board of which the supervisor is just one member.

A town supervisor like DeSena is, according to the Local Government Handbook, more of an administrator overseeing the departments but not necessarily choosing its leaders.

Sounds like a bad way to run a government? Blame the State of New York.

Laura Gillen, who became the first Democratic Hempstead supervisor in 112 years in 2017, urged Democrats in North Hempstead in January to “eschew the temptation to use this power for strictly political purposes” as the Hempstead Republican-controlled town board did to her.

So much for listening to Gillen. North Hempstead Democrats appear to be following the playbook of Hempstead Republicans and standing in the way of DeSena at every turn.

Which unfortunately worked out well for Hempstead Republicans if not Hempstead residents. Gillen, who is now running for the Democratic nomination for Congress, was defeated after one term in office.

Blocked were such obvious and long-needed proposals such as computerizing records and not relying on electric typewriters.

Thus far, North Hempstead Democrats have stood in the way of modest reforms of the long-troubled town Building Department and, appointments to the town ethics board.

This leads to the expected appointment of Tiernan and the town’s long history of unaccountability and nepotism.

Tiernan, who had worked with the town from 1980, was named highway chief in 2000.

In 2016, he resigned following reports in Newsday that he had amassed over $130,000 in overtime between 2011 and 2016 and an internal investigation by the town.

At the time of his resignation, Tiernan was the town’s highest-paid employee and the only highway superintendent on Long Island to collect overtime pay. This was also a family affair.

When Tiernan resigned, several members of his family were on the town’s payroll in a pattern of nepotism and questionable hiring by the town.

His sister, Helen McCann, is a former longtime employee of the town.

In 2018, she was sentenced to a conditional discharge for embezzling more than $98,000 from the Solid Waste Management Authority from 2014 to 2016, prosecutors said.

She was ordered to pay $50,000 in restitution to the town, $48,330 to an insurance company for a claim made by the town and pleaded guilty to second-degree corrupting the government charges.

Tiernan’s brother, John, was a 27-year town employee who was a highway construction supervisor. He was asked to resign in 2018 after the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board found he “knowingly made material misrepresentations” to get benefits, according to Newsday.

His wife, Jill Guiney, is a former town deputy commissioner of public works.

In 2017, a year after Tiernan’s resignation, the town board under Supervisor Judi Bosworth passed anti-nepotism laws. The laws prohibited relatives of elected town officials from being employed by the town, a town employee from participating in any personnel decision about a relative and town employees from supervising a relative.

One of the four Democratic town council members now supporting the return of Tiernan, Robert Troiano, ran afoul of town ethics requirements a year later when he failed to list federal tax liens on at least one financial disclosure statement when he served as a Bosworth deputy.

Blank Slate Media had earlier reported that in the 2014 financial statement Troiano failed to list $81,533 in federal income tax liens and a $749,264 lien on a house he owned facing foreclosure.

Then town spokesperson Carol Trottere said the issues raised regarding Troiano’s undisclosed tax liens suggested that the town’s process needed to be tightened.

Troiano had been tapped at the time by then Nassau County Executive Laura Curran to serve as the county’s acting commissioner for traffic and parking violations.

Troiano stepped down when his tax issues came to light, although he maintained he left for other reasons.

Only a year earlier, the town announced it had strengthened its ethics codes following disclosures showing that Gerard Terry, the former head of the North Hempstead Democratic Committee who held two jobs in the town, had racked up nearly $1 million in unpaid state and federal taxes between 2000 and 2017.

Terry later pleaded guilty to tax fraud and served time in prison. Terry had been earning at least $200,000 annually, mostly from six different taxpayer-funded jobs.

Jonathan P. Fielding, a Town of North Hempstead zoning official, helped Terry create a company that Terry allegedly used as a front to hide income from the Internal Revenue Service, court documents show.

The town announced he no longer worked there after town officials were asked about his role with Terry.

And at the time Terry’s wife, Concetta, also worked for North Hempstead as deputy town clerk, a position that paid $80,000 in 2015.

Is it possible that Terry and his wife were the most qualified people for each job?

Is it possible that Tiernan and his family members were the most qualified person for each job they held?

Is it possible that Tiernan is now the most qualified person for the job of town highway superintendent?

DeSena said that since she took office this year as a Republican, there has been little talk, if any, of appointing a new highway chief.

Harry Weed, the town’s acting highway superintendent, has been in his role since 2021. A resolution to appoint him on a permanent basis was tabled in January to determine whether he lives in the town, as required.

Upon taking office, DeSena said the town had vacancies for both comptroller and chief deputy comptroller. She said a bipartisan search committee was set up as well as advertising for the openings.

“No public job search took place here,” DeSena said. “No search committee was established for a new highway superintendent.”

Councilwoman Veronica Lurvey, in a statement to Blank Slate Media, strongly denied the supervisor’s claims while saying all seven town board members had the chance to discuss Tiernan’s appointment.

“The Highway Department is responsible for the maintenance and repair of 300 miles of town roads, including pavement and drainage, tree planting, street sweeping, and snow removal. Mr. Tiernan did a phenomenal job as town highway superintendent, possessing nearly four decades of experience with the town,” Lurvey said. “He is someone who knows North Hempstead and cares deeply about our residents.”

Unanswered is how the town highway department functioned since Tiernan left his job in 2016 and whether there are any better qualified and less ethically compromised candidates.

This would not be the first time that town Democrats did not select the best candidate for a job. We get a strong feeling it won’t be the last.