In 2009, the Huntington Town Board voted 553 times. And 553 times those votes were unanimous.

That's already started to change. New Councilman Mark Mayoka—the only Republican on the board—attended his first town board meeting Tuesday night, Jan. 12,  and voted no 18 times on a night when resolutions were approved. "That was the most in five years," Mayoka said.

His was the lone no vote all 18 times.

"I feel this is one of my jobs," he said. "To build a consensus and be a voice of reason."

Mayoka voted "no" when it came to hiring additional staff for the legal department, he said. "Hiring more people would be in violation of the hiring freeze the town has."

He also voted no for funding for the day laborer site. They call it the "labor-ready site," Mayoka said, but then added, "What are they ready for? There's no work." Mayoka realizes that the day laborer site is the "hot topic" right now. He doesn't agree with what the town has done so far in response to the situation. "We can't let people freeze to death," he said. "It would be great to offer them a safe passage home."

Mayoka voted no for several projects where, he said, there was no description about where the money was going. When he ran for office his platform was "for better government, lower taxes and to reduce spending, and there's no reason to change it," he said. "We are in the throes of a major financial crisis," he said, and "it may worsen this year. We need to be prepared, to be proactive. We need to mitigate the damage being done to our town. The core industries of finance and real estate have been devastated and may take decades to recover. Spending needs to be reduced now and government needs to be consolidated. We need to roll up our sleeves and get to work on cutting spending and lowering taxes."

His background as a chief financial officer for various companies and a CPA for over 25 years is evident. One of his main interests is to create a small business resource center for the town. It would "incubate and attract new businesses to Huntington and also save new businesses that are floundering," he said. Mayoka is the author of a monthly financial advice column in Cabling Business Magazine and recently wrote a book entitled Financial Crisis Planning for Small Business, and is now working on his next book, Financial Crisis Planning for Local Government.

Last month, residents were able to vote either for or against councilmanic districts for the town. Councilman Mark Cuthbertson was strongly against the idea, saying that if it passed, taxes would go up. When asked how he felt about the issue, Mayoka said that he had "no position" on it, that it had been up to the public and "the public decided against it." Overwhelmingly, it seems: 16,657 against and only 3,834 for. "There is a reason it failed," Mayoka said. "This was a strong showing for an off-election year right before Christmas."

Mayoka realizes that towns such as Brookhaven use  councilmanic districts, and it seems to work well for them. "But most of the town of Huntington is homogenous," he said, "and we're nowhere near as big as Brookhaven." He doesn't see the vote coming up again, since it was so soundly defeated. "Maybe in the distant future." But he added, "it would have taken a year to decide how to divide up the districts in the town, and that would have affected the town's government."

And not in a positive way, according to Mayoka. He would like to see changes—as long as they are good for the town. "Huntington needs new leadership and I am ready, willing and able to accept that challenge, to make Huntington a better and more affordable place to live."