Centre Island to pick new mayor after Lawrence Schmidlapp's death
Centre Island Mayor Lawrence Schmidlapp, who had led the village since 2009, died last month. Credit: Village of Centre Island
Centre Island Village officials plan to meet Thursday to select a successor to Lawrence Schmidlapp, the longtime mayor who died last month.
Schmidlapp, who was 80 and had led the village since 2009, was just reelected in June to a two-year term.
Centre Island’s deputy mayor, Walter Roll, became acting mayor upon Schmidlapp's death, village officials said. The village board plans to appoint a new mayor and possibly fill a trustee seat at its meeting on Thursday, said Andy Farren, one of the village’s trustees, in a phone interview.
The square-mile village on the North Shore of Nassau County is east of Bayville and resembles a peninsula at the junction of Long Island Sound and Oyster Bay Harbor. An affluent village with a median household income of more than $213,000, according to census figures, it has a population of more than 300 year-round. That number swells in the summer.
Peter P. MacKinnon, the village’s attorney, said under state law the deputy mayor assumes mayoral duties if the mayor dies or is unable to perform the job.
“In the absence of the mayor,” the deputy mayor “is vested with the authority to continue running the village,” MacKinnon said in a phone interview.
Farren said a trustee seat will have to be filled if a sitting member is selected as the village’s next mayor.
“We’re trying to plan it out so that it all works out and flows,” Farren said.
Schmidlapp's victory in the June 17 village election followed a contentious legal battle that spanned several weeks. Andrew Woodstock, who was disqualified from the ballot, sought to be reinstated. A Nassau State Supreme Court justice denied his bid, and instead, Woodstock ran as a write-in.
The litigation began after Schmidlapp filed with the village his objections to Woodstock's candidacy.
Schmidlapp, in a letter to the village's election officer, questioned Woodstock’s residency and “criminal record involving moral turpitude.” Woodstock said his permanent residence is in Centre Island. He pleaded guilty to a "noncriminal violation" after Suffolk County criminally charged Woodstock and his company in 2020 for cheating workers out of pay, court records show.
The village's election officer denied Woodstock's petition on May 27, but he didn't file his lawsuit in state court until June 2. Nassau State Supreme Court Justice Randy Sue Marber said Woodstock had three business days, or until May 30, to make a challenge. Because his lawsuit was filed late, a judge could not consider his challenge, Marber ruled.
MacKinnon said the new mayor will serve until the next village election, which will be held in June 2026.
Roll, 65, who has lived in Centre Island since 1992, said he "certainly looks to Larry for inspiration and as a role model to follow” in public service.
After the election, Schmidlapp told Newsday he didn’t plan to run again.
“I’ve done it for 16 years, and I don’t think you should do it for much longer than that,” Schmidlapp said at the time.
Schmidlapp died Aug. 16 after a battle with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of bile duct cancer. He was a founding member of the nonprofit Friends of the Bay and was revered by his peers as a steward of public service, Newsday has reported. His wife, Carol Schmidlapp, is the village clerk. The Schmidlapps raised their children in the home next to where the late mayor moved with his family from Utah when he was 4 years old.
Farren said Schmidlapp was “a local personality, a person who was involved in many, many different things.”
“His shoes will be hard to fill,” Farren said.
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