Voters in the town of Corning will choose local candidates for several positions this November after some recent resignations in the town’s government.
The town supervisor and two town board member positions will be on the ballot.
The three seats were left open in June by the resignations of the Republican town supervisor and a Republican town council member.
Jenniffer Mullen and Stuart Sammis resigned on June 29 and June 30, respectively.
Mullen resigned before pleading guilty to a felony count of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree. She was convicted in June after providing false information to the New York State Department of Labor last year.
Sammis resigned from the board the day after Mullen stepped down.
In their resignation emails to the board, Mullen cited another full-time job and Sammis cited retiring.
Republican board member Mike Brenning was immediately appointed interim town supervisor by the remaining board members, Democrats Linda Shock and Lauren Gaige.
Former board member Republican Lon Fiscus was appointed to fill Brenning’s vacant board seat by the remaining board members until the end of the year.
Due to the two resignations and one board member moving to interim town supervisor, one board seat on the town council was left open.
Republican and Democratic Party candidates were chosen this week to run for the open seats.
The Steuben County Republican Committee nominated Mike Brenning for town supervisor, Nicholas Tammaro for town council and former town council member Donna Gridley for the other board position.
Gridley lost reelection to Gaige in 2025 by 27 votes.
Joan Rosen and Trecelle Sweet were chosen for ballot positions by the Democratic Party’s Corning Town Committee for the two open board seats.
The Steuben County Board of Elections (BOE) said that because the vacancies happened after the petition process and before Aug. 3, the Republican, Working Families, Conservative and Democratic parties are able to nominate candidates for the ballot positions.
The process is different for the Republican, Working Families and Conservative Parties in the town of Corning in this scenario as they can directly nominate candidates for the open seats.
The Democratic Party held a caucus to decide who to present on the ballot.
All nominated candidates were due to the county BOE by July 23.
If the resignations happened after Aug. 3, the parties would have had to wait to hold an election for the open seats in 2027.
In the meantime, the town is able to appoint people to the open positions in order to function as a municipality until the end of the year.
According to county leadership for both the Republican and Democratic parties, neither Mullen nor Sammis were forced to resign due to Mullen’s impending felony conviction.
The chair of the Steuben County Republican Committee, Joe Sempolinski, said the committee became aware of the resignations of Mullen and Sammis “after they had already happened.”
Margie Lawlor, co-chair of the Steuben County Democratic Committee, said she was not aware that Mullen or Sammis were stepping down.
“According to the accounts I heard after the fact, it was a surprise to our members as well,” said Lawlor.
Mullen began her elected role as a Corning board member in 2018 with the Democratic Party. She was elected to town supervisor on the Republican Party ticket in 2023.
Sammis was first elected to the town council in 2015.
The 2026 general elections are November 3.