Cindy Smith, community activist and Smithtown founder descendant, dies at 61

Cindy Smith, a Stony Brook marketing and communications executive whose love of Long Island’s historic North Shore drew her into community activism, died Feb. 12 at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. She was 61.

The cause was leukemia, said her husband, Warren Strugatch.

Smith was an early opponent of development plans for a 75-acre property on North Country Road in Smithtown, near the Brookhaven border. Owned by former defense contractor Gyrodyne, the property has been at the center of multiple town and county government hearings and community meetings.

Smith, a communications professional, framed the issue in a way every Long Islander could understand: traffic on nearby roads was already "at a standstill," she told Newsday in 2017. "As it is, emergency vehicles are often stuck in traffic."

Further development, she warned, would push this corner of Long Island over the edge, a claim Gyrodyne representatives and their traffic engineers rejected.

Smith nevertheless hammered that message — and others about the delicate ecology of nearby Stony Brook Harbor and the historic character of an area once traveled by George Washington’s spies — for as long as she was able to work, said Strugatch, a writer and partner with her in a communications firm.

Brookhaven Supervisor Edward P. Romaine, in an interview Friday, described Smith as a partner.

"She was one of those people every community should want," he said. "The world is a lot sadder with the loss of a civic leader such as Cindy."

Smith worked through the Greater Stony Brook Action Coalition, an affiliation of the leaders of eight civic associations from the area.

"Her idea was that these various and very diversified and often fractious efforts needed to be organized into one voice to take on this fairly powerful business interest," Strugatch said.

Smith encouraged Romaine, a Republican, and Suffolk County Legis. Kara Hahn (D-Setauket), another ally in Smith’s development fight, to take public positions against Gyrodyne’s proposal to subdivide the land for uses that could include a hotel, assisted living and offices. She "continued to feel we would prevail," Strugatch said.

Smithtown officials are reviewing the company’s application.

Cynthia Marie Smith was born in Smithtown and was a descendent of the town founder Richard "Bull" Smith. Her father, Lawrence Smith Sr., ran a garage and then worked at Home Depot. Her mother, the former Patricia Slattery, worked in banking.

Smith attended Smithtown public schools and then Hofstra University, where she graduated with a marketing degree, Strugatch said.

Her professional coups included a 1989 tour of Manhattan with the actors who played the munchkins in the Wizard of Oz to promote sales of the movie on videotape. Timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the movie’s box office release, the tour included stops at famous locations and garnered local television news spots with Smith, nearly six feet tall, accompanying actors half her size.

Hahn said the two became friends after turning up at the same local art gallery openings and cultural events. Smith, a prodigious collector of Christmas ornaments who loved all the holiday’s traditions, later invited Hahn to her Christmas parties.

Hahn said she would remember her friend as a battler but also as someone who helped nurture those gatherings because they were "good for the soul and the soul of the community."

Besides Strugatch, Smith is survived by her brother, Lawrence Smith Jr., of Smithtown, and two nieces.

Viewing was to be held Saturday morning at Branch Funeral Home in Smithtown, with a service at noon and a private memorial in the afternoon. Burial will follow at Northport Rural Cemetery.