Linda Kabot, a Republican and former Southampton Town supervisor, is hoping to make a political comeback by unseating Democratic Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, who has represented residents of the Second Legislative District, from Montauk to Moriches plus Shelter Island, for four years. Both women served on the Southampton Town Board, but at different times.
Ms. Kabot, a Westhampton native who lives in Quogue, was a Southampton Town councilwoman from 2002 through 2007, but her experience in Town Hall goes back even further, as she served as executive assistant to Southampton Town Supervisor Vincent Cannuscio before being elected to the board.
She was the Southampton Town supervisor from 2008 through 2009. In the midst of seeking a second term, she was arrested on a driving while intoxicated charge and lost the election to Anna Throne-Holst. Two years later, a jury acquitted Ms. Kabot of the charge.
She tried unsuccessfully to win back her old post with a write-in campaign in 2011 and then in 2013. She has been working as a real estate salesperson with Town & Country for the last three years.
Ms. Kabot said she entered the race to give voters a choice and encourage voter turnout. One of the main focuses of her campaign has been fiscal responsibility and fiscal solvency. “It is critical we protect the taxpayers of our community,” she said, adding that the county budget “is in dire financial straits.”
“The county is hovering at junk bond status for quite some time,” she said, and with a $3 billion budget and $1 billion of that in payroll, it is not sustainable.
Steve Bellone, the Suffolk County executive, has been in office eight years, and Ms. Kabot took aim at legislators who “rubberstamp” his budgets and fail to act as “checks and balances,” blaming them for creating a situation of financial mismanagement. One-party rule has created a budget hole, “where they keep kicking the can down the road.”
Ms. Kabot said she supports John Kennedy, who is running against Mr. Bellone in Tuesday’s election, but would never rubberstamp a budget, no matter who prepared it. The primary role of the 18 county legislators — only two of whom are on the East End — is to go through the budget “with a fine tooth comb and stand up for taxpayers,” she said. “We must elect people who are truly going to fight for the interests of the area,” she said.
“The rubberstamp is simply inaccurate,” said Ms. Fleming. “I’ve pushed back against decisions that have harmed our community,” she said, adding she has been on the forefront on issues like public transportation, rallying against cuts to the public bus system due to lower ridership on the East End. Real progress has been made, she said, including securing an additional $2 million from the state for public transportation.
An attorney and a resident of Noyac, Ms. Fleming was first elected in 2016, after Jay Schneiderman, the Southampton Town supervisor, reached the 12-year term limit on the Legislature.
Before moving to Noyac in 2001, she served as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan. She was first elected to the town board in 2010, and won a full four-year term in 2011, remaining on the board until her election to the Legislature.
During her two terms, she said she has focused much of her energy on protecting the environment, particularly water quality, and on public health and economic development. She said she is most proud of drafting the first sanitary code revisions in 30 years that allowed nitrogen-reducing septic systems to replace outdated systems that are leaching nitrogen into the ground and surface waters.
She also helped secure funding for the Tick Surveillance and Management Program, a joint effort by the Departments of Health and Public Works to manage the tick population to reduce tick-borne illnesses. She also spearheaded a program for data collection and wetlands management to reduce chemical spraying to control mosquitoes at Accabonac Harbor in East Hampton, while saving the county $40,000 by partnering with scientists and local government.
The fiscal concerns of the county should be taken seriously, and she supports the county executive in reducing government, she said. “I recognize you have to be smart about where you allocate your resources. You can’t just say, you’re going to make cuts and that’s going to solve the problem. We have made cuts and that doesn’t solve the problems,” she said.
The county recently saved $1 million by transferring the commercial dock in Hampton Bays, which is vulnerable to storm surge, to the Town of Southampton. The town can afford to maintain the dock, which is vital to the fishing community and the local economy, she said.