When Susan McGraw Keber first ran for trustee two years ago, it was the first time she had ever run for office. She had “reached a point where I felt it was important to give back to the community,” she said last week, and the trustees seemed a good fit. She is a canoer, kayaker, sailor, and a certified PADI rescue scuba diver, so she came to the job with a deep interest in waterways. She is also a licensed associate real estate broker, “so I know a lot about zoning and planning,” she said.
Since being elected in 2017, she has thrown herself into the job with gusto, serving on six trustee committees that oversee education, Accabonac Harbor and Hog Creek, Northwest Creek and Harbor, the beaches, media and social media, and aquaculture. She is also the trustees’ liaison to the Accabonac Protection Committee and the town’s energy sustainability and resiliency committee.
On the education committee, she has visited schools to “present the history of the trustees, who we are and what we do, and talk about balloons and their impact on our waterways.” She has been a vocal advocate for a ban on the intentional release of balloons, getting the trustees to voice unanimous support for the ban, which the town and then the county both passed. “I’m very proud of that,” she said. “Now we’re going to the state.”
Ms. McGraw Keber is also a recreational oyster farmer and a member herself of the Accabonac Protection Committee. She participated in the Cornell Cooperative Extension’s horseshoe crab surveys, and took part in a collaborative mosquito larvae sampling program aimed at reducing the county’s spraying of larvicide over Accabonac Harbor. “They call us citizen scientists; I love that.”
Ms. McGraw Keber has lived in East Hampton’s Northwest Woods for almost 40 years. Before moving here, she worked as an assistant clothing designer in New York, a fashion illustrator, an editor at Redbook magazine, an actor in commercials, and a media spokesperson.
She described herself as a team player and a lifelong learner. “I’m enjoying the work I do for my community. It’s very rewarding to know that I’m participating in the heavy load that we carry to make sure that we have a world for our younger generations.”
“Jacques Cousteau said ‘People preserve what they love,’ and I think that’s true,” she said, which is why she finds it so fulfilling to share her love of East Hampton and its natural resources with a younger generation through her work on the trustees.
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