Nine for Trustee

Among a field of 18 candidates for East Hampton Town trustee, the average voter could be forgiven for voting a straight party line or on name recognition alone. Given all the issues facing the town’s shorelines and waterways, however, the trustee board should be the best that it can be — and this means doing a little homework before making choices.

First, our endorsements in alphabetical order: Tyler Armstrong, Joe Bloecker, Francis Bock, Brian Byrnes, Rick Drew, Jim Grimes, Sean McCaffrey, Diane McNally, and Bill Taylor. Here are their qualifications:

Mr. Armstrong has quickly proven himself an intelligent, thoughtful candidate. He appears capable and would replace the departing Trustee Stephanie Forsberg in ably representing a younger generation of East Hampton residents.

Mr. Bock, who has previously been a town trustee and was its clerk at one time, has a practical levelheadedness and thinks long and hard about the issues. He has been outspoken about the need to work with, not against, the often-derided New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, because, face it, that agency has considerable regulatory overlap with the trustees.

Mr. Byrnes’s strengths include a deep commitment to residents’ welfare, whether at the senior citizens housing projects he manages or as a member of the town’s disability advisory board. He is energetic and all heart.

A former town trustee who stepped down to run unsuccessfully for assessor, Mr. Bloecker has salt-of-the-earth common sense. His dedication is unquestionable. Unlike some of the current trustees, whose poor attendance records are indefensible, you would expect to see him at every single trustee meeting.

Mr. Grimes runs a native plant and landscaping business in Montauk and that experience could prove valuable, particularly as the trustees think about watershed protection, invasive species, and wetland restoration in the face of sea level rise.

Following in the footsteps of his father, the late Trustee Jim McCaffrey, Mr. McCaffrey brings a Wainscott landscaping family’s perspective to the issues. He is unflappable and a consistent voice for preserving public access to trustee lands.

Ms. McNally has valuable institutional knowledge that would be a shame to lose. As the trustees’ clerk, she has run fair and open meetings, though she should have done more about moving more crowded sessions to a larger venue when the need arose. Her failure to speak out about the too-frequent absences among some trustees calls into question whether she should continue to serve as clerk, however.

Mr. Drew has impressed us with his deep knowledge of trustee matters and ample background in commercial and recreational pursuits on the water. He has an interest in government efficiency, which is something the kick-it-down-the-road trustees could really use right now.

One of Mr. Taylor’s strengths is knowing how to work with other levels of government, including the D.E.C. and Town Hall. Given the complex and interrelated nature of many of the environmental matters the trustees must deal with on a limited budget, his ability to be a bridge to other agencies is a must-have.

There you have it, nine in all, a balanced board able to take on the challenges of a new and ever-more-complicated age.