Race for Village Seat Is a Real One

Befitting the genteel nature of East Hampton Village and its government, Philip O’Connell and Arthur Graham, the two candidates for the village board in the June 20 election, have spoken highly of each other and of the present board. Though their backgrounds differ, their views on most issues are largely in sync.

They are vying for a one-year term.

Mr. O’Connell, who grew up in East Hampton, was appointed to the board in November to serve the remainder of Elbert Edwards’s term following the village trustee’s death in October. He is an attorney and a senior managing director of Corcoran Group Real Estate. A former chairman of the planning board, he is on the village’s planning and zoning committee and is the village’s liaison to the Town of East Hampton’s community preservation fund advisory board.

Mr. Graham, who is known as Tiger, worked in the financial sector in New York City. He bought a house in East Hampton in 1983 and became a year-round resident in 2003. He is a member of the village’s planning board and the East Hampton Historical Society and secretary of the Thomas Moran Trust.

“I feel that I am an able individual,” Mr. Graham, who said he had always hoped to succeed Mr. Edwards upon his retirement, said during an interview with The East Hampton Star’s editorial staff last Thursday. “I think I have good ideas. I think I did a good job as president of the historical society. I think I’ve done a pretty good job as chairman and now secretary of the Thomas Moran Trust.”

For Mr. O’Connell, becoming involved in village government “was all about public service.”

“East Hampton has been very good to me. I absolutely love it here, and I want to give back.” His service on elected and appointed boards “has been a good experience, I’ve learned a lot,” he said. He cited the village board’s recent moves to acquire the property at 8 Osborne Lane for additional parking and a state grant to install an electric-vehicle charging station as two recent accomplishments.

“Phil has done an excellent job,” Mr. Graham said. “But I am running for the seat because I think I also can do an excellent job.”

Asked how they differ, Mr. O’Connell said that both he and Mr. Graham “have what we feel is the village’s best interests at heart. . . . How we differ is, I have more experience in village government at this point.”

“One way I would say we differ is that we come from different work backgrounds, which probably gives us a different way that we look at solving problems,” Mr. Graham said, who thinks of himself “as more market-driven.” 

In a discussion about the village board’s adoption of graduated formulas for coverage and gross floor area on lots larger than one acre, which prompted litigation by several property owners, Mr. Graham said he noticed “a lot of negative pushback” including from a neighbor who is part of the lawsuit. “I understand what the board is trying to address here, which is density,” he said, but “I think they went about it the wrong way.” His neighbor, he said, had been issued a building permit that was invalidated by the code changes. “I get it, but it all happened pretty quickly.”

Mr. O’Connell was sitting on the planning and zoning committee during its study and subsequent recommendation of new formulas to the board. “It went on for probably 12 or 18 months, and there were many iterations,” he said. “I can see both sides of the coin. . . . But something did need to be done, and I think they did it in a manner that addressed the issue and was the least restrictive way to go about it.”

In a wide-ranging discussion about water quality and efforts to mitigate its degradation, Mr. Graham, who sat on a committee that studied Hook and Town Ponds, said that septic systems that sharply reduce nitrogen seepage, which were recently approved by the county, should be required for all new construction, and replacement of aging systems encouraged with financial incentives.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” Mr. O’Connell said of a requirement to install a state-of-the-art septic system in new construction and to replace systems in ecologically sensitive areas. He also endorsed an incentive program to retrofit existing systems.

Both candidates spoke positively about the concept of a sanitary district with specific restrictions, akin to a harbor protection overlay district. “That might be something that planning and zoning may take a look at for around Hook Pond, Town Pond, Georgica,” Mr. O’Connell suggested.

The committee on which Mr. Graham sat discussed creation of such a district, he said. “The houses on Collins, on Accabonac, on Egypt Lane, they all have their septics sitting in the groundwater,” he said. Taxpayers would have to shoulder some financial responsibility, “especially the people in that district, who would be getting a benefit. But there are other sources,” he said, such as the county and, perhaps, the community preservation fund.

The candidates agreed that private property owners should be encouraged to curtail use of chemical fertilizers and to limit excessive fertilizing that contributes to nitrogen loading, but they were wary of legislation mandating that. 

Restrictions on the hours in which construction and landscaping can take place, which the board added to the code in recent years, are adequate, both candidates said, and landscaping companies should not be prohibited from using leaf blowers, which some residents have complained are both noisy and polluting.

“I have a real hard time legislating against somebody’s right to make a living,” Mr. O’Connell said. “They’re local people. To take that efficiency away from them, I have a difficult time with that. . . . I think the village has done a good job there and I’d be hesitant to go further.

“I 100 percent agree,” Mr. Graham said, adding that he had suggested the creation of zones in which landscaping work would be conducted on particular days. “At least that concentrates the noise, it concentrates the landscaping trailers, at one particular time. It would be like herding cats to get these guys to do this, but I still think it’s a good idea.”

With respect to the scarcity of affordable housing, both candidates endorsed creating it, but offered no solutions. “It would be great if we could have affordable housing in the village,” Mr. Graham said. “Unfortunately, the value of property in the village is so high, the density. . . . Where would you put it that you don’t have to tear down somebody’s house?”

The village board, Mr. O’Connell said, “has the responsibility to ask the question, but to Tiger’s point, where do you put it?” He pointed to efforts to create housing in Wainscott and Amagansett, and the resulting community opposition. In the village’s commercial district, “Let’s say we’re in favor of letting people put up three stories,” he said. “It’s going to change the flavor, the look, what everybody likes about the village. Then you have another problem: the effluent that flows out from apartments.”

A member of the village board, Mr. O’Connell said, has “a responsibility to balance preservation with development. You take in all the information, digest it. It’s a fine line to walk, and you hope you’re making the right decision.”

A board member has to be flexible, Mr. Graham said, “because things change every day. And you have to be ready to say the decision we thought was so great last year is not looking so good now. Let’s revisit it and make it better.”

Voting will be held on June 20 between noon and 9 p.m. at the Emergency Services Building at 1 Cedar Street.