We are going to miss Fred Thiele. State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. has been a fixture of local government for so long that it will be difficult to imagine the political scene without him there. Mr. Thiele this week said that he would not seek re-election to the Assembly, closing 29 years in the Legislature and perhaps capping a 45-year-long record of public service.
Trained as a lawyer, he worked as an attorney for Sag Harbor Village, Southampton Town, and East Hampton Town’s planning board and zoning board of appeals. He was also Southampton Town’s supervisor and a Suffolk legislator. As an elected official, he was very much his own person. He did a party switch from Republican to Democratic as his own views changed along with the demographics of the North and South Forks, as well as Shelter Island Town, which made up his Assembly district.
More than longevity, as an elected official Mr. Thiele had the capacity to restore trust in government. He was not afraid of the public nor haughty or cut off from his constituents. Nor was he reclusive, like those politicians who speak to people only when absolutely necessary, and even then, solely to friendly audiences. And he always cut against the stereotype that politicians are really just in it for themselves.
Among the many policies and programs Mr. Thiele helped get through the Legislature and various other levels of government, none has been more significant than the Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund. The C.P.F., as it is known, allowed the East End towns to buy up hundreds of acres of farmland and natural places without placing the burden on local taxpayers. Last year, the community preservation fund as a whole surpassed the $2 billion mark. To date, the 2-percent tax on most real estate sales has hauled in more than $1 billion in Southampton Town and close to $600 million in East Hampton Town. Along the way, it has funded land preservation in a way that would not have been possible otherwise.
Mr. Thiele has said that he will look for other opportunities to serve. In our view, he already has, as among the finest of examples of public life that anyone could follow.