Francis Bock, elected in 2015, has been the trustees’ clerk, or presiding officer, during each of his three terms. He was a trustee from 2006 through 2009 as well. “We’ve brought relevance to the board,” he said, he and his colleagues having taken over “something that was really nothing more than backroom meetings.” Where prior boards met in a small room at the trustees’ office on Bluff Road in Amagansett, under his leadership the body moved its meetings to Town Hall (until the pandemic forced them to meet remotely).
Where past trustee boards often spurned recognition of other governing entities, today “relations with the town board are very good,” Mr. Bock said, and even with the State Department of Environmental Conservation and other agencies. “I think we’ve also brought an ability for the public to work with us in an efficient and friendly manner. It’s a much better place.”
Negotiation of the lease agreement and community benefits package with the wind farm’s developers is a milestone accomplishment, he said, and the trustees’ share of the package will be directed to environmental remediation projects, including dredging of the east channel of Napeague Harbor, which Mr. Bock said is critically important. “The whole ecosystem is near death. I think that’s a big part of bringing it back. We have to get more water circulating in there, and the temperature down.”
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