Democratic candidates for East Hampton Town supervisor and town board accentuated leadership and experience, while their Republican counterparts pointed to what they called mismanagement and slow progress on a range of issues, during a forum hosted by Montauk United at that hamlet’s firehouse on Sunday.
Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez is running for supervisor, and Councilman David Lys is seeking re-election. On Sunday, they were joined by Tom Flight, a Democrat and newcomer to politics, and their Republican challengers, who are also new to campaigning: Gretta Leon for supervisor, and Scott Smith and Michael Wootton for town board.
Rori Finazzo and Joe Gaviola served as moderators, directing questions, submitted by community organizations and residents, to individual candidates. Topics included sewage treatment for the hamlet, personal wireless service, affordable housing, and protection of Montauk’s history as well as its future. Rebuttals were permitted, but speakers were frequently interrupted by the moderators when their remarks concerned an unrelated topic.
The Republican candidates hammered their opponents on meager or nonexistent cellphone service in parts of the town, the lack of a new senior citizens center, and East Hampton Town Airport, where a judge’s temporary restraining order has thwarted the board’s plan to implement restrictions intended to alleviate incessant noise and air pollution during the summer season.
The two incumbent Democrats projected confidence, and several times Mr. Lys, who was appointed to the board in 2018 and later won election and re-election, accused their opponents of not understanding the issues they were discussing, as they had no prior government experience. The three Democrats complemented one another’s efforts and promoted one another’s candidacy.
Ms. Leon, a doctor of dental sciences, acknowledged, in her closing statement, that she may not have experience in government, “but I do have the willpower and I have the knowledge to learn.” She said it is “shameful” that “it’s taken so many years to have a senior citizens center up and running.”
The present senior citizens center, on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton, is housed in a building that is more than 100 years old. Ms. Burke-Gonzalez has led the board’s effort to acquire land in Amagansett and hire consultants to design a new center, though construction is not to begin until 2024.
“I’m ashamed that there’s no cellular communication,” Ms. Leon added.
A wealthy municipality like East Hampton should not have coverage gaps, Mr. Smith added. “I don’t think it takes five years to do it,” he said. “Maybe a couple of months to figure it out.”
The town board has been engaged in an overhaul of its personal wireless and emergency communications infrastructure and is in the process of adopting a wireless master plan. Progress is unacceptably slow, the Republicans charged.
Ms. Burke-Gonzalez, who was elected in 2013 after serving on the Springs School Board for nine years, said in her opening statement that “we have a number of critical issues that need our immediate attention. But with our caring, knowledgeable staff, with an engaged public, we can work together to move our community forward.”
Mr. Wootton, a former vice president at Bank of New York, noted the Democratic majority on the board since 2014 and its supermajority today. “I believe the one-party rule of the Democratic Party in East Hampton for over the last decade — a full decade — has created an echo chamber where critical thinking and new ideas are not heard or even considered,” he said. “I hope to change that.”
“What have they been able to accomplish in that time besides ever-growing legal bills?” he asked in his closing statement. “Do we have a functioning cellphone tower in Springs? Not yet. Do we have an updated senior citizens center? Not yet. What about the airport? They want to shut it down.”
Many Montauk residents have expressed concern that closing or implementing restrictions at the airport will divert air traffic to Montauk’s private airport. Some are co-plaintiffs in parallel lawsuits brought by aviation interests, which led to the temporary restraining order that remains in place more than a year after it was imposed.
Mr. Wootton said he strongly supports keeping the airport open, citing economic benefits to the town and its use during emergency evacuations, and accused his opponents of plotting to close it.
Ms. Burke-Gonzalez and Mr. Lys had been advised by the town’s outside counsel for airport matters to avoid commenting on the ongoing litigation, the announcement of which drew a few groans from the audience of approximately 100.
Mr. Smith, who founded and runs Smith River Kitchens in East Hampton, said he decided to enter politics a year ago “because the direction that the town has been heading is not a direction that I approve of in any way, shape, or form. I feel that the old East Hampton way of life is long gone,” pointing to longtime residents, unable to afford the cost of housing, moving away. The community preservation fund, he said, “is being mismanaged,” though he did not elaborate.
Mr. Flight, a business owner, said he was inspired to serve after the death of an acquaintance and “how this community came together” in the aftermath. He joined the Montauk School Board and is an emergency medical technician. His involvement in establishing a Covid-19 testing site at the Montauk School, and later at East Hampton High School, led him to his running mates and Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc, he said. “Seeing what they could do at the East Hampton Town level for this community really inspired me to throw my hat into the ring to try and help to deliver some of the change we need in this community.”
Ms. Burke-Gonzalez spoke of the town’s work with Concerned Citizens of Montauk to acquire properties surrounding Fort Pond and Lake Montauk with C.P.F. money, to acquire and restore Fort Pond House, to advocate for the federal Army Corps of Engineers’ Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Study, and the floating wetlands in Fort Pond, which are installed in the spring and removed in the fall after absorbing nitrogen.
In remarks decrying impaired water quality, Mr. Smith later called those floating wetlands “an eyesore” and “a distraction to say, ‘We’re trying, but we’re not doing anything.’ ”
Mr. Flight later said, “You may not like the look of all the projects that go on, they might not be aesthetically pleasing, but they work.”
The town is also working with C.C.O.M., Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said, on the Coastal Assessment Resiliency Plan, or CARP, “because we need to plan for the future, we need to plan out 20, 30 years.”
Last year, the board announced that a site east of the former landfill in Montauk was “promising” as a potential location for a wastewater treatment plant to serve several locations in the hamlet. That was met with vociferous opposition from the Coalition for Hither Woods, and the proposal was abandoned. A question from the coalition as to support for sewage treatment on public parkland in Hither Woods was put to Mr. Lys.
“We’re looking at all options to take care of our groundwater and our drinking water,” he said. “Some of these are going to be the most complicated situations that the hamlet of Montauk and the Town of East Hampton are going to see. Part of those actions is to investigate all potential locations, which might actually include any parkland.”
He said he was not in “full support” of the board’s prior proposal, but noted that 60 percent of land east of Napeague Harbor Road is preserved, which “makes it very difficult to meet the needs of a community now that is growing.” The larger question, he said, is “does anyone believe there is not a true problem in the way that our antiquated history of dealing with septic systems are out here in Montauk, and in the town?”
Mr. Smith answered that “you guys have had 10 years to come up with a solution to the septic systems here in Montauk,” adding that he opposed the Hither Woods proposal.
Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said she does not support the use of parkland at Hither Woods for a wastewater treatment system. Last year, when residents pushed back on the proposal, she spoke with Bob DeLuca of Group for the East End and Rick Whalen of the Coalition for Hither Woods, she said, and walked the property with the latter. “When I walked that property, I knew for myself that that was not the place” to site a sewage treatment plant.
Mr. Wootton accused the board of planning to permanently close the Maidstone Gun Club, which has been shuttered since late last year after a bullet allegedly fired from the property struck a Wainscott residence. The club’s lease, for which it pays $100 per year, expires at month’s end.
Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said she and her colleagues “do not support continuing with the existing lease without extensive modifications to ensure the safety of the neighboring property owners as well as the safety of the members of the Maidstone Gun Club.”
When Ms. Leon said the town must hire more code enforcement officers, Mr. Lys responded that “someone doesn’t understand what the budget was for the last couple of years. The town’s code enforcement is actually fully staffed and even more so under the support of the current administration and leadership” of Ms. Burke-Gonzalez and himself. Two positions were added last year, and the preliminary 2024 budget adds another staff member, he said.
Election Day is Nov. 7. Early voting happens from Oct. 28 through Nov. 5.
