East Hampton Supervisor
In assessing the East Hampton candidates - incumbent Democratic Supervisor Cathy Lester, Town Councilman Thomas Knobel, the Republican challenger, and Capt. Milton Miller, a Bonac-against-the-world campaigner on the Independence ticket - voters should consider the long haul. In Southampton, too, the real issue is coping with change.
East Hampton is no longer a simple small town; it will have to meet myriad challenges if it is to retain its character, protect its environment, and promote its economic health. And it will have to try, and try again, to deliver municipal services efficiently and compassionately as the environment and the residents require.
Both Supervisor Lester and Councilman Knobel are workhorses. Mr. Knobel may have the edge in getting things done and administrative ability. Since his term as Councilman is ending, the Town Board will lose his energy and ability if he is not elected as Supervisor. That is unfortunate.
Ms. Lester has the edge on social services and the environment, but she has dug in her heels under Republican attack, becoming unnecessarily defensive and showing little talent for negotiation. Mr. Knobel, on the other hand, has some of his priorities skewed. He puts financial considerations over the environment in sorting out the recycling and composting programs and he doesn't seem to give the broader implications of what he advocates as much consideration as the immediate goal.
We have editorialized previously that the wresting of jurisdiction from the Zoning Board of Appeals by the Town Trustees, which Mr. Knobel is spearheading, would be a mistake. And both candidates show dogmatic sides.
On the other hand, we prefer Mr. Knobel's insistence that the town has to take a leadership role in finding locations for what he calls "grocery stores." Ms. Lester's point of view that the Bistrian land north of the Amagansett business area should be kept in agriculture and not become an extension of that hamlet's commercial core is off base.
If the two-year war on the Town Board could be put behind it, and if Ms. Lester were given more cooperation, she might be able to fulfill the promise for which she was elected two years ago. We admire many things about Mr. Knobel, but prefer her commitment to an idealistic view of what the town can and should do.