Skip to main content

A Call for Staggered Terms on East Hampton Town Trustee Board

Thu, 11/14/2019 - 11:51
Francis Bock, the trustees clerk, at a campaign kickoff event this spring with Mike Martinson, who was elected to the nine-member trustee board earlier this month. Mr. Bock would like to see trustee terms staggered, so that not all nine trustees would have to stand for election at the same time every two years.
Durell Godfrey

“It’s amazing,” Francis Bock, the clerk of the East Hampton Town Trustees, said on election night at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton, where he and fellow Democrats watched as the Suffolk County Board of Elections’ unofficial result had all of the nine seats going to Democrats or Democratic-endorsed candidates. “I just can’t believe it.”

This does not mean there will no arguments among the trustees, Mr. Bock said. “I still expect discussion amongst the board,” he said. “I know that we have some board members who are not always going to agree.” Nonetheless, “I think it’s going to be good, I really do.”

A trustee’s term spans two years. Evaluating and choosing from among as many as 18 candidates is no easy task, and Mr. Bock is among those calling for staggered elections for the trustee board, so that fewer candidates will stand for re-election simultaneously. “That’s priority number one for me,” he said on election night.

How the election schedule would be altered remains to be seen, but Mr. Bock said on Monday that one way would be to award four-year terms to the four or five candidates winning the most votes. Voters could select the trustees’ clerk, or presiding officer, separately from a vote for the other trustees (the trustees at present choose the clerk themselves, by nomination and majority vote).

Citing New York State town law, Mr. Bock said that his understanding is that the town board would have to adopt a resolution on the terms for trustee elections, which would then be put to voters in a referendum.

Because the Veterans Day holiday fell on Monday, the trustees will hold the first of two meetings this month tomorrow at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall.

Villages

First East Hampton, Then the World

In the summer of 2011, Alex Esposito and James Mirras addressed a specific need with Hamptons Free Ride, an electric shuttle service that ran in a fixed loop through East Hampton and from parking lots in town to Main Beach. Since then, a “hometown side project” has developed into Circuit, an all-electric, on-demand “micro-transit” solution in more than 40 cities and towns.

Jul 17, 2025

WordHampton Moves Downtown

The public relations firm WordHampton has long had its finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the East End business community. That comes with the job. And now, with a new office overlooking Park Place in East Hampton Village, it is part of that pulse in a way that was not quite as tangible from its former headquarters in Springs.

Jul 17, 2025

Sag Harbor Rejects Proposed Tree Settlement

The case of Augusta Ramsay Folks, an 81-year-old accused of cutting down two trees on Meadowlark Lane in Sag Harbor in June of last year — in violation of the village’s new tree-protection law — was back in court on July 8, when a settlement proposed by Ms. Folks was rejected by the village and then withdrawn by her attorney.

Jul 17, 2025

 

Your support for The East Hampton Star helps us deliver the news, arts, and community information you need. Whether you are an online subscriber, get the paper in the mail, delivered to your door in Manhattan, or are just passing through, every reader counts. We value you for being part of The Star family.

Your subscription to The Star does more than get you great arts, news, sports, and outdoors stories. It makes everything we do possible.