“I need more activism,” said Sagaponack Mayor William Tillotson when asked why he decided to campaign alongside two new candidates for village board on the Piping Plover Party line. Four candidates are vying for two trustee seats, each with a two-year term, and the mayor is hoping for a shakeup in the election, which will be held on Friday, June 21, from noon to 9 p.m.
The incumbents are Trustee Marilyn Clark and Deputy Mayor Lisa Duryea Thayer. The Piping Plover Party candidates are David McMillan Jr. and Mark Landis. Mayor Tillotson is running for re-election unopposed.
While all four candidates made clear in recent conversations their sincere passion for protecting the Sagaponack way of life, they bring different skills sets to the table.
While he has not held office before, Mr. McMillan is not new to the world of Sagaponack politics, having run for a trustee seat last year and lost by a slim margin; he has also served as an alternate on the Sagaponack Village Zoning Board of Appeals and was recently nominated to the board of the South Fork Land Foundation, a nonprofit focused on preserving open space and farmland.
Mr. Landis, also running on the Piping Plover ticket, is a political neophyte but has lived in Sagaponack for 30 years and became certified as an emergency medical technician for the Bridgehampton Fire Department in 2023. “Giving back to the community is something that’s near and dear to me,” said Mr. Landis, who added that he had approached the mayor looking for new ways to help. “I went to him while in the process of fully retiring,” Mr. Landis said, “and I had time on my hands, so I asked, ‘Is there anything he needs me to do?’ And he said, ‘What do you think about running with me?’ ”
Mayor Tillotson, Mr. Davis, and Mr. McMillan have campaigned on a few central issues: street safety, protecting beaches and wetlands, and prioritizing the farmland that is so central to the identity and zeitgeist of Sagaponack. “Nobody’s against any of these issues,” Mr. McMillan said, “but I think it’s time for change.”
Ms. Duryea Thayer and Trustee Clark are presenting themselves to voters as a stable and well-established team with more than 20 years of experience on the village board between them. Deputy Mayor Lisa Duryea Thayer was on the village board for 16 years, serving four of those years as deputy mayor. She also served on the Sagaponack School Board for 21 years and on the Architectural and Historic Review Board for a year before running for a trustee seat for the first time. “Our communities are changing and our needs are changing,” she said, “we are working towards the future.”
In step alongside the deputy mayor is Ms. Clark, who has served on the board since 2020. Originally from East Hampton, she has lived in Sagaponack since 1999 and works as a real estate agent in Bridgehampton. Together, Ms. Clark and Ms. Duryea Thayer bring a collaborative approach to the board, they said. “We have a lot of the same goals,” Ms. Clark said. “We don’t always agree on everything but we compromise and we listen to the people who come to the meetings.”
“We’re a good pair. We work well together,” Ms. Duryea Thayer concurred. Preservation in general is the prevailing theme that Ms. Clark and Ms. Duryea Thayer want to focus on if they are re-elected. Ms. Duryea Thayer noted that they have “13 different preservation projects in the works.”
“We’ve all been speaking about land preservation,” Ms. Clark said, “and I’m particularly keen on continuing to work with Peconic Land Trust and the Cornell Cooperative.”
Another issue among those highlighted by Ms. Duryea Thayer and Ms. Clark is the health of Sagg Pond and the protection of wildlife there.
If history is any guide, the upcoming election may be a close one. Mr. McMillan lost his last campaign — in 2023, as the elections for trustee seats are staggered — by only eight votes. Several other recent elections have been uncontested.
