Candidates for East Hampton Town clerk and the town board were warmly received by a sparsely attended meeting of the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee on Saturday, exactly one month before Election Day.
Jeff Miller, the Republican candidate, and Michael Hansen, a Democrat, made their pitches to Wainscott voters, both running to succeed Carole Brennan, the town’s longtime clerk, who is retiring.
Mr. Hansen, a technology consultant and member of the planning board, told the committee that, if elected, he would seek to expand payment options for things such as the town recycling permit. At present, only cash or check is accepted as payment for the annual permit. “If you look at other municipalities around here,” he said, “they have permit portals where you can do this all online.”
He said that the town website should be updated. “You go into the town clerk’s office and there are great visuals about due dates and things, but I want that to be on the website too,” he said. “I want to enhance the website with online application, and also just content and technology.”
A technology background is important for the position, he said, but so is collaboration. “I want to collaborate with the town board, specifically their capital planning budget, so we can get the financing for better recordkeeping, digitization,” he said. To that end, he expressed a wish to construct a conditioned, fireproof space in which to keep historic documents, some of which date to the 1600s, as well as servers to store digitized records.
Mr. Miller recently concluded a 36-year career with East Hampton Village, where he was a heavy-equipment operator. He has been a member of the Springs Fire Department for the same span, he said, and served on the Springs School Board. “I am a people person,” he said. “I understand what Mr. Hansen is saying. There are things that need to be digitized and brought up to the 21st century, because it’s a little archaic with several items.”
He described the clerk’s office as “the nerve center and the heartbeat of Town Hall,” and the clerk as the face of Town Hall. “I want you to come there. I understand, there’s things you want to do from home, but you do have to come there at some point in time.”
The clerk, Mr. Miller said, “is there when you need them to be, and you can convey your messages to the clerk. . . . I just feel that with my background and my experience, I am the person that should lead East Hampton starting in 2026, with all due respect to Mr. Hansen,” who “seems like a super nice guy, very smart. But I’m for Jeff Miller.”
Both Councilwoman Cate Rogers and Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte, who were to speak at the committee’s meeting last month but cited illness in postponing, enjoyed a more welcoming reception than did their Republican challenger, J.P. Foster, at the September meeting. That meeting followed a report in The Star about the future operation of the Maidstone Gun Club, which has been closed for nearly three years but is the subject of both litigation with private property owners and negotiations on a lease renewal with the town, to which some members of the committee are fiercely opposed.
The candidates discussed issues including water quality, affordable housing, and the town’s purchase of 66 Main Street in the hamlet, the largest community preservation fund purchase in the town’s history. Pushback to the incumbents focused on the latter, specifically concern that a management plan, now being drafted, might include parking
and trails on the 30-acre site. Because the acquisition was made in part for preservation of open space, the expectation is that it be accessible to the public.
“Preserve, just leave it, don’t mess with it,” was one comment. “Don’t give access to the pond to the public.” Wainscott Pond, adjacent to the 30-acre property, is one of the most degraded water bodies on Long Island.
“Giving access there is going to create the same problem” — litter — as in other public places, another said.
Mr. Calder-Piedmonte said he did not think public use of the pond has been contemplated. But the C.P.F., he said, “is about public enjoyment, so there needs to be an element of public access.” The draft management plan includes a trail, he said, “and that seems like a good idea to me.” But “we need to be delicate. I don’t think you need [either] a paved trail or nothing at all. I do believe there should be some access to that field, whether it’s a gravel trail or a dirt trail, where people can walk around. . . . I don’t think parking lots have to be always asphalt. I don’t think you have to have a parking lot, necessarily.” He is looking into “minimalist parking areas,” he said.
In answer to another question, he said, “I’m okay with the gun club reopening. . . . If the gun club wasn’t there, would I be advocating for a gun club? Not necessarily, but considering that they have a right to renew their lease, I think that I’m okay with it being open.”
Barry Raebeck, citing lead contamination at the gun club, said it was contradictory for Mr. Calder-Piedmonte “to say we want to preserve groundwater and we want affordable housing and then use a 97-acre parcel to pollute the water on the watershed.”
“The environment is very important there,” the councilman said. “I think it’ll be addressed,” he said of lead contamination. “It’s certainly part of the conversation.”
Ms. Rogers said, “I have delivered on every promise that I made on my palm card in 2021,” when she was elected to the board. “I did spend two years addressing outdated zoning codes that allowed for overdevelopment, that were impacting both our community and our environment.” She was to make a presentation about short-term rental investors at the town board’s meeting on Tuesday, which she said are “putting a strain on our community and our environment.”
She, too, was asked about the gun club, and what it would take for her to vote against a lease renewal. While board members cite the ongoing litigation in refraining from comment, Ms. Rogers said, “I don’t think I can get in trouble expressing my own personal opinion, not the opinion of the town, not the opinion of a town board member.” Safety was paramount, she said, along with remediation of any environmental impacts. “And number three, a real hard look at the amount of acres that’s actually needed versus the amount of acres that they’ve been given in the past.”
Election Day is Nov. 4. Early voting starts on Oct. 25 and continues through Nov. 2.
