Days after East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen was sent a “cease and desist” letter from state, county, and town Democratic officials who asserted that his East Hampton Town Democrats for a New Town group constituted a “misuse of the Democratic Party name” in his campaign for town supervisor, Mr. Larsen and the chairwoman of the town’s Democratic Committee met and agreed to “lower the temperature,” in the mayor’s words.
Mr. Larsen is staging an early and aggressive campaign for supervisor, a position to which Kathee Burke-Gonzalez was re-elected last month. Because of the 2023 state law that moved many county and town elections from odd to even-numbered years, Ms. Burke-Gonzalez must face voters again in November 2026, just one year after winning the two-year term of supervisor. The winners of next year’s and subsequent elections for supervisor will serve two-year terms.
Mr. Larsen told The Star in September that he was concerned that comments made by Anna Skrenta, chairwoman of the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee, indicated that the committee was set to support Ms. Burke-Gonzalez’s 2026 re-election campaign at its convention, which is scheduled for Jan. 14, even before a screening process. The committee will screen candidates for supervisor on Jan. 10, Ms. Skrenta said this week.
Ms. Burke-Gonzalez “is nowhere near being finished with what she wants to accomplish for the town,” Ms. Skrenta told The Star in September. If Mr. Larsen were not named the Democratic Committee’s nominee, she said, “he has the option to file a designating petition, collect the required signatures, and challenge Supervisor Burke-Gonzalez in a primary.” She added, though, that “East Hampton Town’s Democratic Committee is not compelled to do anything to support a candidate who wins a primary against our candidate.”
Mr. Larsen said on Monday that Ms. Skrenta’s comments to The Star “set me on a path where I assumed that the committee and Anna were not going to give me a fair opportunity to screen.”
They met at Tutto Caffe in the village on Sunday, a meeting that Ms. Skrenta said the mayor had proposed. “We cleared the air, lowered the temperature, and I’m just moving forward with the campaign,” Mr. Larsen said. “We agreed that we were going to . . . not get into the weeds, just keep it civil and calm, which is good.”
Mr. Larsen, a former village police chief who was elected mayor in 2020 and ran unopposed for re-election last year, said that he plans to screen with the Democratic Committee and, if he is not nominated for supervisor at its convention, will mount a primary-election campaign against the nominee. “I’m planning on screening, and planning on a primary,” he said.
Mr. Larsen was always welcome to screen with the committee, Ms. Skrenta said on Tuesday, and that invitation stands. “When I was speaking to the press, I was asked, how did we feel when Jerry announced that he was running? To be honest, at the time we were in the middle of a campaign. . . . As I’ve said to the press, we’re not surprised that Jerry wanted to run for supervisor. He shared that with the committee in 2023 when he screened for town board.”
What did surprise the committee, she said, was Mr. Larsen’s campaign website, which drew a rebuke from her along with Jay Jacobs, chairman of the New York State Democratic Party, and Rich Schaffer, chairman of the Suffolk County Democratic Committee. Their joint letter told Mr. Larsen that his use of the word “Democrats” in East Hampton Town Democrats for a New Town was “deceptive, patently confusing, and likely to mislead voters into believing that your group is affiliated with or sanctioned by the Democratic Party or its duly constituted party committee, the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee.”
“There are still things we see very differently,” Ms. Skrenta said following her meeting with Mr. Larsen. “At the end of the conversation, we agreed that it was good that we got together in person and had a conversation face to face, it was very constructive. He fully intends to screen, and the committee is looking forward to him screening.”
She emphasized that her vote is one among 36 committee members. (There are typically two committee members for each of the town’s 19 election districts, but two spots are currently vacant.) “In that context,” she said, “I don’t make that decision” as to the committee’s nominees. Ms. Burke-Gonzalez is the incumbent, and “we literally just ran a campaign to get her elected. . . . The committee voted for her. That happened less than a year ago. That is important context, and I spoke with Jerry about that.”
Further, “it’s a unique situation,” she said of Mr. Larsen’s campaign, “because he’s actively campaigning against us while he’s screening for us.”
In a campaign email on Tuesday with the heading “How Did Taxes Go Up 27% In 3 Years?” Mr. Larsen charged that “under Kathee Burke-Gonzalez’s leadership, residents are paying significantly more but receiving far less — the direct result of poor financial oversight and weak long-term planning. . . . These mounting tax increases place an unfair burden on working families, seniors on fixed incomes, young residents trying to build a future here, and local businesses already struggling to keep up.”
Ms. Skrenta did reiterate that the Democratic Committee is not obligated to name Mr. Larsen its nominee regardless of the outcome of a primary election. But “that is not a decision we’d make lightly, because we do respect the will of the voters,” she said. “In practice, we would respect the will of the voters, but we have to see, frankly, how the campaigns are run. I hope Jerry will run a campaign that will make us want to support him if he wins a primary. But he has been very vocal about his criticism of Kathee and the board, and we are very eager to hear his concrete plans and policies for the issues. Because we face a lot of serious issues.”
Ms. Burke-Gonzalez did not comment on Mr. Larsen’s campaign or the meeting. “For the June 2026 Democratic primary,” she said, “I am focused on obtaining the endorsement from the East Hampton Democratic Party. The party that has endorsed me in my past five elections. The party that has worked diligently to unite progressive Democrats and moderate Democrats. The party that I have been proud to be a part of for 45 years. And the party that all of the sitting town board members have proudly been endorsed by.”
With Reporting by Christopher Gangemi
