Election 2025

“With this new, even-year election law, I am going to start campaigning for 2026, starting tomorrow,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez told her supporters on election night, after winning an uncontested race.

Both incumbent Democrats on the East Hampton Town Board, Cate Rogers and Ian Calder-Piedmonte, held onto their seats Tuesday night, warding off a challenge from J.P. Foster on the Republican line. Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez ran unopposed for her second term.

Polling places will be open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Election Day, and some voters in East Hampton will cast ballots in a new location — at the East Hampton Library.

Proposal 1 has to do with new ski and biathlon trails in upstate forestland. Proposal 2 addresses Suffolk County term limits vis-a-vis the state’s even-year election law.

East Hampton voters have a choice between two very different candidates for town clerk.

Ballot proposals can be murky matters, with opaque language and obscure origins, and voters on the South Fork are faced with two puzzlers this election year. 

We need to consider the effect of one-party rule in Town Hall, but this may not be the year to make changes.

From the Building Department to the senior center, contrasts were drawn between the town board’s Cate Rogers and Ian Calder-Piedmonte, incumbent Democrats, and J.P. Foster, their Republican challenger. 

In Suffolk County, early voting runs from Saturday to Nov. 2, locally at Windmill Village on Accabonac Road.

“People have a perception of me as a fighter, but my way of tackling a problem is to bring as many voices as possible to a table. I love a big table. I look at the science behind issues and spend time analyzing data and trends," said East Hampton Town Councilwoman Cate Rogers, who is running for re-election.

Michael Hansen, a Democrat, and Jeff Miller, a Republican, made their pitches to Wainscott voters as they run to succeed Carole Brennan as town clerk, while Cate Rogers and Ian Calder-Piedmonte of the town board addressed issues of local concern.

“I don’t feel like anybody can put me in a box,” said J.P. Foster, the sole Republican candidate for East Hampton Town Board this year. “I don’t feel like I fit in a Democrat or a Republican box. I fit in an East Hampton box. If there was an independent box, that’s where I’d be.”

Suffolk County Legislator Ann Welker, a Democrat who is seeking a second term in the 2nd District, and her Republican challenger, Raheem Soto, spoke of their records and policy agendas in a debate hosted by the League of Women Voters on Monday.

In the first of three profiles of candidates running for East Hampton Town Board, The Star talked with Ian Calder-Piedmonte, an incumbent Democrat seeking his first full term after first being appointed and then winning a special election in 2024.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork will host five virtual and live debates starting on Monday and continuing through Oct. 23. 

Two candidates are vying to succeed Carole Brennan as town clerk: Michael Hansen, a technology consultant running as a Democrat, and Jeff Miller, fresh from the village’s Public Works Department, on the Republican line.

J.P. Foster, a Republican candidate for the East Hampton Town Board, and Jeff Miller, the party’s candidate for town clerk, will host a campaign fund-raiser on Wednesday from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at Bostwick’s on the Harbor in Springs. 

J.P. Foster, a Republican candidate for town board, faced sharp questions and skepticism over remarks he made to The Star regarding the Maidstone Gun Club when he spoke to the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee on Saturday.

Jeff Miller, the Republican candidate for East Hampton Town clerk, on Friday retired from his position as heavy-equipment operator at the East Hampton Village Department of Public Works, where he spent 36 years.

Jeff Miller, the Republican candidate for East Hampton Town clerk, will hold a campaign fund-raiser at LTV Studios in Wainscott on July 24 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Republicans may be in control now in Washington, D.C., but it’s a different story in East Hampton Town, where the chairman of the Republican Committee confirmed this week that his party will not be running a candidate for supervisor and that only one of its candidates for town board will be actively campaigning.

At the top of the ticket, Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez got the uncontested nod, along with both Councilwoman Cate Rogers, first elected in 2021, and Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte, fresh off his first year on the job. And Michael Hansen was nominated to run for town clerk, following Carole Brennan's announcement that she will retire after more than a decade in the post.