A Dozen Candidates Seek Nine Seats in Last Full-Board Election for East Hampton Town Trustees

The nine members of the East Hampton Town Trustees are entrusted with the management and oversight of all of the town’s tidal harbors, bay beaches and freshwater ponds. They issue permits for the use of moorings and boat ramps, regulate docks and shoreline structures in the harbors and oversee shellfishing policies.

Tracing their authority back to 1686 and colonial patents from the King of England, the East Hampton Town Trustees are, along with their counterparts in Southampton Town and Southold Town, the oldest elected bodies in the United States and maintain records of their governance back to the 17th century.

This year’s election for the East Hampton Town Trustees board will be the last time that all nine candidates will appear on the ballot together.

After years of complaints about the unruly nature of the sprawling Trustees race, which has had as many as 19 candidates running for seats in some years, the Trustees elections after this year will shift to a staggered format, with only four or five seats on the ballot every two years.

In order to shift to that format, this year’s election will be weighted. While the top nine highest vote-getters will be elected to the board, the five candidates with the most votes will win four-year terms and the other four will earn two-year terms, with those four seats returning to the ballot again in 2025 after which all terms will be four years.

There are two candidates this year endorsed by both the Republican and Democratic parties: James Grimes, a registered Republican who has been cross-endorsed for the last three election cycles, and Patrice Dalton, a registered Democrat and first time candidate who earned a cross-endorsement from the GOP this year.

The Republican Party has nominated just three other candidates — Kurt Kappel, John Dunning and Mark Edwards. The Democrats, whose candidates have swept the Trustees election in the last two election cycles, have seven incumbents, including Grimes, on the ballot and two newcomers in Dalton and Celia Josephson.

Two incumbent Trustees, Susan McGraw-Keber and Michael Martinsen, both Democrats, are not seeking reelection.

Aldred is an incumbent Trustee running for a fourth term on the board.

A fisheries biologist, he has spent his life working on and around the waters of the East End. He was the founding director of the East Hampton Town Shellfish Hatchery and has worked as an environmental analyst for the town and as a fisheries biologist at Multi-Aquaculture fish farm in Napeague.

As a Trustee, has worked on the Accabonac Harbor mosquito population surveys that have reduced the need for chemical spraying over the harbor, and on the horseshoe crab mating surveys, and serves on the town’s Water Quality Technical Advisory Committee.

FRANCIS BOCK (D)

Bock is the clerk of the Trustees running for reelection to a sixth term on the board. He has been the clerk — the board’s top officer — since 2017.

He lives in Springs and works for the town’s Housing Department.

Bock sites concerns about the effects of climate change and rising sea levels on the local environment, including the loss of aquatic plants and shellfish stocks and the exploding of toxic algae, as threats to the local way of life he wants to continue fighting against.

DAVID CATALETTO (D, WF)

Cataletto is an incumbent trustee seeking reelection to a third term on the board.

An East Hampton native and avid surfer and sailor who teaches English and history at the East Hampton Middle School, Cataletto says that his priorities are preserving the natural environment of the South Fork for generations to come. He is on the Trustees oversight committees for Northwest Harbor, Georgica Pond and Accabonac Harbor.

He is a founding trustee of the Amagansett Live Saving Station & Museum, and serves on the East Hampton Historical Society’s education committee and the East Hampton Nature Preserve Committee.

PATRICE DALTON (D, R, WF)

Dalton is the chairwoman of the Accabonac Protection Committee, where she has helped spearhead its community eduction programming and environmental monitoring initiatives. She also serves on the Peconic Estuary Program’s technical advisory committee.

A native of East Setauket, Dalton worked in the pharmaceutical industry. She moved to East Hampton in 2014. She is the vice chair of the Springs CAC.

BEN DOLLINGER (D, WF)

An incumbent trustee seeking reelection to a third term on the board, Dollinger says that his top priority is safeguarding the health of local bays, ponds and beaches, which are a crucial component of the local economy and community.

An insurance agent with Amaden Gay Agencies, he is an East Hampton native and father of two who lives in Montauk — in a house that his grandparents had to move to higher ground following the Hurricane of ’38.

He serves on the Trustees education committee and on the oversight subcommittee for Three Mile Harbor and Georgica Pond.

JOHN DUNNING (R)

Dunning is a commercial airline pilot who lives in Wainscott. His grandfather, Sam Lester, was an East Hampton Town councilman. Dunning moved to East Hampton in 1995 and worked as a pilot for Ben Krupinski’s company, East Hampton Airlines, before moving to commercial carriers.

An avid boater, Dunning says he has long followed the Town Trustees business closely and is eager to help contribute to their efforts to preserve local waterways.

“As a pilot, I’ve seen a lot of the third world and place where environmental protection has gone bad,” he said. “I’ve seen what can happen, and my goal is to preserve what we have here because it is tough to bring it back once you’ve lost it.”

MARK EDWARDS (R, C)

Edwards is a building contractor from Springs. He is an East Hampton native making his first run for elected office.

TIM GARNEAU (D)

An incumbent trustee seeking reelection to a third term on the board, Garneau has helped coordinate the horseshoe crab monitoring research with Cornell Cooperative Extension and recruited local students and residents to serve as civil scientists and has spearheaded the Trustees’ efforts to get water bottle filling stations installed at local beaches to cut down on plastic litter.

Garneau is an avid mountain biker and kayaker. He serves on the town’s Anti Bias Task Force and is the Trustee liaison to the Accabonac Harbor Protection Committee and served on the town’s little ballfields committee.

JAMES GRIMES (R, D)

Grimes is a fourth-generation Montauk native and the Trustees’ deputy clerk seeking reelection to a fifth term on the board.

Advancing a dredging program for Napeague Harbor and Accabonac Harbor are among his top priorities, Grimes says, along with protecting and improving water quality in Georgica Pond, Fort Pond and other freshwater bodies, and reestablishing Hicks Island in Three Mile Harbor as a nesting site for least terns and piping plover.

Grimes owns two Montauk landscape businesses, Fort Pond Native Plants and James C. Grimes Land Design. He serves on the East Hamtpon Town Nature Preserve Committee and Harbor Management Committee.

CELIA JOSEPHSON (D, WF)

An attorney making her first bid for public office, Josephson has lived in East Hampton for 35 years and spent much of her career focused on environmental and health-related issues.

In the 1990s, she was the director of the nonprofit South Fork Community Health Initiative — which advocates for health care access for underserved communities in the region. She previously served on a commission in Massachusetts tasked with remediating lead poisoning in Boston, for which she coordinated the effort to find a long-term solution that became a national model for mitigating pollution.

She has also taught ESL citizen preparation and high school equivalency programs at East Hampton Library.

KURT KAPPEL (R, C)

Kappel is a construction contractor who lives in Springs and is a former chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Party.

He is an East Hampton native whose family formerly owned the Shagwong Marina on Three Mile Harbor.

“I grew up on the on Three Mile Harbor, that was my playground,” he says. “I know the waterways and I care about how they are taken care of. I’ve seen how things changed. I am not political, I just want to help protect the bays and make sure we have access to the water.”

BILL TAYLOR (D, WF)

Taylor is an incumbent Trustee seeking reelection to a sixth term on the board. He is a Vietnam veteran and founding member of East End Vets. He was the town’s first senior harbormaster and worked for 20 years as its waterways management supervisor.

He has been honored by the Accaboanc Harbor Protection Committee as a “Friend of the Creek” in 2002 and helped spearhead the drafting of the town’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan and to establish East Hampton waters a no discharge zone.