East Hampton Town Trustees Sweep to Victory, but Some Win Longer Term Than Others

For the nine East Hampton Town Trustee candidates who were endorsed, or cross-endorsed, by the Democratic Party, Tuesday night’s election sweep was not an equal victory for all.

Starting with the new terms in January, the Town Trustees board will enact four-year terms rather than the traditional two years that have been the norm through the more than four centuries that the board, one of the oldest continually seated government bodies in the country, has existed.

The longer terms were adopted so that the nine-member board could shift to staggered elections, with only half of the seats up for reelection every two years.

The shift was made in an effort to make the biennial races more manageable and less confusing for voters, as the ballot since the board went to nine members in 1975 had often included full Democratic and Republic slates of 18 candidates, and in some years even more with minor parties endorsing additional candidates.

The first five Town Trustees to earn the four-year terms did so on Tuesday night by virtue of being the highest vote-getters on the 2023 ballots.

Trustee James Grimes, a registered Republican who has been cross-endorsed by the Democrats in recent elections, and newcomer Patrice Dalton, a Democrat who was cross-endorsed by the Republicans, were predictably the top vote-getters, with 5,865 votes and 5,485 votes, respectively.

Veteran Trustees Clerk Francis Bock was next, with 4,521 votes, followed by Trustee Ben Dollinger, with 4,416 votes, and Trustee Bill Taylor, with 4,414 votes.

Trustees David Cataletto, John Aldred and Tim Garneau were reelected, and newcomer Celia Josephson was elected to the board and will serve new two-year terms. They will be the only four Town Trustees on the 2025 ballot, after which their terms too would shift to four years, and the Town Trustees elections will vary between five candidates and four candidates with each town election cycle.

Two incumbent Democratic Trustees, Susan McGraw-Keber and Michael Martinsen, will leave the board at the end of the year, having chosen not to seek reelection. McGraw-Keber had served on the board since 2018, and Martinsen since 2020.

The Republican Party had fielded a slate of only five Town Trustees candidates, including Grimes and Dalton. Challengers Kurt Kappel, John Dunning and Mark Edwards failed to break into the top nine, each earning less than 4 percent of the vote.

Bock said that he hopes the new staggered terms will make it easier for both parties to field slates of good candidates for the board every two years — something that has been a challenge in the past for both parties and more recently for the Republicans in particular.

“It’s been easy for [the Democrats] recently, but in the past it’s been difficult to even get full slate of nine people to run,” he said. “Hopefully, the committees of both parties will have an opportunity to be a little more selective when they need to be about who their candidates are. We have a great board right now, so I don’t think it will change much.”