Candidates for Southampton Town Council and Town Supervisor Debate Affordable Housing and Other Hot-Button Issues

The Express News Group hosted a virtual debate on the evening of October 13 featuring candidates for Southampton Town Council and the town supervisor seat currently occupied by soon-to-be departed Jay Schneiderman.

There are four announced candidates for two seats on the council, including incumbent Republican Rick Martel, who was joined by Republican William Parash and Democrats William “Bill” Pell and Michael Iasilli for a round-robin debate that hit on topics including affordable housing, water quality, police services and other issues.

Parash, a former Southampton Village Police officer and practicing attorney, said the current board was doing an “okay job” but could do better when it came to providing for more affordable housing opportunities, and more police.

Iasilli, a staffer with outgoing Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, highlighted his Democratic Party bona-fides with a list of endorsements that included his boss and State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. Iasilli talked up his working class roots as he pledged to “advocate for the less fortunate” and stressed his government experience and knowledge of the “mechanisms of government,” as key selling points.

Pell, a Southampton Town Trustee, vowed to repair the friction “between the Trustees and the Town Board and other departments in the town,” as he knocked the council for forgetting “to listen to a lot of the town’s people” in recent years.

Affordable Housing

Martel, a small-business owner in Hampton Bays and first-term councilman, said the affordable housing crisis in town is “one of the great reasons I want to stick around” for another term. He was focused, he said, on using Community Housing Fund revenues to repurpose so-called “zombie homes,” and find a way for younger people — he has two sons — to access down payment assistance. That’s “my big one,” said Martel of his push for greater access to housing opportunities for younger people.

Parash said he would “try not to use federal grants” to stem the housing crisis and vowed to keep the affordable housing focus on state grants and local programs. He also chimed in on a highly controversial Liberty Gardens proposed build-out of affordable and veteran housing on County Road 39 as “the right idea but the wrong place.”

Iasilli said he would explore so-called 72H properties that are tax-defaulted properties that Suffolk County “typically puts off to bid,” as he said the Town of Southampton should have “greater access to that list” and suggested a new approach where those parcels would be brought to the town’s attention ahead of the 72H sell-off process. He also suggested converting vacant dormitories at the Stony Brook Southampton campus into workforce housing.

Pell said he supported all of the above, as he was on the lookout for “one big package” that would help first responders, police, teachers and town workers to continue to live where they work.

Coast Guard Housing

The candidates each chimed in on a hotly contested Southampton Town plan that would see the conversion of 52 housing units at a former U.S. Coast Guard housing complex near Gabreski Airport into new housing opportunities in a 50-50 proposed split that would see half the duplexes sold on the open market with attached accessory units that would be set aside for affordable housing.

Martel said at first the plan seemed like a slam dunk, but the $15 million asking price from the General Services Administration for the land and buildings is “a pretty high price,” especially given the raft of infrastructure improvements that would likely need to take place before anyone moved there. He hoped the town could develop the property, but in a way that met with approval from nearby residents who, so far, have expressed a dim view of the plan.

Parash described it as a “great opportunity,” but also noted the long list of unknowns associated with the property, part of which is a state Superfund site. Whether the buildings are razed and rebuilt or renovated and converted, he said, the town should continue its pursuit of acquiring the property.

Iasilli supported the plan and how it could be of great service to local teachers, first responders and medical workers who work in Southampton, but can’t afford to live here. He encouraged a vigorous environmental review of the lot and also wanted to ensure that the affordable housing units would be affordable in perpetuity.

“The town should buy it,” said Bill Pell, and develop affordable housing as he again warned against federal involvement in any possible development that might be down the road. “The town should have bought it when it first came up for sale,” he said of the tract.

Water Quality

Parash stressed the urgency for existing legacy cesspools in the town to be upgraded to I/A systems as he noted that “the bays are in trouble — they are doing better, but people don’t treat the bays right.” More oyster farms would help, too, in filtering nitrogen from local harbors and coves.

Pell said he’d been fighting for better septic systems in town for 20 years and said homeowners who hadn’t yet upgraded their septic systems should be compelled to do so, “especially if you are close to the water.”

Martel highlighted that the Town Board had dedicated $12 million in Community Preservation Funds to upgrade sewage systems and said I/A systems should be mandatory in any home with an accessory dwelling, and any new construction. Most of Suffolk County, he said, will eventually be hooked into sewer systems and noted that with those CPF funds, “we can do a great job here.”

Iasilli knocked the Suffolk County Legislature for failing to provide countywide sewer-district funding last year. He encouraged a greater partnership between town and county leaders to ease the way for homeowners applying for an I/A grant, as he also highlighted that the local economy is “reliant on the health of our bays.”

Policing

The candidates were asked whether the Southampton Town Police Department was the right size for the town. Pell said, “you can never have enough police officers,” as he highlighted an overburdened Code Enforcement department, quality of life issues, and the over-crowdedness of some houses in town, which he described as a “big problem.”

Martel noted his endorsement by the Southampton Police Benevolent Association and ticked off recent police-related efforts on the Town Council, which include staffing enhancements and an emphasis on hiring bilingual Code Enforcement officers to create more of a “collaborative effort with Code Enforcement and police” than currently exists. “Any time we can hire an additional police officer,” he said, “that’s definitely to our benefit.”

Parash highlighted his four years as a Village Police officer and observed that the “town has a much lower response time than the village,” as he pledged to fix that by hiring three officers for every one who retires.

Iasilli said he was “pleased to see body-cams” deployed at the Southampton Police Department and also brought up traffic safety and traffic mitigation as a major issue for law enforcement to deal with.

BESS Facility

The town recently enacted a moratorium on battery electric storage systems (BESS) proposals following public outrage in Hampton Bays over a proposed facility there. The candidates were in general agreement that siting the facility near a residential neighborhood was a bad idea, with varying degrees of animosity directed at Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman for allowing a zoning change that opened the gates to the proposed facility now under intense fire.

Martel, who was part of the Town Board that originally approved the zoning change in 2020, said the board should repeal that zoning, that he was glad for the moratorium, and said he was taken aback in a major way by the “fear on people’s faces” about the facility that was going to be built near Shinnecock Canal.

Parash said it was shocking to see the board so “quick to the trigger to go with it,” as he reiterated the numerous complaints about fire safety and other concerns that animated a public process that led the town to reverse course earlier this year.

Pell agreed that the town “moved too quick without doing the homework,” and said “we don’t need to have the first [BESS] on the island.”

Iasilli said the “proposal was wrong from the start,” and said the BESS facility had been “dumped on Hampton Bays” without their consultation and that the moratorium should be extended from six months to a year.

Iasilli used the BESS question to pivot to a pet issue of his that would see the creation of so-called “Council Districts” to ensure that hamlets such as Hampton Bays have a voice at the table in Town Hall, replacing the liaison system now in place.

That idea was met with opposition by the other candidates.

“Good luck, ya’ll,” said Iasilli as the Town Council debate concluded.

Town Supervisor Debate

The town supervisor debate featured Southampton Town Councilwoman Cynthia “Cyndi” McNamara and Westhampton Beach Mayor Maria Moore. One of them will take the place of Schneiderman, who is being term-limited out this year.

The candidates first addressed a question put to them about their relative experience and whether they were ready to take on the 24-7 role required of a town supervisor.

Moore said her executive experience was a selling point and that the Southampton Town supervisor position was “the same deal, just scaling it up” as her role as mayor. While her annual, roughly $12 million budget is one-tenth of the Town of Southampton’s, she said she goes through “every line” to make sure the spending is “conservative spending,” and that the budget adheres to the state’s 2 percent cap on tax levy increases.

McNamara said her two years on the Town Council had provided her with a front-row education into the intricacies of municipal governance and said she had gotten to know all the various department heads and agencies. She was “ready to go on day one,” McNamara said.

The town supervisor debate largely focused on affordable housing and the hot-button Liberty Gardens and Coast Guard housing proposals were among the issues raised.

Moore and McNamara agreed that the Liberty Gardens proposal had, from their perspective, been presented without proper transparency and details from the developer for what it would entail insofar as traffic and sewage, and McNamara highlighted the prospect of a supportive housing development offering ancillary services on-site, which would also contribute to additional traffic in the area.

McNamara noted that her view of the project — whether it was a good idea or not — was somewhat irrelevant given that the proposal is in a holding pattern from her perspective and hadn’t addressed concerns in an environmental impact statement that she said ought to have been more comprehensive in scope.

Moore said the town should have the ability to just say no to projects such as Liberty Gardens that wind up in a years-long process with town agencies before elected officials finally say, “let’s give them something.”

“People get down the road, spend lots of money,” she noted — creating a fait accompli feel even when projects don’t fit in the community.

McNamara had the zinger of the evening during a discussion over traffic and what to do about it. “Anybody who says they are going to fix traffic is lying,” she said. The state and county needs to step up, she said, given that the two main roads contributing to the traffic problem are Montauk Highway, a state roadway, and County Road 39.

The candidates agreed that the Long Island Rail Road needed to step it up, too, when it came to offering more options for commuters to try to stem the nightmare traffic on those roads. Moore also highlighted traffic circles and speed-control signs as traffic-control measures as she said she’d signed off on a recent letter to the Long Island Rail Road asking for a second commuter rail line on the South Fork.