Incumbents Stevenson and Brown Look To Retain Seats on Southampton Village Board, With Challenge From Newcomers Centeno and Hudson

When Southampton Village residents head to the polls on Friday, June 16, at the Southampton Cultural Center on Pond Lane, they will not only be casting votes for mayor but for two of four candidates vying for two seats on the Village Board.

Incumbents Roy Stevenson and Robin Brown are seeking what would be their second two-year terms, and are being challenged by newcomers Greg Centeno and Palmer Hudson.

Stevenson and Brown have aligned themselves with fellow trustee Bill Manger, who decided to challenge current mayor Jesse Warren for the mayorship just one year into a two-year term, under the “Better Together” ticket, while Centeno and Hudson are aligned with Warren, under the “Unity Wave” ticket.

Centeno and Hudson have stated publicly that they are aligned with Warren’s vision and platform, including continued progress on downtown revitalization, the cleanup of Lake Agawam, improvements in traffic congestion, and other initiatives.

Centeno is a father of two and grandfather of four, who is celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary this summer, and who has lived in Southampton Village for 25 years. He has worked in the architectural field for decades, after earning his master’s degree in architecture from North Carolina State University. Centeno has worked with small and mid-sized communities to help improve quality of life using Participatory Design, which is the involvement of people in the creation and management of their built and natural environments.

Centeno has designed retail, residential and museum projects for his own firm, New World Planning and Design, and worked for the design firm MKDA prior to going out on his own.

Centeno has touted his architectural and design expertise as a quality that makes him well suited to joining the board, particularly when it comes to helping the village continue to implement the Comprehensive Master Plan, which was updated last year, and in the continued effort to create a sewer district.

Hudson, a Hill Street resident in the village, is a recent graduate of Georgetown University, where he earned a degree in computer science and government. During his time at Georgetown, he served as a teaching assistant for data structures and worked as an IT project director for a nonprofit food service organization.

He cites his familiarity and expertise with computer programming as a quality that can make him a valuable trustee, and has said he would like to use that expertise to improve life for residents in a number of ways, such as improving traffic conditions and digitizing the village in different ways to make more information readily available for residents, whether it comes from the clerk’s office or building department.

Stevenson is a lifelong resident of Southampton Village who earned his MBA from Emory University after graduating from Harvard.

The father of two and grandfather of one worked in the manufacturing industry for Eastman Machine Company for more than 20 years before becoming a small business owner in Southampton Village, buying Lillywhite’s Toys on Jobs Lane in 2001 and turning it into Stevenson’s Toys and Games, which he runs with his wife, Polly Stevenson.

Stevenson first ran for village trustee in 2006, narrowly losing. Following that campaign, he was asked by former mayor Mark Epley to serve on the village planning commission, a position he served in for 14 years, the last several as chairman. He ran independently for a seat on the village board in 2021 and won. During his time as trustee, Stevenson has served as liaison to the Southampton Village Volunteer Ambulance Department, the Southampton Village Fire Department, the justice court, land use boards and building department, and he’s also played an active role on the comprehensive master plan committee, chaired by Manger, the police chief search committee, chaired by Brown, and the clean water task force, chaired by Paul Travis.

He has cited his “lifelong love” for Southampton Village as his motivation for running for trustee and cites improving water quality and the “greenness” of the village by initiating the clean water sewage project, and also focusing on efforts to make the village more carbon neutral and pedestrian and bike friendly as primary focuses if he should win another term.

Like Stevenson, Brown was elected to her first term in 2021, after she and Stevenson unseated incumbent candidates Mark Parash and Andrew Pilaro.

Brown is married to Wendell Brown, and together they purchased a home in Southampton Village more than 20 years ago and have lived there ever since, she said, adding that Southampton Village is her “dream location.”

Brown, an employee of Delta at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, does humanitarian work and said she has a depth of experience in the nonprofit sector, both domestically and internationally. Her international nonprofit experience includes being involved in efforts to build schools, medical clinics and orphanages in South Africa, working to rescue children from sex trafficking at the border of Thailand and Burma, and sponsoring women in South Africa to help them become entrepreneurs.

Locally, she has served as board president for the Eastville Community Historical Society in Sag Harbor, and has partnered with the Peter Marino Art Foundation on the “Be Inspired” Program to expose young people to the arts.

Brown is the chair of the police chief search committee for Southampton Village and also has served as liaison to Coopers Beach.