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Daniel Martel
Dan Martel is a lifelong Hampton Bays resident running for Southampton Town Trustee on a Republican line that includes Trustee stalwarts Ed Warner Jr. and Scott Horowitz.
Martel, the son of Southampton Town Councilman Rick Martel, said he’s had a lot of mentors, including his dad, and that he knows “the importance of the water around us.”
“I have been fortunate enough to live the local lifestyle,” said Martel, the swimming-and-clamming lifestyle that he’d like to see brought up to the “premier, quality-preserved” level, as a Trustee.
Martel described Horowitz and Warner as the dictionary definition of “ideal” Trustees, given their collective experience at 14 years apiece, and dedication to the access and clean-water mission of the board.
He would expand aquaculture in Tiana Bay and “would like to get every person in town to grow oysters,” given their nitrogen-flushing capacities. He’ll focus on dredging projects in town, too, “that’s always going to be a positive.”
He’ll do it with the gratitude in the attitude of a local who understands “how hard it is for a young person” to swing the South Fork rent and cost of living, to say nothing of home ownership.
The first-time candidate graduated from Hampton Bays High School, attended Suffolk Community College and has been a longtime varsity baseball coach at the high school.
Martel married in June and made sure to highlight Kaitlyn at the end of a phone interview where it appeared that his dad may have been chortling in the background at the family sports shop on Main Street in Hampton Bays.
