Amid the national “blue wave” at the polls Tuesday, engaged Southampton Town Democrats scored another triumph, most notably in sweeping five trustee seats, traditionally a Republican redoubt in much of New York’s Long Island.
Town trustees manage the various (and many) waterfronts, including both salt and fresh-water ponds (aka lakes). They are distinct from the town councils that handle inland affairs. As wealth-bred development continues to press up against these shorelines, the political quiet that has long surrounded trustee positions may grow louder. A hint of this comes from a recent Newsday article on controversy over private docks extending into precarious public waters in Southold town on the island’s North Fork. (Democrats also won all the trustee spots there on Nov.4 and the Southold town board subsequently okayed new restrictions as described in this East End Beacon article.)
Typically, campaigners for trustee posts mouth platitudes about protecting both the waters and public access to them. (By this latter pledge they sometimes mean the latitude to drive trucks onto sandy beaches, a cherished right among some locals.) Media outlets, to the degree they cover trustee races, simply summarize the candidates’ backgrounds and expressed sentiments. What’s more, they rarely cover the regular trustee meetings.
At the same time, environmental groups that might have special interest in trustee affairs have also taken an official pass. The Group for the East End, the most notable such outfit in that stretch of Long Island, does not question or score the trustee hopefuls. Even the New York League of Conservation Voters, which doesn’t shy away from endorsements for even local offices (virtually always Democrats), is silent about trustees at its site–and didn’t respond to an email query.
In this information vacuum, a party organization can play an outsized role, and Southampton Democrats did so with mass road signage and other voter outreach. They succeeded in ousting three Republicans who are community fixtures, and re-electing two of their own incumbents, giving them complete board control.
This was thus a watershed election (so to speak), much like the one in East Hampton Town in 2015, when Democrats finally won a majority on the trustees board. They have never given it up, and in a town they increasingly dominate, the party again on Tuesday won all the trustee posts.
As Southampton Town gradually loses its own competitive Republican base, the trustees may take on a more activist bent. Whereas in the past they were content to issue permits for the fishing, boating and hunting activity of the town freeholders, while maintaining the shorelines, the Southold situation may herald wider concerns over pools, extended structures and wetlands vegetation. These could intersect with the ambitions of expensive waterfront property owners.
Additionally, the new trustee board might be more aggressive in securing public (non-truck) access to those waters. For example, the Southampton trustees for two decades have husbanded about $200,000 intended for use on 54 acres along Peconic Bay-adjacent Cold Spring Pond. The land and funds were obtained when the Sebonack golf club was developed nearby, but no trail or other formal opening-up of the picturesque site has followed.
Perhaps, as in Southold, more attention on the trustees will proceed from the political upheaval that has reached the shores of Southampton.
Tim W. Ferguson 
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