Sagaponack Village Election
of Mayor & 4 Trustees
Friday, December 2nd — Noon to 9 pm
Polling is at Sagg Main Street and Montauk Highway (southwest corner)

**Please Scroll Down to Read about Our Candidates**

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Notice of Speical Election of Village Officials
for the Incorporated Village of Sagaponack

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that on the 2nd day of December, 2005, between the hours of twelve o’clock noon and nine o’clock in the evening, an election will be held at the future Sagaponack Village Hall located at 2987 Montauk Highway, on the south-west corner of Sagg Main Street and Montauk Highway, Sagaponack, to elect a mayor and four trustees for the Incorporated Village of Sagaponack.

BY ORDER OF THE ACTING VILLAGE CLERK
VILLAGE OF SAGAPONACK, NEW YORK
KAREN R. GREATREX

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General Information Regarding
The Special Election for Village Officials

1. The Election Where and When:

Election will take place on Friday, Dec 2nd from noon to 9 p.m. at the future

Village office, 2987 Montauk Highway, southwest corner of Sagg Main and Rt 27.

2. Who Can Vote:

Only persons registered to vote in Town of Southampton regular elections from a Sagaponack Village address may vote in this election or run for office.

3. Registration:

You must be registered with the Suffolk County Board of Elections by November 2nd. Change of registration takes at least 30 days. Change of registration forms are available at the Post Office. Applications for absentee ballots must be obtained by November 1st by writing to the Village Clerk, PO Box 600, Sagaponack, or in person from the Village Clerk at least one full day prior to the election.

4. Candidate Filing

A person wishing to run for Mayor or one of the four Village Trustee positions must:

a. Be registered to vote in Sagaponack
b. Obtain a nominating petition from the Village Clerk
c. Declare which position you are running for and whether you are running for the long term trustee position (28 mos) or the short term (16 mos)

d. Obtain signatures of at least 25 locally registered voters (5% of all locally registered voters).
e. Turn in their completed petition to the Village Clerk no later than 6 p.m. on October 28th.

5. Signing Candidate Petitions:

Each registered voter is entitled to sign a candidate’s petition for each of the five races: one for a Mayoral candidate, two for long term Trustee candidates, and two for short term Trustee candidates. A registered voter who signs a petition for a full slate of candidates cannot sign a petition for any other candidate. Signatures on a partial slate will reduce the number of signatures that can be used for other candidates.

6. Challenging Petitions:
a. The Village Clerk will make filed petitions available for inspection upon receipt.
b. Commencing on October 31st , objectors shall have three days to file specific objections to any of the nominating petitions.

c. When an objection is received the Clerk will notify the candidate that an obejection has been filed. After November 2nd, the Clerk will submit all challenged petitions and the objections to the County Board of Elections for determination.

October 8, 2005

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The Sagaponack Party

Dear Neighbor,

We’d like to introduce ourselves. We are the Sagaponack Party, a group of five active community members running as a team to form the first Board of Trustees of Sagaponack Village. Our goal is to insure that the new village does what its sponsors promised it would do when voters were urged to approve it on September 2.

Our slate is headed by Bill Tillotson, who has served as co-chairman of the Sagaponack Citizens Advisory Committee and was one of the three official petitioners for the formation of the village. Running with him for the four trustee seats are Lee Foster, Alfred Kelman, Don Louchheim and Joy Sieger, who were selected in an effort to insure effective representation for the multiple constituencies within the Sagaponack community.

Our platform is simple. We are committed as a group to:

1. Organizing and managing a bare-bones village administration, one that insures that the historic territory of Sagaponack remains intact while contracting with the town for all the essential services it has been providing to us – police protection, highway maintenance and public works, and the administration of planning, building and zoning. Village residents will pay the same taxes for these services as they would have paid if we had remained an unincorporated hamlet.

2. Operating with a lean village budget that can be supported from revenues the new village will receive, primarily from mortgage tax receipts that are distributed to villages. If past mortgage tax revenues from even the lowest of the past five years are any guide, village residents should not have to pay any new taxes. The mayor and village trustee candidates pledge not to receive any compensation for serving during their elected terms.

3. Allowing beachfront property owners within the new village the right to hold a referendum on whether or not to be included in Southampton Town’s proposed Sagaponack Coastal Erosion District. At the same time, we would work aggressively in tandem with the town to prevail upon the county to remove or scale back groins east of  Sagaponack that are adversely affecting our beachfront.

4. Insuring that the concerns of residents over the quantity and quality of services that the town continues to provide for the village are heard and addressed by town officials.

5. Evaluating through a rigorous cost-benefit analysis suggestions by residents that we consider having the village provide services that are contracted out to the town. Such suggestions would have to have broad support, however, before we would consider implementing them. And unless there is an overriding need not to do so, we believe the town should continue to provide essential services for the foreseeable future.

We believe that a team approach to implementing these policies and resisting initiatives that would steer the newly-formed village on a different course is what the vast majority of Sagaponack voters wants in its first village administration. You can count on us to deliver it. We hope you will give us your support on election day, December 2.

If you have any questions about our slate or our platform, please feel free to call any one or all of us. 

Sincerely,

Bill Tillotson, 537-2045 –

Lee Foster, 537-1014 - Alfred Kelman, 537-9121

Don Louchheim, 537-0163 - Joy Sieger, 537-0153

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Candidates of The Sagaponack Party

 

Bill Tillotson (Mayor, 28-month term)

B.A. University of Buffalo, MBA University of Rhode Island. Self-employed since 1975, currently owns and operates a wholesale plant nursery. Member of Southampton Town Transportation Commission, Co-chair Sagaponack Citizens Advisory Committee, Director Maidstone Gun Club, avid open water swimmer and choral singer.

Lee Foster (Trustee, 28-month term)

I was brought to Sagaponack as an infant by my parents who had a beach shack on the dunes, located there by permission from George Clarence Topping who owned “a pasture lot off Fairfield” at that time. I do not recall when the shack was moved to Sagg Main Beach, but I resided there all my growing years during the summer when my family traveled from New Jersey to be here. The cottage was washed away for good during a nor’easter in March of 1962.

I married Clifford H. Foster in 1963. We have three grown children. I majored in Art Therapy and Education and after an intermission to attend to the kids, I graduated from LIU C.W. Post Summa Cum Laude with a BA in both in 1988.

I have been an advocate of farmland preservation, have joined and still serve on boards of civic organizations, presently most ardently, the Hampton Library, Suffolk County Farm Select Committee and the Southampton Agricultural Advisory Committee.

I wish to participate as an elected Trustee for our fledgling incorporated Village because its inception was based on the two things I find most relevant for its future – land use and those who dwell here.

Don Louchheim (Trustee, 28-month term)

Journalist and businessman, publisher of the Southampton Press from 1971 to 1998, when one of my sons took over the newspaper. Prior to moving to eastern Long Island, I was a reporter, editor, and foreign correspondent for The Washington Post. I am a graduate of Yale University and received an MBA from Harvard. I and my wife Pingree have lived in Sagaponack since 1972 and have been active and on the boards of many community and civic organizations. We have three children, two of whom are graduates of the Sagaponack School and live in Sagaponack with their families. Avid skier, frustrated golfer.

Alfred Kelman (Trustee, 16 month term)

A founding officer of the Sagaponack Association and former Co Chair, Sagaponack, CAC.  Producer of film and television working in fiction and non-fiction for over 30 years. Multiple recipient of each of the major broadcasting awards including the Emmy & Peabody.  M.S, Communications Research, Boston U. Senior Research Staff, Center for International Studies, M.I.T.  In association with The Brookings Institution and the Operation Gov’t Committee of the US Congress, Producer of the definitive television series on how the Federal Gov’t works. Principal and Corporate Board Member of a publicly held company Medcom Inc., specializing in medical education from 1968 until the sale of the company in 1982 to Baxter Laboratories. A resident of Sagaponack with his wife Janice for the past 8 years, they have one son, Nic, a novelist and tutor who lives in NYC.  Alfred eagerly awaits the return of the Sag Harbor softball season, if he makes the cut that is!

Joy Sieger (Trustee, 16-month term)

Born Bridgehampton, June 29, 1954 (10th generation native.) B.S. in Math/Economics/ S.U.N.Y at Oneonta, N.Y. Bookkeeper/Treasurer, The Total Home, Inc. (present), Former Office Manager, Storms Motors, Inc., Southampton.

Raised three children in Sagaponack/East Hampton School District.

Former PTA President, East Hampton. Helped organize first P.A.L Football League 5/6th graders. Coach (4 yrs) East Hampton Village Girls Softball League, 9-12 year olds. Treasurer, Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church . Elder and Deacon of Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church

Interests: Member of English Handbell Choirs, Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church and Sag Harbor Presbyterian Church. Scheduled visits/shopping with shut-in Sagaponack resident. Weekly tennis. Collecting antique duck decoys.

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Gary Ireland (Mayor, 28-month term)

I’m Gary Ireland and I am running for Mayor of the new Village of Sagaponack.  I am a graduate of Columbia University and New York Law School. My family owns a small beach cottage, built by my grandparents Bryan Hamlin and Helen Bishop Hamlin, located on Potato Road and we are long-time residents of Sagaponack.  My wife Nancy and I have two wonderful children, Bryan Ireland, age 6 and Sydney Bishop Ireland, age 4.

From what I keep hearing, the three most pressing issues in Sagaponack are farm preservation, beach preservation and preservation of our rural character. I have been a longtime advocate of beach preservation and last year the Town of Southampton joined in my legal efforts to help save our public beaches. In conjunction with that effort I have developed numerous contacts at various levels of government and with the press. I plan to use my skills to promote farm preservation in Sagaponack by working with the Town of Southampton, the federal and state governments, as well as the various environmental groups, including the Group for the South Fork. In addition, our Sagaponack community should work get a larger cut of the land preservation funds from the Town

I look forward to speaking with you and listening to how the Sagaponack voters envision our new village. Please give me a call at 537-7996. My e-mail address is girelandlaw@aol.com. I am also available for a visit. I look forward to working with the community to preserve our farms and beaches.

Election Day is Friday, December 2 from Noon to 9 pm. Polling is at Sagg Main Street and Montauk Highway (southwest corner). If you will be out of town during the election, please contact the Village Clerk, Karen Greatrex, at 537-0254 for an absentee ballot.

Thank you for your continued support.

Gary Ireland
Sagaponack Farm and Beach Preservation Party

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Frequently Asked  Questions About Sagaponack Incorporation

On Friday September 2 an election will be held to decide whether or not Sagaponack should proceed with village incorporation. This event represents the fruition of over two years of hard work to protect the boundaries of Sagaponack. It also presents voters with the reality of whether they really want a village and if so what kind of a village.

WHY THE VILLAGE?
The threat of dismemberment struck at the historic integrity of Sagaponack. This has not changed.  Should Sagaponack fail to incorporate, the Town of Southampton Supervisor would have no choice but to consider the petition currently filed with the Town Clerk’s office to incorporate the proposed territory of Southampton Beach as a village.  This newly proposed village with borders closely approximating Dunehampton also annexes the Sagaponack beach front as part of its territory and has been filed by the same proponents who filed the Dunehampton petition, no doubt attempting to correct the flaws which kept their original petition from succeeding. The Village Law of the State of New York contains no restriction on the number of petitions that can be filed for incorporation even by the same proponents. Indeed at the public hearing for the Dunehampton petition in September, 2003, the proponents of Dunehampton stated that if their petition was denied they “will return with another petition again and again and again”.

WHAT KIND OF A VILLAGE DO WE WANT?
The overwhelming number of regular inhabitants of the community who signed the petition to incorporate the Village of Sagaponack share the conviction that the Town of Southampton should continue to represent the complicated process of Planning and Zoning including the on going negotiations for Development Rights of Agricultural Land and that we would contract with the Town to continue basic services, e.g., police, roads, etc.  This is what is described as a bare bones village.

WHAT WILL IT COST?
After careful study by a subcommittee research group drawn from the petitioners, we can report that because of Sagaponack’s comparatively large tax base and the revenues to be derived from mortgage taxes, implementation of a bare bones village should have no adverse impact on village taxpayers for the initial years of incorporation. Even with a substantial drop in future mortgage tax revenues as a result of higher interest rates and a less buoyant real estate market, the revenues should cover expenses. So implementation of this village infrastructure stops dismemberment at no extra cost and as a bonus will give Sagaponack greater leverage within the Town of Southampton to get better service from the town when the need arises, especially in terms of police presence.

WHO WILL RUN THE VILLAGE?
Within two months following an affirmative vote to incorporate, voters will elect a Mayor, and 4 Trustees who will serve as unpaid public servants.  These individuals will campaign for your vote and thus you will have the opportunity to determine the kind of village you want.  We can discuss revenue base, local services, zoning, protection from litigation, etc, all of that will follow an affirmative vote to incorporate.  It is not true that a village hall is a pre requisite to incorporation.  All that is required is commercial space the size of a small office to house village records and a part-time village clerk who will be paid.

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
However, at this point in time, these kinds of discussions are academic. What we can’t do is forget the overriding issue, the protection of the territorial integrity of Sagaponack, the connection of the hamlet to the ocean as it has been for over 300 hundred years.  This is the basic issue that united the community.

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Please Visit Our Site Often for Updates on Current Issues.
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OUR MISSION

The mission of the Sagaponack association is to provide a forum for residents and property owners of the Sagaponack area to discuss concerns regarding the interests of our community, to reach consensus about appropriate responses to community problems and to act as a lobbying vehicle for the community in the larger context of the township, county and state. In contrast to the Sagaponack Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) which serves an an extension of Southampton Town government — and plays a valuable informational role in that capacity — the SAGAPONACK ASSOCIATION is a dues paying membership organization with an independent voice on community issues and interests.