If elected, our administration will continue to collaborate with Black community leaders and clergy to ensure that Black families and communities are being represented and heard. We will continue to work with local community groups to identify enslaved persons and free blacks from the 1600s to the mid-19th century, locating and preserving burial grounds, habitations, and work sites. And we will continue to honor contributions of Black community members such as Lt. Lee Hayes. In 2021, the Town of East Hampton dedicated the Youth Park in Amagansett to the late East Hampton resident Lee A. Hayes, renaming it the Lt. Lee A. Hayes Youth Park in honor of his service to his country as a Tuskegee Airman during World War II. In June, 2022, as part of a Juneteenth commemoration, the Town unveiled a memorial plaque at the park, along with a history kiosk highlighting Lt. Hayes’s biography.

As it states in the Town’s Comprehensive Plan, we want East Hampton to be a wonderful place to live, work, raise a family, enjoy life and connect with the natural environment. If elected, our administration will be laser focused on preserving our community for our children, our seniors and our hard working families of every race, ethnicity, religious, and socioeconomic background – as everyone deserves to thrive here in East Hampton. Preserving our community for our kids means supporting quality child care and after school care as well as expanding mental health services for adolescents. Preserving our community for our seniors means offering free transportation services for shopping and doctors’ visits, providing five hot meals each week as well as offering free wellness programs to maintain a healthy lifestyle. We are currently working on a new senior center in Amagansett, which will allow us to expand programming and serve our growing senior population who wish to age in place. Preserving our community for our hardworking families means creating affordable housing opportunities – giving our families a path forward to security, financial stability, and a brighter future right here in our community. Since 2020 the Town Board on which I serve has created over 100 affordable housing units. It also means that the Town must fairly compensate staff members and support their development and advancement via training and professional development.