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John Aldred, left, drops his ballot in a box during the East Hampton Town Trustees' vote for deputy clerk. Aldred was elected deputy clerk, along with the incumbent deputy clerk Jim Grimes. CHRISTOPHER WALSH
The East Hampton Town Trustees have a new deputy clerk, the nine-member body voting to name John Aldred, a Trustee since 2017, to the position.
He joins Jim Grimes as a deputy clerk, and succeeds Bill Taylor, who remains on the board, in that role.
During their organizational meeting on Monday, January 13, the Trustees also nominated Francis Bock, the incumbent clerk, to continue in that role. As there were no other nominations for clerk, no vote was taken.
For deputy clerk, David Cataletto nominated Aldred, Aldred nominated Grimes and Bock nominated Taylor. The Trustees voted via paper ballot, with Grimes winning eight votes, Aldred seven and Taylor one.
“I want to thank Bill Taylor for all the years that he’s done this,” Grimes said. Taylor, he said, has done “a tremendous job, and we should not forget that.”
“Thank you, everybody,” Taylor said. “John will do a good job.”
The town pays the Trustees’ salaries. The clerk is paid $30,882 per year, the deputy clerks are each paid $26,069 per year and the six other Trustees make $12,340 annually. The clerk and deputy clerks are the Trustees’ financial officers.
Arlene Tesar-Cella continues as the Trustees’ secretary. In addition to her salary as a town employee, she receives a stipend of $170 per week from Trustee funds. Alyson Follenius will be a full-time secretary at a salary of $26 per hour for a maximum of 40 hours per week, and receives a stipend of $125 per week paid from Trustee funds. Christopher A. Carillo will remain the Trustees’ attorney, at annual compensation of $49,000.
The clerk will continue to appoint one Trustee to sit on the town’s Special Events, Energy and Sustainability, Nature Preserve and Water Quality Technical Advisory committees, as well as the Peconic Estuary Program.
The Trustees also voted to donate $10,000 from the sale of spoil from the biannual dredging of Georgica Pond to their scholarship fund.
The Trustees hold public meetings in the main meeting room at Town Hall on the second and fourth Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m., with the exception of its second meeting in May, which would fall on Memorial Day and will instead happen on May 29 at 6 p.m., and its first meeting in October, which would fall on Columbus Day. That meeting will be held on October 17 at 5:30 p.m.
The Trustees’ first regular meeting of 2025 will happen on January 27.
