East Hampton Town Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte, a Democrat who was appointed one year ago to occupy the Town Board seat vacated by then-Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez after her election to supervisor, was sworn in on Thursday, January 2, following his special election victory in November.
The councilman, who will complete the last year of Burke-Gonzalez’s unexpired term, bested the Republican candidate, Hy Mariampolski, who did not campaign, owing to an injury he suffered earlier last year. Calder-Piedmonte won election with 69.43 percent of the vote to Mariampolski’s 30.57 percent. Should he seek to continue serving as councilman beyond 2025, he will have to stand for reelection in November.
A Michigan native, Calder-Piedmonte is a farmer and co-owner of Balsam Farms in Amagansett. A 2002 graduate of Cornell University, he lived in Italy for a few years before arriving in East Hampton in 2005. He served on the Town Planning Board from 2012 until his appointment to the Town Board. He is the Town Board’s liaison to Springs and to the board’s initiative to create affordable housing.
“I’ve really enjoyed it a lot,” he told the Express News Group during last fall’s campaign, “for all the reasons I thought I would, and even more. I always enjoyed my work on the Planning Board. It feels good to try to help. Our town is still a small one, so you can see where you’re making a difference.”
The Town Board, he said last fall, “is a pretty significant extension of that. I’ve loved working with the board, the town staff, and the community in figuring out how it all works.”
The board’s January 2 organizational meeting also saw the swearing in of Chip Rae as chairman of the Architectural Review Board following a resolution appointing him to that position for 2025, and Edward Krug as chairman of the Planning Board, following resolutions reappointing him to the board for a seven-year term and naming him chairman for 2025.