Anna Throne-Holst Unopposed For Second Term As Southampton Town Supervisor

Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst is anxious to complete some unfinished business at Town Hall if she is reelected to a second term on Tuesday.

Ms. Throne-Holst, 51, is unopposed on the ballot for a second, two-year term as supervisor. An Independence Party member, she has also been endorsed by the Democratic and Working Families tickets. The town supervisor earns a $102,000 annual salary.

Ms. Throne-Holst said she plans in her next term to create task forces dedicated to stimulating economic development throughout town and to work with the county to attract new business and jobs to the area. She also wants to work with fellow town supervisors on a thorough, two-year agenda that aims to explore shared services, a health care consortium and ways to improve water quality.

“I really believe that if you don’t look at some of these things on a regional level, they will, first of all, never be as effective as they will be,” she said last week.

Of her time already at Town Hall, Ms. Throne-Holst said she’s most proud of helping to get the municipality on the right financial track by bringing Town Comptroller Tamara Wright on board. She said she’s also proud of leading the charge to revamp the town’s planned development district legislation by more clearly defining submission criteria, among other things. She also touted the creation of an Office of Energy and Sustainabilty, which is funded by grant monies. “We have done quite a bit,” she said.

Ms. Throne-Holst has crafted an $80.2 million budget that calls for 29 staff reductions—a combination of both layoffs and retirements—designed to meet a New York State 2-percent tax levy cap, which has called for $5.1 million in cuts to the town’s current budget. Part of the budget also includes forcing six senior police officers to retire under a provision that allows the Town Board to separate from service officers who have achieved more than 20 years of service.

The officers targeted in the budget have more than 25 years of service, prompting criticisms from Ms. Throne-Holst’s Republican challengers that the measure is politically motivated because it leaves members of the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association—a police union that has financially supported Ms. Throne-Holst’s campaign over the years—largely untouched. Ms. Throne-Holst has dismissed those claims, noting she was only looking to affect the least number of officers by looking at those with 25 years of service or more.

Ms. Throne-Holst lives in Noyac. She has three sons and a daughter, Nic, Max, Sebastian and Karess Taylor-Hughes.