Task Force Recommends Southampton Village Board Extends Terms, Creates Term Limits

Southampton Village officials are considering extending the terms of elected officials from two years to four, and imposing term limits, and discussed the relative merits and drawbacks of a change at a Southampton Village Board work session on Tuesday night.

Walter Deane, who was part of a term limits task force created by the Southampton Village Planning Commission, presented the task force’s suggestions to the Village Board on Tuesday. The task force also included Planning Commission Chair Marc Chiffert and member Pamela Gilmartin, along with two members of the public, Robert Loman and Susan Steinhart.

Deane said the Planning Commission created the task force, which has been meeting since November 2022, to “study the terms of elected officials as part of the implementation of a new master plan update that was recently adopted by the trustees.”

He said that over the last several months, the task force has met with Village Administrator Charlene Kagel-Betts, Village Clerk Cathy Sweeney, several local groups and concerned citizens, and also reviewed the election and term limits practices of other villages throughout Long Island.

He said that in speaking with members of the public over the last few months, there seems to be “overwhelming support” for extending the terms and holding elections every other year instead of every year.

Deane explained that, because of staggered terms for trustees, the village holds an election every year, at a cost of $30,000 to the village annually. Because the elections, which are held on the third Friday in June, are close to the date of statewide primary elections, the village has to rent voting machines, which represents a big part of that cost.

The task force is recommending four-year staggered terms for trustees, which would lead to the village only needing to hold elections every other year, and limits of two consecutive terms and a total of three terms for life.

Deane added that the task force could not come to a consensus on whether the term for mayor should remain at two years or be extended to four, and recommended that the board make that determination after holding a public hearing.

The board is not required to make the term changes via referendum with a proposition on the ballot, and in fact is not even required by law to hold a public hearing on the matter. Village Attorney Andrew Preston said the board could make the change via resolution, although that resolution would be subject to a permissive referendum.

Mayor Jesse Warren — who is up for reelection in June, along with Trustees Roy Stevenson and Robin Brown — was wary of making the changes. He said after the presentation that he wanted the public to know that “this was not a request on my end,” and he pushed back against the assertion that hosting elections on a yearly basis has become a significant cost burden for taxpayers.

Kagel-Betts said that the village had to spend $9,000 last year to rent ballot machines from Dominion Voting, but Warren said he thought $9,000 was “a small price to pay” for letting citizens exercise their right to vote each year.

Deane said that because of overwhelming public support to change to a two-year election cycle, the task force recommended not putting it on the ballot as a proposition, but instead holding a public hearing and changing the local law, so it can be “implemented without further delay.”

The task force recommended allowing the trustees up for election this June to be elected for a three-year term that would end in 2026, and for the next trustees to be elected in 2024 for four-year terms, which would set up for the elections to be held every two years on even-numbered years.

The board would then be left to choose whether to extend the terms for mayor to four years, or leave it at two years.