Email: kate@southoldforward.com

I am running to build bridges and serve all residents of Southold Town.

I am running as an advocate for pilot projects on Fishers that can have town-wide applications and for opportunities at the town and state level that can benefit this small island community.

I am running to connect all residents of Southold Town, and I will work tirelessly to forge partnerships around a shared vision and priorities.

Southold Town is a constellation of nine vibrant hamlets and one incorporated village. Unique in many ways, we share many of the same strengths: a strong sense of place, a fierce love of the environment, and an inclusive sense of community built on pitching in and helping out where we live.

We also share many challenges: a severe housing shortage, anxiety about overdevelopment, aging infrastructure, vulnerability to sea rise, and a local economy buffeted by seasonal ebbs and flows.

Fishers Island and the North Fork may be twelve miles apart, but we are all part of the same Southold Town community. The body of water that separates us also connects us. We are closer than we realize.

I am working on two “land recycling” projects, i.e., repurposing underused land for community benefit. Both have involved forging community partnerships and consulting with Southold Town officials. The first, a “waste to trail” project, involves licensing waste management land for a coastal sanctuary and public trails. The second, a “brownfield to solar field” project, involves leasing a decommissioned landfill to a solar field developer for community and environmental benefit. These projects exemplify how putting your shoulder into energizing existing good ideas that already have broad community support can lead to a positive outcome. It is an approach I will bring to the Town Council position: tell me what’s important to you and how I can help.

I am also involved in several long-term planning initiatives, including energy and community resiliency committees and the Fishers Island Zoning Committee. In these roles, I advocate for increased community input, especially active stakeholder participation. This is key because the collaborative planning process benefits from their expertise and they, in turn, become more community minded. Harnessing this spirit of compromise for mutually beneficial progress has obvious applications on the Town Council: let’s focus on what’s important to all of us and how we can help each other.

Being on the Town Council is about making sound policy decisions on behalf of the community we have been elected to serve. I will do the legwork, ask the questions, and test the alternatives so that the policy-making process is transparent, fair, and advances Southold Town’s shared priorities: your voices will be heard.