We look forward to Anna Throne-Holst taking the supervisor’s seat at town hall, and are hopeful she will achieve the consensus on the board she apparently intends to strive for. For, while she was winning the top spot, Republicans took control of the town council — with Chris Nuzzi winning re-election and Jim Malone taking the other open seat. Come January, the complexion of the board will be extremely different than today. We worry with a board tilted so far in any direction, it remains an uphill battle for the lone dissenting voice. In this case, with three Republican council members on the board, Throne-Holst may have her hands full trying to achieve consensus if council members toe the party line. During the campaign, Throne-Holst ran on a platform of creating an inclusive process on the board. We would hate to see her not deliver on this because of the new dynamics on the council.
Considering Throne-Holst’s win as a Democratic female candidate with a strong Republican board coming into power, we are reminded of the days when Mardythe DiPirro ruled the governmental roost in Southampton Town. DiPirro was the town’s first female supervisor and she, too, was a Democratic leader on a board that was largely Republican and with whom she frequently butted heads. Her administration was marked by a maddening level of inertia due to infighting on the board. Under her tenure, there was sadly nothing close to consensus building or a team effort in the town. She lasted one term before being voted out of office.
For the Throne-Holst administration to be successful, there must be a willingness of the two parties to put aside their ideological differences and work together in guiding the town through this bleak hour. Certainly the fiscal crisis that exists in the town today is much more dramatic and dire than when DiPirro oversaw Southampton — this is truly a particularly trying time. The town board not only faces the normal issues of effectively running and organizing a municipality, but they must also address an all-consuming mountain of fiscal blunders and there are difficult choices to be made in the coming months. The trials and tribulations facing the board in 2010 require them to work as a team or else the job won’t get done and Southampton Town might find itself in a deeper mess.
We reiterate the importance of this point — that the supervisor and the town council work together in a productive manner. On the board and in the political arena, there is often a temptation for the majority to take control and stymie progress by imposing their will or creating a filibuster.
As a senior member of the board and ranking Republican, councilman Chris Nuzzi, whom we also endorsed, is in an excellent position to be a majority leader. Over his last term, we have been impressed with Nuzzi as an independent thinker who is comfortable reaching out across party lines. We hope that his willingness to work with Throne-Holst hasn’t been motivated by his increasingly strained relationship with Kabot. We want to hold Nuzzi to his word that he will continue to work with the new supervisor as he has been working with Throne-Holst, the councilwoman, for the past two years. We hold both of them accountable for the promises they made before election day.
Nuzzi told us this week that working across party lines is what the community wants; and, yes, this is what the community wants. It is also what the community needs today in order to create a brighter future for Southampton Town and its residents.
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