Republicans Pick Kabot for Supervisor Race

For the third time, the Southampton Town Republican Committee has named Linda Kabot its nominee for town supervisor.

At a nominating convention Tuesday night in Hampton Bays — in which the GOP chose its entire slate for the supervisor, town council, town justice, highway superintendent and town trustee races — Kabot, of Quogue, was picked to once again go up against Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst, a Noyac resident and member of the Independence Party with Democratic backing.

Kabot was also given the GOP nod for supervisor in 2007 and 2009.

Kabot, a councilwoman at the time, defeated then-incumbent Supervisor Patrick "Skip" Heaney in a Republican primary in 2007 and went on to win the general election. But then in 2009, she lost her seat to Throne-Holst. In 2011, the Republicans failed to field a candidate against Throne-Holst, but Kabot campaigned as a write-in candidate and took 36.4 percent of the vote.

Before her two years as supervisor, Kabot was a councilwoman for six years and was the executive assistant to the supervisor for six years prior to that.

James Sanford, a Sag Harbor resident, previously screened with the Republicans for supervisor race, but he did not contest Kabot's nomination Tuesday.

Five men screened for GOP nominations in the race for two Town Council seats, and on Tuesday the committee picked Stan Glinka, of Hampton Bays, and Jeff Mansfield, of Bridgehampton.

Glinka is the vice president of the Hampton Bays Chamber of Commerce and serves as the treasurer of the Southampton Business Alliance, a vice chairman of the Hamptons Visitors Council and a member of the town’s audit advisory committee. He is a vice president at Bridgehampton National Bank and the president of the board of the Rogers Memorial Library Foundation and Dominican Sisters Family Health Services.

Mansfield, the president of the Mecox Sailing Association, is the vice chair of the Bridgehampton Citizens Advisory Committee and the town’s audit advisory committee. He is also a member of the Bridgehampton School Foundation, Bridgehampton/Sag Harbor Little League.  According to the Republican Committee, he worked as a finance professional on Wall Street, including at Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers.

Glinks and Mansfield will vie to fill the seats vacated by Republican Councilman Chris Nuzzi, who hit his term limit, and Conservative Councilman Jim Malone, who declined to seek re-election.

Nuzzi, of Westhampton Beach, turned down the GOP nomination for town supervisor in 2011 when it was offered to him and this time around he chose to seek a seat on the Suffolk County Legislature.

Malone, of Hampton Bays, said Wednesday that in lieu of seeking public office he plans to enter an executive business management program in New York City. He has been accepted by two universities for 22-month weekend programs, he said.

"I'll be a candidate, but I'll be a candidate for an MBA," Malone said. He added that he is proud of his work on the Town Board and the team the board has put in place to lead town departments. "It has been the honor and privilege of a lifetime."

He will continue in his job as a deputy county clerk for Suffolk.

Ryan Horn, a Sag Harbor resident who works at Southampton Town Hall as a citizen advocate; Keith Davis, the owner of the Golden Pear cafes; and Cornelius Kelly, of East Quogue, who ran for Suffolk County legislator in 2011; had also screened for the Town Council nominations.

Kelly, an MBA and small business owner, has been picked as one of the Republicans' four nominees in the Southampton Town Trustees race.  The trustees, which is a five-member board, oversees the town's bay bottoms, beaches and waterways under the authority of a Colonial Era patent.

In addition to Kelly and incumbent Republican Trustee Ed Warner, the GOP nominated Scott Horowitz and Ray Overton.

Horowitz, of East Quogue, also ran for trustee in 2011 but fell short. He is the president of an insurance agency he co-founded and he serves on the board of directors of the East Quogue Chamber of Commerce. He is a Suffolk County Police Academy graduate and he worked as a seasonal bay constable for Southampton Town. He is currently a member of the town's conservation board.

Overton, the director of operations of the Ross School, has been a volunteer firefighter in Westhampton Beach for 23 years. He is a member of the Westhampton Rotary Club.

Incumbent Republican Trustee Jon Semlear declined to seek re-election.

In the race for superintendent of highways, the GOP picked David Betts, of North Sea, who is currently the chief town investigator for Southampton's code enforcement department.

The incumbent highway superintendent is Alex Gregor, a member of the Independence Party who was elected with the Democratic endorsement.

Incumbent Town Justices Barbara Wilson and Deborah Kooperstein are being cross-endorsed by both the Southampton Town Republican Committee and the Southampton Town Democratic Committee.