Council member, Town of East Hampton: Tom Flight

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TOM FLIGHT

Democratic

BACKGROUND:

• Flight, 45, is from the United Kingdom and became a U.S. citizen in 2015.
• He serves on the Montauk School Board and volunteers as an EMT with the Montauk Fire Department.
• He has degrees from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the University of Cambridge in England and formerly worked in corporate finance. He owns two retail businesses in Montauk, where he resides with his wife, Georgia, and three children.

ISSUES:

• Flight said the environment is “absolutely critical” to health and the economy in East Hampton and wants to preserve natural resources for future generations. A key priority is to decrease town contributions to landfill waste by increasing recycling programs and reducing single-use plastics.
• He supports efforts to address affordability through new housing projects and accessory dwelling units, particularly for essential and emergency workers. “If we can’t find ways to house the essential workers in our community, there really will be no community,” he said.
• He is also concerned about environmental disasters, citing deadly fires in Hawaii and Canada. He supports revisiting the town’s emergency preparedness plan “to ensure that we’ve got a good infrastructure in place and good communications in place to enact that plan.”