Candidates' Catch Phrase: Supervisor and Legislator Debates

Candidates for town board, supervisor, and county legislature faced off Tuesday night at LTV in a candidates' debate, hosted by the League of Women Voters.

As the candidates continued their pace on the campaign trail, each one came back at one point or another to a phrase or two that they considered telling to East Hampton voters. Here's what we caught for the supervisor and legislator candidates.

Stay tuned for further coverage of Tuesday night's debate with a Town Council Catch Phrase wrap-up and also video footage from the debate, courtesy of LTV.

Supervisors debate:

Supervisor Bill Wilkinson (R)

• Catch phrase: Resume
• Quote: "Sooner or later, this campaign is going to come down to resumes. Whose body of knowledge is better than the other's."
• Context: From his opening remarks, Wilkinson referred to his track record - that "actions speak louder than words." Namely, the supervisor pointed back to his position at The Walt Disney Company as vice president of human resources - a role he said was one of the top 25 jobs in the world for human resources - also dropping in his time in the 1st Infantry Division.

Zach Cohen (D)

• Catch phrase: Modern management
• Quote: "Behind the scenes I’d like to see town hall become the absolute most modern form of management possible."
• Context: Cohen also pointed to his own track record as a manager, being the owner of a restaurant which employed 285 people and earning his master's degree in strategic finance and economics from the University of Chicago. Nodding to the "modern" part, Cohen called for posting all the town's CPF finances online.

County Legislator debate:

Legis. Jay Schneiderman (I)

• Catch phrase: 11 years
  
• Quote: "Eleven consecutive years without raising property taxes. That's a record I'm proud of."
• Context: Schneiderman is running for his third term as legislator following two terms as East Hampton supervisor. The Montauk resident pointed to his tenure as an elected official of Tuesday night's crowd for over a decade, asking for their vote while reminding them that they had voted for him in the past - on more than one occasion.

Cornelius Kelly (R)

• Catch phrase: Coalition
• Quote: "We need a legislator who is going to form a strong coalition. Who's going to join with fellow legislators in forming a strong coalition to get things passed. Ed Romaine has a strong coalition and he's getting things passed for the North Fork."
• Context: Kelly referred back to Romaine on more than one occasion as well as County Executive Steve Levy - who he said he had spoken with earlier in the day - and equated Schneiderman's status as an Independence candidate with an inability to build a coailition necessary to help second district constituents.