One of five new faces in the Suffolk Legislature, Ann Welker is continuing her role in public life with an environmental agenda honed during her service as a Southampton Town Trustee.
“Water quality is what brought me into public service, and l am looking forward to continuing the work of Legislator Fleming in that area,” the new lawmaker said, referring to her predecessor, fellow Democrat Bridget Fleming, who was a champion of preserving the East End’s natural resources. “Bridget was extremely effective and proactive, and I will continue much of her work.”
Welker was “delighted” that she could vote for the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act, a plan for new sewers and private septic funding that stalled in the legislature last year. A home rule message is heading to Albany for state authorization to hold a public referendum on raising the sales tax by .125% to generate water protection funds. Welker pledged to work with the bill’s sponsor, Assemblyman Fred Thiele, along with environmental groups and other stakeholders, to garner support for the November ballot measure.
According to Welker, sewer funding would benefit communities in her district, including Montauk, Sag Harbor, Southampton, and Westhampton. The monies will also go toward Innovative Alternative septic systems for individual homes to keep nitrogen from surface waters and the drinking water supply. The first-term legislator said she also supports provisions of the bill that would fund water reuse efforts at golf courses and other facilities.
As Long Island’s coastal areas face the forces of nature, particularly like the two severe storms in January that ate away the dunes in Montauk and other vulnerable Suffolk beaches, Welker said coastal resiliency is another of her priorities. She will follow up on the work of Fleming and another legislator who did not return, Al Krupski from the North Fork, in protecting the county’s waterfront assets. Welker will also stay in contact with the Army Corps of Engineers on the progress of the Fire Island Inlet to Montauk Point project, a decades-old coastal storm risk management program meant to mitigate storm damage along Long Island’s Atlantic Coast.
Another area of concern for the Southampton legislator is transportation, particularly congestion along the two major routes through the Hamptons, Sunrise and Montauk highways, and public bus and train service. She said she is looking forward to the release of a traffic study initiated by Fleming and renewing a pilot project that provided an on-demand ride service in place of a continual bus loop. Welker referenced a recent environmental forum where Senator Anthony Palumbo and Assemblywoman Jodi Giglio discussed adding a side track to the Long Island Rail Road line serving the South Fork. “There’s only one track, and the trains cannot pass each other,” Welker explained. “A side track would enable the railroad to increase service to our area.”
Welker said she will promote more usage of the South Fork Commuter Connection, a coordinated rail and bus system operating during peak commuting hours to provide workers with a public transportation option.
To increase the supply of affordable housing in an area known for its high-priced real estate, Welker said she supports a move to offer tax lien properties to non-profits such as Habitat for Humanity and local municipalities to create reasonably priced housing rather than the county auctioning them off to developers or speculators.
Summing up, Welker stressed that the region’s environmental resources are vital to both of the island’s forks, and they are directly tied to the health of the economy.
“I come from an environmentally focused family thanks to my dad’s position as a professor of Marine Ecology and one of the founding faculty members of the Marine Science program at Southampton College in the early 1960s,” Welker pointed out. “I have a bit of knowledge about water quality issues thanks to my time on the trustees and growing up on the East End,” said the first woman to be elected since 1686 to the Trustees of the Freeholders and Commonalty of the Town of Southampton, the oldest continually elected board in North America.
Welker’s 2nd District encompasses all of East Hampton Town and a large portion of Southampton, as well as Bridgehampton, East Quogue, Hampton Bays, North Haven, North Sea, Noyack, Quiogue, Quogue, Sagaponack, Sag Harbor, Shinnecock Hills, Shinnecock Indian Reservation, Southampton Village, Westhampton Beach, Westhampton Dunes, and parts of Flanders and Westhampton.