Southampton Planning Administrator Resigns

Southampton Town Planning and Development Administrator Kyle Collins submitted his letter of resignation November 19. According to the town, Collins, who has been working intermittently for the town since 1999, will remain on staff until January. He is also the village planner in Westhampton Beach, and will retain that post.

“It has been a pleasure and honor to work for the Town of Southampton,” Collins said in his resignation letter. “I am proud of all the accomplishments that we have made in the past seven years — from the adoption of the Southampton 400+ Sustainability Plan, [to the] Coastal Resources and Protection Plan, and the Riverside Redevelopment Action Plan, to name just a few. I have no doubt the board will continue to move forward with the action items outlined in these plans in the future.”

“Although I will miss working with all of you, it is now time for me to move on to the next chapter of my professional career,” Collins added.

He has plans to work for himself, through the consulting firm KPC Planning Service, Inc., but will continue working within the town for a year due to a policy in the code of ethics.

Collins was hired as a Southampton planner in 1999. He served in that position until 2008, when he left to start his own business, and returned in 2012 as the administrator through the hiring of then-supervisor Anna Throne-Holst.

Southampton town supervisor Jay Schneiderman said the plan is to promote someone from within.

Come January, he will also have to fill town justice Andrea Schiavoni’s seat following her election win to serve as a judge in Suffolk County Family Court.

Schiavoni first took the bench in 2008, ousting Thomas DeMayo, who was a veteran of the justice court system. She had also run in 2007, when she lost to Edward D. Burke, who had previously served at that post from 1994 to 2000, and ended up being censured by the Commission on Judicial Conduct in 2014 for four acts of misconduct.

Schiavoni is currently in her third of a four-year term. The Southampton Town Board must vote to appoint someone to serve the remaining year.

desiree@indyeastend.com