Fishers Island’s Stephanie Hall focuses on housing, jobs in Southold Town Board bid

Stephanie Hall knows Fishers Island well — and plans to draw on that experience as the Republican candidate seeks the island’s seat on Southold Town Board, a dual role that includes serving as town justice.

A full-time resident for over 33 years, Ms. Hall serves as fire commissioner and co-chair of the island’s Seagrass Management Coalition. She also mentors youth with the Fishers Island Conservancy. Her professional background includes 35 years as a human geneticist and current work in bio specimen management for Thermo Fisher Scientific.

When Ms. Hall first moved to the island, there were well over 550 full-time residents and many young families, which really appealed to her. That number has declined to just 230 people — critically low, she said.

“One thing I’d like to do to address that is to develop a strategic plan for attracting young adults and families to the island,” she said.

She envisions forming working committees focused on housing and job creation, with subject matter experts preparing recommendations and budgets to share with the town or other funding sources.

Ms. Hall said that along with housing, job creation is a major issue on the island that needs to be tackled. It’s always somewhat of a challenge to get to and from the island, and because of that, she said most people prefer to work on the island. The problem is, there aren’t a lot of options.

While construction and landscaping companies operate on the island, Ms. Hall feels more diverse opportunities need to be developed to attract young adults and families.

Strengthening ties between Fishers Island and Southold is one of Ms. Hall’s top priorities.

“In the past, they haven’t been strong. It seems like we were more siloed and isolated, but now, speaking mostly from a Fishers Island perspective, I’m seeing it improve, which is great,” she said.

She participated in a community resilience workshop this past winter and learned that Southold and Fishers Island share many of the same housing and environmental issues. The island also has aging infrastructure that will “certainly need upgrades,” she said.

Ms. Hall acknowledged that serving on the board would force her to scale back volunteer commitments, but she’s ready for that trade-off.

“That’ll be hard, because I enjoy it all,” she said. “I would have to really look at my time commitment and make some adjustments there, but I do like to do as much as I can.”