Tim Motz

With 25 years as a media professional, Tim Motz has experience in virtually every aspect of the business. A former award-winning reporter for The Southampton Press, Tim also wrote for the Naples Daily News and the Waterbury Republican-American, among other publications, before going to work for the Suffolk County Legislature as a combination legislative aide and press liaison. After working for the Suffolk County Legislature for five years, he served as speechwriter and deputy director of communications for the Suffolk County executive and subsequently as special assistant to the Suffolk County Police commissioner. In that capacity, Tim oversaw the creation, hiring, and training of the department's first civilian public information office and supervised all aspects of media operations for one of the country’s largest police agencies.

Currently the director of communications for both the Suffolk County Water Authority and the Central Pine Barrens Joint Planning and Policy Commission, Tim in his tenure at SCWA has redesigned all of the utility's publications and played a key role in the redesign of its website. He has also implemented social media, rebranded the utility with a new logo and color scheme, played a leading role in the creation of the SCWA Education Center, and created and developed SCWA’s new public education initiative, WaterTalk, all while cutting communications spending to one-fifth of its budgetary level before his arrival. A series of videos highlighting SCWA themes and written, directed, and produced by Tim are featured on the utility’s website. At the Central Pine Barrens Commission, Tim, serving as the Commission’s first director of communications, has instituted communications protocols, played a leading role in the comprehensive overhaul and redesign of the Commission’s website and is in the process of creating a series of videos for the site.

A candidate for the Suffolk County Legislature in 2005 against current Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, he was elected chair of the Southampton Town Democratic Committee at age 31 in 2001, leading the party to its first majority on the Town Board. A former member of Southampton Town Kiwanis, Tim served four years as announcer for the Southampton High School varsity football team and two years as a Police Athletic League football coach. He is a former board member of Human Resources of the Hamptons and is a current board member of New Hour for Women and Children, where he is working with the board on a rebrand of the not-for-profit group, which provides services to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women seeking to turn their lives around.

Tim is also a prolific songwriter, having composed approximately 75 songs to date for his rock band, Sideshow Rodeo. He currently writes a satirical editorial page column for the East End Beacon called “The Proper Hamptonian” and an editorial page column for the Press News Group entitled “Stories from the South Fork.” In 2017, in reference to “Stories from the South Fork,” he was referred to by a panel of judges in the New York Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest as “the star of a group of columnists that are entertaining and must-reads.”

Along with his wife, Kim Covell, Tim is a partner in the strategic communications company Molehill Media. The company’s primary current client is Human Understanding and Growth Services Inc.

A graduate of Tulane University, where he earned a double major in English and History, he grew up in Garden City and Quogue, N.Y., and lives in Water Mill with his wife and sons, Dylan and Jack.