Dominant Concern In Montauk
One of the perennial problems in East Hampton Town is a kind of amnesia that falls on residents and policy makers alike once summer ends. The cool and quieter days of late September and early October wash away the high season’s many frustrations, and the torments that had marked July and August are forgotten.
We were reminded of this two Saturdays ago during a Concerned Citizens of Montauk forum, at which the conversation focused entirely on what to do about the eroding downtown oceanfront and not about how to tame growth and summertime chaos.
It was a good discussion, to be sure, with a larger and more interested audience than one might have expected in other parts of East Hampton Town. This was likely due to the freshness of the subject matter, as the Army Corps’s sandbag seawall had only recently been exposed by a prolonged ocean swell, but it also came from the impressive level of civic involvement you see everywhere in Montauk.
Montauk’s problems involve far more than the oceanfront. Indeed, during the 1938 Hurricane, destruction mostly swept in from the north rather than the ocean as the storm passed over Long Island. The Army Corps’s new idea of pumping a larger quantity of sand onto the downtown beach than had been envisioned might help in the short term, but, human nature being what it is, it would take the pressure off and dangerously delay a long-lasting solution.
In the more immediate future, the imbalance between an increasingly corporate tourism economy and the desires of Montauk residents for peace and quiet must be addressed. Years ago, Sag Harbor went through a similar struggle, pitting business owners against ordinary folks who just wanted to continue enjoying their village and to keep taxes modest. For the most part, they got it right. About Montauk, we are not so sure.
Some years ago, there was talk among some resort operators about incorporating Montauk as its own, stand-alone village in order to evade restrictions on building. Now, as East Hampton Town proves it is ill-equipped to deal with the barrage of new commercial projects and never-ending violations of the town code there, it seems as if they got their wish.
We would like to think that the results of a village bid would be different today. If Montauk were to incorporate, there is a good chance that voters would put in place a mayor and trustees more in line with their views about how the hamlet should be and less inclined to give business everything it wanted — a good question for another day.