Faulty Arithmetic in Montauk

A Montauker of our acquaintance told us this week about a low point in her Memorial Day weekend. “I made the mistake of going into town at 1 on Saturday,” she said. “How was it?” we asked. “Hell,” she said.

Think about that for a minute. A long-term taxpaying resident views a trip to the business district as a descent into the abyss. Okay, well, for sure there are worse things, but looked at in the abstract, the fact that Montauk’s downtown is an overcrowded mess represents a profound failure of town government to manage growth. 

East Hampton Town officials are in the process of creating studies for each of the hamlets’ business districts. One for Montauk will be presented at the Montauk Firehouse tomorrow at 7 p.m. Anyone interested has been invited to attend to hear what the consultants have to say about shopping, parks, and the like. Whether anyone will want to address the fact that Montauk is too crowded and that the summer resort scene has gotten out of hand remains to be seen, but that should be at the top of the agenda.

There seems some kind of collective delusion at work in East Hampton Town along the lines that because having money is good, having more of it is more good. As the region struggles with noise, pollution, traffic, and additional demands for police, though, that arithmetic must be called into question. 

People should not have to hear themselves calling their hometown hell, even on Memorial Day weekend. Town Hall, and the candidates for town office, are you listening?