Fence Up and Down Again

Residents of Flaggy Hole Road in Springs who frequent the Gardiner’s Bay beach at Maidstone Park were surprised on June 25 to see East Hampton Town Parks Department workers installing a fence there, perpendicular to the beach, and complained that not only would the fence stop them from parking at the beach but also destroy their sunset views.

For the last few summers, signs and obstacles intended to keep trucks off the beach between Flaggy Hole Road and the jetty at the tip of Maidstone Park have consistently been taken down or removed. On May 15, the Springs Citizens Advisory Committee asked the town to replace them. Although the fence apparently was a response to this request, there was reportedly a 12-foot opening in it, big enough to drive a car through.

Both Kim Shaw, director of the Natural Resources Department, and Bill Taylor, an East Hampton Town Trustee and waterways management supervisor, agree that the fence was put at Flaggy Hole Road in error; it was supposed to be farther down the beach, near the eastern end of Maidstone Park. They said it would be moved soon.