Letters to the Editor: 06.19.97

When Is Season?

East Hampton

June 10, 1997

Dear Mrs. Rattray,

It's an outrage! A sweet young girl sits in the office at Main Beach reading a book, waiting for "customers" to collect the $150 fee for an East Hampton Village beach parking permit sticker. She is getting paid to sit there while no facilities are available to those of us who have already paid for our parking stickers and another $150 for the use of "lockers."

It is 3:40 p.m. on Tuesday, June 10, a beautiful warm day. The bathrooms are not open to the public, nor is the bathhouse and interior bathrooms that I, and others, have paid to use in "season." When is season? Is it when it is convenient for the village authorities arbitrarily to decide to open the facilities? Right now, it seems arbitrary.

In the past the bathhouse and all bathrooms were open from 9 a.m. untill 5:30 p.m. from the weekend before Memorial Day weekend continu ing all week long until two weeks after Labor Day weekend. More recently, the price of the lockers and stickers has increased from $100 to $110 and then to $150 while the services have been cut. Last summer the bathhouse was open only until 5 p.m. The excuse was that there wasn't enough money to pay the youngsters.

If the starting work hours were staggered (i.e., very few workers from 9 to 10:30 a.m. when there aren't too many beachgoers), then there would be enough money left to have the beach workers keep the bathhouse open until 5:30 p.m. and still have time to clean up by 6 p.m. In the summer, the nicest time of the day is in the late afternoon, but we have to put our beach chairs into the lockers before 5 p.m. and use the bathrooms also before that time. The doors close. This is for the convenience of the crew; it should be for the convenience of those paying!

Another excuse we have heard is that the beach facilities can't be opened earlier in the season because the young workers are in school. There are plenty of senior citizens and other available persons who are willing to work before school is out and again in September.

It is interesting to note that the village has enough staff to patrol the area to issue parking summonses to cars without stickers, but for those who paid for lockers and stickers there aren't enough staff members to receive the services already paid for and due them. Since I was told by the attendant that she did not have the keys to open the bathrooms and locker area (which seemed ironic because it was open for painters) and that the facilities are now open only on weekends from Memorial Day to July 1, wouldn't it then be appropriate that the price for the use of lockers and beach stickers be reduced to reflect the same time loss of services? The villages wants our money early, but the services come late and short.

Sincerely,

SUSAN STERN

Traffic Chute

Amagansett

June 15, 1997

Dear Star:

There goes the neighborhood!

I live in a real neighborhood with kids who bike and set up skateboard ramps from garden wall to street, and pets that visit neighbors and cross roads. We walk and bike along the road and into the village. About the only traffic is us coming out of our driveways, and we know to go slow and stop for the school bus that picks the kids up.

We are an American dream neighborhood with old and young, some rich, some poor, but most somewhere truly in the middle. Among our homeowners are a number of fishermen, a long-distance trucker, a lawyer, an artist, an ad executive, a photographer, a musician, a house painter, a plumber, and some retirees. Most are full-time residents with kids in school.

The Star's notion to put the commercial section behind the parking lot with easterly egress on Windmill Lane and Schellinger Road would make a traffic chute of our lanes, destroying the tranquillity, the safety, and the neighborhood itself.

We could not get our cars out of our driveways and certainly not be able to bicycle, skate, take walks, or feel safe about our kids.

It would be sacrificing the people of this community to commercialism.

The Amagansett Corridor Study recognized this and advisedly suggested development eastward where commercial development already exists and where, north to the railroad, there are no private houses or existing residential community.

No matter what plan is finally arrived at, a road from the town parking lot making a traffic chute out of a lovely, quiet little neighborhood must be stopped.

Yours truly,

SUSAN WOOD RICHARDSON

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