Mike Tracey Made Provisional Police Chief
A police badge and new, state-of-the-art septic systems were topics at Friday’s meeting of the East Hampton Village Board, along with familiar disagreement about deer management and the perennial issue of parking.
In a brief ceremony, Michael Tracey, who was appointed acting chief of the village Police Department after Jerry Larsen announced his retirement in December, was named provisional chief. Though he stepped down in January, Chief Larsen’s retirement was official only as of July 31, the end of the fiscal year. The new title is provisional until Mr. Tracey passes the Suffolk County Civil Service test for police chiefs, which is offered in March.
Mr. Tracey has “demonstrated an ability to administer the department in a professional manner that is responsive to this community’s needs,” said Richard Lawler, a member of the board and its police commissioner. The provisional chief thanked the entire Police Department, whose members he called dedicated, hard-working, and well trained. “But the most important thing I’m going to take from today and endeavor to do every day I go to work, is remember that the reason I’m here is the work of others, the support of others, and the guidance over the years that I’ve gotten from others,” he said.
The promotion was “especially pertinent to the time that we’re living in now,” Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said, in an apparent reference to civil unrest and President Trump’s seeming endorsement, at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood last month, of rough police tactics.
“Godspeed to everyone in law enforcement who’s here today and around Long Island. . . . Hopefully our country is going to come together, reconcile, and be better as the future unfolds, but more importantly, to all of you in law enforcement, stay safe so you’re able to go home to your families at the end of the day,” the mayor said.
He also said the village board was in solidarity with the town’s anti-bias task force, which issued a statement earlier this month on the recent violence in Charlottesville, Va.
As expected, the board voted to amend its freshwater wetlands regulations to exempt from village review the installation of innovative and alternative onsite wastewater treatment systems that the County Department of Health Services and State Department of Environmental Conservation have approved.
Billy Hajek, the village planner, had told the board at its July 31 meeting that the amendment was intended to encourage the replacement of conventional or nonfunctioning systems with new ones that remove significantly more nitrogen.
Sara Davison, executive director of the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, a group of private property owners that is seeking solutions to that pond’s degraded water quality, commended the board for its action. “These systems greatly reduce the amount of nitrogen entering our coastal wetlands and our groundwater,” she said. The amendment “will greatly help expedite the transition in the village.”
Earlier this month, the East Hampton Town Board adopted legislation requiring all new residential construction and commercial development to install newly approved low-nitrogen waste systems. The legislation also established incentives for replacing conventional systems. On Friday, Ms. Davison asked that the village follow the town’s lead with respect to new construction or major renovation of existing structures. “In these cases,” she said, “the soil is open, the site is disturbed, it’s much easier to get these newer systems,” which are larger than conventional systems, “into the ground without disturbance.”
The conversation about managing deer began with three speakers, all of whom have criticized the board’s efforts, appealing to the board to try a different approach or to simply leave deer alone.
A program to sterilize does “turned out to be a rather grisly process for a lot of the animals and people who saw them,” Zelda Penzel said, referring to the death of several sterilized does while birthing stillborn fawns. She said the white-footed mouse, and not deer, was the primary vector of ticks that carry Lyme disease.
Beverly Schanzer spoke out to criticize the questionnaire about deer recently distributed to residents by the village. When the questionnaire asks whether tick-borne illnesses that are associated with deer are a concern, “there is just one answer,” she said. She charged that a recent forum on ticks hosted by the Village Preservation Society, which had made a substantial donation toward the sterilization program, was instead a lecture, “and not a totally accurate one at that.”
Yuka Silvera asked if the village could hire a specialist to count the deer population. “I don’t know how valid that would be,” the mayor said, citing a previous study. “The bottom line is, there are too many deer in the village.”
“That’s just your opinion,” Ms. Silvera responded. She also asked for stricter enforcement of speed limits to reduce deer-vehicle collisions.
“As [police] commissioner,” Mr. Lawler said, “I can tell you we have almost doubled our summonses from last year to this year. . . . We have done the things you’re suggesting.”
“Deer overpopulation is an extremely sensitive issue,” the mayor said. “Please understand, we are compassionate individuals, we love those creatures as much as anyone else, but have responsibilities as elected officials to try to grapple with it. What we come up with is not going to please everybody, but that’s a work in progress.”
Parking came up at the meeting when Anne Chaisson, executive director of the Hamptons International Film Festival, and Steven Ringel, director of the East Hampton Chamber of Commerce, asked the board to consider increasing the time allowed in the Reutershan lot from two to three or four hours on the weekend of the festival. The 25th annual film festival will be held from Oct. 5 to Oct. 9.
A two-hour limit is impractical for those attending screenings, Ms. Chaisson said, and the village’s shuttle service between long-term parking off Railroad Avenue and the commercial district is underutilized. “The point that really should be addressed by the board,” she said, is, “We want people to stay in town. We want them to go shopping. We want them to go eat. We’re here, hopefully, for economic development as well.”
“We’ll take that into consideration,” the mayor replied.