Trash Talk and Lines Drawn in Sand
The Village of East Hampton and the East Hampton Town Trustees are engaged in a standoff of sorts over the garbage cans on the village’s beaches after one of the trustees tagged the receptacles at Main and Georgica Beaches for removal.
Convinced that the trashcans are encouraging litter, the trustees sent a memo to the village board in late May asking that they be removed from all village beaches. (The trustees manage most beaches between Napeague and Wainscott on behalf of the public.)
When the village failed to take action, Deborah Klughers, a trustee, went out this week to place red tags on receptacles on two of the village beaches — she did not have enough tags for all five. It’s the same thing trustees do with, say, a kayak, that does not have a trustee permit. Tagged items that are not removed within a designated timeframe are ultimately impounded.
The trustees are not seeking trouble, Ms. Klughers said, “but the board spoke and the village isn’t listening.”
Typically, she said, “we give about two weeks” before removal. “This is a little different, with a government entity,” she said.
At a May 28 meeting, the trustees got an earful about the receptacles and the mess they engender from Dell Cullum, a photographer and wildlife removal specialist. Rather than encouraging people to clean up after themselves, Mr. Cullum said, the cans on the sand seem to result in garbage strewn over a wider area, and they become an attractive nuisance for seagulls and other creatures. Bill Taylor, a trustee, observed at that meeting that the town had removed receptacles from its sands several years ago “because they were a big mess.” On town beaches, cans are only at the road ends and not on the beach itself. The situation improved as a result, Mr. Taylor said.
Diane McNally, the trustees’ presiding officer, reminded her colleagues at their June 9 meeting that the trustees “have been very conscientiously removing garbage from our properties,” as well as organizing regular beach cleanups and taking other actions to keep the beaches under their jurisdiction clean.
By their next meeting on June 23, when the only response from the village had been a note saying that the trustees’ request would be reviewed, Ms. Klughers proposed tagging the cans.
“Discussion needs to start reallysoon,” Ms. Klughers said this week, “not a letter saying, ‘We got your message,’ ” which she felt was dismissive.
They “just look horrible,” she said, describing a visit to a village beach shortly after the cans had apparently been emptied. Beachgoers couldn’t fit their garbage in the cans, and seagulls were pulling it out. They are “a nuisance, a health issue, and a wildlife issue,” she said.
Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. expressed irritation over the contretemps. “The garbage cans are going to remain,” he said yesterday. “They serve a valid purpose. I would ask the town trustees to grow up. There are more important issues that we wish to work together on with respect to partnership with the trustees.”
The matter, he said, “is just not in the arena of good governance.”
Ms. Molinaro seconded the mayor’s comments, saying yesterday that the village has no intention at this time to remove the receptacles. “Our staff works literally day and night to keep our beaches beautiful,” she said, “and unless the town trustees are offering to help us clean up, we will keep things as they are.”
Ms. Molinaro also noted that Main Beach regularly tops an annual list of the country’s best beaches as rated by Stephen Leatherman, who goes by the nickname Dr. Beach.