The controversy over the proper name of one of the Town of East Hampton’s hamlets flared anew last Thursday and again this week, after signs bearing the message “Welcome to The Springs” were removed from Three Mile Harbor Road and Springs-Fireplace Road, where they had stood for some 20 years.
The Highway Department’s removal of the signs was the latest move in the tussle between some members of the Springs Citizens Advisory Committee and Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, the town board’s liaison to it. While residents disagree over the article “the,” and historical records include both designations for the hamlet, the town board’s October 2019 vote to authorize the replacement of signs welcoming motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians to “The Springs” — but without the article — amplified a simmering argument.
Last year, David Buda, a Springs resident, unwittingly set in motion a chain of events that culminated in the signs’ removal and planned replacement. He had alerted the citizens advisory committee in the spring of 2019 to the signs’ deteriorating condition, advising the committee that the hamlet would benefit from their restoration. A third sign, welcoming visitors traveling north on Accabonac Road, had disappeared and should be replaced, he said.
Acting on the initiative of its beautification subcommittee, the advisory committee had asked the town board, through Ms. Burke-Gonzalez, to refurbish the existing signs, which had been created through an effort initiated by the Springs Improvement Society and not by the town, and replace the one that had gone missing.
But since discussing the signs with the board in the spring and summer last year, dozens of Springs residents had approached Ms. Burke-Gonzalez to urge that the restored and replaced signs read “Welcome to Springs,” she said in October. In an email sent to members of the advisory committee on the day of the board’s vote authorizing the signs’ restoration, she wrote, “It was my belief that I needed input from a broader constituency in Springs” than members of the committee, which she said does not fully represent a hamlet with the youngest median age in the town and which is the second most popular for families. Only one member of the committee has school-age children, she noted.
The town code, she added, stipulates that appointed committees “shall be representative of all perspectives of the issues surrounding the project assigned” to it.
In October, Loring Bolger, the chairwoman of the committee, called the board’s vote “a slap in the face” to the advisory committee, and prompted Mr. Buda’s resignation from it.
Ms. Burke-Gonzalez told The Star last Thursday that “the plan all along was to remove the welcome signs” before Suffolk County’s planned Springs-Fireplace Road reconstruction project, from North Main Street to Woodbine Drive. She also said that because a consulting engineer was to report to the project yesterday, she had asked Stephen Lynch, the town’s highway superintendent, to remove the signs ahead of the project’s commencement.
Mr. Buda was unmoved by the explanation. In an email to the councilwoman on Friday, he asked what the Springs-Fireplace reconstruction project had to do with the sign’s removal on Three Mile Harbor Road. He also asked which members of the advisory committee knew or had input into the new signs’ design and whether or not any other hamlet had ever asked or permitted the town to design and create a welcome sign for that hamlet.
Ms. Burke-Gonzalez told The Star on Monday that “it just made sense to give direction to the Highway Department to remove the two signs at the same time.” The signs, which she said “are now in the capable hands of the town’s sign shop,” will be reinstalled when that project is complete, she said.
At Tuesday’s meeting of the town board, Mr. Buda continued to press his viewpoint that the board is acting unilaterally and ignoring Springs residents’ wishes. “I am not so naïve as to not realize what is really going on,” he declared. “In October, the town board adopted a resolution to change the verbiage on the signs, flatly disregarding the Aug. 20 resolution” of the citizens advisory committee asserting a unanimous opinion that the signs should remain as originally written.
“It’s very unfortunate indeed that the town board was not informed about that unanimous vote of the Springs Citizens Advisory Committee before adopting the resolution in October,” he said.
“Now, apparently, at some point in the future we will see the unveiling of new, unwanted, town-imposed, town-designed ‘Welcome to Springs’ signs with absolutely no input from the Springs Citizens Advisory Committee as to the aesthetics of their design.” The hamlet was being treated unfairly, he charged. “I doubt the town would impose signs on Amagansett or Montauk.”
