Letters to the Editor: 03.31.16

To Protect and Serve

East Hampton

March 23, 2016

To the Editor:

On Feb. 29, at 9:30 p.m., our mother, Constance L. Colonna, choked on her dinner and went into cardiac arrest in our home, and our family thought we were going to lose our mom. 

The Colonna family would like to formally thank the first two responding officers, Officer Rodriguez and Officer McNamara of the East Hampton Police Department, and finally the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, for responding and saving our mother’s life. 

“To protect and serve.” “To protect” is legally defined as to ensure the entering into and enforcing of the contractual relationship between government and the citizen by an officer. Under federal law: Service, feudal law: that duty which the tenant owes to his lord, by reason of his fee or estate. Without the East Hampton P.D.’s belief and faith in the purpose of their job — to protect and serve — and their refusal to give up, our mom could not be sitting here with us today. 

Words cannot express our gratitude to the East Hampton Police Department and all emergency responders, who dropped what they were doing to come help save our mother’s life.

Sincerely, 

ALEXANDRA COLONNA

For the Colonna family 

Bluebirds’ New Digs

Bridgehampton

March 26, 2016

Dear David,

I’d like to thank the East Hampton Airport director, Jemille Charlton, and his staff for allowing access onto the grounds of the airport and escorting the South Fork Natural History Museum’s bluebird box project coordinator Joe Giunta and his crew last week. 

The airport houses 60 SoFo-sponsored bluebird boxes along its perimeter, adjacent to the woodlands. The past two years, Mr. Giunta has witnessed many of the bluebird boxes invaded by southern flying squirrels. These non-native squirrels glide from nearby trees to the bird boxes and prey on young and adult bluebirds. We have seen a decline in the nesting success at the airport of our New York State Bird due to this occurrence.

Last week, we removed several dozen bluebird boxes from their existing site and replaced them 8 to 10 meters farther away from the woods. This exercise will prohibit squirrels from entering the boxes and encourage bluebirds to have a successful breeding season now and in the future.

As we were leaving the airport that afternoon, we noticed a pair of bluebirds investigating their new digs. The bluebirds thank Jemille and his staff for allowing this to happen.

Sincerely,

FRANK C. QUEVEDO

Executive Director, SoFo

Sanctuary Designation

East Hampton

March 28, 2016

Hi David,

 I thought it was necessary to respond to the East Hampton Village mayor’s comment about designating the Nature Trail a sanctuary. According to the law, a sanctuary is “a place of refuge where abused, neglected, unwanted, impounded, abandoned, orphaned, or displaced wild animals are provided care for their lifetime or rehabilitated and released back in their natural habitat.” 

The mayor responded, stating, “That’s not something the village wants to get involved with.” If the mayor was familiar with the Nature Trail, he would have known that it describes the Nature Trail exactly. Abused, neglected, unwanted fits the present state of the village deer population, particularly those that reside in the Nature Trail area, since the “experimental” travesty performed by White Buffalo, and hired by East Hampton Village. The big plastic orange and white ear tags and radio collars remind us of that. 

But even more common is the fact that the Nature Trail has been a location where folks have been dropping off abandoned and orphaned domesticated farm and wildlife since I first started feeding the ducks in 1967. As a child I released rehabilitated baby birds there. The ever-present pilgrim geese, Embden geese, brown Chinese geese, Pekin, Muscovy, and Chinese running ducks have all been put there. There are two ducks and an Embden goose there right now that were put there after being saved and rehabilitated. 

So you see, it has been operating like a wildlife sanctuary all along, right to the very description. In fact, Google Maps labels it as “East Hampton Village Nature Trail and Wildlife Sanctuary.” 

I have to ask myself, why wouldn’t the village want to protect such a unique and historically precious location with a legitimate sanctuary designation? I’m reminded of an excerpt from the “South Fork Trail Guide and Natural History.” In referring to the village Nature Trail, it reads, “Another transaction in the 1990s was the sale of Village property at the north end of the Dreen to a local developer, enabling the construction of a larger commercial building [now CVS] than was possible with the village parcel in public ownership. This was an unfortunate and unexplained transaction on the part of Village officials.” 

With the consistent issues plaguing the present-day Nature Trail (trash and litter, posted rules being ignored, drinking and drug use, benches and bike rack thrown into the pond, arrows in the pond and trees, dead darted deer, etc., etc., I personally feel it is the perfect time to add proper protection through proper and fitting designation for the Nature Trail, to help the wildlife we are so fortunate to have.

DELL CULLUM

A Great Season

East Hampton

March 28, 2016

Dear David,

Thank you to The East Hampton Star and to Jack Graves for the great article in last week’s edition about East Hampton Youth Basketball and L.I. Elite A.A.U. Basketball. My two sons have been playing basketball with both programs for the past four years, and it’s been a great experience. Don Reese, Nick Thomas, and all of the coaches and volunteers put in a lot of time and effort to make these programs work each year.

I just wanted to provide an update to your readers. After last week’s article was written, two East Hampton teams won the championships in the S.Y.S. league. Steve Centalonza and Eden Foster’s third and fourth-grade boys, who were seeded fourth heading into the playoffs, won their championship by beating Southampton in a nail-biter of a game that went into overtime. And Don Reese and Carrie Cullen’s fifth and sixth-grade boys, who were undefeated during the regular season, beat Westhampton Beach to win their championship.

Congratulations to all of the East Hampton players and coaches! It was a great season with S.Y.S., and we’re looking forward to a great A.A.U. season with L.I. Elite.

JENNIFER FOWKES

JACK LESTER

ELLEN FRANK

Take Me Off the List

Amagansett

March 24, 2016

Dear Editor:

Although I am a registered Republican and considered by many to be a Tea Party Conservative, my friendship with Sylvia and Steve Overby is more important to me than party affiliations, so that over the years I dutifully contributed to Sylvia’s campaigns as she successfully sought a position on the East Hampton Town Board. 

That put me on the mailing list for the East Hampton Democratic Party. I asked Sylvia to please take me off the list, which would save the Democratic Party the cost of stamps, and, as I told her, I was fearful my Republican friends would consider me a Benedict Arnold if the word got out I supported her candidacy. 

Well, my requests to Sylvia went unanswered, as I received from Larry Cantwell, East Hampton Town supervisor, a letter dated March 14, addressed to “Dear Richard.” OMG, what if Ted Cruz, whom I support for president, learns that Supervisor Cantwell considers me a close enough friend to refer to me by my first name? Will that alone cause him to reject my potential offer to allow him to do a fund-raiser at my home in Amagansett this summer? Also, given that Mr. Cantwell considers me a friend, I would be toast in the Republican stronghold of East Hampton (in other words, the four other Republicans in the stronghold would doubt my sincerity and would not invite me to their future meetings).

In any event, I read Supervisor Cantwell’s letter and took particular note of his statement that if I do not continue to contribute to the Democratic Committee in East Hampton (I told Sylvia my contributions were to be used for her campaign alone), I would be encouraging and supporting the potential election to the East Hampton Town Board of “Republican lackeys who can be controlled by the helicopter companies.” I was also told of the need for me to contribute to defeat the Republican congressman Lee Zeldin and to support the Democratic nominee for president (that would surely put my home off Senator Cruz’s list of potential fund-raiser sites that would be attended by the five of us in East Hampton considered part of the Republican stronghold).

Finally, what got me fired up even more than that above was the reference to the fact that the Democratic town board proceeded to deal with the issue of “illegal rentals” (as if that were needed), among other issues. They dealt with the issue of illegal rentals, not by seeking to enforce the law that existed prior to the passage of the recently enacted East Hampton rental guidelines, which would have addressed the illegal rentals issue head on, but rather by enacting rules and regulations that go well beyond seeking to address that issue. 

This is what Democrats do. They raise straw-man issues that could be addressed by enforcing existing laws to accomplish their hidden agenda of putting more and more government controls in place that do nothing but give them soundbites to raise in seeking to elect more Democrats to positions of authority and to send “Republican lackeys” to the woodshed, never to be heard from again. (This paragraph may result in a letter to the editor from the neighbor of good friends of mine, Bob and Wendy, who is a constant writer of letters to the editor of The East Hampton Star sharply criticizing those of us who are Republicans.)s

Despite what I say above, I continue to consider Sylvia and Steve as friends — which, if this letter is published, may result in criticism directed to Sylvia from her Democratic peers, including Supervisor Cantwell, that how can she be friends with one of the five members of the East Hampton Republican. Sorry, Sylvia, but I had to get this off my chest.

RICHARD PLOTKIN