Letters to the Editor 06.09.16

Display of the Flag

East Hampton

June 6, 2016

Dear Editor, 

With Flag Day just around the corner, I am writing to remind your readers that the proper display of our flag is important. Show respect for Old Glory and don’t leave your flag out overnight unless it is illuminated. 

Even the Village of East Hampton does not follow this rule, and I have brought this to the attention of the mayor, who is trying to do something about it. 

A proud American, 

KEVIN MILLER

Hard Work Admired

East Hampton

June 1, 2016

Dear David, 

Congratulations on the story of The Star on the front page of the New York Times Business Section last week. Your hard work in providing the necessary news and the viewpoints of all members of the community were admired in the article. You and your family deserve the credit you received for one of America’s finest local newspapers. 

Keep up the good work!

NAOMI SALZ

Safety and Reassurance

Amagansett

June 6, 2016

To the Editor,

RSVP: A compassionate service for those of us in the community who are older, sometimes more frail, and need a daily support system. RSVP, Retired Senior Volunteer Program, can be a part of that support.

Made up of retired volunteers who make morning calls to all seniors living alone, they check on how they are doing, just chat, or advise. They may be the only contact these seniors will have on a given day and are welcomed as a great way to begin their morning. These calls provide greater safety and reassurance.

The volunteers are trained, after several calls with no answer, first to call the backup number given by each client, then the police. This is a vital service that can actually save a life and the police, thankfully, have never complained.

The client (or sometimes the adult children of the client) can call RSVP to register for daily or less frequent calls. Also, to let us know if they will not be home on the designated day. The service is free and runs from Hampton Bays to Montauk.

Seniors! Are you living alone? Would you like to be part of a great network that can keep you safer, more in touch with the community? The answer is RSVP! Sign up today! The phone number is 631-267-8371.

An Amagansett RSVP volunteer,

SHERRIL D. GRUNER

A ‘Stealth’ Nightspot

East Hampton

June 2, 2016

Dear Editor:

The public should be alarmed by the planning board’s hasty review and approval of a 200-seat sports bar-restaurant, one of the largest restaurants in East Hampton, on quiet Daniel’s Hole Road. Significant traffic, parking, and septic issues were only superficially reviewed. An environmental impact study should have been required, but was not.

Large-scale traffic impacts were obscured with inadequate and inaccurate data. Despite plans for 350 new on-site parking spaces, the town planner used an admittedly unreliable “guestimate” of traffic from a bowling alley accessory snack bar, not a separate 200-seat restaurant with indoor and outdoor bars. A Suffolk County Planning Commission recommendation for a further traffic study was heedlessly rejected. 

The new nightspot threatens groundwater protection in the town’s most sensitive drinking-water recharge area. The planning board completely overlooked its designation as a Suffolk County Special Groundwater Protection Area, and its proximity to threatened Georgica Pond. It ignored the fact that it is contiguous with county-owned preserved open space. The board improperly applied a weaker environmental review standard than required by law. There was virtually no analysis of septic output.

 A sports bar-restaurant is prohibited in the zoning district containing the tennis club. It is not included as a permitted use within the Recreational Overlay District. Realistically, it is not an accessory use to the bowling alleys, which would typically fill up with just 40 people. It is an independent, 200-seat, stealth nightspot. 

Of all of the town officials charged to protect the integrity of the planning process, only Sylvia Overby and Kathy Cunningham (who eventually voted against the project) expressed serious concern. Town officials, including the planning director and supervisor, failed to speak out for rigorous review. 

At this point, the planning board has approved one of the largest bar-restaurants in town, which can be open late nights, year round, for partying. It may not be a recreational use, but it is a game changer for restrictive zoning in East Hampton. 

JEFFREY L. BRAGMAN

Regarding the Dunes

Springs

June 1, 2016

To the Editor:

I write to correct the numerous factual and legal misstatements in your May 26 editorial “Cynical Attempt to Fight Zoning,” regarding the Dunes.

In 2010, the Dunes fully disclosed to town officials the plans to open a residential retreat in a residential zone for individuals recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. Numerous town officials visited the site and enthusiastically supported these plans, even urging the state’s Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse to expeditiously grant the Dunes its community residential services certification.

As recovering substance abusers, the residents of the Dunes are considered handicapped under the federal Fair Housing Act, and municipalities must grant them a reasonable accommodation with respect to zoning laws that would otherwise prohibit them from being afforded equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling. In March 2010, the town granted the F.H.A.-mandated reasonable accommodation in what your editorial shrugs off as a goofball ruling.

However, that determination did not last. A year and a half later, the Dunes was featured in a New York Post article. Almost overnight, the Dunes became the target of neighbors who opposed its existence. They formed groups that hired an attorney whose mission was to close its doors, and they pressured the town to take any steps necessary to accomplish this goal. Bowing to the pressure, and without conducting any investigation or on-site visits, the town abruptly withdrew its reasonable accommodation. 

In the face of mounting discriminatory actions, including the erection of a fence around the property by the trustees, blocking emergency vehicle access, the Dunes contested this reversal, but was denied. The Dunes then followed the precise procedure set forth in the town code, appealing the reversal to the Zoning Board of Appeals, again seeking a reasonable accommodation. The Z.B.A. ultimately denied the appeal in a decision based entirely on hearsay, and violated the F.H.A. by failing to give the Dunes a reasonable accommodation. The Z.B.A. vice chairman, Don Cirillo, in a written dissent, recognized the town’s obligation when he stated that the building inspector’s reversal should not be condoned or approved by the Z.B.A., as this action went well beyond the scope of [his] duties, and instead a reasonable and fair accommodation should have been provided to the applicant.

The Dunes commenced a federal lawsuit against the town and the zoning board in March 2014, which was ultimately dismissed on a procedural point concerning when F.H.A. disputes are sufficiently ripe to be heard in court. This means that no court has ever addressed or made any determinations whatsoever about the merits of this case. On May 18, 2016, our office filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court to address the ripeness matter, and we are extremely confident that once the Dunes gets its day in court, it will prevail on the merits.

Your editorial and those in East Hampton who do not know the facts of this case ignore that a Dunes victory would actually do nothing to turn the whole town zoning code on its ear, as your editorial threatens. Instead, a Dunes victory would ensure that the Town of East Hampton is on the right side of the F.H.A.’s mandate to prohibit discrimination in the national housing market for handicapped individuals, which includes those in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction.

Everyone finds it titillating to discuss the fees allegedly paid by residents of the Dunes (which pale in comparison to the going rate for a summer rental in East Hampton), but ignores the more than $2 million in scholarships that the Dunes has donated to your neighbors, friends, and family members in the Hamptons to combat their own addictions and return to their lives as productive members of society. In light of the heroin, opioid, and alcohol crisis plaguing Long Island (as evidenced weekly in East Hampton Town Justice Court), we would think that the town would welcome a solution rather than vilify it.

Sincerely,

JOSEPH N. CAMPOLO

Campolo, Middleton & 

McCormick, L.L.P.

Recent Hamlet Studies

Wainscott

June 3, 2016

Dear David,

Once again The Star takes the lead against the repaving of our beloved town. The politically correct term “comprehensive plan” means one thing, and that is the destruction of what we hold dear, by living here. To add to the already rampant commercial activity, that seems to be a storm cloud hanging over what makes this place so special. That is why we live here and why people want to come here. Not to see sprawling malls, parking lots, and everything else that makes western Suffolk and Nassau Counties a wasteland.

Your speaking out about “recent hamlet studies have the makings of a disaster” is right on the mark. That is not what we need or want here. You pointed out the mistakes, and they should sound the alarm horn loud and clear. It is going to disappear so fast that we will wake up and scream, “What the hell is this?”

Now of course, one has to wonder if that old adage holds true: “Money talks, B.S walks!” What is behind this, but more important, where and who, exactly, is exerting this pressure? I think a big billboard photo of Route 39, the gateway to the Hamptons, with the dinosaur store and commercial blight that lines the road. Are we entering Arkansas?

David, please keep up the editorials that sound the alert, that we are going to lose our treasure, and maybe people will stand up and shout, “We do not want this!” Nor do we want anyone who favors this slaughter!

ARTHUR J. FRENCH

Put This Myth to Bed

Amagansett

May 30, 2016

To the Editor:

In the May 26 Letters to the Editor section, Ms. Catherine M. Casey, the executive director of the East Hampton Housing Authority, makes a totally erroneous statement that the residents of Lazy Point, about 50 homeowners who lease their land from the East Hampton Town Trustees, are living in subsidized housing.

It is time to put this myth to bed. The residents of Lazy Point pay real estate taxes to the Town of East Hampton just like all other town residents. School taxes constitute a major portion of these taxes.

In addition to real estate taxes, the Lazy Point homeowners pay lease fees to the trustees. This money, totaling about $90,000 per year, is used by the trustees to benefit all the residents of the Town of East Hampton.

It is also a fact that, on average, between real estate taxes and lease fees, the Lazy Point homeowners are contributing more to the Town of East Hampton than comparable homeowners who own their land.

As for the affordable housing project itself, Ms. Casey states the Housing Authority pays special district taxes to the school, but does not specify that dollar amount. Will those special taxes be enough to cover all the additional education expenses? Maybe she could enlighten us.

Since Ms. Casey was totally misinformed about the Lazy Point homeowners’ tax obligations, I think it calls into question what other misconceptions she may be operating under.

I am not necessarily questioning the need for more affordable housing. I would just like to feel the person giving us the information about this project knows what she is talking about. In order for the residents of East Hampton to fairly evaluate this project they need facts, figures, and transparency, not erroneous information.

VINCENT PRIORE

Whipper Jurisdiction

Amagansett

June 3, 2016

Dear David, 

I really believe that the time has come to revive the enforcement position of East Hampton Town Common Whipper. I would beg for common whipper jurisdiction over the following:

1. Unnecessary exposed flesh en plein aire, that only intimates or medical professionals should see.

2. Persons in convertible sports cars tailgating aggressively, in their frenzy to arrive three seconds earlier.

3. Clay pigeon shooting on the beach. Recreational drones on the beach.

4. Dog output on the beach. Plastic on the beach.

5. Excessive beach accessories on the beach (whither towel or hat?).

6. Atmosphere-polluting conversation.

7. Eighteen-dollar-a-plate French fries.

8. Star letter writers whose thin-skinned egos appear to outrank their issues.

9. Bad manners.

10. Wind chimes.

All good things, 

DIANA WALKER

Return of Wind Power

East Hampton

June 6, 2016

Dear David,

Last week, the U.S. Interior Department, following a presidential directive, announced it would lease 81,000 ocean acres off New York’s coastline for wind development. Announcing this new leasing auction, in a release by Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Sally Jewell, secretary of the Interior, was quoted: “In addition to providing clean power, offshore wind energy marks a new frontier in renewable energy development, creating the path for sustainable electricity generation, job creation, and strengthening our nation’s economic competitiveness.”

On Long Island’s East End, Deepwater Wind, an offshore wind and transmission developer, has submitted a LIPA proposal to develop an offshore wind farm 30 miles over the horizon from Montauk. It would be built within a 256-square-mile site already leased in 2013 by the Interior Department to Deepwater Wind for 30 years. A LIPA decision on Deepwater’s proposal is anticipated next month. With LIPA’s approval, Deepwater Wind’s South Fork proposal for 15 six-megawatt wind turbines and battery energy storage facilities sufficient to annually power 50,000 East End homes has the green light, with a projected operational date of 2022. The Deepwater demonstration project, five turbines off Block Island, will be operational this fall.

East Hampton Town continues to move forward on its renewable energy pledge. In order to meet the governor’s renewable energy New York State commitment, LIPA, with a nod from PSEG-LI, needs to open the gateway in July to the vast resources of wind energy on the East Coast. Given the East Hampton Town 2020 goal to replace 100 percent of its electricity consumption with clean renewable energy, a New York State Climate Smart Certification, and the town board-approved climate action plan, town board offshore wind farm support, expressed at the last two LIPA trustee meetings, in addition to the delivery to the LIPA trustees of the East Hampton Wind Energy Forum’s local audience pledges, 423 East Hampton student signatures on a petition circulated in the high school over two days, 500-plus letters of support to the governor from the Renewable Energy Long Island website (renewableenergylongisland.org), and local newspaper editorial support, our coastal community is ready to trigger the return of wind power to its 350 years of East Hampton history and to a resilient future! 

Deepwater Wind’s vice president, Clint Plummer, referred to the proposed offshore wind farm in one of his presentations to the East Hampton community as “an exciting opportunity for the South Fork and the town to be a global leader in demonstrating not just offshore wind but a completely new way of thinking about how to supply energy.”

LINDA JAMES

Thank You, Congressman

East Hampton

June 6, 2016

To the Editor:

Fishermen thank you, Congressman Lee Zeldin.

1. Lee Zeldin was instrumental in removing an additional $400 charter party boat fee imposed by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

2. Lee Zeldin assisted and led the removal of the $10 license fee for all saltwater recreational anglers in New York State.

Congressman Zeldin, in representing all recreational anglers in the state, led his bill 3070 (to open the transit zone between Block Island and Montauk Point) out of the Natural Resources Committee and, potentially, to the floor of Congress. He did this within one year in office.

We had been trying for more than 12 years to achieve the same with his predecessor with no results. The fishermen of the East End thank Congressman Zeldin for his support.

Respectfully, 

CAPT. JOE McBRIDE

Montauk Boatmen and 

Captains Legislative Representative

Remarkable Resilience

East Hampton

June 6, 2016

Dear David,

In 2008, I, like many of my friends, was terribly hurt when Hillary Clinton failed to win the Democratic nomination for president. We had been inspired, after a lifetime of struggling for gender equality, by the possibility of America finally joining so many other nations who had broken that centuries-old barrier — especially by a woman as well-prepared and capable as Senator Clinton. 

The final weeks of that contest had been brutal. She suffered numerous cruelties from Obama’s gleeful younger taff. My husband and I (Tom Twomey was one of her greatest fans) traveled, with ambivalence, to Denver to the nominating convention, where we witnessed Hillary Clinton’s stunning speech endorsing Barack Obama. She held nothing back; her endorsement of the young man who had defeated her was passionate and genuine. She left no doubt that she would campaign hard to help him win. When I saw her briefly following her speech, I said to her, “Your capacity for political generosity is just remarkable!” She answered, “Oh, Judith, life is short. You can’t get stuck in the bad places.”

I’ve never forgotten that moment. It underscored one of the reasons so many women of my generation admire her: her remarkable resilience and consistently positive attitude. She has been investigated, demonized, vilified, and reviled by literally hundreds of articles, books, films, and Congressional committees over the past 35 years (is it any wonder her “negatives” are high?), all of which continues t7continues to just keep on working hard for the values she believes in, looking always to the future and striving for a better outcome for us all.

In 2008, I and many women like me swallowed our disappointment and went to work for Barack Obama. A decision I’ve never regretted. In this presidential election year, there is simply too much at stake for any of us to “get stuck in a bad place” — this election is, frankly, no longer about Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. It may well be about saving our democracy.

Sincerely,

JUDITH HOPE

Vote for Calone

Springs

June 6, 2016

Dear David,

I am writing this in support of the candidacy of David Calone, a lifelong Democrat and native Long Islander who is running to have the opportunity to unseat the man now serving as our U.S. Congressman from District One. Calone is running against a woman who was the past supervisor of Southampton for three terms. She was the person who advanced planned district development. The intent of P.P.D. is exactly what it says: Build, baby, build! Her name is Anna Throne-Holst. You may have seen her signs, glossy with her picture on them. When have you known anyone to have signs with their picture on them? Guess she thinks good looks will get you into the U.S. Capitol.

One of the many projects destructive to our environment that was advanced by her administration is known as the Hills of East Quogue: about 150 houses and a luxury golf course with condominiums built by developers from someplace far away (Arizona), and this monstrosity is proposed to be built near Weesuck Creek and Shinnecock Bay, which are already impaired water bodies. She has advanced development at the potential cost of our water. Drive on County Road 39 and witness the results of what the Southampton people call the Anna Years. Ever wonder how come a local politician had enough money to advance her candidacy with commercials on CNN? She went from Independent to Democrat, to be the Democrat to run against a Republican in the upcoming election. 

On the airport issue, I witnessed her throw East Hampton under the bus at one of the meetings our town board held at LTV.

Calone, on the other hand, when he was head of the Planning Commission of Suffolk County, saved East Hampton from development for the well heeled with high-end condos on that lovely, still open, stretch of land known as 555 that you see when you’re on your way to Montauk. This man has been endorsed by the environmental groups of our area as well as our own town board. The local politicians, almost without exception, who know both candidates, support Calone. Please get out on June 28 and vote for Calone.

Sincerely,

PHYLLIS ITALIANO

A Process Has Begun

Sag Harbor

June 6, 2016

To the Editor:

Believe me, I found it very difficult to write this letter in the midst of chaos getting more intense every day, searching for a bit of good news. Eventually I found it when President Obama bowed his head and laid a wreath at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, wisely saying, “We listen to a silent cry,” representing the victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Japan. There is no violence in silence; prayer speaks much louder than words. Then Obama embraced two Japanese men, victims, still alive at his side. Again, no words, but yet another unexpected reconciliation.

Some random thoughts of my own from General and ex-President Dwight Eisenhower, who was never even consulted at the time two atomic bombs were dropped. Too bad! Eisenhower was opposed to dropping the bombs on Japan. He believed it militarily unnecessary and morally unsound, in which Gen. Omar Bradley concurred. Secretary of War Stimson hit the ceiling because he had reports the Japanese were trying to surrender before the horrific bombing, and it was not by surprise so many people were burned to death, and more going to hospitals.

Eisenhower said governments will never give you peace, only when the masses of the people demand it will you get it. Echoes of Senator Bernie Sanders, but not there yet. Millions of young people already on the way. A process has begun.

A hopeful comment I would like to end with, from the book “Declassified Eisenhower,” written by Blanche Wiesen Cook, who spent the rest of her life writing on women’s issues. Eisenhower’s closing statement, people on the planet do not want war or sacrifice, people everywhere want food, work, pride, dignity, pleasure, and joy — in short, peace. “One of these days their governments and financial direction had better get out of the way and let them have it.” 

The false gods are tumbling down one at a time, starting with money and power. These may be dark times, but the sun will come back. 

“A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” At least we have identified the problems; they are now crystal clear. Truth will prevail, honesty too. The problem is ours to solve. The blame game is not the answer.

“If we continue to project our evil on others we are heading for self-destruction.” — Carl Jung, the great 20th-century psychologist. We have arrived. Is it not obvious? The Silent Cry. 

A line from Scripture: “The blind will see and the deaf will hear.”

In peace, 

LARRY DARCEY

Piggery and Racism

East Hampton

June 6, 2016

To the Editor:

Racism and piggery are the essential tests in determining the humanity or lack of in a nation. It’s not calling someone a racist pig, but two distinctly different concepts that are often mutually compatible. Not a single day in the 409 years of our presence in America has racism not existed. Of course, there were moments of delusional absence, like when the framers wrote that we were all created equal. What were Hamilton and Jefferson thinking?

Piggery is simply greed beyond conscience. Greed with no concern for the effects and consequences that this greed might generate.

Sometimes the two ideas combine for the economic benefit of our businesses, like during slavery and the indenture of the Middle East and Latin America. We have always accepted this as business as usual. Arabs, Indians, and Latinos were simply casualties of our greatness. 

Sometimes they combine in the political arena, and these are the most distressing and perilous of moments (see the Holocaust, etc.), because they are always a grotesque fabrication of reality and delude the public into believing that its problems are caused by some powerless underclass and removing them will return us to our previous exalted state.

The racist narrative is nothing special. That it is embraced by the Republican Party, even less special. But the narrative attributes the collapse of the middle class and the loss of jobs to the Latino underclass, and that distortion of the truth guarantees that the problem has no solution. In its simplest form, if U.S. businesses don’t hire Latino immigrants there is no problem. It’s not rocket science.

A more complicated explanation is that our government, in the 1980s, redesigned the economic patterns of the country, and the middle class was a casualty of that process. Unquestionably unrelated to immigration, legal or not.

Too complicated an explanation to fit on a soundbite. Totally implicating the Republican Party, with help from the Democrats, as the perpetrators of this action. Pure and unadulterated piggery, with a large dose of stupidity.

So, in our current situation, racism is clearly out of the closet and on display. Eight years of Obama as president has honed the racist skills of the country. We adjust, almost seamlessly, to the racial outbursts on the campaign trail. The willingness to express these ideas and sentiments is proof positive that trust in government as a solver of problems has evaporated.

Unfortunately, the proposed alternative is a rant without substance. “Make America Great Again” without identifying when, how, or what it actually means. It derives from a form of piggery that screams “Let me lead you and I’ll show you the promised land,” with admission of $50 a head for standing room only. Not the best seats in the house, or even the good ones. In truth, there are no seats, and it still costs $50 to gain entry.

America isn’t really standing on the precipice of something special. It’s wallowing in the crap that a world based on piggery and racism created. It’s searching for scapegoats and helpless groups to vilify and abuse. When we look in the mirror we see Donald Trump staring back at us, and he’s telling us that we are really him, as grotesque and unappealing and full of crap as he is.

NEIL HAUSIG