Letters to the Editor: 11.17.16

Make Your Bike Safe

East Hampton

November 9, 2016

Editor:

To bicycle riders in the Hamptons: I beg of you, please, outfit your bicycle with front and rear (and if possible, side) reflectors and blinking lights for night riding. I have come across a few folks — adults — at dusk and in total darkness, on roads with no street lamps, pedaling home from work (I suppose), wearing dark clothing, and it is terrifying to suddenly turn a corner with the car and there they are! 

An accident is bound to happen one of these days. So, please, bicyclists, take your life into your hands: Make your bike safe, and wear a reflective vest! Your family — and the drivers of cars along your route — will thank you.

TRINA SULLIVAN

Children Give Meaning

Springs

November 13, 2106

To the Editor:

Life’s greatest responsibility is our torch to pass on to our children. Through education many doors have opened. Those doors unopened mark the future. Someday our children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren will open those doors. As parents, we must try as hard as we can to give them the keys. 

Our children give meaning to our lives, and we strive to keep them safe. When life seems to get us down, all we have to do is look at them and realize the great gift their lives have given us. Children are our responsibility to love, care for, and understand, so that they can seek and fulfill their own dreams.

We must cherish each and every moment of every day with our children. Once children have grown, we cannot bring back that childhood. Children are one of the greatest lessons in life — they challenge us every minute of the day. We need to enjoy each moment, for the next one won’t be the same.

Children are great imitators, so give them something great to imitate. A mis-quote to them becomes a fact, and they usually repeat word for word what you should not have said in the first place.

The greatest legacy we can leave our children is to fill their hearts with love, and as much happiness as possible to last a lifetime. Our children’s happiness often reflects back to us as a great comfort as we get older. A child’s love is like a river when it flows. It fills our soul to have that love, and it makes us stronger.

We try to teach our children about life, but our children teach us what life is all about. In school, we trust their education to teachers, who also share in that responsibility. Whatever that teacher writes on the blackboard can never be erased from their minds. A teacher, like a parent, joins us in taking their hands, opening their minds, and touching their hearts. The desire to learn by them and never tire or be filled is wisdom. To teach children and never become weary is love.

TOM BYRNE

Lacks Compassion

Montauk

November 13, 2016

To the Editor:

Your Oct. 20 issue told about a young deer kept as a pet in a local backyard. After a neighbor called the authorities, a spokeswoman for the State Department of Environmental Conservation said that “wildlife raised in this manner must often be euthanized.” She said that such animals cannot survive in the wild and they present a danger to people and the environment. But surely there are alternatives to killing the deer. A wildlife sanctuary is one possibility.

This episode reinforces my impression that the D.E.C. lacks compassion toward wildlife. For decades, the state agency has favored hunting over non-lethal methods of deer population control, and three years ago it sought to kill nearly every mute swan in the state.

More recently, the D.E.C. has tried to curtail the ability of wildlife rehabilitators, including those at the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center in the Hamptons, to care for injured deer. The D.E.C. claims that deer rehabilitation is largely ineffective, but from what I know, rehabilitators have saved the lives of many deer. The Evelyn Alexander center is currently in court trying to protect rehabilitators’ efforts. 

Why does the D.E.C. have such callous attitudes? My speculation is this. The D.E.C. is a staunch advocate of hunting because the agency receives significant funding from taxes on the sale of hunting equipment. Many of its jobs depend on hunting. Having adopted the position that hunting is a good thing, the D.E.C tends to see killing as a reasonable solution to other wildlife issues.

The state needs to fund the D.E.C. from a general source, independent of hunting. Until this happens, the D.E.C. is likely to see hunting and killing in general as good ways of dealing with wildlife issues. 

BILL CRAIN

President

East Hampton Group for Wildlife

Hazardous Driving

East Hampton

November 13, 2016

Dear Mr. Rattray,

The reason for this letter is that the East Hampton School Board is planning to construct a bus depot on Cedar Street. Part of the planning includes a traffic study. I don’t believe the traffic impact study is necessary, as Cedar Street already presents hazardous driving conditions and is not the best location for the proposed bus depot. However, if the board of education chooses to move forward with this project, here are some of my concerns with its conclusions:   Who will be doing this study? We have been assured that a competent firm will be hired to collect data to identify the traffic impact of the proposed bus depot. This firm will be paid by the East Hampton School District taxpayers but hired by and answer to the board of education. It might be difficult to give an impartial report because of this conflict. When will the study start and stop? This study must be done during the months of May through October, when seasonal traffic is in full swing to simulate the real traffic circumstances on an already overflowing road. How much real information will be extrapolated from a study done during the winter months when traffic is less dense? 

Even Mother Nature knows that Cedar Street is a bad option for the depot; the morning angle of the sun creates blinding conditions in the stretch of road that the proposed depot would occupy. This is a serious issue that won’t ever change or be articulated by simply counting the number of cars. 

Time of day? We all can agree that Cedar Street is a major artery for East Hampton traffic. Residents already have difficulty exiting their driveways and using their front yards during the daily rush hours. When traffic is not backed up from the light at North Main Street, large trucks routinely speed down the straightaway, making a narrow road even more dangerous. 

Cedar Street was not designed to accommodate the current volume of traffic or heavy, construction vehicles that are bypassing the village. 

Fires and emergencies: Cedar Street is also home to our Emergency Services Building. How will the bus depot affect emergency services’ response times and the ability to transport individuals in need? This can’t be simulated, nor should it be ignored. There are numerous questions to be answered. 

Bluntly speaking, the bus depot should not be put on Cedar Street. Moving forward would make conditions on an unpredictable road only more treacherous. I believe this will negatively affect not only the residents of Cedar Street and surrounding roads, but the entire East Hampton community. 

ENCIE V. PETERS

Options Off Campus

East Hampton

November 14, 2016

Dear David,

Thank you for your editorial on the proposed East Hampton School District bus depot that appeared in the Nov. 10 edition of your paper and also thank you for your coverage of this issue.

I recently addressed the school board on this matter and would like to share my thoughts with the community at large.

We tell our children, our students, slow down, look before you leap, gather your facts, and weigh your options, know when to bail out and cut your losses, or at least know when to slow down to reduce the damage. These are taxpayer dollars the district is playing and paying with, and I, for one, think you need to slow down and rethink this project.

The campus is a fixed size, and once you build an industrial complex on it, you have destroyed something that belongs to our children and their future, whether it is their campus or their homes surrounding the campus. There is an appropriate location out there, and options off the campus have been suggested by individuals in previous letters and at meetings. It is the job of the school board, as guardians of our students and their futures, that all options be thoroughly investigated and the public be able to vote on the most viable options out of those available, with the choice to say No to all. It is even possible, as this paper has suggested, that it is time for the school district to get out of the bus business altogether.

What the school board does is its legacy, and what the voters approve is theirs. When it is an option, we need to protect the community and the rights of those who live north, south, east, and west of the campus, and those who rely on emergency services. But most significantly, we need to protect the homes and space that are our children’s and their children’s futures.

I believe the school board should resolve not to move forward with this project in this location and, instead, find an appropriate location off campus.

LORNE SINGH

Get Rid of It

East Hampton

November 9, 2016

To the Editor,

If a federal appeals court has now blocked some very carefully crafted laws aimed at reducing excessive noise problems at East Hampton Airport, based on putting the health of national aviation ahead of the interests of the residents of East Hampton, surely it is time for the town to seriously consider actually closing the airport and using that town land for other needs.  

I have previously thought there was a good need for a local airport and that attendant problems could be solved, but that seems no longer a possibility. It’s time to get rid of it.  There now seems to be no clear way to make it a community asset in the long run.

FRED KOLO

Public Airports

Bridgehampton

November 14, 2016

Dear David, 

The recent court decision revoking the town’s airport curfews should be an opportunity for the town board to rethink its badly flawed policy of trying to address noise issues by taking a confrontational stance with the Federal Aviation Administration and federal government policies and regulations.

The East Hampton Aviation Association has always tried to promote a cooperative approach to noise mitigation, working within F.A.A. guidelines and requirements, and has never opposed traffic restrictions to control noise as long as they were reasonable, non-discriminatory, and non-arbitrary.

Airport opponents, on the other hand, have promised for years that as long as the town refused funding, after Dec. 31, 2014, the town would take control of the airport and solve the noise problem.

The basic problem with this premise is that the F.A.A. controls air operations, not because of grant funds, but because the airport falls within the requirements of the Airport Noise and Capacity Act approved by Congress that controls all public airports. It is the same reason that local municipalities do not control access to state and federal highways because it would impact interstate commerce.

The court decision makes clear that the town can address noise issues as long as it works within federal regulations, and one would hope the town board will take advantage of mitigation solutions with the cooperation of the F.A.A. and not pursue further costly and counterproductive litigation which is unlikely to afford those impacted by airport operations any relief at all.

Respectfully, 

GENE OSHRIN

Taking-Charge Effort

Springs

November 11, 2016

Dear David,

I read with an air of disbelief the headline “Town Suspends Waterways Manager. Docked 30 days for ‘unauthorized work,’ ‘reckless conduct.’ ” 

I cannot believe that Bill Taylor was punished for undertaking a self-initiated act to rescue a valuable piece of waterways improvement equipment that he had personal contact with during its use in clearing up the Georgica Pond algae problem. 

I have known Bill for many years and have been impressed with his commitment to all manner of things pertaining to this town. At one point when I was renting a slip from the town for my 40-foot sloop, he observed the difficulty I was having disembarking from my boat, climbing a crumbling wooden ladder. I was the first to receive the new aluminum ladders that the town had bought. He personally installed the ladder because he saw a problem that needed to be rectified immediately. He was not a laborer hired by the town, as they did for the remainder of the ladders. 

It is that sort of self-initiated effort that typifies Bill’s lifestyle and the lifestyle at the heart of old-time watermen that know the ways of the sea. 

Another instance of this nature comes to mind. One day while at my office in Maryland I was on the phone with Peter Van Scoyoc’s mother when my secretary told me that a marine policeman from East Hampton was on the other line. The message was that a 30-foot sailboat I had on anchor had dragged all the way across Three Mile Harbor. Peter’s mom told me her son was a waterman in East Hampton and possibly could help out. The bottom line is that when I contacted Peter he took over, rescued the boat, had it hauled at Sam Story’s boatyard (Three Mile Harbor Boatyard), and placed it on a boat hauler’s rig, sending the boat on its way to Maryland within 48 hours. Once given the task he self-initiated everything, took charge, and resolved the problem.

It is that type of taking-charge effort that enables our town to move forward with ease. It does not make any sense to punish a supervisory-level person when he takes it upon himself to secure a piece of marine equipment that may be endangered by a forecasted storm. I cannot understand how our councilmen and women have taken the punitive action that they have. 

RAY HARTJEN