Letters to the Editor: Rentals 12.17.15

Will of the People

Montauk

December 14, 2015

To the Editor, 

This is a quote from Father James Keller: “If more people take an active role in our government we would be on the road to peace, and God will bless us if we do.”

I have been praying on and off for the last few years for the courage to write letters to the editor. I’ve had in my heart to serve God and country. I pray that there are other people in East Hampton and all around our once great republic who desire what I desire. I wish to live in peace like most other people, but it is not always possible, because man’s lower nature is always coming to the surface for all to see. Most of the times his lower nature is not very pretty. 

This is why our founders warned us to be ever vigilant of our elected officials. They are no more or less perfect than all people. There is good and evil in all of us. 

When our elected officials turn away from the principles of a constitutional republic and seek to set policy based on personal convictions instead of by the will of the people, we the people must with clarity put them back on the right track. So I ask you once again, Supervisor Cantwell, will you please drop the proposed legislation of a rental registry?

VINCENT BIONDO

The Rental Registry

Springs

November 28, 2015

To the Editor:

It is amazing that The East Hampton Star’s reporting on the rental registry hearing held on Nov. 19 quotes supporter after supporter of this proposed legislation as if there is a real sentiment for it. The vast majority of those attending saw the dangers and harm that would come from this governmental intrusion and opposed it.

Not one real reason for the registry was proposed, although lots of insults were flung at those who rent. Ease of citation was about the only tangible concept that was expressed.

Against that, person after person stated that the registry was invasive of privacy, poorly written, an unseemly money grab by the town, prevented necessary transactions, did not solve enforcement problems, and endangered the well-being of many. 

After all that, instead of scrapping this law, apparently it is to be revised yet again. Enough is enough. The harm that the permutations of a rental registry will do will outweigh any possible benefit.

TOM KNOBEL

Surrounded

Springs

December 3, 2015

To the Editor,

Here’s the bottom line for all not in favor of the registry: Do you own a business, have a job or two, have a permit for hunting, fishing, beach-riding? Do you make payments on loans, do you gamble, pay property and income taxes? So the “burden and paper work” excuse is nonsense. As is the cost of registering. Please — what lame excuses.

I am surrounded by all illegal rentals. The house next door rents like a motel — weekly, monthly, in a two-bedroom house with a basement rec room, with always more vehicles than the husband, wife, and kid who live there. They just built an extension to the house with two bedrooms and a bathroom. I assure you, those rooms will be rented on a revolving basis. 

The house on the other side of me illegally built (no permits) an extension to one side, and made a basement apartment with similar rental frequency. The houses across the street have waves of people coming out of the side entrances — never the front door — with cars parked in a maze fashion to accommodate them.

And then there is the house that had six chickens walking all over the street and on my property. There’s the anchor baby-birthing house; when one pops out of the womb, they move out, and another pregnant one moves in. Then when the infant pops out, they are gone.

We have the trash house that leaves their unwanted furniture and appliances on the corner of the house by the street, which remains for weeks. We have regularly the beer cans, bottles, food containers on the street in the same area.

Constitutional rights? Read the document and look around you. It is obvious that “government” cannot and does not do its job around the functions it is supposed to do. We are overburdened with an ongoing flood of illegal immigration that you are housing and probably picking up from the rail stations to work as cheap unskilled labor. And if you’re renting to citizens who have no regard for your neighbors, then you are clueless about the contents of the Constitution.

I was all set to attend the meeting but decided not to, as it would be a loud, out-of-control, slanted yelling contest, with the undereducated mouthing off every excuse to avoid having a sensible, manageable ordinance in place. But then again, it is most likely that the majority of you against this simple registry have things to hide. 

J. BRADLEY