Making Lemonade
Wainscott
August 7, 2024
Dear Editor,
I have a sweet follow-up to an item that was posted on your police blog on Aug. 1. There was a report to the police that furniture had been set up on Beach Lane for a lemonade stand which was stolen while everyone was in the house making lemonade. All true. After a great deal of distress, especially on the part of the crying children, new furniture was quickly bought in Bridgehampton and we started all over again. After several hours of successful sales and good cheer, a truck pulls up and the driver says with great remorse that he thought the furniture had been available for pickup by anyone passing by. He then unloaded the missing furniture from the back of his truck and everyone was thrilled. The children gave him a cookie and a check for over $400 was sent off to Hamptons Community Outreach. A happy ending.
Sincerely,
WENDY KEYS
A Parking Lot
East Hampton
August 7, 2024
Dear Editor,
In watching the presentation to the board of the new exterior design for the senior center. I was impressed by the questions being asked by some newer board members.
Then, the presenter turned to the interior and blurted out that the key for her was the wing designed to accommodate the Human Resources Department. She thought she was telling bureaucratic functionaries what they wanted to hear. “See, we are building more office space, aren’t you happy!”
Wake up, board. The reality is that H.R. has nothing to do with the current senior center. H.R. handles the submission of welfare service forms to the county. The county delivers the welfare services. The senior center is not a welfare operation. It is, in fact, a separately managed entity.
Continuing with the outdated 1960s concept of aging, that aging is a welfare problem, will doom the new senior center to failure.
The senior center, if it is to succeed, has to be run for the entire senior community with appropriate services for the entire senior community.
The question for the board is, are you building a center for that purpose or are you building new office space for H.R.? Are you operating on the notion that the current senior center and future one are welfare centers or do you recognize that aging, like education, is a stage of life that we all face with the same needs?
Looking at the current design, it occupies far too much of the site than it needs to. Why? Because the design is still wedded to the automobile and parking lots. The fact is that most seniors that go to the senior center take the bus. In your mid-80s, your driving skills diminish with your eyesight. In your 90s, forget about driving.
Because the town never pursued a multimodal traffic plan, it is strangling in traffic without the ability to plan out other options. So the board should ask itself, why are we building another parking lot taking up thus an enormous site footprint?
Because of the perceived need for parking, a gas-fired emergency generator pumping out global-warming CO2 will be built instead of using batteries in conjunction with the solar panels. This is another huge mistake. Why sacrifice the appropriate technology for a few parking spaces?
It always amazes me that a town that prides itself on its environmental commitment is building gas-fired generators and parking lots in the 21st century.
I will be looking very carefully at how the candidates to the board this fall handle the issues of senior services, traffic, and housing. If they can’t solve these problems they will not get my vote. I urge other seniors to do likewise.
Sincerely,
PAUL FIONDELLA
Glass All Around
East Hampton
August 12, 2024
To the Editor,
What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
On Aug. 6, the town board had a working session. The last issue to be discussed was the new senior center. Representatives from 2R Architects presented their vision for what they believe is an appropriate, supportive environment for older adults with progressive sensory losses and physical challenges. If you did not attend the session, you can view it on YouTube. If you can’t view it from your home, we can arrange for everyone to see it at the current senior center.
The proposed exterior design of the “new” center is starkly cold and modern. Not in keeping with the historic architecture of the town. A building especially for our elders should reflect our past, our heritage.
The 2R architects fully exposed their complete lack of knowledge in design for older adults in their renderings and their dialogue. Both the architects’ young representatives and Kathee Burke-Gonzalez want to deny the truth about aging. Their attitudes are known as “ageism,” a.k.a. fear of aging. It is the only prejudice that impacts every person, even each of them.
The 2R Architects design is a cookie-cutter nursing-home design with long corridors, a wasteful “reception area” astonishingly comprising glass all around, including the ceiling. The latter means there are no acoustic materials to absorb sound in this proposed common area. That design flaw prevails throughout areas for the public. This design feature precludes conversations for all people with hearing impairments, so they will avoid these areas. Moreover, the designers are not aware of classic and common visual impairments, such as cataracts, macular degeneration, and glaucoma. Their public area concepts are nothing but unnecessarily large kaleidoscopes of glare.
The proposed bathrooms look like something out of “Game of Thrones.” Cold, dark, inhumanly high. In fact, the interior heights in all areas are wastefully high. Every inch has a price in development. Let’s lower the roof throughout this project and bring the budget back to reality and save.
Let’s remind the town that senior centers are for our community’s elders. They are not meant to be expansive Las Vegas casinos or acute-care hospitals. The latter two are the only two types of clients 2R has experience with in design. Look at their website. They have failed East Hampton and continue to cost taxpayers massive amounts of money for their ignorance and their steep learning curve. Every change they have to make continues to waste our tax dollars.
The combination of the town’s failing to contract outside professional consultants for a feasibility study and 2R’s total lack of experience and expertise in designing supportive environments for older adults is a failed combination. The 2R architects never spent a week with existing center attendees to observe and learn. All their comments about the existing center are sophomoric and insubstantial. Their designs are based only upon their stereotypes, their arrogance, and their ignorance.
When you view the renderings at the work session, look very closely at the stark, high ceilings. These rooms will be echo chambers, most especially impacting the hearing-impaired. The light fixtures in all public spaces are grossly inefficient and insufficient. All activity rooms have plate-glass windows, floor to ceiling, increasing the glare and energy inefficiency.
Moreover, the one obvious omission in these plans is a day care center, which was the one need loudly expressed by adult caregivers. This should be factored in as it requires a specific design.
Finally, the participants at the existing center have radically changed over the decades that I have been attending (over 30 years since I was in my 40s). Our group now comprises multinational, multiethnic, multiracial men and women. It is no longer a Bonac stronghold.
Neither the town nor 2R Architects is qualified to engage in this project. They have formed a dysfunctional relationship based upon their ignorance and the town board’s arrogance.
Stop the insanity!
Sincerely,
NANCY R. PEPPARD
Untitled Letter
Montauk
August 5, 2024
Dear David,
I have been a homeowner and year-round resident of Montauk for 20 years. During that time, I have read numerous editorials and letters in The East Hampton Star concerning work-force housing. Business owners, government officials, advisory boards, teachers, police officers, nurses, restaurant workers, and daily laborers have all expressed a desperate need for affordable working-class housing.
Sadly, during the past 20 years, very little has been done to address the fact that middle-class and working-class folks cannot afford to live here — despite the fact that their services are needed for the local economy to survive. As an example, I have little doubt that landscaping companies would disappear if their labor force disappeared. School districts would experience a similar disappearance of teachers.
However, what I have seen in the past 20 years is the McMansionization of East Hampton Town — particularly in the Village of East Hampton, and, to a lesser extent, in Amagansett, Springs, and Montauk. One has only to drive through the Village of East Hampton to view the building of megamansions that probably house two to four people for three months during the summer. I also have to mention that a review of the real estate glossy magazines showcases that the number of bathrooms in these megamansions appears to be a major attraction. For example, I have seen ads that advertise a six-bedroom megamansion that has eight bathrooms. One can only wonder why a homeowner needs a bathroom within arm’s length, 24/7 — perhaps a weak bladder or excessive gas or other gastric problems.
Perhaps it is time for the Town of East Hampton to look into clamping down on the size of these megamansions and look into purchasing land that can be used to build affordable housing units for hard-working local folks.
Sincerely,
BRIAN POPE
The Hands of Crooks
Springs
July 22, 2024
Dear David,
One day last year, I pulled into a parking space at the Town Hall campus and saw a big, black, shiny pickup truck parked in the row ahead of me. It had a bumper sticker that read “Project 2025” with a Trump sticker plastered on the tailgate next to it. I didn’t know then what Project 2025 was. But now I do. Do you?
Project 2025 is all about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse — only worse. Because it’s about pulling down the henhouse entirely — and we’re the chickens.
Project 2025 plans to fire up to one million federal workers — the professionals who staff our federal agencies — and replace them with political appointees. Kinda like firing your heart surgeon and putting Cousin Vinnie in the operating room instead. As one commenter wrote, it would “undo the basics of the Pendleton Act of 1883 which replaced a corrupt spoils system with the apolitical, merit-based system we have today.”
But it gets even worse. Project 2025 plans to totally dismantle federal agencies like the Department of Education (goodbye, student aid!) and Department of Transportation (forget airline safety! Boeing off the hook!). The Department of Homeland Security would be shut down (so much for controlling immigration) and the Transportation Security Administration would be privatized. With Trump planning to defund the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice, it will be a free-for-all for criminal organizations like drug smugglers and cyberthieves.
Trump claims he knows nothing about Project 2025 but his campaign speeches echo its policies to a “T.” Remember when he invited the gas and oil tycoons to Mar-a-Lago, promising to gut clean-energy programs and give them other items on their wish list if they forked over $1 billion to his campaign? You hear a lot that Trump is “transactional,” but that’s just a fancy word for corrupt.
And if Trump gets to install Project 2025, everything you depend on the federal government for, from Social Security and Medicare to protecting the air and water, from student aid to helping small businesses and small farmers, and much, much more, will be in the hands of crooks who care only about lining their pockets and fleecing the public. More to come on Project 2025 in the weeks ahead. Stay tuned.
FRANCESCA RHEANNON
Moral People
Amagansett
August 10, 2024
To the Editor,
Last week, David Saxe ended his letter to The Star: “How about you, Mr. Wallace?” Here’s how.
Let’s glean some tidbits of Mr. Saxe’s prose: “left-wing pro-Hamas student goons”; “lefty professors” skilled in “intimidation,” and “toxic stew.” There is a new McCarthyism taking hold in this country. Since Oct. 7, I have represented about 400 students around the nation and 100 faculty members accused of being a morsel in a stew of lefty goons. I have about 30 clients at Columbia, including students, faculty, and staff, whom I talk to every week. I get my news from the source, and Mr. Saxe apparently gets his from The New York Post, if not from doxing sites such as Canary Mission.
The students I speak with are indistinguishable from our children and grandchildren; in fact, they are them. No one is “pro Hamas,” and calling them “goons” dehumanizes and encourages not only the firing and expulsion of good (and highly moral, intelligent, and motivated) people, but actual physical violence against them. Muslim, Christian, and Jewish, they are all young Americans who deserve to be heard and to be treated with respect — as well as with respect for their constitutional rights of due process and equal protection. None of which is happening.
By the way, the Jewish ones are proud to be, like me; they just don’t think “Israel, right or wrong” is the 11th commandment. People using your rhetoric have no problem filing complaints of antisemitism against them, trying to get them fired or expelled for daring to criticize a political nation-state, Israel. At the weekly demonstration I marshal in Sag Harbor, I am constantly being harangued as a traitor and heretic, including by your friend Mitchell Agoos. Typical interaction: Israeli man, shoving his phone in his face as he films me: “This is Ahmed, the terrorist of Sag Harbor.” “Yes,” I reply, “Ahmed, who was bar mitzvahed at Beth Elohim.” “You’re no Jew. . . . “
The truth is that people using phrases like “pro-Hamas goons” are trying to drown the people they don’t like in a tidal wave of falsehood — exactly like the one which drowned the victims of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s. You have signed on to that effort with enthusiasm. If you are in fact the David Saxe who previously served as a New York State Supreme Court judge: Did anyone ever win a trial in your courtroom by shouting that his adversary (or the opposing party) was a “pro-Hamas goon”? Just curious.
For democracy in East Hampton and America,
JONATHAN WALLACE
Love America
East Hampton
August 11, 2024
Dear David,
“We don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note. Only notes that are different can harmonize. The same is true with people.” — Steve Goodier
This quote seems apropos today in light, or darkness, of the temperature in our country. Having spent six decades on the planet, I can speak to a more civilized time and discourse. When through a discussion or debate, people would come away unscarred and pensive, even when they disagreed. F.Y.I., debate: “An argument or discussion usually in an ordered or formal setting” (wicktionary.org). Debate: “A kind of respectful well-reasoned argument over opposing points of view” (vocabulary.com).
This type of conversation is almost unheard of today. One may call names and say, “You’re wrong. You’re a bleeding-heart liberal.” The other may also call names and say, “You’re a cult follower and a conspiracy believer.” Then the conversation ends, as there’s nowhere to go from there. But we who believe in the goodness of humanity, still, push on. “But what about your children? Grandchildren? Is a dystopian future okay with you, for them? How can we let an unstable hell-bent-for-power and wannabe dictator, if elected, God forbid, run our country into the ground?” They laugh. “You watch too many shows, read too many books.” Okay, you take the hit, but dig in. “Riddle me this, Batman, did Jan. 6 disgust you? Wasn’t that behavior an attack on everything our country stands for?” “You don’t know all the facts.” This is getting nowheresville. But you’re in for a penny. . . . “Do you believe we need unity as a country and women should have rights to their own bodies, always?” “Yes.” Good, a chink in the armor. “What, then, is the reason for voting for a man who’s bent on destruction?” “I didn’t say who I was voting for.” Deep breath, sip of drink. “But you did vote for him, before.” “You don’t know that.” “I do know, as you once admitted so. Okay, never mind before, let’s talk now. What would be a reason to vote for the Republican, a.k.a. MAGA, ticket?” “You want the border open?”
“No,” you say, “I want people to be safe; when families escape bad people and abuse and corrupt governments, and come here, I want them to be registered and vaccinated, pay taxes, keep the money here, and become citizens.” They laugh. “Then you’re not a liberal.”
“I didn’t say I was. I am a citizen and I love my country and I believe in freedoms and personal rights, keeping children safe in school like we were (except for the nuns and priests in my case). I want a fair and equal Supreme Court, not stacked with religious fundamentalist Christian-right judges who are using your guy to push their agenda.”
“Where do you get your information?” “Do you know me? I do my homework. I read, listen, ask questions, reason, and think. I only watch BBC News and one program that interviews leaders on both sides, whether it be a leader of Hamas or a leader of Israel. Whether it be your guy ranting and hating on everyone, bragging about how he’s bigger and equal to Christ. I watch the other side who talks and answers questions, even when rude young people shout at a rally, interrupting her speech, and she schools them ‘I’m talking now.’ I also don’t think it’s okay to kill policemen in cold blood nor hold a man down, criminal or not, as a policeman, till he dies like a dog on the street. I’m for law and order. Peaceful protests. And, as you know, I’m a cop’s daughter. A true cop, a decorated veteran of the city police force who was a proud veteran of foreign wars. One can be liberal and sensible; middle of the road and not a hater. But not with your guy.” “He’s not my guy.”
“So you’re voting for Kamala Harris and Walz?” “I don’t have to tell you who I’m voting for. Are you having dessert?” “No, thanks, I’m full.” And that is how one can have a debate, without bloodshed or divorce or ending a friendship. I have friends who don’t discuss politics, ever. Fine, we talk books and music and yoga and grandkids and life. But I don’t deny who I am and what I stand for, ever. When you do that, you lose your soul. Mine is good. I’m praying for a miracle that our country remains intact and doesn’t rip apart at the seams.
I love you, America.
NANCI LAGARENNE
The Alleged Price
Amagansett
August 11, 2024
To the Editor,
In Montauk this past Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul gave the Town of East Hampton $2.5 million for a restoration project at Ditch Plain. That was the same alleged price for the dredging of Napeague Harbor several years ago. As of last year, it was estimated to now be $5 million. The state doesn’t have a care for a project that is of ecological, environmental, and domestic concern? Can’t wait to see the water-quality reports after the latest round of rain.
This could be compared to the equivalent of a school hoping a gym teacher would ensure the safety and well-being of all students during physical activities and comply with school policies and procedures. Some things just don’t happen.
Still here,
JOE KARPINSKI
For the Adults
East Hampton
August 11, 2024
To the Editor:
The East Hampton Library should be a library for everyone. But it is not.
The children have a large area dedicated to them. They have benches, chairs, tables, computers, even a fish tank. The teenagers have two rooms downstairs dedicated to them. There is a lovely place for them to sit and talk on a new circular couch, they have computers, and they even have tables on which to eat! (As an aside, encouraging eating in the library is awful.) The whole area was recently upgraded and looks great.
The rest of the library is for anyone. The adults have nothing dedicated to them. We have no place to go and talk. There is one small conference room usually taken up by one person who spreads out. There is a newspaper and magazine room with four old, sad, worn uncomfortable chairs. Some people sleep there, some take off their shoes there, some people eat there.
There are some tables spread around the first floor but they are usually taken by youngsters on their laptops using the Wi-Fi. The computers near the windows are too few, with big uncomfortable chairs that crash into each other. The additional computers are downstairs, hard to get to for seniors, and require going through the teenage area to get to them. We are not allowed to sit in the teenager rooms. If you are not a teenager, you will be told to move.
Teenagers do not pay taxes.
Children do not pay taxes.
Adults do! I do!
Create a place dedicated for adults so they can sit comfortably to talk without children, without teenagers, without baby strollers, without dogs, all of whom use the first floor. Upgrade the remaining old areas as nicely as the children’s and teenagers’ areas. Helping the adults, helping the senior citizens, would be a big plus for the library.
JANE ADELMAN
Trump Enabler
Springs
August 12, 2024
To the Editor:
The Harris-Walz ticket has transcended politics and become a movement, sparked by the spontaneous energy and joy of people reclaiming their voices, realizing their concerns and values will be addressed. It is a movement of people who have had enough of Donald Trump and his minions running roughshod over everything that this country stands for.
Because guess what? Turns out most people don’t want a dictator, on day one or any other day. So, once again, it falls to we the people to make sure our democracy survives. We voted him out once, but being the utterly shameless huckster that he is, he doubled down and bullied his way back to the top of the Republican Party.
Nick LaLota, current representative of CD-1, is a Trump enabler who is out of touch with the values and ideals that most of his constituents hold. Representative LaLota applauded the overturning of Roe v. Wade and voted for several extreme anti-abortion measures, including a bill that would establish criminal penalties for doctors.
The Democrat, John Avlon, on the other hand, is a longtime protector of women’s reproductive rights. Avlon also supports restoring state and local tax deductions that Trump and his fellow Republicans took away, costing Long Islanders millions of dollars annually. And Avlon, unlike so many climate-change-denying Republicans, recognizes the dire threat that global warming poses.
In John Avlon we have the chance to elect a representative who will fight on our behalf, and who will hold the line against those willing to aid and abet a criminal who wants to be president.
Sincerely,
CAROL DEISTLER
A Total Joke
Bridgehampton
August 10, 2024
Dear David,
Why hasn’t the liberal media spoken to business owners that lost everything when rotten B.L.M. and Antifa destroyed cities? Of course this horrible man waited a few days after the criminals ransacked Minneapolis. Why would he care about working taxpayers who also employ people who chose to work rather than burn their own cities down?
How can anyone, repeat anyone, think this lying fraud should be anywhere near the White House.
Of course abortion is so much more important to those who could care less that millions of illegals are now in our country living off those workers’ taxes.
And of course this woman, the most inept vice president in anyone’s memory, is now presidential? Sure. Imagine her speaking with Putin. . . .
Oh my goodness, how far can this socialist mind-set go?
And she was a total joke in 2020 as she could not win a vote in the primaries while calling Biden a bigot. Of course he chose her as his V.P.
So now she is crowned. Good luck with that.
Think she’ll ever take a real question from the media? Or, will the sycophant liberals continue to not ask?
Jeez.
TED DAMIECKI
Strange Weirdo
Montauk
August 12, 2024
Dear David,
I personally find the following weird and disgusting: the pick for vice-president made by Kamala Harris.
The Democrats Josh Shapiro and Mark Kelly — two choices that would have been so fair to the Democratic Party. Kamala chose a strange weirdo, and here’s some of the Harris/Walz articles they will run on.
Mr. Walz mandated tampons in boys’ bathrooms.
Mr. Walz dawdled for three long days while Minneapolis burned before calling in the National Guard. During these riots, he abandoned the 3rd Precinct, chose to let it burn down.
Mr. Walz signed laws allowing teenagers to be sterilized and genitally mutilated without parents’ consent.
It’s strange that Harris/Walz claim they are “defending democracy” but he signed a law to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens; this could be the first step to voting illegally in elections.
Soon to come: his lying about his military record.
My heartbreaking choice is they both believe in abortion up to and including the birth of the baby. This is evil.
In God and country,
BEA DERRICO
Losers and Suckers
East Hampton
August 12, 2024
To the Editor,
A person new to this planet might wonder how a politician could send an underling to question a man’s service record of 20-plus years when he, the politician, dodged the draft numerous times.
Why would this same politician, who denigrated our fallen warriors as “losers” and “suckers” — why would he bring up the subject?
Is his personality that dark or is he insane? Or both?
TOM MACKEY