A $500 Problem
East Hampton
September 16, 2024
Dear Editor:
Leave it to this town board to find a $1.5-million solution to a $500 problem. The intersection of Stephen Hand’s Path and Two Holes of Water Road is difficult because of the speed of cars on Stephen Hand’s. The board should try to solve the problem first with the simpler solution of stop signs.
Stephen Hand’s is bookended by a traffic light at Route 114 and stop signs at Cedar Street, a distance of only .7 miles. There is barely enough distance to absorb holiday roundabout traffic before it has to stop. This hugely expensive project may be good for a photo op, but it is a roundabout to nowhere.
Our zoning code encourages the promotion of the ability to walk and bike. Our comprehensive plan sets a goal to increase walking and biking, while maintaining community character. A roundabout focuses on cars, impedes pedestrians and bikes, and requires a flock of signs in a designated scenic area. Imagine instead directing $1.5 million to create walking and biking paths.
The town board should test out two stop signs at little cost and focus on protecting rural character, before it commits to a huge investment in automobile infrastructure which contradicts zoning and planning goals.
JEFF BRAGMAN
Rogue Signs
Springs
September 14, 2024
David,
Last week’s editorial “Good Signs, Bad Signs” really resonated with me. The “cultural tussle” between “so-called business boosters” and “the anti-commercialism camp” is a battle all residents should enlist in to fight on the side of preserving the natural bucolic beauty of our town. For my money, I wish more residents would more often complain to the Ordinance Enforcement Department when they see apparent commercial sign violations. It is an application of the “broken windows” theory that states that policing methods that target minor crimes help to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness. When applied to eliminating rogue commercial signs, the benefit to be gained is maintenance of attractive and desirable aesthetics to enhance the quiet enjoyment of our rural landscape.
Since at least the advent of the modern zoning code in 1984, our town has sought to tightly regulate commercial signs. “To perpetuate the open character and rural appearance of the town and to promote good community planning” we prohibit the following signs: billboards, including sandwich board and other sidewalk signs; flashing, blinking, tracing, flickering, or neon signs; any sign more than three feet higher than the average ceiling height of the building on which the sign is located; any sign more than 10 feet higher than the natural grade of the land on which it is located; illuminated vending machines, and exterior internally illuminated signs. The town code defines as “litter” all “illegal/unauthorized signs” and “any sign erected or existing in violation of the East Hampton Town code.” More importantly, all business signs require approval from the Architectural Review Board and issuance of a Building Department sign permit to ensure that all commercial signage is aesthetically pleasing and strictly conforms to allowed size, location, style, and materials.
However, did you notice the businesses that this summer have been flying flags promoting a highway bar, a beach club, Pilates classes, and a surf shop? Have you noticed the numerous tall feather or surfboard-style banners flapping in the wind along West Lake Drive in Montauk and elsewhere? Have you noticed the tawdry awnings and umbrellas that have turned some businesses into de facto billboard advertisements for hard and soft beverage companies? What about the stick-on product advertising signs that take up nearly every inch of the glass frontage on some liquor stores and convenience stores? How about the large signs placed in front of a pizzeria in Wainscott advertising the use of a particular vendor’s products? What about the outdoor signage debacle at a gas station in Wainscott and at the annual shoe-warehouse sale in Amagansett? In parts of Montauk pedestrians can hardly walk on the sidewalk because of the number of unlawful sandwich-board signs.
Clearly, no commercial signage of any kind can be lawfully displayed anywhere within the limits of the public street right of way or on utility poles therein. Therefore, several concerned citizens have been carefully watching and waiting to see how long after a formal complaint was lodged on August 10 it will take for someone, anyone, employed by the town to remove the large, brash energy-drink sign strapped onto the utility pole in front of an Amagansett deli.
Next time you drive UpIsland, look around at the commercial signage on nearly every utility pole and festooned on every post and pillar at most gas stations. Look at the ugly, garish, and excessive signage on many storefronts. Is that the future of East Hampton? I hope not.
DAVID BUDA
Disturbing Occurrence
Amagansett
September 13, 2024
To the Editor,
One of the wonderful aspects of a democracy is free and fair elections and with that the freedom to display signs promoting one’s favored candidates.
I was pleased to read The Star’s editorial highlighting this and the disturbing occurrence of signs being stolen, “a petty larceny.” Quoting The Star: A campaign lawn sign “is a sign that democracy lives.”
Unfortunately, I’ve experienced several instances in the past couple of weeks of campaign signs being removed. In these cases, the signs were Harris-Walz signs, but no matter which candidates are being promoted, this is a despicable act and flies in the face of our democratic rights and First Amendment protections.
To those who are responsible, please think again about the freedoms we all cherish and want to preserve.
DAVID HILLMAN
Calling Road Adopters
Amagansett
September 16, 2024
This Saturday is National CleanUp Day, and East Hampton Town via our East Hampton Litter Action Committee will take action as part of this countrywide, single-day cleanup event.
National CleanUp Day, established in 2017, is the largest single-day cleanup initiative in the U.S., with the mission to bring together individuals and organizations to encourage a clean outdoors. Over two million volunteers participated last year. For more information see nationalcleanup.org
The East Hampton L.A.C. itself is hosting four cleanups that day: one in Montauk (starting place is the Concerned Citizens of Montauk office, 6 South Elmwood Ave); in Springs (gathering location, Ashawagh Hall); in East Hampton (kicking off at the senior center on Springs-Fireplace Road), and in Wainscott (beginning at Montauk Highway’s Georgica Pond rest stop). These cleanups start at 10 a.m. and end at noon, except the East Hampton event, which begins at 9 a.m.
In addition, other local civic and environmental organizations will amplify these efforts by sponsoring their own group cleanup events that day, which they will advertise directly though their own networks. And we encourage any other individuals, neighborhood or block associations, and organizations to join in with their own cleanup activities that day.
In particular, the East Hampton L.A.C. is calling on all adopters in the Adopt-A-Road and Adopt-A-Highway programs to do your own cleanup of your adopted stretches of road on that day. Moreover, we’d like to encourage other residents and businesses to consider signing up to adopt a stretch of local road in honor of National CleanUp Day, which you can do via the East Hampton Town Highway Department’s website.
As many of us are aware — because we drive by the signs posted around town — there are two longstanding “Adopt-A” programs operating here for the purpose of maintaining cleaner and more beautiful roads: the Adopt-A-Road program, run by the East Hampton Town Highway Department, and the Adopt-A-Highway program under the jurisdiction of the New York State Department of Transportation. Through these programs, individuals, groups, and businesses participate by signing up to take ongoing responsibility for particular stretches of road, pledging to keep them trash-free, and committing to do a minimum number of pickups a year.
More broadly, the East Hampton Town Highway Department maintains 300 miles of town roads across the 74 square miles of town. In addition, Route 27, a state road, stretches 24 miles from Town Line Road in Wainscott to the Montauk Lighthouse. The sad reality is, as both the town highway supervisor and the state D.O.T. tell us, staffing shortages and budget constraints mean that they do not have sufficient personnel to be able to perform essential pick-up activities consistently to maintain litter-free roadsides.
Key fact: Our town board doesn’t have authority over the Highway Department (the highway supervisor is a separately elected official with his own jurisdiction) or the State D.O.T. However, as part of our action agenda, the East Hampton L.A.C. has been working to engage directly with both the Highway Department and the D.O.T. regarding the Adopt-A-Road/Highway programs. Our goal is to understand the scope of participation, the actual activity and accountability of participants, to advocate to see the impact of these programs optimized, and to offer to help in what ways we can.
That initiative remains a work in progress, but we are so grateful for all those who adopt and don’t stop helping to fill municipal and state gaps.
Ever more development, crowds, and traffic mean more litter despoiling the beauty and degrading quality of life in our town. Still, neighborhood and individual stewardship can make a difference. Your cleanup efforts are important to our town; roadside litter is not only a blight: It is an environmental threat to our wildlife and aquatic resources.
As always, thank you for your involvement in events and programs like National CleanUp Day. We would love to know three things from participants: which stretches of roads you cleaned, how many people participated with you, and how many bags of garbage you collected. Send that information, as well as photos of your activity, or address any other questions, directly to the litter action committee at [email protected].
We look forward to seeing you out there on National CleanUp Day on Sept. 21!
Sincerely,
JAINE MEHRING
Member
East Hampton Town Litter Action Committee
Exemplary Gadfly
Amagansett
September 15, 2024
To the Editor,
Thanks for your editorial “Free the Citizens Advisory Committees.” I have some incidents to report which support the proposition that the C.A.C.s need to be liberated. The C.A.C.s choose their own members, who are then appointed by the town board, but some years ago, in an unusual move, the town failed to reappoint an activist from one of the hamlets who had become something of an exemplary gadfly. I have personally experienced a C.A.C. placing on the agenda a controversy in another hamlet, which you would think was outside its jurisdiction. I suspect, but cannot prove, that this was a favor for a town board member.
Also, I have had the experience, as I wrote The Star some years ago, of being shouted down by the unlamented Supervisor Van Scoyoc, in a C.A.C. meeting which I had been invited to address — behavior which would have been egregious had he been presiding, but was even more so because he was merely the liaison. Subsequently, another town board member, serving as liaison to a C.A.C., similarly prevented a topic from being discussed by the chairperson. The takeaway is that the C.A.C.s are mere figureheads, and trouble ensues when they attempt to advise the town too vigorously.
For democracy in East Hampton,
JONATHAN WALLACE
Lighting on Roads
East Hampton
September 6, 2024
To the Editor,
I understand why the idea of walking alongside a road frightens some people, but to that point I would like to add the following.
We live and love in an area that has very little lighting on roads and add to that that now with all the trees with leaves and the sun creating dappled light, it is extremely difficult to see pedestrians and bicyclists. It is impossible to regulate pedestrians; common sense has to prevail. However, bicyclists are a different matter. Many insist on wearing dark clothing (so dusk and night add to visibility issue), they don’t have lights either in front or back, making it very hard for drivers to anticipate them (in either direction), and none of them — again, none of them — wear reflector vests or bands.
Okay, so we are sharing the roads, but responsibility goes both ways and would make life easier and more pleasant and less fraught with fear and anger. Where are the voices for making some simple regulations that would help all sides remain happier? Why is there no public announcement about some simple things to do that would make all of us co-exist more harmoniously?
MARINA T. SABATACAKIS
Respectful Dialogue
East Hampton
September 16, 2024
Dear David,
I am writing in response to the recent letters regarding the proposed safe dog area in Springs Park. I feel compelled to clarify the role of the advisory group once again: We are merely a body that makes recommendations to the town board. We have no authority to implement any changes at all. It’s disheartening that this fact seems to be overlooked repeatedly.
It appears that many residents are opposed to the safe dog area. While I personally do not have a dog that would use it, the idea was proposed in response to numerous requests from the community. I am confident that the town board has heard your concerns loud and clear.
The advisory group’s meetings have always been open to the public. They are scheduled on the town board’s calendar, and an agenda is published in advance. We have never met in secret.
We are committed to respectful dialogue, even when we disagree.
Regarding the invasive-species removal, we have consulted with certified arborists who have confirmed that these species do not provide suitable habitat for local wildlife. Our goal is to protect the natural plants that do support native animals. The proposed one-acre study will help us assess the impact of invasive-species removal before proceeding with a larger-scale effort.
Finally, I want to emphasize that the Springs Park is primarily intended to be a park; it is not a dog park. The fence was installed to keep deer out when it was a nursery, it was not made to keep dogs in. Please mind your dog at the park.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
NEIL KRAFT
For People Only
St. Petersburg, Fla.
September 13, 2024
Dear Editor:
In 2003, we bought our first home in Springs. Anxious to explore our new neighborhood, we took a break from unpacking and walked westward down Three Mile Harbor Road and reached a new, shiny sign that said: Springs Park. It wasn’t a conventional park with naturally shaded benches and children’s playground equipment; it was a meadow as far as one could see of thigh-high wildflowers and weeds with a dirt path running through it. There wasn’t a soul in sight. I went off the path to collect some milkweed and noticed piles of dog waste. Watching my step, I gingerly high-stepped back to the path, and said to my husband, nothing to see here, and we left.
It wasn’t until a few weeks later I learned Springs Park was the unofficial dog park of East Hampton. Wow, I thought. Being an official in the local municipal government in another town, I was impressed taxpayers’ dollars had been spent designating several acres of land for nothing more than the upkeep of invasive plants and a gravel path perfectly suited specifically for dog owners with no barriers, oversights, or restrictions, including a leash law. I also learned a leash law doesn’t exist in East Hampton, inexplicably and contrary to much of the rest of the United States, except in the most rural, low-density areas such as the Great Plains and Appalachia, when a chocolate Lab with a barrel chest and bared teeth charged at me as I bicycled along Bruce Lane. That time I wasn’t bitten but I fell, scraped my palms and knees and my heart hurt as adrenaline surged through my veins. The owner shouted from atop a slope 25 yards away as I separated the snarling dog away from me with the bicycle frame and said: “He doesn’t bite.” I waved back and yelled: “Thank you for the information. If he did, I’d be dead, and you’d be in jail. Please call your dog off.” I called the town hall and was informed a leash law didn’t exist.
It occurred to me that anyone or any other mammal who might venture into the area called “Springs Park” was at risk from an attack from an aggressive dog. With no fenced-off areas to barricade in freely romping dogs, protecting the public and children from the unpredictable, instinctive impulses of dogs, it was a rather grand, high-risk, and irresponsible use of municipal funds. I chalked it up to the storied excesses of “the Hamptons.” However, I resented that the grassy, passive park was not an area I’d feel safe to take my grandchildren to for a nature walk as a taxpaying resident and would probably never venture into it again, even though it was a short walk from my home. Because, having learned the hard way, I don’t take risks around unleashed dogs. They terrify me.
A park maintained by taxpayers funds should be exclusively for people. If, by popular demand, a dog area should be approved by elected officials to include dogs in a passive park, it should be carved out and a fence erected in a designated area for the explicit purpose of permitting dogs off leash with owners present to take charge, if necessary, at their own risk. Not at the risk of the public. Otherwise, if there is a path through acres of meadow, maintained by the town, that is technically a “reserve,” and access should be limited exclusively to people and dog walkers with dogs controlled by leashes by ordinance along with other practical, sound restrictions of safely mixing dogs with people. Because the reality is very few dogs are reliably obedient to voice commands, especially off leash. And that is when the aggressive behavior can be triggered.
Public parks and public beaches should be restricted for use by people only. Dogs could not care less where you walk them and where they urinate and defecate. They also bite, chase, charge, and can destroy property. But many dog owners have a strong compulsive need to elevate their dogs to the status of humans and treat them as such. Nothing gives them more pleasure than to let their dogs run wild on the water’s edge and drop deuces in the fragile dunes or dine with them at Pierre’s and shop with them at Ralph Lauren. And while dogs make great companions for some, not everyone enjoys sharing recreational and personal space with the toothy critters. They are not human. Dogs eat and drink from bowls, squat on the ground to relieve themselves, and when they feel threatened or their territory invaded, they will attack. As a returning resident to Springs, I support a designated, gated, fenced-in dog area in Springs Park for the safety of all. It’s been a long time coming.
CAROL DRAY
Hundreds More
Springs
September 16, 2024
Dear Editor:
Would the cabal of local dog owners waving a self-serving petition and terrorizing people in the parking lot after open meetings of the Springs Park Committee please stop? There are hundreds more dog owners in Springs, many of whom no longer bring their dogs — big or small — to the dog park. Why? Everyone knows why.
There is no reason a small section within Springs Park just to the left, for example, of the two main gates cannot be made available to owners of small dogs who would like the option to use the entire park or an area protected from the bigger, aggressive, and rough-playing canines. There is already a pre-existing third gate in place that could easily be put into immediate use.
At the last Springs Park Committee public meeting it was made clear that creating a section for small dogs outside the 22-acre fenced park by the parking lot was a nonstarter. Period. Why would the town want to raze large trees and clear a lovely, wooded area populated by our already pressed-for-space wildlife when it is not necessary?
There is a plan to clear the impenetrable, thorn-covered thickets; massive amounts of invasive flora, and nonnative trees that now choke much of the park. While these plants and trees are cleared it may be the perfect time to fence a section devoted to the little, most vulnerable users of Springs Park.
LYNNE W. SCANLON
Almost Perfect
East Hampton
September 13, 2024
To the Editor of The Star,
I am a daily user of the East Hampton Springs dog park. It has enhanced both myself and my beloved dog’s spiritual, physical, and mental health. We love it just the way it is, but if there’s money to be spent on improving an almost perfect environment, might I suggest funds being allocated toward our own water source both at the front and the back of the park? The Marder family is extremely generous supplying the park with water from their own property, but as a town we shouldn’t have to depend on one individual to supply what should be the town’s responsibility. In regard to the “small-dog park” being carved out of the enclosed larger dog park, I am not a fan. If the board feels they must have a small-dog park separate from the existing park, many of us feel it would better serve everyone to have it exist on some of the 20 acres situated along the left side of the entrance, outside the existing gate.
Sincerely,
JOANLEE MONTEFUSCO
Riskier Retirement
Springs
September 9, 2024
Dear David:
A new Trump heist may be in the air.
We’ve all been amused, revolted, disgusted, and hopefully ashamed by Mr. Trump’s utterly incomprehensible attempt at explaining what, if any, policies a second Trump administration would implement to provide child care to families in need. Leaving aside Trump’s mental infirmity on display on that stage, his word salad may have embraced a prior policy the first Trump administration considered foisting on American families.
Amid that word salad, Mr. Trump vaguely alluded to an “impactful” program Senator Marco Rubio and Ivanka Trump had worked hard on. As with everything else Trump, that plan was just another way to penalize the middle class.
The Rubio-Trump plan envisioned allowing mothers and fathers to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave for the birth or adoption of a child. But this would not be without cost. Parents would repay the benefit received by delaying when they would begin receiving their Social Security benefits or by accepting a long-term cut in their Social Security benefits.
While the Ivanka Trump/Rubio idea boosted the Republican mantra of not requiring any new tax to fund the program, it would have condemned participants to a riskier retirement. Parents who took leave would have to delay collecting Social Security for twice the period for which they took leave — to repay 12 weeks of leave, they would have to delay their retirement benefits by 20 to 25 weeks. But delaying Social Security translates into a real financial loss; analysts calculated that parents who took a single 12-week leave would lose about 3 percent of their future retirement benefits, and those who took four leaves would lose 10 percent.
Analysts also observed that the consequences of the retirement reduction could be especially severe for mothers who take leave from their jobs, so they’re likelier to lose more retirement benefits. Perniciously, women already tend to be disadvantaged by the Social Security system compared to men. Among other things, mothers get no Social Security work credits for the years spent as caregivers in the home. This is no program to cheer about.
Now, his running mate, J.D. Vance, has an entirely different child care proposal that would not require any federal program. All a family would need to do is enlist grandparents, aunts, and/or uncles to pitch in and help. He is the one who sounds like a childless cat lady, lacking any grip on reality.
Finally, now that Mr. Trump has confessed that, in fact, he did lose the election, I hope that all those MAGA folks who spilled ink embracing the big lie realize that you, too, have been had.
Sincerely,
BRUCE COLBATH
Disease Epidemic
Sag Harbor
September 10, 2024
Dear David,
I read with interest Frank Vespe’s letter of Aug. 24 about wanting to watch “the rest of the Kennedy movie regardless of which planet he’s on.”
I agree. Kennedy is on a new planet. As a lifelong New York Democrat, I am aghast at what the times are asking of us. All the chess pieces are moving, and in fact the chessboard itself is flipping around. Republicans are becoming Democrats and Democrats are becoming Republicans, e.g., John Bolton and Dick Cheney are supporting Harris.
I recently read Sharyl’s Substack titled “A New American Political Party Is Forming Under Our Noses.” There is a third party organically forming under our noses, which does not have a name yet. Maybe it is the Unity Party, as this new coalition is attracting hard-core left Democrats, moderated Democrats, a swath of Republicans, and independents (51 percent of the people in this county identify as independents).
They do not agree on everything but are finding common ground in the following: ending governmental and media corruption, declining public health and the ever-growing chronic disease epidemic, the growing concern over censorship with its ever-expanding unconstitutional control of any speech that challenges the establishment’s power, a focus on food freedom and soil preservation, border security, bringing an end to “forever wars,” and, lastly, halting outrageous government spending creating inflation and the erosion of our currency.
It is clear from this year’s political race for the White House that more Republicans than Democrats are open to looking at these issues.
The Trump-Kennedy alliance was brokered by Calley and Dr. Casey Means, a brother-and-sister team, co-authors of the number-one New York Times best-selling book titled “Good Energy.” This highly recommended book argues for the connection between metabolism and limitless health. The Meanses have been advising both the Trump and Kennedy campaigns. They are committed to re-educating us about how to fix the health care system, which only profits if you are sick.
Kennedy is convinced that the former president is committed to ending the chronic-disease epidemic and making that his legacy.
And to accomplish this, the Trump-Kennedy–Tulsi Gabbard–Tucker Carlson–Vivek Ramaswamy association or team of rivals (thank you, Abraham Lincoln) is our best hope.
Whether it’s called the Unity Party or the Make America Healthy Again party (MAHA), I am in. Principles above personalities.
Sincerely,
KATE PLUMB
Intense Vilification
East Hampton
September 16, 2024
To the Editor,
During the intense vilification of Anthony Fauci, heavy security was needed to protect him and his family. Trump took no role in calming his MAGA cult.
After two children and two teachers were recently murdered, J.D. Vance brushes it off as something we will just have to deal with (as in, do nothing.)
Vance the sycophant admits to making up stories to “get the media’s attention.” More bomb threats, more school closings. The immigrants will just have to deal.
That good sport Trump, in all caps, posts that he hates Taylor Swift. Hates! MAGA to the ramparts!
And now comes a second attempt on Trump and within moments a new fund-raising opportunity commences. If only the Haitian immigrants, here legally, had such a marketing engine — what an artful deal that would be.
TOM MACKEY
Not About Land
Springs
September 13, 2024
To the Editor,
There can be no doubt about Vice President Harris winning the debate with former President Trump. She was surgically cool in taunting him. She successfully avoided any details about her plans except giving some voters tax breaks (e.g., $25,000 for starter homes, $50,000 for starting a new business). The Donald dismally failed to defend his economic record; his public-health achievement (“Operation Warp Speed” that saved lives by quickly developing the Covid-19 vaccine}; his successes in foreign affairs (the Abraham Accords and no new wars instigated by our adversaries). Trump wasn’t even able to successfully contrast inflation data between his administration and that of Biden-Harris. He was ineffectual across the board. She was masterful.
A most troubling aspect of the debate was not the inappropriate one-sided fact checking by the ABC moderators but Harris’s statements on Ukraine and Israel. She pledged to see to it that Ukraine has the resources and weapons to win its fight against Russia. She pledged to supply Israel with the material it needs to defend itself — but not to win. She understands that Putin wants territory from Ukraine. She fails to understand that Sinwar and Hamas want to destroy Israel and eliminate its Jewish population. One conflict is about land and influence; the other is about religion and genocide.
Russia, our ideological antagonist, has partnerships with North Korea, China, and Iran. Each is supplying rockets, parts, and drones that endanger Kyiv. All these bad actors are aligned against the United States and Israel. In addition, there are 52 countries where Islam is the dominant religion. They support hundreds of terrorist groups around the world. They are united in the belief that “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” This slogan, taken directly from Hamas’s written charter, unambiguously calls for the violent destruction of Israel. The leaders of Hamas, encouraged by Iran, have pledged to repeat the horrors of Oct. 7 “over and over again until Islam rules everywhere.” The slogans “Death to Amerika” and “Spread the Intifada” are chanted at the same rallies! So, currently implementing popular Western thinking that peace will come to the Middle East with a “two-state solution” is naïve and overly wishful. This conflict is not about land. It is about religion and culture. To not believe this is like Neville Chamberlain once believing that a treaty between Democratic Britain and Nazi Germany would bring peace. How did that work out?
In this discussion, so much is compartmentalized. For example, the terror of other Islamist groups. In Nigeria, Boko Haram routinely practices the rape, mutilation, and killing of Christians because they don’t worship the same God. This is the Islamic group that kidnaps schoolchildren to “marry” or make into front-line soldiers. There, too, the fighting is not about land but about religion. The Associated Press and Reuters have carried many stories about the terrors of Islamic Taliban in Afghanistan (which we abandoned on July 5, 2021) — especially toward women. The Taliban has now approved marriage for girls 9 years old; banned all music; executed or imprisoned all opposition; considers stoning as a punishment for adultery, and just made it a crime for women to speak or hold conversations in public! Similar harsh living standards — and brutal elimination of people who don’t conform — are also the practice in other countries, such as Mali and Burkina Faso. The names of these groups may be unfamiliar, such as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or familiar, like Islamic Jihad, but their beliefs and methods are the same. Can there be any doubt that Israel’s enemy, Hamas, a spinoff from the Muslim Brotherhood, shares their methods? Any doubt can be purged by looking at the video records of the dismembered and burned corpses left on October 7. Worse, these atrocities (based on the perpetrator’s own streamed videos) are carried out with great joy!
Democratic governments must work hard to change the attitudes — and cultures — of these believers and their governments, just as they did after World War II in Germany and Japan. This task is the bumpy road to lasting peace.
The presidential debate was an eye-opener. Kamala Harris performed well. She emerged as capable and a leader. She is talented. But if elected, she will need to think more deeply about many issues. This includes policies such as the Democratic Party’s proposals to tax unrealized capital gains, continuing to downsize defense spending, and promoting the one-shot forgiveness of college debt without reforming student-loan programs. Bigger issues, such as open borders and encouraging illegal immigration by promising full medical care, must be decided. President Harris will need to think deeply about her policy for a two-state solution to end conflict in the Middle East. It will require much more than following decades of failed slogans and solutions. For, in the near term, a Palestinian state with a genocidal war waged by Iran through its many proxies (including the troika of Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah) will only lead to the destruction of Israel and the holocaust that surely will follow. New creative thinking is necessary.
We still relive the horror and terror of Sept. 11, 2001. Last week we solemnly commemorated the thousands of lives lost as the Twin Towers fell and a passenger plane was crashed into a Pennsylvania field. So it should not be difficult to understand what can happen when our democratic values and religious beliefs are hated. We will need presidential courage and insight to find a true solution to conflict in the Middle East. Just as we will need brave leadership to resolve our conflicts here and solve the problems looming ahead. I hope we will elect the leadership to do this.
DONALD SUSSIS
Trump Blew It
Montauk
September 14, 2024
Dear David,
The debate: What a joke. Both parties claimed victory. Donald Trump was Donald Trump, no doubt about it. Kamala Harris claims victory, never fact-checked on a single question, while Trump was interrupted many times by moderator David Muir (five times) so he could fact-check just about every answer Trump gave.
The vice president was allowed to skate through the debate without substantive follow-up questions of some of her obviously false claims.
Kamala, we have troops in the Middle East in a combat zone under attack from Iran.
Kamala said more than once, “Trump’s plan, Project 2025” and [mentioned] his intention to implement it if he is elected again. Trump answered, “I’m not in any way involved in Project 2025, never have, never will.” Kamala continued to throw it out. He answered each time, “Not involved.” The moderators never fact-checked Harris’s statement.
Kamala’s biggie: “I have not banned fracking as vice president. In fact, I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act.” Harris passed the bill because it was packed with left-wing giveaways. The new leases were not the point of the bill. Senator Manchin would accuse Biden and Harris of going back on their word. Manchin claims they’re going to starve us out of energy that we have an abundant supply of. Kamala, as vice president, did you have conversations with the president to start real fracking, or did you sit around cooking? Never heard from you. No ideas?
Trump blew it. He winged it, missed numerous kill shots. He allowed himself to be baited.
Besides changing her voice in different states, she can now be a dozen personas, all cry “fake.”
Kamala claims nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and then asking for an abortion. Fact-check. The Daily Signal points out Minnesota had a 2015 law that required doctors to report whether abortions resulted in live birth; in 2021, it happened five times, with no measures taken to keep them alive. In 2023, Gov. Tim Walz stripped out that reporting requirement as part of an abortion law that has no limitations on how late in the pregnancy it may happen.
Ladies and children, be advised: The crime being committed in the United States of America by illegal immigrants is out of control and the border is still open.
In God and country,
BEA DERRICO
A Disconnect
Amagansett
September 15, 2024
To the Editor,
“Process Matters” was the title of a Star editorial on March 14. It detailed some thoughts on what Amagansett School should do in its future superintendent search. It correctly outlined that the school had qualified individuals in-house — though the two with allegedly more experience have been put on the back burner and can’t even be slid into the slot of “acting principal.” That went again to the current superintendent, in my opinion hand-picked and installed by the school board, which needed, by a July 9 resolution, the interim superintendent to continue to stay around under contract and “transition” into the position. Though the “transition” already was stated to begin on May 28.
So much for the most qualified. We only can now have one individual sit in that spot when he isn’t at school. That would be the district treasurer. The two spots a school board has paid control over are the two wielding the most power. Seems to be a disconnect or fear of the school staff.
Sept. 19 will mark one year since the school board put Addie Slater-Davison’s husband, Todd Davison, on the audit committee by her own nomination. Was this a violation of state comptroller policy, New York State Department of Education policy, State School Board Association policy, and the Amagansett School board policy? When I wrote the board about this “conflict of interest” for the July 9 meeting, [they said] it would be “taken under consideration.” After the Oath of Faithful Performance, they put him right back on. By board policy every member and district official needs to resign. That is who is in charge. They fumbled his removal, amended resolution, as well as still are a person short on that committee. So much for a board that preaches at its last meeting about “actual legal documents.” Process matters anywhere else but Amagansett.
Still here,
JOE KARPINSKI
Access to AR-15s
Westhampton
September 9, 2024
Dear David,
According to a sick and deranged former occupant of the White House, the child shooter in Georgia is “a sick and deranged monster.” Again, Trump is projecting himself onto others. The 14-year-old is actually a very damaged child — a kid! And now he’s to be tried as an adult?! He just got through with puberty!
We are just as guilty as that ninth grader in that we allow such easy access to AR-15s and other assault weapons intended for war. We’re crazy for having such lax gun laws. Blame the child and the father, but it’s Congress’s job to regulate the militia, as written in Section Eight of Article One of the United States Constitution, and they are not doing their job. There is only one reason for allowing this to continue to happen: With enough carnage, the voters will demand the law and order promised to them by Fascists.
Hey, gun rights extremists, let’s take the Second Amendment to its logical conclusion: Fetuses have a right to bear arms! You’re pro-life? Arm them to protect themselves!
With all due respect,
LANCE COREY
Next to Michelle
Springs
September 13, 2024
To the Editor,
If Donald Trump wins the presidency, and if he really wants to unite the country and do something almost unprecedented and follow in the path of his idol, Abraham Lincoln, he will nominate his rivals, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and the Obamas, to cabinet positions.
I’d even join that cabinet, as long as I could sit next to Michelle.
FRANK VESPE