The controversy involving both East Hampton Village beach-parking permits and the mayor’s attempt to take over the East Hampton Volunteer Ambulance Association might not seem related, but there is an obvious way they are linked — and that is politics. Village Mayor Jerry Larsen has from time to time touted the ways he has provided this or that service while at the same time, cutting taxes. The ex-police chief mayor is clearly ambitious, having expressed his desire to be East Hampton Town supervisor some day.
One way politicians get re-elected or win new posts is to keep taxes low or reduce them; one way to do that is to increase the amount of money coming in from other sources, such as jacking up the cost of beach stickers, or, as may be the goal in the ambulance takeover, charging for trips to the hospital. The village has already done that during Mr. Larsen’s tenure when it got the Town of East Hampton to pay for most of a $1 million excavation of Town Pond. And another no-tax revenue stream comes via the secretive East Hampton Village Foundation, whose anonymous private donors have helped keep what would be village costs, such as installing security cameras and redesigning Herrick Park, off the books. Indeed, the village’s 2023 budget was heralded by one village official as including the “biggest tax cut of the last 20 years.”
Maintaining or reducing property taxes are worthy goals, however they should not be pursued in ways that divide the community and threaten critically important institutions, especially the ambulance service, for political advantage.