Southampton Ballot

Southampton Town has four propositions on the ballot this year. Proposition one is the Community Preservation Fund and deserves to be approved for all the reasons given above.

The second Southampton proposition, proposal five on the ballot, is a $5 million bond issue to finance the construction of a health and fitness center, including a swimming pool, gymnasium, and weight room, at Red Creek Park in Hampton Bays.

Although the center would not be as centrally located as some would like and it would require hefty annual membership fees (estimated at $500 for a family), we support the bond. The pool by itself is a desperately needed facility that schools could use to teach children to swim, perhaps saving a life or two in the years to come.

We wholeheartedly support proposal six (Southampton proposition three), which would amend Southampton's overly restrictive spending cap.

If approved, it would allow annual spending increases of up to 4 percent. Increases are now pegged to the rate of inflation, which is hovering at around 1.5 percent and putting the squeeze on the town's ability to provide the kind of services its residents require.

Proposal seven (town proposition four) would make it more difficult to change the use of town park preserves by requiring a majority-plus-one vote of the Town Board and a mandatory referendum. The minor headaches this would cause in the event the town had a bona fide reason to sell or trade a piece of parkland is more than made up by the safeguards it will afford future generations from seeing public property sold off. Vote "yes."