Deliciously Cranky
East Hampton
November 17, 2008
To the Editor,
A few weeks ago, I was really tempted to respond to the weird spate of letter writing provoked by the now-notorious Babette’s review (especially the executive chef’s bizarre, juvenile, and utterly specious attempt to analyze the author). But I thought to myself, “Why bother?”
But that “Aw shucks, we’re a small town, get with the program” claptrap by Beth Young, intended to make Laura Donnelly feel like some sort of townie turncoat, finally compelled me to get into the mix, because what started out as a simple restaurant review has, for me, become a First Amendment issue.
First of all, I sincerely hope that the incendiary letter-writing campaign, decrying Ms. Donnelly’s review, doesn’t make her apprehensive about continuing to hold local restaurateurs accountable for the abject crap that’s routinely served throughout the East End. On the contrary, I hope she’s sharpening her quill in defiance of all this nonsense.
For the longest time, it seemed that The Star’s restaurant reviews were written in extreme deference to their advertisers. Even when a review was fundamentally negative, as in the case of the Surf Lodge, it was often summarized with a bit of sugar-coating, to make it all go down a bit more easily and to leave open the possibility that there was some room for redemption.
Ms. Donnelly’s review was not malicious. It was, instead, appropriately indignant and deliciously cranky and, most important, a refreshing departure from the old “We still have to live in this town” mentality that had been permeating The Star’s restaurant reviews for far too long.
And, considering the state of the economy, it was fiscally responsible as well. Kudos!
The main reason I’ve decided to write this letter however is to address the insidious way that the “friends of Babette’s” have abused the open editorial policy of The Star, by using the paper to conduct a blatantly well-orchestrated, vindictive, and free public relations campaign. Applying the old adage that “there is no such thing as bad publicity,” Babette’s has scored big.
What is even more disturbing is that the overall tone of these letters clearly advocates censorship. And I would bet dollars to doughnuts (which are far preferable to me than any of the dismal, moistureless, and insultingly overpriced breakfasts I’ve endured at Babette’s) that most of the authors of these disturbing diatribes, including the owner, consider themselves to be social liberals. In a place where people routinely drive Range Rovers with “Save the Earth” bumper stickers, you’d think I’d be used to hypocrisy by now, but the subliminal nastiness of this campaign, with its covert call to censorship, is simply out to lunch.
And, while I could care less about someone’s “vegetarian palate” and could never take seriously the criticism of anyone who takes “pleasure in barbecued tofu,” I do indeed take seriously freedom of speech and the press.
So even if Babette’s hired Daniel Boulud tomorrow, because of this pathetic perversion of The Star’s editorial policy, I would never consider going there again and will urge everyone I know to stay away.
I have faith that The Star will not bend to pressure and ask Ms. Donnelly to tone down her cheekiness — or worse, fire her.
I would also like to encourage Ms. Donnelly to remember that if she succumbs to the will of “well-meaning,” closeted censors and starts editing herself, she not only puts truth on the back burner and stops serving the community, she stops being an artist.
And please, Laura, don’t ever become boring!
Also be assured that, should her reviews suddenly disappear, I will start a letter-writing campaign of my own.
Sincerely,
JOHN ROBIE
Really in Trouble
East Hampton
November 14, 2008
Dear Mr. Rattray:
Uh-oh, I think East Hampton is really in trouble.
The Republican standard-bearer for the next town supervisor everyone awaits to fix things for us has named Len Bernard as his financial guru and wizard on town budgeting. He may be a wizard after all.
I read your editorial last week about Len Bernard and Jay Schneiderman and their “ultimately deceptive” budget trickery when they were budget officer and supervisor respectively. The problem is Mr. Bernard is the new Republican candidate’s poster boy for budgeting and Mr. Schneiderman is his self-described adviser.
There must be other people around besides the present problem town supervisor and his budget officer that you also wrote about in the editorial and these other people who want to run the town.
East Hampton needs help. Good people must be out there.
Sincerely yours,
JASON McLEOD
Fault and Excuses
East Hampton
November 16, 2008
Dear David,
The kind of response Supervisor Bill McGintee as chief fiscal officer wrote last week concerning the alternative austerity budget submitted is the kind of distortion, misrepresentation, and threat many of us experienced with his town board the past five years.
If he is believed, we’re just going to get more of the same — defending his own mismanagement and ineptitude as the chief fiscal officer of the town let alone raiding funds for improper uses — rather than trying to find remedies and fix things so the people of our town don’t carry his baggage on their backs.
Good people in our town are trying to find answers. Mr. McGintee tries to find fault and excuses.
Sincerely,
DEBRA FOSTER
Help Close the Gap
East Hampton
November 17, 2008
Dear David:
The East Hampton Town budget has been a major political football for at least the past 15 years, beginning with Len Bernard’s unsuccessful bid for town supervisor against Tony Bullock in 1993. Since then, the town’s budget has been kicked back and forth between two Democratic and one Republican administration, despite the fact that the town has over the years enjoyed a healthy economy and a low tax rate as compared to the rest of New York State.
East Hampton’s tentative budgets are pounced on immediately following their submission to the town clerk on Sept. 30 of each year by the politicos and the press. The town board reviews the budget, department by department, throughout the month of October — now available for your viewing pleasure at your convenience on LTV.
The public hearing provides yet another opportunity for critics and supporters to weigh in before the final vote. The public does indeed have total access to the budget process and has had that access for some time.
However, in no other town that I am aware of do former supervisors, former candidates for supervisor, and former town board members offer alternative budgets, such as the Bernard-Schneiderman alternative budget for 2005 and the Foster-anonymous alternative budget for 2009. Indeed, nowhere do so many anonymous ad hoc committees and committees of one seek to derail the budget process for personal or political gain. Such committees, by the way, seem to be sprouting like inedible fungi after a long, wet summer.
The media and the fungi fail to understand that municipal budgeting is not the same as household budgeting. Please, can we get away from that childish comparison?
Individually, we can choose what services or products we wish to buy, when to borrow for major purchases, and when to cut back. On the municipal level, not everyone may choose to purchase a beach parking sticker or a dump sticker, but few would argue that government should not provide services to the elderly and frail or provide the funds necessary to maintain our roads or meet our contractual obligations. We agree, as a community, to raise revenues to meet those commitments, even if we do not utilize them. The government acts on that agreement.
For the record, over the past eight months, Supervisor Bill McGintee and Ted Hults, the town’s budget officer, have been meeting with outside financial advisers (not just Nick Lynn), Moody’s Investors Service, and independent auditors (including consultation with the state comptroller’s staff) to put together a budget and a time frame to steer the town back on course.
At Moody’s request, the town moved to hire an in-house accountant, bring the town’s escalating health insurance costs under control, raise revenues through increased fees for discretionary services, and levy a large, one-time tax increase to help close the gap during this period of unreliable revenue sources. The comptroller’s office concurred with Moody’s requests.
In addition, prior to entering the bond market last month, two separate “due diligence” conferences were held with Moody’s. The supervisor and Mr. Hults were able to respond positively regarding those improvements. The town maintained its A2 rating. The negative outlook attached was based on the national economic scene, not the town’s, and will be removed only if the town board passes the 2009 budget and moves toward rebuilding the reserves. Moody’s will revisit the town’s bond rating in January.
The town proceeded to enter the bond market in mid-October. The town successfully bid $22.2 million in bond anticipation notes and long-term serial bonds.
The media and some members of the public may not agree with Supervisor McGintee’s 2009 budget, but investors do.
Sincerely,
LYNN N. RYAN
Executive assistant to the supervisor
Blame for This Mess
Springs
November 17, 2008
Dear David,
Responsibility for the fiscal bind our town finds itself in today is bipartisan. The huge and underfunded increases in operating expenses in 2000 are the cause of the operational deficits that plague us today.
The failure to fully focus on balancing the budget for 2005 allowed a significant operational shortfall to grow into a fiscal emergency. National events, such as the huge increases in health care costs and debt service, coupled with a slowing economy and declining real estate values, have made our troubles harder to fix. However the blame is divided, the responsibility for fixing this budget is the job of the East Hampton Town Board and the time is now.
Our current budget predicament started in 2000, when spending was allowed to exceed income by the new Republican majority. Their wild overspending and bonding was plastered over by utilizing the $15 million surplus created by the prior Democratic administration. The structural deficits and over-borrowing instituted under the Republicans are affecting us to this day. Supervisor Bill McGintee and the town board were left the task of cleaning up the mess left by the Republicans.
When Bill came into office, he was obligated to fund and complete projects that, worthy or not, were under way. He also inherited a huge debt — the $50 million the Republicans borrowed in four years, doubling the town’s debt — which needed to be repaid by his administration.
During his first year, and as Bill prepared his first budget, he realized how bad the structural deficits built into the prior administration’s budget were. The problem was publicly identified by him in 2004, but not sufficiently corrected by the board, then under Democratic control, for budget year 2005.
What was a problem in 2005 has now grown into an emergency and will be much harder to fix.
The blame for this mess belongs, in part, to everyone, Republican and Democrat, who served on the town board beginning with the year 2000.
Time is tight, and, with the state comptroller involved, this budget must be balanced and passed this week. Then the town must undertake a top-to-bottom review of all spending and expenses and potential sources of revenue. Local citizens and groups should be included.
The review should be a bipartisan effort, with input from all. The objective of the review should be to lower the next round of taxes by at least 10 percent. Everything should be looked at and looked at hard.
Tough times seem to be coming. I suggest that Supervisor McGintee assign Councilwoman Julia Prince and Councilman Brad Loewen to set up and conduct this review. As the newest members of the town board, they are less tied to the practices that led to this crisis, and yet knowledgeable of town operations.
The financial oversight that led to this budget is not acceptable, and how it is resolved will be a major consideration in the 2009 town elections. Let’s fix it!
BILL TAYLOR
East Hampton Democratic Committee
A Promise Kept
Bridgehampton
November 10, 2008
Dear Editor:
Your editorial “New Math in Southampton” (Nov. 6) misses the mark with its criticism of the payment in lieu of taxes component of the community preservation fund for certain high-tax school and special districts in the Central Pine Barrens.
In 1995, when the Central Pine Barrens plan was signed and enacted by Gov. George E. Pataki, it was a finely balanced compromise among many diverse stakeholders that resulted in the preservation of more than 50,000 acres of Long Island’s most precious open space, habitat, and drinking-water recharge lands. An important part of that compromise was a promise by the state to ensure that high-tax districts in the Central Pine Barrens would be reimbursed for lost tax revenues resulting from preservation. Those who were there remember that the plan would not have been approved without it.
The enactment of legislation in 2002 by Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and me to ensure that this promise was kept certainly was not wrong and clearly not an effort by politicians to capitalize on the community preservation fund for political gain. Rather, it was a promise kept as part of the biggest land preservation agreement in Long Island’s history. Certainly, The East Hampton Star doesn’t support the idea of reneging on a commitment that led to this historic compromise. The editorial also neglects to mention that the payments in lieu of taxes program was approved by all the voters of Southampton Town in the same matter as the rest of the community preservation fund program.
Further to insinuate that the lawful enactment of this program in Southampton somehow is an excuse for the illegal actions that occurred regarding the use of the preservation fund in East Hampton is simply ridiculous. The Star should be embarrassed for even making such a faulty analogy; one was legal, the other was not.
That being said, I have met with interested parties in Southampton about recent PILOT proposals. Because of my intervention, there will be no increase in PILOT payments in Southampton for 2009. In addition, future town discretion about this program will be limited by future state legislation. In short, the commitment that was made in the Pine Barrens Plan will be kept and the integrity of the community preservation fund will be protected.
Sincerely,
FRED THIELE JR.
Member of Assembly
—
The payments in lieu of taxes program was approved by Southampton Town voters in 2002 as part of a ballot proposition asking if the community preservation fund should be extended to 2019. Ed.
Encourages Us
East Hampton
November 4, 2008
Dear Editor,
Thank you for your coverage of all our golf matches this season. We enjoy reading about ourselves in the paper. We would also like to thank you for informing the community about the success of our team. It encourages us to play better in our matches.
Sincerely,
JOHN NOLAN and the
East Hampton High School
Golf Team
Wonderful Support
East Hampton
November 13, 2008
Dear Editor,
As our terrific tennis season has drawn to a close, we would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Bill Gardiner for his continued support of the entire program, and particularly our team. His generosity, over the past few years, has enabled our tennis program to grow by providing clinics to young players, equipment for team members, and book scholarships to seniors heading off to college. As captains of this year’s girls varsity tennis team, we speak for our entire team in expressing our gratitude for his wonderful support of the sport which we love.
We would also like to thank The Star and Jack Graves for the great coverage afforded our team throughout our recently completed season.
Sincerely,
BEVERLY KEYES
MOLLY NOLAN
HYATT TORTORELLA
Monstrous Plans
East Hampton
November 10, 2008
Dear Mr. Rattray:
As Nancy LaGarenne pointed out so eloquently in her letter in the Nov. 6 issue of The Star, the revised plan for Ronald Webb’s proposed housing development at Middle and Oakview Highways that was presented at the Neighborhood House on Nov. 4 is a pathetic joke, a gross insult to the common sense and intelligence of every citizen of East Hampton.
Last spring hundreds of members of the Freetown community made it unmistakably clear (to Mr. Webb, to the town board, and to the planning board) that we were determined to prevent Mr. Webb’s first grandiose proposal from becoming a reality.
I won’t repeat our laundry list of objections here, except to mention that all of the problems would be the inevitable result of adding 57 “housing units” at this location. So Mr. Webb went back to the drawing board and now he offers his “new, improved” proposal, which calls for 60 “housing units,” three more than he originally proposed! Really, words fail me.
At the Nov. 4 presentation of Mr. Webb’s new proposal, much was made of the notion that the residents of the 60 “housing units” would surely use public transportation, the bus that goes down Oakview Highway. Despite this highly questionable claim, the new plan displayed at the presentation says, in large type, that 120 parking spaces are “required,” but that Mr. Webb now proposes 129 parking spaces. Obviously, he realizes that the legally required minimum of 120 spaces would not be enough. So much for that silliness about public transportation.
The members of the Freetown Neighborhood Advisory Committee are determined to preserve our community. We are united in our commitment to do whatever it takes to stop Mr. Webb’s monstrous plans.
Sincerely,
MICHAEL Di CAPUA
The Marriage Knot
Springs
November 13, 2008
Mr. Rattray:
I’m not so sure demonstrations against Mormon temples will be effective, but I certainly understand the anger directed toward those religious people who campaigned to overturn gay marriage in California through Proposition 8. It wasn’t just the Mormons; it was also African-American churches and white evangelicals. Bottom line: religious opposition to gay marriage.
Their cry is that gay marriage undermines marriage. Do they really think men and women will not marry one another because gay couples do? But then logic and reasoning are not part of the frenzy of opposition. If marriage is to be defended, and I certainly believe it is, how terrific that gay and lesbian couples want that along with their straight brothers and sisters. Marriage is broadened and strengthened, not diminished.
I’m sure in time we’ll get through the opposition and legal barriers — we have with civil rights and women’s rights. So too, with gay rights, but not to be complacent. At times it is necessary to stand at the barricades, whether literally or figuratively. Personal anecdote: Each time I have marched in a Gay Pride parade in New York I have seen St. Patrick’s Cathedral cordoned off by police. What do the religious authorities think, that the fairies are going to storm the gates? We’re having too much fun to do that. But in our celebration we are saying to the authorities, “We are here, and we’re not going away.”
Since marriage is essentially a civil contract with contractual rights, as a civil matter it should be extended and honored equally. Civil unions in place of marriage for gay couples are not equal, in the way “separate but equal” was never equal for African-Americans. If we are going to continue to call marriage marriage, then marriage as a civil contract should be equally open.
It’s the religious part that gets this tied up into knots. The marriage knot, I guess. One way through, which I know is not realistically going to happen, is for all religious leaders to be decommissioned from being civil agents that sign marriage licenses. All priests, ministers, rabbis, and any others claiming religious authority are empowered by the state to perform marriages. Clergy certify the validity of the marriage as a civil contract. We who are clergy in East Hampton Town file the license at the Town Hall. The marriage is thereby legal, a binding civil contract. Perhaps it would be helpful if clergy did not do that.
It might simplify matters if all marriages were made legal by civil authorities only. Then, if a couple chooses to have the blessing of a religious institution, that would be arranged. This is hardly a new idea. It’s the practice in most of Europe. The practice also upholds the separation of church and state. Ministers and other religious doing weddings as a civil contract blurs that distinction.
From my Christian perspective, marriage is a sacrament. We Presbyterians don’t call it that, but in religious terms marriage is a sacred commitment between two people in the sight of God. I believe in marriage and am happy to officiate at marriages and declare God’s blessing upon the couple. But I don’t have to do that representing the state.
I’m not going to hold my breath for that change to occur, to decommission clergy as agents of the state. In the meantime, we who believe in full equality for men and women, men and men, and women and women, in marriage, will need to work for that, just as we have worked to insure equality in every other arena of public life over the years.
REV. ROBERT STUART
Bloody Nonchalance
Sag Harbor
November 17, 2008
Dear David,
The third day after the killing of Marcelo Luchero, I searched on Google what information I might have missed in the New York newspapers. There were stories in over 2,800 newspapers, from news items to columns to editorials. By the fourth day there were quite a bit more from across the nation, from small-town to large, city papers. It had struck a deep chord, perhaps by the sheer matter-of-fact grotesques the alleged seven members of the gang of high school boys gave in statements to the police.
They had purposely gone out for “beaner jumping” a “Mexican,” underlining not just the savagery of their bloody nonchalance, but the sheer disconnect from their brutalized victim, reduced to an object, an absurd “beaner.” The boys were from Patchogue-Medford High School, towns with a large Hispanic population, predominately Ecuadorian. The story was astonishing, not just for the gravity of its lethality, but the incredulity that young men from middle class families had been out beaner jumping most Friday and Saturday nights — just how wanton and casual was the hate that evidently wasn’t even personal.
How this story from Suffolk County, which has struck a deep chord all across the nation, went unmentioned in nearby East Hampton newspapers, has been baffling to me. I know the quick answer is Patchogue is out of the coverage area of local papers, not directly involving people from the South Fork. But the seismic waves reaching out from this story in our backyard to the farthest reaches of our nation are not just because of its poignancy, the overwhelming sadness of the Luchero family and the Latino community, but the tragedy of how racism has so inflamed reason around the issue of immigration that our children soak it in with consequences of disbelieving, “A Clockwork Orange” violence. That it could have as easily happened here, few would doubt, just as in most anywhere, U.S.A.
Where this story directly connects and affects East Hampton directly, is what I believe propels this story after nearly two weeks. It is the nexus of rhetoric and political stances of elected officials and the vigilantism of the marginalized and the unstable, who feel they have been given social dispensation to inflict retribution and injury.
We in East Hampton, as in all of Suffolk, understand clearly that the hostility, resentment, and blame heaped upon Latinos by elected officials has supported racial profiling, which has been very costly for them. It has exacerbated not only the individual and familial stresses; it has exacted suspicion, fear, and distrust in all kinds of everyday settings. They know it from all the hate crimes, reported and unreported, that they personally know of, or have heard of, like this horrific assault in Patchogue.
Our own East Hampton representative in the Suffolk legislature, Jay Schneiderman, has continually disappointed, caving in to political grandstanding of our Democratic County Executive Steve Levy, whose anti-immigrant legislative proposals, rhetoric, and political posturing has brought him notoriety nationally. Of New York’s 63 counties, only Suffolk has put forward this fierce anti-immigrant agenda. On more than one occasion Jay has told me he knows full well the racist hysteria these proposals elicit, and that almost all his colleagues in the legislature personally despise these gimmicks, pandering to loud and angry extremists. They feel it would be politically disadvantageous to oppose Levy and feel forced to go along, but resent greatly his tawdry manipulations. Most of Jay’s votes, like Mr. Luchero’s murder, have gone unreported in The Star, as have most of the Legislature’s agenda since Karl Grossman’s discontinued column. I wish it were otherwise.
Thanks,
MICHAEL O’NEILL
Brother’s Keeper
New York City
November 13, 2008
Dear Editor:
I have been reading about and researching this tragedy for several days, and as an American citizen of non-Hispanic origins, I am deeply appalled. I stand in solidarity with my brothers and sisters from outside the borders of the United States, after all, we are all Americans, whether South, Central, or North. When will these supposed “Christians,” who have raised these children, realize that we are “all one, under God, indivisible.” When will they realize that we are “our brother’s keepers.” When will they realize that “but for the grace of God, there goes I.”
I am not even a so-called religious person, but I surely understand the meaning that is fundamental to all religions, to be a compassionate human where love, not fear, is the guiding force.
Intolerance, fear, scapegoating, reducing people to what we don’t know about them as opposed to what we do know. Them versus us. It’s never ending, as we witnessed in the recent presidential election, when Sarah Palin upped the ante on carefully scripted (Steve Levy, Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Tancredo, the list is filled to the brim) inflammatory speeches that invited instant hateful reactions from large crowds that felt like mobs during those moments.
While a lot of the country and most of the world has experienced a moment of euphoria after the victory of president-Elect Barack Obama, the demons of xenophobia, nativism, and racial hatred are rearing their ugly heads. I am not surprised that it happened in a New York minute.
It happened in the other suburbs of New York as well. A young black student was brutally beaten by a military thug because he was excited about the election of Mr. Obama. I’m sure there have been many such incidents since Nov. 4.
But I don’t expect those non-Hispanics amongst us to take action, who stand for tolerance and unity, who understand the plight of immigrants who have come to this country without documentation simply because for them there was and is no line to stand in, who are economic refugees. I don’t expect that most of us will have the courage or take the time to rally around these vulnerable people who chose between starving or filling undesirable jobs, willing to accept poor conditions and wages that no one born in this country in their right mind would want no matter how bad things get, not when we have the right to unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other government assistance.
But those that spew hatred truly believe that an undocumented (call them illegal if you must) immigrant is entitled to those benefits. When will someone explain to them that nothing is further from the truth. They can not get free anything, with the exception of emergency room services, which no one can be denied. Then they are billed and many do what they can to pay. Perhaps the employers are to blame for that.
Perhaps the employers are to be blamed for a lot. Including contributing to the “push-pull” economy that benefits all of us. Teach your children that, Long Islanders. Research the cause and effect of illegal immigration. They didn’t just show up in your backyard because they thought being a nuisance to your sequestered bedroom communities would be good for their health.
If you are so appalled by the sight of brown-skinned people dominating your once-bleached, blissful landscapes, stop buying the products that they produce or start washing your own dishes after going to the restaurants where they do your dirty work.
As everyone moans and groans while prices for food and services consistently and steadily rise because of current economic conditions, be prepared for how much more they would rise if all those “Mexicans” that your children want to “f” up, suddenly disappeared, and those Americans that you insist would take those jobs did so at exponentially higher salaries with benefits, just imagine how much more you’ll be paying for that lettuce, those tomatoes, that red wine, and those home renovations.
I hope that others like me will stand up and be counted for. There is no time to lose to do what all good religions preach, to be our brother’s keepers.
ENID FARBER
Over the Top
East Hampton
November 16, 2008
Dear David:
Poor Steve Levy is upset because he is taking some heat over the incredible hate crime murder of an innocent Latino man. He has earned the heat. He pushed anti-immigrant legislation and policies and even confided in friends that every time The New York Times called him a racist he went up a point in the polls.
He has done nothing to calm the anger he played a major role in supporting. Even leaders in the county Democratic Party felt his anti-immigrant stance was over the top, but they did and have continued to say nothing.
Mr. Levy was elected with the help of the Democrats, but now he is his own party, feeling invulnerable after his last election. He has given top jobs to Republicans even though there were qualified Democrats. He even went so far as to force the party to give a Supreme Court judgeship, designated for a Democrat, to a Republican who just happened to be the son of his mother’s good friend when there were active Democrats who were at least if not more qualified.
Once again, the county leadership, probably afraid of losing more jobs, said nothing. My only hope is that when Mr. Levy tries to run again for anything, the party that put him in office will no longer support him.
While I am on the subject of saying nothing, Bill Taylor’s letter last week was much too little and way too late. If the Democratic Party in East Hampton is to have any future, it needs to recreate itself from the bottom up and find new, creative, and effective leadership.
STEPHEN GROSSMAN