Marsden Street, once a sleepy side road in the village of Sag Harbor, seems to be on everyone’s radar these days.
On Friday, a group of neighbors of the proposed athletic field filed a lawsuit against the Sag Harbor School District, alleging it failed to adequately complete a state-mandated environmental review. Nevertheless, on Tuesday, the Southampton Town Board scheduled a public hearing for Feb. 28 at 6 p.m. on the use of $6 million from the community preservation fund to purchase the development rights on four lots to create a sports field for school and community use.
“Bring your jammies,” Councilwoman Cyndi McNamara commented.
If the town agrees to purchase the lots, and the school district passes a capital improvement bond, which it hopes to do in conjunction with its annual budget vote on May 16, the district would be able to turn what Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni called a “de facto sump” into a community resource.
Jeff Nichols, Sag Harbor’s superintendent, called in to the public comment portion of the meeting. “We want the bond vote on a normal budget vote day because the turnout is greater and the community participation is greater,” he said.
To do that, the district needs to begin alerting the public to the bond vote by March 20.
Mr. Nichols agreed to separate the capital improvement bond into two parts: one for improvements to Mashashimuet Park, the other for the four Marsden properties for which town preservation money is on the table.
To have the public hearing scheduled, the school also responded to a Jan. 21 letter from Jacqueline Fenlon, acting director of the community preservation fund, that outlined 12 conditions the town wanted met before moving forward.
Mr. Nichols told the board that one condition, the creation of a stormwater management plan, was being developed in concert with Sag Harbor Village engineers and would take more time. “It’s important for everyone to know we’re going to do this in a thoughtful way that benefits the entire village,” he said.
Since the plan won’t be ready before the Feb. 28 hearing, Mr. Nichols suggested the town mandate that “the stormwater management plan receive approval from the town engineer” before spending the money. He also agreed to have the school’s engineer and architect available for the public hearing.
Also in its response to Ms. Fenlon, Mr. Nichols explained the district is in contract on a fifth Marsden Street lot, which it wants to make into a parking lot containing 70 spaces. As part of the public-access agreement between the school and the town, it would be open to the community on weekends and holidays and in the summer.
While the school attempts to satisfy the conditions of the town to get the capital improvement bond together in time, they also have to fight off the new lawsuit.
The lawyer who filed the petition, Lauren Friedman, of the New York City Law firm King and Spalding, is a neighbor of the Marsden lots in question whose property shares a boundary with the proposed fields.
Howard Collinge, acting as a sort of communications director on the effort, announced the lawsuit to the media on Friday. However, Mr. Nichols said he received the paperwork only on Monday.
In October, Ms. Friedman filed an appeal with the state commissioner of education on behalf of Peter Gethers, which sought to stay the result of the school district’s Nov. 3 vote that allowed it to access $2.325 million in reserve money for its part of the Marsden deal. The commissioner, Betty Rosa, denied the request.
In that vote, 1,159 votes were cast by district residents; 55 percent wanted the school to purchase the land in partnership with Southampton Town. Many believe that if the land is not purchased this way, it will be developed into five more large houses like the ones that have recently gone up on Grand Street, one block away.
Mr. Nichols and Sandi Kruel, the school board president, declined to comment on the new legal challenge.
“We’re going to incur much higher legal bills because of this claim,” said Jennifer Buscemi, the school business administrator. Documents obtained via Freedom of Information request indicated that the school pays $240 hourly for legal services.
Raymond Pepi, Dr. John Oppenheimer, and Leah Oppenheimer are listed as plaintiffs on the petition. Mr. Pepi’s wife, Karen Arrigoni, is an architect whose contact information was attached to the press release put out by Mr. Collinge.
In an email to The Star, Ms. Arrigoni said that there were many issues that “should negate the validity” of the school’s environmental reporting. Alleged noncompliance with the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) law is the crux of the lawsuit.
It claims the school district didn’t undertake the proper environmental review of the parcel when it issued a “negative declaration,” meaning that a full environmental impact statement wasn’t required, and that the project won’t have adverse impacts on the community.
The State Education Department will ultimately be responsible for granting a building permit to the school to build the fields, but since the land hasn’t been purchased yet, it had not reviewed details of the school’s plans.
“We’re not the SEQR police,” said Sara Madison, an architect and coordinator in the State Education Department’s office of facilities planning, “and so we don’t analyze their environmental reports. . . . They’re open to liability if they don’t do the process properly.”
In her filing, Ms. Friedman asked the court to find the school didn’t comply with the SEQRA law; to direct the school to prepare a full environmental impact statement, and to order the school to stop the process of purchasing the land and building the fields until it redoes the environmental review. And once again, as Ms. Friedman requested with her October appeal, she wants the outcome of the Nov. 3 referendum invalidated.
“Our action is not against the eventual development of the property,” Leah Oppenheimer said in Mr. Collinge’s press release, “but it is to assure that this beautiful acreage, which is home to so many plants and animals, and one of the last open spaces in the village, receives appropriate evaluation of its suitability for an athletic facility or other high-impact developments.”