A plan to relocate two Little League playing fields to make room for Stony Brook Southampton Hospital's planned annex in East Hampton has at least one persistent critic, and last Thursday Charlie Whitmore delivered a withering assessment of that plan to the town board.
Mr. Whitmore has addressed the board several times since reading an article in October about a recommendation that the fields be moved from their Pantigo Place location to the grounds of the former Child Development Center of the Hamptons on Stephen Hand's Path. The new facility proposed at 400 Pantigo Place is intended to serve people living east of Southampton Village.
"The fields are an irreplaceable component of the town's scarce recreational infrastructure," he said, "strategically located near the majority of the town's nearly 4,000 local children." The spring months coinciding with the Little League season "are the worst months for traffic on Stephen Hand's Path and the connecting arteries. They are choked with contractors and workers headed out of town at the end of the day."
Forcing parents to drive Little League players from Amagansett, Springs, and East Hampton north, he said, "will be a serious impediment to Little League participation for generations to come. This alone makes Stephen Hand's Path an inferior site."
The fields' present location is ideal, Mr. Whitmore said, but if they must be relocated, "the town has hundreds of acres" at its disposal. "To even begin to suggest that [the town] cannot find five well-placed acres on which to relocate the cherished ball fields would be comical were it not for the fact that an equitable new home for these fields is critically important to our town's children."
The relocation committee's recommendation is "a half-baked, ad hoc proposal formulated solely to get rid of the ball fields," Mr. Whitmore said. "Hard to believe in a town so demanding of proper planning."
The committee had considered town-owned properties, undeveloped properties, sites larger than seven acres, and sites purchased with community preservation fund money for recreation purposes, as well as existing infrastructure, accessibility for Little League families, and proximity to neighbors.
The ball fields' "one-way ticket to the outskirts of town" is shameful, Mr. Whitmore said.
Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc responded that Pantigo Road, which abuts the fields' present location, is the most heavily trafficked road in the town. "In terms of recreation, the Stephen Hand's site was actually selected through a community-based committee, and that work began under the previous supervisor. This is not something that's being ramrodded through. . . . We did a very comprehensive look at all potential parcels and this was the selection that was made."
Mr. Whitmore has been invited to participate in the site's development, he said. "By the way, Little League itself was involved with the siting and the search for a ball field, and I think that the public has supported the need for a community health care facility here in town."
Stony Brook Southampton Hospital plans a move to the former Southampton College campus, farther from East Hampton than its present site, Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said. "That puts all of us at risk the farther east we live. . . . We are talking about people's lives here, when we talk about having Stony Brook Hospital build an emergency site here, close to us." Children will not be left out of the planning, she said.
Also at the meeting and in response to a caller, Mr. Van Scoyoc said that resuming in-person meetings at Town Hall would be taken "one little step at a time." Some municipalities have begun "hybrid" meetings, he said, with a limited number of people on site -- wearing face coverings and observing social distancing -- while also taking calls from the public.
The daily Covid-19 infection rates remain low, the supervisor said. "We will continue to monitor that, and take very much baby steps moving back."
