Playhouse Concept Montauk January 12, 2015 Dear Editor, Thank you for your coverage of the Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation’s presentation at last week’s Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee meeting and thank you to the Montauk C.A.C. for inviting us. The foundation has spent the past months working with consultants and many throughout Montauk to develop a concept for the unfinished space at the playhouse that offers the facilities and programs needed and wanted by the community and that is — most importantly — sustainable. The updated concept has been well received. As the new plans continue to be honed, community input is welcomed, and we are happy to answer any questions or concerns that arise. We invite all community members who wish to discuss the new plan to visit our office at the playhouse or to contact us at 668-1124 or [email protected]. While we continue to further develop the new playhouse concept, we’re moving full steam ahead on our fund-raising efforts, and we’re putting together an exciting event calendar for 2015. Thank you again for your continued coverage of the playhouse project. We are very excited about the forward movement, and are so thankful to the community for its continued support for completing the Montauk Playhouse Community Center. Sincerely, MAUREEN RUTKOWSKI Project director Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation A Bit of the South Atlanta January 8, 2015 Dear Editor, I am a Southerner who has fallen in love with East Hampton, especially the potato fields, the stands of fresh vegetables and sunflowers, the windmills, and the swans. I have been coming north since my friend Sylvia Overby and her family moved from Atlanta to Amagansett. Now I have brought a bit of the South to your village, for both of my young adult novels, for ages 9 to 15, “Pip” and “Warrior’s Song,” are at the BookHampton bookstore. “Pip” is set in 1838 in the state of Tennessee during the Trail of Tears, when the Cherokees were “removed” from Georgia and sent west to Oklahoma. “Warrior’s Song” takes the reader into Sherman’s march through Georgia, beginning in November 1864 and ending in Washington, D.C., at the end of the Civil War. Both books have animals as integral parts of the story; “Pip,” a dog, “Warrior’s Song,” a horse. It’s my way of saying thank you for the lovely days spent in East Hampton and for making a Southerner feel welcome. JANE PRICE HARMON Legion’s Service East Hampton January 12, 2015 Dear Mr. Rattray, We, the clients, volunteers, staff, and board of directors of East Hampton Meals on Wheels, do heartily thank American Legion Post 419 in Amagansett for the wonderful holiday dinners that it created and prepared for our community on Christmas Day. The legion’s generosity has added joy to the season for our homebound neighbors, who otherwise would not have been able to enjoy a delicious, hot holiday meal. Since many of these folks live alone, the dinner and gifts were especially meaningful. Indeed, we have received several calls expressing delight and gratitude from the recipients. Once again, we praise the legion members for their diligence in time and effort necessary to expedite such a magnificent expression of love and fellowship within our community. We wish all who live in East Hampton Town to recognize the legion’s service to its neighbors. Very truly yours, EDWARD D. McLAUGHLIN President East Hampton Meals on Wheels On Harbor Housing Sag Harbor January 7, 2015 To the Editor: In the editorial “From 13 to None on Harbor Housing,” The Star renews its criticism of Sag Harbor Village’s 2008 decision allowing the developer of Watchcase condominiums to avoid providing affordable on-site housing. This volley is based on one early outcome: the purchase of the Cottages on Route 114 by the Sag Harbor Community Housing Trust, the beneficiary of funds paid by the developer. It concludes with lessons learned and admonishes local governments to not be soft with developers. Those judgments are not supported by the facts, past or present, certainly not with the imperious certainty the editorial suggests. I advocated for on-site housing at Watchcase, in print and before the Sag Harbor Village Board. The assumption was we could get both — both the restoration of a historic, iconic, decrepit, toxic, and long-vacant building, and affordable housing. Others, those village officials unenviably involved in the approval process, probably didn’t see things as a both/and proposition but as either/or. For them, insistence on on-site housing wittingly jeopardized the loss of the project and would be cause for further building demise. Would one think it wise today to have received neither housing nor restoration in the name of a cause? Those who only look from without can afford to remain sanctimonious. The assertion that the Sag Harbor community received nothing from the agreement is a regrettable, tired narrative. It reveals a disdain for more cautionary outcomes between idealistic and realistic community tendencies. The county’s affordable housing requirement allows for inclusionary zoning fees, set forth by New York General Municipal Law, to be paid by the developer in lieu of on-site housing. Small municipalities get flexibility to meet the spirit, if not the letter of the law, as circumstances allow. In the case of Sag Harbor, a village within two towns, unable to afford a housing department and not the direct beneficiary of housing initiatives from either Southampton or East Hampton Town, the funds seed the future in a different way. A new entity works to build its mission, values, and message necessary to sustain a more diverse approach so this community will not simply expect or wait for the next developer to provide for the village in ways the village has not for itself. The community housing trust purchase of the Cottages is an initial step, not a final outcome. That said, our area has seen both the conversion and loss of such properties and multifamily homes to developers intent on attracting well-heeled tenants and buyers. Such were the plans for the Cottages last summer and after a developer’s purchase fell though, the trust saw a particular opportunity. Its nine certificates of occupancy make it a suitable but rare starting point and in close proximity to the village and served by public transportation. A community defines itself in ways that don’t comport to political or school district boundaries; the needs of affordable housing blur those artificial lines as well. Despite the recent misplaced objections of a Wainscott School official, the operation of the Cottages by the housing trust causes no change in student population. And while The Star demands communities address affordability, this Wainscott official proclaims no need. It is no wonder the will to provide affordable housing is hard to create. Although one welcomes the watchful eye of The Star, to judge the merits of the 2008 agreement based upon its numerical calculation is simplistic and premature. The agreement between village and developer brought forth a revived but changed Watchcase, a coordinated beginning of affordable housing in our community, and a new housing organization unconcerned about what could have been. ROB CALVERT Member Sag Harbor Community Housing Trust Deepening Disparities Springs January 12, 2015 Dear David, Thank you for your thoughtful editorial (“Spread Responsibility Through Consolidation”) in last week’s Star. East Hampton is a small community, and townwide school consolidation is the most sensible solution to the deepening disparities among our school districts. Any steps toward consolidation will require commitment and guidance from the state. And, without the same commitment and guidance from our town board, it will be a perilous and probably doomed undertaking. You succinctly stated the importance of consolidation in your closing paragraph: “Providing a good public education in adequate surroundings is an obligation that we all share as Americans. The cost of seeing that we live up to that obligation must similarly be a collective responsibility in as equitable a way as possible.” Our elected officials need to convince the majority of the voting public that school consolidation will indeed be a winning solution for all in the community. Also in your editorial, you mentioned the inexplicable refusal on the part of our town board to conduct a townwide property reassessment. Every year, the many people who own under-assessed properties get a discount on their taxes at the expense of other homeowners. The most dramatic examples of under-assessment are in high value homes that are located south of the highway or on water frontage. Yet the members of our town board, with exception of Fred Overton, do not want to conduct a town-wide property reassessment. Our elected officials need to provide leadership on these divisive issues. Instead, as in the case of the affordable housing proposal in Wainscott, they become very, very quiet. I hope that in the new year, all five town board members will add their own voices and opinions to discussions on these issues. Sincerely, PAMELA BICKET Wainscott Housing Wainscott January 7, 2015 Dear Editor, I am writing to express my opinions regarding the ongoing controversy of the building of an affordable housing complex in Wainscott and its impact on the community and the Wainscott School system. A few months back I was shocked, and then angered and saddened, by a letter that I received from the Wainscott School Board bashing the plans for the affordable housing and its effect on the community. First, the letter from the school board said it spoke in the name of all Wainscott residents. This is simply not true. I and many others were never asked or consulted. It angers me to have my name attached to something with which I profoundly disagree. The organization in charge of this housing plan, Windmill Housing Development Fund, has a proven track record of building well-maintained housing complexes in the area. It is run by a devoted group of local residents who are moved to help their community. What saddened me was the school board’s arrogant dismissal of a well-thought-out attempt to better our community. Firefighters, teachers, gardeners, secretaries, bank tellers — these are the people who can no longer find affordable housing in the area where they work. More and more young people born and raised in the area, and desirous of staying here, are forced to move away because of the cost of housing. The school board argues that the additional children would destroy both the current perfection of the Wainscott School as well as the bucolic nature of the area (which I believe was lost many years ago when the first 10,000-square-foot house was built). In addition, the board argues that taxes would increase dramatically. Certainly taxes would go up. However, it is important to know that right now, while the school tax rate per thousand is $930.20 in Springs, $721.12 in Sag Harbor, and $498.01 in East Hampton, in Wainscott it is a mere $176.35. Nobody likes tax increases, but I would far prefer an increase to educate our local children than one that goes to unnecessary wars or to subsidizing jetties built to benefit private individuals to the detriment of the surrounding areas. The Windmill Housing Development Fund has both a tax analysis from East Hampton as well as one from the L.I. Housing Partnership done by a trained economist, directly analyzing the impact of school–age children on school district finances. Meanwhile, the documentation from the school board consists of a single page highlighting a “best case scenario” and a “more realistic scenario,” with absolutely no documentation for the dire conclusions it reaches. The view of the school board is narrow-minded, shortsighted, and simply mean. This is our community. If we are not to educate our children, who should? Do we really want to live in a community with the second-highest poverty rate on Long Island, amidst all the splendor of the many second homes, and refuse to help educate and house those with less? Sadly, the school board’s approach seems to reflect the attitude that has spread throughout the United States: I will take care of my own, and the rest be damned. This is the antithesis of what a society should be. And we should be ashamed to have that run our community. Sincerely, KATARINA MESAROVICH One School District Amagansett January 6, 2015 Dear David, During a committed holiday season I relinquished the pen for the pot. My focus was on not poisoning my guests and eating meals out. Now that, to my chagrin, what was on my neck appears to be on my hip, I return to musing, and, the gym! Why isn’t East Hampton Town one school district? Why should some hamlets bear a huge school tax burden and others hardly any? Why do we have so many redundant, excessively paid school officials? One or two excessively paid officials would suffice. We are committed to educate the children who show up at the public school door. It is our investment in the future good — not a burden, but it should be fairly levied. Don’t you think? All good things, DIANA WALKER Lit All Night Long Springs January 11, 2015 Dear David, Thank you for pointing out the sheer wastefulness and resulting pollution of lighting up foliage in the dead of night here on the East End. As well, people may not realize that it is quite harmful to deciduous trees to light them up all night long. The Journal of Arboriculture studied dieback of sycamores when lit all night long, because trees do not go into dormancy in time to avoid freeze. Also, birds will not nest in lit trees. Crows and pigeons are more prevalent in lit areas because they avoid predation from birds of prey, which hunt in the dark. As to Main Street becoming a ghost town, this is nonsense. First of all, the streets, sidewalks, and the facades of all the buildings along Main Street and Newtown Lane are entirely lit up all night long by the streetlights. I observed at 7 p.m. last Saturday night, with exception of the open restaurants, only a few stores with all their interior lighting on, and these are the multinational commercial enterprises that are new to our town. Most of the stores shut off their interior lighting when closed to the public. When not routinely lit, it is more likely that the police will investigate if they see lights on when the business is closed. And remember, when we are driving and looking at store windows, our eyes (and attention) are diverted from the roadway, causing a major driver and pedestrian safety hazard. The amendments proposed by the East Hampton Village Design Review Board are sensible and should be enacted by the village trustees without succumbing to tactics intended to derail sensible regulations. The hearing is tomorrow at 11 a.m. at the firehouse on Cedar Street. SUSAN HARDER Dark Sky Association The Montauk Beach Springs January 10, 2015 Dear David, Joanne Pilgrim’s Jan. 8 article on the Army Corps plan is both encouraging and alarming. Suffolk County Legislator Al Krupski is a one-man army who seems to have a much better grasp on the man-made beach erosion problem in Montauk than Jay Schneiderman does. Jay says the proposed geo bag structure is an emergency measure and the maintenance estimate of $150,000 per year is realistic “as long as the project is designed right.” The coastal expert geologist Robert Young, Ph.D., has gone on record saying “the project design is flawed” and “it will likely result in significant degradation of the public beach while providing little protection for property.” The project is “ill-conceived,” and “above all, the town will be setting a terrible example for future coastal management.” Jay shows confidence in the Army Corps. Property owners in Culloden may remember the Army Corps giving them assurance that the Montauk Harbor jetty extension would have no negative effects on the Culloden shoreline. The downdrift damage from that project continues to cost property owners, in loss of property and an ongoing battle against man-made erosion, untold millions of dollars — and leaving no shoreline at all, just a battered half-mile-long mess of bulkheads. If I were a business owner who counted on revenue from beach traffic in Montauk, I would ask both Mr. Schneiderman and our town board who will be responsible for getting the designers of this project to clean up the mess and foot the astronomical bill if, or when, this project fails like the one in Culloden did. Respectfully, EUGENE ALPER Reverse the Decision Amagansett January 11, 2015 To the Editor: I was quite taken aback to hear that the town board has decided to allow weekend hunting on town-owned land during the firearms season. For several reasons, this decision is extremely ill-advised. First, the decision was made without a public hearing. Since town-owned land belongs to all of us, the residents of East Hampton should have had a say on this important issue, plus it would seem that the town board members would want to know what their constituents think. Second, weekend hunting, with the possibility of serious and fatal accidents, keeps East Hampton residents from walking in the woods and enjoying our beautiful surroundings on the days when they have the time to do so. And third, but certainly not least, too many deer will be killed on weekdays during the hunting season; enough damage will be done as is. With weekend hunting in effect, the death toll will rise and many more innocent animals will lose their lives. It is my understanding that a new state law, signed by Governor Cuomo last August, allows weekend hunting as an option in Suffolk County but leaves the final decision to various government agencies — and that in December the Department of Environmental Conservation, responding to objections from the public, banned weekend deer hunting on state-owned land in our area. I understand also that the town board was set to follow the D.E.C.’s lead but that due, possibly, to a misreading of the D.E.C.’s decision on the D.E.C.’s website, the town board members changed their minds. If indeed there was a misreading, it should and can be corrected. The hunting season is in progress. Time is of the essence. I urge the town board to reverse its decision immediately. Sincerely yours, SHARI THOMPSON Hunters Beware Northwest Woods January 12, 2015 To the Editor: As the Village Preservation Society donated funds to experiment on the deer in the Village of East Hampton, I realize that the Village of East Hampton and the Department of Environmental Conservation have not warned any of the local hunters about what this will mean to their food supply. The medications that have been administered to these wild animals during this experiment are not safe to use on food animals. According to the Food and Drug Administration, the medications used during the surgeries to sterilize the deer are listed for non-food-producing animals, which include the deer that are harvested for food throughout our community. The D.E.C. also does not recommend that these animals be consumed. The only safeguard that has been put in place is a small ear tag on each sterilized animal, which could eventually fall off. If this happens, anyone hunting in the surrounding areas of this experiment could harvest a tainted animal without realizing it. Hunters beware. Limit your hunting to a three to five-mile radius away from the experiment sites. As this information about where these animals were placed after the surgeries has not been made available to us, I strongly recommend finding out where they were placed before hunting in or near the Village of East Hampton. Sincerely, ILISSA MEYER General Manager Equine Sport Science L.L.C. Needless Killing East Hampton January 7, 2015 Dear Sirs: I write to express my distinct displeasure at the allowing of hunting in East Hampton. I find the needless killing of sentient creatures distasteful as well as cruel. Sincerely, MARYANN ELLISON The Big Truck Springs January 12, 2015 To the Editor, “A Cinderella Story,” or why the big truck doesn’t fit . . . They all came to the ball in their best and had the town board’s blessings. They were sure they could stuff their big trucks, landscape and various contracting equipment, and related businesses into residential neighborhoods with small single-family residential lots. It’s a shame that so much toil and many hours of aggravation and preparation have gone into what will never be a royal marriage. Where is Cinderella (fella)? Who will come forth with the magic solution? Where in our kingdom are those commercial-industrial-business-zoned lots that will provide a fit? Time is wasting and the wedding cannot take place until this happens. Oversized commercial vehicles will not fit. BERNARD GOLDHIRSH Banning Things East Hampton January 8, 2015 To the Editor Enough of banning this and banning that! I love plastic bags, containers, plates! You cannot regulate bad behavior. If you see one flying around, pick it up and dispose of it! It is by setting an example that you change the world — not by banning things! PATRICIA HABR What’s Happening? East Hampton January 11, 2015 Dear David, More and more I’m hearing a familiar question being asked. It’s that universal question that eventually catches up to every growing location: What’s happening to this town? We all know the answers, but rather than move on to resolve, we keep asking the question year after year. For two years I’ve been telling the town board we need bigger trash receptacles at all the public beaches during the summer. Not a “trial one,” and certainly not more unaccommodating small ones, but one accommodating large one. I’ve showed them dozens of photographs, produced a film, organized large-scale cleanups that resulted in the removal of over a ton of local trash, spoken at multiple public meetings, begged, pleaded, and screamed for their understanding about something that couldn’t be more obvious. Say you have 100 basketballs. You have two choices of where to put them. First choice is 10 containers that each hold 10 balls, or one container that holds 100 balls. Oh, and the 10 containers only have openings big enough to accept baseballs. Which would you choose? There is no difference in this example to the summer trash issue at the beach. Even more ridiculous than not getting this after two years of solid evidence is the town board’s resounding reply of a larger receptacle (Dumpster) being “ugly.” As if what I’ve been showing them, and what continues to exist and increase, isn’t ugly enough. Meanwhile, I keep reminding everyone that our visiting guests and seasonal residents will absolutely treat our town the way they see us treating it. If our beaches, parks, and streets are trashed, they too will trash it. If we don’t respect our town, then don’t expect others to respect it. This past Saturday I went to support and get a photo of Bill Crain of the East Hampton Group for Wildlife, his wife, and friends, who met at Town Hall in protest to the new weekend hunting laws that are affecting hikers, nature, wildlife enthusiasts, and dog walkers. It was a small, peaceful start of a demonstration. One young lady was showing her two young girls how to properly hold their signs when a black truck came to a slow crawl along the shoulder, almost coming to a stop. With horn blasting, the driver reached across his passenger’s lap to extend his middle finger for all of us to see, then verbally explained his gesture loudly for those who didn’t read sign language, then quickly drove off. A perfect example of what’s happening to this town. Bravo to Bill Crain and his group for putting up with this uneducated and improper behavior time and time again while simply trying to protect life, and the lives of wildlife that cannot protect itself from human progress and the environmental decay that inevitably follows. The guy in the truck was a perfect example of someone who contributes nothing, and with a gun in the woods would be a danger to both hikers and hunters. What’s happening to this town? The year-round residents are no longer first priority. That’s reserved for the summer residents and guests. Certain people get special treatment, therefore there are different rules for different people. We have laws posted at our beaches that are no longer in effect, present postings of existing laws that aren’t enforced, stop signs now mean yield, and speed limits are ignored. Instead of finding ways to live with wildlife we choose to kill them in the name of “the only solution.” Last month a local woman of little intelligence fed the ducks at the East Hampton Village Nature Trail her leftover pancakes, because a few days earlier I called her out for feeding them her oatmeal. Last week I watched a gentleman pull over on Main Street in the village, take a bag of trash out of his car trunk, and set it next to a public trash can, then drive away, in the middle of the day. This past Saturday Town Pond was trashed with litter and a light vandalized by skaters who were the last to leave. Even the town board weakened the very design of democracy by taking land bought with taxpayers’ money for preservation and allowing hunters to use it on extended weekend hunting days without taking a public vote, while still trying to convince themselves and me that they can fit 100 basketballs in a can made for 10 baseballs. What’s happening to this town? I’m sad to say, it’s already happened. It has and will continue to survive, thrive, and rely on blind eyes and silent mouths. I won’t be one of them. I ask that you won’t either. A change is necessary now, but it will require a community who wants it. Save it now or lose it forever. Visit www.EastHamptonAction.com or watch “Trash Talk” in East Hampton on LTV Channel 20 for more on how to make the change. Thank you. DELL CULLUM Better Off Without Wainscott January 12, 2015 Dear David: On behalf of the fish and the birds, I would like to thank the East Hampton Town Board for enacting a ban on plastic shopping bags, despite the threats by the National Plastic Bag Alliance, or whatever the purveyors of such wastefulness call themselves. A ban on helicopters would be even more popular (with people, as well as fish and birds) on the East End, as helicopters are far more invasive than plastic bags. As for the threat of a lawsuit by helicopter operators, please. Surely we have the rights and resources to defend ourselves from such nonsense. The town board is pledged to protect us and needs to do it. It is beyond obvious that this community is much better off without helicopters overhead — ever. No one should be asked to do anything more to demonstrate the obvious. BARRY RAEBECK Penta-Laced Poles East Hampton January 11, 2015 To the Editor, As we begin the new year, Save East Hampton, a grassroots community action group made up of over 2,500 East Hampton supporters, remains resolute in its ongoing efforts to compel PSEG-LI to remove the over 260 penta-laced poles carrying 33,000 volts of electricity towering within the fall zone of homes, businesses, and the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street. While we have been met with indifference by many East Hampton residents who do not live along the route, others whose main concern is why should they pay for burying the lines that don’t directly affect them, and Governor Cuomo, who states that our village and town officials approved the poles and the route so it’s not his problem, the reality of the situation is that these 33,000-volt transmission lines and the danger they bring with them do affect everyone living in the Town of East Hampton. If the main transmission line that runs along the railroad, supported by stanchions that are over 60 years old, fails, then this “redundant” transmission line will be the sole supplier of electricity to the residents and businesses in Northwest, Springs, the village, Amagansett, and lastly Montauk. So with that in mind, we do need these “redundant” transmission lines. What we don’t need are these 60-foot poles carrying 33,000 volts of electricity towering over anyone’s home or business. What we need is East Hampton Town and Village governments to bring suit against PSEG-LI, LIPA, and Governor Cuomo (who, for those of you who don’t know, hand-picked PSEG to manage Long Island’s electricity future), and force them to bury these lines and reconsider the route that runs down Route 114 and Montauk Highway, a route that contains an underground electricity trench that has provided uninterrupted power since 1903. This route is over two miles shorter and will save ratepayers millions of dollars in future maintenance expenses, including the much maligned tree-trimming services that have mangled or have completely removed trees that are over 100 years old. In a recent letter penned by State Assemblyman Fred Thiele, one year after the LIPA reform act was passed, he makes many points about the PSEG-LI operations on Long Island. The ongoing rate increases, increased LIPA debt, the reduced plan to increase sources of renewable energy, PSEG-LI’s consumer satisfaction level (the lowest in the nation), and the refusal to apply the same policy that had been established by LIPA for the burial of transmission lines in Southampton. We need our town and village officials to join with Assemblyman Thiele and State Senator LaValle and stand up to Governor Cuomo, LIPA, and PSEG-LI, and get this done before someone is injured when one of these 33,000-volt power lines comes crashing down during the next northeaster, hurricane, or motor vehicle accident. RICHARD JANIS Make Some Noise East Hampton January 8, 2015 Dear David: Long Island Businesses for Responsible Energy, a local nonprofit citizens group that is in the midst of a lawsuit fighting PSEG and LIPA to remove the poles, clean up the contaminated soil and water, and go underground with the power lines, is asking for everyone to make some noise to let our officials know that we’ve had enough. A recent report given to East Hampton Village and East Hampton Town has determined that although pentachlorophenol was not found in East Hampton groundwater, it was again detected in the soil. Five other suspected carcinogenic chemicals, however, which are components of the penta formulation used to treat the poles, were detected in East Hampton’s groundwater at concentrations up to 48 times higher than State Department of Environmental Conservation standards. If we all join together and make some noise, we can right this wrong. It’s time our officials take an aggressive stand. We don’t just want the contaminated soil removed, because with each wet event the leaching will continue, and the soil will again become contaminated. The contaminated poles need to be pulled and the wires need to be placed underground. LIBFRE’s suggestions: Write letters to the editor of local newspapers, The East Hampton Star and The East Hampton Press, and to Long Island’s Newsday. Contact Supervisor Larry Cantwell, Mayor Paul Rickenbach, East Hampton Village Administrator Rebecca Molinaro, State Assemblyman Fred Thiele, State Senator Ken LaValle, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, demanding action. They should be following the toxic spill cleanup rules that already exist. Support Fred Thiele and Ken LaValle’s resolution to ban penta in New York State. And finally, demand that Governor Cuomo deal with these issues, which he has refused to do since last February. Remember, Cuomo put PSEG in power. Speak about it to your neighbors. Share the information. Get people to understand how serious this is. Have people financially support us, if they can, with any amount of money they can afford for our legal fees and expert witness fees, sent to LIBFRE, 26 Gingerbread Lane, East Hampton 11937. It’s time for everyone to make some noise and express their anger and frustration. A toxin that will be banned next year for the world should not be excused as okay by PSEG representatives who say it is having the results we expect it to have. These contaminated poles are toxic and carcinogenic. Why should they be sitting 25 feet from our children’s bedrooms? Life is a gift to be treasured, so take a few minutes and make that noise! Sincerely, HELENE FORST Chairwoman LIBFRE Ignorant of Hitler East Quogue January 12, 2015 Dear David, I am so tired of idiots claiming Obama is another Hitler. It only illustrates how ignorant of Hitler they truly are. They know nothing of Hitler except he had a moustache. They do not understand National Socialist ideology, nor do they understand that Fascism is a state of mind — many of theirs, actually — before it is a fact. How many of you “Obama is Hitler” people ever read “Mein Kampf”? How about William Shirer’s “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” Allan Bullock’s “A Study in Tyranny,” Albert Speer’s “Inside The Third Reich,” or Winston Churchill’s six-volume “History of the Second World War”? Do you know what years it was fought and between whom? Can you find Germany on a world map? How about just Europe? I am reminded of the young man who told me we did 9/11 to ourselves, swearing that I had blinders on. After about 20 minutes of suffering his foolishness, including his refusing to examine an 18-page bibliography I’ve compiled on the subject, I pulled an unlabeled map of the world out of my wallet and asked him to point to where he lives. He pointed to China! The word “idiot” is rooted in the Greek term idiota. It described persons so caught up in their own personal lives they had no idea of what was going on of importance around them. I know it is part of the human condition; I just wish there weren’t so many of them. LANCE COREY U.S. Health Care East Hampton January 11, 2015 To the Editor: United States health care is a bizarre, pathetic story of paralysis, constipation, racism, and greed. The conundrum is, how does a country provide health care to 320 million people? Does it really want to? Is it capable? For 30 years the only area of political agreement on the subject was that it is too expensive. Quality aside, growing costs and the enormous number of uninsured were the two primary problems. Is it possible to insure more people and lower costs? Given the intellectual and moral limitations of our elected officials, and the embedded limitations and constraints of a for-profit system, not in a million years. Enter Obama and the Affordable Care Act. For 30 years we have observed health care systems in Europe, Japan, and Canada outperform ours at half the cost. From a business as well as a U.S. ego perspective, we would logically steal or co-opt all or parts of these systems. We could have saved trillions of dollars that could have been divided up among the population, but we chose not to. Why not? In the 30 years prior to the Affordable Care Act there was a total of one proposal to fix our health care system (Hillary Clinton’s), which was brutally shot down. All we do is whine, because taking action would disrupt the incredibly sweet deals that the insurance companies, big pharma, and the hospitals have. We have a market system, but get none of the competitive benefits of the market. And from this essential fabrication comes the heath mess that costs too much and covers too few. The A.C.A. had two critical problems, along with all the dozens of problems of trying to insure more people for less money. Obama’s blackness, brownness, not completely whiteness. His color obligated an entire political party and many of its supporters to relentlessly bash the A.C.A. rather than figure out how to make it work better. They threw the entire country under the bus because the driver was black. The second problem was that in order to get the law to pass Obama had to sell his soul to those groups who were the root of the problem. How do we reduce costs if none of the players give anything up? All we do is transfer more of the cost onto the individuals, squeezing a few more dollars out of people who aren’t really capable of paying. Part of the package of lower wages and fewer benefits. Since 2000, all good ideas turn to crap. We live to enhance the wealth of fewer and fewer people and every year give up a little more of our stake in the system. Health care doesn’t have to go this route. There are multiple options that are working all around us. We need only to open our eyes and check them out. None of them are in countries with black guys running the show. With racism out of the equation it should be easier to deal with greed and stupidity. NEIL HAUSIG My Bogart Stories Southold January 1, 2015 To the Editor, I was looking through a file box in my husband’s storeroom before he died and found a new-looking photo that was pretty old, of me when I was in grammar school, around 11 or 12 years old, with Humphrey Bogart. It was taken at an old, famous hotel on 117th Street in Manhattan. Humphrey Bogart was about 54 or 55. I showed it to my husband, who was bedridden, and asked how it got there. He had no idea. I remember when it was taken, clearly by one of Bogart’s tall look-alikes. I remembered him at the loft uptown, where all the Bogart family would meet to laugh. Maybe the photo might be at the same hotel, leaning on a bottle of Dewar’s or something. I can’t find it now, but would pay for a copy. I remember the fun I had that day. I pretended to be Mayo Methot, his actress wife before Lauren Bacall. I attended a movie with Lauren Bacall, along with Robert Stack, in 1957. It was at the Valencia Theatre in Jamaica, Queens, soon after Bogey died. I took his death hard. My marks skindived at school. I took off a week to go to California, and went to Bogart’s house after the funeral. At the house I saw Michael Pollard, Carl Malden, and of course Lauren Bacall. My last name was Perrella then. A boy showed me a coffin that was pink in the garage, with big rocks on it. I remember so clear and wondered if it was his. Thanks for reading one of my Bogart stories. ANITA FAGAN The Timeless Ones Amagansett January 7, 2014 To the Editor: There are still places that afford one the great luxury of the verdant world, coherent with the life force before man unkind even appeared. Rain forests still sing with turquoise blue morpho butterflies and rhinoceros-horned crickets and moss-covered insects that seem to have emerged out of Jurassic Park. A turquoise river flows like a celestial dream laden with copper sulfate waters of volcanic origin. Don Quixote would have imagined them as flowing from the mouth of heaven. The cloud forest explodes with torrential rains like a deluge worthy of the one that set Noah’s ark a-sail. Costa Rica is committed to the environment and is one of the few countries on earth without an army. There is no coincidence there. Can our species continue to build weapons of destruction and at the same time save our life support system? Can we afford a new cold war while the planet heats up? Two thousand fourteen was the hottest year on record! Lysander, our 9-year-old, saw one of the last dinosaurs on earth, the leatherback turtle, emerging from Pacific waters and the depths of antediluvian time since its emergence 110 million years ago. How it navigates the inner galaxy of the ocean, returns to its place of birth, releases its eggs, and goes back to the fantastic fathoms of its watery universe is one of nature’s great mysteries. It is one of the last leviathans of the planet. To witness this phantasmagoric presence is to see into the eyes of origin. We saw a mother, but only one, dig its nest, bring 50 of its own into the sand and then depart. A generation ago dozens would crawl out on shore! The full moon cast a silver sheen of miracle over the event. The eggs shone like giant irreplaceable pearls, and those witnessing them could only hold their breaths that they survive far into the future. To the north of what should be a world heritage site, Nicaragua is planning a canal, a second Panama Canal, with money from a businessman and telecommunications mogul from that country that has brought so much good of late to the world, China. Nicaragua, whose politics do not exude democracy, seized Calero Island, on the border with Costa Rica. Territorial disputes have been the hallmark of both countries for over a century, and the proposed $40 billion project on the San Juan River, which marks the border between the two countries, will not improve the situation. What of the environmental damage? What of the pollution that will run from both the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts? How on earth will the leatherbacks be helped? In the Pacific, they are a stone’s throw away from extinction. In the last 100,000 years our species has emerged to become the renegade desecrator of life. What we actually bring to the life force is anyone’s guess, but it can be gleaned from the look of the irrepressibly silent pathos and patience that the leatherbacks speak. They know what is at stake — the immune system of the planet. The mother that came on shore may not know who we are. She had to tolerate our kind because her species clings to the razor’s edge of existence. A ranger admitted that he would prefer to do his job without the march of tourists, even if their pilgrimage was sincere. What stress we cause the turtles, even in the dark of night, is hard to measure. For one unique moment we were privy to one of the planet’s most determined creations. The proposed Nicaragua Canal, even if commercially viable and feasible, exacerbates the oceanic mind. Like so much of what is happening to the blood plasm of the seas, the leatherback is a last magnificent canary in the coal mine of our time. The leatherback and its cousins eat jellyfish, one of the beings that could inherit the oceans a century from now. We have got to come to terms with the rampage of our species, especially in the next five years. The leatherback is one of our ancestors. Its coherent passage over 100 million years should boggle the imagination. If our minds are so unequivocally sapient, so capable of producing self-knowledge, then we should be able put a brake on ineptitude, corruption, and profligacy. In the hidden corridors of the leatherback’s mind reside channels of timelessness and ultimate bearing we can only marvel at. The reckless temperament of individual folly must be curtailed. The scars of potential Nicaragua Canals and the proposed XL Pipeline would only dig into the last reserves of human sanity. Loren Eiseley proclaimed that “by leaving the timeless land,” we will have “descended into hell.” The leatherbacks and the other timeless ones are our progenitors. Without them we disavow the oceans and part of our souls. In Oriental and Native American mythologies, turtles upheld the world. Do we really want to tell the children 20 years from now that we were the anti-genesis generation? We will search thirsting for the horizon of our beginnings, look for the pool that gave us birth and find that it has become invisible. Today, we need a critical readjustment to the waters of life. Shark-finning must be banned worldwide. The few nations that still murder whales must be fined until they change their ways. The turtles, the coral reefs, the whales must survive the onslaught of our kind. They must be allowed to breathe. Without them we won’t have a leg to stand on. CYRIL CHRISTO
Published 4 years ago
Last updated 4 years ago
Letters to the Editor: 01.15.15
January 14, 2015