A Role to Play in Solving Hunger East Hampton February 2, 2015 Dear Editor, Hunger is a serious issue worldwide, including right here in the United States. In America today, 49 million people struggle with hunger. We all have a role to play in solving hunger. Girl Scout Troop 442 promises to do our part by pledging to: “Donate coins from my piggy bank to the East Hampton Food Pantry. I also plan to help to pass out food at the East Hampton Food Pantry.” — Maya Leathers “Collect money around the house and donate the money. — Nicole Seitz “Donate food for the hungry because people in the world should have food. I will donate food that we do not use and that is sitting around my house. They should not starve! And they are going to get food!” — Lexi Cantwell “Donate food to local food pantries, and I will collect change around the house to donate. And to donate clothes, and I am planning a trip to the food pantry.” — Leah Fromm “Donate food to the food pantry, because a lot of kids do not have food.” — Alexis Davis “Donate food to East Hampton Food Pantry because I don’t want people to starve.” — Lyla Wilson “Donate food to the food pantry from my garden.” Siena Link-Morse “Bring cans, clothes, and drinks. Collect extra change for the Salvation Army.” — Cynthia Suanga “Donate clothes, because they need clothing for winter. And, other seasons, I would plan a trip to volunteer at the food pantry.” — Yarenis Avito “Volunteer at the East Hampton Food Pantry and donate some cans of food that I don’t use. Also I will take all the extra change in my piggy bank. Girl Scouts are taking a trip to the East Hampton pantry.” — Lola Garneau It is our hope that other people will take action as well. Working together, we can solve hunger and truly make a difference. JENNIFER LEATHERS For Girl Scout Troop 442 Budding Artists Montauk February 2, 2015 Dear Editor, I recommend that everyone who enjoys and values art see the extraordinary exhibition at Guild Hall of work by children from our local schools. Their productions in a variety of media rival that of maturer artists shown in major galleries and museums. I promise you the excitement and wonder offered by the most vaunted professional venues. Kudos to the art teachers who have inspired them, given them the skills to make these original and imaginative works, and nurtured what appear to be budding artists of prodigious talent. HELEN SEARING Grants to Teachers Springs February 1, 2015 Dear Editor, In this time of test-taking and drill, there is a local group that values and celebrates innovative teaching and stands behind what it says. That group is the Greater East Hampton Education Foundation. This innovative foundation awards grants each year to local teachers to fund projects that would otherwise not be possible in these times of tight budgets. This group has the commitment to educators to raise funds each year to provide opportunities for children. There are many innovative ideas and highly ambitious teachers, as evidenced by the number of applicants each year. We would like to thank the members for funding our project proposals this year. Because of their generosity, we will be initiating a project called Art to Go Backpacks in which students can sign out backpacks loaded with art supplies and educational resources, from architecture to printmaking. Students may develop their artistic skills and pursue their creative interests at home. Art supplies are often not accessible, and based on the waiting list already applying for a night with a pack, this project is filling a great need. The second grant we would like to thank it for develops directly from the recent Springs School fourth-grade opera, “Bound for Gardiner’s Island,” an original opera performed at Guild Hall. The students are now in the process of transforming the opera into a children’s book in play form, with the pages of music included for young musicians to play and sing. They will illustrate the book based on their research of Gardiner’s Island and life in Springs 100 years ago. What better way to teach reading than from the inflections and interpretation required in reading a script? If this venture catches on, the project could be self-perpetrating, with more opera books published in the future from this initial seed money. The members of this foundation are to be commended for their selfless commitment to innovation and lifetime learning. They sponsor a fund-raiser in the spring, and we encourage all who care about education to support it. Sincerely, SUE ELLEN O’CONNOR COLLEEN McGOWAN Racism and Creationism Freeport January 23, 2015 To the Editor: As a young black kid, I loved growing up in East Hampton in the 1970s and ’80s. Feeding the horses behind John Marshall Elementary School. Playing the trumpet at age 9. Hiding from my mom under the clothes racks at Gertz. Ultimate Frisbee in Herrick Park. Flag football on Osborne Lane. Brothers Four Pizza on Newtown Lane. Main Beach. Singing Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” with my teammates after winning our away soccer games. Long Island Sound on Main Street. I can go on and on. And, just like any typical teen, I wanted to be accepted, but I wasn’t like anyone else. My mother immigrated to New York from Kingston, Jamaica, and my dad was from Greenport by way of Virginia. They met in Riverhead, and were married in 1968, shortly after my father was honorably discharged from active duty in the U.S. Army. Riverhead in the 1960s was blighted with crime, drugs, and the daily moral pestilences that often became the spark that started the fights that led to someone’s senseless death at an early age. It was not the kind of place that a young newlywed couple in their 20s wanted to live and raise a family. So they looked around, finally settling down in a small fishing village called East Hampton in 1974. I was 4 years old. I grew up listening mainly to roots reggae, gospel music, blues, and some R&B. My dad played electric guitar and harmonica. So naturally, while adapting my parents’ playlist, as a freshman I started to like music that the junior and senior kids liked — this fusion of jazz, reggae, blues, rock, and afro beat music from groups like Elvis Costello, the Clash, Talking Heads, English Beat, Joe Jackson, and the Police. My eclectic music palette birthed great friendships with a select group of classmates and city kids who came out for the summer. To this day, I still call them friends. These days they are local police officers and detectives, editors and graphic artists at the local newspaper, in construction, working as teachers, selling and prescribing medicine, brokering real estate deals, best-selling authors, actors, artists, glass-sculpture artists, and then some who are business owners and executives all over the East End and beyond. Yet if you think I just painted the perfect picture of what it was like to grow up black in East Hampton, I would be missing a spot. East Hampton was also the place where I was punched in the stomach and called nigger for flirting with a white girl from Montauk at a beach party. I was called spear-chucker by a teacher. In American history class, senior year, they taught us that Africans were savages civilized by the slave trade. Other classmates would call me names like porch monkey, jungle bunny, jigaboo, sambo, nigger, and my favorite of all time, Oreo (black on the outside, white on the inside, get it?). Then after getting to know me, the name-calling stopped, but then they concluded I wasn’t really black, but “the other” black folks in town were the real niggers. Whatever. I left for college in 1987. Fast forward 27 years. My niece who now attends school in East Hampton was recently called a black slave by a classmate. My niece is 8 years old. So not much has changed. Racism is a fear-based demonic spirit. What took 10 generations to seed, perpetuate, and institutionalize at the deepest parts of the soul of Americans can be eliminated for good within 50 years if the nation’s public schools were allowed to replace evolution theory and teach creationism: that we are all created by God with identity, purpose, and destiny to rule and have dominion over our lives. Why? Because God is not a respecter of persons. Meaning, what He does for a family living on Lily Pond Lane or Egypt Lane, He will do for a family living on Morris Park Lane or Oakview Highway. I realize some might take offense and accuse me of imposing a belief system on you. I’m not. But what’s more offensive? Believing the lie we came from apes? Believing the silly “Evolution of Man” chart hanging on the wall in the science class? When two apes have sex, they create baby apes, not white folks. This is called biogenesis, observed by Louis Pasteur in 1868. However, his observation (the clear evidence) was trumped by Robert Chambers in 1844 and Charles Darwin in 1859, the architects of modern evolution theory, then sealed and delivered by the Supreme Court into our classrooms as accepted teaching by 1871. The theory implies that blacks are a little bit more evolved than the ape, with whites being the most highly evolved humans intellectually, making the survival and livelihood of white families more highly regarded in a civilized world than other races. In other words, black lives don’t matter. White is right. Some of you will disagree with me, thinking this is really isolated to pockets of the nation today (and our police departments?) not pervasively overt in our “post-racial” age. However, you only need to add urine less than the size of a teardrop to bottled water to create piss water. And if I gave you that piss water with ice to drink, you would not likely taste the difference, but it’s there. Evolution theory teaches our kids how to dehumanize black people and demonize white people and each other, and they are not aware of it. When black people repurpose pejorative words like nigger and call each other “ghetto‚” words now commonly adapted by white people, who in turn call their own “trailer-park trash” and “rednecks‚” we see the deception being believed and lived out in high definition. Fighting racism by teaching tolerance is like fighting an airstrike with kid boxing gloves. Only God can heal and redeem the contempt, anger, and resentment of our past, present, and future. I can personally speak to this. After seeing protests over the shooting deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, I realized the contempt and disrespect I experienced over those years went largely uncontested by me and I didn’t know why. Now I do: My experience in East Hampton had more highs than lows. Even today, there’s no place I can’t go in East Hampton with my wife and kids where I don’t belong. It’s my town. This is in spite of racial attitudes, which, ironically, come mostly now from the summer people and new year-round city implants. But upon deeper retrospect‚ by the grace of God I simply just didn’t care what they said. I grew up in a devout Christian home, and was taught I was created by God in His image, and that He had given me purpose in life, making the derogatory name-calling, while hurtful to hear, ultimately futile. My dad would tell me that I had to go out into the world and find what God had in store for me, and with Him on my side, nothing could stop me, not even discrimination because of my color. I lived in London. Worked on Wall Street. Helped build a successful company. Travelled the world. Accomplished and seen things most people in their lifetime only dream of. Most importantly, I love my wife and two kids and get to spend time with them. And I’m just getting started. No, I didn’t go to an Ivy League school. Because of God, I have seen more good days than bad days. I’ve seen lemons in my life turn to lemonade. And the more I know God, the more I understand His loving presence in my life, the less contempt I have toward my enemies. I don’t experience racism every day. I walk right over him every day. DANIEL EARL EVANS A Shakedown Cruise Montauk February 1, 2015 Dear Mr. Rattray, As the person assigned to coordinate the Montauk Fire Department’s severe weather and disaster plan, I would like to publicly thank all the men and women who responded to the call for duty in the last snowstorm. The chiefs, officers, and volunteers deserve a big round of applause. A group of us have formulated this plan for Montauk in the time since Superstorm Sandy because we all felt that Montauk is a very vulnerable place to be, as we are about 15 miles out in the middle of the ocean with only one way in or out. This storm was a very real shakedown cruise, you might say, for us. For those who might not know, we put the plan into effect upon receiving information from the county’s Office of Emergency Management on Sunday, Jan. 25. Volunteer members were notified of storm and preparations. We on the planning staff had sleeping quarters set up at the firehouse, called in kitchen staff and stocked our food stores, checked all equipment for readiness to severe weather, and ran through scenarios for the storm. A special thanks goes out to Edna Steck, who is also a member of our team. She and her staff of volunteers contacted the 60-plus people who are registered with us on a database to make sure of their whereabouts, checked to see that they were prepared for the possibility of losing power, and their health and welfare. We at the Montauk Fire Department made contingency plans for the possibility of having to move these people during the storm if their power went out. During the storm we had men and women staff the firehouse in case of an E.M.S. alarm or a fire alarm. It is great to see how many people set their lives aside to be ready to help those of our tiny community, at no gain to them other than the good feelings they get for doing so. Our kitchen staff was fabulous in feeding those volunteers, along with the staff of the East Hampton Highway Department, two or more meals. We have put all our cots and supplies away for the next storm, had a debriefing meeting, found out flaws, and are moving forward to work them out. If anyone would like to be added to our registry please call me, Peter Joyce, at 516-903-2840 or the Montauk Firehouse, 668-5695. This is a great service we are offering, and I would advise every senior citizen to be part of this. Also, anyone who wants to learn more about this plan we have or would like to be part of our plan, please contact me. Sincerely, PETER JOYCE Five Unpaved Roads Amagansett February 1, 2015 Dear David, Supervisor Larry Cantwell deserves the residents’ praise for the decision to plow the five unpaved roads in Beach Hampton. The roads belong to the Amagansett East Association and are usually not plowed by the town. The supervisor’s decision was a total regard for the safety and care of the residents that live on these five streets. The residents had no way to get out of their homes without the use of town plows to clear these roads. Many thanks, Larry! RONA KLOPMAN President Amagansett East Association Katrina Effect Stamford, Conn. January 30, 2015 To the Editor: Deflated footballs were not the only things flying around in people’s thoughts here on Long Island in the past several days. Deflated expectations on what was billed as an historic snowstorm swirled through many minds as well. If you drove from Manhattan to Montauk the day after the storm, the difference was startling. It lived up to its billing on the East End, but left points west wondering who would foot the bill for business lost by a butchered forecast. The forecast: It all started on Saturday, Jan. 23, when winter storm Iola’s precipitation was expected to change from snow to a mix of sleet and rain, which never materialized and stayed mostly snow. In the process we picked up several inches of the white stuff. This winter has been very different from last year, when we had snow on the ground, from patches to piles, from early December to the end of March. That’s four months of snow cap, one month longer than winter itself. Also during Jan. 23, the first hint of something bigger to come appeared late in the game. Trailers began to appear on the bottom of our TV screens calling for 10 to 14 inches of snow beginning Monday, Jan. 26, in what was named winter storm Juno. By Jan. 25 that forecast had morphed into 18 to 24 inches and full-blown blizzard warnings. This was odd because most storms of this magnitude are hyped many days in advance, and the forecast to that point had been for light snow. It is what happened next that shows cause and effect. Spearhead by the Weather Channel and other meteorological outlets, mainstream media picked up on all of this and the entire ensuing avalanche was ratings-driven. Politicians then jumped on board in what is known as the Katrina effect. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, President George Bush’s lack of preparation and underestimation of the situation almost buried him politically. Since then, from school principals to politicians, no one has wanted to take the slightest chance to get plowed under by public opinion, even for just a few inches of snow. So schools now close for the tiniest of flake-fests. When storms are bigger, that has now expanded to unprecedented precautions. We are smart enough to know what to do on our own when foul weather flies, but things are now being driven by the court (of public opinion and lawsuits). The aftermath: So the forecast was for an epic blizzard, one of the top five of all time, and was to be measured in feet. What we got instead was measured in inches in many places. So what happened? Snowfall projections for all storms are predicated on three criteria: speed, track, and intensity. The speed of Juno stayed constant. The track went further east, as the blocking high pressure to the north did not drive it west, closer to us, as all computer models had shown until less than 24 hours before the event. What also changed was its intensity. They called Juno a meteorological bomb, meaning its low pressure was supposed to intensify so rapidly that it was supposed to create so much lift in the atmosphere that it exploded onto the scene, thus creating very rare snowfall amounts of two to four inches per hour. If you have the latest in meteorological technology (a window), you saw that never materialized. This storm should give us a familiar feeling on two fronts. First, most snowstorms are a north-south thing, meaning where is the rain-snow line. However, it was just two years ago where we had a similar snow event with an east-west twist to it. The Bridgeport-to-Port Jefferson ferry route was the Mason Dixon line and meant the difference between getting one foot of snow or two. Then there was the “perfect storm.” It was a different time of year, but the same scenario as Juno. It was a hurricane (a nor’easter is the winter version) coming up from the south, a weather front coming in from the west, and a blocking high pressure system to the north mixing it up and steering it toward us. That storm as well didn’t materialize the way and where it was supposed to. It made for a good movie, but did not have the projected impact here. So unless you were the fishing vessel Andrea Gail, the meteorological mix didn’t pan out as projected. So state and local governments ended up shutting down everything and a complete travel ban was imposed, which was even more severe than two years ago when it was just parkways, interstates, and routes. That meant all business and commerce shut down and revenue was lost. Even the post office had to abandon its motto because they weren’t allowed on the roads. What are the lessons to be learned here? First, all snowstorms have their own personalities and can be unpredictable. It’s like they’re alive. Like people, you can’t turn them into just data. Second, with additional information comes additional risk for the powers-that-be, from the principal to the politician, and technology and total access can still lead to being totally wrong. RICHARD C. ILSE Deer Sterilization East Hampton January 27, 2015 Dear Editor, “Oh son, look at the pretty deer,” the parent said. The child replied, “But why does it have those big plastic tags in both its ears?” Parent’s reply: “Because there are harmful chemicals in that deer that could make it unsafe to eat and it cost a lot of money to sterilize it so it cannot have babies.” Deer will look like livestock, not look natural, and will look just like the one in the front-page photo of the Jan. 22, 2015, issue of The East Hampton Star. Still, the woods and plants will continue to be devoured. Still, humans will be seriously injured or worse via deer collisions. Still, ticks and mosquitos will have a bountiful blood meal. Deer are “fear-flight” creatures. Their primary defenses are a very acute sense of smell and hearing and an ability to readily pick up motion. They tend to stay in a relatively small geographic area so they inherently know their escape routes. When they sense a scent that they feel is unusual or known to be from a threatening source (that could be 100 or more yards away) they are on alert. Same with a sound, even 100 or more yards away. Something is visually out of place, something is moving? Bingo, fear-flight sets them in motion and they flee, they run, and they escape. How do you think those beautiful, very sensitive ears are affected by those horrendously large, ugly plastic tags? To the deer, it must sound like plastic wind chimes, robbing them of one of their most important defenses. What happens if the tags in the deer’s ears get caught on a fence wire, tennis court net, thick vine or briar? The deer struggles to get free and its ears are seriously injured or ripped off? How would you like that? Now, you might have an untagged, sterilized deer full of government-banned chemicals in a form for a hunter to (unwittingly) take, to feed his/her family and possibly put his/her family in jeopardy. Besides the ear tags, some of the deer have strong, hard collars around their necks with technical equipment installed on them. What if these collars get fetched up on something? Are they left to choke to death? Are they left to die because they do not have a cellphone to dial 911 for help? They have hooves, not fingers; they don’t have cellphones. They can’t dial anything for any help. They are just left to die. What is accomplished here? One less deer. What a way to go! How humane is this scenario? East Hampton Village’s deer sterilization program has been underway since early January. The contract was signed back in October 2014. Sterilization of wild deer has often met with disappointing success in New York and elsewhere. What does this type of sterilization accomplish to reduce deer crashes with humans that result in severe injury or worse via these collisions? Absolutely nothing! According to federal and state forestry and wildlife experts, our woods and forests are in “dire” and “bleak” condition. The understory of these woods and forests have been so overconsumed by whitetail deer that many plants, small animals, insects, etc., are in jeopardy of extinction, and the result will be the eventual collapse of the woods and forests that many of us hold close and dear. The beauty of East Hampton’s woods and forests of 15-20 years ago will exist only in historical photos. Gone forever? A sterilized deer will continue to eat the equivalent of 14,600 salads each year it lives. Whitetail deer can live up to 12-15 years. If it lives to be 10 years old, that is 146,000 salads. Does deer sterilization save our woods and forests now? Absolutely not! Every day that a sterile deer is alive it provides a welcome blood meal for human disease-carrying ticks and mosquitos. Does deer sterilization reduce the problem of Lyme disease, babesiosis, erlichiosis, Lone Star tick diseases, etc.? Absolutely not! The East Hampton Sportsmen’s Alliance is not in favor of deer sterilization. Every female that was shot with a dart and sterilized could have been harvested, and all the aforementioned concerns — reproduction, crashes, deforestation, and supporting parasitic transmission of pathological human diseases — would have been properly addressed immediately. Plus, all the deer harvested would be used for human consumption via food pantries and similar avenues. We met with East Hampton Village officials several times in the past year and told them our concerns and criticisms of focusing on sterilization. We were adamant about the fact that a multi-pronged approach that included a focused hunting program was essential for success. Focusing on sterilization alone was not the answer. As harsh as it sounds, we felt that lethal methods should be the first avenue to reduce the negative impacts that an overabundance of deer have on our community. We suggested an “earn-a-buck” program. We knew from very reliable sources that the trophy hunting of bucks was prevalent in the village, and that is totally contrary to deer-herd management. Many states, counties, towns, and villages use incentives to have hunters harvest antlerless deer to remediate gross overpopulation. These hunters collectively pay the state and town thousands upon thousands of dollars for licenses and permits. Allotting tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for deer sterilization seems illogical to us when there are revenue-generating hunters who can help to solve the deer herd overpopulation problem. They can do it immediately and positively, and negate the effects of deer herd population, and feed the human population too. Whitetail deer are, legally, a resource of the people of the State of New York for recreation, food, and other peripheral uses. How is it that these animals, a traditionally recognized legitimate food source, can be drugged, surgically modified, ear-tagged, collared, and abandoned in the wild? Where is the logic here? The program to sterilize the deer in the village used tranquilizer darts. What do tranquilizers do? They slow the heartbeat, they numb the nervous systems. Chemical sedation used to keep the deer immobile during involuntary surgery has similar side effects and is designed to keep the deer asleep well after the surgery is over. These deer are then put back, comatose, into their original environment on a cold, windy, January night with a suppressed cardio and nervous system. Is this how you would want to come out of major surgery? How humane is all this in the big picture? Think about it. STEVE GRIFFITHS President East Hampton Sportsmen’s Alliance Thin Out the Deer Springs January 29, 2015 To the Editor, Living in the country is wonderful. Being so close to nature at its best and having the feeling we have it all, far from city lights and the fast-paced world of the me-first crowd, gives me peace. In the country there are things city folks never see. Trees grow at random on the roadsides, flowers everywhere in summer, and some of the best beaches and waterways in the world. We also have wildlife — ducks, geese, turkeys, pheasant, and deer. When I was growing up here we had some of the best hunting areas anywhere. Northwest Woods was the home of all sorts of wildlife. Local hunters had lots of room in these woods to hunt for food to feed their families over the winter. Not many houses there then. The woods were also the home of deer, many of them. They stayed mostly there, where they knew there was food and a good place to hide. But now that most all of the woods are gone because of houses built mostly by second-home owners, the wildlife has lost its natural home. Now you see deer walking in the village on Main Street, turkeys on Three Mile Harbor Road, and hear people complain about it. As I see it, this is the country. If we don’t do something soon it will only get worse. We need to act now. The only humane thing to do is open a long deer season and let our local hunters thin out the deer population. Don’t wait any longer for studies to be done and weeks or months trying to supply some sort of birth control. The problem will not go away unless the deer are hunted. The number of deer hit by cars is staggering. The roadsides are littered daily with dead deer. Thousands of dollars of damage to vehicles, and sometimes injury or loss of life. Birth-control attempts may work long term but not instantly. We are going to have the problem for many years unless the herd is thinned. Some will not agree and that’s life. But they forget, this is the country and hunting was our way of keeping wildlife in check. So remember that the next time you see a deer eating the plants and trees in your yard. You have taken its habitat, so don’t complain. CURT CHAPMAN This Symbolic Doe East Hampton January 29, 2015 Dear David, What do you think about giving Doe #11 a name? She was shot by a hunter this week and died at East Hampton House. She was reported to be friendly and trusting, and the neighbors enjoyed her company. She had two tags on either ear, a sign to hunters that she was not to be shot and killed. In some sad way, this sweet and friendly doe represents all the does who have thus far been captured, frightened, operated on, lost their unborn, and stitched back up to face the cold winter only to die, be hit by a vehicle, or killed by a hunter’s bullet despite her ear tags. “Lily” means purity, innocence, and beauty. A lily is also white, and because there is an abundance of lily-white snow from Juno, I think this is the perfect name for her. I would like to honor the life of this symbolic doe and give her a place in our town’s history. Now, all does are “Lily” to me. SUSAN McGRAW KEBER PSEG’s First Year East Hampton January 31, 2015 Dear David, As a PSEG customer, I have read with great interest the letter Assemblyman Fred Thiele recently released outlining his opinion on the first year of PSEG operations on Long Island. Under the LIPA Reform Act‚ PSEG, a New Jersey company whose first responsibility, as a private company, is to its shareholders, now manages Long Island’s electric utility for the Long Island Power Authority. In his letter, Assemblyman Thiele examines rates, debt, renewable energy, and consumer satisfaction. From his letter, I learned that outside of the delivery charge portion of a customer’s electric bill, rates for the power supply charge portion increased in 7 of the last 12 months. For the record, LIPA, which still carries $7 billion in debt, issued an additional $799 million during the first year of PSEG-LI management. What impact from this growing debt can customers expect on rates in the future? What has happened to renewable energy as a resource in meeting the power needs of Long Island? The East Hampton Town Board, in an effort to become energy self-sufficient, unanimously voted in May 2014 to meet 100 percent of our community’s electricity needs with renewable energy sources by 2020. East Hampton Town was the first in New York State to set these goals. LIPA’s response: It reduced its state plan to develop green-energy resources and it rejected a wind energy project offshore of the East End (Deepwater One), ignoring the economic benefits to our community and its utility consumers. Instead, it is supporting our growing need for additional power capacity with fossil fuel resources by proposing to construct new “peaker” plants on the East End. Consumer satisfaction? According to Assemblyman Thiele’s letter, a year later Long Island still gives its electric utility the lowest ratings of consumer satisfaction in the nation. I agree with Assemblyman Thiele: “We deserve better.” LINDA JAMES Crocus Bloom think of crocus bloom the wind he must assume renew an August moon June about to burst upon the scene in thirst tho April maybe first the sky sigh unrehearsed upon the open shells immersed immeasurable feelings feel the worst worry tied to tides unworthy languid labyrinth of your love understanding band pursue expectant hesitant humble blue grasses in the morning dew manifold memory winter too cold ocean roar JUNE KAPLAN Seems Fair Springs February 1, 2015 To the Editor: The latest proposal by the town board seems to have finally addressed all members of our community with some sense of fairness. A 12,000-pound gross vehicle weight is certainly more lenient than every other town in Suffolk County, where 10,000 pounds is the legal limit for truck parking in residential areas. The town has proposed a phase-out of commercial vehicles weighing over that amount in order for large truck owners to find housing for such vehicles. That also seems fair to both contractors and residents who are opposed to illegal commercial operations in our residential areas. As suggested before by residents and now supported by the media, our town needs to consider providing parking at a reasonable cost to our contractors. How about the town-owned property at the East Hampton Airport, where I have heard rumors of long-term parking being considered for airport users? How about town-owned property on Springs-Fireplace Road? Residents who oppose heavy-duty truck parking are not desirous of hurting our contractor population. We too are a population of hard-working people; there are few who live in Springs who are to the manor born. Our requests are not unreasonable and the media has supported them in the past. We now look to the media to help our residents understand this premise. Springs has become the commercial-business parking lot of East Hampton Town over the past 10 years. Anything goes here, including the operation of illegal businesses. It is supposed that code enforcement will not do its due diligence in enforcing the law, thereby producing a free-for-all based upon needs inconsiderate toward our entire residential population. I am quite tired of being embarrassed by the area in which I live. I bought my home and have worked very hard my entire life to maintain it. I am proud of my home and what I have accomplished in order to live here. However, the dead silence that follows when I tell some people that I live in Springs is almost too much to bear. We are not the underdog of East Hampton Town. There are many beautiful areas in Springs that can be enjoyed by all without the notion of becoming a sterile suburbia. Certainly limits on large vehicles can make a difference. As I quote a previous editorial in The Star: “Meet the letter of the law, but not at the expense of other residents and attractive neighborhoods.” As far as the editorial statement that says that property values are not affected by commercial activities and truck parking, this is clearly and obviously untrue. Real estate agents have steered prospective buyers and renters away from Springs, as has been the case when I have tried to rent my own house. Until about three years ago, seasonal rentals were the means by which I could afford to keep my home. This stopped abruptly as the tone of Springs became more and more commercial. On a practical level, many are concerned with their stagnant property values and declining rental attractiveness. After all, who would want to rent or buy a house with a fleet of commercial vehicles parked next door? I do believe that the town has come up with a proposal that is more considerate of all residents of our residential hamlet. They now need to help our businessmen stay in business. Help them to park at a convenient location with reasonable costs. This can’t be too difficult a task, for there is much town property to consider. I also sincerely hope that our board members will not continue to spew inflammatory comments at public meetings. We have clearly had quite enough of out-of-control demonstrations. Fear-provoking mechanisms are unacceptable. Please be fair, be prudent, and let’s solve this problem with a solution acceptable to all of our residents. CONSTANCE KENNEY This Old Truck Amagansett January 30, 2015 Dear David, I announce the “This Old Truck” initiative, as an attempt to calm the waters of controversy between the users of trucks, who wish to park them at their properties, and those who see them as visual blight. This Old Truck will change the moving eyesore into a pleasing picture of business purpose: We like the overall fern effect, along with fish, and dollar signs. This Old Truck admits that no vehicle designed after 1960 has any design distinction. But we will do our best. Also, This Old Truck believes that really big truck makeovers are pointless. All good things, DIANA WALKER Accessory Apartments Springs February 2, 2015 Dear David, On Dec. 9, the East Hampton Town Community Housing Opportunity Fund’s implementation plan was presented at a town board work session. This report is densely packed with important facts and provides excellent policy proposals. While there are many solutions offered in this proposal, I wanted to address one area in particular: apartments in single-family residences. A component of the earlier 2004 plan, they are referenced in the building code as “accessory apartments.” The program has not been successful, and the new report recommends several changes to the requirements previously set forth. While I agree with most of the changes, there is one with which I disagree, which is to allow the size of accessory apartments to become larger. I believe that the opposite should be proposed. Larger accessory apartments will create multi-family dwelling units in single-family residential neighborhoods, impose burdens on particular school districts, and overload our streets with even more vehicles. When I was a student at Berkeley, many homes in that town had accessory apartments that were commonly called in-law units. These were restricted in size to a maximum of 450 square feet and specifically served the purpose of housing a single adult in a self-contained and independent living unit, with its own bathing and cooking facilities. These units also possessed their own separate entrances. Restricting these in-law units to a single adult lessened the increase of vehicles parked in driveways and on public streets, did not burden any school district with children, and served a large population of single adults who needed housing in what was predominately a community of single-family homes. In the case of Berkeley, these adults were often students from the university. I have known many individuals in East Hampton who live in unregulated accessory apartments, often in basements. I have also known many individuals who live in groups of up to three or more other adults because they have no other option. Tenants come and go; differing lifestyles create conflict. Most would prefer a home of their own. A maximum of 450 square feet provides a generous living area, bedroom, kitchen, and bath. While in no case should these units be restricted to a certain age group, I do believe that they should be restricted to single tenants, and I suspect that many will be young adults. To be sure, multi-family dwellings are another solution to our affordable housing shortage, and certain areas in our town can be identified for this purpose. I urge everyone to look for the next presentation of this report at a town work session. The quality and the clarity of information, and the ideas proposed within the report, are excellent. It provides a solid foundation for town-wide and hamlet-specific affordable housing initiatives. Sincerely, PAMELA BICKET Lazy Point Leases Amagansett February 1, 2015 Dear Editor, I am writing this letter in response to the article in the Jan. 22 edition of The Star that reported on the issues covered at the East Hampton Town Trustee meeting of Jan. 20. The first part of the meeting dealt with a proposal by the trustees that would quadruple the yearly fee for a lease at Lazy Point. Before I go any further, let me state that I am not a leaseholder at Lazy Point, but I live adjacent to leased land in my own home, on property that I own. However, I do have family and many friends who are leaseholders; some of the friends go back over 60 years. There are many facts about the Lazy Point leases of which most East Hampton Town residents are unaware. 1. There are slightly more than 50 leases, more than half of which are held by people over 60. Many are senior citizens on fixed incomes. 2. The leases are for one year only, and are renewed around March of each year. Preliminary discussions are held in January as to fees, etc., and the trustees have refused to consider any kind of long-term lease that would grant security, even though longer-term leases are quite common in other towns. 3. All the leaseholders pay East Hampton Town taxes on their houses in addition to the lease fee. Many homes also have flood insurance, because of their low-lying status. 4. Every January holds the surprise as to what the lease fee will be for that year. 5. Houses can be sold, but only to East Hampton residents, who must apply to the trustees to have the lease transferred. 6. Mortgages are not obtainable because of the one-year lease, so all transfers require a cash transaction and a payment of a 2 percent transfer fee to the trustees. 7. All leaseholders are accountable to a set of rules and regulations for the property, set by the trustees. 8. All but a handful of the homes are well under 1,000 square feet, and all leased plots are approximately 50 feet by 150 feet, which is 3/16ths of an acre. The recent lease fees were $1,000 in 2012 and $1,500 in 2013. Last January the trustees proposed raising the fee on transferred leases to $1,500 per month, or $18,000 a year, a 2,300 percent increase. That increase on transferred leases would have made it virtually impossible to sell a house on leased land and would have dramatically decreased the value of all the homes on trustee property. Only a showing of outrage by the leaseholders tabled the $18,000 proposal, and the $1,500 yearly lease fee held. Now we fast-forward to this January, and it seems that a few trustees have again acted without much thought and proposed a quadrupling of the leases to $6,000 per year, a 300 percent increase, although I’m not sure all trustees agree with this proposal. Imagine waking up and finding that your taxes have been raised 300 percent. It’s a terrible abuse of governmental power. If some of the leaseholders cannot pay this fee, will they lose their homes by default? Many of the cottages are so old they cannot be moved. Between the lease fee and East Hampton Town taxes, some of the homes on leased land already pay more than what comparable houses pay in property taxes throughout the town. The trustees speak of fairness, but this certainly is unfair. Hopefully, fairer proposals will be forthcoming. It was brought up at the Jan. 20 meeting that the lease fees make up approximately 50 percent of the revenue for the trustees, but that they need more revenue. The East Hampton Town Trustees do some fine projects all over the town, not just at Napeague Harbor in Lazy Point — and all town residents have access to the harbor to clam, scallop, kayak, etc. Maybe it’s time for the trustees to get more of their revenue from the general town budget. After all, their projects do benefit the entire town. It was also mentioned at the meeting that the trustees are in various stages of litigation, and that the expenses are building up. So why would they propose a 300-percent increase in fees, which could potentially lead to another legal challenge? Finally, I would like to mention that all nine trustee positions are up for election this fall, and that I personally will do all I can to help elect candidates of either party who can come up with a long-term and fair solution to the leases at Lazy Point. I will remember in November. Sincerely, BOB ELDI A Little Flexibility New York January 23, 2015 Dear Mr. Rattray, I really love and enjoy your paper, but I was a bit taken aback by your “Mast-Head” piece about the paper’s policy toward removing any references from the Internet about past events. I think the paper does a great service to the community to report all sorts of things, including arrests of folks and all the readers’ letters. And the First Amendment grants the paper freedom of speech, the hallmark of a free society. But it’s not all black and white; there are shades of gray. Doesn’t there come a time when a past act, even an unlawful act, shouldn’t blemish someone’s life, reputation, and ability to hold a job? Arrests aren’t convictions, and pleas to lesser charges shouldn’t be discouraged by fear of being condemned on the Internet forever. The record is the record, but the press, with all its powers, can afford some mercy to folks, whether white, of color, or formerly ill-advised, stupid, or just plain human. A little flexibility goes a long way toward fulfilling the contract with the community. I don’t see how the community is harmed if you entertain certain deletions on a case-by-case basis, especially if a person’s livelihood is in constant jeopardy because of a past D.W.I. arrest. I can’t tell you what the criteria should be; I’m not in your shoes. But I think it’s a complex and important issue that deserves something more nuanced and sensitive and bending than “always ‘no.’ ” Sincerely, SPENCER L. SCHNEIDER His Shiny Top Hat Southold January 20, 2015 To the Editor, New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31, 1919, a young Bogart, Humphrey, was happily getting dressed in the old-fashioned bathroom that had a small window with pretty embedded etchings in the glass. Moonlight shone through it, so very pretty with snow against it. He was in his nice town house in the elite part of the Upper West Side. He placed his tall, shiny top hat on, even before he put on his pants! He bent over to clip his socks on. His smile and bright eyes stood out. Now fully dressed, wearing a great big black overcoat, he made his long walk down the street. He passed a dozen identical houses, a tall row of whiteness. He turned right and walked a long way to go to his favorite place to drink. He caught the eye of the “lookout man” with the same glitter in his eyes and shiny teeth, too. Bogart stayed long! On his long way home past the backs of theaters, he walked on the packing snow. The burnt autumn leaves, still stuck to the branches way above, shown on the snow. He was having great trouble standing erect, but managed to plod on. Finally he reached his corner and just made it to his gate, a long half block away. He opened the gate, walked a step, fell on the lower steps. He passed out just about completely. Soon snow was covering his left hand! A big cop who was following him opened the black iron gate. The big old cop pulled him up like a big old rag doll to his knees! And then threw him down against his front door! It was a long way up the steps. Next day, Bogart was so upset! His top hat he loved was gone! He tried to find his sister to call the police station, to find out if it had been found, but no hat could replace the one he lost the night before. After many calls and repeated trips to the police department, nothing turned up. I hope you enjoyed the early glimpse into his past. ANITA FAGAN Man the Exploiter Amagansett January 21, 2015 To the Editor: I would like to quote from a seer, not the poet Arthur Rimbaud, who would have no place to turn to if he were alive today. Not the verbal nitroglycerine of Henry Miller, who saw through the sterility and homogenization of American society soon to pervade the world and who had to quickly escape to Paris to save his soul, but a remarkably clairvoyant Count Hermann von Keyserling. He wrote, “It is true that industrial civilization has created new conditions, but this civilization will become stable only when a new state of balance has been arrived at between Man the Son of the Earth and Man the Exploiter of the Earth. At the present turning point there is a very real danger that the whole North American continent — with the exception of a few mountain ranges — will become something like one single town, and a town of vampire-like quality at that.” Von Keyserling traveled the world and saw in America a neophyte civilization struggling to be born. The balance between the son of earth and man the exploiter is nowhere to be found, but it is a balance that sorely needs to be achieved. Recently, several news pieces mentioned that the earth had entered the danger zone, and another underscored that 1 percent of the richest people on earth owned 50 percent of the planet’s wealth. It is largely the same people, with few exceptions, who base their life on maximum profits and not on the maximization of the future for their children. In the same week I read that most of the world’s fish could disappear within 40 years. Surely those who hoard and covet beyond recognition must understand the imbalance the world’s environment is undergoing. If they think that their hard work is well earned then we have to rethink the foundation of human nature. Von Keyserling underscores the “defect of modern Western civilization: the rule of things over living men.” And over animals, forests, the atmosphere, water, and our environment as a whole. Keyserling warned us in fantastically eloquent form about the “full and terrific danger of the present American ideal of production as an end in itself: if men are continually thought of as producing or consuming machines.” We talk of constant growth and gross domestic product as if it were a religion, and everywhere, as the Native American elders also warned us, the earth suffers. Von Keyserling hoped that America’s future would not be “defined completely in terms of technical and financial progress.” And yet that is exactly what has ensued. The once vital spirit America had has been hijacked by mediocrity. He saw that human nature was born both of the earth and the spirit, but our intellect and greed have disengaged us from both. What the reckless and renegade economy has unleashed, born from the deadly bowels of Wall Street and the visionless bureaucracy of D.C., is a loss of vitality, not just from the earth but also from its soul. The earth pines for its once great frontier. The monarch butterflies have dropped from an annual migration of several billion 20 years ago to a few million. Our food is pesticided and genetically altered beyond viability — and we wonder how we are going to beat cancer? We level forests for the daily newspaper that has become a subspecies of the fashion and leisure industry, and poison the waters with manufacturing waste. Our roads, railways, and electrical grid system scar the horizon like technological stations of the cross. We build hideous skyscraper monstrosities and call them progress. Students everywhere are rolling in insuperable debt and try desperately to hold on to their future. But where is it? The life blood of a continent has long ago been drained and the party represented by the elephant, a coherent being of utter compassion, the greatest mismatch in history, spends all its time trying to roll back the president’s environmental agenda. How evolved! How noble! Are we heirs as a civilization to the formation of a “diabolic being,” as Keyserling called it? A being so mired in consumerism that it has lost its spirit? Self-realization in such atmosphere is well nigh impossible, and therein lies the source of the violence we find in our populace, our police force, and our nation-attacking military mentality. “All possible wealth of inventions,” as can be clearly seen by the trance-like absorption into the digital realm of the iPhone and computer we are so fixated by, “would above all be intrinsically lifeless.” “All these externals are essentially like money, they have no intrinsic substance.” The roots of an abject materiality have to be reversed. Most of the world’s renewable resources, like corn, have reached their limits of productivity, according to the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research. And a few days ago one executive summed up our energy policies at Davos: “It is profitable to let the world go to hell.” Is this the best humanity can do? What business has done to the world’s environment, so too it has done to its soul. “Material progress” can no longer “be considered as end in itself.” Keyserling saw all this and more in 1929! CYRIL CHRISTO
Published 4 years ago
Last updated 4 years ago
Letters to the Editor: 02.05.15
February 4, 2015