Coche Comedor
East Hampton
September 29, 2025
To the Editor,
My wife and I were sad to learn in your pages that Coche Comedor was closing. We have eaten there a number of times but now, of course, wish that we had gone more often.
It was only a few weeks ago that we had an excellent meal at Coche. There was not a hint that they were soon to close. That’s professionalism!
Now, please, only good news about La Fondita!
TOM MACKEY
A Revised Plan
Montauk
September 29, 2025
To the Editor,
Dear Montauk community: On behalf of the board of education as the new school year gets underway, it seems like the right time to share an update on the school renovation project. I have spent the past four months working closely with the board on a revised plan that reflects both the needs of our school and the feedback we received from voters in May. I believe this new plan, which we hope to put forth in a December vote, represents an investment in the future of our students, our school, and our community.
It has been 25 years since the district last completed any significant building improvements. At that time, many of the most critical needs of our facilities were not addressed, particularly in the older portion of our 100-year-old school. Today, we find ourselves at a point where these long-overdue improvements can no longer be postponed.
The proposed bond will focus on essential upgrades to the safety, accessibility, and learning environment of our students. These improvements do not represent luxuries but necessities to ensure that our school facilities meet the standards our children deserve and support the excellence of our academic, athletic, arts and music programs.
Importantly, after listening to community input, the board was able to reduce the cost of the proposal by 10 percent from the original project introduced last May without sacrificing necessary improvements. The board and I want to thank every community member who took the time to offer feedback — I believe we have ended up with a better plan for the future because of it.
We recognize that supporting a bond is a significant decision, and we are committed to transparency throughout this process. In the coming weeks, we will be providing detailed information on the specific projects, the associated costs, and the long-term benefits to both our students and the broader community, as well as information on how to contact us with any questions or concerns.
We ask for your careful consideration and encourage you to participate in the upcoming vote. Together, we can honor our history while building a safe and inspiring environment for generations of learners to come.
Thank you for your continued support of the Montauk School.
Sincerely,
JOSHUA ODOM
Superintendent-Principal
My Evaluations
Springs
September 29, 2025
To the Editor,
Nov. 4 is a very important election, let’s be certain to vote. It will decide the quality and priorities of the East Hampton Town Board. Let’s assure that our local officials are highly competent, hard-working, and honest!
I have worked closely with two candidates, and write to share my evaluations of them.
First is Cate Rogers, running for her third term. We both served on the board of Win With Wind, meeting every week for three years, working daily during each of those years to ascertain and communicate the facts about the wind farm that now powers some 70,000 homes here on Long Island. Cate was awesome: highly intelligent, hard-working, and wholly dedicated. She trained at the highest levels with Al Gore to hone her expertise and access experts as complex issues were raised in our community. She was easy and fun to work with, a real team player with the highest moral standards. In the last two years she has done an exemplary job as town board member on a wide variety of environmental and affordable housing issues.
The other is Michael Hansen, running for the first time for town clerk. He also served on the Win With Wind board, contributing pro bono a stupendous amount of excellent technical work designing and managing our web site, organizing mailings, communicating via social media and graphic designing various fliers, invitations, etc. A longtime resident of Wainscott, he also provided valuable insights into potential impacts on Dune Lane, where the wind farm cable has been installed.
ALICE TEPPER MARLIN
If Elected
Wainscott
September 29, 2025
Dear Mr. Rattray,
My name is Michael Hansen and I am running to be the next East Hampton Town clerk.
First, I want to recognize a very important member of my campaign staff and that is my 5-year-old daughter, Sanna. Her insights are invaluable. For example, after a trip to the bank where she discovered a bowl of lollipops on the counter and then later at the autoparts store another bowl of lollipops, I asked her how she would improve the town clerk’s Office. She replied in her indomitable fashion, “Will there be lollipops?” So, if I am elected town clerk, there will be lollipops at the counter.
My other goals for the town clerk, however, are a little different from hers. I will expand payment choices at the town clerk counter by including a credit card option. I will allow residents to apply for and renew licenses and permits online — and pay online with a credit card or a digital wallet like Apple Pay or Google Pay. These added conveniences will free up staff time for those residents who wish to come to the town clerk’s office in person. Paying by cash or check at the counter will remain an option.
And while I feel a technology background is essential for the next town clerk, there is clearly more to the job than understanding online applications or digital wallets. What is equally important is a collaborative spirit, a positive attitude to work with the team to achieve a goal. I define this simply as a willingness to roll up one’s sleeves and work side by side with the staff. I have always respected this type of manager, and it is the type of manager that I am.
I am ready to get to work, roll up my sleeves, and, of course, put those lollipops out.
MICHAEL HANSEN
A Call to Action
Amagansett
September 29, 2025
To the Editor,
Recently, I’ve been corresponding and meeting with some elected officials. You’ll never know how easy it is to contact someone unless you try. Local officials are some of the easiest to get a hold of. Well, the ones who are actually being paid for their time.
A response from Brooklyn and New York State Senator Jabari Brisport was most welcoming, especially some of the most recent passed legislation to match a majority of other states.
Being outspoken can have its own call to action. Like with Maria Dorr’s 3020A hearing. Her attorneys came asking for help in July 2024. I was more than happy to send Zoom links for those public hearings to the local press. I’m certainly aware of many others who were given the opportunity, asked to do the same, and go far beyond that.
To help an innocent person? Absolutely. Now if the shoe was ever on the other foot for any of us, one could only hope any individual would step up to the call to action. Would we then all show, given the opportunity, the future kind gesture and have any help be reciprocated or would it be ignored? Unfortunately, far too often help of any kind is a one-way street.
Still here,
JOE KARPINSKI
Demand an End
Sagaponack
September 29, 2025
Dear Editor,
We are witnessing the final solution in Gaza: Israel’s intent is to kill everyone. Everyone who is Palestinian. Every child, mother, uncle, grandfather, sister, husband. Every schoolteacher, carpenter, farmer, baker, doctor, journalist. Everybody with a pulse. There is nowhere left to go.
Dear community, taxpayers, friends, neighbors: This is our holocaust. This is a United States-funded and supported holocaust. Collectively, we have allowed it to happen because not enough people have shown up and joined the effort to hold our own representatives accountable, to demand an end to U.S. support for Israel. We have to act as if we can stop it. It’s easy to feel powerless amidst such evil, but collectively we have incredible power. Millions of people are flooding the streets and resisting in multiple ways all around the world.
This is a call to action, a reminder that we must remain steadfast. Call our representatives. Join a protest. Boycott complicit companies and institutions. Every Sunday in Sag Harbor Village there is a vigil for Palestine at 3 p.m. in front of the windmill. Yes, the vigil is a place to hold grief, express outrage, show public solidarity, and it is also a place to find each other, a place to organize and build together. If you feel hopeless, powerless, or you just don’t know what to do, come find us.
ELLA ENGEL-SNOW
A Disgrace
Springs
September 29, 2025
To the Editor,
What a disgrace we have become as a country and a society after witnessing the abhorrent behavior of the fans at the Ryder Cup. It has become almost impossible to take any pride in America as we race to the bottom in our government, social interactions, and dealings with the world.
Weep for the future, whether it’s MAGA or the corporate Democrats. This country is in serious trouble.
SCOTT GILL
Act Now
Springs
September 28, 2025
To the Editor,
I found your interview with Bill McKibben to be of a great interest. He is one of the most prominent authorities on climate change who has been warning about the problem for decades. It would be wise for us to take seriously his statement, “We can’t stop global warming — it’s too late for that — but we may still be able to stop it short of the place that it cuts civilization off at the knees.”
While looking for a potential solution, he has focused on the dramatic progress made in the solar arena in the past decade. Given the problems presented by the current federal administration, hopefully someone in our town administration will finally take notice of his statement, “We are going to push as hard as we can at the state and local level to make it much cheaper to put solar on our roofs.”
A far better and more economical way to promote solar is to support a large-scale community solar project. Southampton did this over five years ago, and we have a tremendous opportunity to put half of the 97 acres up for release at the gun club property toward that end.
Such a project could help perhaps 1,000 local households access clean renewable power that would also allow them to cut their utility bills at the same time. It would cost the town nothing and, in fact, generate hundreds of thousands in lease revenue per year for the town as opposed to the absurd $100 annually the gun club has been paying for the entire parcel.
Such a deal would still allow for parks and much-needed new affordable housing at this site and even a much smaller and safer indoor-only gun club. However, this town that has been talking about reducing its emissions profile for over a decade must finally take action. The extreme hypocrisy of the various climate pledges or declarations over the years is nauseating, as the facts are its global warming emissions have actually increased according to a recent sustainability report.
The town board and the Natural Resources Department have to finally start living up to their empty rhetoric and act now — if not for the benefit of the environment, then for the benefit of taxpayers.
As a delegate at the United Nations said this past week, “We need decision makers everywhere to understand that replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy will not come at the expense of prosperity but is a prerequisite for future prosperity.”
BRAD BROOKS
Costs Will Only Rise
Sag Harbor
September 27, 2025
Dear David,
Donald Trump’s recent speech at the United Nations was full of self-congratulation and scorn for others. Most disturbing were his lies about the climate crisis.
Trump has long dismissed climate change as a hoax. At the U.N. he called it “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and attacked renewable energy projects. But the facts tell a different story — one New Yorkers know all too well.
Our warming climate has left us vulnerable to extreme weather. The new norm is heat waves, droughts, and wildfire smoke pollution alternating with violent downpours and floods. The economic toll is staggering: Between 1980 and 2024, New York suffered 95 climate-related disasters, each costing at least $1 billion. These costs will only rise unless we speed up the transition to green energy.
That’s why the recent approval of the Northeast Supply Enhancement Williams pipeline (NESE) by New York’s Public Service Commission is so alarming. The Trump administration is pressuring Gov. Kathy Hochul to fast-track this pipeline, even though it was previously rejected three times over offshore water pollution and incompatibility with the state’s climate law.
The decision officially rests now with New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation and its chair, Amanda Lefton. And regardless of a possible deal on NESE that Governor Hochul struck with Trump in order for him to lift the stop-work order on Empire Wind, the D.E.C. should once again reject the project.
On top of endangering our water quality and violating the goals of our climate law, the multibillion-dollar NESE pipeline will be paid for by hikes to New Yorkers’ utility bills for decades to come. Building it would lock us into fossil fuel infrastructure we don’t need now — and, as we add clean energy, we won’t need in the future but will still be paying for.
Commissioner Lefton and Governor Hochul understand the stakes. They must not bow to the president’s pressure. Our climate future — and affordable energy bills — depends on it.
KATHLEEN BOZIWICK
Unlawful Attacks
Springs
September 29, 2025
Dear Editor,
I am writing to express my concerns regarding Trump’s violent and cruel attacks on immigrants, migrants, and American communities, which have escalated to attacks on our constitutional rights of freedom of speech, peaceful protest, and due process, and to deploying the military against Americans.
While American communities rally to protect their neighbors and families, the administration has stepped up brazen and violent attacks, focused on the City of Los Angeles. The brutal assault on peaceful residents of Los Angeles has reminded many of the deadly events from Kent State and Jackson State in 1970, when another divisive president pushed our democracy and Constitution to the brink and further divided our nation.
These lawless attacks, just like the lawless deportations, arrests, and visa revocations that have preceded them, violate many rights, are without due process, and seek to upend the constitutional right to assembly and freedom to speak out against the actions of this government.
As someone who lived through the McCarthy era, the Japanese internment, and civil rights movement, I know the dangers of unchecked power and racism disguised as law.
At my age, I’ve seen what happens when our nation allows fear and prejudice to override justice. We cannot let it happen again.
The Alien Enemies Act should have been buried with the worst parts of our history, not revived to target vulnerable people.
As a grandparent, I want my grandchildren to grow up in a country where justice, fairness, and compassion matter.
End these divisive, militaristic, and unlawful attacks on American communities now!
Sincerely,
PAUL BRESNICK
At War With Ourselves
East Hampton
September 25, 2025
Dear Mr. Rattray,
We protect what we love or value, including our family, lives, and honor. But have we ever protected a document that is not ours personally but nonetheless is too valuable to lose? If not, we should. It’s our Constitution that has held our country together despite threats from both outside and within its borders.
Threats from outside our borders required us to go to war in Europe twice in the last century. These wars ended. Threats from within our borders caused us to go to war with ourselves in the previous century. That war also ended. Sadly, we are at war with ourselves again. This time, however, it is not on distant battlefields but right in our neighborhoods.
We have red and blue states. We have pro-choice and pro-life supporters. We support or oppose mandated vaccinations. We welcome or turn back those who legally seek asylum in our country. The gulf that exists between us grows wider as politicians and social media fuel the fire.
To put out this fire requires leadership that recognizes the danger of this widening gulf. Tragically, Trump delights in fueling the fire as he ignores the Constitution that he swore to uphold. Through his executive orders, Trump seeks to punish individuals, universities, news outlets, and law firms despite the First Amendment. He deports people despite the Fifth Amendment. He abuses executive powers despite the Tenth Amendment. He threatens to violate the Twenty-Second Amendment.
Not only does he violate the amendments, but Trump also violates the Constitution itself. Consider that the House has the “power of the purse” that Trump has grabbed. Consider also the Emoluments Clause that Trump has violated as he augments his personal wealth through his meme coins and other crypto ventures, foreign business deals, and ways he’s selling access and influence to the highest bidders.
Without the leadership in Washington to put out the fires, the responsibility falls to us. This does not mean that we must agree. What it does mean is that we must converse and not confront, reason and not rage, listen and not lecture. Above all, we must protect our Constitution by telling our elected leaders that it’s time for healing and not hating.
SALVATORE TOCCI
Push Back
Amagansett
September 29, 2025
Dear Editor:
What divides Republicans and Democrats locally seldom if ever has been the same as what divides us at the national level. This may no longer be true as the Republican-led Congress, with the support of Congressman Nick LaLota, cedes its constitutional authority to the president. If Nick LaLota had wanted to push back against President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which are hurting the Montauk fishery, he and his majority could have done so at any time by voting to end the White House’s declaration of a national emergency, which, Trump claims, grants him sweeping trade powers.
Maybe it is time to hold those running on the Republican line for town clerk and town council accountable for being on the same line as Mr. LaLota and the Republican Congress who are now hurting our local fishery.
ROBERT WICK
‘Left to Me’
Plainview
September 23, 2025
To the Editor,
Now that President Trump has apparently ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to violate the Constitution’s First Amendment by “abridging freedom of the press” for Pentagon reporters, I’ll say what Trump’s far superior predecessor Thomas Jefferson said in 1787:
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
RICHARD SIEGELMAN