Really Appreciated
New Hope, Pa.
June 29, 2025
Hi,
Thanks for the article “A Newsletter on Being a Jewish American.” The news gets worse and worse in the world, so I really appreciated reading this story, and hearing about this member of the clergy speaking out — also news.
Gratefully,
PAIGE SEEHERMAN
Move Events
Montauk
June 29, 2025
Editor:
Once again, tragedy has been narrowly avoided as a drunk crashed through the art fair on the town green in Montauk.
Having events on the green totally boggles my mind! The only thing the gatherings on the green do is stop traffic on Route 27, spoil the view, and put pedestrians and children in danger.
A simple solution would be to move events 50 yards down the block to the soccer field behind the White Elephant. The soccer field has restrooms, parking, and more room for exhibits and stalls. Let’s do something before a child is injured or killed.
GEORGE WATSON
Gosman’s Sold
Springs
June 28, 2025
To the Editor:
The closing of a favorite restaurant is akin to the loss of a friend. For decades, our go to for birthdays, etc. or just a wonderful meal was Forlini on Baxter Street in lower Manhattan. At lunch packed with lawyers and judges from the courts across the street, Dennis and his cousin, owners were always welcoming. One day, Dennis regrettably told us it was the end, time to retire. We weren’t the only ones; an episode on “Law and Order” was “A Final Call at Forlini,” sort of a eulogy.
Every summer, Gosman’s was on our agenda with the grandkids or at Topside, reasonable prices, spectacular sunsets. Sadly, Gosman’s sold. Would it be the same?
I anxiously clicked on the menu. A new name, Bagatelle, and a new menu. The menu was in French, the least-expensive caviar (50 grams), about a tablespoon, only $290, a 1-1/2-pound lobster only $115, a 3-pound lobster, $325.
Oh well, pleasant memories.
The rumor that the construction on 27 is the building of a gate requiring an American Express platinum card is probably erroneous. For now.
PETER GOODMAN
See the Worst
East Hampton Village
June 27, 2025
Dear David,
Mayor Jerry Larsen and I do not always see eye to eye — take the diagonal parking on Newtown Lane debate as an example, amongst others, but there is one policy that Jerry brought forward that he has not gotten enough credit for from the public. One of his first initiatives was to make the police and dispatch first responders have mental health counseling as part of their regular training and educational requirements.
When Jerry started this initiative back in October 2021, he referenced that in addition to the up-and-down life experiences we all have, our first responders also have to deal with things we regular citizens thankfully never have to see — terrible automobile wrecks, suicides, horrific crimes. They see the worst that people can be.
The mayor said that while many police feel that they can be the “tough guy that can take it,” the reality is that it is not weakness to seek counseling, it is really strength. Requiring evaluation of our police and dispatchers every three years is an initiative that I believe will only help to give the Village Police Department the ability to be the best that they can be.
This Independence Day, I think we all need to recognize Jerry’s leadership on this and give him the credit he deserves on this issue from the community.
ARTHUR (TIGER) GRAHAM
Main Beach
East Hampton
June 30, 2025
To the Editor:
Many of the changes made over the last few years to Main Beach should be corrected A.S.A.P.
The outdoor showers are located at the beginning of the ramp to the tables and chairs. This ramp is used by wheelchairs, the handicapped, strollers, etc., but it is now a mess, full of water, sand, and showering people. The ramp is slippery and dangerous. It’s also unsightly. After the beachgoers rinse off, they dry off and change clothes standing on the ramp, they use the handrail to drape their towels and clothes. Whoever thought to put these water spigots where they did — mistake!
The food “store” plays music constantly. It is loud, often beating of drums — mistake! Play soothing music, classical, orchestras. At least vary the music.
When sitting on the benches under the overhang, the piles of sand and the green, tall grasses are so high, one cannot see the beach or the ocean — mistake! Cut the grasses and move some of the sand.
Lastly and most important, the parking that is not in the lots, those spots on the left when driving straight up, the handicap spots, are the farthest from the beach — mistake! Switch those with the closer ones.
JANE ADELMAN
Power Play
Amagansett
June 26, 2025
To the Editor:
The First Citizen’s proposal to shorten all village board terms to one year was a classic authoritarian power play (Christopher Gangemi, “Weigh Shorter Terms for Appointed Boards,” in last week’s issue). Members of the zoning and planning boards serving multiple-year terms acquire expertise and independence. People shuttling in and out for a year at a time would be thoroughly under the First Citizen’s control. As usual, he barely concealed his agenda in his comments to your reporter: “I don’t have issues with our boards. But why wait until there’s an issue?”
I have commented in a number of letters how the town has both acted to gut its own zoning board and stood by passively while others did it (it seems I have to mention Q and Duryea’s in every issue). But it has done so in a more old-fashioned, slow moving way. I would like to say we have somewhat (slightly?) better checks and balances here, but the difference may be systemic: Mayors are more dangerous than supervisors, and towns a little more distributed, and uncertain, than villages. I wonder sometimes if our supervisor ever envies the First Citizen.
For democracy in the Hamptons,
JONATHAN WALLACE
Come to Relax
East Hampton Village
June 28, 2025
Dear East Hampton Star,
This letter is in reference to “Noise Over New Contractor Laws.” Those who have been following my letters know my feelings about noise affecting our quality of life, not just in East Hampton but the entire East End, especially during the summer months. It always made little sense that the noise ordinance covered only yardwork and not construction, as well. I applaud the extension of the law to cover construction, as well as raising the fines, because as far as I could tell the old fines were too low to make much difference.
To anyone who opposes these laws, I would say this: Summer is the money-making season when we get a flood of tourism from which most of our township makes money. People come here to relax and enjoy themselves and that doesn’t just happen on weekends, but every day of the week. Renters and homeowners alike want to be able to enjoy our yards in relative comfort and that means we need some kind of break from the lawn mowers, leaf blowers, table saws, hammers, and other yard or construction appliances, which make so much annoying noise. Nothing ruins a quiet afternoon swim or a nice backyard barbecue quite like loud equipment on someone else’s property.
I’ve heard the “we need the revenue” complaint from both landscapers and construction companies, and I have little sympathy. I’ve said it before, if you’re a landscaper and you want to keep working after 4 p.m., you would do well to rediscover old, manual devices such as push-mowers, rakes, and sheers. I’m well acquainted with all three and how much effort it takes to use them, not to mention time, so I know what I’m suggesting.
In the case of developers, most of those making the noise are not even from this area. Their company heads may be but the contractors, thanks to issues of affordability of housing, have been forced to move UpIsland. It’s been my experience that many of them have great contempt for anyone living in the “posh Hamptons” and actually take pleasure in making our lives unnecessarily uncomfortable. Even if you ask nicely for them to ease up a bit late in the day, after listening to hammers and buzzing saws for eight hours straight, they treat us with contempt, as if all of us belong to that elite class that looks down on them and, for this reason, don’t deserve a break in the noise.
Thanks for reading, as always.
Sincerely,
MATT HARNICK
Millions
Montauk
June 30, 2025
Editor,
The millions of dollars spent on the East Hampton Town Airport closure efforts were first and foremost funds that existed as part of the collective wealth of the citizenry of East Hampton — real money in town accounts that only incidentally must legally be directed toward airport issues. While airport closure expenses qualify for fund expenditure, there also exist other legitimate airport-related investment options that meet the same spending directive: continuous maintenance, airport building improvement, safety protocols, tech upgrades, noise abatement, neighbor mitigation, debt service, or simply tucked away in interest-bearing accounts for an airport rainy day.
Millions of East Hampton Town Airport-generated wealth that might have been directed to the above were spent on an airport closure strategy that was ultimately rejected and found illegal by every level of the United States judicial system. Viewed as an East Hampton airport investment of directed funds, the expenditure proved to be worthless.
No matter how an investment of millions of dollars of East Hampton wealth is explained away as a no-cost exercise, its overall net worth balance sheet is millions of dollars less for this misadventure. However, in the final analysis, the origination of these funds is secondary to the level of citizenry benefit derived through the choices of their expenditure.
You be the judge.
TOM BOGDAN
A Betrayal
East Hampton
June 26, 2025
Sir,
Donald Trump campaigned on promises to make life more affordable for ordinary Americans, vowing to lower prices, protect working families, and restore economic security. In office, however, his economic agenda is a master class in broken promises and misdirection.
His policies prioritize tax breaks for the wealthy while pushing for deep cuts to the social safety net — housing, food assistance, and health care programs that millions rely on.
Despite campaign bluster about defending the working class, Trump’s record is littered with attempts to raise rents on the poorest, slash disability benefits for children, and shrink food aid like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), all while proposing massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.
Representative Nick LaLota’s recent email (“The Truth About Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill,” June 25, 2025), is spectacularly disingenuous. He insists that only the “undeserving” — undocumented immigrants (who largely aren’t even eligible for Medicaid) and the so-called “work-shy” — will be affected, conveniently ignoring the devastating impact on working families and children who depend on programs like Medicaid and SNAP.
This rhetorical sleight of hand cannot disguise the truth: Trump’s economic agenda is a betrayal of the affordability he promised, and members of Congress who support it are doing most of their constituents a grave disservice.
Sincerely,
ANDREW VAN PRAAG
Labor Lifeblood
North Haven
June 30, 2025
Dear David:
Looking around the Hamptons, we see everyone in our successful economy is not entirely native born. We’re a heterogeneous people with diverse backgrounds and skills. Some are from families that “settled” this area hundreds of years ago. Some were here from the beginning of history, that we now respect as Indigenous. Most everyone here is derivative of immigration one way or another.
What makes our home on the East End work so well is more than the glitzy Hamptons celebrity events and the peripatetic billionaires that descend upon us annually like locusts; it’s our stable population of resident working people who perform the critical jobs of education, medical care, construction, maintenance, fire, police, agriculture, and the food services — not to forget those imaginative folks creating cultural products representing literature, theater, design, and the fine arts. We are dependent on labor, including the phenomenon we call the trade parade. We complain about it, but should recognize all this labor is the lifeblood that keeps this place functional.
Imagine cutting off the Montauk Highway to end the notorious trade parade. That might solve traffic, but our community would suffer greatly. That parade can represent the flow of all immigration that keeps our entire country functioning well.
Thoughtlessly arresting noncriminal immigrants is already disabling our national economy at a tremendous expense. We are dependent on scarce labor, and are already seeing economic losses. Statistics show 40 percent of our economy is contributed to by all immigrant residents. The problem we face is not the immigrants, it’s the fact that our government has for over 40 years failed to create a sane legal process for immigration.
We must not continue to let Congress shirk its responsibility to legislate sensible legal immigration laws, while they continue with government harassment by poorly trained immigration agents with no apparent understanding of lawful behavior. We need to harass our elected representatives into doing their job and to legislate wisely — and to stop their own ugly harassment, scapegoating this vulnerable population.
Congress was elected to do something other than always asking for money, as if that would solve the problem. That’s not going to solve any problem. What they need is a kick in the butt from all of us with a threat we would rather vote for honest, effective leaders to solve the problem. So, why don’t they do something useful to get my vote? We can all become winners then. Let’s do that!
ANTHONY CORON
Speaking Up
East Hampton
June 28, 2025
To the Editor,
I would like to thank Paul Eric Rudder, Brian Pope, and Robert Ihle for speaking up in last week’s Star, regarding the lies, misinformation, and outright MAGA garbage that is spread from Bea Derrico.
Every word that comes out of Trump is a lie. He makes up his own truth.
Respectfully,
DEBORAH GOODMAN
Another Gem
Montauk
June 27, 2025
Dear David,
I guess because I’m not a liberal, progressive, no way am I entitled to my opinion. I have found in conversations with adults, should you speak against their political views, you get shouted down. I also found try talking to a college student who has been brainwashed by their professors, their voices are raised to a loud rant, not allowing you a word in edgewise.
Mr. Rudder, you believe I condemned the news media for not castigating the behavior. Very wrong, I condemned the media for not reporting the truth, that would be, rioters were burning Los Angeles, some were paid outside agitators. This is today’s news, check back in the past: You will find my letters re Jan. 6. I found it disgraceful. Past news, and now I realize why so much hatred for Trump.
Mr. Pope, sorry you choose perhaps only to watch one station and maybe not read a newspaper. Recently I heard on the radio that $500 a week would be paid to those willing to get hurt in today’s riots. I ignored it but should I hear it again you’ll get the info. It’s my choice not to read your letters, because when I do I need a wastepaper basket to pray I hold down what’s in my throat. You write week after week, spilling baloney you think up. Question: Was it you who wrote you could only find illegals to cut your lawn. Sorry for you. Calling yourself a good Irish-Scots American, with what you spew in your letters, think again.
One thing I can’t understand is I’ve written many times that I do not watch Fox News. Newsmax must be new; it’s not on my channel radar. I admit to watching Faulkner news, debates all over the internet, etc.: Trump’s fault the riots got out of hand, because he brought in the National Guard and 700 Marines. Gavin Newsom was at a wine tasting in Napa; that’s his idea of taking care of things.
I got hysterical laughing when Mr. Ihle suggested Fox has no journalists, I never said they did, I don’t watch Fox, got that? With that said, tell me how great a journalist Joy Reid was; her mouth was the devil racist. Rachel Maddow, another gem, one more George Stephanopoulos told by his superiors not to call Trump a rapist, oh, screamed it out and cost the network $7 million in a huge lawsuit.
Mr. Ihle, a while ago you called me all kinds of names. I wrote you were not worth my time and trouble. I still feel the same.
I am going to have a few different surgeries and will sit and read all your lies, choose not to answer, therefore you can all watch “The View” and applaud your type of show.
P.S. In case you didn’t know Hakeem Jeffries with a straight face addressed the reporters, the throwing of a Molotov cocktail at police, looting storefronts across America’s second largest city was just an unrest. This is the same Jeffries who spent years calling the Jan. 6 Capitol incident an insurrection, can’t bring himself to call violent riots in Los Angeles what they actually are.
In God and country,
BEA DERRICO
Back Stories
Amagansett
June 29, 2025
To the Editor,
I was watching a program about concepts and back stories in writing a novel. It was an interesting take as the round table discussed ideas. Who are the main characters? One writer suggested an individual out of drug rehab who found the love of their life. Another chimed in, maybe it’s a habitual alcoholic. Easier to go to a store or neighbor to fill that vice.
The third author wondered if it was someone in law or security with questionable methods, a business owner with ties to a local board to siphon money, the nanny who was then changed to manny to modernize the change in a male taking the position. Who is trying to do nothing more than to wed the employer for a privileged life they covet.
Almost interesting if this could be formulated and conceptual sound. Perhaps we’d all do better financially to follow capitaltrades.com and see what our government officials in the District of Columbia are buying on the stock market. Happy Fourth! Remember, as the parody shirt says, “It’s only treason if you lose.”
Still here,
JOE KARPINSKI