Important Work
Hauppauge
June 16, 2026
Dear Editor,
My thanks to The East Hampton Star for its editorial “War on Science Hits the High Seas” (June 4).
The National Science Foundation does important work observing and monitoring the ocean that surrounds us. One of the ways the N.S.F. does this is with a network of deep-sea buoys that measure ocean currents and temperatures to help scientists make predictions on how the changes in the Earth’s climate impacts fisheries, coastal flooding, and weather patterns. The deep-sea buoy program was completed in 2016 at a cost of $368 million and helps scientists better understand and prepare for climate changes and weather patterns that affect coastal areas and our fisheries.
Although these deep-sea buoys are expected to have a useful life of 25 or more years, the federal government is now planning to remove these buoys in response to proposed budget cuts. Removing these buoys is foolish and counterproductive, and I am hopeful that this does not take place.
Sincerely,
EDWARD P. ROMAINE
Suffolk County Executive
Not Having a Party
Springs
June 22, 2026
To the Editor,
A well-documented scam is doing the rounds in East Hampton. An invitation is going out, purportedly from me. We are not having a party coming up soon.
I received a similar invitation from someone else that could not be opened, so the scam is originating from local emails.
I thank the East Hampton Library for explaining it to me.
JOHN TEPPER MARLIN
Lost Touch
Williamston, S.C.
June 8, 2026
To the Editor,
When I was a resident of East Hampton (until 1989), I befriended a young lady who was a house-sitting on Pudding Hill Lane. I lost touch with her when I moved but would like to contact her. If anyone knows where Loretta is, please give her this address: 203 Gaillard Road, Williamston, S.C. 29697
JOHN BEEBE
If You Knew Brian
Oak Bluffs, Mass.
June 22, 2026
To the Editor,
Brian Pope died the week of June 14 at home in his beloved Montauk. He was many things to many people: historian, teacher, Lighthouse staffer, gadfly, fraternity brother, and — to anyone who read the letters page of The Star over the past decade — a reliable, necessary, and sometimes magnificent pain in the ass.
Brian was born in Great Britain in 1949, the son of an American Air Force officer, and spent much of his childhood in a London suburb before the family returned to the States. He was a private man who rarely spoke of his early years. He preferred to be known by what he did and what he believed, not by where he came from.
He was not famous by conventional measure and didn’t want to be. What he wanted was what he spent his life quietly building: a home in a place he loved, a classroom where students might actually learn some history, friends loyal enough to last more than 50 years, and a public record in his own plainspoken, historically literate, barely-contained-outrage voice of what was happening to the country he loved.
Brian grew up without much money and without much patience for those who did. He worked his way through the State University at Albany, slinging hash in the Dutch Quad cafeteria and stacking pallets on the graveyard shift at the Coca-Cola plant for $3 an hour. He arrived in 1967, found lifelong friends fast, and by 1968 was a brother of Kappa Beta and, in a small and specific way, a legend, having earned the title of the fraternity’s “worst pledge.”
The stories from those years have the shape of fraternity stories everywhere: half tall tale, half gospel, improved over 50 years of retelling. There was the ill-tempered dog his roommates named Buckley, after a sitting senator, whom Brian let out one bitter December night and who never came home. Brian took the full story to his grave. His brothers never quite believed him, never quite doubted him, and toasted the dog for years with the cheapest bourbon they could find.
What his friends remember most isn’t the mischief but what came after. Brian was guarded and didn’t open up easily, but if you earned his friendship you had it for good. He helped one brother limp through freshman composition; that guy became a professor. Twenty-five years later they reconnected at a reunion, and the reunions became an annual pilgrimage. Living on a teacher’s pension and not exactly flush, Brian still picked up the bar tab more often than not and never left less than a $20 for the bartender. The fraternity motto “Brothers For Life” turned out to be prophetic.
After Albany, he taught high school history on Long Island, a calling that suited him precisely. He believed the past was not decoration but explanation, and that its failures were not safely behind us but waiting to be repeated. Eventually Montauk found him. He served 14 years at the Montauk Lighthouse and a stint as director of the Montauk Historical Society and watched with alarm as the wealthy pushed steadily east. He called them “straw hats.” He was funny about it, but he wasn’t joking.
He was humble in the way that matters most. After retiring, he took a job as a janitor, then stocking shelves in a secondhand shop. He cared deeply about poor and struggling people and spoke about them without condescension — harder than it sounds. He had no patience for performative patriotism, for those who waved the flag while dismantling what it stands for.
His real voice is best preserved in his letters to this paper, written with a clarity, a fury, and a dark comic precision his targets did not enjoy. On creeping authoritarianism, quoting Wiesel and always crediting who said it first: “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the oppressed.” On Trump himself, weeks before Brian’s death: “One day the future historians will describe you as a petty sawdust Caesar with fascist aspirations.”
His final letter, sent to his fraternity brothers on what was likely the last day of his life, was — fittingly — a history lesson, ending with a modern kingmaker cast in the role of the Earl of Warwick. Brian was teaching until the very end, which is exactly how he would have wanted it.
He always signed off with “Cheers,” which, if you knew Brian, was its own kind of joke. Not ironic, exactly. More like: I’ve told you what I think, I’m still standing, and I’ll have a bourbon now.
Like many, I was privileged to be his friend, and I will miss him dearly.
MICHAEL R. HOFF
Long Delays
East Hampton
June 16, 2026
Dear Editor,
I am writing in response to your article “Let Them Build, but What Kind of Housing?” (June 11).
To be clear, the East End Council of Long Island Builders Institute was not formed following the governor’s new legislation. One had nothing to do with the other, but the timing is there.
We are in support of the governor’s legislation about the reforms made to the Environmental Quality Review Act, or SEQRA. Our membership believes in protecting the environment and understands that rules need to be in place to help do that. We live here, also. This is our home. We want clean drinking water to drink. We want to protect our bays and oceans and wildlife.
What we are not in favor of is how long the permitting process takes to get approved, especially ones that do not have any significant impacts on the environment. Long permit delays in the end add to the cost of the projects, and in return those costs get passed on to the consumer only further adding to the affordability issues we are all facing. Affordability is a hot topic because there is nothing affordable here. We need common-sense laws like this one to help bring down the costs of building. By no means does this stop protecting our environment.
Other ways to help reduce costs and make housing more affordable would be for the governor to look at state labor laws 241-240, Scaffolding Law with absolute liability, as well as labor law 200, General Duty. No other state is mandating this burden that has been put on to contractors and in return passed on to the consumer. We need common-sense reforms on this issue as well.
The East End Chapter of L.I.B.I. is made up of local builders and associates who live and work here on the East End. We are your Little League coaches and first responders. Let’s work together on finding ways to reduce costs that make sense without hurting the environment. Our children should be able to enjoy affordable home ownership where they grew up. If you live indoors, thank a builder!
MICHAEL PAUL FORST
Chairman
Long Island Builders Institute East End Chapter
Upcoming Music
East Hampton
June 22, 2026
To the Editor,
In the June 18 edition of The Star, Christopher Walsh wrote an article about the upcoming summer music events on the South Fork. The Talkhouse, the Clubhouse, the Arts Center at Duck Creek, and the Surf Lodge were highlighted. A quick mention of Main Beach and Kidd Squid was added. LTV Studios was not included and should have been.
LTV has nine dates of famous cabaret singers, to name a few: Norm Lewis, Donna McKechnie, Klea Blackhurst with Billy Stritch. Plus, LTV has a jazz series for several dates. All the information can be found at LTVEastHampton.org. Perhaps Mr. Walsh will write an article about LTV’s music summer series?
Also in the June 18 paper, is an excellent column by David Rattray about Letters to the Editor explaining what should not be sent, such as duplications, A.I., plagiarism. In addition, what should be, can be, sent is clearly explained. If you have not read it, do so.
JANE ADELMAN
—
The week’s Arts section features a rundown of the LTV Studios 2026 season. Ed.
Editors Deluged
Springs
June 20, 2026
Dear David:
I recently published a book (nameless here) on artificial intelligence from what I described as a serious humanistic perspective.
As you suggest in your June 18 column, “A.I. Is Plagiarism,” editors everywhere are deluged by submissions created or partially created by A.I. Part of the problem is sheer volume. I can labor over a letter to The Star, or I can get ChatGPT or some other chatbot, to blast it out literally in seconds. It is fluent, articulate, informed, and relevant.
My research suggests that use of A.I. to articulate our opinions is not plagiarism in the legal sense. Plagiarism in that sense is stealing the intellectual property of other authors.
Chat, with its unimaginable “pretraining,” often compared to absorbing text equal to four times the holdings of the Library of Congress (but in fact mostly from the internet) is stealing only the accumulated writing of civilization in all its genres, forms, and many of its languages. A.I. is not plagiarizing, but users, of course, can employ A.I. to plagiarize. When A.I. generates text (it is called a “generative, pretrained transformer,” ChatGPT), it draws from the corpus of what all human civilizations, eras, have expressed.
I would urge that we refrain from dismissing A.I. as plagiarism — what copyrighted texts has it stolen? — but reject that these are the unaltered, authentic ideas and language of the writer. The writer has used a chatbot to research, articulate, and stylize her ideas That may enable her to express herself as she otherwise could not.
The legendary Harold Ross, founding editor of The New Yorker, approached every submission with the editor’s classic questions: Is it relevant, is it logical, is it of interest to my readers, is it factual? He addressed only the text. Can we still do that?
You suggest that a letter composed by A.I. is soulless. Can you confirm that from the text alone? Could you rely on your obviously celebrated editorial discernment to accept a letter without running it through an A.I. lie detector?
Well, it is early times.
The entire logic of creating the large language models like ChatGPT by OpenAI was to generate “fluent,” profoundly informed (by pre-training) models able to take over the task of human burden of writing. No more facing the blank page, no more writer’s block, no more laborious judgment and editing of submissions in the floodtide of A.I.
If we do reject A.I. in submissions (the policies of publications vary wildly), are we saying that the “how” trumps the “what”? The origin trumps the substance? Would a whiff of A.I. have panicked Harold Ross, whose marginal comments, queries, challenges were often as extensive as the text?
WALTER DONWAY
Pros and Cons
East Hampton
June 22, 2026
Dear David,
Many thanks for your excellent investigative piece in last week’s Star on some of the facts, excesses, and dangers of the Flock camera devices in our community. It continues the wonderful work of Christopher Walsh’s past informative articles as well. Without The Star, we wouldn’t have known much about their use and abuses — certainly not from the politicians who implemented them without community review or input. That’s the point. Let’s have a town hall community gathering where the pros and cons of these devices can be finally debated and rationally discussed. We haven’t had that opportunity.
On an issue so vital to the present, future, and good of our community, we should all be able to agree that we need and have an obligation as a democracy, to have a vigorous, civil, and vibrant discussion. Let’s discuss privacy rights, civil liberties, and mass surveillance — issues that far transcend political parties and any one politician. Let’s discuss possible actions through a vote and a referendum.
Let’s invite the newly nominated supervisor candidate (as of this writing, still unknown), our town and village police chiefs, criminal-justice experts, spiritual, business, public health, and other political community leaders from organizations such as Organizacion Latino Americana and homeless outreach programs such as Maureen’s Haven to the meeting. Garrett Langley, Flock Safety’s chief executive officer, would certainly be welcome to attend as well.
Sincerely,
JIM VRETTOS
Right to Privacy
Montauk
June 19, 2026
To David:
I never thought Big Brother would be coming to my neighborhood anytime soon. It’s outrageous! It’s a giant leap backward in relinquishing our right to privacy.
You can cite all the success stories you want, but privacy is a fundamental civil right that protects us all.
Blackstone’s Ratio in English common law might be loosely applied here, which states it is better to allow 10 guilty persons to escape justice than have one innocent person suffer.
So yes, these cameras may have some benefit in catching guilty parties, but the risk of hurting innocent people is far more important, particularly when it could be you or your neighbor.
These tools are ripe for draconian exploitation and should be removed immediately. And shame on village leaders for not having the foresight to see this before allocating our taxpayer dollars to invade our privacy.
JEFF GEWERT
Genuinely Creepy
Amagansett
June 18, 2026
To the Editor:
Although most public figures, whether politicians, actors, athletes, activists, or people famous for being famous, are (like most people) a complex mixture of human traits, striped with good and evil like the light coming through venetian blinds in a film noir, sometimes one factoid about a person tends to overwhelm all the others. (Bill Cosby, anyone?)
Though I have been somewhat obsessed by his savagery toward the village ambulance volleys, the operative factoid about Jerry Larsen is likely the one David Rattray reveals in “Police Anywhere Have Eyes on East Hampton.”
Mr. Larsen and his buddy, crony, and backer, Bradford Billet, installed a Flock license plate reader system in the village which shares data with a national database that has been accessed 5.4 million times in a year, most frequently, of course, by genuinely creepy police forces, like the one in Johnson County, Tex., looking for — wait for it — a woman who had had an abortion. Had she gone to stay with friends in Wainscott or Napeague, she might have imagined she was in a safe haven. But no!
Just to get to those places, almost everyone drives through the village. (Maybe everyone — I am not visualizing, for example, a way to get from Sag Harbor to Springs while going entirely around the village, but just maybe there is one.)
As Mr. Larsen becomes inevitable, former defenders of democracy in East Hampton are rushing to endorse him, including Jeff Bragman, David Gruber, Rona Klopman, and Rick Drew. (“I only am escaped alone to tell thee,” Job 1:15). In a phenomenon known to psychologists as “identification with the aggressor,” Mr. Larsen has started to look suave, as even Donald Trump did for about five minutes in 2015.
But seriously, how does it happen, in the midst of all that glamour, that a deal gets made which allows racist, violent, and crazy Flock subscribers everywhere to know every time I visit the Golden Pear, the hardware store, or John Papas? It’s unsettling enough, at this late date, that Mr. Larsen himself knows every time I pass through the village. What business is it of his, let alone the cops in Johnson County?
If I missed your birthday, made a joke about your haircut, or even almost stepped on your dog, I could at least try to set it right by saying, “You are really important to me. I am sorry for my actions yesterday, which I know hurt you. Let me make it up to you.” But how do you apologize for scary sheriffs spying on me via Flock? You weren’t paying attention the day Brad signed the contract? Then prove it to us — by canceling it.
I am concerned instead that, by January 2028, we will have Flock cameras in the town as well.
Tom Flight’s almost-invisible hesitation in his endorsement of Mr. Larsen was amusing. Run through the English-to-English translator, it emerged: “I wish Jerry behaved better, and I will be watching him.” I feel better now!
For democracy in town and village,
JONATHAN WALLACE
Group of Insiders
East Hampton
June 18, 2026
Dear David,
By the time this can be published, the primary election will be over. But I think it worth noting that in the run-up to June 23 you described a competitive election in the Democratic Party Primary as an attempted “hostile takeover,” in big, headline type to boot. And here I thought competitive elections were the essence of democracy!
It is to no surprise of mine that you are not really much of a fan of competitive elections but prefer to see the leadership of the town chosen by a tiny group of insiders, advised by you, of course.
Equally unfortunate, you dismiss all criticism of the current town administration, other than your own, no doubt, as “disgruntled.” You may mount your own platform and sprinkle us all with your opinions weekly. Everyone else is “disgruntled.” Sadly, your condescension toward democratic elections is a big part of what currently ails our nation and hobbles effective administration of our town. How very MAGA of you.
Sincerely,
DAVID GRUBER
No Mention
Amagansett
June 20, 2026
To the Editor,
The editorial “Larsen’s Hostile Takeover Bad for East Hampton” (June 18) was disappointing in that no mention was given to Anna Skrenta, current Democratic Committee chairwoman and tireless worker for the betterment of our town. The Latino advisory committee started with Anna and has blossomed into a dedicated group of people from several ethnicities who are working to make the East Hampton community one community. Anna is thoughtful and fair, outspoken and a good listener. She exemplifies the kind of person we want on the Democratic committee.
Sincerely,
LORING BOLGER
Lose-Lose
East Hampton
June 18, 2026
Dear Mr. Rattray,
One year ago, Nick LaLota voted in favor of House Resolution 4 that cut $8.3 billion from Agency for International Development programs. Let’s look at the impact of Mr. LaLota’s vote.
According to a January report by Oxfam America, eliminating funding for U.S.A.I.D. will eventually result in at least 23 million children worldwide losing access to education and as many as 95 million people losing access to basic health care. The report estimates that more than three million deaths per year will result that would have been preventable with U.S.A.I.D. help.
According to the Taxpayers for Common Sense website, the most comprehensive analysis places costs for the Iran war over the first 60 days at $71.8 billion. Instead of causing death and destruction, this money could have funded U.S.A.I.D. for the next nine years and saved an estimated 27 million lives.
Slashing U.S.A.I.D.’s budget doesn’t just hurt programs abroad. It also hits home. U.S.A.I.D. money was used to support agricultural research carried out by universities, nonprofits, and business throughout the U.S. According to the Institute for Development Impact website, U.S.A.I.D. funds provided 200,000 American jobs and supplied $23 billion each year to our economy from U.S. exports.
Mr. LaLota’s vote against U.S.A.I.D. funding costs lives abroad and hurts the economy at home. It’s a lose-lose situation. Let’s work to make Mr. LaLota face another losing situation, this time in November.
SALVATORE TOCCI
The Quiet Part
East Hampton
June 21, 2026
To the Editor:
Your June 18 article about Representative Nick LaLota’s community funding ultimatum revealed something unusual in public life: a politician saying the quiet part out loud.
Many politicians cloak political pressure in lofty rhetoric. Congressman LaLota dispensed with the pretense. His message was straightforward: if East Hampton adopts policies he dislikes regarding cooperation with federal immigration authorities, he will withhold support for discretionary federal funding.
That is his prerogative. Earmarks are discretionary.
What deserves scrutiny is not whether he can do it, but whether he should.
East Hampton’s public safety law does not prevent federal immigration authorities from enforcing federal law. It governs how local government chooses to use local resources. One can agree with that decision or oppose it. But it is a lawful exercise of local self-government.
Congressman LaLota’s response is essentially that if the town exercises that authority in a way he dislikes, he will use his authority to make the town pay a price.
Again, he is free to do so. But let’s not pretend this is a principled defense of public safety or the rule of law. It is political leverage, plain and simple.
The irony is rich. The same party that routinely extols local control suddenly discovers the virtues of centralized pressure when local communities reach conclusions it does not like.
Mr. LaLota is entitled to his position. Residents are entitled to judge whether using federal dollars as a cudgel against his own constituents is the kind of representation they want.
Sincerely,
ANDREW VAN PRAAG
Ruled by Stupid
East Hampton
June 22, 2026
Dear David,
The worst thing about a stupid man is his conviction that he knows things that he does not know.
“I know pools,” Donald Trump said, and told us he would renovate the reflecting pool for $1.8 million. So far, $18 million of our money has been spent. “It will last 50 years, 100 years, very high-tech,” Trump said.
As soon as the water went in, it turned green. Then the next no-bid contractor poured chemicals into it to kill the algae. Now the blue liner is falling apart and floating to the surface of the swirling green goop. Did the chemicals ruin the blue liner? Did they fail to properly prep the surface in the rush to be ready for the bloody gladiator battles on his birthday? Experts disagree. Not Trump. He blames imaginary vandals, just as he blames imaginary fraudsters for his loss in 2020.
The pool is trivial compared to demolition of the White House and the hundreds of millions he’s now trying to get out of us taxpayers to build his
bloated ballroom, which he told us would be paid for by his oligarch cronies. At the same time, he’s trying to get lifetime absolution from tax audits for himself, despite having enriched himself by $4 billion since taking office, according to those who keep track of such things.
The pool and the White House demolition are in their turn trivial to the Iran war Trump called “a short excursion.” He began declaring victory a day after it began. Four months later, with none of his objectives accomplished, the world economy running out of fuel, and the cost to America passing $132 billion, America is a laughingstock, a pariah nation on the world stage.
These things notwithstanding, still worse is his cynical tariff program, also declared illegal, after sucking billions from the pockets of American consumers. What makes Trump’s tariff tango stand alone in its stupendous stupidity is that he tried to sell it as the solution to inflation and high cost of living.
Any C student in economics can explain that tariffs are an inflationary tax on consumers. Worse, they are a dollar-for-dollar transfer of taxation from the rich onto the backs of the poor
and the middle class. I might concede that Trump, despite his Wharton business school tenure, could actually be too stupid to know that. But I assure you that the billionaire sycophants on the dais of his inauguration knew it. It’s been the Republican dream since Reagan, and for a hundred years before that.
There is an obscure vocabulary word for this kind of government: kakistocracy. I saw it in an article and had to look it up. I have several dictionaries. I found it only in the big 1934 Webster’s with the tissue-thin pages: “Government run by the worst, least qualified, most unscrupulous citizens; characterized by incompetence, ignorance, and a total lack of integrity.”
An optimist’s take on the existence of this word which so aptly captures our era is that it has happened before, and, somehow, the poor subjects who found themselves so rudely ruled managed to claw their way out from under it. May we be so lucky.
If we succeed in routing the Republican enablers in the midterms, none of whom have the character to admit to Trump’s incompetence, I suspect it will be because nobody, left or right, likes being ruled by the stupid.
DON MATHESON