Ocean Child
Hampton Bays
August 15, 2026
To the Editor,
I had the distinct honor of interviewing Joan Tulp over the phone in November 2021. I wanted to film her story. She was so touched. “Are you sure? Me? You want to tell my story?” I said, “Yes. I do. And Michael Clark from LTV sent me to you.”
And so, I met Joan to film her story. What transpired was magic. She showed me her favorite places: the beach, the beach club, the tennis courts, the train station where she’d go to pick up her husband, Bob, on the weekends, the first home she ever visited in Amagansett, the dunes, and her friends.
Through Joan, I came to understand her deep love for Amagansett. It wasn’t simply where she lived, it was where she belonged. Always.
That summer she invited me and my friend Mary to the beach club for lunch. Joan told me it was simple but delicious. She was right. And there we sat and ate and we met so many of her friends — young, middle-aged, older, gay, straight, a real mix of people stopped by to say hello. She greeted them with that infectious smile of hers and you could feel how happy they were just to be in her presence. Magic.
I spent the past five years going to her house every chance I got. I knew where to find her: the beach. Joan’s beach. I’d bring my friends and she’d ask them a dozen questions about their lives. If she wasn’t at the beach, she was in her house holding court with one or two friends. She loved my dachshund, Sylvie. She loved her red lipstick.
Sometimes I’d come on my own, and she’d share her photo albums with me and would tell me the story behind the pictures. I’d hear about Luke, Evan, Matthew, and Jamie. I’d get transported to Paris, Brooklyn, and Amagansett.
“How are you my dear? And how is work going? Are you in love yet? How is Mary? How are your Montreal friends?” These were the questions she’d ask me. She really wanted to know. She believed in helping others. Always. Volunteer work was in her veins. A lifeline.
She had an extraordinary memory. She was a great listener. She was warm. She was beautiful. She was modest. She was so easy to love. Her eyes reminded me of the sea. She was the mayor of Amagansett. I imagine she’s riding a bunch of waves, watching the moonlight over the water, playing tennis, cuddling Princess, and laughing with Bob.
The last time I saw Joan was in early June and she was sitting in her wheelchair on the deck of the beach club, which still hadn’t yet opened for the season. It was sunny and warm, not too humid, and we spent over an hour together. She told me she wanted another summer because she wanted to see the light hit the waves and the dunes change their color. Gold.
I told her the light reminded me of her hair. She had the sky in her eyes. Then she told me how happy she was that I had a lot of friends. “It’s best, you know because you’ll live longer that way.” And then there were Joan’s closing words in her documentary: “Love somebody. Just love the life you’re living. If you don’t, change it. Love what you’re doing because that’s what makes it all worthwhile.”
Beautiful, vibrant, magical, precious, loving, ocean child, I shall treasure you forever.
CHRISTIANE ARBESU
East Hampton Empathy
East Hampton
August 11, 2026
To the Editor,
The long checkout line at Citarella forms along a brightly lit wall of ice cream freezers, almost hypnotic as you slowly shuffle past.
I reached in for a pint, and its container flattened in my hand, as did a second and third — warm, dead victims of a freezer that had failed hours before and gone unreported.
Back in line after flagging an employee, I described what had happened to the young man standing next to me, bemoaning the loss and waste of hundreds of pints.
His response was, “I don’t eat ice cream.”
Empathy in East Hampton.
JEFF ROBINSON
Open Seat
Montauk
August 11, 2026
To the Editor,
The Montauk Union Free School District Board of Education would like to thank Sarah Roberts for her years of service to the Montauk School community. Mrs. Roberts, who has resigned from the remainder of her term, ushered in countless initiatives to serve our students and was a valuable voice in shaping our district. Her enthusiasm and dedication will be missed.
The Montauk Board of Education will be accepting letters of interest from any qualified community member to fill the open board seat of Mrs. Roberts for the remainder of the 2026-27 school year. Anyone interested is asked to forward their letter to the district clerk, Melissa Flaherty ([email protected]), by 11 a.m. on Sept. 3. Interviews will be conducted by the board of education shortly thereafter.
Sincerely,
KELLY WHITE
President, Montauk Board of Education
JOSHUA ODOM
Superintendent
Toll Booth?
East Hampton
August 13, 2026
Dear David,
I’m writing in response to Linda Buckley’s letter about a toll booth across Shinnecock Canal. I don’t recall seeing that story in Dan’s Papers but it did remind me of the attached cartoon my father, Clayton Morey, drew in 1984. There was a second version that said, “Under New Management” and “Residents Only.”
RICH MOREY
Most Exquisite
Noyac
August 8, 2026
Dear Editor,
Excuse me for not having written sooner, but I must call to the attention of any reader here “The Shipwreck Rose,” the column that Bess Rattray writes every week in The East Hampton Star. It is the most heartwarming, beautiful, eloquent, exquisite writing I’ve seen anywhere ever, and I am so glad you include her along with your outstanding news reporting, especially your recent editorials!
Bess’s column is wonderful. I follow along with her and feel like I’m one of her best friends, remembering along with her good times of the past.
Thank you so much for publishing “The Shipwreck Rose”!
Bess, keep on keepin’ on!
Love,
HEIDI RAIN OLESZCZUK
Much Better
East Bay, Calif.
August 17, 2026
Dear David,
I loved Bess Rattray’s “The Shipwreck Rose” column this week, “The Vanishing.” I can relate. The old-fashioned egg beater (I have my grandmother’s) works much better than a whisk, especially for fluffy eggs or quiche. Sorry, Ina. And where is that electric can opener or even a hand-held one? Gone, baby, gone.
When the lift-off ring on the tuna can broke off recently, I was at a disadvantage. We moved and we forgot to take the can opener.
Sadly, I remember galoshes. Now it’s Wellies for everyone, even the kiddies have them. Ah my heart, the Vermont Country Store; it is a treasure trove of nostalgia and very useful stuff, like undershirts. Who doesn’t love a cotton camisole?
And a goodie bag? Swag, schmag.
I happen to love a top sheet. And a comforter sans duvet. Personally I loved the Old Salty and Cap’n Pepper shakers on the old beach house kitchen ledge with rice inside for the damp. Classic often rules.
Fondly,
NANCI LAGARENNE
Breaking Point
East Hampton
August 8, 2026
Dear David,
I’m going out on a limb before this tree also gets cut down to say the soul of East Hampton Town and Village has been sold to the highest bidder.
Whether it’s the hazard waiting to happen at the old nightclub on Three Mile Harbor Road with this season’s new out-of-town operator charging $250 admission for males and free to the ladies, loudly broadcasting the same old pounding, continuous replay of techno rave music without any sound attenuation or insulation in the old building that rages throughout the neighborhood until 3 a.m., if we are lucky, or all-night drunken fests at every turn in Montauk, or unidentified rental locations of at-home fireworks blasting like bombs throughout our neighborhoods any time of the day or night, or massive spec houses continuously being built with Olympic-size pools and 10 bathrooms with extensive manicured lawns that soak up all of our precious water resource, or our crammed beaches trampled with firepits, private parties, concerts, and fireworks destroying the environment and wildlife habitats, or Flock surveillance cameras each time we drive through the village, or the village mayor with his own privately funded foundation, or corporate-bought houses to rent to the highest bidder for party central, or speeding jacked-up kit cars and pickups that you can hear for miles and miles after they’ve passed you, or whatever else you can add to this list from your own experiences this summer, and all the while drawing in more and more traffic that is beyond control and is seriously lethal.
Meanwhile, our elected officials continue to add to this mess by considering and supporting massive, privately owned work-force housing for the larger and more profitable than most local establishments and the out-of-town deepest pockets of the newest hot-spot pop-ups using taxpayer money and resources to try to monitor them and thereby adding to more traffic in these already heavily-trafficked areas, not strongly standing down on oversized commercial buildouts that affect quality-of-life issues, or allowing and also promoting continuous summer season events that draw more and more traffic in to every inch of the village and each hamlet and their beaches.
So I ask, when will it be enough before we reach that breaking point? Obviously this isn’t sustainable, and it is extremely taxing on our precious resources, as well as one of our most important resources — our overworked police, first responders, emergency, ambulance, fire, and ordinance department personnel.
While our local small business owners and residents work tirelessly to make a profit during these few summer months, to what end when we don’t have any oversight of out-of-town enterprises competing with them during these cherished summer months?
I am hearing the siren call from so many people that agree that this summer has become so out of control and that the traffic is worse than ever. It will become even harder to rein in, since precedent has been set and it seems no new restrictive laws have been considered or enacted.
If this season hasn’t been the wake-up call, I seriously doubt one ever will. We all lose by sacrificing our beautiful town, our sense of place and peace, and our precious resources and environment. I guess they can continue to blame it on the deer.
BETSY PETROSKI
Move the Market
Springs
August 17, 2026
Dear David,
Paving paradise to put up a parking lot: The town board has proposed to cut down trees in or near a nature preserve to build a 35-space parking lot in the middle of the Springs historic district just 150 feet from wetlands and Pussy’s Pond, which functions as a headwater for Accabonac Harbor.
I doubt the farmers and fisherfolk at the Springs Farmers Market would support a proposal to unnecessarily cut down trees and potentially pollute the pond. As Joni Mitchell said, “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”
It is unclear whether the town board has a stormwater runoff plan for the parking lot, which seems important given the Springs Community Presbyterian Church across the street received more than $320,000 from the town for stormwater abatement to control its parking lot runoff and for other water quality improvements related to its septic system.
Also missing from the town board’s plan is the not-so-minor detail that just 35 parking spaces will not solve the parking problem at the farmers market — the driving force behind this proposal. Questions also remain as to whether this parking lot will require alienating land in the nature preserve.
The solution is not to cut down trees and pollute a pond with runoff by converting nature into parking. If there is no longer enough parking to support the farmers market at this location, then the town must move the market to a location that can safely accommodate it and protect Pussy’s Pond. The Springs School is one potential alternative.
We should not sacrifice trees, wetlands, a water body, and the character of our historic district for a parking lot that will not solve the problem it is supposed to address.
This should not be controversial. Time to move the farmers market.
JOE SEGILIA
Most Troubling
Springs
August 17, 2026
Dear David,
Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez’s handling of the PFAS drinking water contamination stemming from the 2023 fire at the East Hampton lithium-ion battery storage facility should concern everyone, regardless of political affiliation.
Because of Supervisor Burke-Gonzalez’s failure to take immediate action following the fire, public drinking water wells have been taken out of service, families with private wells are worried about the safety of the water they have been drinking for more than three years, and residents are now demanding answers from the town board. While the town board tries to avoid accountability, residents have every right to ask why the town didn’t act sooner.
What is most troubling is concerns of the risk of PFAS contaminating East Hampton’s drinking water were raised with town officials long before the current crisis became public. In January 2024, Si Kinsella, a local resident, warned that the May 2023 fire at the battery storage facility could have contaminated groundwater with PFAS, but was ignored by Supervisor Burke-Gonzalez and others on the town board.
In a futile attempt to evade responsibility for failing to take this warning seriously, town officials erroneously claim that testing for PFPrA, the specific PFAS compound detected, was not available at that time despite well-documented evidence that the leading PFAS testing lab in the country was conducting testing for PFPrA in at least 16 states nationwide in 2023. Earlier this month I brought this fact to the town board’s attention. However, as of the time of this writing, the town’s website still falsely claims testing was not available for PFPrA until “recently.” In other words, town officials are providing misleading information to residents about what could have been done to prevent their drinking water from being contaminated with toxic chemicals. To be fair, the town is simply parroting the same incorrect claim Suffolk County Water Authority has made. Not exactly reassuring.
The public is increasingly asking why the East Hampton battery facility is being allowed to continue operating without adequate mitigation measures to prevent another incident. However, we should be asking a more fundamental question. The town itself acknowledges that aqueous film-forming foam was not used to extinguish the fire. With foam ruled out as the source of the PFAS contamination, the Suffolk County Water Authority alleges that PFPrA and other contaminants were released from battery casings that opened and released their contents during the 2023 fire, subsequently contaminating its drinking water wells. This makes clear how deeply flawed the East Hampton Town Planning Board’s conclusion was that the facility would have no significant adverse environmental impact and no impact on groundwater when it approved the facility. A lithium-ion battery fire capable of releasing contaminants was a foreseeable environmental risk, particularly over our sole-source aquifer. The planning board should never have concluded that this project posed no significant environmental threat.
At a recent town board meeting, impacted residents expressed frustration and fears about health risks, pressing town board members for more information and a plan. Town officials must listen to impacted residents’ concerns and provide immediate assistance, including comprehensive testing, access to safe drinking water, a remediation plan, and a community assessment to document and evaluate any health impacts of the exposure.
East Hampton residents should not have to stand at a town board meeting and beg their government officials to protect something as fundamental as their drinking water. This crisis demands accountability, transparency, and urgent action — not task forces, letters, and blame shifting.
JACQUELINE ESPOSITO
Only as Good
Amagansett
August 17, 2026
To the Editor,
On Aug. 8, 2021, I wrote of the wind farm agreement. It has become relevant years later. “The Cove Hollow Substation is over on 114 somewhere between East Hampton and Sag Harbor. Lots of digging ahead. Who’s watching? The town engineer we don’t have?” I guess elections do have consequences.
Twenty-one becomes even more relevant for Friday, as August 21 marks one year since the town Building Department administrative assistant (not any building inspector) signed off on another ill-fated continued geocube allowance. Time to see if all those meetings and code changes mean anything. Removal should be imminent. But let us remember any policy or code is only as good as the policy holder who actually is willing to write a citation and having a prosecutor who actually is willing to enforce the law.
What’s next? Are you going to tell me people watered their lawns all throughout a drought? Yes, we know that one is fact. At least the flashing light at the crosswalk on Amagansett main street is finally off since it began blinking back in February. Dredge Napeague? Correctly? Fast approaching six years since we were “a couple years away.”
Let’s hope this town doesn’t become a place where people will only seek compensation, care only for their future pension, children will only want to attend the number-one-rated party university and then end up with those who want a retirement home on the country club greens of Oxford, Mississippi.
Still here,
JOE KARPINSKI
Human Shield
Amagansett
August 15, 2026
Dear David,
East Hampton is facing critical water issues, yet the silence from our elected leadership is deafening. Instead of hearing directly from supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez or any knowledgeable technical experts within our government, the public is repeatedly redirected to the public information officer, Patrick Derenze.
A public information officer is meant to facilitate communication, not to serve as a human shield for elected officials who avoid tough questions. When leadership hides behind public relations, transparency dies.
Right now, families in our community are dealing with the frightening reality of an expanding toxic plume of PFPrA “forever chemicals.” Millions of gallons of firefighting water runoff from the 2023 lithium battery storage facility fire on Cove Hollow Road have breached our groundwater. This is not a public relations issue to be managed; it is a public health crisis that directly impacts our well-being and our local environment, including Georgica Pond.
Poor leadership inevitably leads to broken government, and right now, East Hampton town government is broken. We do not just need answers; we need a concrete, proactive plan from this town government to protect our sole-source aquifer and our health.
We need real transparency, immediate accountability, and visible leadership, not carefully managed press releases.
RONA KLOPMAN
Shortsighted
East Hampton
August 17, 2026
Dear Reader,
As a resident of our Northwest Woods, I sometimes refer to the trustee road that serves as my driveway as “Rue de la Tique.”
Thirty years ago, East Hampton’s tick niche was filled by dog ticks. Then deer ticks took over, and now that niche is dominated by each of the three lone star stages.
Speaking from experience as a local biology teacher who has collected and studied hundreds of these bugs, I believe we can avoid — certainly curtail — tick bites, through relevant self-care habits and property awareness and management.
Much of the current tick-complaint noise comes from people who are upset because a lone-star bite may give the recipient alpha-gal syndrome, which is an (often temporary) allergic reaction to eating mammalian meat. (Full disclosure: I have alpha-gal. I do miss bacon, but whatever.) These miffed folks have convinced our town government to officially consider methods of killing the deer, and of poisoning the forest.
While deer do indeed present real estate to ticks, so do dogs, birds, cows, squirrels, horses, cats, human adults and children — all blood-bearing animals. Which ones should we kill? Deer also cross our roads, but they don’t drive; isn’t it myopic to blame them for auto collisions?
An extremely vital issue is the town-suggested widespread use of permethrin, a lethal anti-insect chemical that kills ticks. Permethrin kills all insects, including all pollinators! The town is considering having workers apply thick layers of that poison onto outdoor racks specifically built to tempt and feed deer; the deer will then carry gobs of that deadly compound everywhere throughout the forest and neighboring properties. Such a town-sponsored decision would be short-sighted, tone-deaf, and environmentally toxic.
We can engage in intelligent action: fence off our expensive plantings, use DEET-free/all natural TickWise (an excellent repellent produced and available locally). We can make it a habit to check ourselves, kids, and pets for ticks. Let’s use our time, space, staff, and money to engage in environmentally responsible decision making.
Sincerely,
PATRICIA HOPE
Need More Data
Poughquag, N.Y.
August 15, 2026
To the Editor:
Many town officials say that an overabundance of deer is causing tick-borne illnesses, vehicle collisions, and damage to our forest understory. The town board is therefore discussing plans to reduce the deer population. At its Aug. 11 work session, the supervisor raised the possibility of hiring professional hunters.
I would like to ask: Would we humans want to be treated in the manner the town might treat the deer? Imagine that our community’s population became so dense it was causing problems and an external power decided it needed to kill a significant number of us? We would shout, “Never! Our lives are precious!” Well, deer’s lives are precious to them, too.
I believe we need more data on the extent to which deer are causing the problems some see. And even if it’s very clear that we must reduce their population, we should pursue nonlethal methods, like birth control. Each deer wants to live as much as we do.
BILL CRAIN
President
East Hampton Group for Wildlife
Rule of the Road
Amagansett
August 17, 2026
To the Editor:
In these dangerous times, I have been thinking about hope. I am an inherently hopeful person, organically but also intentionally; decades ago, I decided to live as if I were an optimist, which I did not realize until much later was an echo of Pascal’s wager: to live as if God existed.
Reading thousands of pages of Holocaust literature for a project in the 1990s, I became aware there were diametrically opposing views of hope in Auschwitz.
Art Spiegelman in “Maus,” his graphic account of his father’s time in the camp, describes how a Catholic priest inspired him to hang on by telling him the number tattooed on his arm added up to 18 (chai). “He put another life in me.”
But Tadeusz Borowski, who later killed himself, wrote that hope was a killer: “It is hope that breaks down family ties, makes mothers renounce their children, or wives sell their bodies for bread, or husbands kill. We were never taught how to give up hope, and this is why today we perish in gas chambers.”
Without giving up my determination to live optimistically, I was interested and moved to learn the motto of an extraordinary woman of the Renaissance, Isabella D’Este of Mantua: “Nec spe nec metu” — “without hope or fear.” That is the hardest, most crystalline, toughest, most admirable rule of the road I know.
For democracy everywhere,
JONATHAN WALLACE
Become Numb
North Haven
August 17, 2026
Dear David:
Our community has lost a lot lately. Open space, trees, a reasonable civil tolerance of others’ opinions, and some of our neighbors as well.
My friend and favorite fishmonger, Mike O’Rourke, was the reason for me to head over from North Haven to the Amagansett Seafood Shop, which was entirely Mike’s inspiration. His excellent fish and uncensored opinions were always fresh, and just as salty. He was fun and honest, and a wonderful local businessman, offering kindness and political common sense along with only the freshest catch, with some cooking advice he was always willing to share.
Mike will be greatly missed while we witness “the Hamptons” continuing to transform into a money-driven influencer paradise, with often shallow and/or hostile attitude.
Recent incivility seen in Sag Harbor on Sundays continues unabated and seems actually to be getting meaner. We can understand the protests against the outrageous civilian murders in Gaza, which represents a legitimate humanitarian issue. Criticizing the aggressing government is just that. It’s a government’s official military behavior, and not antisemitism. Freedom of speech here shouldn’t invite attempts to shout it down.
The recent Lulu restaurant situation seems like another case of a protest against a pushy wealthy restaurant owner getting away with unlawful code violations. That’s just the issue it seems. Again, it’s manipulative to claim such a protest as antisemitism without any actual evidence. Doesn’t anyone notice the horrible results these many selfish and unprincipled men in power are causing all of us here and throughout the world?
Is everything now fake news, as they constantly try to reassure us that we are blind, and there is nothing bad going on? “Nothing to see here.”
Look around your community, your own home, and family and friends, and try to imagine it all gone suddenly — as is already happening in some places here, and more obviously has already been happening massively worldwide. Wars and wildfires, earthquakes and floods, and growing poverty — with official ICE murders and mayhem in our neighborhoods, all have become commonplace. The United States is destroying families and culture in Iran and supporting Israel’s destruction of families in Gaza.
We have become numb from seeing all this, and perhaps despondent, as these budding tyrants would have it. Still, we can afford joyrides to the Moon while bombing Iran and then claim we cannot help Ukraine defend itself from the unconscionable attack and destruction from Putin’s Russia.
Our MAGA “leader” is now a megabillionaire through his blatant corruption. His health and sanity have deteriorated to the point of obvious incompetence. His puppeteers keep him well fed and happy, as they too feed themselves from this larder of corruption. These pathetic political enablers watch their leader fiddle, destroy, and toy with his deliberate destruction of our social order, including our monuments in our nation’s capital. The behavior reminding us of the myth of Nero fiddling while watching Rome burn.
In our present-day situation, all this destruction is not a myth. Yet Congress and the office of the president are both absent of decency and help, while engaging in combined efforts to both passively and aggressively enable this destruction. It’s in the book! Just read their own words in “Project 2026.”
We still have a voice, a vote, our homes, and our precious lives and loved ones. Will we continue to watch this destruction, as if okay, while we admire our Wall Street profits and 401(k) accounts soar into the supposed riches of paper profits?
Might we awake one day under the rubble of war, abuse, negligence, fire, or flood to find no honest government here to come to our aid?
It’s actually up to us to return this democratic republic to its former health. It’s wake-up time.
ANTHONY CORON
Defining Moment
East Hampton
August 17, 2026
Dear David,
Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Attorney General Letitia James, and Long Island News 12, among other media outlets, all reported that on the afternoon of Aug. 16, graffiti was discovered at the construction site of a new Islamic center in Mastic-Shirley. Police are investigating the incident as a hate matter and are pursuing all leads.
This happens to be on the site of a future mosque that geographically is closest to our own Islamic Center in Bridgehampton.
The East Hampton community, including many clergy of different faith traditions, rightfully came together a few years ago when Montauk and its Jewish community experienced the bigotry of a rash of antisemitic graffiti incidents. They expressed their disgust and resistance to this disturbing display of hate and expressed solidarity with their Jewish brothers and sisters. It was unacceptable and had no place in our community. Period. This is another defining moment when our community needs to show support and solidarity to those victims of Islamophobia — our Muslim brothers and sisters. It too is unacceptable and has no place in our community. Period.
Politicians, business leaders, clergy, activists of all stripes, and everyday people of good will and decency need to make it crystal clear, in words and deeds, that this community is one that belongs to all its people. America would not be America without all of us — especially those who have wounds of its scorn and hate. Jewish groups, organizations, synagogues, and rabbis in our community need to express solidarity with their Muslim brothers and sisters in the same way that they expect Muslims to support them in their pain when they are victims of bigotry.
We need the love that can break through the madness of our embittered times, the hatred that has overrun basic values and the greed that has trumped decency. Radical love and solidarity are the forces that can break through the intolerable bitterness of spirit we’re exposed to daily. That America is possible if we imagine it so. Hatred can’t be allowed to have the final word
Sincerely,
JIM VRETTOS
Play Gotcha
Wainscott
August 8, 2026
Dear David;
A letter in the Aug. 8 edition, where a constituent called Representative Nick LaLota’s D.C office — congressional staffers do not answer question of what a congressman thinks about the last election. The question was nonsense. It is obvious this was an attempt to play gotcha.
I had reason to call Representative LaLota’s office on two separate occasions in the past. One was a potential health-threatening issue. The issues were addressed and resolved with positive results in 10 days. Actions speak louder than words. I, for one, will vote for him because he gets results, with a loud “period.”
Maybe the letter writer should stop playing juvenile games. Of course, he never thought to question the $171 billion in Medicare fraud that recently was made public.
ARTHUR FRENCH
Placed on Hold
East Hampton
August 13, 2026
Dear Mr. Rattray,
On Jan. 23, Nick LaLota announced that the community projects he authored and advanced through the House appropriations process were signed into law. This law provides funding for community projects across New York’s First Congressional District. However, Mr. LaLota recently decided to exclude East Hampton.
As reported in The Star, Mr. LaLota placed on hold roughly $9 million that East Hampton requested, saying, “I will not support community project funding requests from municipalities that have adopted policies, enacted laws, or taken official actions that deliberately obstruct, impede, or refuse lawful cooperation with federal authorities carrying out their responsibilities under federal law,”
The law that East Hampton officials passed states that local personnel “shall not use village resources, equipment, property, databases, or funds to investigate, detain, question, arrest, or transport any individual solely for purposes of federal civil immigration enforcement, except pursuant to a judicial warrant or as otherwise required by law.”
If Mr. LaLota had taken the time to read the law, he would have noticed that local officials would assist if there is a warrant or law authorizing such action. Instead, Mr. LaLota boasted, “I’m giving the town a choice, and they’ll have to deal with the consequences of their decision.”
East Hampton had requested $5 million next year to resurface 22 miles of road. The next time you drive in a pothole, think about voting for Chris Gallant. As his website points out, “Too many of the federal investments that should have come home to Suffolk County never came.” Mr. LaLota is making doubly sure that they will never come here unless you do what he says.
Doesn’t Mr. LaLota realize that he was elected to represent us and not reprimand us?
SALVATORE TOCCI