Always a Smile
East Bay, Calif.
September 21, 2026
Dear David,
I was saddened to hear of the passing of Manon Potter. We met in the late 1980s at Amagansett School picking up our kindergartners. My younger son and her daughter Caty were friends, along with most of the kids in that happy class, taught by Terry Mannino.
Manon and I would take walks while the kids were in school on non-workdays for me and Manon’s myriad duties running a horse farm at Stony Hill, which was so beautiful. Still is. We would have long chats on our walks around Amagansett and lunches at Estia. I asked about her name, which I loved, and she told me it was from a French novel. It suited her.
We laughed a lot. Manon had the best laugh, full-bodied, and it made her kind eyes sparkle mischievously. And we had serious talks about life and love and how Manon was dedicated to The Retreat as a volunteer and helpful in starting the much-needed shelter, where I later worked. We were on the same page as far as women’s rights and their well-being was concerned.
We would run into each other in East Hampton Village through the years. Earlier, at The Buttery, where I worked, and later when I saw her walking with Maggie. Always a smile and a hug.
I’ll remember Manon with a twinkle and a smile. She was one of the good ones. Condolences to her children, Caty and Pauli, and their kids, her brother, Job, and family, and, of course, her Maggie.
Fondly,
NANCI LAGARENNE
Gave Me a Place
Sag Harbor
September 21, 2026
Hello,
There has been a great deal of discussion recently about whether Guild Hall does enough for local artists. As an artist who has personally benefited from Guild Hall, I would like to offer my experience. I am a fine artist and a graphic artist and photographer, and I have had the privilege of exhibiting my work in Guild Hall group exhibitions. For me, those exhibitions meant much more than simply having my work on a wall. I am also an immigrant. I did not arrive here with an established network or an automatic place in the local cultural community. Through Guild Hall, I met other artists, formed relationships, and found a creative community. For an artist — and particularly for someone new to this country and this area — that sense of belonging is enormously valuable.
I have also watched Guild Hall provide opportunities to artists at the very beginning of their lives and careers. My best friend’s daughter exhibited there in group shows when she was just out of high school. Imagine what it means to a young artist to see her work displayed in a respected cultural institution alongside established artists.
This is why I find it difficult to understand when Guild Hall’s group exhibitions are dismissed as though they don’t constitute meaningful support for local artists. A group exhibition is not “just” a group exhibition to the artist whose work is hanging there. It is recognition, exposure, encouragement, and an opportunity to become part of a larger artistic community.
Only an outsider can suggest that Guild Hall does not provide meaningful opportunities to local artists. It does. I know because I am one of them. Guild Hall gave me a place to show my work. More important, it helped give me a place in a community. And I know I am far from the only artist who can say that.
Very best,
LENA YAREMENKO
Part of the Solution
Bridgehampton
September 20, 2026
To the Editor:
I am responding to some posts I have seen recently on Nextdoor and to the letter to the editor posted recently by Nadia Ernestus. It is always easy to criticize and much more difficult to be actively involved in improving situations by actions and work. I appreciated the positive tone of Nadia’s letter.
Having run a cultural institution in this community, I personally have been the brunt of criticism. I devoted 13 years to our local artists and I’m happy that I did so. As a curator and fundraiser, it was important to me to keep my mother’s legacy alive and to support the artistic community.
Guild Hall has been serving this community by supporting and showing generations of artists from every discipline. There are activities across the board, including many that are free to the public. These are supported by donations and by membership.
The most effective way to encourage change and to have a voice is to volunteer. Change happens best from the inside out. I encourage anyone who is not happy with the current situation to become a part of the solution with hard work and effort.
I have had the pleasure of working with Andrea Grover when we were on a board together. When she became the executive director of Guild Hall, she brought new energy and a new generation into the management. It has been fascinating to see, and exciting.
My response to the criticism against Andrea Grover and, recently, Donna Corvi is to help them and support them.
To quote a well-known and famous book, “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.”
KIMBERLY GOFF
Eden for All
East Hampton
September 21, 2026
Dear David:
We at ChangeHampton are so grateful for Christopher Gangemi’s article in last week’s edition, “Flora and Fauna Find an Eden,” which tours our 14,000-square-foot native grassland Pollinator Meadows planted in 2025 with our brilliant landscape designer, Abby Clough Lawless, who donated her time, thought, and creativity in conceptualizing these meadows and the earlier 4,000-square-foot Community Pollinator Garden — all sprawling across the East Hampton Town Hall property. Abby not only created a food and pollinator Eden for our beneficial insects and birds but created a magnificently beautiful landscape for all of us.
I want to draw attention to the community of others who made the garden and meadows come to life. Paul Muñoz and his Eco-Harmony crew have dedicated many hours on their days off to doing much of the installation and maintenance of this project. Jason LaGarenne and his Whitney’s crew came on a cold March day in 2025 to remove turf for the meadows project; Matt Palumbo of Conserva Irrigation was generous with installing our irrigation systems for both projects. Our master gardeners Lynne Sexton, Lisa d’Andrea, Laurie Petroske, and the late Barbara Burnside spent countless hours weeding the Pollinator Garden over the last three years.
East Hampton Middle and High School students put out a huge effort in the preparation of the beds for the original garden. Families of student volunteers helped plant in both the garden and meadows; Re-Wild summer interns have come for a couple of summers to weed. And junior and senior volunteers have joined in the effort of spring cleanup and planting the garden and meadows. Whitmores donated eight native trees and many shrubs; Fowler’s donated rakes and gloves. Michael Cinque of Amagansett Liquors donated one of his playful birdhouses! And beyond the foundations you mentioned, we have received generous donations from numerous local residents.
ChangeHampton created these ecological models to inspire and educate our community about healthy, biodiverse, and resilient alternatives to ecologically dead, water-guzzling turf lawns that often require poisons to flourish. Our mentor supreme is Edwina von Gal.
The other part of that education-through-models about nature-based restorative landscaping is a multimedia campaign — creating signage, a website with popular and informative web tools (changehampton.org), physical educational products, newsletters, podcasts, and events all created by volunteers.
Our board of directors and advisers help us strategize our mission and work. We also have a public-private partnership with the Town of East Hampton that trusted us to create these vibrant, healthy, biodiverse, and beautiful alternatives on public land. It takes a small village to create models of the world we want to live in. And yes, we agree, if more people catch the wave, we can create an Eden for all species.
GAIL PELLETT
Who Decides?
Springs
September 21, 2026
To the Editor:
Two issues led my news feed this week: Will artificial intelligence destroy civilization, and does the Ashawagh triangle need more parking spots? Who gets to make these decisions?
Since my ability to influence A.I. decisions is limited to occasional chats with Siri, let’s move on to parking spots. Since I’m pro-grass and pro-trees and increasingly anti-car, I mused: Who gets to make the parking spot decision?
Springs is a hamlet governed by the Town of East Hampton; can we mirror our ancestors of 250 years ago and secede from the town, which collects our taxes but denies us representation?
Turns out New York State has a law governing the consolidation and dissolution of villages and towns. Would the property taxes we pay to East Hampton pay for the services we would lose as an independent town?
We could build sidewalks, more bike lanes, enforce speed limits, and debate the style and color of the Springs Police Department uniforms and actually remove the zoning impediments to reopening the Springs General Store. We certainly have artists and musicians: a Springs National Anthem? As a self-governing entity, would we bar A.I. or give he/her/it a seat on the Springs board of governors?
Any pro bono attorneys willing to explore the process?
PETER GOODMAN
Fait Accompli
Springs
September 15, 2026
Dear Editor,
Tonight, there was a robust meeting of the Springs Citizens Advisory Committee in Ashawagh Hall to discuss the town board proposal to create a parking lot behind the library on wooded land adjacent to the Pussy’s Pond reserve. Some 100 people attended, and the majority — the overwhelming majority — were opposed to the lot, on grounds that variously included environmental considerations, the lack of any real detail on the nature and scope of the demand for more parking, the availability of alternative existing land to accommodate parking requirements which might occasionally be thought to exceed currently available parking places, and the negative effect on the generally rural aspect of the Springs.
It seemed to many, me included, that this consultation, which the citizens committee chairwoman, Loring Bolger, and town Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte said was held to hear public opinions, was not to really consider any reversal of what seemed to many present as a decision already taken to create the lot.
Despite the clear majority opposed to the proposal, the chairwoman refused to consider a motion (mine) to vote on the sense of the meeting (clearly opposed), invoking what she said was her authority, and Mr. Calder-Piedmonte politely declined a request from an environmental activist to reopen formal consultations on the subject.
My own feeling, perhaps pessimistic, is that we are dealing with a fait accompli, and that any further opposition will be futile.
Sincerely yours,
JAN DE WILDE
Lack of Balance
East Hampton
September 21, 2026
Dear David,
Why does it seem that some on the town board have it in for Springs? First was the cockamamie idea of turning Fort Pond Boulevard into a commercial strip. And now it (or at least some) wants to desecrate Pussy’s Pond.
Several years ago, embracing the cause of beautifying the pond and addressing water issues that threatened the Accabonac wetlands, the town embarked on a large project to ameliorate those issues and beautify the pond and its environs, especially from the Springs School side. The work included reducing stormwater runoff using plantings, stabilizing its banks, and improving water quality. Now, forgetful members of the town board seem intent on undoing that work.
The newest insulting proposal is the creation of a parking lot behind the Springs Library, fronting on Pussy’s Pond. The proposed lot would be visible from the other side of the pond. (One must wonder how Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte sees the lot as enhancing the pond’s beauty.) While the proposed lot would be gravel, its surface is irrelevant as far as stormwater runoff is concerned. Not to mention the various contaminants the vehicles (and their occupants) will introduce. Indeed, the town’s own planning documents recognize that water quality is a concern in the pond and the surrounding watershed. None of the town’s remedial tools include erecting a parking lot on its banks.
So, why add a new source of runoff and a visual disturbance — from all sides — to a sensitive environmental area which the town is working to preserve and restore? It boggles the mind.
As for the imagined problem —parking during the dozen (or so) summer Saturday mornings when the farmers market is open, there are plenty of existing parking alternatives available to the market’s patrons without defacing greenlands and threatening the surrounding aquaculture. We go to the market most of those days and never have had a parking problem. Dangerous? If you want to see a truly dangerous parking situation, try to thread through the thicket of vehicles that clog Three Mile Harbor Road in front of Round Swamp Farm.
All this points to a more fundamental problem: the lack of balanced representation on the town board. Several years ago, this paper cautioned about monopoly control of the board —at that time (and now) a 5-to-0 Democratic board. It cautioned that absolute power is worrisome, and some of the board’s latest actions seem to underscore that worry. The lack of meaningful opposition tends to leave the monopoly thinking they are always right.
It is truly unfortunate that the East Hampton Republican “party” has so embraced the cultish elements of MAGA-ism that it has eroded into irrelevance. Indeed, in this election cycle, it could not even muster a slate of candidates. Imagine how much better town governing could become if a vibrant and responsible two-party system existed allowing for a balanced exchange of ideas. Lest some be quick to take pen to paper, Jerry Larsen is not the answer — that would simply take us back to the meanspirited days of the Wilkinson rule.
Sincerely,
BRUCE COLBATH
Hardy Grasses
Springs
September 18, 2026
Dear David,
The town’s plan to cut down trees and build a gravel parking lot with underground drainage in the Springs Historic District has stirred real controversy in the Springs community. There’s some agreement that parking is overcrowded on a handful of summer days — during the farmers market or when multiple events overlap.
At last week’s citizens advisory committee meeting, the weekly mahjong at the Springs Library was cited too, but, according to Gemini, only four to eight people typically play, given the historic building’s small rooms; larger games can use the East Hampton library or senior center. This doesn’t require a paved lot. The funds could instead go toward new trees and landscaping. One good alternative is the preserved Dodge property.
The town’s current plan — according to Ian Calder-Piedmonte, the C.A.C. liaison — in a subsequent conversation is to address compliance issues at the site then find an organization to manage the site. Then that organization will need to obtain a permit and adapt the building and grounds to its needs within the historic district rules. We all know how many years all of that can take.
In the interim, the parking area there could be quickly made usable for the farmers market and other events. Such parking could eventually be folded into the site’s management. It’s a short walk to the green, which already has handicapped parking (with two more spots planned) for those unable to walk that distance and sits farther from Pussy’s Pond than the proposed lot. It does not require paving, perhaps only leveling with hardy grasses. A gate could limit use to days when a lot of cars are there but no rainstorm is expected. A field is what the village uses at Main Beach for its weekly summer concerts. It’s a good idea.
Another option: Restore the town property to meadow, as it once was, with gates opened only on the few days parking is truly needed — and only when rain isn’t expected, to protect the pond from runoff.
Other solutions may emerge with more creative thinking —from the town board, trustees, the Accabonac Protection Committee, all of us, and the organizations that could better coordinate event dates using scheduling apps.
One of the best things about our community is how accessible our elected officials are —willing to listen, think creatively, and respond affirmatively. That’s democracy at work — it tends to find better, longer-term solutions in the end!
Best,
ALICE TEPPER MARLIN
No Longer Targeted
Hanceville, Ala.
September 20, 2026
Dear Editor,
Finally, I no longer own any properties in the Town of East Hampton, which means that I will no longer be targeted by the town for my opinions.
Code Enforcement officers used to come to my restaurant to inspect, and then I would get violations to appear in court. The inspector would lie in court, and that resulted in most of us video-recording future inspections to avoid the same issue from happening again.
It is a known fact that Gosman’s Restaurant and the Amagansett market have never pulled permits for anything ever, yet they remained invisible to the code enforcers forever. I once asked Supervisor Cathy Lester why that was. She said, “They are different.”
You see, in East Hampton, if you get in line long enough, you become the next town supervisor, which gives you immunity forevermore. Everybody who still owns a business in town knows this to be true, and that is why nobody will support what I am saying for fear of retribution from the town.
Happily, I am now immune from the hatred that has divided our country, and, if you are not blind, you see the government cancel and fight and attack innocent people who just tell the truth. Obama destroying the Tea Party was a prime example of government overreach in hatred politics. The real name is poli-ticks, for the blood-sucking vultures that politicians have become in today’s world.
For years, when the Republicans gained the majority in town, they would keep a lot of the people that were hired by the Democrats. Yet, when the Democrats regained power, they would fire everyone and put in their own people. Which, of course, resulted in more fighting, backstabbing, and a total lack of progress on issues. There are now probably more illegals in town than long-term residents.
The Montauk recycling project was the most ridiculous debacle ever invented by a government gone wild with good intentions. I don’t think, to this very day, that all the money spent can be traced to justify the tremendous cost of the experiment.
When the rich and famous finally arrived in droves with their drugs and decadence, they all competed for attention, backing different issues like haul-seining, beach access, the industrial park, and the airport. When the small-parts manufacturing company wanted to expand in the industrial park in a totally nonpolluting way, they were hung out to dry for not-in-my-backyard ways that forced the company to move out of state and take a lot of the employees with them.
Yet everyone complains that there are no jobs for the young? It’s because the rich don’t need jobs, except landscapers to mow their lawns. Illegal lawn mowing for sure!
It is widely known that young actors beg, scream, and pay to have photographers take their pictures. Yet, when they become famous, they beat up the same photographers they once begged for. Power does corrupt for sure. That is why you see the starstruck town board and employees stretch or ignore the rules for the left-wing rich and famous.
I spent over $35,000 trying to get a building permit on an oceanfront lot in Montauk and was told by an insider in the Building Department that they would never grant me a permit because of my letters to the editor about sensitive issues that were never proven wrong, only hated for telling the truth.
I took a lot of heat for supporting the reunification of Germany after the wall came down. It was quite obvious who objected to it. Helen Rattray even wrote a “Connections” article about supporting women in combat and, “Being inspired about the crumbling of the Berlin Wall.” She ended by saying, “I am sorrowful indeed if we western women have thrown away our veils only to put on fatigues.” I obviously objected to women in combat, too.
Anyway, I sold the oceanfront lot and three months later they got a permit and put up a beautiful house. Good for them!
Now? I am immune from the same system that is destroying our country.
Trump derangement syndrome has torn this country apart so much that if Trump loses the midterms, he is sure to be impeached. This time he could get the boot. Yet Biden illegally opened our border and protected his son while he committed crimes, and yet he was given a pass, even by the very people who knew he was losing his mind. Mitch McConnell is no different, is he?
So, our system is broken and corrupt, and war is the biggest money maker in our economy today. We all know who backs the wars, and we also know who killed Charlie Kirk, don’t we? Destroy the crime scene and bury the evidence. I used to think Dan Bongino was a straight-up guy till he joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Now, he’s nothing more than a recovering poli-ticksion with another pension. A true pedophile protector.
I have copies of “Connections” articles written by Helen Rattray where she writes about me after many complaints about my letters. “And so, the letter, from William H. Addeo of Montauk, stands as written.” That was before people got canceled and denied their First Amendment rights. Just like Trump just did by denying CNN access to the White House, which is impossible to believe, isn’t it? Anyway, Helen and I talked frequently on the phone about my currently submitted letters, and she would generally have to run them by the lawyers after I submitted evidence in writing to verify my letter.
I never once had a letter denied by Helen Rattray. We actually had some very good discussions on the phone and were very good at staying “friendly.”
Regardless of what David Rattray wrote after my last letter a few months ago, after Helen retired, I submitted a letter and got a call from David telling me that I was through and he would never publish me again, which he denied saying after my last letter. That was in the beginning of his new job as the boss, and I guess he just overreacted, and maybe even forgot the phone call.
Rusty Drumm and I were very good friends, and he was just about as neutral a person as any newspaper ever employed. Rusty often played referee between Helen and me, and she even sent him to do a profile on me, which turned out to backfire on the haters and did a lot to keep the peace in the paper.
I once told Helen that she enjoyed the controversy in the letters and it sells papers. She yelled at me and said, “The paper did fine before you and it will do fine long after you are gone.” David made sure I disappeared.
I went easy this time, as a trial run, and didn’t name any names, as I now have immunity from persecution because I no longer own any real estate in town. The “me, too” and “canceled Covid” times have changed our country for the worse and I don’t think we will ever recover from it, as it has crippled young minds full of mush, and they will never know the freedoms that people born before the year 2000 once enjoyed.
God bless America,
WILLIAM H. ADDEO
Respect the Place
Wainscott
September 21, 2026
Dear David,
I grew up in Freetown, a historically Black neighborhood in East Hampton. Like all kids of East Hampton in the 1960s and 1970s, my siblings and I enjoyed a great sense of freedom, roaming when and where we wanted after our chores were completed. Living near Calvary Baptist Church meant that I could ride my bike around and around the church parking lot, safely away from traffic.
The field adjacent to the church held wonders innumerable — blackberry bushes, ring-necked pheasants, bobwhites, whip-poor-wills, and an incredible number of insects, including a large, six-inch moth my cousin captured one summer night. It had a watering hole for dogs, formed at the base of a twin-trunked tree, and was a resting place for Fanny Gardiner’s horses when they broke out from the farm down the road. It could not have been more magical.
Now a private developer, Kirby Marcantonio, is proposing 48 housing units on this land under the umbrella of “affordable and essential worker housing.” Yet only eight of the 48 units would be designated affordable. This would be a large private development within a half-mile of three established housing developments and the town senior citizens center.
The project is simply too large for this piece of property. There are serious concerns about density, water quality, traffic, and environmental and ecological impacts.
At the Sept. 17 town board meeting, Mr. Marcantonio stated that there were only four or five spaces left to develop affordable housing in East Hampton; at the Sept. 3 meeting, he said six. But Mr. Marcantonio is a private developer, not a town housing official. On what basis is he determining where East Hampton’s remaining opportunities for affordable housing exist?
The need for housing for locals is real. Essential workers — police officers, teachers, municipal workers, and many others — are struggling to remain here, and some work two or three jobs just to keep afloat. We all know friends and family members who have been priced out of their hometown.
That is precisely why we should be careful about what we call affordable housing and how we go about creating it.
Spinner Lane is a tiny road that already carries cars and trucks cutting through to Morris Park Lane and Three Mile Harbor Road. Adding a 48-unit development would fundamentally change the scale of this road and neighborhood and raise legitimate questions about pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicle safety.
The need for housing for local residents is great; it always has been. I remember Andy Malone advocating for affordable housing in the 1970s. The town has made great progress since then and continues to explore creative ways to ease the housing crunch.
The Spinner Lane proposal is not a town project, and it is not the right project for this site. This is not a not-in-my-backyard issue. The backyard here is simply too small for a 48-unit development complete with its own sewage treatment plant.
Saying no to this proposal does not mean saying no to housing. East Hampton should continue pursuing thoughtful solutions through town housing initiatives, accessory dwelling units, employee housing, and other approaches appropriate to the places where they are built. Calvary Baptist Church has every right to seek a productive future for its property, and I hope it finds one that benefits both the church and the larger East Hampton community. But solving one problem by creating another is not progress.
Freetown has accommodated change before and will again. But change should respect the scale, history, and people of the place where it occurs. This land has memory. Whatever happens to it next should remember Freetown, too.
JOI JACKSON PERLE
Welcome Suggestions
East Hampton
September 18, 2026
Dear David,
At last night’s town board meeting there was a long and substantial exchange of views on the merits of the soon-to-be proposed Calvary Baptist affordable housing project. There were also a few rather ugly and unhelpful comments made as well.
As to the first, I welcome any suggestions and comments from the neighbors. The plan itself is not settled yet, so hearing them now gives me time to modify the plan to better suit the area. That includes the number of units.
Although the land could handle as many as 53 units, I felt that was too big from the start. The actual project will be smaller. Much of that will be determined by the traffic study we are required to prepare to actually move forward with the first analysis of the project by the town.
The neighbors also have pre-existing issues with the overall condition of Spinner Lane. There’s no shoulder, no sidewalks, no lighting. We will address some of that by installing a sidewalk along the 800 feet of Spinner Lane the Calvary lands fronts on and connecting it to the existing sidewalk that terminates on Springs-Fireplace Road, on the northern end of the Calvary property. Perhaps the town could then extend that sidewalk at their expense to run the length of Spinner south to Floyd. That would eliminate that issue.
What about septic? To achieve the density required we have to install a $2 million system to handle all septic on the site. This is the same one used by the town on its own projects and is the state-of-the-art system currently available. Who will maintain it? The manufacturer requires it to be serviced on a monthly basis using their technicians.
Who will live there? The church and I agree that reaching out to the essential workers of this town, the police, teachers, health care workers, municipal employees, is the best way to maximize the effect of these units. So, there is no work-force housing, simply affordable housing for families that are priced out of the market and are desperately needed to actually run this town. I have already had meetings with those groups to explain the project and invite them to participate. They are extremely excited at the prospect.
Now, to the other side of last night’s meeting. There were unfounded accusations I did not actually represent Calvary Baptist, that I was a “carpetbagger.” Having lived here since 1960, I reject that label. As to my relationship with Calvary here’s the chronology:
I started discussions with the church almost three years ago. At the time the pastor in charge was the Rev. Walter S. Thompson. He liked the idea but felt it was premature. He was set to retire that year and hand over the reins to a new pastor. We all felt it was more appropriate to take up the subject with him.
It took over a year for that to happen. Once the Rev. Trevon Fergerson was brought on board we began to meet and go over the idea. Over the course of last summer, we worked out a framework. At the heart of it all was the church’s desire to expand their outreach work in the community. Adding day-care, 12-step programs, spiritual counseling, special meeting space, perhaps even a food pantry annex.
By using the four acres adjacent to the church campus for housing I designed a plan that would provide the church with a substantial financial contribution that would ensure its survival and fuel its expansion. I agree to help build a new meeting house for outreach.
Once done Calvary Baptist will be in a position to be, as Mr. Fergerson says, “a beacon of light in a dark world.” It will be spiritually and financially prepared to help anchor this community in these difficult days, to reach out a hand and lend support to anyone from the Calvary community or East Hampton.
I am extremely proud to be a part of this project. And I am humbled that the people of Calvary have entrusted it to me. I will do everything I can to make it worthy of its location and live up to the dreams and aspirations of the Calvary community.
Sincerely,
KIRBY MARCANTONIO
Actual Price Tag
Albany
September 18, 2026
To the Editor:
Regarding “Is Universal Health Coverage Within Reach in New York?” (Sept. 17): Proponents of the New York Health Act consistently present a rosy vision of single-payer health care, claiming it will deliver large cost savings to local governments. However, if one looks beyond their outdated 2018 economic projections, there is a far more troubling economic and clinical reality.
When adjusted for medical inflation, wage demands, and the addition to the legislation of mandatory long-term care, the N.Y.H.A.’s actual annual price tag likely exceeds $415 billion, roughly double New York’s entire current state budget. Promising to cover this astronomical cost by eliminating private insurer profits is a mathematical myth.
New York’s health insurance market is heavily anchored by nonprofit health plans. With current strict medical-loss-ratio rules, 92 percent to 93 percent of every premium dollar already goes directly to patient care. Eliminating administrative costs capped at 7 percent to 8 percent simply will never generate 15 percent in net savings.
Replacing insurance premiums with a mandatory payroll tax will not lower costs; it will simply shift a crushing tax burden onto local businesses and workers. In our mobile economy, high-income earners and employers facing a double-digit tax hike will trim head counts or relocate. As the tax base shrinks, the resulting deficits will inevitably fall back on local taxpayers, ironically driving up the very property taxes the bill claims to reduce. Not to mention the cost and future liabilities of converting 45,000 private insurance jobs into public sector roles with state pensions.
Most concerning, however, is the inevitable deterioration in the quality and accessibility of care. To stay solvent, a state-run bureaucracy must enforce drastic reimbursement cuts, pushing safety-net hospitals into insolvency and driving physicians to neighboring states or cash-only practices. To see the future outcome of this model, we need only look at single-payer systems elsewhere, where patients in Canada and the United Kingdom now face median wait times exceeding 20 to 27 weeks for specialist and elective care.
If we are serious about fixing health care in New York, we must start with reining in the underlying drivers of high costs — hospital consolidations, broken independent dispute-resolution systems that needlessly further enrich specialists, rising drug costs, health care taxes, and mandates.
The N.Y.H.A. is not the fiscal remedy the article suggests; it is a recipe for economic insolvency, ballooning wait times, and a severe degradation of health-care quality across New York.
Sincerely,
LEV GINSBURG
Executive Director
New York State Conference of Plans
The Numbers
East Hampton
September 17, 2026
Dear Mr. Rattray,
According to the latest figures provided by the New York State Board of Elections, there are 189,656 registered Democratic voters in our congressional district and 201,212 registered Republicans, or about 12,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats. There are 611,037 total registered voters, meaning that there are 220,169 voters not registered as either Democrats or Republicans.
Looking at these numbers shows that Chris Gallant has a good chance of winning the congressional race for NY-1. It’s an uphill battle, but one that can be won with the help of voters who are concerned about affordability, health services, international relations, and the future of our democracy.
Disgruntled Republicans and independent voters are the key to Mr. Gallant’s victory. However, every registered Democrat must help not only by voting but also by writing a few postcards, making a few phone calls, or knocking on a few doors. Why not act for a better future now rather than react to a lost opportunity later?
SALVATORE TOCCI
Mass Murder
Amagansett
September 20, 2026
To the Editor:
Louis Meisel’s letter last week is a case study in a tired, old debating trick called “whataboutism,” which Britannica defines as “the rhetorical practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation, by asking a different but related question, or by raising a different issue altogether.” Responding to accusations of genocide against Israel, Mr. Meisel writes of the “human toll of post-9/11 military actions, Iranians killed by their own government, African wars, the dozens of countries where Sunnis and Shiites are warring.”
Marshaling the Sunday afternoon vigil in Sag Harbor for three years, I have heard it all. It can’t possibly be genocide because. There are more Palestinians today than in 1948. The children are baby terrorists. Have you read the Koran? Hamas! Israel is the only democratic state. There are a very few honest adversaries who say what they think, like the Israeli man wrapped in a huge flag of his country who likes to say, “Gaza is finished. There is no Gaza.”
One thing Mr. Meisel’s words have in common with all of these: All are justifications of mass murder. I thought we Jews didn’t do that, but hey.
For democracy and compassion in Israel.
JONATHAN WALLACE
What You Want?
Montauk
September 21, 2026
Dear David,
How come the socialist-communist outspoken candidates don’t live in or visit Russia, China, Venezuela, or North Korea? They don’t own homes in any of said countries, nor rent. They live here in the United States, where freedom is their gift. I don’t understand why they are so bent on changing America.
Sharia law — women of America, this is what you want?
Democrats, where the hell are you? Socialism does not work.
In God and country,
BEA DERRICO
Answer: Vote
East Hampton
September 21, 2026
To the Editor,
The impact of artificial intelligence is roiling job markets today, and the existential threat to our near future (to our children, to our grandchildren) has recently been detailed even by those busy chief executive officers who are creating A.I.
This is indeed a crisis, and yet we are being led by a malevolent fool. What are we to do?
The answer is simple: Vote. Voting got us into this situation and it must get us out. Every single person we vote for matters. Sadly, every Republican candidate is Trump.
Perhaps one day this will not be the case. But for now, our work is before us.
TOM MACKEY
Dismantling Creation
Amagansett
September 20, 2026
To the Editor,
Without the other species we will lose our minds, so told us an elder from Kenya 20 years ago, when the beginnings of the ivory trade were starting again, and without the other wildlife we will have nothing to return to. Artificial intelligence won’t give the completeness, the sentience, or the simple miracle of life and soul that the other beings bring. We are treating life as if it were expendable.
The Samburu have a spiritual connection with the elephants that is unparalleled. They do not consider themselves superior to that great being. Nor did Native Americans think themselves better than the wolf or grizzly which is struggling to hold on because of the bloodlust of miners, cattle ranchers, and big business or simply the misplaced hate towards the predator, which is free and wild. The grizzly was considered the grandfather of the forest because of its power, presence, and because they were here first.
Native Americans did not kill for fun. We did that and eliminated the great heads of bison, tens of millions of them, one of the greatest stains on the American soul, concomitant with slavery. Is our environment better off now than 150 years ago? They didn’t kill for fun or use these irreplaceable mammals as target practice. We did that.
The passenger pigeon, which flew in the hundreds of millions, is gone forever. So, when we hear of the administration’s desire to undermine the Endangered Species Act, enacted by Nixon in December of 1973 as an early Christmas gift to America and the world, we should shudder. That builders, developers, loggers, miners should have priority over endangered species desecrates the central tenet of the Declaration of Independence about nature and nature’s god.
We are dismantling creation in favor of money, which is ultimately worthless. Just wait and see what the coming depression has to say.
We are in the process of mutilating nature, which will be our undoing. And certainly not if future generations don’t know what a bird is, or a tiger. or a polar bear, never mind icebergs, glaciers, and free-flowing rivers. We’re supposedly into life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But we are not. We’re into business and profits and making a killing, especially, making a killing even if it’s people even if it’s the baby steps towards a third world war.
We threaten every major ecosystem, like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, for oil, the very commodity undermining existence on earth.
If the great patrimony of America, its forests, are felled, we will have become exactly what Edward Abbey called “a high-tech slum.” It is why many of the younger generation in Europe call themselves the futureless generation for a reason. They can’t see the horizon or the forest for the trees, because we are enabling the cutting down of the largest rainforest on earth, the Amazon, for soybeans and hamburgers.
Africa had maybe 20 million elephants in 1900. Ten million? Who knows? And then the imperial powers came and rode roughshod over the oldest continent, and the great herds were eliminated — for trophies, for lifeless things.
During the recession of 2008, enabled again by a certain administration, the Chinese didn’t want gold or the dollar. They wanted ivory for prestige for the rising middle class, and a third of Africa’s elephants were destroyed for trinkets and statuettes. The single most wondrous being walking the earth rendered inert and mutilated for baubles. And they destroyed a third of Africa’s remaining elephants, a being we depended on throughout our evolution for our very survival. And who will we have to turn to when the life force is on its last legs. Robots?
The immorality of our species is a cosmic crime for which we will not be forgiven. Under Obama in 2014, trophy imports of elephants were banned. Guess who started them up again? Will they one day remain lodged in people’s memories only in pictures and videos? Will children wonder what this thing called nature was? It won’t be just attention deficit that the children inherit; it will be a soul-crushing deficit even bigger than the national debt.
America could very well be leading the way in showing the world how humans could conduct themselves if they so choose. Instead, we’re heading at full speed towards what Henry Miller called “the air-conditioned nightmare,” the American Dream fast becoming the American Scream.
We might very probably not be able to recover the ivory-billed woodpecker and hundreds of species lost since European man overturned the world, but we will surely be reminded that without the other species and especially the most humble of all, the insects, are indeed the foundation of everything. We sanitize, pesticide, and homogenize everything in sight.
We need people with vision soon, who can once again honor and respect the life force. The Endangered Species Act needs to be salvaged or will soon be on that list.
“One does not meet oneself until one catches the reflection from an eye other than human,” exclaimed the most eloquent nature writer of the 20th century, Loren Eiseley. It is time we reverse course.
CYRIL CHRISTO