Bad feelings coming out of recent citizens advisory committee meetings should call into question what exactly the committees' roles are and whether the interests of the parts of town they are supposed to represent could be better served some other way.
In their present form, East Hampton’s citizens advisory committees have been around since the mid-1970s, with the ostensible role of identifying local problems and making recommendations to the town board. The C.A.C.s do not have any real power, however, though that has not stopped them from occasionally overstepping, for example, in sending an opinion letter to the town planning board when contact between the town board and planning board is supposed to be strictly limited. Though often entertaining, the meetings are full of sound and fury but ultimately signify very little.
An especially embarrassing recent dustup was at the end of August, when a Wainscott resident was barred from speaking at his own hamlet’s advisory meeting. Simon Kinsella had first been told he could present his thoughts on groundwater contamination at an Aug. 29 session. However, at the last minute, he was disinvited by the C.A.C. chairman, apparently at the request of its town board liaison, Councilwoman Cate Rogers. Either these meetings are for the citizens or they are not. The chairman, Hersey Egginton, and Ms. Rogers had no business telling Mr. Kinsella his personal take on the matter was not welcome.
Then, last week, many who attended a Springs citizens advisory meeting left feeling unheard and that a plan for a new parking lot on town-owned land at the Springs Library was a done deal. Several members of the public who were there reported feeling ignored and even treated rudely by the committee chairwoman, Loring Bolger, and its liaison, Town Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte. The councilman has subsequently invited several people to meet with him privately to discuss the parking lot — it seems to us, as a way to mute criticism even more.
It has long been our opinion that each hamlet should have a citizens group of its own entirely separate from the town board. Free of the constraints imposed by their quasi-official status, members would be able to lobby any and all town officials, including the planning and zoning boards, without being subject to the vagaries of the liaisons’ preconceptions. Independence would better serve their respective communities — and that, in the end, is the entire point.