A Do-Over

Stop digging.

That’s the best advice we can offer the Southampton History Museum. When you’re in a hole, recognize it and, if you do nothing else, don’t make it deeper. And there’s a hole, and it’s deep, and it’s time to think about climbing out of it.

It was foolhardy to think evicting the Conscience Point Shellfish Hatchery from the North Sea site owned by the museum, near where English settlers first landed in 1640, wasn’t going to land with a thud. Perhaps the hatchery could be a better tenant — there is fair concern about the sometimes disheveled state the hatchery’s small slice of the property was kept in by the shellfish growers. But it would have been wiser to address those concerns, sternly, before pressing the button and taking the nuclear option.

A bevy of Letters to the Editor this week make the case eloquently. As they say, shellfishing is as much a part of the town’s history as the rock at Conscience Point, and as worthy of preservation. The hatchery, without question, does plenty of good, and the allegation that it might have done some business with local baymen is hardly a controversy. There were many, many steps to take before going all the way to eviction — and trying to oversell the point by calling used boat batteries “toxic waste” is just unseemly.

If she’s willing to ask for it, Sarah Kautz, barely a year into her tenure as executive director of the Southampton History Museum, deserves a do-over here. She might have miscalculated — the number of resignations of museum board members after this move is notable, and the avalanche of public criticism shouldn’t be ignored. Notably, the museum relies on funding via the school district, which is subject to voter approval — and there are rumblings that critics plan to go there.

There is, as so many have said, room for a historic site, a beneficial shellfish hatchery and a boat ramp for the public at such an important location on Peconic Bay in North Sea — in fact, it’s more than appropriate for the three to coexist. The concerns are largely superficial and aesthetic, and there is room for improvements to be made, and for the hatchery and boat ramp to fit among them. If the goal was to call attention to a situation that needs to be addressed? Mission accomplished.

But any “vision” for this historic property can’t sacrifice the present for the past. This is an opportunity, not a crisis. To the museum’s remaining board members, and its executive director: See the hole, admit that the hole exists, stop making it deeper — and climb out, and begin an inclusive conversation. All is not lost here, as long as your conscience points the way.