Gold Stars And Dunce Caps

Dunce cap — To the Sag Harbor Village Board for over the past two administrations failing to seize the opportunity to aggressively pursue a long-term lease from National Grid to continue to use what is commonly referred to as the Gas Ball property as a municipal parking lot. Recently, it learned that Friends of Bay Street, the nonprofit organization created to build a new home for Bay Street Theater, had apparently won the right to lease the property. Although that group says it is open to working with the village to share the lot, the fact remains the Village Board should never have let it slip out of its control.

Gold Star —To Sag Harbor Village government for looking for ways to improve both groundwater and surface water quality by proactively seeking grant funding from Southampton and East Hampton towns for, among other things, engineering studies for the expansion of its sewer system to low-lying areas of the village, and to better understand ways to reduce the amount of runoff that currently drains, virtually untreated, from Route 114 to Havens Beach, resulting in frequent high levels of fecal coliform at the village’s only bathing beach.

Gold Star — To the Bucking family, which is celebrating their 25th year as proprietors of the Sag Harbor Garden Center on Spring Street. Anyone who lives in Sag Harbor knows that the Buckings not only run an important business and service, but are always there for the community when asked, from the annual petting zoo the center has hosted at Easter to any time an organization needs a little extra support. We can’t imagine Sag Harbor without them.

Gold Star — To East End Hospice’s Kanas Center, which has offered residential hospice service to East End residents for five years now. The Kanas Center is a critical resource that has helped countless families during some of the darkest days. East End Hospice showed true vision when it opened the first residential hospice center on the East End five years ago.

Dunce Cap — To state officials for not creating more reasonable guidelines for private, outdoor events managed by professional companies for this summer season as a result of COVID-19. While safety and public health must come first, professional companies manage a number of private, outdoor events on the South Fork, and limiting those professionally run events to the 25-person cap set for household gatherings will have a disastrous impact on local businesses. The cap makes sense — it seeks to avoid private parties that have the opportunity to become a super-spreader event — but in being wrapped up in restrictions meant to guide private homes, caterers are being limited to a 25-person outdoor event, no matter the size of the property or the ability to offer social distancing and other protocols meant to curtail potential virus spread.

Gold Star — To Bay Street Theater for finally showing residents and business owners conceptual art for what will be proposed as the permanent home for the theater, at the property that currently houses 7-Eleven and a handful of other businesses. The concept of 2 Main Street — home to another grouping of businesses — becoming open space that is a part of the John Steinbeck Waterfront Park is also very intriguing and the entire redevelopment could transform one of Sag Harbor’s gateways. However, the devil will be in the details and we do wish there had been more of that offered during the short, seven-minute glimpse at what the new theater may end up looking like if approved by the village.

Dunce Cap — To members of Friends of Bay Street for not beginning a larger conversation about plans to redevelop other parts of the village — if that perpetual rumor is in fact true. At this point, there is so much concern about potential redevelopment of the west side of Sag Harbor Village that it could hurt the theater project itself. If these are just rumors swirling, they should be addressed as such immediately, but if there is truth to grander plans, it should also be disclosed sooner rather than later.

Gold Star — For the East Hampton-Pierson football team, which last week won its first game in four and a half years, defeating Hampton Bays, 30-0, at home, and another gold star to the team’s head football coach, Joey McKee. It’s last win came in October 2016, and in the years that followed, East Hampton has had to rebuild its football program from the ground up, eventually rejoining the junior varsity ranks before finally getting back out on the varsity gridiron last month.

Dunce Cap — To East Hampton and Sag Harbor Justice Lisa Rana, who was admonished by a state judicial commission for having edited letters to the editor and for offering political advice to another political candidate, former East Hampton Town supervisor candidate David Gruber, in 2019. Judges in New York are prohibited from engaging in political activity beyond their own campaigns, and rightly so. If Ms. Rana, a Republican, wants to be a part of East Hampton politics, she can be, but not while sitting on the bench.

Dunce Cap — To Southampton Village Mayor Jesse Warren for his heavy-handed efforts to negotiate Police Chief Thomas Cummings’s employment contract in public, and a second dunce cap for his behavior at a recent Village Board meeting, in which he bullied board member Joseph McLoughlin for abstaining from a vote on the contract and accused him of taking a bribe. Better behavior is warranted.

Gold Star — To Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman and his colleagues in town government for making meaningful progress in an effort to preserve Native American burial sites in Shinnecock Hills. While those efforts haven’t come to fruition as quickly as was hoped — the Town Board extended a building moratorium intended to protect grave sites while it pens overall protection legislation, Mr. Schneiderman says town planners are close. It took decades for any real protections to take shape, and it’s encouraging to see the town working on them in earnest.

Gold Star — To the Westhampton Beach Village Board and Public Works Superintendent Matthew Smith for saving the village thousands of dollars — and helping to save the world by reducing its carbon footprint — by replacing all of the village’s streetlights with LED bulbs. As board members pointed out at a recent meeting, the move was a win-win-win for the village, giving residents better light, lowering the cost of that light, and using less electricity.

Gold Star — To residents of Wainscott who have begun an effort to save “The Little House,” a former migrant farm worker shack that housed workers on the Strong family potato fields on Wainscott Hollow Road. The property has been sold and the new owners are poised to tear the shack down. But community members are stepping up to move the building and preserve it as part of the local history — as it should be.

Gold Star — To Fighting Chance of Sag Harbor and Hometown Taxi of Hampton Bays for teaming up on an effort to provide free rides to doctors’ appointments for cancer patients from Hampton Bays to Montauk. The service may truly be a lifesaver for families battling the disease without the means to get to treatment. The program really demonstrates how friends and neighbors help each other on the East End.

Gold Star — To Charlotte and Bruce Sasso, who have decided after 25 years behind the counter to retire and hand over the reins of Stuart’s Seafood in Amagansett. The couple — and their dogs — were a fixture at the shop and will be missed by the community. They plan to take it easy and enjoy their much-deserved retirement.