Heartbreaking

In the heat of the moment, people say things they later regret. Here’s hoping that’s the case for a handful of people who spoke at the August 12 Southampton Village Board meeting, objecting to a code change that would allow the Heart of the Hamptons, a nonprofit organization that has been a crucial part of the village’s philanthropic community for two generations, to move its food pantry to Meeting House Lane.

The target is a former village ambulance barn that is currently vacant; a 30-year lease, for a nominal fee, was approved in May, but the proposal was back before the Village Board because the code amendment requires tweaking.

Neighbors have used the opportunity to take aim — and some did so with verbal blunderbusses. “And what is Southampton getting out of this? Nothing,” one woman said.

“It serves who? I don’t know. But I can’t think of anybody that I know — and I’ve been through this village street by street, house by house — who would ever be in such an unfortunate situation as to need anything of the pantry,” a property owner said.

“Those people who are coming don’t live here. They don’t even live in Southampton. Why should it have to be in Southampton?” said another woman.

Those people … It serves who? … Nothing.

People talk about “NIMBY-ism” so much that the idea has lost all meaning. But here it is, writ large: not in my backyard. It’s the embodiment of the unsympathetic idea that it might be necessary, but I don’t want to see it.

In fact, Southampton Village gets a remarkable amount of benefit from Heart of the Hamptons. “Those people” are, to a large degree, village residents — 950 of them, among the 4,000 registered clients overall.

And the pantry has been helping people in “unfortunate situations” even more in the last 18 months, as a pandemic pushed a lot more people into crisis. HOH served nearly 200,000 meals in 2020. The need was even higher in the first half of this year. None of this should be invisible — if you don’t see it, you’re not looking.

As it happens, there were some real concerns voiced by neighbors that deserve to be heard. It could be an intensive use for a residential neighborhood, especially with concerns about large numbers of vehicles and delivery trucks coming to the site. Reasonable worries about quality of life for neighbors most certainly should be considered. If, in fact, there’s actually a better site available quickly, find it.

But until then, another neighbor’s comment should be heard loud and clear: “They take care of people. I don’t really care where they come from — they are in need, and they’re feeding them.”

A village is more than just real estate, and quality of life includes a component of compassion. Heart of the Hamptons enhances it. It’s a treasure, and it deserves better than the recent reception it got at Village Hall.