Letters

I am writing this letter to make you aware of a situation with the bus parking lot at the corner of Division and Grand streets in Sag Harbor Village.

Pierson School has placed a bus parking lot in the middle of a residential neighborhood, and those buses now beep literally from early in the morning until after 7 p.m. This Saturday night, they were beeping at 11 p.m.

The noise and visual burden of a bus parking lot in our midst is not “troublesome,” as Jeff Nichols, the superintendent of schools, described it to me in a letter recently — it is unacceptable. It is a home invasion, every day, at every meal.

I have suggested to Mr. Nichols that both sides must try to resolve the problem of having placed a bus parking lot within a historic residential neighborhood. It’s both aurally and visually an unreasonable situation for the neighborhood, for the entire village. It has to be dealt with and, in my opinion, must be moved elsewhere. It is not a long-term solution to say, “It is what it is. Learn to live with it.”

My neighbors and I worked years ago to get heavy trucks off Division Street, and to place stop signs all along Division Street at many points between Route 114 and Harrison Street. We got nearly every single person along Division, from past Harrison all the way to Burke Street, to sign it. It exerted pressure on all parties to act, which was not assured initially. We must do that again, and the school district should work with the neighbors to find another place to house the buses.

It’s wrong to have put this parking lot in our midst and to disturb neighbors on a daily and ongoing basis just as the village has taken steps to reduce noise from leaf blowers, for example.

It’s also wrong of the school to have piles of dirt and mulch and old machinery and falling down rusty fencing behind the school in full view. It’s not going to become more acceptable with time — it is going to become less acceptable as the neighborhood further improves.

I suggest we come up with some alternatives.

Janis Donnaud

Sag Harbor