Letters

Can we avoid a turf war over a generational gift that will keep on giving?

In an age when more time than ever is spent indoors on screens, childhood obesity is rising, and young minds are still recovering from the social and emotional impact of a pandemic, has there ever been a more important time to invest in the health and well-being of our children?

Countless studies have proven the positive impact of sports and the outdoors, both in terms of health, fitness and mental well-being. So when a once-in-a-generation opportunity to purchase unused land to directly benefit the children of our community arises, it comes as a sobering shock that parts of the community would be so deeply and divisively against such a move.

Can we not come together in a more altruistic fashion to put children first? Creating an athletic facility on the Marsden Street lots is not only a gift to the children currently attending school in Sag Harbor but also a gift that will keep giving for generations to come.

The focus right now should be simply on voting yes so we can, at minimum, enable the school and relevant third parties to move ahead with exploring how this could work, and the steps needed to do so in the most harmonious and environmentally friendly way for this community.

To kill this multi-generational gift now, at the behest of a handful of residents and second-home owners, would be a travesty for our children and a poor reflection on our community and where we place our priorities.

With wide-ranging and seemingly premature conjecture surrounding the upcoming vote — from the virtues of real grass versus artificial, to athletic facilities versus the need to bolster other academic needs, to name just a couple — without an initial yes vote on November 3, the entire conversation will be a moot point.

My appeal is to come together and to place the interests, health and well-being of hundreds of children today — and, indeed, tens of thousands in the years to come — before those of a few adults.

I will be voting yes and my hope is that many others will, too.

Huw Davies

Sag Harbor