Letters

I found your article about the Town of East Hampton’s move to completely take over its own emergency dispatch system encouraging, since it sounds like a change that was long overdue and one that could improve response times [“East Hampton Town, Village Spar Over Dispatching Future, End 30-Year Agreement,” 27east.com, May 7]. Also, it might save the town several million dollars over the long term.

It’s too bad, though, that this sense of fiscal discipline is not taken more seriously in other areas.

As I recently drove through the new traffic circle being constructed on Stephen Hands Path, I still couldn’t understand why it was necessary, when the addition of two new stop signs had been recommended in the past. More importantly, why would this small project (adding a small circle in the middle of this intersection, with slightly wider road) ever cost $2 million, as stated?

However, this waste pales in comparison to the town suggesting last fall that it might spend $5 million to just dump more sand at Ditch Plains, when, in the past, the amount had been $200,000 to $300,000 annually. If this is going to be done, perhaps the few dozen homes in the area that will benefit should have to contribute, as they do in Sagaponack and Bridgehampton for similar projects.

Moreover, that the town didn’t have the foresight to make sure the Ditch Plain area was included when the federal government spent $11 million for sand in downtown Montauk area just a year ago probably just cost the town $3 million to $4 million, since it would have been a far cheaper way to bring sand to the area than by truck, as suggested now.

Of course, one can’t discuss fiscal incompetence without bringing up the issue of the senior center. This is a project that has been mishandled for over a decade now, and its cost has ballooned from $8 million originally to over $30 million potentially, but they still can’t give a definitive cost. Inflation over that period can’t explain why it has nearly quadrupled or why the town thinks spending roughly $30 million make sense given the current facility’s usage.

Given the lack of choice when it comes to political options for the town, here’s hoping whoever gets elected this fall starts to take their fiscal responsibilities more seriously. No political party should want to unnecessarily waste millions of taxpayer money (perhaps $10 million in the senior center’s case), but the Town of East Hampton seems to find multiple ways of doing it.

Brad Brooks

Springs