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With 10 members present, a larger than usual attendance, Wainscott’s Citizens Advisory Committee met for two-and-one-half hours Saturday morning, discussing, among other issues, the perils of beach parking, illegal signage, flooding on roads and streets, and the need to elect a new committee co-chair.
Sam Kramer, who for a decade has been the CAC’s co-chairman, submitted his resignation from that position and from the committee itself. He has been appointed by the East Hampton Town Board to the East Hampton Town Planning Board to fill the unexpired term of Stephen Green.
Mr. Green, also a Wainscotter, resigned from the Planning Board because he and his wife and two children have moved to Florida and plan to spend only summers in Wainscott. Town law prohibits elected and appointed officials from serving on such groups as CACs and registered political committees.
The election of a new CAC co-chair was tabled until the October meeting, primarily because no members volunteered to run for the office. Several of them—including Nancy McCaffrey, Iris Osborn, and Dennis D’Andrea—previously have headed the group. Jordy Mark, who has shared the position with Mr. Kramer for several years, said she would continue in the job but does not want prime responsibility. Councilwoman Pat Mansir, the Town Board’s liaison to the Wainscott CAC, cautioned members “not to let this CAC fall apart,” adding that it is a “highly effective, functional and important group.”
Long a bone of contention with the committee has been the outdoor display of canoes, surfboards, and kayaks of Main Beach, whose two retail stores in Wainscott have been criticized for illegal signage, as well. At the July meeting, Lars and Diane Svanberg, owners of Main Beach, spoke to the committee about their operation. Mr. Svanberg said he has paid numerous fines for town code violations but stressed the necessity, due to the nature of his business, of displaying some inventory out of doors.
Mr. Svanberg appeared again on Saturday to announce the closing of Main Beach Kids, his store at the foot of Sayres Path on Montauk Highway. Main Beach Kids will be merged in a few weeks with his main store in the Wainscott Center. Meanwhile, with the prices of the contents of Kids heavily reduced, Mr. Svanberg sought advice from the CAC about wrapping the building in “we’re moving” banners. Inside signage only, he was advised. Councilwoman Mansir reminded him—and the committee—that CACs have no enforcement authority, that they make their recommendations directly to the Town Board.
The building that houses Main Beach Kids will be sold or rented, said Mr. Svanberg. Some will remember that it once was Eric Corwith’s Viking diner, once the headquarters for Wesley Miller’s real estate business and, more recently, Pheasant Antiques. No doubt we’ll have a new neighborhood business there before long.
More than half of the lengthy meeting was devoted to parking at Wainscott Beach. Committee members pointed out numerous issues at the parking lot at the end of Beach Lane: illegal parking; location of handicap spaces; inadequate bicycle racks; potholes; lack of turn-around space; safety; parking space configuration; enforcement of fines. In the end, despite the many possible remedies suggested, including stiffer fines for illegal parking, no specific recommendations will be made to the Town Board at this time, the CAC decided.
Instead, Ms. Mansir will do some investigative homework by conferring with the town’s Department of Parks and Recreation, the town engineer, Chief Todd Sarris and Captain Eddie Ecker of the police department, and Superintendent of Highways Scott King. Mr. King also will be invited to address the committee in October.
Flooding is an issue that surfaces at nearly every CAC meeting. Anyone who frequents the Wainscott Post Office or the Hess Station will agree that water accumulation following even an ordinary rainfall is a problem.
After Saturday’s downpour, Georgica Drive—between Home Sweet Home moving and storage and the Hess station and connecting with Bathgate—looked like a lake. And lakewise (my editor was skeptical this was a pun that readers would understand, but he let it stand), the western portion of the Post Office parking lot.
Also mentioned for the umpteenth time was the sad condition of Bathgate, which has become somewhat of a parking lot itself for trucks and landscaping trailers, the drivers and occupants of which shop at Hess and the businesses in the Wainscott Center. No committee decisions were made on these dilemmas; it is likely we shall hear about them again.
on Sep 5, 2008