Letters

On May 16, I will be voting yes for the Board of Education proposition to purchase property adjacent to the Sag Harbor High School, known as the “Marsden” initiative.

I do so because we desperately need more land under community control. Our families have few recreational spaces; this situation is getting worse each year, and community ownership is our only option.

The purchase of the Marsden lots won’t address all the recreational needs of Sag Harbor families. But it is a good and necessary first step. We can turn a decrepit privately owned tract into a usable space for all. The sensible board proposal is not the end of the process but the possibility for real community dialogue to follow.

You’d think the proposal would pacify activists who now must sit and watch as a land festers, under a developer’s arbitrary preferences, without any care. Instead, the entire process is pitting families with children against those favoring the status quo.

Why this unfortunate outcome?

The unnecessary community divisions are partly the fault of our anemic political leadership. Village and town officials seem content to sit on the sidelines when it comes to the needs of working families. But they jump at every opportunity to help elites: $11.2 million of taxpayer money for a writer’s retreat (Steinbeck house) open to the public on certain weekends? Really?

Even worse, a beautiful park, Mashashimuet, is a public trust, but small groups cannot use it without buying insurance. And the park is unusable November to March. When asked to intervene, to support more transparency by the park board and create a park that families don’t need to pay to use, our village trustees cower and respond, “The Park Board is private — we cannot intervene.”

That’s intolerable. Inaction is always a choice, and just when families need public stewardship, our leaders choose to do nothing.

Faced with these absurdities, we should be grateful that our school trustees have the courage to say enough is enough. Purchasing land at Marsden makes sense, because it gives us all a voice. Finally.

And if political movements teach us anything, that voice isn’t going anywhere.

Sudhir Venkatesh

Sag Harbor