Letters

I received the letter last week from School Superintendent Jeff Nichols, announcing the board of education’s “community outreach” that the school has been promising the village for months, with a sinking feeling.

The format for this initial forum is not even what the board itself has long promised the public. The fact that all questions are “required” by the board to be submitted in writing before the meeting is a thinly veiled way for it, once again, to control the narrative. It means that there is no meaningful dialogue with the public, that the board again picks and chooses which questions to answer, how those questions are answered, and that there cannot be a give-and-take conversation.

Why would the possibility of asking live questions only be offered to people who are able to attend this meeting in person? This looks once again like the board is making this an “us-or-them” situation, with different treatment for different categories of people, as it did with the PTSA meeting a few weeks ago, when it allowed only parents to attend, and only people in physical attendance could ask questions. The others of us in the wider community who care so deeply about our village were forced to send written questions, and that format meant that all dialogue was controlled by the board.

Why did the board ask for the addresses of people who wish to ask questions? This has not previously been the case. What is that information going to be used for by the board?

Why has the school announced that all questions must hew narrowly to discussing the use of this property as athletic fields? Other uses have been suggested for this land, and those ideas also should be open for discussion. Athletic fields have not yet been authorized by either the Community Preservation Fund nor the Southampton Town Board, and there are open questions as to whether this will happen at all.

The board should also stop referring to the authorization of these funds as a done deal. It is only accurate to say that this might happen in the future but has not yet happened.

It is also inaccurate for the school superintendent to say that the Town Board “required” the school district to develop the lots into “athletic fields.” Use by the community at large of this soccer field is a ruse, and the CPF must be used for the betterment of the community, not solely a small group of student-athletes.

This cynical, going-through-the-motions version of community outreach is typical of the board’s behavior. The board’s process and plans are indefensible, so it thus far has been unwilling to stand up in public to defend them.

Janis Donnaud

Sag Harbor