Letters

“Citizens of Sag” is the latest sheepskin disguise for the opponents of the school’s effort to acquire the Marsden Street lots for an athletic field. Why pose as civic-minded citizens? Well, to paraphrase the originator of such deceptions, in his reply to L’il Red: “The better to defeat you with, my dear.”

My family has owned the property for almost 50 years, and that puts us in a unique position to point out the numerous falsehoods and misrepresentations that the “Citizens of Sag” and the NIMBY neighbors are pushing in an elaborate con job attempt to mislead people into voting no.

On their website, the Citizens of Sag are promoting the false notions that the land is ecologically sensitive and that there are environmental problems on the property. These wolves in sheep’s clothing are pushing the illusion that the property would make an idyllic natural park, thereby “preserving the majority of the trees and the wetlands area.”

The fact is that there is no virgin forest growing there, and there have never been any wetlands, even when it was still a kettle hole. Aerial photographs taken starting in the 1950s reveal that over 82 percent of the land has been cleared. A survey I had done in 2019 found that the vegetation is scrubby regrowth, predominantly invasive species.

The property had been used and disturbed even before my father bought it in the early 1970s. After he acquired the land, my father cleaned up the rubbish and brought in clean fill to raise the ground elevation equal to Marsden Street. That’s the condition of the property today — it’s no longer a kettle hole, and there’s no multimillion-dollar drainage problem to fix.

Until the school and the Southampton Town Community Preservation Fund made an acceptable offer to buy the property, I was pursuing approval to obtain building permits. These fraudsters are peddling the prevarication that the village’s architectural review board turned down my applications. The fact is, the applications were voluntarily dropped once an agreement to sell to the school was reached. If the bond referendum fails, those applications will be resubmitted.

Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman was asked if the town would try to buy the land for a park if the school bond vote failed. He responded: “We’re only involved in Marsden because of the school. The idea that the town should buy it and make it a passive park — that is something we’re not interested in” (East Hampton Star, March 23).

I hope this helps voters see through the elaborate con job. The school’s effort to acquire the land to build a playing field will benefit the students and the community for generations to come.

Pat Trunzo III

Manager

Marsden Street Properties LLC