The Future Is Now - 27 East

Letters

May 9, 2023

The Future Is Now

I fully support the purchase of the Marsden Street property by the Sag Harbor School District. It is a way to look forward 50 years, 100 years, and it will be a grave mistake to miss this opportunity because of the NIMBY population.

The scare tactics and misinformation in the Letters to the Editor are quite astounding. Sure, the School Board has made mistakes: The last major renovation to the high school was a lesson in subtraction (so many promised renovations not realized because estimates had been wrong), and tearing the stage out of the elementary school gym and putting the main entrance below ground level, another mistake. Those can perhaps be corrected at a future time.

Right now, however, we are talking about purchasing land next to the school — and there will be no next time. How, in the future, could the school possibly afford to raze multimillion-dollar homes to gain space?

In the 1960s, North Haven was given a choice: send students to Southampton High School, pay tuition for students to go to Pierson, or join the Sag Harbor School District. North Haven chose to join the Sag Harbor School District.

Some years ago, North Haven was given the opportunity to purchase Maycroft, with its 43-plus acres. What an amazing opportunity it could have been! But the elected officials at that time were unmotivated, even though many of us pushed for its purchase. In the summer, the youth soccer teams played there, and how we enjoyed hearing the excited voices of the participants.

What does the Sag Harbor Village budget have to do with the school district budget? No statistics on how many more people are actually employed by the school as compared with the village? Power, on the other hand, comes from the spread of misinformation, and organizations or individuals that have the means to threaten lawsuits if they don’t get their way. These people are looking out for their own interests rather than what’s best for the entire community.

Sag Harbor is an incorporated village in Southampton and East Hampton towns. It did not suddenly become a Hampton — it has always been part of the Hamptons, but there are those who feel the need to create their own little narrative. I guess it’s important for children to read and eat well, as long as they don’t play on a field next to one’s home.

As always in this village, it seems to be the generational people living here who are the ones knowing and respecting its past while having the foresight to plan for its future.

Please believe in the future of Sag Harbor and vote yes.

Carol Gloninger

North Haven

Gloninger is a former North Haven Village trustee — Ed.