Letters

When you live in Sag Harbor Village, you learn what a treasure you have been blessed with. When any one group, school district or large-monied investor anxiety types try to alter a nearly 300-year-old village, yes, we do want to look closely at who is messing with our back or front yards. I think The Express calls it NIMBYism [“Hit the Reset Button,” Editorial, March 9]. Try adding on to your house, or adding a shed to your yard, and see the hoops you have to jump through.

The school wants to add a $20 million field to the village, but they do not understand how the village functions. As they answer to no village codes or officers, only to the State Education Department.

Yes, we are very blessed to live in Sag Harbor. Of the entire village, 1 square mile is our school campus. The bay is for swimming or water sports. The park is for recreation for residents and school sports. At one time, the firemen ran their exercise drills there, where they competed with other Long Island fire departments.

The school wants to own more real estate so their budget increases. Here is where the school has failed. They get over $700,000 yearly to manage and upgrade the park. They have not managed to upgrade the bleachers, the fields and the restrooms.

Mashashimuet Park, John Jermain Library and Pierson Middle/High School (a present-day enrollment of under 600 kids) were all created by Mrs. Russell Sage in the early 1900s. Not only did she provide the funds to build these beautiful places, she had such vision to create a community triangle that functions nearly to perfection today. I have, for 40 years, bicycled to all three locations, never using a locking device.

In 1893, the park hosted, on a half-mile oval track, a bicycle race with over 1,000 spectators, and they managed to park their buggies. FYI, the BMW buggies had a special place (wink wink).

Today’s school district parents are different; they need special turf and special parking, and, I guess because they and their kids are so special, they need another special field. It’s a short run with kids sports, and the special kids don’t do a lot of walking — they are literally picked up, from school door to car door, without taking 10 steps.

The real issue is that the School Board should extend a hand to the park trustees and meld empires to create a wonderful, updated sports field. School Board: Don’t muck up a neighborhood, but enhance a beautiful park by really doing due diligence to make it better.

Show how the park trustees and School Board can work together like Mrs. Sage had envisioned.

Jerome Toy

Sag Harbor

The actual cost to Pierson for use of Mashashimuet Park, in the contract for the 2021-22 school year, was $215,850 — Ed.