Letters

The public forum held on Saturday at the Bay Street Theater was quite a spectacle. It had all the elements of an off-Broadway production about a small town being promised something great and then getting suckered. “Music Man on the East End”?

After the Bay Street staff laid out their credentials and tenure in Sag Harbor, they restated their intent to build a new home on the 7-Eleven lot purchased by a new nonprofit called Friends of Bay Street. This new nonprofit was founded and primarily funded by their “angel investor” Adam Potter, a retired insurance litigation executive.

The Bay Street Theater needs a new home, and people can buy and sell real estate, but one person does not have right to raze and re-imagine Sag Harbor. Mr. Potter, Sag Harbor is not your retirement project.

Bay Street Theater, I love your shows, but your lack of transparency has created a deep mistrust in the community that could poison your future here.

Some major concerns include:

Friends of Bay Street has an unclear governance and anonymous donors. This leads to fears that this is just a front for development.

It remains unclear how and when Friends of Bay Street will transfer the property and building to the Bay Street Theater to operate it. Bay Street Theater’s board should live up to their fiduciary duty and not use a front corporation for development.

Mr. Potter is taking on a range of development activities that are not directly connected to the Bay Street project, both through a for-profit corporation with anonymous partners and out of his own pocket.

Assuming good and honest intentions of all the parties involved, this mixing of nonprofit, for-profit and individual investing is still a very toxic cocktail. It is not the role of one individual to take on the redevelopment of our village, however well intentioned.

Sunshine is the best disinfectant. Bay Street and Mr. Potter need to disclose the donors to Friends of Bay Street and the investors in his private investment corporations in order to begin to create trust in the community. While not legally required, it would quiet claims that big national developers are behind all of this and could begin a community healing process.

Finally, focus on the waterfront zoning process. While this Bay Street Theater project is the current lightning rod for controversy, the biggest issue facing the village remains that the waterfront is in the process of rezoning without real community engagement. We all need to be engaged in those discussions.

And vote in the upcoming mayoral election.

Steven Godeke

Sag Harbor