Letters

Southampton Village Mayor Bill Manger and his loyalist attorney, Eileen Powers, are once again wrong, this time by blocking access to an Architectural Review Board study that could expand Southampton Village’s historic district. Their excuse? They call the report a “draft.”

Under New York’s Freedom of Information Law (Public Officers Law § 87[2][g]), that justification doesn’t hold. FOIL explicitly prohibits an agency from withholding “statistical or factual tabulations or data,” even when those appear in a preliminary document. If a report contains maps, data tables, surveys, timelines, or other factual material, then, at a minimum, those portions must be released to the public.

It should not fall on a concerned resident like me to continually point out these violations of New York State FOIL laws. Yet Mr. Manger’s pattern of disrespecting the public and thumbing his nose at state law epitomizes his disregard for both process and the people he claims to govern. His approach rewards a handful of wealthy insiders who puppeteer his actions while shutting everyone else out.

That’s not leadership. It’s arrogance. Southampton Village deserves better.

David Rung

Southampton Village