Letters

Nearly 40 years ago, right after buying my new old house, garden and pool in the Rosko Place subdivision, I called Bill Hattrick and made a date with him. At the time, Bill was mayor of our village. He was also a member of the beach club I belonged to with my husband and four children.

Here’s what I suggested that Bill could (and should) do: have all the electrical wiring throughout the village buried underground. “You can finance that project with industrial revenue bonds,” I told him, “and I will pledge right now to buy the first bundle of $20,000 such bonds.”

It didn’t happen.

But here’s my passion behind that recommendation: I was in the city, on my way to a client’s office, when I heard that Southampton was due to be hit by rains and winds from a hurricane moving up the coast at some speed.

I called our Village Police and asked them to evacuate my kids, and Brigitte, the “au pair,” from 21 Elm Street.

“You’re not in the flood zone,” the officer told me, quite rightly.

“It’s not flooding that I’m afraid of. I’m afraid of live wires falling on the ground in the strong winds, and there is a nice, very young, 22-year-old French girl who is alone in taking responsibility for my 14-year-old and 12-year-old daughters, as well as my 8-year-old twin sons.”

“We’ll go right over,” said the officer.

Hysterical fear? I think not. Sometime before that escape-from-live-wires, there was an unexpected rain-and-wind event in London. The husband of the editor of my first novel rushed out into their garden to safeguard against live wires, in view of his frisky five sons. His sons were fine. Their father died on the spot, stepping on a live wire.

Now, Jay Diesing has circulated his letter to this administration asking that telephone lines be buried underground, especially in the business district, for aesthetic reasons.

Sure, but there are safety reasons as well. Torrential rains and high winds will blow down trees barely rooted in the swampy, rain-drenched soil. That can happen to telephone poles just as easily, hitting cars, bike riders, kids, pedestrians.

Why not use the best knowledge now available on how to protect electrical wiring underground, and how to protect the underground from emanations from PVC pipes containing such wires: Move all wiring off the poles and into safe PVC pipes underground.

Our government still has the power and the right to issue industrial revenue bonds to pay for this ambitious but necessary project. And is there any resident of this village who would hesitate to support this effort by buying such a bond — or a fistful of them?

Evelyn Konrad

Attorney at law

Southampton