Letters

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone traveled out to the Southampton railroad station on Saturday to meet ceremonially with Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman and Mayor Bill Manger to acknowledge what we are all living with — gridlocked, dangerous, unendurable traffic — and to unfurl a plan for a traffic study of the seven-mile corridor from Hampton Bays to Southampton Village that would be “one of the largest in the county’s history,” with a goal to seek “innovative, creative ideas.”

Did Jay Schneiderman share with the county executive that he is once again pushing the controversial Liberty Gardens (Concern for Independent Living) 50 “affordable and workforce housing” units on 5 acres of the 9.4-acre Full Gospel Church land on County Road 39 between the heavily trafficked road’s intersections with North Sea Road to the east and Magee Street to the west?

Did Schneiderman assure Bellone that he is confident because Nelson Pope Voorhis, on behalf of the developer, have again concluded that this high-density development will have “no significant impact on traffic”? Or share with him that rental eligibility was misrepresented throughout as the funding was never for local, or “workforce housing”?

Did Schneiderman whisper in Bellone’s ear that perhaps the consultants calculated on not much increased traffic because many of Concern’s “independents” neither work nor have cars, leaving them free to act out in the surrounding communities — on foot? We would have to wait for the unexpurgated report to find that out.

Was the nine-month delay in Concern’s submission of their final environmental impact statement a meddlesome, but necessary, strategic pause meant to lessen the impact of the tragic police killing of a knife-and-fire-extinguisher-wielding “independent” tenant at Concern’s site in Medford?

Did Schneiderman and Concern conclude that the accompanying Newsday and News 12 reports of vandalism, roaming, street crime and calls for more police protection in Medford would fade in the sun and be superseded by the swirl of summer in the Hamptons, even with its traffic woes, and the flow of money?

Hope the public would be convinced by the Hail Mary lie that the town repeatedly promoted that the project was dead? Think nobody would remember the potential development of the front parcel, which Concern and its consultant refuse to address? Assume we would continue to accept the murkiness of the eligibility and noneligibility of potential renters?

The clock is ticking for Schneiderman. He has overstepped and miscalculated before. Liberty Gardens must not go forward onto that hazardous, gridlocked road. It is flawed, as Cyndi McNamara’s due diligence has shown. It will undermine the community and encourage the distorted process that facilitated it against the public’s wishes.

Frances Genovese

Southampton