Letters

When Fred Thiele and Jay Schneiderman issue politically pious calls for oversight of the bloated, billion-dollar-plus Community Preservation Fund, aka real estate tax, while simultaneously trawling for ways to lessen the fund’s strictures and expand its uses, the public should be very wary [“Although CPF Is Flush With Cash, Most Eye Expanding Its Reach Warily,” 27east.com, April 26].

Jay Schneiderman, seemingly concerned about traffic for the record, is always pushing for development that will increase traffic incrementally and paying for it when he can with CPF money. In this effort he and the town often reach out to Thiele as the final word as to how the money can be used.

Take as one example the former Morrow property on Magee Street and County Road 39, which was a speculative longshot reliant on a zone change to allow a shopping mall. After the community shot it down, Schneiderman used CPF money to buy the land back from the developer for what he paid for it ($4.9 million) for a “hiking trail” or “affordable housing” or “senior housing” — take your pick.

Instead, itching to develop this land, he was behind enticing proponents — who had already secured property in Red Creek for a pool — to come to Tuckahoe and pitch their pool for this busy, inappropriate spot. To this end, he gifted them with the $4.9 million parcel he had purchased with CPF money from Morrow. The only requirement being that they provide regular accounts of their fundraising. They have never done so, and the town has never asked them to. In the interim, the “pool for children” has morphed into a proposed two-story sports complex with event space and 167 parking spaces.

The CPF was passed for the purchase of open space: farmland, wetlands and woodlands, as well as historical properties and properties that could be used for “passive recreational purposes.” Thiele is often petitioned as the de facto interpreter and arbiter of the allowable uses for CPF money. His usual circumlocution is that he sees no reason to deny it. Hence a two-story sports complex, with multiple potential uses, rising on an asphalt parking lot, fits his definition of “passive recreational” use.

This fluid interpretation of the purpose of the fund involves only a measly 4.9 million squandered dollars. Imagine what these guardians will do with $2 billion.

Aware of public skepticism and lack of trust, Thiele hypocritically proposes that changes to the CPF be “weighed carefully” and to create a committee of stakeholders to review the law. Who those “stakeholders” might be is an open question.

Another question: Why, with little open space left to preserve thanks to development frenzy, we needed another fund, the Community Housing Fund, aka real estate tax, to overflow the coffers?

Frances Genovese

Southampton