When Tommy John Schiavoni announced that he would be a candidate for the Southampton Town Board in 2017, my wife, Barbara, and I, after researching his background and his stated plans if elected, began an intensive letter writing and online blog campaign for his election.
Mea culpa. Instead of being a progressive voice for the environment and the citizens of Southampton Town, Tommy John showed himself to be just another party hack, at the call of the developers.
The great American horror story writer Stephen King (i.e. King not Ring) wrote, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” So, Tommy John, you are not going to fool me anymore.
Tommy John started his political career opposing The Hills project, aligning himself with courageous former Town Councilwoman Julie Lofstad. Soon thereafter, he became just another puppet for Jay Schneiderman and his developer friends. Why?
In recent weeks, it’s been the environmentally dangerous Hampton Bays battery energy storage system project and the Southampton Liberty Gardens time bomb. Jay was so desperate to please his developer friends that on his way out of office, he called a last-minute special Southampton Town Board meeting to approve a plan for Liberty Gardens that most knowledgeable people say was incomplete.
What did Tommy John do? When asked to raise his hand “yes” by Jay, he did, without even having the decency to offer his reason for voting that way.
Last week, Assemblyman Fred Thiele announced his plan to retire. Tommy John, thinking that the baton should be passed to him, with no opposition, declared his candidacy. I guess he forgot about his disastrous State Senate campaign.
Well, Tommy John, the Republicans have as their candidate Shelter Island Town Attorney Stephen F. Kiely, a person with working experience as an attorney in Brookhaven, Southampton and Riverhead towns.
Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Stephen Ring
Hampton Bays
Buyer's RemorseWe are seeing a disturbing trend on the East End and particularly in the Town of Southampton. It is perplexing to witness extremely wealthy buyers, ones with resources to fund endless, years-long legal battles, to the detriment of neighbors and...
Selective EntitlementsKudos to Highway Superintendent Charlie McArdle for his self-serving pat on the back with his “Outside the Box” letter [July 18]. His “outside the box” is nothing more than selective entitlements given to a very small group of people who...
LifesaverOn July 15, my husband was powerwalking along Route 114 at 11:30 a.m. when he collapsed from heat stroke. A woman, or, I should say, an angel, stopped her car and loaded a bloodied, almost unconscious person into her car...
Compliant MessagingPaula Angelone, another useful tool of the Trump derangement syndrome-afflicted, railed against Donald Trump’s perceived violent rhetoric of the past as a sorry excuse for the assassination attempt last week [“American Landscape,” Letters, July 18]. Claiming “violence begets violence,” she...
Dear LeaderKudos to whoever decided to devote a half page (!) in last week’s edition to some stunningly deep investigative reporting! To wit: A part-time resident of Sag Harbor, who doubles as a full-time anchor on the dear leader TV network,...
One-Way StreetI resigned from the Southampton Town Planning Board last month. That was not an easy decision, as I truly enjoyed working with the planning staff and the wonderful people who serve on that board. That said, I’m a community advocate...
A ShowmanI was amused to read last week’s Letters to the Editor by Bill Jones [“End the Bias”], Thomas Jones [“Abject Failure”], Ed Surgan [“Sky Isn’t Falling”], and John Porta [“Bleak Alternative]. If you believe their words and statistics then you...
Unfit for OfficeAs an independent voter, I have been very frustrated, like many, about the candidates being offered by the Democrats and Republicans for the presidency come November, as both to me appeared unfit for office. One’s weaknesses became increasingly clear as...
