Letters

Last week’s Southampton Village election proves that blatant corruption in our prior village administrations has now been replaced by willful ignorance and backroom deals.

We had top-notch professionals under contract to bring us the views of our village residents (in a new Comprehensive Plan) and serve as the basis for the revamped zoning code, which our village desperately needs.

Instead, we got a political stranglehold on the honest opinion research process by a mayor-appointed Steering Committee, without any members chosen by our village residents. The result will be a continuation of developer-friendly construction of environmentally disastrous houses from beach and wet-zone estate areas to our already overcrowded village streets; cosmetic changes in zoning instead of delaying the impacts of overdevelopment in a new, hostile, climate-change environment.

Of course, our vote has been diluted by liberalization of primary residence rules. But, in spite of that backroom deal, locally and nationally, the voters will never face the choices they really want in their government unless they take an active part in their governments, keeping informed, attending public hearings, making their voices heard, clearly and frequently. Participation in government on all levels is the only way that people will ever get the government they want.

Evelyn Konrad

Southampton