Letters

I attended last Thursday’s Southampton Village Board meeting to speak to the board about taxable assessed values, as well as my devastating experience dealing with Trustees Bill Manger and Gina Arresta.

Manger and Arresta were punitive and retaliatory toward me in my grievance process, because I opposed their logic and their positions and inaction. Their irrational and vindictive treatment not only harmed my wife and me, they put the village at financial risk and provided a personal finance gain for themselves.

However, their vindictive treatment did not stop with me. At the same meeting, all four trustees refused to approve the mayor’s reappointment of two longstanding public servants, Laura Devinney and Ed Simioni, to the Planning Commission. It appears they refused to do this because these two individuals did not agree with the trustees’ plan to give themselves four-year terms.

The trustees, like Bill Manger, only take direction from a small group of wealthy elites who donate to their campaigns and who harvest absentee ballots so they can stay in “power.” It appears that only the mayor cares about the interests of everyday village residents, which is why he so often stands alone representing the people. Joe McLoughlin used to do this, but, unfortunately, he was not able to keep up with the trustees’ lavish fundraising, and as a result was not able to win his election last year.

Equally, if not more spitefully and maliciously, was the trustees passing a resolution curtailing and limiting mayoral authority. Not only did this likely violate New York State law, which gives any village mayor the ability to direct village employees in the service of its citizens, but their resolution is opposite to what the residents want. The mayor does a good job getting things done for the people, and the residents elected him twice in order to do so. No one voted for the trustees to make the mayor’s job more difficult. It is already hard enough.

Residents of Southampton Village should be appalled by the trustees’ behavior. Unfortunately, this goes part in parcel with the trustees’ other most recent actions, including a gag order on village employees, changing freedom of information laws, violating the Open Meetings Law by holding closed-door meetings, appointing an unqualified chief of police who had not passed the necessary test, and approving contracts in executive session with no notice to the public.

I urge the mayor to ignore the illegal resolution passed by the trustees and to continue helping the residents of the village as he does each and every day.

David Rung

Southampton Village