Letters

For a person who has been in Southampton for over 70 years, let me start with a simple proposition: Parks have roads. Central Park springs to mind. The Eiffel Tower has cars running through it.

A privately funded park (with some town land) should not deny public access by requiring that a historic road be closed. The Lake Agawam Conservancy’s 57-page PowerPoint is fraught with inaccuracies and did nothing to persuade me that the gardens could not be designed around Pond Lane.

First, they claim Pond Lane causes runoff into Lake Agawam. This is nonsense. The diversion of traffic away from Pond Lane merely shifts runoff to storm sewers on nearby streets, which all drain into the lake.

The real cause of the runoff will be the 11.5-acre garden, which will require tankers of nitrogen-based pollutants to maintain it. To contain this runoff, the conservancy proposes using taxpayer money for a vegetative buffer and storm sewers along the road.

In an August 24 letter, the conservancy writes that the closing of Pond Lane is necessary since there is not sufficient room next to the existing roadway to build an environmental buffer and bicycle and pedestrian path [“A Public Benefit,” Letters, September 7]. False. A Suffolk County tax map clearly shows that Pond Lane has a wide right of way that can easily accommodate a bike/pedestrian path and a vegetative barrier.

The conservancy also makes two contradictory claims: that Pond Lane is unsafe and that it is not used very much. There’s no evidence that Pond Lane is less safe than other village roads. As for use, Pond Lane gets lots of it. A friend counted 180 cars per hour during rush hour, when traffic is bumper to bumper on Hill Street and Windmill Lane. Our elected trustees should do their own independent traffic study during the crowded summer months.

Rather than using Pond Lane, which represents about 1/12th of the circumference of Lake Agawam, as a scapegoat, why not pass a law requiring the mansions that border on the remaining 11/12ths stop using pesticides and fertilizers, and build their own vegetative barriers and storm sewers to prevent runoff into the lake?

The elected trustees are charged with preserving our historic treasures. Pond Lane is listed on the National Register and has been dedicated to Pyrrhus Concer, a former slave whose property borders the road. Please keep it open. It is in our DNA. Over 1,650 petitioners who live and work in the village agree.

Let us unite and have a park with a road. This will be a public/private partnership we can all celebrate.

Henry A. Ittleson

Southampton