Letters

With all due congratulations to the new mayor-elect and best wishes for his, and our, success—now that Southampton Village is under his stewardship, it might be wise to alert him to Shakespeare’s admonition to Horatio: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Jesse Warren dreams of revitalizing local brick-and-mortar (or wood-and-shingle) retail and has established this as his “main priority” in what, it must be noted, is a national, as well as local, downswing. It is to be hoped that he will not be overwhelmed to learn and experience the vigor with which residents will bring their main priorities to him and to the board.

There are the deer hunters, the deer haters (full disclosure: I am one of those) and the deer advocates. There are the remains of atavistic zoning, which allow offensive and commercial enterprises to operate at will in residential neighborhoods. There are the siren calls of all the developers and their entourage of planning and environmental “experts.”

There are the affordable housing hawks. There is that bank of Community Preservation Fund money. There are school issues and traffic issues and tax issues, all impacting different residents differently, and unfairly, they will rush to point out.

There are environmental crises in full bloom, the waters swilling in “matter” from overdevelopment. There are the codes, and laws, and procedures and practices, and the way things were always done. There are the demands of the departments and the budget wrangling. There is the ever-encroaching town and its politics and policies. There is the question of “the sewers” and the fact that politics is a sewer itself.

And this barely touches the surface.

So, again: Good luck, Mr. Mayor, and it is hoped you are a quick study, and are already brushing up on the fundamentals of how things are run both in and out of the back rooms, and that we can help as you learn on the job.

Frances GenoveseSouthampton