Letters

The chief executive officer of villages in New York State, including Southampton Village, is the mayor, and the deputy mayor. As executive officers, these two members of the Southampton Village Board have an affirmative duty to supervise the three village regulatory boards: the Board of Architectural Review and History Preservation, Zoning Board of Appeals and Planning Board.

However, both Mayor Jesse Warren and Deputy Mayor Gina Arresta have totally ignored that duty and have negligently allowed the three village regulatory boards to run amok. Since the 2020 election, the ARB, ZBA and Planning Board have violated more New York State laws than they ever violated in a full year of the Epley and mini-Epley mayoralities.

Why? Heaven knows. Bad legal counseling is no excuse. All you need is a computer and Google, and type in “Chief Executive Officer of New York State villages.” Up pops the official New York State Handbook about the ways villages are organized, plus the fact that the mayor of a village is its chief executive officer, unless prohibited by charter, which Mayor Jesse Warren and his stand-in, Deputy Mayor Gina Arresta, are not.

It’s hard to understand why these two elected functionaries have permitted the ARB, ZBA and Planning Board to make pro-developer decisions in violation of several New York State laws.

Indeed, the Planning Board recently found a new way to act lawlessly by violating the Suffolk County Health Department “conditional variance” given to Paul Robinson, developer, allowing him to sterilize a property in the same watershed as his 245 Old Town Road property. But, of course, it isn’t in the same watershed. Nonetheless, the chairman of the Planning Board voted to subdivide 245 Old Town Road, in violation of the Suffolk County Health Department conditional variance.

On the way to that decision, the Planning Board approved a factually incorrect SEQRA negative declaration, which ignored the existence of Old Town Pond between the Robinson property at 245 Old Town Road and the Atlantic Ocean. The Planning Board chair simply stated that a preliminary and biased survey from 10 years ago could replace the flawed negative declaration, because “nothing has really changed.”

No, only four new roads running into Old Town Road, around the east and south shores of Old Town Pond, from huge developments to the east of the threatened, fragile pond.

Let’s remember recent ARB and ZBA violations of settled New York State law, as both granted spec builders the right to demolish much-needed one-story year-round houses for unaffordable McMansions.

So much for Gina’s campaign promise to stand against overdevelopment.

Evelyn Konrad

Attorney at law

Southampton