Letters

“We will not stop!” says the Naples, Florida, and part-time Sag Harbor resident, the president of STAR, about her new push to get her oft-rejected pool proposal onto County Road 39 and Magee Street [“We Will Not Stop,” Letters, October 1].

Tuckahoe residents, on the other hand, would very much like to stop! Stop having to reacquaint the Town Board and others about the traffic, abuse and proposed misuses of the parcel they are now hawking.

On the heels of a long, time- and health-consuming pushback on the supermarket and other undefined retail mall (which probably would be claiming “hardship” right now if it had been allowed to be built), Tuckahoe now gets slapped with another massive, ugly, traffic-generating, inappropriate development proposal on land purchased with taxpayer money.

STAR maintains that the language of the Community Preservation Fund should be “clarified” to include the two-story sports complex they are pumping for under the banner of “need” for a year-round place for people to swim. We maintain that not just the language must be clarified but the intent and spirit of the law that created the CPF, and was clearly meant to ameliorate problems as well as preserve what remains of the carcass of the area after the real estate shark feed of the past decades. Lowering traffic and easing commercial overdevelopment was the community’s understanding of the intent of this purchase.

STAR maintains that it “welcomes community input” — and they do, as long as it is not input from those who oppose this plan.

We would welcome input as well, starting with the justification of abandoning Red Creek in favor of the highway in Southampton. And how about some real financial analysis. How much of their donations go to pay salaries, consultants and the usual “experts”? How will they keep this sports complex afloat in the future?

Future financial problems aside, traffic is the immediate concern, followed by the increasing manipulations of the CPF law, of which this is an instance, which threaten to turn its bursting coffers ($98 million in the last year alone) into a windfall for politicians and their donors.

Tuesday, October 13, the ill-advised push to add “pool” to the CPF classification, which in reality will grease a sports complex proposal already approved for another spot in Hampton Bays, comes before the Town Board for a final time. Please attend to voice your opinion. Or send in letters or email to townclerk@southamptontownny.gov. marked “Distribute to: Supervisor and Town Board,” reference the “Pool Amendment to CPF,” and ask that your communication be made part of the public record.

Frances Genovese

Southampton