Letters

I attended your April 27 panel discussion on the future of Hampton Bays and was not surprised by much of what I heard [“New Voices, Applause for Hampton Bays Downtown Revitalization Concept at Express Sessions Event” 27east.com, May 3].

From the announced makeup of the panel, I suspected beforehand it would be one-sided. Blatantly one-sided. The same innuendo and veiled threats about what faced us if we didn’t go along with what the developers and their enablers, the Southampton Town Board, have planned for us. It was sad that The Press provided them with this one-sided performance and I hope you will redeem yourselves in the future. And, as I suspected there might be, a number of people were in attendance whom no one I knew recognized as “locals” or even recognized at all. As expected, the “outsiders” loudly applauded any point made by the team that I believe brought them in.

As a positive, I must say the food at lunch was tasty and the ambiance at Oakland’s was, as always, delightful. Also, the drawings provided of Mr. Caiola’s plans were lovely to look at. But, then again, I have never seen ugly drawings presented by any developer over the years so they don’t really mean that much to me. I’ve learned the devil is in the details and part of the devil also concerns what changes are allowed by the town after we think everything has been worked out.

But pretty pictures aside, I was appalled by the brazen attempt to have a hostile turnover of “our” park to the developer and his best interests. The park road would become attached to a road on the developer’s land. Then it could appear the road was also theirs and the park would become their own front yard. If they want another road, more parking or more green space, let it be on their land and not on ours. Yes, it would cut down on their profits from rental income, but it is not our job to maximize their profits. It’s not the town’s job either, but they apparently don’t seem to get that.

One last thing, if anyone out there still believes the Town Board members we elected work to protect us, try to find out why the town didn’t even bother to apply for façade improvement grants for downtown Hampton Bays for the year 2023. Do they really want us to improve or do they want to allow us to deteriorate so much that we finally cave and let them do whatever they want?

Marion Boden

Hampton Bays