Letters

My fellow Southamptonians, I would like to address how my community has expressed being consistently under-served by the town. Flanders has been colloquialized as the “orphan” of Southampton Town, or other terms that I prefer not to use here.

In order for this to change, we need to be respected with equality. We have not. This needs to change.

We have a blight at the entrance to our Bay View Pines community that needs to be taken by eminent domain or secured by the town. This abandoned deli has been equated to a “zombie”-status eyesore to our community for several years. It needs to be condemned and demolished, due to it being a danger to our community.

According to my Bay View Pines code enforcement committee, the owners of the property had 30 days to secure it after a fire in July 2020. Yet the building remains unsecured. There is broken glass and debris strewn around the property. Additionally, access to this public nuisance is still easily available for squatters or inquisitive children.

Sources have seen extension cords and hoses extending from the trailer home behind it to the building interior. This is a danger that needs to be addressed immediately.

Violations are obviously abundant. If this were located east of the canal, it would have been cleaned up and secured and most likely demolished by now. It has been six months since that fire, and our community still has to contend with this public nuisance.

We have called and texted and emailed to have a town representative attend our virtual meetings, to no avail. We should not have to continually reach out to you, our representatives. You should be reaching out to us.

Recent developments now include a vacation trailer parked next to the burned-out building. Inquiry and complaints to the town and the Southampton Town Police Department resulted in a response that the owner can park a trailer on the property. This is allowing a bad situation to get worse. This needs further investigation by the town.

You are districtwide elected council members, not council district-elected officials, and need to represent all your constituents, townwide. When we request your assistance, we would expect respect and a response — not to be diminished, of unimportance, because we are Flanders, west of the canal.

This is not the first time we have been marginalized. Southampton Town consistently ignores the constituents of our area and of our organization. We respectfully request that that must stop and that you reach out and assist us to help clean up our neighborhood in a timely manner.

Joanne Long Merrill

President

Bay View Pines Civic and Taxpayers Association Inc.

Flanders