Letters

Southampton Village has its own Donald Trump and Pam Bondi: Mayor Bill Manger and Village Attorney Eileen Powers. Manger, an aspiring Trump (and a former employee), and Powers, an aspiring Bondi, both relying on the same familiar trio of secrecy, spin and self-preservation.

The latest example is the architectural review study, a report paid for with public grant money to evaluate which homes could face more onerous restrictions if included in a new historic district. Instead of sharing it, Manger and Powers locked it away like it’s the Epstein files.

Note that Leon Black, a known Epstein associate who made at least $158 million in payments to Epstein, according to Yahoo Finance, was a maxed-out campaign donor to Bill Manger, Roy Stevenson and Robin Brown. That’s quite a circle.

This “draft” report is a public document containing factual data and must be released to the public under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, not just the trustees, who are also being denied. Instead, Manger is playing a game of “Guess Who’s in the New Historic District?” with people’s homes, property rights and financial futures.

At the November 13 trustees meeting, in an effort to shield Manger, Eileen “Bondi” Powers trotted out every classic Trump-Bondi line:

I’ve never seen it.

I don’t know.

I don’t know anything.

I don’t have access to the report.

I don’t have custody of it.

It was almost impressive, if it weren’t, in the words of Donald Trump, “so sad.”

Village residents expect honesty, transparency and competence from their government, not a local imitation of the behavior of Manger’s former boss.

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of this Trump-Bondi act.

Jessica McNerney

Southampton Village