Letters

Lake Agawam Conservancy Chair Robert Giuffra is Donald Trump’s personal attorney, according to Business Insider. So I read his letter, “Playing Politics” [November 27], with disbelief and embarrassment — for him. For someone who touts himself as co-chair and attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell, Mr. Giuffra manages to get the law stunningly wrong.

Let’s start with the basics. Mr. Giuffra claims that the conservancy’s massive Gin Lane project was “fully approved” by the village trustees. That is simply false, and he knows it. A blanket resolution from 2024 authorizing the mayor to enter an agreement is not approval of detailed plans, excavation, shoreline alteration or the $700,000 construction he brags about. Trustees did not see the plan. They did not vote on it. Residents learned what was happening only when heavy machinery and trucks appeared on the shoreline.

And his argument that the Board of Architectural Review and Historic Preservation has no authority over landscaping in the historic district is equally absurd. ARB review is not a new invention — the need for a certificate of appropriateness is written plainly in Chapter 65 of the village code.

The fact that I work in veterinary care and still have to explain these concepts to a Sullivan & Cromwell partner would be comical if it weren’t so troubling. Even the village attorney, Eileen “Pam Bondi” Powers, had to correct him.

Then there is his sanctimonious reference to the conservancy’s $700,000 spending on this project. If Mr. Giuffra is so proud of this number, perhaps he can explain exactly whose pockets that money came from. Transparency, after all, is what he claims to value.

Mr. Giuffra lectures residents about “politics,” but it is no secret that he was a maximum donor to all the trustees who approved his 2024 agreement, two of whom are now gone, one following an ethics violation. If he wants the public to believe there is “nothing political” about this, he should start by acknowledging his own role in shaping decisions from behind the scenes.

Finally, his repeated attempts to intimidate Trustee Rob Coburn for simply asking the village to follow its own laws is beneath the dignity even for one of Donald Trump’s attorneys. If Mr. Giuffra truly wants to serve the public good, he should stop trying to bully residents and trustees into silence and start respecting the procedures that exist to protect public land — procedures that he, as an attorney, should know are not optional.

Jessica McNerney

Southampton Village