Letters

“Are the Hamptons Still Hip?” was the burning question posed by The New York Times in a recent article. “No” was their answer.

“Is Southampton still a viable, livable community?” is the more relevant question being asked by locals and many who planted roots here decades ago, making it their home and contributing in essential ways to this community. Are the Hamptons still livable? Sadly and increasingly, the answer is no.

In the Village of Southampton, as the local election comes round, there are serious problems to be dealt with: of sewage, despoliation through development, traffic clogging local residential streets, “affordable housing,” town overreach, code reform, the cleansing of Lake Agawam.

It is obvious that we need a mature, civil, working village government to work at resolving these issues, and we need it now. Sophomoric and contentious feuding board meetings have left the village at a standstill and residents disgusted as well as disheartened. Likewise, proliferating lawsuits by disgruntled ex and current employees, if nothing else, attest to a breakdown of day-to-day administration.

For these reasons I am urging a vote for Bill Manger for mayor. He is seasoned, civil, mature and knowledgeable and has been a resident concerned about the welfare of the Village for years. He served before, and he served well. We need him to make corrections and changes and to override personalities.

Everyone deserves the right to run, and everyone should vote. When casting a vote this time around we should try to keep uppermost in our minds that the village needs to be set right, and levelheaded experience is the first step.

Heide and Alexander Löfken

Southampton Village