Letters

In its July 25 “Parade of Horribles” letter, the Hampton Bays Alliance vented its collective spleen over four letters that earlier appeared in The Southampton Press. That letter called the content of those letters “disingenuous,” “anti-development propaganda” and labeled their authors as part of the “essentially white, senior citizen membership” of the Hampton Bays Civic Association.

Three of the letters about which the Alliance hyperventilates addressed the Town Board’s intention to adopt, as part of its Comprehensive Plan, a revised pattern book for downtown Hampton Bays. That book recommended 2.5-or-more story, 50-foot-tall apartment buildings with ground-floor residences, in lieu of current zoning regulations limiting downtown buildings to two stories, 35 feet in height, with no first-floor residences.

As the Alliance’s president, John Leonard, conceded during the July 9 Town Board meeting, the new recommendations have no place in a Comprehensive Plan. To its credit, the Town Board agreed and is now revising the pattern book to remove these, among other, offending provisions.

It does not take a Cassandra — whose accurate prophesies of disaster went unheeded — to conclude that the pattern book’s new recommendations would provide a foundation for a substantial increase in downtown residential density with attendant pressure on infrastructure, public services and safety. Pointing this out is neither disingenuous nor propaganda.

These slurs pale in significance to both the Alliance’s condemnation of the authors of the above-referenced letters and the Hampton Bays Civic Association’s membership for being “essentially white, senior citizen[s],” and to its insulting insinuation that the Hampton Bays populace is so “marginally engaged, [and] woefully under-informed” that it easily may be misled by these old, white people about the ramifications of residential overdevelopment.

This rhetoric from an entity touting itself as providing “a civil and respectful space for members of the Hampton Bays community to learn about various public and private community development projects affecting our hamlet.” That rhetoric is neither civil nor respectful but smacks of the tactic espoused by the disastrous Nelson Pope Voorhis contract that called for “neutralizing” those opposed to development proposals by having them appear as presenting misinformation to promote their own limited agendas.

Lastly, as the “Fresh Ideas” [July 18] letter confirms, many ideas (solutions) have been advanced for revitalization of downtown Hampton Bays — they just do not happen to include the one actively being championed by the Alliance. Pointing out the deficiencies in the plan favored by the Alliance — while “horrible” to the Alliance — is not disingenuous propaganda, no matter the race or the age of the messengers reporting it.

Linda Wells

Hampton Bays