Letters

Since our supervisor and her Town Board are busy running Southampton Town, some friends and I have been working on a tentative master plan for Hampton Bays to lessen their workload. Since they represent us, we hope they honor (some of) our wishes.

1. A fitness trail should be built on the inside perimeter of the Bel-Aire Cove Motel property. We also want a jungle gym, a seesaw, picnic tables, and a few beautiful and colorful gardens. A “passive park” is a ridiculous use of that beautiful waterfront property.

2. We want 7Zs Swimming Pool and Getty by the traffic circle demolished ASAP. The properties should be cleaned up and left natural. Blight should not have a place in Southampton Town.

3. Lifeguards should be on duty at Ponquogue Beach on three weekends after Labor Day every year. We should not have to beg for it. People will go swimming. It’s not safe without lifeguards.

4. Downtown revitalization: The town should paint storefronts and build and stock flower boxes. The town can use the money ($60,000 or less) that was offered to merchants a few years ago. That makes more sense than full revitalization.

5. There should be more crosswalks on Main Street and Ponquogue Avenue, and ones that have faded should be repainted.

6. A few charging stations should be eliminated. I have never seen more than two being used at one time. Shoppers can use those parking spaces for shopping.

7. The town should find other parking spaces for town vehicles. They should not take up shoppers’ parking spaces in and near King Kullen shopping center.

8. The town should build a 10-mile-long bike trail. Perhaps along the tracks or from Red Creek Park to Ponquogue Bridge and into East Quogue. Bike lane lines on Route 24 should be repainted to make riding to Riverhead safer. We should not have to drive a half hour for safe bicycle riding inside the fence on the Riverhead/Grumman property in Calverton. (It’s a 10-mile, mostly flat, paved trail.)

9. Tourism brochures are hard to find. They should be available, in view, to everyone going into all beach parking lots and to all shoppers in downtown Hampton Bays, and all of Southampton.

10. Portable toilets should be at the Ponquogue Beach parking lot 12 months a year. They would be used by bike riders, fishermen and fisherwomen, surfers, tourists, and walkers all year long.

Jim Dreeben

Hampton Bays