By Mayor Greg Ferraris

I am sure that many of you have now read last week’s Point of View column penned by Richard Gambino. While I have refrained from responding to various letters, articles and editorial opinions over my six years of public service, I felt inspired to respond and set the record straight on numerous inaccuracies and potentially libelous comments contained in his column.

It is quite obvious that this column was an attempt to justify a stance against the Village’s review process through the medium of unaccountable journalism rather than the tried and true method of stating fact and reality. Fortunately, the Village has individuals like Planning Board Chairman Neil Slevin and other committed review board members who are willing to sift through this biased rhetoric of lobbying organizations to make determinations which are for the betterment of the entire Village without regard to self-interest.

Let me begin by stating that the proposal brought to the Village by Sag Development Partners for the Bulova building was undoubtedly the largest development project that the Village has seen in our modern era. This project as proposed, which was embraced by nearly all Village residents, would not only have resurrected one of the most historically significant structures within the Village, but provided a source of economic activity while completing the ongoing remediation of a documented Superfund site.

That being said, although I would love to take credit for all of the hard work and effort put forth during this arduous process, the Village Board of Trustees and I had no role in review of the application, except to the extent that the Village Board is the legislative branch that establishes the code that is implemented by the review boards. All of the appointed individuals on these boards are well-versed in their duties and worked tirelessly on the Bulova application, enduring more than 50 long, tedious public meetings that addressed every environmental issue that arose in the evaluation of the application, each of which were addressed in public, in detail and by submissions of the applicant and responses from the Village’s consultants. Had Mr. Gambino attended any of the meetings held in connection with this project, he would know the depth at which each issue was addressed and would have concluded that the review boards and the Village’s staff did a tremendous job of dealing with such a large-scale proposal and in fact did comply with the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA).

Mr. Gambino has repeatedly shown his ignorance to the facts and circumstances of this application and process. He alleges that the Village approved a plan to truck 30,000 cubic yards of “potentially toxic soil” from the site. The Village Planning Board did no such thing. Actually, prior to the submission of this application by Sag Development Partners, the Bulova property was the subject of a “Record of Decision” issued by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) in 1996, which required the owner to remove the soil from the site. Pursuant to New York State law, a municipality is pre-empted from regulating any of the elements covered by the order and further, the order itself and its implementation is exempt from environmental review. In this particular case, the Village Planning Board asked the applicant to discuss the implementation of the NYSDEC mandate, who agreed, although discussion was not required. In addition, Mr. Gambino stated that the Village would incur liability as a result of any soil spill. In reality, liability for removing and transporting the soil lies with the applicant under the supervision of the NYSDEC as required by the order.

Mr. Gambino also incorrectly categorizes the recommendations of the Suffolk County Planning Commission (SCPC) with respect to the affordable housing component of the Bulova site as a “legal requirement.” The Planning Commission responded to two agencies involved in the proposal, the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Planning Board, with a recommendation that the applicant provide affordable housing. The comments of the SCPC are recommendations, not legal requirements. According to New York State General Municipal Law, a referral to the local planning commission was required for this application. The law also states that the comments provided by the local planning commission are recommendations that may be overridden by the agency responsible for the project by a majority plus one vote. In this case, the Boards determined, as they had absolutely every right to do, that the Sag Harbor Community Housing Trust Fund was an acceptable alternative which addressed the community’s concerns about the provision of affordable housing and legally overrode the SCPC recommendations. As a matter of fact, the Village subsequently received a letter from the SCPC acknowledging that this was an acceptable alternative.

The column also alleges that the Village “bypassed” New York State environmental regulation. The Village prides itself on compliance with each and every aspect of the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) regulations. If we had been called upon to defend the merits of a suit alleging any improper environmental review, I have complete confidence that a court would rule in favor of the Village’s actions and review. The purpose of SEQRA is to incorporate environmental consideration into the planning, review and decision-making process of a local agency at the earliest possible time. To insinuate that the Village failed to do this is illogical. Before any determination was made as to the environmental significance of the project, the village review boards held more than 50 public meetings on numerous environmental issues, accepting public comment on each and every issue and requiring the production of thousands of pages of reports, information and expert testimony that was carefully evaluated by both the Planning Board and the Villages’ consultants. This is exactly what SEQRA requires.

The lawsuit against the Village that alleged defects in our procedure was dismissed on a technicality which was the result of plaintiff’s counsels’ repeated failure to comply with details for filing a suit of this type. Although the Village would have been successful on the merits of a challenge to its process, it became clear that due to the obvious defects in the Plaintiff’s petition, it was more efficient and fiscally responsible for the Village to first defend the suit on that basis. 

Mr. Gambino also questions the authorship of the final environmental review document that was completed in connection with the proposed project, insinuating that I had prepared an “in-house report” as part of the environmental review. In fact, an expanded environmental assessment form and summary report that evaluated the environmental impacts as well as provided a summary of all the information gathered was prepared and submitted by the applicant’s environmental planners, Frudenthal & Elkowitz. That final document is the effective equivalent of a final environmental impact statement and included all of the legally required elements and was accepted by the Planning Board as having adequately addressed all environmental concerns of the project. This process was innovative and not only addressed each environmental issue in public, but was paramount to the Board’s and the public’s understanding of the process and the issues. 

In connection with the process followed by the Planning Board, the author maliciously misinterpreted the comments by Planning Board Chair, Neil Slevin. According to the article written by Kathryn Menu that appeared in the April 2, 2009 edition of the Express, Mr. Slevin stated that, in connection with the environmental review process that was followed for the Bulova application, “I could not imagine for the life of me a process that is better for figuring out the challenges or impacts a development might present or where the community would have a greater opportunity to share their expertise and concern… The very thing we have been criticized for, I believe, is the best thing we have done. The public came to us…and we made the developer answer.” These statements demonstrate the very core of environmental review principles: public participation and calling upon the applicant to answer the questions.

As a matter of clarification, my comments about the Group for the East End were representative of their actions towards the Village with respect to the affordable housing concerns on the Bulova application. Despite the many environmental issues that were addressed throughout this process, the Group curiously focused their attention on a single social issue, the provision of affordable housing on-site, which seemed to me to be out of the scope of their mission as an environmental advocacy group. I would hope that in the future the Group would partner with the Village to deal with development pressures by offering their expertise rather than criticizing a Village Board that has taken substantial steps toward preserving the character and environment of Sag Harbor.

In closing, I find Mr. Gambino’s skills as a creative fiction writer are most impressive and provided last week’s Express audience with a very entertaining article at my expense, but he should have at the very least researched the basic facts. Is that not a basic premise of journalism?

By Richard Gambino

On April 2, The Express ran a front page story about a judge dismissing a suit against Mayor Greg Ferraris’ government by the environmental organization, The Group for the East End. The judge dismissed the case solely on a technicality. As stated by this newspaper, the technicality was that “the Group’s attorney, James Periconi, failed to name developers Sag Development Partners in the lawsuit.” And that technicality is all of the judge’s reason. As also pointed out, no judge or court has heard the merits of the Group’s suit, or the Village’s defense against it. Given all this, the response of Mayor Greg Ferraris is worthy of a skit on Saturday Night Live. Except, according to this paper, his statements are no parody — he really said them. Really.

The suit was about the Bulova condo project, which was approved by Sag Harbor’s Village Hall, without the Village requiring from the condo developer a Draft Environmental Impact Statement regarding the project as required by the New York State Environmental Quality Review Law.      Specifically, there are two issues. First, Mayor Ferraris and company approved a plan to truck thirty thousand cubic yards of potentially toxic soil on 3,750 large trucks past countless houses, schools and other buildings in, and far beyond, Sag Harbor. Second, the Village waived the legal requirement that the developers include in their condo thirteen units of affordable housing. Instead, the town fathers and mothers decided that the developers be allowed to contribute $2.5 million, or about $192,300 per unit, which, even in this time of economic recession, would not come close to buying a single dwelling in Sag Harbor.

The Express quoted the Chairman of the Planning Board, Neil Slevin, about the Village’s process in blessing the Bulova condo. He compared it to the board’s current process of reviewing the proposal for yet another huge condo complex, one called “Ferry Road.” He noted that with regard to the Ferry Road condo proposal, in the words of the article, his “planning board has asked for an impact statement and is engaged in the very process Samuelson advocates.” (Referring to Jeremy Samuelson, an officer of The Group for the East End.) Slevin’s logic here is stunning, and all too typical of Ferraris and company: We are asking for the New York State-required environmental impact statement for the large Ferry Road condo, therefore we were justified in not asking for such a statement regarding the even larger Bulova condo.   

But let’s go to Mayor Ferraris’ own dazzling statements, giving them the seriatim attention they deserve. Please, again, keep in mind this is not a parody. According to this newspaper, Mayor Ferraris actually said all the quotations of him that follow:

 

 “ ‘I am pleased with the court’s decision; however it feels like a hollow victory as the Bulova factory once again sits dormant due to the financial crisis,’ said the Mayor.”

 

Meaning that the developers may not have the money to build the condo during the current economic downturn. But fortunately for them they have Ferraris fighting for them, great advocate for condos that he is. After all, isn’t this what the voters elected Ferraris to do, be the  developers’ darling of the East End? No small accomplishment given that the South Fork’s governments are made up largely of developers and realtors, by developers and realtors and for developers and realtors. But with their Mayor Greg, developers have been truly and exceptionally blessed. Other governments out here have been content merely to approve endless McMansions. But their beloved Greg is determined to cover Sag Harbor with condo complexes.

 

 “ ‘I really question the motive and the direction of the management of the Group for the East End,’  continued Mayor Ferraris,  ‘who have morphed from an environmental advocacy group into a lobbyist organization engaging in social and economic issues outside their league. It is unfortunate that the village needs to expend tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money defending itself against these types of baseless claims and I can only hope that village residents recall this when funding these organizations.’” 

 

Spending “tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money” defending his right not to file a NYS-required environmental impact statement — how bravely responsible of our wise Mayor. The Group is a “lobbyist organization?” For whom? The sneaky local plants and wildlife? Our lands and waters, with their vile lust to remain healthy? Healthy for us, our children and grandchildren. Why, those people in The Group know no end to their inordinate moxie, chutzpah and nerve!

Unable to defend his indefensible decisions by reasoned argument, Ferraris  resorts to attacking the “motive” of The Group. Speaking of motives, Mr. Ferraris, what’s your motive for bypassing NY State Law? Oh yes, the in-house report you did on your own, including the plan for thousands of trucks full of potentially toxic soil. Why not just resolve this issue by asking the Bulova developers for the NYS-required environmental impact statement? What would be the harm of two studies? And now that you’ve opened the question of motives, what’s your motive for spending “tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money” to keep from doing this?    

Three thousand, seven hundred and fifty large trucks carrying thirty thousand cubic yards of potentially toxic soil past our homes and schools, not to mention countless homes and public institutions beyond Sag Harbor. Somehow Mr. Ferraris never mentions this. How noble of the Mayor to allow this, and then to spend “tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money” to insist on it.  And let’s not think of the cost the Village might have in defending against suits if there is even so much as a single mishap in which just one of those trucks spills potentially toxic soil onto a street lined by houses, or near a school or shopping center. And the cost in possibly losing against the suits. Mr. Mayor, don’t trouble you head about it, full as it is with “social and economic issues outside the league” of the rest of us.

Yes sir and madam, the next time your darker angels urge you to send a contribution to a local environmental organization, resist the temptation and send your check to the  Public Defense of Greg Ferraris Fund. But, then, he already has your money for this. Sorry.

A few weeks ago, Greg Ferraris was quoted in this newspaper as saying he would not run for re-election as mayor. Promises, promises. Whether he does or not, here’s hoping against hope that a candidate for the office steps forward who is dedicated to ending Sag Harbor’s Village Hall bending over backwards, sideways, and let’s not forget, forward, for condos. Even to the point of spending “tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money” possibly to put a huge population at risk. Before it’s too late.

 

RICHARD GAMBINO urges all to contribute generously to The Group for the East End (P.O. Box 569, Bridgehampton, NY 11932 ), and urges The Group to appeal the judge’s decision, as it has said it might. He has never served on the Group’s Board or committees.

By Gabrielle Selz

We are a community shaped and surrounded by water, bounded on one side by the Atlantic Ocean and on the other by the Peconic Bay and the Long Island Sound; we inhabit one of the most beautiful and highly developed regions of coastal land. However, despite increased awareness of the issues of global climate change, most of us on the East End are still unaware of the vulnerability facing our immediate area. 

Not only are sea levels rising, the rate is accelerating. Projections of sea level increases vary from, on the conservative side between 2 to 5 inches by the year 2020 to a more realistic estimation of 12 inches if rapid ice sheet melting is taken into account. Even with variance in forecasting, authorities agree that any amount of sea level rise is alarming. Additionally, because of the rising temperature of the upper level of the ocean, hurricanes are predicted to be more powerful and to last longer: Homes could be damaged, access roads flood and salt water intrude into the ground water aquifer system. 

Though there may be a discrepancy in the degree, the change in sea levels will reconfigure the nature of our landscape within the next decade no matter what we do. The question then becomes, how do we plan for a problem that encompasses uncertain projections, sudden and devastating storms as well as incremental changes happening over long periods of time?

It’s easy to visualize the impact of a major storm. We’ve seen the images of the devastation wrought by Ike and Katrina and some of us even remember The Great Hurricane of 1938, which created the Shinnecock Inlet. Though such storms are historically rare, they are occurring with greater frequency and severity. However, it’s the gradual impact over decades from the incremental rise in sea level, that are harder for us to encompass and prepare for, and yet these are the changes that will affect our lives and communities.

The news isn’t all grim. The slow and insidious nature of the problem of rising sea levels gives us a window of opportunity to plan, both for gradual change and for the catastrophic event of a major storm.

At this point, local decision makers in our communities have been unable to effectively integrate sea level rise and coastal hazard risk into any kind of policy that would protect our human communities, our natural resources and shape land use management. Even the recent new flood maps implemented by FEMA were confusing to individual homeowners as well as town officials and land use authorities. 

The fragility and beauty of our environment, combined with the highly developed nature of the area, offer unique challenges to the East End. We are now faced with the task of advocating for an approach to adaptation. This will take tremendous support for public policies that address sustainability.

In order to implement the changes that are necessary for a resilient community, we must come together as a society. We need to change land use policy and manage our resources, to acquire open space on the coast, to restore habitats as natural buffers, to move public structures, such as the Montauk Lighthouse which is an historic treasure and still dangerously situated, to change our wetland laws and, in the event of a catastrophic hurricane, to develop a post storm redevelopment plan that does not offer perverse incentives that keep people in harm’s way. All this takes time. 

A forum to address these issues is being held over the weekend of March 27^th on the Southampton campus of Stony Brook University. The 1^st Women’s Conference on Sustainability, co-hosted by WISE (Women’s Initiatives for a Sustainable Earth) along with Stony Brook Southampton and the Stony Brook University Center for Wine, Food and Culture is designed to empower, inspire and educate. The conference is open to women, men, professionals and novices and includes information, discussion and entertainment all focused on the issues of climate change and creating resilient communities. One of the speakers, Sarah Newkirk from The Nature Conservancy, will demonstrate an interactive map server that works much like Google Earth in helping East Enders to visualize, pinpoint and generate predictions of sea-level rise and hazards to individual homes.

Other speakers include Richard Leakey (the anthropologist who lives in Kenya on a self-sufficient farm), Patti Wood (Grassroots Environmental Education), Sara Gordon (trained by Al Gore for the Climate Project), and many more.

Designed to flow from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, with one price of $165 for the entire weekend, attendees are still free to pick and choose from the events that interest them most.

Personally, the flood of problems we face sometimes overcomes me. Yet the truth is that there are simple steps we can take. Passivity is often the result of not knowing how to participate. The conference offers us the opportunity to come together, educate ourselves, learn grassroots leadership practices, understand how change happens, and move toward action and advocacy. 

For more details and to register for the conference, go to www.sowise.org.

 

Gabrielle Selz is a freelance writer living in Southampton. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, More Magazine and Art Papers. She’s writing on behalf of WISE and The 1st Women’s Conference on Sustainability.

By Benito Vila

A few weeks ago the Pierson seventh grade girls’ basketball team lost its debut by one point in double overtime. The kids on the team and their parents stopped me around town the day or two afterwards to tell me what a great game it was.

I enjoyed hearing their joyous re-telling of the action and their desire not to let the next one get away. When I saw the team’s coach, Jonathan Tortorella, in a meeting at Pierson I congratulated him. Incredibly, that prompted someone who should know better to say, “Why are you congratulating him? They lost.”

I was so flummoxed to hear this coming from an educator, that I ignored the statement entirely. But now with varsity softball and baseball about to open their seasons, and the younger set soon to take the field in Little League, I think it’s important to explain why the coach deserves the praise and to share a few sideline-earned insights into success in sports.

It’s not easy to get teams to buy into the notion of playing as a unit. There’s always someone who thinks they’re better than everyone else. While that may be true, no one wins a team sport alone.

I tell kids on the teams I coach that it is their responsibility to make each and every player on the team better. I see it as my responsibility to make that possible. It’s gratifying when this mutual commitment creates a sense of success, for the individual and the team, each and every practice.

Seeing that happen is significant for both a coach and their players. Everyone working together is a wonderful thing to be a part of; it defeats the drudgery of drills and allows the action to begin to look nearly instinctive, the execution becoming crisp and effective.

That’s no small feat, for all sports are learned behaviors. Having acumen for accomplishing what’s needed to get the team a win comes only from making a consistent and caring commitment.

In youth and school sports, it’s exciting when the kids take a stake in their success. It’s even better when the parents buy into a team’s success, too. When that happens, the late arrivals and missed practices cease and kids start showing up early, eager to work on improving. That extra practice becomes no big deal; it becomes a priority, something everyone wants to make time for because the experience is so enriching, win or lose.

And that’s what Coach Tortorella did and why he deserves high praise. He’s inspired passion in his players and their parents and now he has them all working together to make their season something special.

His team has won all but one of its other contests so far, but that’s not what’s making their season; instead, it’s everyone making the commitment to one another: coach to kid, kid to kid, parent to kid, parent to coach, kid to school. I could go on.

Writing about all this reminds me of a conversation I had at a cocktail party years ago. A parent was convinced that there are only two kinds of coaches: those that coach to win and those that let everyone play. I identified with neither and suggested there is another animal: the coach that coaches to teach.

That’s the coach who creates insights into the game, passes along life-lessons through the game and gets everyone working together, regardless of their roles or their playing time. That’s the coach kids want to play for. That’s the coach that earns results that last beyond wins and losses. That’s the coach kids remember; they create a passion for doing things well; they appeal as much to the heart as the mind, as much to working to be winners as winning.

Pierson has several of those types of coaches and our community has many more in various youth sports and travel-leagues. We’re lucky that way, having intelligent and knowledgeable people teach young people kinship, competition and commitment that carry on beyond the outcome of any single event.

I’ve learned that with winning comes responsibility: you do that and everyone wants to beat you; it requires even more team-mindedness, more work, more commitment. I find that coaches and teams that consistently take on that challenge to be more satisfied and more secure in and of themselves; they know they’ve done their work.

I’ve always felt that losses teach more than wins, but few seem to believe me. The majority look for moments in a contest that caused things to go the other way; they look for scapegoats; they look to place blame.

Whether I’m coaching or playing, I prefer see what I have to do differently, what I did to fall short. As a coach, I believe my teams lose because I didn’t prepare them properly, but that’s a topic for another day.

 By Russell Diamond

Sag Harbor boasts beauty on both sides of Bay Street and creative inhabitants past and present. The town has a rich heritage and we are only its most recent guardians. It relied on whaling and later manufacturing and saw its fortunes come and go. Each juncture presented threats and opportunities. 

Just as whale oil or watch cases didn’t prove to be sustainable, aspects of our current society are also unsustainable. The basis of capitalism is capital, and we’ve seen in recent months how unsustainable many of the underlying practices in our economy have been. Another basic input is energy, and if we want to give our children a chance at progress and prosperity, we need to rethink our sources and uses of energy.

Seventy percent of U.S. electricity comes from sources that spew carbon into the atmosphere (mostly coal and natural gas). That carbon is altering our climate in dangerous and unpredictable ways that have enormous implications for the future of human health, food and water supplies, population migration, and world peace. And 96% of our transportation runs on petroleum that not only changes the climate, but also transfers wealth abroad and threatens our security. As the world adds 70 million new people every year, these pressures strain our ability to lead richer, healthier and more productive lives.

All of this leads to a basic question: Are we going to do something about it or are we going to do nothing, relying on government or technology to save us? 

In Sag Harbor, 725 Green is seeking to do something through local solutions that empower residents with sustainable practices. 

Government does play a major role, and the new administration has already started to direct policy and money toward these challenges. State and local initiatives also play a big part. Many new technologies offer promise, but the innovation we need is bringing to scale what is already feasible today.

We are setting out to understand our use of energy in Sag Harbor and rethink ways to optimize its use. Reducing waste and moderating demand are the cheapest ways to get started. Efficiency investments such as lighting and insulation often provide paybacks measured in months. We can also consider solar and geothermal for heating/cooling, and wind and solar for electricity. 

Sag Harbor has excellent solar radiation and the public policy to create a large growth opportunity for solar power. The town has a rich history of wind power, with at least seven windmills powering industry in the 19^th Century. A windmill remains the focal point of Sag Harbor today. Perhaps there is some irony to note that for most of the 20^th Century a big blue gas ball was the central landmark of energy use in town. That era is gone, with a cleanup site all that remains. 

For all the threats of transition, there is also opportunity. Smart decisions related to energy can result in big paybacks. New industries create new jobs. Innovative financing can deliver investors compelling and consistent returns while also making a tangible local impact. Customers can lock in reduced electricity rates and not be subject to the variability of utility prices. 

This transition also presents an opportunity for businesses to interact with customers. Sag Harbor residents have made successful efforts to preserve the character of the village and local commerce. Now businesses can offer consumers another reason to stay, by putting in place practices and products that convey that they are part of the solution. This mindfulness can extend to our schools, public works, private residences, and community organizations.

Interested residents have the opportunity to participate directly – 725 Green is looking for people to organize the effort among all village constituents. 

In doing so, the village has much to gain. Sag Harbor has always had a prominence that exceeds its small population. This moment offers the chance to turn our big challenge into the opportunity of our generation. 

 

Russell Diamond is part of 725 Green and is the General Partner of Solution Capital Partners, a clean technology investment firm. He is also an owner of American Clean Power, which operates The Solar Center, a clean energy installation company.

By Stan Eckstut

The Village of Sag Harbor stands a critical juncture in planning its future development. Recent efforts to revise the Village’s zoning code have highlighted a number of pressing, long-term goals. These include preserving Main Street and the Business District’s unique historic character; maintaining an affordable environment for local residents and businesses; creating new parking and affordable housing; and developing a new business district within Sag Harbor.

But while the Village has expressed a common commitment to realizing these goals, what’s still missing are the proper tools to achieve them. What the community needs in order to move forward is not a new set of zoning rules, or an inventory of problems as contained in the recent Planning Strategies Report. Rather, Sag Harbor needs a comprehensive and visionary plan. Only once a strategic plan is in place can the Village use the conventional planning tools, including zoning, to carry out its larger vision.

Take the Main Street Business District. Everyone clearly wants to preserve the Village’s historic main street. But to do so, the Village must look beyond zoning. Zoning is not a plan; it is simply a tool for implementing one. And the proposed zoning code does harm by seeking to restrict the uses of Main Street’s historic buildings. By creating rules that make it difficult to lease the ground floors for active and paying tenants, zoning could easily jeopardize the ability of Main Street’s buildings to remain financially viable. And if buildings aren’t viable, they may not be properly maintained – or even preserved.

By contrast, establishing a historic district in downtown Sag Harbor – creating a comprehensive preservation plan – would mean that guidelines, not laws, would guide both applicants and reviewers on what can be changed and what cannot. Historic preservation is the best way to protect the Main Street’s lively and eclectic mix of storefronts and uses. Since it is concerned only with the exteriors of buildings, it preserves maximum flexibility for owners and residents. And preserving Main Street’s buildings in this way would also automatically control the scale and character of new businesses: since Main Street’s historic buildings were originally designed to accommodate ground-level businesses, proper preservation of their exteriors will set the tone far better than any set of new zoning rules.

If the Village uses zoning to restrict certain retail uses on Main Street (for instance, banks or real estate offices), it will surely shoot itself in the foot. Zoning can control land use, but it cannot guarantee that the allowed uses will survive, especially in today’s economy. Times change. Markets change. None of us can predict the future, but we have to plan our communities’ growth for the next 50 years, not just the next three to five.

Sustaining a healthy mix of uses is the goal of every good downtown and historic district plan. A mixture of uses not only ensures activity day and night, weekdays and weekends; it also makes maximum use of the existing infrastructure, encourages shared use of valuable parking, and discourages sprawl. Main Street already has a built-in density and architecture that encourages a more sustainable approach to development.

The recent Planning Strategies Report underlines the need to keep the Village affordable. But again, rigid rules – such as those controlling sizes of shops – can easily backfire and produce rents that can only be paid by expensive shops that do not cater to residents of Sag Harbor. Do we really want to preclude Main Street from having the type of convenience shopping and services it was historically developed to provide? Preservation guidelines could be crafted to include the type of shopping and services that serve the year-round residents.

A comprehensive plan would also address other pressing issues in Sag Harbor, such as parking and affordable housing. If Main Street’s businesses are to survive, they must have convenient, safe, and easy to find parking that doesn’t detract from the historic atmosphere. This is a real challenge in any built-up area and especially in Sag Harbor. Only long-range planning can meet all these concerns. The same is true for affordable housing: creating more requires more tools than zoning. The land, the financing, the financial incentives and more all have to be considered together.

Likewise, the idea of establishing a new Village Business District is an excellent one. But this also needs to be considered within the framework of a larger plan, so that its needs can be comprehensively addressed.

In sum, going forward with the current zoning changes without a plan may actually preclude achieving what everyone wants to see in the future. Sag Harbor should consider a preservation district for Main Street, and at the same time devise a larger plan for the entire village. Have it satisfy the goals stated in the completed Planning Strategies Report. Zoning changes will follow the plan, along with a host of other tools available to the Village.

Sag Harbor is very fortunate to have consensus about its basic goals. Now is the time to take the next step and incorporate those goals into a visionary but pragmatic Village plan, one that will guide the community’s physical and economic growth for many decades to come.

 

Stan Eckstut is a partner in Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn Architects, a firm hired by the Sag Harbor Business Association to evaluate the proposed new Sag Harbor Village code.

By Bobby Vacca

It takes the soul of a poet to capture in a few words the historical significance of how the son of a man who grew up herding goats in a dusty African village has shaken off that dust to become the 44^th President of the United States. As rapper Jay-Z so aptly put it, “Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama ran so we can all fly.”

As if to remind us all of the ultimate objective of Dr. King’s dream, Synclair Taylor, age six, while waiting for the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade to begin, paraphrased the dream. “I have a dream: no white people, no black people, just people,” the boy said.

This report comes alive from inside the gates that open to our nation’s capital. What it took to get there is a miracle. A few days before the inauguration my thoughts drifted to my lady friend, a woman of color, and how Obama has captivated her heart. “I knew from the jump that he’s real,” she told me. “Whenever I reflect on what this means to our nation and our children, I am brought to tears.”

As I appreciated the indomitable spirit of this woman, a thought came to me that in retrospect should have been immediately rejected as “an impossible dream.” But because life has taught me that my faith in miracles must be totally unlimited for miracles to happen, one thought led to another until I had convinced myself that realizing the dream was more than possible; it was inevitable.

And so I dreamed: Wouldn’t it be something if I could score tickets to Barack Obama’s inauguration for my lady friend? Immediately a wave of inspiration washed over me that instead of drowning me in doubt carried me straight through the security gates of the National Mall to experience the inauguration live. I believed in my dream, though I had no clue how it could come to fruition. But then…that’s what faith is all about.

I called a friend with connections. He had just given away his last two tickets. No worries. A deluge of astonishing phone calls and emails later, somehow, by the grace of God, two tickets magically appeared for us in Queens. My lady friend had to pinch herself. “Is this really happening?” she asked me, shaking her head in disbelief.

Tuesday morning at one we boarded a tour bus in Times Square. At six we arrived in Washington, took the Metro, and by eight we stood shivering two blocks from the mall. Squished together like sardines in a giant can, we inched our way closer to pay dirt before the massive crunch of bodies would drown out the tiny sliver of daylight. It was the same story getting out, only more intensely maddening. Someone voiced the obvious question, “What would we do if we had this to do all over again?”

Three hours later we passed through the security gates and hiked our way toward the capital amidst the buzz of deliriously happy people, right on time for the inauguration ceremonies to begin. While my lady friend’s heart welled up with pride when her favorite recording artist, Aretha Franklin, lifted her inspired voice to “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” I kept turning around to marvel at the ocean of people that must have amounted to 10 Woodstock festivals rolled into one. I smiled at the connection.

As my lady friend would say on our drive back to Sag Harbor, “When you want to do something badly enough, you have to be willing to do things you don’t want to do to make your dream come true.”

I have been asking myself what it actually means that Obama ran so we can all fly. What is the indicator that proves this is true? I can only account for what is true for me. I don’t have to wait four years for the evidence. I am not waiting for the unemployment rate to drop, for the economy to thrive, or for the war in Iraq to end to decipher what it means to fly high into the sky of unlimited possibilities.

All I have to do is recapture the image of Barack Obama strolling down Pennsylvania Avenue with that big wide radiant smile and waving to the American people while holding hands with the love of his life. When I study that image, I see two extraordinary people joined as one by the power of their love for each other, their children, and the American people.

Naturally, for some, the jury is still out on Barack Obama. Not for me. I am blessed enough to have caught the vibe emanating from this man’s countenance as he strolled down the street so light on his feet he might as well have been shooting hoops. He would never say it himself; he would probably never even allow himself to think it, so I will say it for him:

I am Barack Obama, and I am just like you. We all have wings to fly as high as we want. I am your proof. I am here, the son of an African goat farmer. I never saw myself as underprivileged. I saw myself as free to dream; and through the power, the clarity, and the unshakeable focus of my own mind, the Red Sea parted. I will do my best to give all of God’s children every opportunity under the sun to flourish. But whether I do or whether I don’t, you already have your wings. Now go fly as high as you like.

Or as Abraham Lincoln more succinctly put it, “…That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

By Stephen Longmire

This week marks the first time in 35 years that Sag Harbor’s village board has designated an individual structure—the Art Deco sign on the Sag Harbor Cinema—a local landmark. The reasons why make one wonder if those in charge of the village’s architectural history remember its political history. The sign is already protected to the full extent of the law, as the scuffle over its replacement four years ago attested. A little history may help.

In 1973, when Sag Harbor’s historic district was listed with the National Register of Historic Places, the village had no architectural review board to protect its newly landmarked building. The Historic Preservation Commission, formed a year earlier to create the historic district, became part of village government, but in an advisory capacity.

“You could still knock a house down,” Dorothy Sherry, a member of the Commission, told me a few years ago. “The legislation did not have teeth.”

So the village designated 14 local landmarks, including most of the churches and cultural institutions, the factory, and two private homes (with the consent of their owners), vowing these buildings would not be changed without civic approval. When the Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review (ARB) was formed in 1985, it was given the authority to review the “appropriateness” of “any exterior alteration” to buildings throughout the village, paying particular attention to the historic district. This made the list of local landmarks redundant, since all structures in the historic district were protected in the same way. Yet this list has survived in the code—even in the revision proposed this year—giving some people the notion that an additional layer of landmark protection is available.

Village attorneys have found some fine points of Sag Harbor’s code in which individually named landmarks are treated slightly differently from other structures in the historic district, but these are anomalies, probably worth addressing. According to Julian Adams, coordinator of the Certified Local Government (CLG) program in the State Historic Preservation Office, “The cinema and its sign already have all the protection the local law provides, as contributing elements of the local landmark district.”

When Sag Harbor joined the CLG program in 1989, bringing its preservation program under the oversight of New York State, the state insisted that the ARB be given the authority to create new landmarks and landmark districts. (Unlike many CLGs, Sag Harbor’s ARB needs village board approval to do this.) The ARB has only flexed this muscle once before, when the historic district was expanded to include the majority of the village in 1994. Who would have guessed that its next use of this power would be on behalf of a structure in the historic district?! And why single out a feature of a building whose exterior is protected? Because the cinema is for sale, and fears abound about the prospect of its red, white, and blue “SAG HARBOR” sign presiding over a shopping mall—a fate no landmark status can prevent. The debate has caused some confusion as to whether the cinema had any landmark protection before. Even its owner of 30 years, Gerald Mallow, seems unclear, protesting any encroachment on his property rights.

“Look how well protected it was before,” ARB Chairman Cee Scott Brown remarked, when I asked how the new landmark designation would affect the board’s treatment of the sign. “It was on the street about to be thrown out.” But surely this was a problem of enforcing the law, when maintenance—which the board approved in 2004—turned into replacement. After residents raised the funds to replace the sign, it’s hard to believe any future board or building inspector would fail to recognize the importance of this neon nametag, our coat of arms

Should every structure we’re worried about in the village be made a local landmark? One doesn’t have to go far to find other examples of protected structures that have come close to being lost in Sag Harbor’s recent construction boom. There have also been many cases where buildings were modified with sensitivity to their surroundings. The preservation process isn’t designed to preclude change, only to manage it, protecting the community’s historic resources and proportions. But compromises happen. To cite just one, there is a house on Main Street, right across from the Historical Society, that used to be small and that is now quite large. It was a shock to many, not long after the drama of the movie house sign, that the ARB approved this highly visible expansion of one of the last small houses on lower Main Street. “That one got away from us,” Tom Horn, Sr., who was Chairman at the time, acknowledged when I asked about it in 2005. Across the lawn sits another small house that used to be its twin, where a much-loved local lady lived until this past year, dying in her 90s. Her house is now for sale. Should it be given local landmark status because its neighbor got away? Or should we hope the law works better next time? If we feel safer with extra protection, why stop with the sign?

Sure enough, I gather the ARB hopes to commission an annotated map of the historic district, noting which properties are preservation priorities and which might be modified with appropriate plans. Such a tool could become a shopping list for developers, highlighting the properties where they’d face least resistance. This hardly seems consistent with the goal of preserving a landmark district, or a neighborhood, as opposed to a list of structures. In communities with preserved districts, individual landmark status is usually reserved for properties outside the district boundaries. Interestingly, the ARB proposed designating John Steinbeck’s former home a local landmark when it first raised the issue of the cinema sign last summer, but dropped this idea noting that Steinbeck’s house is outside the historic district.

It’s heartening to see the ARB looking ahead to future challenges, but unfortunate that it feels the need of extra layers of landmark protection to bolster the current law. There are other ways to improve Sag Harbor’s preservation code. The village might consider adopting the model law provided by New York State as the basis for its new preservation code, freeing itself from such anomalies; it could drop or minimize the residency requirement for ARB membership, enlarging the pool of potential board members (residency isn’t a CLG requirement); and, perhaps most important, it could hire a skilled preservation consultant, as both East Hampton and Southampton Villages do, and as Sag Harbor used to, so preservation priorities could be set on a case-by-case basis. These steps might help to clarify the workings of the East End’s largest historic district.

 

Stephen Longmire’s book Keeping Time in Sag Harbor (2007) contains a history of the village’s historic preservation program. An exhibition of photographs from the book is on display at South Street Seaport Museum in New York through January 4, 2009.

By Benito Vila

If it wasn’t enough that the sky seems to be falling financially around the world, I was cornered last week at a school event and at an athletic event and heard normally reasonable people reveling in a sort of panic that made me think everyone’s lost their minds.

I listened politely to what was being said, thought to myself, none of this can be true, and went off to find out whether Joan Frisicano was leaving the elementary school because of the school board; whether music programs are going to be cut from the school curriculum; whether morning program was doomed to be eliminated at the elementary school; whether state funding for education would cease coming to Sag Harbor; and whether our school superintendent is out every Friday.

What did I find out? It was all madness and hearsay. Joan, who thought it was time to do something else, changed her mind and is staying because as she said, “there’s more work to be done” which suggests the board is not a big bad wolf; the district has hired a retired music teacher, who for 30-some years built the music program in Miller Place, to assess the strengths and weakness of what’s being offered here and better integrate the curriculum of the two schools; morning program has reached legendary status locally, especially after Jordan Haerter’s classmates sang songs they all learned there at his funeral, and hadn’t been thought of being curtailed until the rumor went on being repeated; only $163,000 of the nearly $1.7 million dollars Sag Harbor receives in state aid is slated to be withheld while the school board has already reduced its expenses $310,000 this year without reducing any educational programs.

How did I find what was what? By speaking to board members, Joan Frisicano and John Gratto directly, and reading the legislative announcements that come into The Express. My favorite moment in all this was walking into Dr. Gratto’s office and asking to see him. Mary, the district clerk, asked me, “When?” I said, “Friday.” And she said, “What time?” And so it was, another rumor put to rest.

When Friday came, Dr. Gratto called me from Patchogue at one o’clock saying he was running late leaving a meeting and let me know he’d be a half-hour late. There was one person after another in and out of his office, not bad for someone supposedly “not around,” before we finally sat down.

I told Dr. Gratto of the “you’re-out-every-Friday” tale and he laughed and said, “People forget I’m human. I was out two Fridays; one helping my mom upstate and another visiting my daughter in Washington, D.C.; it’s what anyone else would have done for their family.”

I asked him reporter-like questions: Where are you looking for cost-savings? What are your long-term goals? What’s the hold-up with the faculty contract? His answers made sense. Without going point by point, I heard him say he wants to “keep strengthening” the district and the opportunities available to the children here; that he’s not interested in cutting programs, that he’s applying for “excellence” and “blue ribbon” credentials because he finds what we have here “to be the envy of many [other districts] on Long Island and across the state.”

In talking about those honors, Dr. Gratto said, “If the district falls short, we’ll know more about what the standard for excellence is, where we are now and what steps we must take to reach that level.”

I liked two initiatives that he’s introducing. The first has to do with state test scores and determining what questions students are missing to see if there are learning points that need reinforcement. Our scores are strong and that sort of numerical analysis, which has nothing to do with blame or failure, can only help raise the confidence and performance of everyone involved.

The second is less empirical and certainly more inventive. Dr. Gratto acknowledged our country is “facing the worst financial crisis since the Depression” and he is asking the board to convene two community focus groups to help with long-term planning. The process he shared with me is something you can read elsewhere in the paper this week. His approach appeals to me; whether it works or not is likely a function of the community’s willingness to lay aside differences and work together in a mutually collaborative and respectful way.

To me, that means moving forward without innuendo, rumor and bias. It means undoing some of the panic around us by talking about perspectives, solutions and ideas that are mindful, positive and inclusive.

In describing what has been most difficult for him so far, Dr. Gratto said, “People’s willingness to impute negative motives to things they don’t know about.” He recited the famous Eleanor Roosevelt quote, “Great minds talk about ideas; average minds talk about events; small minds talk about people.”

The Roosevelt reference seems apropos with financial panic so widespread and Barack Obama cast as FDR on the cover of Time. In his first inauguration speech, the one remembered for “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” President Roosevelt stated, “Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.”

Maybe that’s the way to out-pace the panic this Thanksgiving; let’s give up talking poorly of ourselves and of one another; let’s work together better, be a little more open-minded and expect whatever it is that pains each of us to work out.

Nothing will keep our village humming along and healthy more than doing what we can for one another, on the street, at the school, wherever we meet. If you’re afraid of there being less opportunity in the village and stores closing up, spend whatever money you have here rather than online or elsewhere.

If you find yourself short of gifts to give, go through old pictures and give those moments back to the people you shared them with. The sky isn’t falling. What we must do, in every way, is to lay aside what FDR called, “the nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

The following is in response to Joseph Hanna’s column in the September 25 edition of The Sag Harbor Express

Dear Mr. Hanna:

I would like to respond to your article entitled “From the People Who Brought You Sag Harbor.” The real steering is done by individuals who do things. Doing things involves risk.

You’re absolutely right about those who took risks in Sag Harbor. However, I take umbrage to the fact that in you’re your paragraph of taking us down Main Street in 1964, your first stop is at the American Hotel referred to as a “flop house.”

My family bought the building which was the original home and shop of Nathaniel Tinker, a cabinet maker, in 1877. The times in Sag Harbor were not the best of times, especially after a fire destroyed the entire village that year.

Did my great-great-grandfather Captain William Freeman and his son-in-law, my great-grandfather Addison Youngs take a risk? You bet they did! They took a dilapidated building that was in disrepair and renovated it by installing electric lights, steam heat and state of the art plumbing to make it the finest hotel on the eastern end of Long Island. That was 1877, a year after my grandfather, William H. Youngs was born, and who lived and died at the hotel ninety-four years later.

By 1964 the hotel had seen its day and it had become more of a meeting place in the lobby where people of influence would congregate on Saturday mornings to talk about the village’s “goings on.” I know because I would sit and listen as people like the mayor and others who were friends of Will Youngs would sit and chat. It was an old Sag Harbor at its best and I was just a young college boy listening.

Was 1964 a time of concern? I guess it was; but even with my grandfather Youngs at the hotel, I was also fortunate to have my grandfather Bisgood alive and living on Howard Street. I remember the Hannas who lived down at the foot of Howard Street and, as I recall, in a house that was less than perfect.

In 1970 Will Youngs passed away and I was busy in Connecticut teaching and coaching and Sag Harbor was a thought away. In 1972 I received a call from our family attorney in Sag Harbor saying there was a young man interested in buying the hotel, and he wanted to walk through it. I called my brother-in-law and the two of us drove out on a very cold February morning. The young man waiting to walk through was Ted Conklin, and the three of us took the tour with no heat. As we walked from room to room Mr. Conklin expressed such enthusiasm and had such vision of what he thought he could do with the place we could not believe it, considering the times.

Ted bought the hotel and you’re right, much of the work done was by Ted who, with his own hands, painstakingly and with tender loving care created what today is the centerpiece of the village Main Street..

But the whole point is, he did exactly what Addison Youngs and his father-in-law did in 1877. Today Sag Harbor is what it is today because of people like Ted Conklin who had the vision of what could be.

So, Mr. Hanna, when you go into the hotel and sit at the bar, look at the name on the bar, A.M. Youngs, and think of 1877. In 1964, the Youngs had been there 87 years. The hotel indeed might have needed some work, but never was a “flop house.” And by the way, if you want to raise your glass with me at the hotel, I’ll buy.

Jack Youngs

Sag Harbor