'Truck Beach' Homeowners Threaten Financial Ruin, Removal From Office If East Hampton Officials Don't Drop Legal Defense Of Access Rights

The Amagansett homeowners who have blocked vehicle access to a stretch of ocean beach on Napeague, referred to as “Truck Beach,” have threatened to ask a court to hold East Hampton Town elected officials personally liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and would seek to have them removed from office if the town does not drop its legal defense and agree to a settlement of outstanding legal questions.

An attorney for the group of homeowners associations that have been locked in a legal battle with the town since 2009 told the town’s attorneys this week that he has been “instructed” to pursue the personal liability of town officials if the elected members of the Town Board and East Hampton Town Trustees do not back down.

“My clients have every interest in attempting to resolve this without further litigation, and I suggest that the parties engage in such settlement discussion with the assistance of the court,” the attorney, James Catterson, wrote in a letter to the attorneys for the town and the East Hampton Town Trustees in the case.

“Should your clients not wish to resolve the matter, please be advised that I have been instructed to prepare a summons and complaint seeking to hold both the individual Town Board members and the Trustees personally liable for their … actions that precipitate the contempt finding in court.”

Earlier this month, a state judge found the Town Board and the Town Trustees to be in contempt of court for not having taken steps to block access to the stretch of beach that a court ruling last year declared to be privately owned, and said that they failed to comply with demands to produce documents — primarily inter-personal messages — that would shed light on their actions in the wake of the court ruling and a temporary restraining order issued in June 2021 to block vehicle access.

The judge, State Supreme Court Justice Paul J. Baisley, fined the town $239,000 plus legal fees for the plaintiffs, which could more than double the fined amount, the plaintiffs have suggested.

The town has appealed the contempt finding and has mounted a counter-claim asking another state court to clarify the precise extent to which the private beach may have excluded members of the public.

The plaintiffs’ attorney said that those continued challenges must be dispensed with or the homeowners would seek to bankrupt the town officials personally.

In the letter to his counterparts, Catterson warned that with the fine issued by Judge Paul Baisley and legal fees that “well exceed the penalty imposed” would accrue at 9 percent annual interest under state law. If the town’s appeals dragged on for another three years, he calculated, the fines that town officials could be liable for would likely exceed $1 million.

Public officials would typically be indemnified from personal liability from actions taken under their official capacity, but the plaintiffs have also threatened to ask the court to determine that their elected offices must be vacated because of their having been found in contempt.

Town officials have said little regarding the letter, which was correspondence between attorneys.

When asked about it on Monday, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said the intentions of the plaintiffs were plain to see.

“Clearly, they are threatening us with personal liability to get us to settle,” Van Scoyoc said. “They’re looking for us to pay the damages personally. We’d be indemnified as public officials acting in an official capacity, but they’re claiming our offices should be vacated.”

He said the town’s attorneys have not yet responded to the letter.

Ken Silverman, the president of one of the homeowners associations who has been the spokesman for the plaintiffs said the group had not written any recent letters to anyone.

An attorney for the group of commercial and recreational fishermen who have filed a class action lawsuit against the homeowners, claiming that their rights to access the beach are being infringed by the homeowners’ pursuit of TRO blocking all 4x4 access, called the threat of personal liability against town officials “unmitigated greed,” on the part of the homeowners.

“This letter is more than a former Appellate Division justice threatening to remove elected town officials from office unless they negotiate with the homeowners — it’s shameless, unmitigated greed,” Rodgers wrote in his prepared response.

“When will it ever be enough for these homeowners? They have won everything they’ve asked for, and then some. They have taken the beach and convinced a local judge to force taxpayers to pay their legal obligations, and even throw in an extra $239,000 to line their pockets.

“This scorched earth approach has left virtually nothing on the table for the town to negotiate,” he added. “Except the reservation. And that belongs to the people of East Hampton, not the Town Board. It will never be negotiated.”

Rodgers and his clients have seized on a reservation, or easement, in the original 1882 deed for the land behind the dunes from Truck Beach, that allowed for fishermen to tend to their catch on the beach. When the state court ruled that the beach was private, it left intact the reservation and said the beach could be accessed by the public for “fishing and fishing related purposes” but never clarified what that meant exactly.

Rodgers has claimed that the wording should mean any resident of the town with the intent to catch a fish should be allowed to drive onto the breach with a 4x4. The homeowners have said that the reservation should be taken literally in the 19th century terms in which it was written, when 4x4 vehicles did not exist and therefore cannot be allowed under any circumstances now.

On Tuesday, the Town Board introduced an amendment to the town code redefining the section pertaining to the issuance of 4x4 vehicle permits for driving on town beaches, to specially state that the permits are not valid on privately owned beaches.

Among the points Baisley made in his recent contempt finding was that the town had not revoked any permits that did not expressly prohibit access to the beach deemed by another state court to be privately owned by the residents who live on Gilberts Path, Sandcastle Lane, Mitchell Dunes Lane, Whalers Lane and Ship Wreck Drive.

Town beach permits had never identified any beaches, like those owned by New York State or Suffolk County, that town permits did not grant access.

The board will hold a public hearing next month on the proposed code change.