Marsden Debate Heats Up as Vote Approaches

Less than three weeks before a scheduled Sag Harbor School District vote on the purchase of the Marsden Street properties, the rhetoric around the debate, which has consumed the Sag Harbor community since the fall, has become even more heated.

In advertisements that have been running online and in the newspaper, on lawn signs and posters popping up throughout the streets of the town, on social media, and in both opinion columns and letters to the editor, there have been claims of misinformation and dishonesty leveled at both sides, by those who support and those who oppose the potential purchase.

The issue has been divisive since September, when the Sag Harbor School District first announced to the public that it had been in talks with property owner Pat Trunzo III, who manages Marsden Street Properties LLC, to buy five undeveloped lots on the residential street, which is located across from the Pierson Middle High School.

Purchasing four adjoining lots on the north side of the street totaling 3.37 acres and a single 0.76-acre lot on the south side of the street will cost the district $9.425 million. A proposition on the May 16 budget vote asks voters to approve the sale, which would be funded by a $6 million bond and the expenditure of $3.425 million already held in the District Facilities Improvement Capital Reserve Fund.

The district had been in talks for months with the Southampton Town Board to jointly purchase the property with a $6 million contribution from the Southampton Town Community Preservation Fund, and district voters had previously approved the expenditure of the capital reserve money to cover the remaining cost. But that potential deal hit several bumps and, after realizing it would be tied up in procedural matters for many more months with no guarantee of board approval, the district pulled out of the deal and decided to try to buy the land on its own.

The benefits and drawbacks of the purchase have been heavily and repeatedly debated publicly at Sag Harbor School Board meetings and in other community forums hosted by the district over the past few months, as well as at two public hearings held by Southampton Town when the CPF deal was still on the table. Opponents of the purchase have accused the school of not being forthcoming with information and even of outright lying about the costs and environmental impacts of the purchase, as well as the district’s future intentions for the land.

From the start of conversation about purchasing the land on Marsden Street, the school district said publicly that it would seek to build an athletic field to host games and practices for its middle school, JV and varsity sports teams. As discussions began with the Town of Southampton, the district was forced to agree to certain terms and conditions if it was to pursue aid from the CPF to fund the purchase, such as an agreement that it would only install a natural grass field and not artificial or hybrid turf.

With the town out of the picture, the district is not bound by those restrictions should the purchase of the properties be approved by voters, but has thus far not provided details about what a future development plan for the property would look like. The district has defended that approach by saying that the May 16 vote is solely for the purchase of the acquisition of the land, and more community debate and feedback about how it would be developed would happen after and if the purchase is approved.

Any future development plan would also be subject to community approval via another vote, meaning that if the purchase is approved, the school district would not be able to pursue the construction of a turf field — or anything else, for that matter — without majority approval from voters on another ballot.

Several stakeholders in the purchase that had previously remained as neutral or as diplomatic over the course of the last few months had a lot to say this week, including the seller and several members of the Sag Harbor School Board of Education.

Trunzo, who has been publicly silent since the district revealed it was pursuing the land, wrote a letter to the editor of The Express this week taking the Marsden opponents group, which calls itself “Citizens of Sag Harbor,” to task for what he called “numerous falsehoods and misrepresentations.”

He said the claims that the land is ecologically sensitive, in ways that would make it difficult and costly to develop, are false, and that the land was never classified as wetlands, is no longer considered a kettle hole, and that there’s “no multimillion-dollar drainage problem to fix.”

He also pointed out that, before the district’s offer to buy the land, he had been working to obtain building permits from the Village of Sag Harbor for single-family residences for each of the parcels. Those permits had not been denied by the village’s Historic Preservation and Architectural Review Board, as he said some opponents have claimed, but, rather, the plans were withdrawn.

Trunzo, notably, added that those plans would be resubmitted if the district vote to acquire the property falls through.

He also pointed out that Southampton Town would not step in to acquire the land on its own if the district vote fails — an assertion that Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman backed up earlier this week, saying that the town was only interested in the land as part of partnership deal with the school, and that “there’s no effort on the town’s part to go it alone.”

Letters to the editor were submitted by two Sag Harbor Board of Education members this week as well, who took issue with a column that ran in the April 20 edition of The Express, written by Anthony Brandt, expressing opposition to the purchase. Board member Jordana Sobey, who is an attorney by trade, took direct aim at residents who oppose the purchase, calling the spreading of falsehoods “fraud” and “an actionable offense.” Board member Ron Reed referenced Brandt’s column as well, calling The Express out for not adequately fact-checking Brandt’s opinion column.

The polls will open for the May 16 budget vote, which includes the Marsden purchase proposition, at the Pierson High School Gym at 7 a.m. and will close at 9 p.m.