Letters

Probably the issue of Gibson Beach access in the Village of Sagaponack will hinge on money [“Gibson Beach Will Become a Sagaponack Village Beach, Instead of Being in Control of Southampton Town,” 27east.com, September 4]. The costs of maintenance is soaked up one way or another by everybody. But the feeling as one approaches the Atlantic, having parked your car, balanced your bike or removed your shoes, the sense of the horizon, can not be monetized. There has recently arisen a question of who gets to go there.

A YouTube video of the regular Village Board meeting from August 21 can be accessed through the village website. Time stamps 1:00-1:13 and 2:16-2:17.

Sagaponack is still in the Town of Southampton. A fascinating interconnectedness known as the intermunicipal agreement (IMA for short). It is the function of governmental checks, balances and concordances. Generally, the conversation about the IMA stays, unperturbed, beneath the ordinary bullet-points that need reviewing every August. This August, however, with the mention of the possibility of Gibson Beach access becoming restricted to Sagaponack Village residents only, implied contempt for those who don’t live here. Those who live just north of the railroad bridge, west of Sagg Pond, east of the village boundary on Town Line, maybe, next year, they will have to buy a special additional sticker to park at Gibson, or get some other kind of ticket.

This suggestion, apparently stems from a sense of disparity. It was said at the July meeting, “Southampton (Town) thinks of Sagaponack as a backwater.” Lurking in that comment is that Sagaponack is being underserved, not paid attention to and petulant.

What is surfacing is contrariness — the problem of a tiny entity with a perception of enormous importance, wanting more. If it means taking control through devices that proceed through policies no one knows about, well, go on. But what about the people?

Walk past the parked cars on Gibson, note the field to the left, owned by the South Fork Land Foundation. That deer fence was pushed off the verge specifically, when erected, in order to allow additional space for the wave of summer use and more crowded conditions at the Gibson Beach road end. Mayor Bill Tillotson memorialized a past resident with a wooden bench. What better place for a bit of sentiment.

If we can’t accommodate inconvenience, be more circumspect about our beachfront neighbors, this issue will be distilled in tiresome dispute. This may feel terrible but it’s tantamount to those who hold this place dear; to be aware, and to be willing to say something.

Silence is equivalent to consent. The principles of democracy demand that we be involved with things, the things that matter.

Lee Foster

Sagaponack