Letters

A toxic mix of arrogance and avarice was dished out last week at Southampton Town Hall by the Shinnecock Nation [“Shinnecock Bristle Against Doubts About Rights To Develop Westwoods,” 27east.com, September 25]. According to tribal leaders, your home is on land that rightfully belongs to them, so you had best shut up and let them turn the heart of Hampton Bays into a sprawling casino complex.

Their claim is based on the dubious premise that the 100-acre Peconic Bay shore property, originally ceded by colonial era treaty to the tribe for hunting, fishing and gathering firewood, is in fact unrestricted “aboriginal land.” And, as such, is sovereign territory, free to be exploited for anything from fracking to roulette, without the inconvenience of complying with basic environmental, health and community impact standards, to say nothing of neighborly good manners.

This incremental takeover and exploitation goes way back to before the tribe achieved recognition of sovereignty in 2010. Their cutthroat construction tactics are initiated by an unpermitted, midnight bulldozer blitz, followed by a frenzy of slap-it-up building, all the while stonewalling inevitable community outrage and legal action.

Their first ugly toe in the water came with the grotesque advertising obelisks plunked down overnight on Sunrise Highway, followed by ignoring the protests, injunctions and demands for removal.

Next came the invasion of the 30-pump gas station, the perfect ploy to get highway access for bigger things to come. While reports of the Town Hall meeting never mention the dreaded “C word,” I’m taking bets at long odds that this is all about a major makeover of Hampton Bays by slapping a casino right into the middle of the hamlet.

The cat was only partly out of the bag on the Friday before Labor Day when requests for bids were announced for a five-story, 200-room, 100,000-square-foot hotel-resort on 20 acres, for a cost of $250 million. And what attraction will generate the monster return on investment that will open up the deep pockets needed to make all this happen? Hampton Bays nightlife? Collecting Peconic Bay seashells? How about 200 rooms full of high rollers and more likely daily convoys of tour buses full of New York City small-stakes betters?

Till now, while the tribe has been playing smash-mouth hardball, the town, state and feds have been playing patty-cake. Belatedly, the town has hired a Washington, D.C., land use lawyer. A hired gun is useful but no substitute for a fully aware and engaged community and their town, county, state and federal governments.

Bill Muir

Hampton Bays