Letters

The Southampton Press recently reported that employee files were left unsecured at the Village Department of Public Works barn, a serious lapse that village employees say included private and HIPAA-protected health information and resident files [“Southampton Village Union Alleges Mishandling of Sensitive Employee Records,” 27east.com, April 2].

While disturbing, this news should not come as a surprise.

During my tenure, I repeatedly sounded the alarm about incompetent and ineffectual management at the top of the Public Works Department. Today, the department is led by a superintendent hand-picked by Bill Manger, a person whose compensation package totals $227,463. With that level of pay, residents and employees alike should expect, at a bare minimum, that sensitive personnel records would be stored securely. (During my tenure, we digitized records.)

This is not an isolated incident. Last year, under this same leadership, a village bucket truck was driven into a bridge and totaled. The damage appeared on the Capital Budget “Highlights” section of Manger’s budget, costing taxpayers $300,000 to replace. (No, this was not an April Fool’s joke.) Manger then claimed it as a “neglected capital expenditure from prior administrations.” In reality, the truck was destroyed on his watch, under the oversight of his hand-selected superintendent.

I was criticized for trying to remove this individual, but Manger and his supermajority blocked any effort toward accountability. Now the results are clear: degraded services, wasteful spending and an erosion of professionalism.

Let us also not forget that when a trustee volunteered to serve as liaison to the Department of Public Works at the 2024 organizational meeting to provide oversight, Manger denied the request, insisting he alone would manage the department.

The mismanagement goes deeper. Less than a year ago, the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) protested outside Village Hall after another Manger $335,000-per-year patronage appointee removed basic items like plates, coffee and utensils from the break room under the guise of “cost-cutting.” That move came despite a $2.1 million budget increase last year and another $1.2 million increase this year. Talk about “penny wise and pound foolish.”

Now, the village will be forced to investigate the complaint, costing taxpayers thousands of dollars in legal and administrative fees. For context, the village’s labor attorney, who recently purchased a waterfront home in Water Mill, submitted a record $69,711.91 bill in February. Our hardworking CSEA employees deserve better.

It’s time the public recognizes what’s happening. One need only look around the village to see the disrepair and dysfunction that now defines Bill Manger’s Southampton.

Jesse Warren

Southampton Village

Warren is a former mayor of Southampton Village — Ed.