Signs Encouraging Residents To Vote in Favor of Marsden Purchase Are Defaced in Sag Harbor Village

On Easter Sunday, 100 signs encouraging Sag Harbor residents to vote in support of the Sag Harbor School District’s proposition to purchase vacant land on Marsden Street at the upcoming school budget vote were posted throughout the village, affixed to public telephone poles.

By Monday, three of them had been defaced, covered with stickers that read “Greed + Entitlement” in bright red letters. The stickers did not fully cover the signs, but obscured the date of the school budget vote on two of them, and a portion of a QR code on another.

The signs, in Pierson colors of black and red, asked voters to “Vote Yes to Prop 2” and “Vote Yes to Marsden,” and listed the date and time of the budget vote, Tuesday, May 16, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Pierson Gym.

Sag Harbor resident Michele Liot, a mother of two students in the district, printed the signs and spent time on Sunday posting them throughout the village. She has been an outspoken supporter of the district’s plans to purchase the land, a total of five lots on Marsden Street, which sits across from the Pierson Middle-High School. Four of those lots are adjoining, adding up to roughly 4 acres, on the north side of the street, and the district has been interested in developing the lots into an athletic field. The other lot, roughly an acre on the south side of the street, could potentially be developed into a parking lot.

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, but that potential deal hit several road 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.

If the proposition is approved by voters, the district will seek a $6 million bond anticipation note in July, and will also withdraw $3,425,000 from the district’s facilities improvement capital reserve fund to cover the cost of the purchase.

The plans to purchase the Marsden Street lots have divided the community since the district first announced in September that it was interested in acquiring the land. Liot is the administrator of a Facebook group of roughly 175 parents who are united in their support of the purchase for the school district. Parents in that group provided the money for Liot to create and print the signs, and have also printed lawn signs expressing their support for the purchase.

But many residents have also been outspoken in their opposition to the purchase. Many of them live on or near Marsden Street.

The three signs that were defaced are all in the vicinity of Marsden Street, all at intersections of nearby Jermain Avenue.

Liot said she planned to file a police report about the defacing of the signs, and said another resident who supports the purchase had already gone to the Sag Harbor Village Police Department to file a report.

Liot said she plans on printing 100 more signs and posting them in the coming days.