Letters

As Halloween approaches, it’s impossible not to see the eerie similarities between the spooky season and the administration of Southampton Village Mayor Bill Manger.

Halloween is a time for costumes, trick-or-treating and — if you’re not careful — a few scary surprises. Last year, Bill Manger came to us dressed up as a “good manager,” full of promises and treats, yet all he delivered were tricks.

Trick No. 1? Record-breaking $2.1 million spending increases and nearly $6 million of excess borrowing. Instead of managing the budget carefully, we got a frightening pile of more bills.

Trick No. 2? Zoning code tweaks that seemed perfectly designed to penalize smaller-property owners while favoring the big, wealthy ones. Manger’s costume only masked his true loyalty to wealthy donors — leaving the average resident haunted by his policies.

And if transparency is what we were hoping for, well, think again. Public meetings now feel like a ghost town, with residents silenced and any request for information turning into a scavenger hunt that would stump even the most seasoned trick-or-treaters. Freedom of information? More like freedom from information.

Trick No. 3? Lifetime benefits — but only for him and his allies. Residents were led to believe otherwise, yet we got nonconforming perks for Bill and his trustees, and 30-to-40-percent raises handed out to himself and his friends like Halloween candy.

Trick No. 4? Spending $48,000 of taxpayer money annually to pay for his publicist and upward of $10,000 more to decorate his office. We didn’t elect a decorator-in-chief, yet here we are, watching our tax dollars vanish into his vanity projects.

Let’s talk about civility, or the lack thereof. The campaign costume of “civility” has been swapped out for an angry, bitter tone, complete with his political allies like Gina Arresta, reinstalled after her election loss like the villain returning in a horror sequel. Overdevelopment? It’s lurking around every corner. Traffic? It’s as inescapable as a Halloween nightmare.

So, as we gear up for Halloween this Thursday, let’s remember the only tricks we truly need to fear are the ones coming from Village Hall. Bill Manger may have promised us treats, but all we’ve gotten are tricks — and they’re not the fun, spooky kind.

David Rung

Southampton Village