Here’s some background for those of you who don’t follow the “planning” game as it’s played in the Town of Southampton, NY. PDDs, are usually proposed by developers who want to use a parcel, or parcels, of land in a way that does not conform to the current zoning of those parcels. Rather than ask the Town to change the zoning outright, which would be a difficult process, with little chance of success, the developer can propose that the Town create an “overlay district”  or PDD, that would not change, but rather overlay the existing zoning. A PDD applies only to the parcels in question, and, theoretically at least, does not create a precedent that might lead other land owners in the area to also demand a rezoning of their properties. In return for granting the PDD, the Town is supposed to receive some “community benefits or amenities” from the developer, perhaps some parkland, open space or the inclusion of some affordable housing on the site. Granted, this is a simplistic explanation, but I think it covers the most important ground.

The 12.4-acre site of the Tuckahoe project consists of 4.4 acres currently zoned for residential development, and an eight-acre parcel zoned for highway business. Neither of these zoning classifications allow for the type of mixed-use development being proposed. Consequently, the developer has asked the Town Board to consider creating a MUPDD, (Mixed-Use Planned Development District) in which such a development would be permitted.

The developer's preliminary plan for the Tuckahoe Main Street PDD

That’s the background. Now back to our story.

Not too long ago I was fortunate enough to attend a training session at the Project for Public Spaces in New York City. I owe my good fortune to the community group Save Sag Harbor for sponsoring my attendance there. The staff at PPS specialize in something they call placemaking, which is basically the art and science of creating livable places where people enjoy being. As Main Streets are very important places in communities, we spent a good deal of time in our training learning what makes a good Main Street work as an integral part of a thriving community.  Of course this varies from town to town, but it always starts with a sense of place. The Main Street of a town or village has to reflect the history, values and aspirations of the community it serves.

When confronted with an unsuccessful place, say a dying Main Street in an aging town fighting against a proliferation of strip malls and suburban sprawl, the staff at PPS always starts by asking the community to identify what it is that is important, meaningful and useful in their town. They ask, “what works? What doesn’t? What’s worth preserving? What needs to be changed? What’s missing?” Only the people who live in a place can answer these question. Planners, no matter how skilled, cannot. Armed with this information, PPS can then make suggestions as to how to supplement and modify the working parts, integrating everything into a seamless whole that then has a chance of becoming a successful “place.”

Given the importance of the Main Street to any community, I could not help but apply some of my training in analyzing the “Tuckahoe Main Street” PDD. Three things were immediately obvious. First, this is not a Main Street in any traditional sense of the word. Second, the entire plan was conceived by the developer’s planning team without significant community input. Third, this was not a livable place where people would enjoy spending time. How could it be when the dominant feature was a 474-space parking lot?

I could go on for many paragraphs criticizing particulars of the design, but there is no point. The entire plan is ill conceived and should not go forward. But, I do not blame the developers for this. They are just doing what developers do. No, I fault our Town government for creating the tool that makes the kind of thinking behind Tuckahoe Main Street possible: the PDD.

Read the language in the section of the Town Code dealing with PDDs, and you would think this legislation is so pure and beneficial that only good could possibly come of it. Unfortunately, that has not proved to be the case. The reason why PDDs don’t work is simple: they don’t start with the community. Rather, they are a tool used by developers to be able to build what they want by simply making a small sacrifice in terms of providing some “community benefit or amenity.” The benefit extracted by the Town is supposed to ameliorate the damage to the community caused by the creation of the PDD, but rarely turns out to be more than a bandaid slapped on a gaping wound.

PDD’s don’t work because they ignore the basic tenets of good placemaking. To reiterate: first, find out what the community values, needs and aspires to, then preserve what is good in the community. Next, find ways to incentivize the development of any missing and needed features. And finally tie it all together with good planning to create a unified, livable, workable community, where people will want to be. The way PDDs work now, is to start with some “concept” put together by a developer that may or may not have any relation to anything the community actually needs. Then this “concept” is massaged into something that passes as “beneficial” in some way or another, and foisted on the community, often exacerbating existing problems. This is “planning” stood on its head. It starts with the result, and then tries to twist it to fit the need.

That’s what’s happening in Tuckahoe right now, and it’s a sham and a crime. The people of Tuckahoe deserve a say in whether their “Main Street” serves them or the needs of some developers and out-of-town merchants. This PDD should be denied. Then the entire PDD process should be revised to make it more responsive to the needs of the communities in which future PDDs are proposed.

What do you think? Leave a comment below telling me why I’m wrong or right, or how my ideas on this subject can be improved.

One more disclaimer before I get to the point of this post: I neither have an interest in writing about the merits of the positions taken by the parties to the negotiation, nor about whether or not the teachers are asking for too much (or too little). These issues have been debated in the community for many months now, and I have nothing new to add. However, the fact that the teacher’s contract negotiations have been hotly debated in the community for many months — now that’s interesting. Does anyone debate your salary? Mine? The guy who delivers your mail? The clerk who checked you out at Walmart? The CEO of Exxon-Mobil? No, the only salaries that I can think of that get publicly (and hotly) debated are those of our public school teachers. Why is that?

Well, there is a simple answer — which no doubt has already occurred to you — but like most simple answers, it only appears to address the question, while missing the key point entirely. It’s because we get to vote on the school budget, the vast majority of which goes to the salaries of the people who work in the schools, most of whom are teachers. And, as we know, once the budget is passed, it becomes a tax bill that we have to pay. So, the argument goes, since we pay the teachers’ salaries, we have a right to have a say in how much they make. Sounds simple, right?

No, not really, since there’s an important question that no one is addressing: whose salaries don’t we pay? Whether it’s through taxes (e.g., the guys in the highway department or the clerk in the planning office), or via more direct transactions at Walmart, Amazon.com, or with a local handyman, we all pay each other’s salaries, through the money we spend or the taxes we pay. Where do you think the Schiavonis get the money to pay the workers at the IGA? They get it from you when you shop there, of course. If, next month they have to pay their workers higher wages, then they may have to charge you more for the meat, vegetables and dairy you buy. They have no other secret source of money with which to pay their workers. Neither does any other business. But, when was the last time there was a public debate about the produce manager’s salary? Or the plumber’s? (And, I think he definitely makes too much.) Does anyone write a letter to the editor criticizing the employees of the Variety Store because of a raise they asked for? And what about the CEO of Bridgehampton National Bank? I’ll bet the interest rate on my home equity loan would be lower if he made less.

What about the other (non-school) branches of government? After all, we pay the salaries of everyone in government with our tax dollars. The difference is that we don’t get to vote, even indirectly, on the salaries of the majority of government workers. However, we do get to vote on the school budget, and so we feel we have a right to decide how much teachers should earn. I’m sorry, but I think it is both logically and ethically indefensible to pick one group of employees out of all others and publicly criticize them for wanting the same thing that we all want: to make as much money as we can doing the jobs we’ve chosen to do.

At this point I have to say LOUDLY, that this has nothing to do with whether or not Sag Harbor’s teachers are greedy, selfish, or unreasonable. Maybe they are. Maybe they’re not. In this discussion, that’s beside the point. Perhaps you were greedy, selfish and unreasonable the last time you negotiated with your boss. Shall we discuss that here? No, I didn’t think so.

Basically, what I’m saying folks, is this: get a grip. Teachers, just like the rest of us — including me and you — have the right to ask for what they think they need to live the lives they want to live, without being publicly pilloried for doing so. This is America, after all, where we all have the right to chase success, however we define it, in whatever way we choose.

But this year…this year they assure us they’ve got it figured out and the fund-balance, like little bear’s porridge, will be just right. As I said, learning on the job is good. I really mean that. Now, what about those accounting errors?  They are the other villain in this year’s budget scenario, yet the Board was a little less specific about those. However, the District’s new business official, Janet Verneuille, assures us she’s got a handle on it, and from the depth of knowledge she displayed at a recent budget presentation, I’m inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. I’m also inclined to giver her a word to the wise…it’s not necessary to try to defend or even explain the mistakes of your predecessors. They were their mistakes, not yours. Defending them makes them look like your mistakes. Correct, don’t defend.

Which, by the way, is advice the School Board should take to heart as well. In the current political climate — yes, the School Board is political — you can’t win an argument with the public. The public is angry, and that anger is not aimed at anyone in specific. Are you an elected official? If the answer is yes, just assume that the public is pissed-off at you. The best thing you can do is to publicly accept your role in whatever mistakes were made, apologize sincerely, and then be completely transparent about what you are doing to fix the problem. Don’t defend, don’t argue, and especially don’t get arrogant.

Unfortunately, when there’s a lack of leadership, defensiveness, argumentativeness and arrogance often appear to fill the void. Former Board President Walter Tice got it exactly right at Monday evening’s Board meeting when he admonished the board for expecting the public to, again, vote on a budget in which the dollar amount of the single largest expense — teacher’s salaries — is a guess that can’t even be revealed to the voters.  Tice advised the board to get the contract settled before the budget vote so that the public could have confidence that the proposed budget accurately reflected the amount the District would need to meet its obligations — not too little, and certainly not too much. That being a concept the board and administration have had difficulty with in recent years, they should carefully consider the wisdom of Mr. Tice’s advice.

The good news is that leadership can be learned on the job. All that’s needed to get the contract negotiation ball rolling again, is for one or more Board members to accept the fact that it is the Board’s job to get it done and to stop making it personal. As things stand right now, the animosity directed by some board members towards the teachers’ union is palpable, and that’s not appropriate. This is not an ego battle. Board members must put aside their personal feelings and their preconceived notions of whatever it was they thought they could “accomplish” in the negotiations, and actually start to negotiate.  A leader would recognize that “winning” is no longer the most important point. (It actually never was.) Preserving the vision, the quality, and the harmony of the District is what’s important now. A leader would know this, and would do whatever is necessary to make his or her colleagues understand it as well. I know that leader exists on this board. I just hope that he or she is ready to start learning on the job.

First there was a moment of sweet anticipation, as a representative of the Foundation thanked the children of Sag Harbor Elementary for adopting Shadow, and making his return to the wild possible. Then, Shadow was carried in his transport cage from the foundation’s van down to a spot near the water’s edge. One of the students was called upon to help open the cage door. As the door began to open, Shadow first stuck his nose out and then cautiously emerged from his temporary shelter. Looking a bit confused, he headed for the water, then changed his mind and tried to reverse direction and return to the safety of his cage. Apparently prepared for this eventuality, volunteers from RFMRP (as the foundation is awkwardly known), used large plywood squares to block his way, gently encouraging the seal to move seaward again, which he quickly agreed to do. A few minutes later Shadow was in the water. After swimming a few quick circles in the immediate vicinity of the beach, with just one quick backward glance, he was gone.

I’m not sure if Shadow was entirely happy about this turn of events — after all, he will now have to catch his own meals, after being hand-fed for many months — but we humans at least could bask in the happy feeling of having participated in a small worthwhile act of kindness and community. For us, it really doesn’t get any better than this.

Enjoy the photos.

Carrying Shadow to the water's edge.

A student helps to open the cage door

Shadow pokes his nose out.

Taking a look around.

Heading for the sea.

A bit reluctant, but almost there.

On his way.

A quick look back, and then he's gone.

The John Jermain Memorial Library, the public library in Sag Harbor, NY, donated to the community by Mrs. Russel Sage in 1910.

Over the intervening near century, Sag Harbor has made good use of her donation. The library has remained in its original home, adapting its programs and collection to the whims of various eras. Over the years, the inside of the building has seen a few changes — mainly the addition of many more “stacks” — the library term for bookshelves — to accommodate its growing collection. In addition a small renovation was undertaken about 15 years ago to allow the basement, formerly a storage area, to be used as a public space with a handicapped accessible entrance and bathroom. Minor repairs, and necessary replacements (the boiler, for instance) have also been undertaken, and paid for from the library’s operating budget, with monies provided by the taxpayers of the Sag Harbor school district, as are virtually all of the library’s operating expenses.

Other than the work on the basement, however, the taxpayers have not been asked to foot the bill for any refurbishment or expansion of the library building in its entire 99 years of existence. We’ve all been getting a free ride courtesy of Mrs. Sage’s commitment to high end materials and quality construction. She built it to last, and last it did…until now.

Members of the community who attended the public meeting hosted by the Library on the evening of Monday, April 20th, saw a presentation by Victor Conseco, president of Sandpebble Builders, the firm hired by the Library to do a cost analysis of its plan to refurbish and expand the building. As he spoke about the various factors that must be taken into consideration: restoration, code compliance and expansion, Mr. Conseco flipped through a depressing slide show of disrepair. From a decaying roof, to water-damaged plaster, from inadequate wiring to masonry in need of serious repointing, his presentation revealed the kind of wear and tear that is nearly invisible to regular users of the library, but jumps out at a fresh pair of eyes, especially ones trained to see these conditions.

So, as it turns out, while Mrs. Sage did a great service to many generations of Sag Harborites in providing us a library building that was seemingly capable of lasting forever, her meticulous attention to quality also misled us into believing we did not have to plan and pay for the care that any heavily used, aging structure requires. For generations, we’ve continued to rely on Mrs. Sage’s investment to pay dividends by providing us with a functional, usable library. As with any investment, though, the capital must be preserved. In this case the capital is the building, and it has been, if not squandered, at least diminished by our lack of attention.

No one can deny that Mrs. Sage’s investment in a library for Sag Harbor has paid a bountiful return on her investment. However, at this point in the building’s life a new injection of capital is required. It’s our bill to pay, and it’s long overdue.

What has engendered this new-found need to communicate? I’m not sure, but I guess it stems at least in part from my recent involvement in several organizations and events that have inspired me. In no particular order, here are some of them: Organizing for America on the South Fork, 725 Green, WISE (Women’s Initiative for a Sustainable Earth) and the First New York Women’s Conference for Sustainability, which was held at Stony Brook Southampton at the end of March.

Sometimes I’ll have opinions I want to voice, but I suspect that mostly what I want to do is get information out about events that are taking place and become a go-to source of information about things happening in our area, especially if they are somewhat green in nature.

OK, so the first thing I want to share is one of the outcomes from the First New York Women’s Conference for Sustainability. While at the conference attendees broke up into various discussion groups, one of which was entitled Visioning Sustainable and Resilient Communities.  I was part of that group and we found that we only had time to scratch the surface, so we agreed to meet again at the College on April 13th.

We spent the bulk of our time discussing our goals and visions and focused on the need to articulate just what sustainability and resilience means. We took turns expressing what we felt went into the definition and one of our members, Mark Seidler volunteered to synthesize what was said and write it up for us. He captured our ideas so brilliantly and eloquently, that I want to share it here. As soon as I can, I’ll post more things about events that are taking place. In the meantime, if you’re interested in joining the conversation/action of our Sustainabiliy-Resilience group, we meet on the second Monday of each month at the Student Center at Stony Brook Southampton at 7:00 p.m. Our next meeting is May 11th.

Here is what Mark wrote:

In a material sense, sustainability implies that we don’t use more resources than we – or nature at large – can regenerate. We are all familiar with the idea that humanity’s current consumption of fossil fuels is not sustainable. A sustainable energy future depends on shifting toward renewable sources. But in attending to the quantifiable measures of resource levels, we should not forget that sustainability has a basic moral dimension: our behavior is sustainable only when it doesn’t negatively impact those generations which will succeed us.

Sustainability focuses on the idea of maintaining a quality of life and health, personally, socially, and environmentally. But we know that changes are inevitable; it appears ever more likely that we will face quite disruptive and possibly even catastrophic changes in our environment and climate, our economic system, etc. So we are increasingly speaking of another concept in conjunction with sustainability – resilience. Resilience implies that in the face of inevitable change, we as communities must develop the capacity to ‘bounce back’ – to maintain our basic physical and social health in spite of those challenges.

A key concept that many of us associate with resilience is the idea of diversity. In the study of nature, we see that strong, robust systems are diverse systems. (By contrast, agricultural practices that rely on monoculture undermine diversity and therefore reduce resilience.) Resilience can be described as the capacity to suffer abuse and still maintain – or restore – health. For those who envision the possibility of  catastrophic changes in our environment – rising oceans, droughts, fuel shortages, for example – there is a special urgency to develop resilience. Many look to do this in part by increasing self sufficiency around the resources needed to sustain life – growing more food locally, for example.

But the understanding of resilience should not be limited to material measures. Resilience is also about maintaining our capacity to function effectively as a community in the face of those insidious or precipitous changes in our material environment. To succeed as communities we need to recognize that resilience requires a kind of intellectual and cultural diversity – the capacity to be open to many points of view, to be flexible and creative in our response to problems, to nurture multiple solutions in order to increase the chances of finding the best way to adapt to changing conditions and new constraints on resources. And for this we need to refine and perfect the ways in which we communicate with each other, continuously seeking better ways to share and manage both information and mutual support. Some will add that at the heart of this process must lie love and mutual respect. 

Present at this event were quite a few of the East End’s local and regional elected officials including the supervisors of the Towns of Southampton, East Hampton, Southold and Riverhead, County Legislators Schneiderman and Romaine, Assemblyman Thiele, every member of the Southampton Town Council, members of various other town councils, and representatives from the offices of Congressman Bishop and State Senator Lavalle. The only significant player not present was the Shelter Island supervisor. Among those commenting on the transportation plans presented at the forum, only the representatives for Congresman Bishop and Senator Lavalle did not take a position, saying they would have to defer to their bosses; County Legislator Romaine left early, before his opinion could be recorded. Riverhead’s Supervisor Cardinale arrived late, and having missed the presentation said that while he could not take a strong position either way, he would, at this time, defer to the opinions of the other supervisors. Only Legislator Schneiderman voiced a dissenting opinion. Everyone else present expressed support for the development of the rail/bus network plan.

Quite frankly, I was dumbfounded. After listening to the presentation, I was sure that the local officials would use the cover provided by the Volpe Center’s more reasonably priced alternative to avoid supporting what looks to be a very difficult to implement and costly project, the outcome of which is far from certain.  But, calling the more elaborate plan “visionary,” and “of greater long-term benefit,” the politicians quickly came to consensus. How often does that happen? I’m still shocked. It certainly tore a hole in my post of a couple of weeks ago in which I asserted that the provincialism that crops up in inter-town disputes was one of the biggest problems facing the East End. Needless to say, I was thrilled at this level of cooperation. I also support the plan.

At this point some of you are probably wishing for a little background. OK, here it is. Planners have been predicting total gridlock on East End roads since at least the 1970s, and starting around then have also proposed many ways to avoid it, most of which have proven unacceptable to residents and or government officials for one reason or another. In the mid 1990s, the East End Supervisors and Mayors Association (EESMA), created a new group, the East End Transportation Council (EETC) to again study the issue, which they did…interminably. Their work eventually culminated in the 2006 release of a study known as SEEDS (Sustainable East End Development Strategies). I won’t go into that here, except to say that development of a mass transit system of some kind was one of the recommendations of the study. During the SEEDS process, a splinter group formed among the SEEDS stakeholders. The members of this splinter felt that EETC was moving too slowly, and that it was time to jump from studying the problem to developing solutions. This group became Five Towns Rural Transit (FTRT), a non-profit devoted to the development of what was to become known as the East End Shuttle.

Through the dedication and hard work of FTRT, a plan was developed that included replacement of the Long Island Rail Road service on the East End with a more frequent light rail service that would shuttle between the stations and be met by a network of feeder buses to which passengers could transfer for short rides into nearby hamlets, villages and business centers. In 2007, Assemblyman Thiele and Senator Lavalle took up the cause of FTRT and were able to obtain a matching grant  for the study and further development of the East End Shuttle concept. The East End Towns came up with the matching funds, and the EETC was given the task of finding a group capable of undertaking the study. This turned out to be the Volpe Center, which was charged with fleshing out and analyzing the feasibility of the Shuttle plan, and also with coming up with at least one alternative, so that if the plan proved unacceptable, the Towns would have a fallback strategy.

The result of this work was presented on Friday, April 17th at Suffolk Community College in Riverhead. I won’t try to recap the presentation here, as I’ve probably already worn out your patience with this long-winded post. However, in summary, I think it would be fair to say that while Volpe was favorably impressed with FTRT’s shuttle plan, they concluded that it could be prohibitively expensive, and that the results — whether or not people would use it, and whether or not it would relieve congestion on our roadways — were uncertain. The alternative they proposed, was, in their words, more flexible, less expensive, and implementable in phases — all advantages over the shuttle plan. The big disadvantage of the alternative was that the buses would run on the same clogged roadways that we all use now, resulting in long travel times, while contributing to congestion on the roads.

After the presentation, many panelists and audience members spoke eloquently in favor of the shuttle plan, in spite of its possible drawbacks. Legislator Schneiderman spoke thoughtfully and presented some additional drawbacks to the shuttle plan that had not been mentioned by Volpe. Supervisor Russell of Southold, suggested that a hybrid solution, with different approaches for the north and south forks might be the best alternative — more rail on the south fork, more buses on the north. Ultimately, the idea of a hybrid solution — details unspecified — took hold of the group, and when it came time to arrive at a consensus, a hybrid solution embodying most of the details of FTRT’s East End Shuttle, at least on the south fork, was agreed upon.

I’ve skipped over a lot of important details in this post — financing for one — which I hope to get back to another time. For now, though, I think it is enough to say that occassionally, the people we elect do their jobs with thoughtfulness and diligence, putting the greater need ahead of short term political considerations, and we should all be grateful for that, and that the *!~@$*** congestion on our roads may eventually be remedied.

Readers will notice that a few things have changed, but the overall Sag Hampton experience should not be much different than what you are used to. The one obvious change is that the photo album, which used to appear on the upper left side of the screen is gone. This may return at some point, if I find a way to implement it in WordPress. For now, a sort of replacement is the revolving pictures in the page header. In theory, every time you move to a new page in Sag Hampton, a different picture will be shown at the top of the page. This worked pretty well in testing, although occasionally, the replacement picture was the same as the one being replaced. It is a random selection after all, so this is likely to happen every once in a while. Another change is that I am no longer using excerpts on the blog’s main page. Where you used to see a little snippet of the post, and then have to click on the “more” link in order to read the rest of the article you now will see the entire article, on the main page.

Also, for now, most of the other content in the sidebars is missing, including ads and links to other blogs and websites. As I get around to it, at least some of this content will return.

Finally, if you previously commented on this blog and used your real name, or an alias, you will find that your name has now been removed from the comment. This was an unavoidable side-effect of moving the blog content from one platform to the other. I have also taken this opportunity to turn off commenting on all the older posts, as most of the comments a blog receives on older posts are “comment spam” anyway. Comments will be allowed (and are encouraged) on all new posts, including the most recent, “The Five Top Problems Facing Sag Hampton.”

Oh, one more thing…if you’ve previously subscribed to Sag Hampton through RSS or e-mail, you may want to redo your subscription. In theory, all subscriptions should still work, but in reality, they may not. And, by the way, thanks for sticking with Sag Hampton, through its long hiatus.

Sometimes, they publish a version of what I’ve written shortened to fit in the space they have available. Sometimes they capture the essence of what I’ve written in the shorter version, but sometimes it ends up too short to really make the point I’m trying to get across. When that happens, though, you — the reader of the newspaper version — can go to the web and read the full version. You’ll always find a link to my blog at The Express’ web site: http://www.sagharboronline.com.

Now here’s the cool part. Both the editor of the newspaper and I think that it would be great to know what people in the community are thinking about the issues we write about. Sure, you can write a letter to the paper, but that may not be your style. Maybe you’re a bit more spontaneous, or would prefer a less formal way to express your thoughts. Perhaps everything you have to say about an issue can be summed up in one sentence and you think it’s just too short to make a good letter to the editor. If any of that applies to you, or you just like being a part of the online community, then the blog is made to order for you, because blogs, by design, are meant to encourage two-way communications. At the end of each article in Sag Hampton there is a place for you to leave a “comment.” In other words, a spot for you to have your say about the issue, or about what I’ve written. Others can comment too, and one person can comment on another person’s comment, giving us all a chance to have a real dialog online. Everyone can read it, everyone can participate in it. Comments can be signed, or anonymous. You must enter your e-mail address, but it is not published. Again this is different than writing a letter to the editor. When you do that, you have to sign it (even if your name isn’t published). On the blog, you can be completely anonymous if you chose. Even I won’t know who you are.

I blog (yes, it’s a verb too) because I want to start a discussion with other members of my community; so I invite you to visit Sag Hampton online where you can not only read the full text of every article (called blog posts), but also find other posts that were never published in the newspaper. And best of all, you can add your two cents (or more) to the discussion.

By the way, for those of you who do read Sag Hampton online, I would love it if instead of stopping me on the street to discuss what I’ve written (or in addition to that), you would add a comment to the blog. Even if it’s only to say that you agree (or disagree). It’s great  for me to know what you think, but not so great that you’re depriving the rest of the community of the benefit of you opinion. Please share your thoughts with the rest of the community on Sag Hampton.