O'Dwyer reps in Westhampton Beach last night presented documents and gave an oral presentation of arguments against a planned local eruv religious barrier to the trustees at one of their regular meetings.

Printed materials given to the trustees included the 34-page essay of UCLA Law Prof. Alexander Susman on eruvim and the 18-page essay of Prof. Marci Hamilton of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University.

Left to right: trustee Patricia DiBenedetto, Deputy Mayor Charles Palmer, Mayor Marie Moore, Trustee Ralph Urban, Trustee Hank Tucker, and outside legal counsel Steve Angel.

Both say that the Orthodox Jewish boundaries called eruvim violate the Constitution and cite numerous legal decisions to support that conclusion.

The O'Dwyer presentation to the trustees is as follows:

"An editorial in the New York Post Jan. 9, 2015 accuses WHB residents of "bigotry" because they oppose erection of the Orthodox Jewish religious boundary called an eruv.

My question to Mayor Moore and the trustees is why was there not a rebuttal letter sent to the Post the next day answering that charge?

There is a large body of legal literature and Court decisions that claim that eruvim violate the principle of church/state separation that is in our Constitution. WHB and the other towns have an excellent case to make in the media and to the public but I don't see that being made.

No Town Hall Meetings, Press Conferences

There are no town hall meetings at which the public can find out where WHB stands in regard to several lawsuits. There are no press conferences. We are told that the trustees had a private meeting with Magistrate Judge Kathleen Tomlinson on the eruv litigation but are not told what happened.

WHB has no person dedicated to dealing with the press seven days a week. Reporters work weekends in order to have stories ready for Monday. Questions emailed to the village are met with the demand to file a Freedom of Information form. We are then told that it can take up to 20 days for an answer to be provided. Emails to Mayor Moore receive no response.

I am presenting materials to Mayor Moore and the Trustees that I hope will find their way into the WHB library, on whose board Mayor Moore sits .

They include the 18-page memorandum of Prof. Marci A. Hamilton of Yeshiva University's Law School that argues in detail that eruvim are unconstitutional.

This document was sent by email and regular mail to Mayor Conrad Teller and the Trustees on Oct. 6, 2008. It was paid for by the Alliance for the Separation of Church and State for the Greater Westhampton Area.

A similar document, which concerns eruvim wherever they may exist in the U.S. is the 34-page essay by Prof. Alexandra Susman of the UCLA Law School also contending that eruvim are unconstitutional.

New Jersey Court Ordered Removal of Eruv

A key court decision is the one by Federal District Judge William Bassler in 2001 in which he said Tenafly, N.J., was not motivated by any anti-Orthodox sentiments in barring an eruv but was only interested in blocking the permanent affixing of religious symbols to the town's utility poles by any religion. That 20-page decision is provided.

Also provided is an essay by Ariela Aharon, an American-Israeli Jew who says that under Jewish law an eruv cannot be constructed in the face of any sizable opposition in a community. Former Mayor Teller on several occasions said that "90-95%" of WHB residents oppose the eruv.

Judge Tomlinson is currently deciding the issue of whether an eruv is an unconstitutional entanglement of church and state. The story in 27east.com that covers that subject is enclosed. Headline on it is "Costs of Ongoing Legal Battle Involving Religious Boundary Could Soar."

WHB, Southampton, Quogue and Jewish People Opposed to the Eruv have already spent more than $1 million with their law firms on this issue. The EEEA is seeking not only its legal costs but penalties. Marvin Tenzer, president of EEEA, has said that "multi-millions" could be involved.

Citizens of the towns need to be understand the charges that could end up in their tax bills. If they just sit quietly, this case could drag on in the courts for another five years.

"Reasonable Observers" Are Improperly Cited

Court views that eruv markers are "nearly invisible" and that "reasonable observers" do not perceive them to have a religious meaning are false.

Can there be an adult in WHB who is not aware of claims that an eruv has been created here and that it converts public land into the "home" of the observant?

I believe that village officials who keep a low profile on this issue fail to fully inform the public of what is happening and are contributing to future, costly victory of the pro-eruv forces.

An aroused public is needed so that our state and federal lawmakers will get involved. They are needed to help combat a legal process that is bogged down in precedent cases decided many decades ago and long before the advent of the internet which has changed the definition of who is a "reasonable observer."

Following the presentation, Mayor Maria Moore said,

“We have on our website every document anybody who would like to get the most recent information, just look on the website, at the tab for the eruv and see the status of the lawsuits.”

The latest entry on the eruv on the WHB website is dated Dec. 22, 2014. Almost all of the other entries are from 2011.

Asked about the recent conference that Village officials had with Judge Kathleen Tomlinson, Moore answered, “It’s not anything we can discuss in a public forum.”

Asked for more clarification, Moore answered that the information is made public “when motions are filed.”

Moore was also asked about the location of the lechi eruv markers on utility posts on village property and answered, “It’s not something we can discuss because we are involved in a lawsuit.”

Village legal counsel Steven Angel. He said, “I don’t really fully understand the request, but…a general discussion of an existing lawsuit, other than having the papers made available, doesn’t make sense to me. I would not recommend that we schedule an agenda item to discuss the lawsuit in any way. I don’t see much purpose to that. I don’t even know very much about it.”

He further said, “If the village has the papers on the website, there have been motions made, there have been decisions made, there have been pleadings filed. You can get a very good picture of the lawsuit from looking at that. I haven’t looked at it. If I wanted to bring myself up to date, I would do that, also. I wouldn’t raise any public discussion about it.”

Dean Speir of www.whbqt.info took the podium at the end of the two-hour meeting and said the document of Long Island Power Authority that lists 46 utility poles where the East End Eruv Assn. had the right to place "lechis," which are marks denoting an eruv, was "a very curious document."

He said the document doesn't say whether any have been attached. He said he has asked LIPA assistant general counsel Justin Bell for the locations but has not received an answer. Speir is a former village official who has been attending meetings of the WHB trustees since the late 1960s.

Bell has told O'Dwyer's that LIPA gave EEEA the right to place lechis on its utility poles but does not know which, if any, poles have actually received such markers. After the meeting, several residents spoke privately in favor of the village hosting a public discussion of the eruv and the litigation surrounding it. They said that if the board refuses, it should be told, "That’s not the kind of government we want.”