Public Shafted at Westhampton Meeting; Call Obama!

Moore

Reporters' questions were kept to the end of a two-hour Westhampton trustees' meeting March 18, proving once again that Mayor Marie Moore should be replaced.

The reporters and other members of the public had to sit through an agenda with 37 items on it before being allowed to ask questions. Most agenda items were minor matters.

The three reporters present, finally allowed to approach the podium, asked questions but got no answers. Both Moore and legal counsel Steven Angel brushed their questions aside on the ground that the eruv Jewish boundary proposed for WHB is "in litigation" and cannot be discussed. The WHB website, they were told, has the relative legal documents.

That is nonsense because the last entry on the site was Dec. 22, 2014 and 18 of the other entries are from 2011. Only three are from 2014.

Obama Would Be a Sympathetic Audience

President Obama, who is currently battling the intransigence of the Benjamin Netanyahu government, would understand the frustration of Hamptonites in trying to reason with the pro-eruv forces.

Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have gotten nowhere in their attempts to limit Jewish settlements in Palestine. New settlements are announced as Kerry arrives in Israel. Two page one stories in the New York Times March 21 were laced with criticism of Israeli leaders. "At White House, A Sharper Tone with Netanyahu" said one while next to it was the headline, "Israeli Leader Further Divides American Jews."

Zeldin

Local political leaders such as Lee Zeldin, U.S. Congressman representing Suffolk County, should be enlisted as well as Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.

Rabbi Marc Schneier of the Hampton Synagogue had drafted as supporters movie producer Steven Spielberg, David Paterson when he was governor of New York, and ex-Fox 5 news anchor Jon Roland who came within three votes of being deputy mayor of WHB. Hamptonites should shop for celebs who will take up their cause.

Kyle Campbell and the Southampton Press deserve a Pulitzer Prize for sticking with this story which is a political hot potato while other major media such as the New York Times, Newsday, New York News and New York Post show little if any interest in a legal battle that is costing multi-millions. The SH Press is owned by the Press News Group, a private company headed by Joseph Louchheim.

Last NYT story on the battle was on Feb. 4, 2013.

The Jewish Daily Forward had a story March 15 but it was superficial, providing no links to critical documents such as legal decisions and criticism of eruvim by UCLA Law Prof. Alexandra Susman and others.

Coverage has been sparse in Newsday whose circulation of 437,000 makes it 19 times as big as the Southampton Press which has a circulation of 22,564. Newsday is owned by Cabevision Systems Corp., with revenues of $6.2 billion. It provides TV, phone and internet services to Long Island and the New York metropolitan area. Only paid subscribers are allowed to see any content on the Newsday website. Charles Dolan is chairman, Charles Schueler, XVP media and community relations, and Lisa Anselmo, VP-CC.

Local libraries have refused to host any public meetings on the subject although the American Library Assn. says libraries must conduct meetings on "controversial topics" if they are to remain relevant. Physical libraries can't compete with the research capabilities of the web.

Moore Lacks PR Skills

What the Moore administration is showing is lack of communications skills and lack of sensitivity to citizens' views. WHB needs either a PR firm or PR staffer to help in this battle.

There's no reason WHB can't conduct a public meeting on the meaning of eruvim. That is a highly complicated set of religious beliefs that needs a complete airing to the WHB community. Wikipedia has provided a 4,791-word explanation of it.

Southampton Press reporter Kyle Campbell

As previous Mayor Conrad Teller has noted, 90-95% of residents do not want their community to be permanently identified as an enclave for Orthodox Jews or any other religion.

The Moore administration should have called a press conference and town meeting right after the Jan. 6, 2015 Appeals Court decision that said WHB could not block eruv markers on its utility poles.

Appeals Court Decision Was Faulty

That faulty decision should have been taken apart sentence by sentence. It relies on the ignorance of a "reasonable observer" as defined by the Lemon v. Kurtzman court case of 1971. Supreme Court Justice Sandra O'Connor later gave the up-to-date definition of a reasonable observer which says he or she is knowledgeable about religious symbols such as lechis.

WHB has enough legal reasoning on its side to undermine court decisions allowing eruvim, which turn public property and land into the "private domain" and "home" of the observant. These include the 34-page essay titled "Strings Attached" by UCLA Law Prof. Alexandra Susman and the 18-page memo by Yeshiva Law Prof. Marci Hamilton, specifically written to help WHB fight an eruv.

The 2001 decision of Judge William Bassler of Federal District Court in N.J., which ordered an eruv in Tenafly dismantled, is the best court decision yet on eruvim. It found no animosity to Orthodox Jews but only concern that public property not be "permanently allocated to a religious purpose."

WHB, Southampton, Quogue and Jewish People Opposed to the Eruv have fought the East End Eruv Assn. in court for more than four years with no end in sight. Bills from outside law firms have totaled more than $1 million and the towns face millions in penalties and court costs.

EEEA Lawyer Talks Nonsense

Also nonsensical are the remarks of EEEA lawyer Robert Sugarman as quoted on 27east.com.

He told reporter Kyle Campbell, whose exhaustive, 1,710-word report March 18 failed to find a single "lechi" marker or another other sign of an eruv in WHB, that the eruv should not concern anyone who is not an Orthodox Jew.

27east.com today published a map showing the 46 utility poles licensed to carry "lechi" markers. However, 27east.com reporters were unable to find any such markings on the poles.

"It simply doesn't matter," said Sugarman who is indirectly quoted as saying that the lack of visibility of the markers only furthers his argument that the eruv is not causing any kind of damage to village residents who do not follow Orthodox Judaism.

That spin ignores the fact that 90-95% of residents do not want any religious sect claiming WHB as its "home" and they are aware of the claims of the EEEA.

His comment makes about as much sense as Miami Beach's remark that just because it can't find a license for an eruv in Pine Tree Park does not mean that the license does not exist.

The supposed eruv in WHB, announced with fanfare by the EEEA and Schneier on Aug. 8, 2014, is a fake since eruvim require visible lechis on the utility poles that are used.

Village trustee Ralph Urban told Campbell that neither he nor anyone he knows has been able to find any of the lechis. Among those quoted by Campbell is Moore, who lives on Lilac road where five poles were licensed for the lechis.

She told Campbell that the EEEA "swore in an affidavit in court that the lechis were up so I would be surprised if they were to do that if that was not the case."

Local blogger Dean Speir has said that Moore has not lived up to her campaign promises to have an "open" and "transparent" administration.

Tax Lien Found on Police Chief Candidate

An embarrassment for the administration is the discovery by Speir that William Wilson, who was under consideration for chief of police of WHB last year, has four years of federal tax liens against him totaling $106,687.

Speir says this is not a criminal matter but is "potentially bad publicity" for the village. He wonders why this was not discovered previously since it is part of public records.

Media such as the New York Post are apt to seize on this the way they did when it was revealed that WHB retiring police chief Ray Dean was able to put in for 300 unused sick days, 208 vacation days and 13 holidays when he retired last year, a package worth $403,714. The law that allowed that is still on the WHB books.

Quogue is keeping a low profile in this dispute, Mayor Peter Sartorius not returning our phone calls or emails. George Motz, former mayor, was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2010 after pleading guilty to securities fraud. He was to pay part of his fines by selling the house owned by himself and his wife Kittrick Motz, who at the time was Quogue Village Justice.