Southampton and Westhampton Beach officials are failing to support the First Amendment rights of residents who don’t want religious symbols on public property.

first amendmentSH on Sept. 8 cut a deal with the East End Eruv Assn. that lets it erect a Jewish religious boundary on utility poles in return for not seeking monetary penalties.

WHB has put up a lot of verbiage in this battle but it amounts to a half-hearted effort to block what is a violation of the First Amendment. Quogue continues the battle, focusing on its allegedly strong sign laws.

Says the Legal Information Institute:

“The First Amendment guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly and the right to petition. It forbids Congress from both promoting one religion over others and also restricting individual religious practices.

“It guarantees freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the right of individuals to speak freely. It also guarantees the right of citizens to assembly peaceably and to petition their government.”

EEEA, a WHB meeting was told Sept. 3, has noted that failure to establish eruvim in the Hamptons could jeopardize hundreds of eruvim nationwide.

Half-Hearted Effort From the Start

If WHB officials were sincere in their efforts to educate citizens about the eruv issue, the WHB website would bristle with relevant documents including the 6,000-word conference Feb. 26 hosted by Justice Kathleen Tomlinson; Prof. Alexandra Susman’s 34-page treatise calling eruvim unconstitutional, and Prof. Marci Hamilton’s 18-page paper saying the same thing,

That only scratches the surface of the materials available on this subject.

Unlike Southampton and Quogue, which quoted their sign laws, WHB chose to ignore its own law. It has put up a smokescreen of verbiage ever since. Its current stance, told to Justice Tomlinson Feb. 24, is that it has never opposed an eruv in WHB and does not do so now.

Were WBH officials sincere in their efforts to inform the public, they would have prominently publicized the appearance of outside legal counsel Brian Sokoloff at their Sept. 3 meeting.

His appearance was a last-minute addition to the agenda. Sokoloff covered just about every legal aspect of the dispute despite the board’s claim for the past few months that the WHB eruv cannot be discussed because “it’s in litigation.”

WHB Trustees Tried to Block Comment

The videotape of the Sept. 3 WHB meeting shows this reporter attempting to make points about the eruv dispute at one hour and 11 minutes of the tape. We were interrupted numerous times by outside legal counsel Stephen Angel who kept shouting, “Address the board.”

We had addressed the board at the start of our talk and also said we would speak to citizens in the room and viewers of the taped meeting by looking at the audience and the camera. WHB meetings are re-broadcast on local public service Channel 22 and WHB’s own website. SH Council meetings are broadcast live by Channel 22.

Angel ignored our acknowledgement of the board and kept shouting, “Address the board, address the board.” Despite attempts to shut us down, we talked for ten minutes. We noted that court decisions saying eruvim are “invisible” ignore their visibility on the web, and that Southampton, of which WHB is a part, signed a deal with the East End Eruv Assn. to allow an eruv in exchange for EEEA’s promise not to seek penalties and costs. Comment by the public was not allowed.

Court decisions, by ignoring the web, are “irrational,” we said.

“Zegler”Zegler

Resident Is “Appalled” by Interruptions

Local resident Peter Zegler said he was “appalled” by attempts to block us from speaking.

“The trustees were disrespectful to a citizen in the public forum part of the meeting after allowing Sokoloff to control the mike for 55 minutes including 35 minutes for initial, uninterrupted remarks,” said Zegler. “It was a disgraceful example of trying to block speech in a public forum,” he said

Angel said what goes on in SH has no relevance to the WHB board. However, WHB is one of 17 towns in SH which collects taxes from WHB residents. How SH handles the EEEA onslaught is relevant. Predictions are that WHB may take the same deal as SH—allow an eruv in exchange for EEEA dropping monetary claims.

Said O’Dwyer: “About 95% of residents of SH, WHB and Quogue don’t want utility poles in their towns to bear permanent symbols of any religion but their elected officials are failing to support them.”

In siding with the EEEA, Verizon and LIPA are going against the wishes of the vast majority of their Hamptons customers, he said.

Prof. Susman Should Be a Speaker

The lopsided Sept. 3 discussion should be offset by an appearance by law Prof. Alexandra Susman of UCLA. Sokoloff said he included her 34-page essay, which argues that eruvim are unconstitutional, in early motions in the case, but said that “a law review article is not the law.”

Prof. Susman’s arguments note there is a new definition of “reasonable person” because of increased public knowledge about eruvim and other matters. Court decisions claim that eruvim are “almost invisible” although they are depicted on websites.

“The government proclamation required to set up an eruv in a community presents the most serious problem of government endorsement,” Susman writes. WHB has a $9.8 million budget and plenty of money to fly Susman to WHB and pay her a fee.

Where is the “government endorsement” of eruvim, required by Jewish law, in any of the Hamptons eruvim? Is agreeing to allow an eruv under threat of millions of dollars of legal fines, fees and penalties something that qualifies as “government endorsement?” Contracts are not supposed to be legal if there is coercion. What EEEA is doing is legal terrorism.

SH Deal with EEEA Dismays Zegler

Zegler, in a letter in the Sept. 10 Southampton Press, rapped the SH/EEEA deal. “Our elected officials, Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst and Council members, decided to stop fighting for our First Amendment rights.

“Stop fighting? Since when has any governmental body in this country had the right to stop fighting for our Constitutional rights? Especially without consulting those of us who elected them to office.

“Remember,” he wrote, “You work for us! And to decide not to fight for and uphold our First Amendment rights is cause for resignation by each and every one of you.”

“There is no price or cost great enough to back down from defending what is clearly written in the Constitution.”