Westhampton Beach, N.Y., trustees hope to pull a “fast one” on the village Thursday—slipping a sealed eruv package under the door that would give permanent control of 46 utility poles to the East End Eruv Assn. for its religious symbols.
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“Approve Litigation Settlement” is the only one of 16 items on the agenda that is not explained. A WHB employee said Tuesday that an explanation would be posted when it is ready. As of 6:45 p.m. Wednesday June 1 there is still no explanation.
This proposed under-the-table, last-minute deal echoes similar capers in Southampton, where Council members on Aug. 25, 2015 agreed to EEEA demands at the end of the meeting and with no discussion, and the middle-of-the-night session of the N.Y. State Legislature that in 1996 that created a special school district for the Satmar Hasidic Community.
Arnold Sheiffer, chair of Jewish People for the Betterment of WHB, said in a letter to the Southampton Press Sept. 3, 2015 that he and others were “shocked” by the “hasty and secretive” actions of the SH Council that “caved to the threats and blackmail of the EEEA.” He ended his letter with: “FOR SHAME!”
Lawyers tell this website that any agreement passed by the trustees Thursday could be challenged legally and invalidated because of irregularities in the adoption process.
Church/State Is Topic of Book
By coincidence, Louis Grumet, executive director of the New York State Society of CPAs from 1998-2010, has published The Curious Case of Kiryas Joel: The Rise of a Village Theocracy and the Battle to Defend the Separation of Church and State.
Grumet knows what it is to fight Orthodox Jewry. He sued Gov. Mario Cuomo and carried his fight through 11 hearings because he felt state funding of a religious school was a Constitutional violation. The Supreme Court upheld his complaint.
However, that was not the end of the battle. The Hasidim did not give in.
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Grumet’s book, written with John Caber, former reporter for the New York Law Journal and Albany Times Union who is now with the NY State Unified Court System, notes that the state Legislature, “in the middle of the night and on the last day of the session,” created a special publicly-funded school district for the Satmar Hasidic sect.
Sect Small but Powerful
The blurb for the book says it shows “how a small, insular, and politically savvy religious group can grasp legal and political power.” The Kiryas Joel saga is “an object lesson in the ongoing debate over freedom of vs. freedom from religion,” says copy.
The 1994 case, Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet “stands as the most important legal precedent in the fight to uphold the separation of church and state,” the book’s description further says.
WHB residents are now being treated to the same ploys that worked in Southampton and for the Satmar in Kiryas Joel.
It’s hard for residents to make a judgment about an agreement that is being withheld from them as late as one day before the meeting at which it will be voted.
We lay this strategy not only at the feet of EEEA but Mayor Maria Moore, who by her actions, if not words, has shown herself to be in full sync with the pro-eruv people which we think includes local real estate firms.
Hamilton Essay Belonged on WHB Site
If she were opposed to the eruv, she would have placed on the WHB website the 18-page essay by law Prof. Marci Hamilton of Yeshiva University who argued convincingly that eruvim are unconstitutional. WHB paid for that essay in 2008.
Hamilton quotes Kiryas Joel, 512 U.S. at 711 (Kennedy, J., concurring) as part of her opinion. She says WHB has a “closely regulated sign ordinance applicable on both private and public property.”
Hamilton was retained on First Amendment issues by Quogue when it was sued by EEEA.
Hamilton argued, on the O’Dwyer website, with Prof. Michael Helfand of the Pepperdine Law School when he supported on forward.com the erection of eruvim on the ground they are “not a symbol of impermissible government entanglement with religion” and are therefore Constitutional.
Hamilton agreed that lechis are “symbols” but they are “symbols with religious content.” Eruvim are highly informative to believers and cannot be treated “as though they have no content,” she told odwyerpr.com.
WHB’s legal costs for its battle with the EEEA are covered by insurance, a fact that Moore does not point out. Claims that WHB would have to pay “millions” in court fees and fines and the legal bills of EEEA are “pure hogwash,” say eruv opponents. Terms of the insurance policy and the name of the insurer are being sought,
Opponents note that eruv supporters are lying about “lechis” being on 46 utility poles since no one can find any trace of them and say nothing can be trusted from the pro-eruv side. Upfront people would not be trying to sneak something past the citizenry, they say.
Moore: Stealth Advocate for Eruv
Moore has been a stealth advocate for the WHB eruv for the past two years, a “mole” in the village government that is pursuing a course of action opposite to that of 95% of citizens, as former mayor Conrad Teller said. We don’t see her or anyone else challenging that statement. No poll was ever conducted by WHB on the issue and no “town hall” ever called on it.
Moore and the four other trustees, Charles Palmer, Ralph Urban, Brian Tymann and Rob Rubio, have not responded to emails asking how they will vote on the proposed agreement with EEEA.
This writer has “standing” in this matter because we are a tax-paying homeowner and a registered voter in WHB.
Passing the agreement with the EEEA without giving citizens a chance to examine at leisure and consult with lawyers, would be an act of governmental corruption.
The trustees would be selling out not only WHB and its citizens, but the U.S. Constitution. There is no need to rush on this issue. Outside legal counsel Brian Sokoloff has noted that WHB’s legal costs on the issue are covered by insurance. We would like to see all the terms of that insurance.
We hope enough citizens show up Thursday to convince them to drop this plan the way that citizens blocked the $350K for “twin police chiefs” last year.
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