Efforts by ex-Canadian Army Captain Jerry Flynn to interest international and U.S. investigative reporters in the health threats of Wi-Fi have failed so far. Resistance is high at local levels, this reporter has also found.

Flynn, who emailed last week an essay titled “Man’s Worst-Ever Genocide” to the International Consortium of Investigative Reporters and Investigative Reporters & Editors (U.S.), has received no replies thus far. We also emailed the same groups looking for a spark of interest to no avail.

Helping to focus attention on the issue was a two-page feature in the Sunday June 19 New York Post with the headline: “Loving our phones—even if it kills us.”

Americans check their cellphones an average of 46 times a day and half of adults sleep with their cellphones, “holding them like a security blanket,” said Time magazine.

The article does not mention the danger of pulsed, micro-wave radiation from cellphones nor warn that cellphones must not be carried in pockets, held close to the head or put in bras (or stuffed in bottoms of bathing suits which we noticed this weekend).

It tells of motorists crashing and dying because of cellphone use. More than eight people are killed daily and 1,161 injured by distracted driving, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Westhampton Officials Ridicule Threat

Westhampton

L-R: Steve Frano, elected Westhampton Beach trustee, talks to Charles Palmer, who lost his seat; Mayor Maria Moore, who was re-elected, with daughter Jackie Moore; Tom Moore, husband of Maria, and Ralph urban, re-elected trustee.

Efforts by this reporter to interest Westhampton Beach village and library officials in the dangers of cellphones and Wi-Fi routers went nowhere this past week.

All we got for our efforts was rudeness and ridicule.

We showed Mayor Maria Moore the Acoustimeter’s high pulsed radiation readings in the trustee meeting room where thresults of the annual election were announced at 9 p.m. Friday night.

We got no reaction from her. We asked to have a tour of village offices to see where the routers were, take photos of them, and obtain all their specifications. The only answer we got was from Moore’s assistant, Maureen Jones, who said that would not happen.

High readings in the library were also shown to library president Tom Moore, husband of Maria, and other library trustees at their meeting Wednesday. We got nothing but derision and ridicule. One of the trustees said why don’t we worry about sunlight since “that’s radiation also.”

We have been asking Tom Moore and library director Danielle Waskiewicz for weeks for the opportunity to examine the routers used in the library with no result. High readings have been found in the children’s area and in the room where 64 bridge players meet for four hours each Tuesday.

A Freedom of Information request has been faxed to WHB offices seeking access to the routers. A similar request is being sent to the library which announced in April that it would accept such requests for the first time in its nearly 120-year history. The library has been under pressure to be more responsive to the community.

Waskiewicz replied by email today that FOIL does not apply to wi-fi routers. "The router is part of our network and access points are contained within the ceiling. Due to security, there is no public access to our network or its infrastructure." She has been asked to supply all specifications for the routers including the power, wattage and distance their signals travel.

“Stealth” Election in WHB

Residents expressed surprise at the all-time low WHB voter turnout June 19. Only 209 of the 1,414 registered voters went to the polls—14.7%. For the first time in many years there were no signs around town by candidates promoting themselves. The four candidates agreed not to put up such signs.

Mayor Moore got 132 votes vs. the 284 that she received in 2014 out of 471 votes cast. This was called an “ultra-low turnout” in a letter to the Southampton Press.

“I guess the public is realizing that her accomplishments are cosmetic, her command of the public meetings are pitiful, and her platform will eventually cost us taxpayers greatly,” said the letter.

The letter, by “realistic,” says studies for a Main street sewer district have cost nearly $100,000 for a system that could cost $50 million+ and serve only Main street businesses.

Library Wrongfully Fired Trager

A letter to 27East.com by former library employee Sabina Trager, which appeared under a story on the election, said that trustee Eric Mirell resigned at the June 15 meeting and by the next day Mitchell Schecter had been appointed.

Trager, who said she has been at every board meeting since July 2015 and has never seen Schecter there, said she had applied for the opening June15 but was not even interviewed. She has been campaigning for a year for the current appointed library board to be replaced by an elected board.

Trager worked at the library from February 2012 to June 2015 when she was wrongfully fired, according to a finding by the National Labor Relations Board. She won $25,000 for front and back pay.

The library had attempted to deny her unemployment benefits for discussing what pay raises library staffers might receive. NLRB said that her description of 2-3% raises was legal and did not violate any library policy.

Moores Are Abusing Powers

Local blogger Dean Speir, who has lived in WHB since the 1960s, noted that there were 21 write-in votes for mayor which would be more than any such votes since the late 1960s.

The low turnout for Maria Moore plus the 21 write-in votes indicates there is a lot of dissatisfaction with her administration. She has never had a press conference or town hall and this reporter has only been able to speak to her once, and for a brief period, in the past year and a half. Other write-ins included this reporter who received three votes; ex-trustee Toni-Joe Birk, seven; ex-school board member Clint Greenbaum, three; former mayor Conrad Teller, one; ex-trustee Patricia DiBenedetto, three; Paul Bugge, three, and Jim Budzik, one.

WHB has just agreed to allow Orthodox Jewish religious symbols to be placed permanently on 46 utility poles that are on public property. Moore did not sign it nor did any of the four other trustees. It was signed by outside legal counsel Brian Sokoloff.

We have asked her why she didn’t sign it but have received no reply. Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst signed for SH so why didn’t Moore?

The deal with the East End Eruv Assn. flies in the face of the U.S. Constitution which calls for separation of church and state. George Washington himself said, “The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of the clergy.”

The false statement in the agreement that it is “not a recognition or endorsement of any religious boundary” is another reason for the deal being invalid besides the lack of Moore’s signature. Jewish law requires approval by local elected officials and that does not describe Sokoloff. Also, no one can find any of the lechis that are supposed to be on 46 utility poles on WHB property.

WHB Residents Misled on Eruv

WHB’s website, as operated by the trustees, has short-changed residents on documents related to the eruv. Court decisions and papers are the only thing on the WHB website. There are no links to the large body of literature declaring eruvim unconstitutional including 18 pages written expressly for WHB by Yeshiva Law Prof. Marci Hamilton.

Westhampton’s library and the Books&Books bookstore on Main street should prominently display the new book, The Curious Case of Kiryas Joel: The Rise of a Village Theocracy and the Battle to Defend the Separation of Church and State.

It should be required reading for WHB high school, middle school and grade school students as a case history in how politics allowed a breach in the Constitutionally required separation of church and state. Author Louis Grumet fought for that principle through 11 court actions in ten years and won in the Supreme Court. But victory was snatched from him by a middle-of-the-night bill passed on the last day of a New York State Legislature session.