Clear Path Opens for Sagg Effort
By Michael Wright

The Southampton Press© Issue Date: 8/04/05

Southampton Town officials and residents of Sagaponack scrambled early this week to schedule a special election on the incorporation of Sagaponack as a village after opponents let a deadline to file legal objections pass.

Residents and officials had been expecting a challenge to the Sagaponack incorporation bid from the proponents of the defunct Village of Dunehampton incorporation effort. Representatives of the Dunehampton group said this week that they let the weekend deadline pass on purpose—but may seek to form a second new village out of portions of Bridgehampton and Water Mill if Sagaponack Village is approved.

The town has 40 days in which to hold a public referendum on the Sagaponack incorporation proposal. The election will be open only to residents registered to vote at addresses in the proposed Sagaponack Village.

Town Supervisor Patrick Heaney said that the town is planning to hold the election on the Friday of Labor Day weekend, September 2, to give as many residents of the hamlet as possible the opportunity to vote. The election is tentatively scheduled to be held in the Sagaponack Schoolhouse at the corner of Main Street and Sagaponack Road.

The town will have to officially announce the election in a local news publication by Monday, August 8, and will publicly post announcements at various public places in the hamlet.

Meanwhile, Sagaponack residents, who had been expecting months of legal battles over their bid, began investigating what they will have to do and how soon they will have to do it if the referendum calling for incorporation passes.

According to state incorporation law the new village would have at least a year to set up its government and whatever services it would take over from the town. Thus far, the leaders of the Sagaponack incorporation effort have said they would form only a minimal village government—state law requires the election of a mayor and four village trustees—and contract most municipal services from the town.

“Here we go,” said Lee Foster, one of the Sagaponack incorporation leaders. “Now we really have to decide: What do we want?”

Ms. Foster said that the Sagaponack group has just started its work and is not sure of the deadlines for an election of a village board or what services it will have to take on itself. “We have to get there first,” she said.

The group’s work is apparently going to be somewhat easier than it had expected. The proponents of the Dunehampton incorporation bid, and a sister effort known as Southampton Beach that would be up for consideration if Sagaponack fails, said that no legal challenges will be filed to the Sagaponack incorporation or referendum because they are confident that a village of Sagaponack would serve the same purpose they were seeking with their own incorporation effort. The Dunehampton group has said recently that its main reason for pushing for incorporating a coastal village was to spur action to remedy severe erosion along the oceanfront in Sagaponack and Bridgehampton.

Shortly after Supervisor Heaney approved the Sagaponack petition, on June 30, Dunehampton supporters vowed to challenge his determination. Dan Breen, one of the leaders of the Dunehampton/Southampton Beach effort, said this week that his group had changed its mind because its representatives had spoken to Sagaponack residents who promised to take up the erosion fight if the village is incorporated.

“Our initial impression from proponents of the [Sagaponack] village was that the only reason they were forming a village was to block Dunehampton and that the village would just be a puppet of the town,” said Mr. Breen. “But since we’ve been talking to residents in the proposed village it has become clear that they are not going to allow it to just become a puppet village, and they assured us that they want to see the erosion addressed.”

Mr. Breen said that his group, which battled the town in court for more than a year over Supervisor Heaney’s rejection of the Dunehampton incorporation petition, will not withdraw the Southampton Beach petition in case the referendum on Sagaponack Village fails. He said that if Sagaponack voters do vote in favor of incorporating, his group plans to amend the Southampton Beach application, eliminating the small portions of Sagaponack they had proposed incorporating and redrawing a new village map out of the oceanfront portions of Water Mill and Bridgehampton.

“We support sincerely the concept of home rule,” Mr. Breen said. “This is not an effort to tear apart historical communities like we’ve been accused of, but we’re tired of playing political games while the erosion gets worse and worse. We’re going to do what we can to keep the pressure on and if Sagaponack goes through we expect they will too.”

Mr. Heaney said that he does not understand the claims by the Dunehampton group that the town hasn’t done enough about the erosion problem. He noted that the town has become a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by Sagaponack residents against Suffolk County demanding that three stone groins in East Hampton be removed and that the recent proposal to form a coastal erosion taxing district is specifically intended to help oceanfront residents in the event of a emergency.

“We requested an opportunity to sign onto the lawsuit, and we’re committed to a very expensive law firm to continue to seek long-term mitigation associated with those groins at Georgica,” Mr. Heaney said. “People can speculate until the cows come home, but the fact of the matter is we’re continuing to work to make the best possible argument in the interest of our residents.”

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©2005 Sagaponack Association