WhyIncorporateSagaponack

On May 6th the Supervisor of Southampton Town will hold a public hearing on the incorporation of Sagaponack. In anticipation of this important meeting I would like express – as one who has been working toward this objective -- why we wish to form a legal village.

Sagaponack has been a defined place for more than two and a half centuries. It was a fishing and farming area even before Englishmen came here to take up these traditions. The continuum of sea and fields is and has been for all of human memory the essence of Sagaponack.

Last summer, there was a very active attempt to form a village to be called Dunehampton which would have separated Sagaponack from its beaches. This threat to the integrity of the historical hamlet united our community and joined local families like the Fosters, the Tillotsons and the McCoys with newer residents like me – I have only lived here for twenty three years – to petition the Town for the right to incorporate. Together, we invested many volunteer hours in preparing the necessary documentation.

To become an incorporated village under New York State law an area not exceeding five square miles or coinciding with a school district must have five hundred regular inhabitants. The legal definition of a regular inhabitant was recently reaffirmed by Justice John J.J. Jones of the Suffolk County New York State Supreme Court [ index # 03-23873] as “a person who resides in the territory, except if they maintain a residence outside the territory where they vote”. This definition includes the minor children of such persons. Justice Jones went on to say that: “While reside does not mean domicile, neither does it include a holiday and occasional weekend visitor”. Further, the petition for incorporation must be signed by twenty percent of those registered to vote in the territory.

The arduous effort to prepare our petition for the incorporation of Sagaponack only served to enhance our sense of community and to heighten our awareness of what would be lost if our petition were to fail: community, tradition, a sense of place that is defined by more than the literal boundaries of one’s personal property. As our neighbor Roy Scheider wrote in these pages several weeks ago, “Sagaponack is a real place, with a look, a tradition and an attitude.”

The hamlet of Sagaponack is defined by the school district that corresponds to the little red schoolhouse on the corner of Sagaponack Road and Sagg Main. It extends from the center of Sagg Pond to the west and Town Line Road to the east. The north-south axis runs from the railroad tracks to the ocean. Its beaches are Sagg Main, Gibson and Peter’s Pond.

Sagaponack is also one of the last communities on the East End which retains the original bucolic character that once extended from Shinnecock to Montawk. We have the good fortune to have in our number families who continue to farm large tracts of the South Fork’s rich land, reminding the rest of us that we all sit on the continent’s most productive soil. Some of these farms still go down to the dunes, reminiscent of the views that once made up our whole shoreline. The families who continue to farm here are sharing with us their priceless patrimony. As far as those of us who wish to incorporate Sagaponack are concerned, their best interest is our best interest.

It is also in our interest that all resources available – federal, state, county, town and private -- be directed in a unified and depoliticized way to the conservation of our beaches. Congressman Tim Bishop recently decried the president’s to cut Army Corps of Engineers shore protection budget. Assemblyman Fred Thiele has been an advocate for funding of shore protection projects at the state level. Southampton Town Councilman Dennis Suskind has proposed the creation of a Southampton Beach Conservancy to pool public and private resources to this end. We who hope to incorporate Sagaponack will actively advocate this cause on behalf of our hamlet, its residents and the wider community.

The beaches belong to all of us. They constitute, besides the land, the most valuable treasure of all the citizens of Southampton.

My own hope is that the hearing on May 6th will be a constructive and unifying event that reaffirms the value of community and tradition. It is not our purpose to establish a secessionist village government to oppose the Town of Southampton but rather to secure the integrity of our hamlet for the future as a distinctive element in the heritage of Southampton.

The hearing on the incorporation of Sagaponack announced by Southampton Town Supervisor, Patrick Heaney, will take place at the Topping Riding Club at the corner of Gibson and Daniels Lanes at 5 o’clock on Thursday, May 6th.

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