Wedding in the works

To the Editor:

As new year-round residents of Shelter Island (we bought a beautiful historic farmhouse and have been here just over a year) I cannot tell you how thrilled my partner and I were to see your editorial (“Close to home,” June 30). We are looking forward to getting married — legally — soon. We did exchange vows in 2003 with family and friends but this is different and gives us a peace of mind and sense of safety that most people cannot understand, especially as parents.

The rights and responsibilities that come with marriage, ranging from the ability to make medical decisions on each other’s behalf, to access to a decedent’s estate in the absence of a will, to automatically holding property as tenants in common, are things straight couples don’t even think about when they get married. Imagine the idea of adding “grab the power of attorney papers just in case they don’t want to let me in the ICU” to the things you do when a spouse falls ill. Imagine being told you are not “really” the parent of your child in an emergency situation.

We now live with our daughter, my (soon to be actually legal) father-in-law, two Labrador retrievers who think they died and moved to dog heaven and a cat who promptly ran away for a week when we moved here but came back. Too wild. Now she gazes wistfully at the bird feeders (a photo of them adorned the front page of the Reporter this winter).

There is so much to love about the natural beauty and splendor of Shelter Island, but it is the people who are truly the most wonderful things about this special place.

As  a life-long Long Islander (I grew up in Seaford), I have seen the changes in the culture and the people’s attitudes and know we have a ways to go. When I was in high school, a gay club in school, never mind a GLBT Community Center, was unimaginable. But what we need now are elected officials who are in synch with their constituencies, who know their gay and lesbian neighbors and realize we may not be the same but we have much in common and deserve to be treated as first-class citizens.

CATHY RENNA, SHELTER ISLAND

Sort out the necessary

To the Editor:

Street Talk of 23 June (about streaming Town Board meetings online) was a candid response by the individuals interviewed for your column.

The information at town meetings is certainly made available on a timely basis for those of us who feel we need to know the agenda, proceedings of the town meetings, by the media of the printed word. The option of streaming  for a few would be convenient for those who do not have Channel 22 but not all of us have the capability or the knowledge to use it. But the lack of these electronic media are not an impediment to good citizenship or good government. The information is available, it is not hidden from us.

If budgetary matters and the increase in your taxes are a concern then it is important now to sort out the necessary and nice-to-have functions asked to be provided by your local government. To paraphrase the late Senator Everett Dirkson of Illinois, “A few hundred dollars here and a few thousand there, after a while we are beginning to talk real money.” Once these items get approved, they never seemed to get removed from a budget, hence higher taxes year after year for all.

ROBERT H. O’CONNOR, SHELTER ISLAND

Who’s in charge

To the Editor:

This Friday afternoon there will be a town meeting. If you have a non-conforming business, or in fact own any non-conforming property, you may wish to attend the hearing to be held at that meeting. Then again, you may wish to wait and let the dust settle a bit before you weigh in. And there will be dust.

It all started this winter when a clarification was asked for regarding just what effect the merging of lots had on a person’s ability to expand their non-conforming use, which is a use that was legally in effect before zoning law made it illegal in a given zone: “grandfathered” in words more commonly understood.

The ZBA rendered its decision but the Town Board felt compelled to dust up the code a bit on that. They also were asked by the Building Department for some clarification on the part pertaining to the abandonment of a non-conforming use.

I know. Exciting stuff.

Several drafts later, there is now one that is ready to be mauled at a hearing, and while I initially had concerns that it would be acted on immediately thereafter, I now expect it will be sent back to committee for some critical adjustments.

I say “mauled,” because that is what is going to happen, but no matter. That is what the hearing process is for. Better communication with the community on the board’s part and closer attention on the part of the public would have probably averted this Frankenstein moment. But then we’d be missing some “must see TV,” now, wouldn’t we? I just hope the villagers all remember to follow up. Sometimes the good doctor needs to be reminded who’s in charge.

Oh, by the way, just go to www.shelterislandtown.us, click on the “upcoming hearings and laws” button, and you can find it at the bottom. See? For my money, this is one of the best features introduced in years. But you have to use it.

PAUL SHEPHERD, SHELTER ISLAND

Mooring mysteries

To the Editor:

Peter Reich is a master at spin. The point he cannot address is why is he so privileged and the rest of us are not?

If  WMAC [Waterways Management Advisory Council] members can have access to the GIS [coordinates], and there isn’t any penalty for lending out login/passwords (as there is no tracking and authorizing) and the GIS could potentially be used for commercial purposes by anyone, why should I be excluded?

The “who” of who doesn’t want the information on the GIS to be accessed by the public, all of which is available in other data sources open to the public, begins with Peter Reich.

If there are others they should step forward.

Any address and phone number of any boat owner who has a mooring can be found in the files at the Town Clerk’s office. All available to the public.

Maybe this restriction to the GIS needs the attention of Wikileaks?

BERT WAIFE, SHELTER ISLAND

Mr. Waife is referring to a recent Town Board work session at which board members discussed making the GPS coordinates of each mooring in the town’s grid system easily available to the public. Mr. Reich approved of the idea of making a PDF file listing all the data available on the town’s website. He commented that there would be no need for the public to log in to a password-protected database in that case. — Ed.

A different Ashley

To the Editor:

I would like to begin this letter by congratulating Ashley Knight and Chris Chobor on buying Pat & Steve’s!

I happen to have the same name as one of the owners, Ashley Knight, and am writing now to clear up any confusion that may have been caused by this coincidence.

When people first read in the Reporter that Ashley Knight and Chris Chobor bought Pat & Steve’s, my family received many congratulatory calls. Since my father’s name is also Chris and I worked as a server at Sunset Beach, this conclusion was understandable and very plausible.

However, I am, in fact, not the Ashley Knight who purchased Pat & Steve’s but rather the Ashley Knight who is the daughter of Jacky and Chris Knight, granddaughter of Alyce and Bill, and currently a rising junior at Wellesley College. I am sad to announce that I am not on Shelter Island, for my first summer ever, because I am interning at State Street Bank in Boston. But I plan to return in August to check out the new Pat & Steve’s under my name double’s ownership.

I hope that this letter clarifies who the actual owners of the restaurant are and I would once again like to applaud Ashley and Chris. I wish you the best of luck in your new business venture.

ASHLEY KNIGHT, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS