Codger column: The Tick!

In these final, frantic days of summer, Codger is looking forward to the real life that begins after Labor Day, not only the draining of the Island but the new political season. Elections! Lawsuits! Deer hunting! Septic scares! There’s even an online remake of a superhero series called “The Tick”!

Should the Chamber of Commerce’s new PR firm be a sponsor?

Last Sunday, in a campaign preview, Codger watched the two candidates for supervisor work a party the Senior Citizens Foundation threw for its donors on the Perlman campus. Jim Dougherty, the long-time Democratic incumbent, roared up in his blue convertible roadster and glad-handed through the crowd. Gary Gerth, the Ronald Reagan Republican challenger, his dark blazer buttoned up, cruised slowly, chatty, smiling. Will this be a race?

There will certainly be defining issues.

Half-a-dozen local folks, both full-time and part-time residents, are making a federal case out of the recent short term rental law. It’s their right, of course, to take it to court, spending taxpayers money, but Codger wonders if that could have been avoided if town officials had first developed more information on the number and extent of brief stays and their economic impact, as well as on the rumored buying and remodeling of stealth hotels, and then hammered out the new rules in a more inclusive and transparent way.

Maybe not. Both sides felt their way of life was under siege and the passions expressed weren’t always logical.

Then there is the continuing controversy over the best ways to deal with the tick plague, be it the 4-poster plan of poisoning the bugs by feeding the deer and mice or the shooting of deer by amateurs and/or pros. Along with calls for “education,” which mostly seems to be tick-picking tips, how about a campaign to keep an eye on the new vaccine in development?

The last one, said to be 80 per cent effective, was discontinued some 15 years ago after lawsuits claimed side effects, and profits were low.

A robust election campaign might clarify and reframe those two issues. It might also stiffen the spines of elected officials when it comes to enforcement, never easy in a small town with a laissez-faire sensibility.

That will be especially critical in the most important issue, the inevitable clean drinking water crisis, which includes the need to replace or at least improve existing septic systems, which won’t come cheap. Without county, state or federal subsidies, some homeowners may not be able to afford upgrades.

Another reason to rent out rooms, with more pools and flushing toilets compounding the problem.

Those three issues have the potential to become — if they haven’t already — the local versions of the financial, political and culture wars roiling the world beyond our waters.

At that senior fling at Perlman last Sunday, with the supervisor candidates sharking about, Codger had to restrain himself from polling people. Too many discussions devolve into arguments. Solid information is hard to come by without a painstaking grind through the small print, which we often leave to the committees we frequently ignore.

It’s easier to believe, say, that people who want to rent rooms without restriction or who think that sharpshooters should cull the deer herd are simply stupid instead of finding a path through multiple solutions.

Which brings us back to the Chamber of Commerce and its perky PR person who promises to raise Shelter Island’s profile as a tourist destination. Codger can imagine why the 115 members of the Chamber, many of them local residents, want more traffic over the ferries. Higher profits! And why many residents, part-timers and all-year rounders, want less traffic, believing that added tourism will further damage the quality of everyday life on the Island.

Codger wonders if “The Tick” could be the solution. The series is on Amazon Prime. The Tick is a superhero who has been featured in comic books, a 1994 animated series, a 2001 Fox live-action series that lasted only nine episodes, and this revamped version.

The New York Times reviewer, Mike Hale, described The Tick as “a goofy, bright blue superhero … as difficult to eradicate as his Lyme-disease carrying namesake.”
If the show turns out to be a hit, the Chamber’s PR people can embrace the superhero as

Shelter Island’s symbol, turning a loathsome arachnid into a loveable mascot.

Thanksgiving Parade-sized blow-up ticks could greet disembarking ferry passengers and high school teams could drop “Indians” for “Ticks.” By removing the fear factor, the Chamber’s initiative will bring a new wave of carefree tourists who will stay to spend in stores, restaurants, local doctors’ offices.

The tie-in may also have impact on the upcoming Town Board election if candidates make cameo appearances on The Tick or, best of all, beat the bug.