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Candidates express support for tick reduction Town Council challenger


PATRICIA SHILLINGBURG 


“Preserving the essence of Shelter Island … means dealing with ticks. I believe the 4-poster program is successfully killing ticks. Cornell’s sweeps in June showed a remarkable decrease in ticks from the year before. And last year the doctors Marshall were seeing 30 to 40 tick-related cases per month. Then in August of this year, 14, and in September, 2.


“There are those who want to believe it is something other than permethrin on deer heads, like weather, but I don’t agree.”


LINDA SPRINGER


“I also support the deer reduction program. And the 4-poster program is something that the Town Board has committed to. Right now they are talking about their commitment for 2010.


“If I was a board member, I would follow through on commitments the board has set up. I believe that it is something that you should do. Any concerns, of course, I would answer.


“I have to be honest, the permethrin scares me. All the members of my family have had one or more of the tick diseases, my husband had all three at the same time. So I do know what it does to people and the debilitating consequences. But I think we really need to research it.”


“I also have to be honest with you, I would not want to eat a piece of deer meat right now.


“I also worry about when the program is done, if we keep feeding these deer corn, and what are they going to eat when the corn is gone?”


CHRIS LEWIS


“Several years ago now a very large number of upset people appeared at the Town Hall asking the Town Board to do something to address what had then become an epidemic, tick-borne diseases, some very debilitating to our citizens.


“An investigation began, created a report, they did a wonderful job and the 4-posters are the result of that.


“The Town Board at that time committed to that science as well as to the nuisance hunt. We support that. We recognize that the costs are going to be very difficult this coming year. We are looking at ways to make it possible without a remarkable increase in the tax burden.”


DON KORNRUMPF


“Ticks are a serious problem here and I too support a dual program: reduction of the deer herd within reason to a sustainable number and continuation of the 4-poster program. I’d be very interested to see how that turns out. The initial drags [tick counts] are encouraging at the mid-level.[ I hope] good progress will continue.”


ED BROWN


“The town made a decision to multi-task between deer reduction and the 4-poster. I think we’re standing by it. And I support those programs right now.”


JIM DOUGHERTY


“The 2007 Town Board agreed to a three-year 4-poster program. I’ve been honoring that commitment. We have one year to go. The first two years, as prior speakers have said, have been encouraging. I’m not a scientist so I await the results. The tick drag results in July were very encouraging. Ticks are down and the tick-related diseases are just awful.


“Anything we can do to reduce the broadcast spraying of over 500 lawns on Shelter Island will help us both in terms of the toxic pesticides and the horrible tick-borne diseases.


“Yes, it’s something we talked about yesterday in our budget session. We’re quite aware of your taxpayer pockets, very sensitive to that.


“As far as I’m concerned, 2010 is the final year of the program and we’ll do it, believe me, as cheaply as possible.”


PAUL SHEPHERD


“Mr. Smith waits for the last word, that’s a very old trick. The oldest trick in the book.


“I did in fact and I do continue to support the 4-poster program basically because we are bereft of all the tools in the arsenal … We used to burn a lot on Shelter Island and we don’t burn now for obvious reasons. It’s scary. There are more houses around, you can’t just torch up a place and watch it burn.


“I support continuing the program to its conclusion. I share Linda’s concerns, however, about the situation going forward. This thing unravels rather quickly when you pull the 4-posters. Within a year or two, your tick population comes right back, from the studies.


“This doesn’t go away, this is an ongoing commitment.


“We’re trying to reduce the broadcast spraying and I’m afraid we’re not. Predominantly, it’s uncontrolled. They don’t do it when they should. They do it too close to the water, when it’s too windy. The less of that the better … 


“The short answer is yes.”


BILL SMITH


“First of all I love to have the opportunity to make my position clear. I know there are many, many rumors around Shelter Island about just how I feel about the 4-poster program.


“I initially, right from the start, I felt that we didn’t need 60 units to do this. We could have done it with 20 units in Mashomack, that’s one-third of the Island, and gotten the same data as with 60 units.


“And in doing so not put the Island, the deer our aquifer and our people at risk.


“For some reason that didn’t happen.


“Now we have the Deer and Tick Committee coming to the Town Board yesterday requesting $200,000 for next year’s program, which is approximately a $50,000 increase over last year’s program.


“They are also requesting, this year alone, an additional $20,000 for corn, because they’re running short on corn. That’s on top of $8,000 they’ve already taken out of tax money to buy 60 more gallons of 10 percent solution permethrin.


“So my answer is this: I support it with independent monitoring. Not monitored by Cornell. Cornell is the one who told us there is no permethrin in the deer. When, after my diplomatic efforts with Jim Dougherty resulted in testing the deer, we found it. We’ve also done independent tests … the results will be announced shortly about how much is in the environment.


“I support it. I support a scaled-down version and I support an independent monitoring program to make sure we’re not creating a toxic nightmare.”