Power to interfere


To the Editor:


It was a strange yet wonderful feeling I got at the last Town Board Meeting, hearing both the town attorney and the supervisor talk about Constitutional issues, Supreme Court rulings and the need for Shelter Island to pay heed to the law of the land when making our own laws. I prayed nobody would wake me.


But then came the next work session, and discussion of the Zagoreos project. Well, the supervisor’s thinking concerns me. He got what he and some others wanted, the ZBA review, yet shows no confidence in that process, and is still working very hard at tying the wetlands demolition permit process to it, inappropriately leveraging one power the Town Board has officially granted itself, that of wetlands permit review, into quite another, that of determining or limiting the size of a proposed dwelling that is well within the zoning code’s parameters, and would totally remove, not enlarge, all current nonconformity to zoning.


So the gist of it is that, as I’ve pointed out before, the Town Board neither wants nor accepts limits on its reach and authority. This approach undermines rule of law, bypasses the separation of powers and virtually eliminates any chance of a fair and unbiased judgment being rendered for the applicant, as they who made the law now enforce and interpret that law. Where does it end?


If it was about the environment, the Town Board should be happy because the new project completely eliminates wetlands incursion. If it was about additional review, they should be happy because they got ZBA involvement, even though the code says they shouldn’t have. So, if they’re not happy it is because when it comes to the power to interfere, for some, too much is never enough. 


I do hope my language here is not deemed excessive or unhelpful, but I think we’re off the rails a bit here. I feel a train wreck coming on.


PAUL SHEPHERD


SHELTER ISLAND