Town Board: Town may help fund South Ferry Hills dredging

It’s all about a $2,600 bill, not all that much, but who should pay it? It’s the principle, not the number, that has driven an ongoing debate before the Town Board this month.

Should Shelter Island taxpayers pay for dredging the inlet at South Ferry Hills? That question has put Town Board members and members of the South Ferry Hills Association at odds.

In recent weeks, as the summer boating season nears, the issue has come to a head, with the president of the association, James Cummings, making an impassioned and sometimes angry presentation to the Town Board at a work session earlier this month. He was joined by Thom Milton, an attorney and association member.

A week ago, Supervisor Jim Dougherty calmly and politely suggested that the association sue the town to get a ruling in court to resolve the conflict.

That seemed to be the way things were headed until Tuesday’s Town Board work session, when suddenly, after a long discussion, it appeared the two sides had reached a compromise after months of wrangling: the town would use about $1,100 from its waterways fund to help pay for a $2,600 maintenance dredging project to be conducted by a private contractor.

Its goal would be to make the badly shoaled inlet navigable. The rest of the money would come from a Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) grant to the town for damage inflicted by the December 26, 2010 nor’easter. The members of the South Ferry Hills Association would pay nothing.

Town Councilman Peter Reich made the offer after a long presentation Tuesday by Mr. Milton. Mr. Reich put the deal on the table with the condition that the association would agree never to ask the town for help again until it and the town resolve who’s responsible for a nearby deteriorating bulkhead.

The association claims, on the basis of old records dating back to the 1950s and 1960s, it should be the town’s problem to fix. According to Mr. Cummings, Hap Bowditch Sr. put in the bulkhead at the order of Town Supervisor Evans Griffing.

The town denies it has any responsibility for the bulkhead. Board members have argued that dredging is pointless until the bulkhead is fixed because the aging structure allows soil and sand to seep into the channel.

Councilman Ed Brown criticized the association Tuesday for putting the Town Board in a corner, he said, by waiting so late in the year to raise the issue. But he appeared ready to go along with Mr. Reich’s suggestion. The other board members didn’t object and it appeared that a vote on the issue would be put on the agenda of this Friday’s formal Town Board meeting.

Last week, Town Board members seemed to be sticking to a stop-gap arrangement made two years ago, the last time the inlet was dredged: the town would help if an anonymous donation — arranged by South Ferry Hills residents — were made to cover the balance.

“If you make us do it that way” again this time, Mr. Milton told the Town Board Tuesday, “we will. But we feel we shouldn’t be put in that position.” He said members of the association would attend Friday’s Town Board meeting to protest if the board did not make a formal decision then that allows the dredging to take place before June 1, after which state tidal wetlands rules prohibit dredging.

“If it’s not done by the end of May,” Mr. Milton said, “or by June 1, it won’t get done” this year and residents won’t be able to get their boats in and out of the basin.

He argued that the inlet was like a town road. When one of its roads deteriorates, the town fixes it, he said. The situation, he argued, was the same with town-owned waterways and bay bottoms.

But some people say the basin seems more private than public, even though it contains a town-owned boat ramp.

Mr. Brown and Councilman Glenn Waddington said three other private homeowners groups have paid for their own dredging recently at three other creeks on the Island. “We will have three other associations down on our butts because we paid for you and not them,” said Councilman Brown.

Mr. Waddington told Mr. Milton Tuesday, “If we use town assets to enhance a private asset, everyone should benefit from it.”

Dan Fokine, a candidate for Town Board, told Mr. Milton that “people have been asked to leave” the boat basin and that his father had been told by a resident of South Ferry Hills that the boat ramp there was off-limits to the public.

“This goes back a couple of years,” said Mr. Brown. “This isn’t the first time we’ve been asked this question and we’ve told them don’t wait until the last minute” next time. Yet Mr. Cummings, he said, canceled a meeting scheduled for February and the issue was not raised again until this spring.

That’s when Mr. Reich said the town could “do it provisionally,” on the condition that it would “not do it again until the issue of the bulkhead is resolved.”

Board members appeared to agree that the money could come from the town’s waterways fund, as suggested by Mr. Milton. It contains over $300,000 collected from mooring permit fees. Mr. Milton argued that the money is supposed to be used to maintain town waterways.

Mr. Brown warned that the fund could be exhausted if the town were hit by a major storm that damaged public bulkheads and boat ramps.