Codger’s Column: Yes or No?
Codger was born in the Bronx, raised in Queens, and lived for many years in Manhattan where his children were born, and where he owned a home before decamping full time to Shelter Island.
Thus, while he sometimes still feels like a city version of a harelegger — a bridge-and-tunnel boy — he doesn’t believe that his son, a college professor in the city, is entitled by birth to buy a home there that he can’t afford.
Yet he feels resentful that only the rich seem able to buy homes in either Manhattan or Shelter Island these days, sometimes second or third homes at that. You can call it the breaks of the game, but it’s unfair and is leading to the erosion of community and democracy on both islands.
It also brings us to the hot question: How should you vote on Proposition 3?
On the one hand, a “No” vote makes sense if you believe, as Codger does, that in any way supporting affordable housing without a solid plan in place seems like a shaky bet, especially if you don’t trust local government with a fresh pile of unused money.
On the other hand, a “Yes” vote makes sense if you believe, as Codger does, that it’s imperative to show support for affordable housing and to stymie the reactionary Shelhampton invaders who want an island devoted to tourists and wealthy summer folks, many of whom would strip the Island of its soul, make it a playpen and probably try to close the school to save taxes.
The above may seem somewhat simplistic. But there’s more. A “No” vote is not a final rebuff to a splendid concept that offers the chance to enrich and diversify a community.
It merely stops for now the opportunity to collect a relatively small fee (most buyers will pay .5% of their purchase price over $400,000). That money would be set aside to buy land and to build and renovate affordable homes.
Meanwhile, a “Yes” vote would allow the town to begin accumulating money for a splendid concept whose time has come — sharing the resources of the Island with people who can contribute to it.
Get real, says Codger, affordable housing, done right, is less sentimental and do-gooder than transactional — most of the people thus subsidized will be younger and more able to provide the critical services necessary for the support of a treasured way of life here, including fire, ambulance, teaching and maintenance services.
Affordable housing is no giveaway, as would be, for example, granting the current proposal before the Board for permission to build a 12,000-square-foot, 11-bathroom monster manse along the Crescent Beach wetlands.
It would also allow the proposing LLC — who is that guy, does he own everything? — to sell off two or three adjacent sites for 6,000-square-foot mini-monster manses. (This is affordable housing for the rich.)
Much of the current housing debate centers around distrust of government, in this case either the incumbent Town Board or future politicians. This is hardly paranoid; it has American history on its side, including the example of Trump’s ongoing pre-presidential, presidential and post-presidential criminality.
Even so, says Codger’s former best pal on the Island, Jules Feiffer (the ancient cartoonist moved upstate a month ago, the traitor) warns not to become cynical about government. That’s just part of a dangerous trick to paralyze people into giving up political action.
Get up, says Jules, and make government work. At the least, vote. (Jules also said that Trump needed to be indicted to preserve the ideal of American democracy.)
Which led the two old men to discuss an easier vote. It’s an anybody-but-Lee-Zeldin world, and Gov. Kathy Hochul is good enough to stay in the job. Zeldin is an election denier who seems to think Jan. 6 was just another school trip to Washington, D.C. But there’s more.
Codger and Jules, both former enlisted men, took a measure of Zeldin as he’s been passing himself off as a combat zone Airborne trooper, when, in fact, he spent all of three months in Iraq as an Army lawyer. He’s a reserve Lt. Colonel now and still not trustworthy. The East Hampton Star did some fine investigative reporting on this.
Which brings us back to Proposition 3. It’s not a referendum on affordable housing, just a way of accumulating funds for it. Codger is voting “Yes,” which he understands is optimistic, even daring; his confidence in the current Town government is less than absolute, especially when it comes to the Board’s flabby history on unaffordable housing, those oversized ground busters that favor the few (and their lawyers) over the long-term needs of the community.
But Codger thinks we need to protect this island from invasive species and move forward.
