Shelter Island Reporter editorials: April 14, 2023
A tale told …
It can seem like Shelter Island Town government and public meetings stumble along from one “crisis” to another, with the quality of the rhetoric getting lower and the emotions rising higher.
The years-long debate — street fight? — about affordable housing, which resulted in a narrow victory for the Town Board and those seeking to be able to live on the Island without being millionaires, seems to have been concluded by a razor-thin referendum victory for an affordable housing plan. The silence after the final vote was welcome, when the players, who had strutted and fretted their hour upon the stage, moved on.
But some have returned to make cases in the latest municipal opera on how to ensure clean water for Shelter Island. The town is making its case through its outside consultants and Town Engineer Joe Finora, while Sylvester Manor has a consultant making a case that the town’s plan to have a septic system near the Manor would be a disaster.
In addition, some residents who led the charge against Shelter Island having affordable housing are in the middle of this latest production as well. But there’s good news to report — hold your breath — the noise is at a lower volume than in past battles. And yet, there’s still a wide breach between the two sides, with both saying they have science in their corners.
One creepy holdover from the last drama over housing is the accusation, spoken outright or using veiled references, that the other side is hustling you or picking your pockets like rubes at the fair for their own nefarious purposes.
If — a big if — all parties involved truly want clean drinking water for Shelter Island, they will put their heads together and agree on the best solution. If not, it’s all sound and fury, and we know what that signifies.
Hope
Here’s to the Shelter Island Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary for once again keeping a beloved spring event alive and thriving. It wasn’t just the high blue skies over St. Gabriel’s Meadow and yellow patches of dandelions in the green grass. That was mere backdrop for the annual Easter Egg Hunt, with families and Islanders of all ages basking in the pure joy of kids running free on an April day, celebrating Easter, Passover, family and their hometown.
A small, winged harbinger of spring has arrived, too. The piping plovers have been spotted with their melodious penny whistle voices and mad dashes across beaches, foraging for food, or skimming low across the water in shifting formations.
Emily Dickinson is right: “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul …”
