Shelter Island Reporter Letters To the Editor: Feb. 20, 2025
DEMS ANNOUNCE CANDIDATES
To the Editor:
The Shelter Island Democratic Committee (SIDC) is excited to announce our candidates for the upcoming election on November 4, 2025:
• Town Supervisor: Arnott (Gordon) Gooding
• Town Board: Elizabeth Hanley
• Town Board: Gregory Toner
• Highway Superintendent: Michael Reiter
• Town Clerk: Shelby Mundy
Our candidate selection process was thorough and democratic. We invited community members interested in serving to interview with the Committee, ensuring open discussions that reflected diverse perspectives. While differing opinions arose, we remained focused on the principles of democracy — listening, debating, and voting to select the best candidates for our community.
We sincerely thank everyone who participated in the interviews and engaged with the Committee. Your involvement is vital to strengthening our vibrant Shelter Island community.
In the coming weeks, SIDC members will reach out to registered Shelter Island Democratic voters to gather signatures for our candidates’ petitions, an important step in the election process. We appreciate your support in this effort.
We encourage all residents to connect with our candidates, ask questions, and share their priorities for the future of our island. Open and respectful dialogue is essential for good governance, and our candidates are eager to earn your trust and support.
We look forward to engaging with the community, sharing our vision for Shelter Island, and listening to your concerns. Please join us at our upcoming open meeting in March at All Seasons Catering, more details to follow. We look forward to seeing you at upcoming forums, meetings, and events as we work together for a better Shelter Island..
CATHERINE BRIGHAM, Chairperson, SI Democratic Committee
WRONG BOAT FOR THE JOB
To the Editor:
I have over 30 years experience placing moorings and aids to navigation similar to what the Town workers do setting up the swim areas and buoys in the harbors.
The work boat proposed by the Highway Department, while a sound boat, is the wrong design for the mission. The boat needed should have a flat bottom instead of the Vee bottom in the current plans. The activity of setting up the swim areas will not be done in rough weather, so the advantage should be placed in having a boat that can lift over the bow and be lower to the water.
The current design has a davit lifting over the side through a door. The helm placement currently is midships, which for a work boat cuts off continuous space. The helm should be moved to the rail or aft.
The Town workers should have the proper equipment to perform the essential tasks asked of them. The current design is too much like an auxiliary police-dive boat and less work-mooring boat.
Let’s get it right before we spend huge money on something that doesn’t improve the work flow.
BERT WAIFE, Shelter Island
HIGHER TAXES FOR EVERYONE
To the Editor:
John Cronin pointed out last week (Prose and Comments, Feb. 13) that “… market value assessment goes to the heart of the Town government’s main revenue engine: property taxation.”
And that is the problem. Since our last market-value assessment in 2021, through the 2025 budget, Town spending excluding the school has increased from $13.1 million to $17.4 million, a 33% increase in four years. The Town runs a multi-million dollar budget deficit, and to plug the gap, drains reserves and collects “revenues” like Recycling Center fees that residents also pay. Double-digit spending increases even after these offsets translate directly into higher property taxes for everyone, particularly if the Town raises the tax rate at the same time, which it did during the last four years.
These increases are more than inflation.
Now, we also face a big catch-up reassessment, the first since 2021, of the property values on which taxes for the Town budget will be charged. Since the equalization rate is now 68%, returning to 100% means a 47% increase in assessed value, (100-68)/68. That means a house assessed at $1 million in 2021 will be assessed at $1.47 million in 2025. To keep your property tax bill flat, the Town would have to reduce the tax rate by that same 47%. But they won’t do this, because of the ongoing spending increases. In sum, your property taxes are going up again this year.
Added to increasing insurance and mortgage rates, rising property taxes make housing here even more unaffordable, especially for those with lower or fixed incomes. The Town Board should hold the public hearings required by New York State when catch-up reassessments with big tax increases occur. Residents have a right to know how the new assessment will be determined fairly, and where all the Town spending is going.
KATHLEEN DeROSE, Shelter Island
GREATER SCRUTINY NEEDED
To the Editor:
Putting aside its unwarranted swipe at those who dared question the push to expand Suffolk County Water Authority and create a wastewater treatment facility for the Center, John Cronin’s recent column is a welcome attempt to explain the ongoing tax reassessment. Unfortunately, it contains so much detail that it’s easy to lose the forest for the trees.
Here’s a simpler explanation of how each taxpayer’s tax bill will change and how everyone can look out for their own interests.
Two factors will affect everyone’s tax bill.
First, the value of everyone’s property is being reassessed to market value. To determine whether a reassessed value is fair, both the methodology used and every Island property’s reassessed value should be disclosed to everyone as soon as possible. That way, everyone will have ample time to analyze their property’s reassessed value and object, including through the procedures noted in John’s column, if they think it’s unfair. Keep an eye out for presentations at an upcoming Town Board work session by our assessor and a representative of New York State.
Second, everyone’s tax bill is going to be affected by next year’s budget. The budget and everyone’s taxes keep going up year after year. In the past, the budget process does not begin until fall. Last year, it resulted in an increase of approximately 8%.
It’s time for a change. To try to avoid a similar or even greater increase, the budget process should begin much earlier this year and the supervisor’s initial proposed budget should be subjected to greater scrutiny by both the Town Board and the public.
STEPHEN JACOBS, Shelter Island
PROTECTING US
To the Editor:
My mother was in high school here in the Hurricane of ‘38. She said when the wind started howling kids were let out of school, only to be blown against the fence. Teachers rushed out to pull them back into the auditorium, where they stayed, and parents called. The worst thing, she said, was “there was no warning.”
Our eastern Long Island towns, including Shelter Island, had no warning, so no businesses, homes or schools could prepare.
The ‘38 Hurricane seemed to come out of nowhere, destroying whole fishing fleets. Property damage was immense, including farms and livestock. Over 500 people died.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was formed in 1970, bringing together the National Weather Service and the Commission of Fisheries under one roof.
Last week NOAA employees were told that staff will be cut by 50% and the budget cut another 30%. The reason? Looking for waste, fraud and abuse. If that’s the true goal, why not bring in auditors? Why fire all the Inspectors General, confirmed by the Senate for their expertise, who conduct investigations to root out abuse and report back to the public? It’s publicly reported that last year IGs rooted out $1 billion in savings for taxpayers.
Crippling NOAA and our weather service will have devastating consequences for Long Island as we face warming oceans, erratic weather and flooding. Our Congress voted to fully fund NOAA to do its job protecting us.
Recklessly dismantling NOAA is illegal and unconstitutional. There is a process for dismantling an agency. I’m writing to Congressman LaLota to ask him to protect us by keeping NOAA fully funded and staffed with experts.
MARY FOSTER MORGAN, Orient
