Shelter Island Reporter Letters to the Editor: March 21, 2025
ASKING FOR COMMUNITY INPUT
To the Editor:
The Shelter Island Health and Wellness Committee has recently become an official Town committee for the purpose of addressing the physical and emotional needs of our community. But to truly understand those needs, we are seeking input from the community. What issues and concerns regarding health and wellness are most important and are not being met?
To learn from you, we will be forming focus groups from various Island constituencies. For example, we will be contacting the Island’s first responders, the business community, the school, and the religious and service organizations that operate within the Island.
Later, we will invite people who are not a part of these groups to also address their concerns. We hope to begin the process soon and it may take several months, but to get it right, we know it will take some time.
In taking on this endeavor, we are fortunate to be guided by Islander John Morse, a sociologist and expert in market research.
It is our hope to deliver information and access to services that will better address the general well-being of Islanders of all ages. This is a tall task and obviously we will need to prioritize. But we are committed to learn what people are looking for before we make these decisions in a vacuum.
We hope you will participate in these groups, if asked. They will be interesting, informative, and of course confidential.
JIM COLLIGAN, LUCILLE BUERGERS, LAURIE FANELLI, TRISH GALLAGHER, NANCY GREEN, GINA KRAUS, CALLIE SMITH, BONNIE STOCKWELL, Health & Wellness Committee
A SPECIAL ISLANDER
To the Editor:
I was just wondering if everyone realizes how lucky we are to have Becky Smith and her flower shop on this tiny island.
Imagine, Becky sustains her energetic and enthusiastic style after all these years of taking care of us crazy horticultural types with our sundry individual and all too particular needs. It’s remarkable, really.
Let’s consider the issue of the Garden Club arrangement competitions, for example, with all the mishagas that goes with it. Maybe it was last year when, in a typical flower show frenzy, I unwittingly called Becky at 7 a.m.
“What are you doing?” I asked breathlessly and without even identifying myself. I was on a Casablanca lily mission, and I thought she must surely be at the shop if I was in need.
“Feeding the chickens,” she replied blithely. “What’s up, Annie,” she continued, laughing, with no sign of agitation or rancor considering I was disturbing her and her chickens at home and in the wee hours. What a peach!
My hat is off to Becky Smith who always goes that extra mile and who is so consistently dedicated to making our lives just that much more aesthetically pleasing.
ANNIE BOYLAN, Shelter Island
FILL IN THE BLANKS
To the Editor:
By now, even the dullest students should be beginning to see the true, if still only potential, danger that this current Trump administration poses to our system … the same one they used to get power.
The way things are being done, and to whom, suggests strongly to me that there is no Plan B for the MAGA people. They are burning their ships on the shoreline. There is no going back.
You simply can’t slash and burn the way they are and have any notion of returning power in two years’ time to the people you slashed and burned, right? Let’s be serious.
So, I guess they are either very confident in the people’s satisfaction, or have made plans to neutralize the consequences of the absence thereof. You fill in the blanks. I already have.
PAUL SHEPHERD, Former Councilman, Town of Shelter Island
LET’S DO SOMETHING
To the Editor:
Just say it, roll it around in your brain and spit it out: “We are living under a dictatorship.”
It’s no longer news from abroad, it’s right here. The boys in the White House are dancing on the souls and bodies of thousands, soon to be millions. Wielding chain saws and giving orders to dismantle any semblance of democracy in order to pave the way for the tanks to rumble down our streets.
What do we know, and how do we know it? Who are in black holes, military prisons, planes headed for other dictatorships and what about those drones up and down the east coast and west coast and military bases? Come on everybody, let’s do something to stop this horror.
Vote for the people who will stand against the horrors of dictatorship and support them, no matter what, and support open and truth-seeking organizations, publications, magazines. Even if you are fearful, stand up and be counted for the rights of mankind, and godspeed in your efforts.
JEAN HOLLINS LAWLESS, Shelter Island
