Shelter Island Reporter Letters to the Editor: Dec. 4, 2025

THANK YOU

To the Editor:

The numbers are in for the Shelter Island Fall 5K and together we raised over $60,000 for our friends and neighbors of the East End. 

Thank you to the Times Review for being such an instrumental part of this special event; our long term partnership has directly impacted patients in a meaningful way. 

Wishing you peace and joy throughout the holiday season! 

SHELTER ISLAND FALL 5K BOARD MEMBERS, Shelter Island

THE BUDGET AND OUR FUTURE

To the Editor:

There is a connection between our budgets and our island’s future. The election highlighted the unbalanced Town budget and soaring taxes. Thank you to the Board members trying to address this mushrooming problem. 

The budgets have been draining rainy-day funds and raising fees, while deferring expenses future generations will pay. Businesses will not save our bottom line because they pay less than 5% of the property taxes; homeowners foot the bill and their willingness to continue to do so is eroding as fast as taxes rise.

The problem comes from costs that grow faster than inflation, especially in big spending categories, and from deferring expenses that land on the balance sheet like a credit card balance that never goes away. Paying for our escalating obligations is crowding out Town and school services. Runaway spending and tax increases make housing affordability worse. Liabilities consume a large part of the school budget; that means less money for teachers and students. 

The library costs almost $500 per year per resident, much of which goes to debt service, not new books or reading programs. Liabilities lock in future tax increases and if unchecked lead to insolvency.

Weak financial management and strained Town budgets reinforce patronage and lead to other risks too. They make dubious fundraising ideas like creating new taxing bureaucracies, partnering with developers, or hooking up with a water utility more tempting. They make it harder to protect our local economy and environment from those who would buy up our businesses, poach our shared resources, squeeze us for special zoning changes, or extract more than their fair share of our aquifer.

We need to get serious about fiscal discipline, and much, much tougher at protecting our local economy and environment.

KATHLEEN DEROSE, Shelter Island

DROUGHT VOCABULARY

To the Editor:

With vague drought terms like “moderate” and “abnormally dry,” it’s no wonder residents remain confused about the state of water levels on Shelter Island, ie., I would have not expected that “abnormally dry” is a better condition than “moderate.” 

In a follow-up, could you share the full range of official drought terminology with definitions?

Thank you for all the great reporting!

TODD KRIZELMAN, Shelter Island

PRESERVE, CULTIVATE, SHARE

To the Editor:

A project of the magnitude of Sylvester Manor Educational Farm coalesces and progresses only through the efforts of a very broad coalition — myriad partnerships and innumerable individuals, dreaming and working together. 

I had the great good fortune to participate in much of what has transpired at Sylvester Manor since the property passed to Andrew Fiske’s nephew Eben Fiske Ostby in 2007, and I am so thankful to have been honored in person and print as I retire. The work, though, was always achieved as part of powerful teams: colleagues at my side; expert consultants; partner agencies and entities; mentors who had my back at the toughest moments. 

All of us were, and remain, inspired by the spectacular gift from Eben, when he and his nephew Bennett Konesni decided Sylvester Manor’s future would be a communal one.

The project is deeply rooted now, at the heart of Shelter Island, and I will thrill to watch as the dedicated farmers and staff, trustees, volunteers, skilled tradespeople, consulting professionals, legions of donors, and all the users of this spectacular farm and historic site continue to nurture and steward Sylvester Manor, to preserve, cultivate and share its uniquely intact landscape. 

Its profound history is still being written. How fortunate I was to play a part in its unfolding story. 

SARA GORDON, Shelter Island