Your letters

 Coming home

To the Editor:

Friday mid-day I boarded the North Ferry headed home on foot from the eye doctor. The cabin was filled to the brim with Shelter Island children going home from the roller rink.

I squeezed in with the 30 or so children, all pink and feathers and blinking lights and back packs and purple hair and braids and faces that shone with joy and mischief.

I looked down into a face with a hat falling over her eyes and I pulled it  down over her nose. She looked up from underneath and I pulled my hat down. I was accepted!

I was in awe with this gaggle of kids who never stopped talking and giggling and poking and squeezing and falling into each other for the entire ride. When we docked and lines were formed toleave the ferry, I joined the line.

I am filled with the beauty in this life, the jostling of bodies in a common purpose of getting off the boat in a safe  manner and staying close to those you love. May their joy be not in vain,

May they grow in a country that cares about their education, their health, their safety.

May we all contact our better angels and do what’s right and just for us all.

JEAN H. LAWLESS

Shelter Island

Protections for all

To the Editor:

I commend the Shelter Island Town Board for its six-point policy affirming our Police Department’s “fair and impartial enforcement of the law.” That principle must include protecting voters from intimidation by ICE or any federal agency at our polling places. The goal is simple: Every voter must be able to cast a ballot free from fear.

Shelter Island is well served by Chief Jim Read and the outstanding Shelter Island Police Department.

They — and they alone — should be the only law enforcement presence at our polling locations.

I urge the Town  Board to adopt a formal resolution prohibiting any federal enforcement agency from operating within three miles of any Shelter Island polling place on Election Day.

This issue goes beyond local control. The Constitution guarantees due process to “any person”

on U.S. soil. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments protect all people, not just citizens — from being deprived of liberty without due process of law. That protection applies equally to citizens, immigrants, visa holders, asylum seekers, and visitors.

If any armed authority attempts to detain or remove a person without proper legal process, local law enforcement should defend those constitutional rights. Detention without due process is not policy — it is unlawful.

As I wrote in November 2025,I still ask why more Republican politicians cannot clearly state whether they oppose unjust Trump policies including those that undermine due process. Allowing detention without due process violates the Constitution and the rule of law. Trump wants to send troops or ICE, or some other “enforcement” — read that as “intimidation” — agency to polling places.

Shelter Island should strengthen its policy by affirming that intimidation has no place here, especially on Election Day, and that constitutional protections apply to everyone.

JAMES F. DAWSON

Shelter Island

My input

To the Editor:

I read in the Reporter that the Town Board is considering new  tax breaks for certain categories of taxpayers. When do the actual taxpayers get to have input on such proposals, or are we left to understand that five people know better than us what we want?

Here is my input even if you do not want to hear at least one taxpayer’s input.

First, I remind you that you have been raising our taxes in excess of any 2% suggested cap every year

recently.

Second, I remind you that you have been drawing down on the reserve fund so that it is almost negligible and will not be available in the future to lower our excessive

tax rate.

Third, regarding the proposed new tax breaks: I agree with lowering the tax rate for seniors below a certain realistic income. I also agree with tax breaks for those freely giving service through the Fire Departments and EMS, but again this should only be available to those who need it whose incomes are below a certain defined income.

 However, I am against additional tax money going to those having ADU’s on their property. They already have gotten Town and/or County subsidies to build these ADU’s; they will garner serious income from these ADU’s through rent; they already decided that these ADU’s were worth building before any consideration of additional tax breaks; and this will really allow the rich to get richer at taxpayer expense.

I believe it’s time that the Town Board realize that you were elected to represent all of us, not just special interests. If you do not realize that, you are in for a great surprise in the next election when we find a fiscally conservative Town Board that actually represents their constituents.

BOB FREDERICKS

Shelter Island

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