Shelter Island Reporter Letters to the Editor: Sept. 11, 2026
SPECIAL THANKS
To the Editor:
The members of American Legion Mitchell Post #281 would like to thank everyone who supported our BBQ Cook-Off and helped make it such a tremendous success.
This year’s event was especially meaningful as the cook-off was renamed the Skip Tuttle Memorial Cook-Off in honor of the late USMC veteran and American Legion member Skip Tuttle. Skip’s contributions to our community will live on for generations, and his memory will not be forgotten.
This event would not have been possible without the support of the Legion Auxiliary, Fire Department, our many volunteers, and, most of all, each of our contestants who came out and put their skills to the test.
A special thank you goes to Rock Beverage for donating beer for the Legion and Booster Club members, and to Liberty Landscaping for their generous donation of landscaping work around our memorial. We truly appreciate the support of these local businesses and organizations.
We look forward to seeing everyone again next year as Team Total Disaster returns to defend their title.
Visit www.mitchellpost281.com for photos and results from this year’s event.
Members of American Legion Mitchell Post #281
REQUIRE EXPLICIT APPROVAL
To the Editor:
Shelter Island’s approval of police body-worn and in-vehicle cameras should stop there. That resolution should not become a back door for adding Flock automated license-plate readers or more intrusive surveillance technology, without separate public notice, debate, and a Town Board vote.
Flock cameras, already used in Greenport and Sag Harbor, are fundamentally different from body and in-vehicle cameras. They automatically collect license plates, vehicle images, make, model, color, distinguishing features, time, and location, creating searchable records of where vehicles travel. Automatic License Plate Recognition data can also be shared with other law-enforcement agencies, raising serious questions about retention, access, and nationwide sharing.
There is an even greater reason for caution. Leonardo’s SignalTrace, a separate technology that can be added with license-plate readers, shows how quickly surveillance can expand beyond photographs. SignalTrace detects publicly broadcast wireless signals and creates an “electronic fingerprint” from devices traveling together.
Its own product sheet lists mobile phones, Wi-Fi sources, Bluetooth devices, smartwatches and fitness trackers, wireless headphones, vehicle hotspots and infotainment systems, tire-pressure sensors, RFID and asset tags, key cards and even pet microchips in the fingerprint.
SignalTrace can correlate those device signatures with license plates, track movements, identify groups of devices traveling together and store the data for later searches. It does not read the content of communications, according to Leonardo, but the tracking capability itself is extraordinary.
Residents should never discover after deployment that a camera system has quietly gained capabilities they were never told about. Shelter Islanders should require explicit approval for every surveillance technology, with full public disclosure of exactly what it collects, how long data is kept and who can access or share it.
JAMES F. DAWSON, Shelter Island
BACK TO BASICS
To the Editor:
I would like to thank Julie Lane for her article “More Islanders protested ‘sticker shock’ taxes this year” posted online Sept. 8.
It explained many nuances to why taxes are increasing but one point was not exactly clear. To put it plainly, the reason taxes went up is not because assessments went up, it’s because Town spending increased and the Town didn’t reduce the tax rate to offset the assessed value increase.
If spending is not kept under control and the tax rate is not reduced, this trend will continue. It is as simple as that. This is why taxes increased for everyone.
PAM DEMAREST, Shelter Island
