Codger’s Column: A last hurrah

Albert Dickson’s last hurrah played out mildly last week just before noon on a bright, chilly Tuesday. The strongest word he uttered in his final statement was “egregious.” The Town Board listened stonily, heads down. There was only one spectator in the room at the time. His fan, Codger.

Late that afternoon, Codger asked Albert if he felt “let down” by the main result of the morning’s meeting, an end to a zoning dispute that has polarized the Island. He touched his white beard and repeated the words “let down,” as if rolling them in his mouth. Then he said, “I think I let other people down. Could I have pushed harder?”

“You so often pushed alone,” said Codger. “What’s harder than that?”

Albert, who is 73, is quitting the Town Board this month, at his doctor’s orders, he said, after three heart surgeries. Codger wonders if his often-solitary defenses of the environment on a Board that has often treated him with condescension added to the stress. The final battle ended last week when the Board, as expected, voted 3-2 to remove Lynne Colligan’s quarter-acre property on South Cartwright from its Near Shore and Peninsula Overlay District (NSPOD) designation, thus allowing an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) to be built.

As the case ground on for months, it acquired an undeserved symbolism, a Rorschach for being for or against affordable housing, for or against spot zoning, for or against property rights. For or against Lynne, a sympathetic figure, a popular local schoolteacher who claims to need the extra income from a rental property to remain on an ever more expensive island. Even Codger likes her.

But he found the issue both simpler and more complicated than presented and thought it revealed some of the worst tendencies of Shelter Island governance, which is to take the easy way now and let the future deal with the consequences. Codger understands that. Who wouldn’t want to avoid litigation, controversy and hard, time-consuming studies of housing, water, rising sea levels and the needs of an elderly population?

That would be Albert Dickson, the only Town Board member who ever voted “No” to one of those lawyered pleas to allow a house or pool larger than the code permitted. Such heroics did not endear him to the good old boys and girls network.

After last week’s vote, Albert asked to make a final statement, which the supervisor granted with what seemed like polite sufferance. Albert reminded the Board of Shelter Island’s environmental fragility and its predilection for easy, short-term outcomes. He sounded both weary and restrained. “We accommodate. We move along. We make it easy. I find this … egregious.”

The Board seemed relieved.

Codger split.

He took a long walk with a friend and mostly talked about other matters. He felt a little sad. Since 2018, when Albert first joined the Town Board, Codger had him on his short list of local politicians with a willingness to work hard and take what Albert calls a “deep dive” into issues rather than the “Siller Way,” which the former Supervisor Gerry Siller himself described approvingly as “quick.” Siller prided himself on getting things done, often non-transparently.

That seemed to be the case here, although reaching a resolution was hardly quick. Colligan’s small property was originally considered to be in the NSPOD. According to the code it was ineligible for an ADU because the land drained toward a creek or bay. Then, to simplify the decision-making process, it was decided that the entire island drained toward creek or bay. The whole matter was moot.

This all happened after much contentious talk but little in the way of a good, hard, fresh look at the NDSOP maps, the Town Code, a deeper dive into the purpose of ADUs in relation to the common good. A delay might inconvenience Lynne, true, but also avoid a resolution which now, ironically, creates a precedent that leaves the way open for lawsuits from those who can afford to challenge their own rejections of ADU permits.

Albert has suggested a Housing Authority which would analyze the various kinds of housing the Island needs, especially in relation to their impacts on water, the workforce, affordability and the particular requirements of an elderly population as vulnerable as the near shore. Bad water might turn out more dangerous even than the existing inadequate medical facilities, partially a housing issue.

“Everything’s connected,” said Albert, in the afternoon after his last hurrah. He sounded very tired. Codger said he’d be able to rest now. Albert said he was staying on the Board until the month’s end to contribute work on the budget. Then he said, “It’s egregious negligence.”

“You should have said that,” said Codger.

“Maybe that would have been too strong,” said Albert.