Long Island’s town of Southampton covers 295 square miles including a varied range of communities, some quite different from the village of Southampton that is familiar to seasonal visitors. One hamlet, called Riverside, is a pocket of relative distress, greatly Black and Latino-immigrant. It sits on the south side of the Peconic River, separating it from the more familiar Riverhead on the other side. Sometimes Hamptonites lump the two together, though Riverhead is not part of Southampton town. That distinction has come to the fore as Southampton moves to bring development to Riverside—the first major such effort since Suffolk County opened a sheriff’s station, courthouse and jail there decades ago. Riverside has what so many East End communities say they need—“affordable” housing—and the town wants more of it there so as to contain the daily traffic throng to the Hamptons from points west (part of which, ironically, funnels through Riverside). To do that it needs, among other investments, a big sewer plant. All well and good, but it turns out, as this latest useful report from the East End Beacon explains, this is not so welcome in Riverhead. There’s lots of news nowadays in these parts—the bridge between the affluent and preservationist South and North Forks of Long Island—and any transitions will merit further attention.
An Old, Internal WSJ Divide Has Gone National
My former Wall Street Journal colleague Paul Gigot (he’s now the commentary boss there) was aptly and well honored by the American Enterprise Institute earlier this month and delivered remarks (see below) about how many on the political right aren’t up to the challenge of defending the U.S., and world freedom. This mirrored personal exchanges the two of us had 30 years ago when we were both editorial columnists. Paul believes, as did our boss and mentor Robert Bartley, that America has a deep capacity for expending resources and will on a projection of military power in many key nodes around the globe to maintain said freedom. Then, and still, I have a more libertarian skepticism about that project. Now, however, there are varied conservative voices approaching such a view, and Paul is sounding the alarm about that. He argues persuasively for the maintenance of Pax Americana (my words); I’ll stipulate that despite periodic mischief and failure, the U.S. is reliably a better guarantor of a just order than other actors wanting to throw their weight around. The issue–now more than ever, with untold budget deficits and deep political rancor–is whether the U.S. is up to carrying that burden. Paul says yes, “We can make spending choices,” and to not push forward is to retreat to “the corner that Barack Obama and the left wanted to back us into.” It’s true that Obama and his heir Joe Biden have widened the welfare state. But the three cornerstone middle-class entitlements–Social Security, Medicare and the home-ownership tax breaks–are ever more in bipartisan embrace, and only growing in fiscal weight. No politician dares break that lock, for fear of being demagogued by the waiting ideological foe. Unlike cases such as New York City in the 1970s when pragmatists took hold to maintain vital functions in the face of insolvency, there is no workout by wisemen to be obtained by a federal intervention. My friend Paul engages in magic realism to suggest otherwise in the service of his worthy cause.
Was Hamptons Democrats’ Sweep a Clean One?
The sweep by Democrats in the Southampton town council election this month on New York’s Long Island might at first glance seem a victory for growth controls and land-use preservation. On the island’s East End, the party has been more identified with zoning and other planning tools for limiting development than its GOP rival.
But late developments in the race for Southampton supervisor have cast doubt on this. The clear winner was Maria Moore, the mayor of Westhampton Beach, a self-governed village within the overall town of Southampton. She defeated Cynthia McNamara, an incumbent on the town council who sought to move up to the supervisor post. (The supervisor sits as one of five council members but has considerably more sway over town affairs.)
The race was considered competitive and Moore’s 13-percentage point victory was a surprise. It followed a rush of campaign signs, ads and mailers for Moore in the closing days, introducing her in the many areas of the town where she had little previous presence and also barraging McNamara with attacks on her alleged links to unpopular Republicans elsewhere as well as to threats to natural resources. A particular thrust came from a putative group called Citizens for Clean Water. (An existing such outfit in New Hampshire with a similar logo disavowed any connection.)
It transpired after the election that this group, and some $140,000 in late money to the Moore campaign, appears to emanate from Robert Rubin, founder of Golf at the Bridge, a private country club in the Bridgehampton hamlet of the town. The Bridge is also a 20-lot luxury home development and the course is seeking approval from the town for “staff housing” on its scenic acreage as well. (Golf links on the East End increasingly are hard-pressed to find affordable digs for their labor.)
The plot thickens with suspicions of some disappointed McNamara backers that Moore was advanced by Democrats as a stand-in for their term-limited Supervisor Jay Schneiderman. Were this to be true, it could further cloud whether she was the “green” choice in this race, as Schneiderman has been criticized during his eight-year tenure for pro-growth stances. (The town council is considering a measure to loosen the term limits, which would allow Schneiderman to return to office.)
In large measure, Moore was backed by a familiar lineup of Democrat allies–labor unions, environmental lobbyists and bureaucracy-savvy developers, in this case the Long Island Builders Institute. Whether that will amount to cleaner water (a big East End concern) than McNamara’s election would have, is hard to say. McNamara in a pre-council capacity did lend her support to a major planned community (with golf course) set for her home hamlet of East Quogue, but Schneiderman is seen as backing the project also.
The full facts and acknowledgments from the campaign have yet to surface. What is clear is that the furtive way this election played out, with murky motivations and more than the usual ferocity of hit pieces, has left an unusual level of bitterness in a water-conscious town where grudges are only more unwelcome residue.
UPDATE Nov. 24, 2024: A year after the posting above, new and related recriminations surface in the ad below appearing in the latest issue of the Southampton Press. The implication is that Moore is doing Rubin a favor in trying to close a nearby sand and gravel operation. That business has long been in the sights of local officials and environmentalists–so Rubin’s golf-course housing development would not be alone in wanting it shuttered.
Long Island’s East Is Far from Red
Republican Ed Romaine’s victory in an unusually high-profile race for Suffolk County executive in New York has thus far obscured what was a stark triumph for Democrats on the eastern reaches of Long Island in yesterday’s election.
Democrats swept landslide wins in East Hampton town, seem to have scored a surprise trifecta in more competitive Southampton town and appear to have fought to a standoff in Southold town on the more GOP-leaning North Fork.
The gains made in Southampton, where the parties have traded power in recent decades, are most significant. A highly energized Democrat operation succeeded in retaining the key supervisor post by a solid margin for Maria Moore, mayor of Westhampton Beach, against town councilwoman Cynthia McNamara, previously a potent vote getter. Even more telling, the wave apparently brought in young legislative staffer Michael Iasilli to the town council, displacing Republican Richard Martel, a popular figure from the sizable hamlet of Hampton Bays. Iaselli leads Martel by 219 votes with only a small number of absentee ballots outstanding.
Another candidate on the Democrat line, Bill Pell, easily finished first in the Southampton council race, assuring the party of continued dominance of the town government. Pell, however, is a trustee of the town wetlands with a broader support base–it is Iaselli’s bid that is the bigger measure of Democrat strength, along with the new supervisor Moore.
Southampton was historically a GOP stronghold, although that began to change in the late 1990s and early 2000s as anti-development sentiment and a rising population of cosmopolitan newcomers affected the politics. The parties have traded off council dominance, with stronger personalities in each holding sway, while Republicans have kept hold of the trustee spots. That much appears to have remained true on Tuesday, with wins of 3 of 5 seats.
East Hampton’s transition was earlier and more abrupt. In a 1983 election, the council turned sharply to the Democrats after early battles over land use and preservation. It has remained so for nearly all of the 40 years since, even as the town’s trustee positions were more a partisan mix till recently. Nowadays, and clearly this week, Republicans are not even in the game there–they even lost a town justice post that had been their last redoubt.
The GOP’s problems in many affluent suburbs, outside the South especially, have grown obvious. The party’s resurgence lately in much of Long Island, fueled by antagonism toward criminal-justice and immigration policies of urban Democrats, has been one of the great contrarian stories. As the battleground becomes more local in the most gilded and environmentally-conscious precincts to the east, however, the issues are different and the outcomes more akin to those of today’s U.S. Northeast. –Nov 8, 2023
Colorado v. Airbnb: A New Front
Politicians are happy to find unpopular business sectors to hit with tax increases or other costly impositions. Cable-TV franchises would be one example–holders aren’t liked and they don’t have the lobbying heft that, say, despised insurance companies do. Lately, another soft target has been found: short-term housing rentals. The rise of this practice, identified with online services Airbnb and Vrbo but practiced by corporate landlords as well as homeowners, has buffeted the hospitality industry while also offering wider choices for travelers. But that means there’s a disparate group of beneficiaries (those offering square footage and those renting it, neither tightly organized) and at least two concentrated sources of opposition: competing hotel operators (plus their unions) and the neighbors of such rentals, who don’t like the churn of visitors. So the local political equation thus seems clear, and the result is open season on the “Airbnbs.” Various jurisdictions, including now the giant city of New York, have curbed such availability. In another twist, noted this week in the Colorado Sun, a governor is seeking to quadruple the property tax on owners who make a habit of renting out. However, in a state with many beds on offer to budget-conscious or chalet-seeking skiers, the move provoked more resistance than the political equation suggests. Watch this space, so to speak.
One Hamptonite’s Solar Is Another’s Battery Fire
Clean-energy advocates and their media mouthpieces continue to tout electrification goals that rely on significant battery-storage components. And advances in this field and related solar-energy continue to show promise. But in fact, the proposed battery compounds are highly controversial in many residential communities. Episodic fires at these sites raise alarms, and can entail significant repair costs even where no lives were in imminent danger, as per today’s account in Newsday of the fallout from a May incident in New York’s East Hampton town. Earlier this year, residents of Hampton Bays, a middle-class hamlet of the adjoining town of Southampton, rose in protest of a planned lithium-battery site that officials were nearly ready to greenlight. The town has subsequently backed off. In the Hamptons, as in many affluent areas, alternative-energy activists have been pushing for “Community Choice Aggregation” plans that allow ratepayers to opt out of the local utility’s service (often fossil-fuel based) in favor of what is usually a localized solar source. Such sustainability options can entail reliance on batteries, while it’s increasingly apparent that many neighbors will have a problem with just where they are stored. Chalk this up as another reason the attainment of “net zero” carbon-energy targets is far from cheap or easy.
https://www.newsday.com/long-island/environment/east-hampton-battery-storage-facility-fire-yskzij3q
Ambitious Riverhead Is Back to Square One
With significant development off the table on the twin forks of New York’s Long Island, because of water, sewer, road and political limitations, only the town of Riverhead, where the forks separate, offers an outlet for meaningful growth touching the area. Historically a railroad and agricultural hub, Riverhead fell behind as wealth and glamour reached the two forks in the last 50 years, serving mainly as a commercial highway corridor for big-box, outlet and strip-center retail that was precluded from the consumer-heavy forks. But in its western hamlet of Calverton, the town’s ambitions for loftier employment prospects were focused on Epcal, the latest proposal in a 25-year quest to fill a large, abandoned Navy-Grumman Corp. parcel. This “enterprise park,” to be developed by an arm of Canada’s Triple Five Group, held the promise of unspecified technology jobs but met fierce community resistance born of suspicions it would primarily be a warehouse depot with cargo planes using the former air base. (Truck-heavy warehouses are rising in much of inland Suffolk County, to supply rich customers amid choking traffic snarls, and airport proposals are a longstanding rub on or near the twin forks.) So, yesterday, as this culminating article in Newsday recounts, the five-year push for Epcal came a cropper, with Riverhead officials pulling the plug. If the town is going to find an identity-defining project that overcomes the affluent allergy to change and disruption that characterizes today’s eastern Long Island, it will have to conjure up another one.
Update: Two and a half years later, this project is still bouncing around the courts and planning circles. Most locals now can barely recall the heyday of the plant in the early 1980s when it employed a few thousand. Those paychecks financed homes in surrounding hamlets like Manorville, Ridge and Wading River. They have mostly missed the East End boom. –Mar. 9, 2026
Come 2024, the Kitchen Table Issues Reemerge
When wide attention refocuses on the economy, the political importance of GDP, inflation, income stress and grievous inequality will return to the fore. It won’t be any clearer which way all the data are cutting.
There’s no question that “Bidenomics” made many people better off, at least until price increases worked through the system. The lower quintiles of income-earners did particularly well by virtue of wage increases and pandemic subsidies. The monetary stimulus—lots of lending and low interest rates—also helped them, but led to a boom in financial assets that primarily enriched the better off.
Now the economy has returned to a more normal footing, with elevated if diminished levels of price inflation. Early indications are that the economically marginal, particularly those with high debt levels or low work-force participation, will be suffering most in this stretch. However, if a true recession results, the investor class could see a squeeze in its holdings that actually reduces inequality, as has happened in previous downturns. (Higher interest payments favor these savers but reduce the value of their bonds and often their real estate.)
The surprising thing politically is that, with virtually all the good short-term effects already having been felt by President Biden’s “ordinary Joes,” support for Bidenomics appears low. Consumer confidence measures are down and other polling suggests that the stumbling Republicans actually get higher marks on the economy. This will make the attempt to have a “soft landing” (and not a recession from tighter money) over the next year all the more necessary for the White House.
As the federal budget deficit begins to worry policymakers again (thanks to its burgeoning size and the higher interest payments on it), satisfying the various constituencies for subsidies or handouts becomes more difficult. Also the gathering expense of tighter limits on fossil-fuel use—on top of the alt-energy spending under the “Inflation Reduction Act”—means that the real cost of living will remain high. The U.S. is yet to experience a general productivity payoff from a gamut of technological innovations. Thus, even a soft economic landing will feel hard to many. Biden continues to unilaterally waive student debt payments but so far has only found ways to spare of minority of borrowers.
Meantime, international considerations weigh– not just the costs of munitions and other war-fighting assistance to U.S. proxies, but also the brittleness that accompanies the tighter monetary reins. Washington can expect to be importuned by many disadvantaged governments abroad to loosen the checks on inflation even as they seem to be partially working in America. The past week’s Wall Street Journal article takes notice of this.
Some of these macroeconomic issues were acute in the 2022 midterm elections, yet Biden’s fellow Democrats did well. Will the same luck—or more accurately, the same ability to tag Republican opponents as unacceptable–hold for 2024? Even with low unemployment, conditions will be tougher for many, and other rubs such as border security have grown worse in the public mind. If indeed it “is the economy, stupid” again in the election campaign now under way, the party in executive power may once more answer for that. –October 15, 2023
NY Breakup Plan: Shades of ‘Peconic’
In states dominated by one party, especially when that dominance emanates from a giant metropolitan area, you get periodic efforts to break up the state so as to allow the dissident regions to have their own way. Often this is about ideology, although it can also reflect urban vs. rural concerns. California sees this. And New York does, too, with a renewed such effort the topic of the article below at a political website. The NY scheme would separate all of Long Island into a governing region. With that part of the state recently evolving back into being a Republican stronghold, there’s a partisan cast here. But Long Islanders know that “home rule” historically has had other implications. On the eastern half, in Suffolk County, various pushes for secession of the farthest reaches into a “Peconic County” occurred for decades prior to the Millennium. Initially these were prompted by a Suffolk governing structure that favored the western towns, though all were still heavily agricultural. After that was reformed, fear of a development wave sweeping east into the picturesque two forks (including “the Hamptons”) led to new activity into the 1980s and ’90s. The bid for Peconic County finally was quelled by the state allowing enactment of a real estate transfer tax, beginning in 1999, in the Peconic areas to fund open-space preservation. The Suffolk strife may have ended, but the desire to keep governments closer is always an active one.
‘Moonbeam’ as an American Master
My adult life coincided with Jerry Brown’s political career, so I was interested in the PBS American Masters documentary that aired last night. Some reactions: 1) A politician is an unusual inclusion in Masters, as opposed to the American Experience show. I wonder what explains this.* 2) This documentary, at 90 minutes, has less drag than the customary 120 minutes, at Experience. 3) For that or other reasons, two significant omissions occur. First, in describing Brown’s decline in popularity during his “first second term” as California governor (1979-1983) the filmmakers do not mention the reaction to “Jerry’s judges” and their leftward bent on criminal and other cases. This was symbolized by Rose Bird, whom he appointed state chief justice. She and two associates justices ultimately were removed from the bench in an extraordinary election in 1986, part of a popular revolt that gripped California during that decade. Second, in stressing his maverick (or “Moonbeam”) tendencies, the film overlooks his alliance with public-employee unions, particularly during his latter terms as governor (2011-19) and including, most notably, the prison guards. This concession to a key element in the recent one-party Democrat dominance in the state is a notable part of the Jerry Brown saga. (I noted that a labor group helped fund the production.) “TV” documentaries lack a real-time feedback function, which would have been useful here. –Sept. 16, 2023
* Subsequently, I read in the LA Times that Masters is devoting this season to “thought leaders.”
Tim W. Ferguson 