Dan’s Papers January 14, 2011 danspapers.com Page 14
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Hampton Town proposed something with the catchy name of “Operation Open Vista.” If adopted by the town, unused and overgrown land and other properties in the town would be cleaned up and pruned to create wonderful views of the ocean and bay and other knockout scenery for the public to enjoy. Stanzione referred to these views as “million dollar views.” Until now, only the rich could enjoy them. I have a number of comments to make about this. First of all, the general public enjoyed these wonderful views until about 1990. When people built homes before then, they’d build them sitting in open fields with these great views in all directions. But since 1990, with the price of real estate going through the roof, these views have been shut off one after another as the rich, hav-
ing spent a fortune for their little patch, have bordered their properties with impenetrable hedgerows effectively preventing anyone on the outside from looking in and themselves from looking out, except for where the wonderful view used to be enjoyed by all but now is to be enjoyed only by them. So, yes, there is a problem. And it is true, if you cut down where these former vistas have overgrown you will have many of these wonderful views back to be enjoyed by all. Environmentalist Larry Penny has endorsed this plan. On paper this has great promise. This is a community with many potential and actual wonderful views. Indeed, this is what is so attractive about eastern Long Island. But the devil could be in the details. If this is
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just about clearing debris and picking up trash and beer cans and then doing a little pruning it would indeed be very wonderful. But it’s just the stroke of a pen on an ordinance away from “clearing” sticker bushes filled with birds, butterflies, bugs and other tiny creatures that make up the natural environment. Do we really want to cut down and cart away the environment and sustenance that allows our fellow residents of this planet to co-exist with us? And then there is the possibility of a bigger leap. A great view? Bring in the bulldozers and clear everything away. There it is. Wow. The bulldozer part and the full clearing part is absolutely illegal. There have been many instances, including one by P. Diddy in Northwest Woods, where residents have cleared a view for themselves only to be fined and forced to pay for a re-planting of what was there before. In the most recent example of this, there is a case before the court where a man went on some vacant property he didn’t even own and cut down all the trees that were blocking his view of the bay. Turned out the property was owned by the Nature Conservancy. This is a no-brainer, but it’s a shame because even when you put things back it takes years for nature to bring it back to the level it had been with all its leafy ground cover, grasses and shrubs and so forth. Fortunately, nature has all the time in the world to get this done. We don’t. Larry Penny is indeed the man whose job it is to defend the environment. But this is a proposed new law. Penny will some day be gone. The law, if passed, won’t. The town should proceed very carefully to make sure the wording of this plan is what we all have in mind—a beautiful world with wonderful views, lots of nature and song birds, fish and fowl and nobody messing it all up. We live in nature. Let’s keep it that way even while making the best of it. (continued from page 12)
wasted shot and often gets you in more trouble than you were in before you hit it. It happens perhaps one shot in a 1,000. Incidentally, Kapoor denied that he had not yelled “Fore!” He claimed that he did. In any case, measuring reflexes against response to alarm time, the shot trajectory and the distance between the two, it was quite apparent that the shout of “Fore!” must have taken place after the hit in the head no matter what. Very likely Anand never heard it. The judges ruled in favor of Kapoor. He said that in a case where Anand might have been far down the fairway in front of him, and where there was plenty of time to yell “fore” and where a golfer might consider well in advance that any reasonable shot he might hit could have a powerful enough thrust to be beyond his usual range, he would have been liable for not having yelled “fore.” But in this case, where he did not hit it that far or that on course, no. The case is not only of interest to East Enders, many of whom are golfers, but also to the general public who have long listened to the complaints and whining of doctors about the costs of all the lawsuits that are piled upon them for medical issues when in fact they have done their best in the case. Here was another one.