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Southampton Rejects Dunehampton Petitions

By Mitchell Freedman, Staff Writer

2003 September 15, 8:34 PM EDT

Southampton Supervisor Patrick Heaney ruled Monday that petitions calling for
the creation of a new oceanfront village in his town -- Dunehampton -- are
invalid.

In a highly anticipated decision, Heaney ruled that the petitions were deficient
because the proposed village did not contain the minimum 500 residents required
by state law.

The petitions calling for the creation of the new village were filed in no particular
order, neither by name nor street address.

When the town cross-indexed the names, Heaney said, they found 193 people
were listed as residents of just 11 houses. Heaney noted that one Sagaponack
resident found herself listed as a resident of the proposed village although she
told the person carrying petitions that she lived and voted in Princeton, N.J., and
would not change her residence.

The new proposed village's supporters, Heaney noted, did admit that six people
listed as residents in their petition were dead and should not have been counted.

The supervisor's ruling, which Southampton officials expect to be challenged in
court, means that no vote will be set on the creation of what might have been
one of the richest villages in the nation.

Heaney said he expects to be sued by supporters of the village, just as he
expected its opponents would have sued him if he had decided the other way.

And while this set petitions appears dead, Heaney noted there is no reason to
believe the idea of forming the village will end. "It's an open-ended process," he
said. "They [village advocates] can always correct the defects and resubmit."

Joseph Prokop, the attorney for the petitioners, has 30 days to appeal Heaney's
decision in court. "We continue to believe the petitions were sufficient," he said,
adding that no decision has been made on whether to appeal or file new
petitions. "We intend to do either one or both."

The mere idea of Dunehampton, a thin sliver of mostly oceanfront property that
would run from Water Mill to the East Hampton town line, had been criticized by
one town councilman as "Richampton" and attacked as an entity that was being
created only so the people who lived there would not have to follow the laws of
Southampton Town.

But its supporters argued they had as much right to control their own destiny as
do the residents of any other village in Southampton, and feared that town
coastal protection regulations would prevent them from rebuilding their homes if
they were damaged in a hurricane.

The question of residence is not a simple one because there is no definition of
residence in the part of the state law that applies to the creation of villages.

And because many of the houses in the proposed village are used as summer
homes, some property owners argued they could use any of their homes as a
residence for voting purposes.

But no one can vote twice in the same election, and Heaney said the Suffolk
Board of Elections showed only 212 registered voters in the area of the proposed
village. He reduced that number to 194, removing people who were registered as
voters but no longer lived in the proposed village.

Heaney said each couple would need 3.2 children to reach the population target
of 500 people. But voter registration rolls show 126 voters who are 55 or older,
and unlikely to have many school-age children living with them.

The supervisor said it would take an average of more than seven 8.74 children in
each remaining house to get to the population target.

There are 260 houses in the proposed Dunehampton area, but 183 of the 243 tax
bills for them -- some people own two or more houses and get just one bill -- go
to out-of-town addresses.

Dunehampton was strongly supported by a number of local residents, but just as
bitterly opposed by others -- some of whom feared they would no longer be able
to park on the new village's streets and would be kept from the ocean beaches.

And, they added, Dunehampton would have split communities that date back to
the 1640s. "They were attacking history," said Alfred Kelman, who opposes the
new village.

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