Response to The Suffolk Times
December 2, 2007 by joanna · Leave a Comment
To the Editor,
I should like to address your editorial piece “Doesn’t look good.” SoutholdVOICE’s guidelines concerning government officials, stipulates that an elected official may join our organization, but may not serve on the board, as any officer. Mr. Bergen, who is a member because he has chosen to support our goals, holds no such position in SoutholdVOICE. He is, however, a valuable, contributing member whose counsel is welcome.
In as much as we are not a political action group, but an open and transparent organization of like-minded people, whose purpose is to educate the public as to the activities of regulators which affect property rights and to foster dialogue between the folks living within the jurisdiction of the Trustees and those doing the regulating, we welcome the contribution of Mr. Bergen, who spoke to our group meeting in July on the issue of dredging. He has been a frequent author on our website, as we have invited all the Trustees to participate on our website. Both they and we, see this as an effective way to communicate to their constituency, and to date, all but Peggy Dickerson have done so. This furthers the stated purpose of SoutholdVOICE: to involve our members in the conversations about their property. You will see by reading the articles on the website that it is an open forum where the members voice their own opinions and ideas.
John Kramer
Chairman of the Board,
SoutholdVOICE.com
To the Suffolk Times editorial staff:
Your editorial on Dave Bergen couldn’t be further from the truth. Dave is one of those rare individuals who takes his job seriously and is willing to go beyond the bounds of “business as usual”. Dave’s relationship with the Voice is one of guidance, moderation and education where he serves as a conduit for information. Dave helps laymen like myself (and countless shoreline owners) navigate the complex issues of the permitting process and what options a homeowner has when nature wrecks havoc with the shoreline and creeks. When the April storm hit us and obliterated our bluff, Dave (on his own initiative) was there the next day and brought the DEC inspectors with him. I can’t begin to say what that meant to the families who were on the receiving end of that horrible storm.
To accuse Dave of acting in some kind of self-serving manner is indicative of not knowing the man and what he has accomplished. It’s tantamount to saying town board members (focusing largely on farmland preservation) can’t be farmers or belong to local farming organizations. It’s absurd. Dave simply looks for ways to get the job done within the horribly conflicted framework that exists, including contacting our state senators and assemblymen to break through the logjams in the Byzantine bureaucracy of the NYS and Army Corps permit process. If the author of the editorial even took the time to look at Dave’s postings on the Voice website, it would be obvious that he is a man of unquestionable character who is simply doing his job.
So here we have a truly civic minded Trustee who goes the extra mile in the service of the “public trust” and whose efforts has helped save several creeks from ecological collapse and you feel it is news worthy to discredit him.
For shame.
Tom Gleason
New Suffolk
Obviously the editorial suggesting that Dave quit his position on the Trustees because of a “conflict of interest” reveals a shallowness of understanding by the writer who should follow their own advice and stop writing poorly researched “conflict of interest” editorials.