High Noon

The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.
--Frank Zappa

While you're saving your face, you're losing your ass.
--Lyndon Johnson


Now that there are only a few days left before the showdown at O.K. Corral, the voters in the Southampton Town election on November 6th are having to weigh their options.

With four major candidates vying for Supervisor in this race, it requires a calculator and a thinking cap to weigh the options and evaluate the risks. Those of you from New York who have switched your residence to vote legally in the Southampton Town election, those residents who follow this blog and read the SoHo Journal, and even those who disagree but want to know what the loyal opposition thinks - read on.

Everyone else can hide in the corner and read the Southampton Press and Suffolk Life for their "news."

Independent and reliable calculations have the numbers on the election running like this:

Henry 32%, Kabot 29%, Heaney 15% and Gregor 12% with the rest undecided.



This goes a long way in explaining why the following unpleasant information has just begun to surface - and why it has not been reported in the local media. With the Southampton Press begrudgingly supporting Kabot (they actually support Heaney but have to show a good face to the Republican rank-and-file because she did, after all, win the Primary.) - Suffolk Life supporting Heaney (unsurprisingly, since Wilmot's kid runs the Heaney campaign) - with Gregor not getting any reliable media support (which bodes VERY well for him in the next election) - and Henry only getting support from news stories and other sources that tell an unpleasant story about Southampton politics under the current Republican control.

The wild card in this election is not Heaney any more, it's Gregor. He has been promised the Independent Party Chair by Frank McKay in Suffolk and his block of votes matters. His comment on all of this is that he is in it to win it. While many believe that his Nader-like position takes votes away from Henry, there is also just as cogent an argument that he steals the Hampton Bays vote, where he comes from, away from the Heaney territory and actually steals from Kabot. While Heaney can't be ruled out with a quarter million dollar campaign war chest, he is unlikely to buy his way out of the bad taste in people's mouths.

The most recent developments are Mike Anthony's (Democratic Committee) $25 million dollar lawsuit served on Kabot two days ago for her negative statements in the Press, causing her to pull a YouTube video considered defamatory and obviously actionable.

Of course, the Press dutifully reported Kabot's remarks and came just before the election. It resembled the million-dollar check ploy on the front cover of the Press when Heaney was seeking to buy the Hampton Bays votes.

But, the real issues for the Southampton voters are not this small town verbal ping-pong. What really is at stake is the level of potential criminality and corruption that has become part of the status quo. That's the Heaney status quo. And, only the voters can decide with the bathwater should go with the baby in this case.

Here you have a Republican Party with ties to a possible bid-rigging scandal involving Sandpebble, the largest construction company in Southampton Town - which has landed a string of building contracts including the Sag Harbor jail, the Southampton Animal shelter, the Westhampton Community Center, the Westhampton Library, the Southampton Village DPW, the Quogue Community Center, the Southampton Tax Assessor's Annex, and the Hampton Bays Community Center.

Sandpebble not only exhausted it campaign contributions in 2005 and 2007, but it has been reported that the owner, Victor Diaz-Conseco, required his workers to contribute to the Republican Party, who were compensated for their $500 contribution efforts. The question is whether this company is just another adjunct funding source to William Masterson's (Highway Department head) -- to award building contracts and paving jobs in return for huge contributions to the Republican Party.

Rumors of bid rigging by subs on some of the biggest construction jobs in Southampton have also surfaced.

Not the least interesting in the local hysteria over illegal immigrants has been the rumor that Marcus Stinchi, the Republican Party Chairman and owner of a local landscaping company has been a supplier of undocumented workers to Sandpebble on some of these building projects - that clearly have the smell of campaign contribution kickbacks.

Heaney knows, but does Kabot not know what Stinchi appears to either not know or does not want to know - where the money has been coming from?

This is an interesting question when we ponder the fact that we have a 51-acre cement plant and waste dump, Westhampton Mining Aggregates, Inc., located in the middle of a "core preservation area" in the Central Pine Barrens. The Town has known about this since 2003 and the leading law firm in Southampton Town represents this company -- and, surprise, surprise, are the biggest contributors to the Town Republican Party.

Has Heaney or Stinchi, or any of the Republicans discussed this issue.

And, has the Southampton Press asked about these issues and any of its debates, which were sponsored by them?

Does the fact that campaign contributions have also been coming in the back door from Feher, Sr. and Jr., Haney, and the Montecalvos, -- indicted donors who have been associated with bid rigging in Brookhaven. Have these donations had any significance for all of the Republicans now running for office - and have they rejected the party's seamy past?

This particular flow of cash is coming from Crookhaven - from whence Mr. Nuzzi, now on the Town Board, has escaped.

Recent articles dealing with the Heaney/Kabot war have focused upon the warrant-raid by the Code Enforcement officers and the Town Attorney's office under the tutelage of, what female politicians have called, "The Neanderthal" (referring to Garret Swenson).

This group of corrupt Heaney worker-bees with guns and badges even hit Kabot's aunt for not having C.O's on a property, which is a preexisting-nonconforming property.

Whatever the significance of suddenly acting on the legal status of zoning on an older property that is common in the Hamptons - it does point out how Heaney works in collusion with the police department and specifically with both the Town Attorney and Code Enforcement to effectively become the Gestapo arm of local government.

Under the circumstances of this Police State infrastructure, the question is -- do any of us want more of the same system that is in place - and whether allowing any of the Republican structure that has been in power for at least 10 years, to continue to rape the residents?

A Police Commissioner that is independent, a neutral Public Advocate that can review resident and non-resident concerns, and a clean sweep of the existing Town government structure may be the only reliable solution.

With campaign contributions coming from corrupt, indicted individuals, a tax reassessment that will now accelerate the flooding of real estate on the market (Summer rental listings are up 100% over last year and foreclosures have doubled) - coupled with the phony illegal immigrant stunts that merely play to local fears with a new rental law - all point to an economy that Heaney and his Republicans have pushed towards recession. Why? Just to get re-elected and keep the cash coming into Heaney and his Republican cohort's pockets. It's that simple.

Even Kabot has found that the local infrastructure is corrupt and responsive to a fascist state mentality.

Jim Henry seems to be the only rational choice for those who want change and who want the corruption bled out of the local government that has its hands in everyone's pockets. From residents with rental units to retirees with an investment property, to minorities and immigrants who need affordable housing - the heavy hand of the existing governmental structure with its corrupt structure of payoffs and campaign contributions needs to be cut off.

In the midst of this campaign mudslinging, as Heaney forces the slide of real estate into the abyss -- raising taxes and instituting a Draconian rental law ensures a new flood of properties will hit the market in the face of criminal charges and huge fines -- augmented by his huge property tax increase. All of this as the stock market is poised to go into freefall.

Boosted by the subprime mess instigated by Wall Street greed and misinformation by mortgage brokers about the products being offered -- the word on the street is that Merrill, Lynch is not simply $10 Billion upside down but that it is more like $50 Billion. Likewise, Citicorp claims that it has written off $3 Billion and hedgefund gurus are saying that it is more likely $75 Billion. Memories of JP Morgan and his bankers who gathered together to forestall a panic by rushing to the floor of the exchange in 1929 to "Buy, Buy, Buy" come to mind. Incidentally, the ploy did not work and the Depression lasted until WWII.

So, the Heaney push to force illegal immigrant workers into the streets by threatening property owners, real estate brokers, retired folks with a rental unit and single moms with an investment house -- like Kabot's aunt --- is just screwing the economy to get re-elected.

The Hamptons is no longer a small town that simply caters to a few rich individuals - it is a rich resort area that has the same microeconomic relevance to large cities with police forces, social service agencies and government accountability. As we head into more difficult economic times, partially due to the incompetence and self-serving financial corruption, it behooves all of us to sweep the office clean, not sweep the debris under the rug.