Institutional Racism

A functioning police state needs no police.
-- William S. Burroughs

There is some speculation about the meaning of a recent report that Town Supervisor Linda Kabot and Board member Nancy Graboski will take over the control of Code Enforcement in the Town of Southampton. A meeting is scheduled on that issue on Tuesday. Of course, almost anything is possible in the land of a real estate driven economy where cash literally used to fall from the spec house cedar shakes. Now that the grim reality of reduced transfer fees for the Preservation Fund, slimmer taxes flowing from an impoverished class of landlords and property owners, and a budget that predicts disaster for currently overstuffed Town bureaucrats – something needs to change. Six figure salaries for any police officers are absurd in this economy, unless they have a gun to your head, literally.

This potential change in how “City Hall” is operated may reflect the growing awareness that the racists who have operated this badly trained Police force (Code Enforcement) have done nothing to improve the Town. The sub Rosa instructions to this paramilitary group which has been used to target political enemies and conduct a terror campaign against immigrants and the landlords who dare to rent to them, is the real point of their mission. The major drivers of this band of incompetents have been Cheryl Kraft, Steve Frano, Donald Kauth and David Betts (Town Investigator). Together, with their flunkies, they have pressured judges to sign search warrants to check for smoke detectors and gotten Town Attorneys like Joe Lombardo to deprive landlords of their property – instead of conducting a sane policy of educating property owners. Housing safety was never their concern. Most of these characters, incidentally, have been named in Federal lawsuits for unconstitutional behavior.
It has always been true that if housing safety in the Hamptons was the point, ALL homeowners would be invited to take part in a Town-wide campaign of education – and, not in the Stalinist sense of the word.

Perhaps, the raid against Kabot’s aunt during Heaney’s primary challenge was a key ingredient in a coming shift? Heaney ran on a platform of destroying immigrants and those who harbored them in their homes and schools. And, now he works for Levy, someone accused of a deeply racist agenda. Every politician from D.A. Spota to Representative Bishop participates in this little charade in varying degrees.
Perhaps, the numerous Federal lawsuits that are costing the Town huge legal fees for the unconstitutional behavior of a few local malcontents whose racist agenda are embarrassing – has some bearing upon this?
And, perhaps, with the complicity of the Town Attorney’s office in prosecuting landlords -- exemplifying a pattern of Institutional Racism under a new Justice Department -- may not seem so wise after all. The new Federal view of these antics may not play well in Washington.

Time will tell.