God Angry: If East Hampton Won’t Do It, God Will Take It On Himself
A powerful winter storm smashed up Georgica Beach in East Hampton last weekend, with dunes being torn out, sand washed away and rocks exposed. This is the same beach where Molly Zweig, an oceanfront West End Road home owner just to the west of the road end, installed metal poles on the beach in front of her home last September with the intention of fencing it off.
Never mind that nobody in 20 miles in either direction has ever built hard structures on the beach. It’s against the law to block beach strollers or sunbathers from using a part of a public beach. The beach is for the people.
The current storm at the beach last week is considered by many people to be the wrath of God, inasmuch as the Village of East Hampton has yet to come up with an effective plan to take down Zweig’s fencing, which, as it turns out, is still standing after four months of breaking the law. [expand]
God has told these many people that he is tired of waiting for the Village to act. The law is clear. You can’t build on the beach. What are they waiting for? Apparently the village attorneys are waiting for some kind of legal clearance from higher ups that would show that the laws involving regulations on the beach override the considerations of a homeowner who lives in a house where, because of erosion, part of the waterfront property line is now on a public beach. Practically all beachfront property lines everywhere in the Hamptons are on the public beach.
Why are these metal poles still out there at Georgica? God thundered. He then ordered this storm to come in and take them out. But whoever executed this order screwed up. The crashing sea came in and took out the beach more to the EAST of the road end, not to the WEST of the road end.
This complicates things. Prior to this storm, the Village, concerned about the damaged road end from the storm in September, had approached the Town about how to pay for repairs there, which approached the County which approached the State which approached the Feds. About $50,000 was rounded up, about 87% from our bloated, bureaucratic infested Obama-run federal government, and work was scheduled to begin next week, but now THIS.
Work in the busy legal offices of the Village Attorneys has now shifted. Earlier, it appears that they were worried that Zwieg would sue if bulldozers go down to the beach inside her property line to tear out her fence. Now they are worrying about how to sue God for his malfeasance, more specifically and to the point how a process server can serve God a summons.
Somebody’s got to pay for the damage, old and new, to the road end. If they leave the summons on a rock in a field, is that good enough?
God meanwhile, having suspended the errant building contractor angel who caused the storm on the wrong side of the road end of Georgica Beach for 30 days without pay, is now planning a second storm. This time they will get it right.
Dan’s Papers, meanwhile, stands alert to new developments and as they occur will immediately pass them on to you the readers.
AS WE GO TO PRESS: Last Friday God got it right. The fence, at least the east and south sides of it, have now been entirely washed away. Now there is almost nothing left to fight over.