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Mayor of West Hampton Dunes Has His Say By Dan Rattiner
Two weeks ago, Lanny Lambert, a year-round resident of West Hampton Dunes, announced his candidacy for mayor of that village. We thought it important because it was the first time since the village was founded 15 years ago that there has been a challenge to the current mayor, Gary Vegliante, who also founded the village. This village consists of a peninsula of about 600 residents living in 240 houses, mostly summer homes, on a two-mile stretch of the Dune Road peninsula between Westhampton Beach and Moriches Inlet.
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Gary Vegliante
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In our article, we interviewed Lambert, a retired advertising executive, and asked him about many of the charges he leveled against the mayor. In this article, we present Vegliante's responses to those charges. The election is June 17.
Q. Mr. Lambert claims that due to improper training, the constabulary is not qualified to issue tickets.
A. The police are fully qualified and always have been. Our police, among other things, used to be qualified for radar, which you have to renew every year. In the past two years, we decided not to apply for renewal. We have one straight road, two miles long. We opted to increase our police presence on the road.
Q. The number of tickets issued in 2007 was 1/10 of the number from the prior year.
A. Our increased police presence has resulted in a reduction of the need to give out tickets.
Q. The DEC recently issued violations to 17 homeowners, whose buildings, decks or other objects encroached on protected beach dunes.
A. Some of these were as ridiculous as swing sets. In any case, all but two have been rectified, and we are reviewing the other two.
Q. Mr. Lambert says the village needs to have better relations with its neighbors.
A. We are currently in a legal dispute with the Town of Southampton about our borders. We created our borders from a 1993 map. They want to use a 1972 map. We will have to work it out.
Q. In spite of repeated requests, the village does not have an emergency generator for the police force.
A. We had one, a used one given to us by the Army Corps of Engineers. But we found it to be expensive to maintain. So now, we contract with a company that will bring us a generator during an emergency, if necessary. As for the police, communications are not affected when the power goes out. Their equipment runs on batteries.
Q. There is no village office in the village. Mr. Lambert says he would put it in the police building. He says the books for the village are not available to the residents.
A. We have a village hall at 4 Arthur Street in Westhampton Beach with a sign out front on the road that leads to our peninsula. We are surely vulnerable to storms here. We felt that having village hall, with all records available in a building on higher ground that everybody passes, would be more secure. All our books are available there. All Mr. Lambert has to do is stop in. We also post the minutes of our meetings on our website.
Q. You are paid a full-time salary to be a mayor of a village where other villages of this size have part-time mayors. Your wife is the treasurer.
A. This is my full-time job, and it is my only job. I am here in the village five days a week, and often on weekends. I work 40 hours a week and more. I make $73,000. My wife is paid $12,000 a year to do the books. Some other villages have full time village administrators. We don't.
Q. You have not built a walking path by the bay as promised.
A. We sent it out to bid and the cost was too high. We are sending it out again. Also, it takes forever to get permits, and we are still working on some final approvals.
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