Sagaponack Passes The White Spear To Louchheim

By Dan Rattiner

I went to see the movie 10,000 BC the other night. The hero is declared the leader of a small tribe up in the snowy hills of what looks like Afghanistan by killing a mastodon and staring down a saber-toothed tiger. As a result, the old chieftain hands him the sacred white spear. Everybody cheers. After that, the new chieftain makes friends with the leaders of some nearby tribes and gets them to join him in a revolt against a large and very bad tribe that lives nearby.

It wasn't a particularly good movie by any standard, but it did get me to thinking about the new government in Sagaponack.

Sagaponack was incorporated as a Village as the result of a popular vote in 2005, and soon thereafter a second vote determined the Mayor. It was done in a democratic process that the people could be proud of. One candidate, a New York lawyer who recently moved here, campaigned on a platform that included creating a Village Zoning Board. The other candidate, a local who runs a plant nursery, campaigned on a platform that included no zoning boards and no town hall and just as little expense possible to run the new Village. He won. The New York lawyer lost.

Now however, the white spear is being passed. Bill Tillotson's term ends this month, and as he said when he was elected, he would only serve one term. One would suppose there would be an interesting philosophical battle to see in what direction this tiny village would head next.

Well, the voting was this past Tuesday, which is the deadline day for Dan's Papers, and though the polls closed at 9 p.m., it was not necessary for us to stay up late to see who won. We could have told you ahead of time. Indeed, I am writing this ahead of time. And the winner of the election for Mayor is Don Louchheim. And the reason I know this is because he was the only candidate running. The two new trustees are Lee Foster and Lisa Duryea-Thayer, and I know that because they are the only ones running. Sagaponack is now being run as a tribe. And so, the white spear is passed.

Of course the very thing that Mayor Bill Tillotson ran against, the idea of a Village Hall, is going to happen too. They're going to need it to house the new Sagaponack Zoning Board, and all the other boards, such as the Sagaponack Village Architectural and Historical Review Board, which also got founded during the bureaucratic flurry of these past two years.

"We are just busting out at the seams," said one Village official.

During these past two years, as the people desired, Sagaponack conducted its business in one half of a small two-room bungalow on the southwest corner of Montauk Highway and Sagg Main. One half of the place is a real estate office. The other half is a 15 by 20 foot room.

Well-to-do Sagaponackonians had to vote in that tiny, tiny room last Tuesday. Imagine that. Voting in just one room in a village of about 600 residents from noon to 9 p.m. last Tuesday. A village this important and rich (Sagaponack had the highest per capita income of any in the nation in 2006) shouldn't have to vote in such dreadful circumstances.

I'm sure many of the Sagaponack tribal members, driving down Daniel's Lane and passing Ira Rennert's 110,000-square-foot oceanfront house, licked their chops at the thought of condemning that property and turning it into Village Hall. It certainly is grand enough. In its Italian Renaissance style, with its 29 bedrooms, galleries, swimming pools, theatres and guard houses, it surely would be just perfect for what is to come in Sagaponack when they graduate from tribal chieftain to royal monarchy. Rennert might even have dungeons down in the basement.

Also on the ballot that night was a proposal to change the day on which elections are held. This comes under the heading of huge and very dumb local tribal chieftain mistakes, in my opinion. Lee Foster is a farmer. Lisa Duryea-Thayer works at East Hampton High School and is the wife of the owner of Thayer's Bridgehampton Hardware Store. Don Louchheim is the former publisher of a local weekly newspaper.

In the proposal, Election Day would be changed from Tuesday, March 18 to the third Friday in June so the summer people will have an opportunity to more easily join in the voting.

Let's see. There are probably 200 local families living in Sagaponack who all vote. There are probably 400 New York City families living in Sagaponack who find it inconvenient to come out here to vote on a weekday in March.

Now, the locals are all about history, preservation, the environment, farming and fishing. And so as they are in charge - that is what the Sagaponack Village is all about. The New Yorkers are all about Wall Street, development, business, skyscrapers, shopping centers and leveraged buyouts.

Who better to hand the white spear to in two years than those smart New Yorkers?

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