“A piece of unexpected good fortune, typically one that involves receiving a large amount of money.”

Some of us have spent a considerable amount of time on Long Island. On the East End, the beaches, fresh air and closeness to nature has been revivifying and cleansing. Since the 1960’s I’ve enjoyed the quiet and solitude. Especially in the winter months. I bought my first small cottage in 1970 and got to work making it habitable. While I was just a visitor, not a tourist, I was accompanied by thousands of others from Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan. They weren’t tourists.. In fact, they weren’t visitors either. Mostly white, single, in their thirties and forties, they moved to the Hamptons searching for a better life — or, at least an easier life — that paid better. They became business owners, civil servants, fledgling politicians, and craftsmen. Families followed, except for the New York City police whose move to the East End was part of the plan to satisfy residency requirements by buying a house in Hampton Bays — the cheaper Hampton — and rented a room in the City.

The plan worked. Families in the mostly white Villages and Town, especially Southampton, got great free schools, fathers became Civil Service and some became politicians. They worked together to close the door to further migrations to the Hamptons and expanded the economic base so that New Yorkers paid all of the freight — including theirs. The restrictions, fees, property taxes — all worked well to advance the cause. Even though the New York people arrived, mainly singles in the eighties and nineties, Russians in the 90’s and early 2000’s, then the Wall Street crowd just before the Great Recession and Wall Street/Banking Fraud of 2009. Of course, only borrowers paid for that criminality. But, the D.A. took advantage of the banks fucking us all and prosecuted anyone he could find. He’s in prison now.

None of this stopped the Great Rip-off of New Yorkers. Both Liberals and Conservatives enjoyed the 75 percent white neighborhoods with free schools and non-Diversity. Until the need for workers drove the immigrant population through the roof. Spanish people started to need housing and Patrick Heaney, a transplant politician from Queens became Southampton Town Supervisor and proceeded to institute a new Rental Permit law which went into effect on January 1, 2008. Everyone was now paying attention to Southampton politics. Immigration, non-existent crime, affordable housing, the Great Recession, the Russians — while a few things were in progress.

Some of the politicians, at least those who hadn’t been prosecuted for corruption, were retiring. And, they were collecting two pensions. They had inside deals with each other. Moving from one job to another, one Civil Service position to another — they doubled their money. while the police were pulling down over a hundred thousand with a high school diploma.

The money was rolling in because the real estate market was obscenely lucrative. People like Tim Davis at Alan Schneider’s old firm — where the Russians paid cash (no FinCen folks) and Wall Streeters made their first showing appointments — became celebrities. Ads were placed in the only pretend news source, that bastion of literary brilliance, the Southampton Press. The newspaper that printed a picture of “Skip” Heaney displaying a huge, six foot wide check for a Senior’s Center — in Hampton Bays — was from The Community Preservation Fund.

Let’s back up. First, every house sold in the Hamptons must pay a Transfer Tax that supplies money for The Preservation Fund. Not only do New Yorkers buying houses in the Hamptons pay property taxes, support the local economy (including schools that they cannot use and elections that they cannot vote in), but tens of thousands of dollars are paid at every closing that become earmarked for this Fund. What is the Community Preservation Fund for? It is the brainchild of a Sag Harbor Assemblyman named Fred Thiele and its purpose is to buy land and development rights to preserve open space. If they like you. Then, there’s the fact that they “lost” 16 million dollars awhile back. Talk about inspiring confidence!

So, Heaney was showing off a check in Hampton Bays because he was using CPF money, paid by New Yorkers buying a house — which supports the double pensions INCLUDING pensions for guys in prison like former D.A. Spota as well as other Hamptons felons. — where the largest voting block was located.

The Community Preservation Fund now has $2 BILLION dollars and is collecting more at the rate of $200 million dollars a year. For development rights? For open land to preserve? Or is it simply a huge burgeoning slush fund that we are all about to find out about? Or not!

Why not distribute half of this. A Billion dollars. To the people who paid more than they obviously needed to pay — to the home buyers from New York who have been supporting the Hamptons economy for the last twenty years. And, who now have Code Enforcement up their asses for renting to undesirables and are subject to fines and arrest for renting their houses to keep their heads above water. Courtesy of Heaney, Civil Servants and politicians who have financially benefited from this largesse.

Return the money to the people who’ve paid for the double pensions, the corruption like imprisoned D.A. Thomas Spota who gets his pension while in prison and keeps his $17 million in assets –for running a criminal enterprise out of his office and stacking the Suffolk court system with his buddies.

Hey, one Billion dollars is left in the bank. It should be enough to buy most of all the land still left. Start sending checks out to buyers who paid that Transfer Tax.

What they have now is a true Windfall!

Give back a billion to the people who paid into the CPF over the last 20 years. With interest!

Stay Tuned.