Reading the signs of how government works

The law is the law. (This is a well-known adage, right?) Laws are, ideally, considered, debated and crafted specifically to improve life and order in a given area by those elected to do the job; in most New York municipalities it’s by a board. A Town Board, which is elected to rule, is often guided by other advisory committees, with members who are educated and practiced in varying fields of expertise.

This leads to the current request before the North East Town Board to change its existing zoning law, specifically its sign ordinance, by the business GRJH, Inc., owner of the Sunoco gasoline station on Route 44 East. The change is currently needed as the gas station’s existing sign is illegal, although it’s been there for a number of years. This is in spite of the fact the sign was never approved by the North East Planning Board or the zoning enforcement officer, even when the site plan was initially approved nearly four years ago.

However, instead of abiding by the law, as citizens must do, GRJH is taking a different approach — its strategy is to change the law — so it will be able to legally keep the sign.

Certainly the idea makes sense: Why not change the rules when they don’t bend your way in the first place? That way Sunoco won’t have to forsake its bright LED, internally lit sign, when all of its neighbors have been forbidden to have such signage along the Boulevard District these many years.

Good idea, right? Not so fast. The town’s law reads that LED, internally lit signs are not in keeping with good design along the Boulevard District. They are cited as being unattractive, too flashy, too bright and possibly an unsafe distraction for drivers. These reasons, and others, are based on fact and research, and they should not be tipped on their side for one lawless applicant.

Further evidence supporting this stance can be found in the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals’ (ZBA) denial for a variance request, as well as its denial for an agreement that the sign complies with the law. Additionally, a number of residents have sent letters to both the Town Board and this newspaper complaining about light pollution, strip-mall stigma, driving distractions and loss of rural character due to the allowance of such signs now and in the future. Clearly, the community has spoken loudly against a change in the law.

That public voice gives credence to the hard work put in by the Zoning Review Committee (ZRC), which spent many long hours poring over and contemplating zoning and sign laws. The Town Board appointed those ZRC members and then acted with that committee’s guidance at hand. The board was then armed with the knowledge it had a sign ordinance designed to benefit the entire town, not just individual businesses out for their own profit.

This is a prime example of exactly why the town has a Zoning Review Committee, and why the Town Board leans upon such advisory committees for guidance when deciding on specific issues. The Town Board can’t be expert in all things; the ZRC, in this case, was the appointed expert on the issue of zoning. It created a set of zoning laws to help the town of North East thrive; those laws received the A-OK from the Town Board when adopted. Case closed.

The law should not be changed at the whim of one business unwilling to follow it. Every other business has had to follow the town’s zoning laws and sign ordinances, why not Sunoco? The Town Board should hold firm and reject GRJH’s request to amend its zoning law. To amend would be unfair and unfounded. It would, simply, be a bad sign of how government works in the town of North East.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less