HUGH O'BRIEN
217 Atlantic Walk, Saltaire

May 3, 2004

Dear friends,

I am writing in connection with the May 28th Village election, in which I am a candidate for Trustee. In the coming weeks, I will be seeing or speaking with you about the issues of concern to us in Saltaire. For the present, I wanted to give you a general statement as to why I have chosen to run, to layout my qualifications - and to issue a challenge to you as voters.

Most of you probably know me by now. I have lived in Saltaire since 1959. In my teens and early twenties I worked summers in the camp program, as bay lifeguard, and as Yacht Club steward. My father served as Trustee and Mayor, so I grew up with Saltaire politics and issues as a daily presence in my home. These experiences helped make our village's well-being a lifelong priority for me.

For three decades I have been fortunate to be involved in almost every walk of community life. I've been Saltaire's columnist at the Fire Island News since 1974. In the 80's I was Vice Chairman and Treasurer of Concerned Communities of Fire Island, Inc., which worked successfully to see the Lighthouse restored without being turned into the amusement park originally envisioned by mainland interests. Later in the decade, I served a three-year term on the executive committee of the SCAA. I was a member of the Board of Governors of the Yacht Club for sixteen years, including two terms as Commodore (1990-92). I have been an active member of the Saltaire Volunteer Fire Company since 1991 and am a qualified interior/exterior firefighter as well as a Suffolk County certified ambulance driver. For the past three years I have been Chairman of the SCAA and, through that position, I am also a member of the executive committee of the Fire Island Association, giving Saltaire a voice in this crucial body. Through my work in all these fields, I have gotten to know in depth both the people and the problems confronting our village and our island.

Most importantly, I served on the Board of Trustees for fourteen years (1987-2001). During that period, I was responsible at one time or another, for Security and, later, Fire Safety, before being assigned Trustee for Maintenance, the position I held the longest.

I believe my years on the Board were constructive and successful. I professionalized and expanded the Security Department, requiring proper training for the first time. I first raised the issue of an adequate firehouse with the Board and, drawing on my learning as a firefighter, helped broaden fire safety measures. I pushed through the rehabilitation of our neglected housing stock, relocated the doctor's office to better quarters, regularized maintenance on the village walks and docks, and worked for the upgrading of our incinerator and water facilities.

I strongly supported the expansion of our recreation programs. I renegotiated our ferry and parking contracts, achieving among other things, a doubling of our Friday ferry service and expanded boat service at other times, an increase in the number of discount ticket books we could purchase, and keeping parking rates steady for years while shifting parking lot maintenance costs to Fire Island Terminal, Inc., thereby saving our tax dollars while getting higher fees from both Ferries and Parking. I also renegotiated and expanded several times our cartage concession agreements, again holding down costs, improving services and increasing the fee paid to the Village.

I was the first trustee to work to revamp our fiscal year, so that our annual budgets no longer split the summer between two years. I was the first trustee to actually introduce legislation to address and rework our outdoor cooking laws. I helped lead ongoing efforts to limit traffic by writing and getting passed tougher vehicle laws designed to meet changing situations. Both Mayor Carr and Mayor Berger gave me the responsibility of revising and updating large sections of the Village Code. Half or more of the current Code reflects my work. In these, and in many other areas, I tried to be, and believe I was, a conscientious, hands-on trustee. And I had the good fortune to serve on Boards whose members were generally models of selflessness, hard work, and dedication to just one goal - doing what was best for the Village and its people, period.

I am running this year because it is plain that the spirit that has infused our Boards for over eight decades - that of unselfish commitment to the interests of the entire community, of making the welfare of others our first and only priority, and of honesty and adherence to the highest principles and ideals of public service - is under assault from people and interests whose primary objective is the satisfaction of their own agendas, not laboring for the public good. Important matters are delayed or neglected as personal or political interests too often color or push aside the resolution of urgent problems. The competence of the Board and its ability to tend to critical matters have suffered. There have been too many bad, poorly thought-out or postponed decisions, due to honest errors, misinformation or, sometimes, hidden motives. And the tenor of civic life in Saltaire - something our community used to take deserved pride in - has become pockmarked with name-calling, personal attacks, and worse. No good can come of such a situation. If the standards under which Saltaire once thrived continue to be eroded from the top, so too will the quality of other Village life.

I want to help reverse this tide. I want to restore to the Village's government those standards of excellence, openness, honesty and dedication to a great purpose - the health, safety and happiness of every person in our community. We have in Scott Rosenblum a man of great and abiding ability and integrity, in common honor with each of his predecessors. He deserves - and you deserve - a Board whose members share his ideal of what Saltaire can be. I want to bring my years of experience to bear in working with Scott and like-minded trustees in reasserting the basic truth that the purpose of service on the Board is to aid in the preservation of all that is best about Saltaire, while leading the community forward to a brighter future for everyone. Public service means just that - serving the public. It is not a license to use one's office for the benefit of its occupant. Not, at least, in Saltaire.

And so I pose to each of you this challenge: Over the next three weeks, you will be receiving candidate letters like this, and e-mails and phone calls from people telling you how to vote. Too often in recent years, too few of you paid attention to what was really going on in the Village, and carelessly voted the way you were urged to in some glib phone call or one-sided e-mail You have not been well served.

So this year, I ask you to take the time to study the issues. Find out for yourselves the real state of affairs in the Village. Talk to friends whom you know and trust. Above all, consider the candidates - what they say and what they have done ­and think carefully and critically before you cast an informed vote. Don't toss your vote away because someone slaps you on the back or schmoozes you on the phone. Your vote is too important. This election is too critical. The kind of community Saltaire will become is at stake. Take the time to listen and ask and learn before making the choice that is freely yours to make.

I'm looking forward to talking to and hearing from you about the issues in this election in the weeks ahead and at the Candidate Forum on May 22 nd• Thanks so much for your time. Feel free to call me at 914-793-3809 or 631-583-5962 to talk about anything.