Maybe you can help me to figure something out...? I recently attended both of the Town of Babylon’s "workshops" which purportedly "explored" options for the proposed development of the former Oak Beach Inn site. Most of the attendees were beach residents, and all had much to say about what "they didn’t want" there. I’m perplexed, of course, because all Suffolk County residents now own that $8 M 8.5 acre parcel where the OBI once stood. Why should it be up to only the beach residents to dictate what they want there?

Even while the OBI was operating there, a half-mile strip of public beach running east from behind the former "Store" property to the Causeway was fenced off, foreclosing all residents, except beach residents, from its usage. This was not okay with me then and after my taxpaying purchase of the 8.5 acres at Oak Beach, it’s even less okay now. The former OBI site should not become a Bed and Breakfast, as Supervisor Steve Bellone is jockeying for. It should be open to all the Suffolk residents who were forced, through their tax dollars to purchase it.

To help ensure that this site remains a closed, private boon to beach residents and Babylon politicians, Bellone has begun clamping down on non-beach residents’ rights at Gilgo Beach, to appease the beach residents. He recently made sure that non-beach residents were locked out of Gilgo Beach at 8 p.m. nightly, to appease beach residents; no more overnight boat docking, no more fishing or bathing after 8 p.m. Why are the rights of the few, paramount to the rights of the many, non-beach residents?

Open the Oak Beach Inn property to the general taxpayers of Suffolk County. Give them back their beach, boat launching dock, picnic area, playground and parking area. Only then would the taxpayers have gotten the benefit of their $8M "bargain."

Steve Weinkselbaum, Lindenhurst