Holiday traffic volume and the number of visitors descending on the Village of Greenport this Fourth of July weekend left at least one village official pondering whether Southold Town Police should establish a precinct in the village.
Greenport Trustee Mary Bess Phillips posed that question yesterday to a Facebook group she established and manages, “Let’s Talk Village of Greenport.”
Fourth of July holiday weekend traffic, coupled with traffic bound for Lavender by the Bay in East Marion, where the spectacular French lavender was at its peak, at times overwhelmed local road capacity.
Southold Town Police Chief Martin Flatley said he thinks it would be possible to establish a precinct for the eastern portion of the town, but it would be “a financial decision” since a precinct would require additional staffing.
The Southold Town Board controls the town budget, including appropriations for law enforcement. The Village of Greenport maintained its own police force until village residents voted in 1994 to dissolve it.
He described the department’s existing coverage in Greenport yesterday in an email: “We always have one patrol car assigned to the Incorporated Village of Greenport at a minimum,” Flatley wrote. “The majority of the time there is a second car that overlaps the village and frequently other cars such as highway patrol units, community response units, K-9, bike patrol and patrol supervisors that are present in the village. Next week we will be starting up our foot patrol officer post again, after a delay getting it started.”
Flatley said the department had extra resources assigned to handle traffic in East Marion this weekend.
“This past four-day weekend we had a four- or five-man detail assigned the entire time the Lavender farm was open because of the traffic concerns it poses,” Flatley said.
The special detail “was more than sufficient for the needs of the roadway, however Route 25 is the only east-west roadway at this point and only two lanes trying the handle a large volume of traffic,” the chief said. “Traffic conditions over the weekend in the Greenport/East Marion area were caused by sheer holiday volume and the people visiting the Lavender farm.”
He said he had not heard any reports that traffic flow in the village this weekend was “any slower than a normal holiday weekend.”
The adequacy of police coverage in the village has been a recurring subject of discussion since Greenport’s 10-member police department was dissolved. Within months of the dissolution vote, then-mayor David Kapell and the village brought a federal lawsuit against Southold, claiming the town was not adequately protecting village residents. The lawsuit was settled by a stipulation which, among other things, required Southold Town Police to dedicate a sector car to the “greater Greenport” area — defined as the geographic boundaries of the Greenport Union Free School District.
In February Trustee Doug Roberts, citing persistent constituent complaints about law enforcement, said he did not believe the town was living up to its obligations under the stipulation. He asked the village board to request a public meeting with the town board to discuss the issue — a procedure spelled out in the settlement. Roberts did not convince village board members to take that step.
