Saltwater Fishing Discussion Board Including Inshore Fishing, Offshore Fishing, Saltwater Fly Fishing and Kayak Fishing

On Friday, October 3rd, I attended a meeting held at Brookhaven Town Hall to address the fishing ban on the Brookhaven Town beaches in the vicinity of the Shoreham Town Beach.
I believe Friday’s meeting was held at the request of the Brookhaven Business Community Alliance (BBCA) leader Joe Kessel, and that request was made after the BBCA’s meeting held in Rocky Point on September 16 in which all in attendance who spoke showed a desire to keep Shoreham Beach open and to allow fishing access. I attended the September 16 meeting. Although I live in Riverhead Town, just past the eastern border of Brookhaven Town, I attended because I wanted to stay informed on the issue so that I could accurately report on it in my surf column. When it became clear that everyone speaking was on the same page and that enforcement of existing laws, especially regarding littering, was a major issue, I spoke to the audience about how Riverhead Town handles the situation. Stan Hentschel, the longtime owner of Rocky Point Fishing Stop, was at the meeting, and felt that the information I had to offer regarding Riverhead Town’s management of their beaches was useful and might be of interest to Brookhaven Town officials. When the October 3rd meeting at Town Hall was organized, Stan invited me to be one of two representatives from the fishing community. I’ve known Stan for 35 years, and would never hesitate to help him, but I expressed to him my concern that I’m not a Brookhaven resident. He indicated that he still wanted me there because he wanted me to share my Riverhead Town beach access management information with the Brookhaven Town officials. I did not ask to be part of the October 3rd meeting, but I agreed to Stan’s request. I have absolutely no interest in fishing any Brookhaven beaches.
In attendance at the meeting, to the best of my recall, were Joe Kessel and Stan representing the Business Alliance. David Raimondo representing the Shoreridge Hills residents, a gentleman representing another group of local residents, an attorney from the Town’s Law Dept, Mr. Morris – the head of the Park’s Dept., a representative from Public Safety (#2 man, I think), Jane Bonner – the Councilwoman for that area, and one of her aides. I was the representative of the fishing interests. Another fisherman was supposed to be there but couldn’t make it due to a family illness. Although Stan was there as a Business Alliance representative, I think we can picture him with two hats and consider him as a second fishing representative.
The meeting started with Stan detailing the tens of thousands of dollars the loss of beach access has cost his business. I then offered the following information regarding how Riverhead deals with beach access.
Since the elimination of fishing access in eastern Brookhaven Town, many people seeking to fish have moved onto the Riverhead beaches, and this includes the large immigrant population that was cited in both meetings as being responsible for the majority of the litter that resulted in the loss of beach access. They come by the vanload – entire families from numerous townships. How does Riverhead respond? They let them and everyone else fish. If you’re a resident, $15 for a beach lot permit and a free night fishing permit will get you 24/7/365 access to Riverhead’s roughly 15 miles of beaches from 8 access points. If you’re a non-resident, there are two options. You can buy a $200 parking permit that will cover you for the year. I see many of those in the beach lots. You can also buy a $35 daily permit. Although that sounds expensive to me, I see a lot of those too. To facilitate access, Riverhead Town makes beach-parking permits available at places such as tackle shops and delis. So the policy helps local businesses by generating some foot traffic in the stores. Contrast this with Brookhaven’s policy that costs Stan tens of thousands of dollars. So how does Riverhead deal with all of those people that now have legal access to the beach? – simple – they enforce the laws by having a police officer on an ATV ride the beach from border to border. When people who may be predisposed to doing something illegal, like littering, see a uniform and a badge, their behavior changes. If you park in a beach lot without a permit, expect a $100 ticket on your windshield. How do they allow 24-hour beach parking without the lots becoming partying hangouts – simple again – if you don’t have a night fishing permit and you’re doing something other than fishing – you get a $100 ticket too. Between all of those $100 tickets, $200 seasonal non-resident passes, $35 non-resident day passes, and $15 resident passes, Riverhead Town collects a substantial amount of money that can then support the cop on the ATV. Nobody is trying to split an atom here. This is a common sense approach to beach access management, and it works even with the addition of displaced people from Brookhaven. My question to the Brookhaven officials was “Tell me why you can’t do something like this?”
Sadly, I saw little interest on behalf of the Brookhaven Town officials in pursuing such an approach. There were many excuses. Here are a few. “Brookhaven Public Safety only has jurisdiction in the parks themselves, and not outside the park boundaries”, “we don’t have the money”, “we don’t have the staff”, “the beaches outside the park are the responsibility of County police”, “how will we get the ATVs on the beach?”, “we can’t ride the ATVs on people’s private beaches”, “our beaches are geologically different than Riverhead’s” (by this the person was referring to bluffs and jetties, just like we have in Riverhead).
I urged taking a higher-level view of the issue and consider the entire 15-mile stretch of Brookhaven North Shore frontage instead of focusing on just Shoreham. But heard back “all of those other places are private”.
At the September 16 meeting, a lady brought up the possibility of the Town using some land it owns in Rocky Point (old Pickwick Property?) to provide fishing access. Everyone at that meting thought that was an excellent suggestion. When Stan brought that up at Friday’s meeting, Jane Bonner acknowledged the Town land there, but said, “there’s no beach access there”. To which Stan replied, “Then make some”. To which Bonner responded “But the Tides are right next to there!” (The Tides is another beachfront residential community).
That exchange was a good representation of Bonner’s attitude that the beaches are private property, and that even allowing fishing access across Town-owned land in the vicinity of residential beach communities is unacceptable. The word “private” was spoken by her many times in the meeting. She said fishermen should be asking private property owners for fishing access, as she did in this quote from an article in the September 19th North Shore Sun, “Ms. Bonner suggested the fishermen reach out to private property owners and request permission to fish on their beaches…Ms. Bonner said the fishermen would be trespassing should they walk across town property.”
At one point during the meeting, Jane Bonner said (referring to me) that my presence at the meeting made her uncomfortable and that she found me to be “confrontational”. Yes, I confronted them with one township’s solution, but was told that Brookhaven’s situation is “unique”. When Bonner complained that someone on an online forum called her a criminal, I quickly pointed to her quote in the Sun where she said fishermen on Town property were trespassing. When she shot down Stan’s request for access through the Pickwick property because it was next to the Tides, I blurted out “That’s irrelevant!”
It is irrelevant. I told them that when I stand on a beach below the high water mark and look along the shoreline, all I see is beach. I don’t give a damn who owns the property on the top of the bluff. I fish, kayak, scuba dive, and skin dive all along the beaches from Wading River to Orient Point without ever having to think about whose beach I’m on, because I know whose beach I’m on, OUR BEACH!
She may call me confrontational, but as long as I have a pulse, I’m not going to sit politely and quietly and be told that I have to ask permission of shorefront property owners to do what I love and have grown up doing.
A few other points. They didn’t want to talk about the Public Trust Doctrine, and were generally dismissive of it. Through all of this, no one has yet to tell me precisely which Brookhaven Town code will be violated should you park legally at the Shoreham Town Beach, walk below the high water mark beyond the park boundary, and then go fishing. I think there is going to be a closed meeting among Brookhaven officials regarding beach access and then another similar to what we just had, but I’m not positive on that.
After meeting the beachfront community representatives, it’s clear to me that they are not our problem. I’ve read numerous letters from Mr. Raimondo to the local papers that made him sound like an enemy to the fishermen. I don’t feel this way at all after meeting him. The most positive aspect of this meeting came after the meeting broke up and Stan, Raimondo, myself, and the other property association representative (sorry, can’t remember the name) spoke amongst ourselves. These people don’t seem to care if there are local surfcasters on the beaches. Their issue is with the very large number of immigrants trashing their beaches. They had many pictures, and they told us they begged the Town for help enforcing the litter laws. Please refrain from bashing any of the residents on the discussion boards. What you write on these boards is read by Bonner. Bonner mentioned Tom Farrel’s name several times. Both resident representatives knew I had written a book about surf fishing, so I guess they were on the boards too.
I’ve done what Stan asked me to do – I presented Brookhaven Town officials with a solution that works in neighboring Riverhead Town. My position is that the taxpayers of Brookhaven Town are entitled to 24/7/365 access to their beaches. Even if the Town restricted that access to only its residents and didn’t offer non-resident access, I would feel that these efforts have been successful. Unfortunately, I don’t see that kind of access as a possibility in the current Brookhaven Town political climate. It’s time for a Brookhaven resident to take my place at any further meetings. Something on a small scale may be able to be worked out that will benefit a few local casters. I thank God I don’t live in Brookhaven Town.

A Season on the Edge
FishersLog

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posted 10/04/2008 04:58 PM

Nice going John

I think some of the Brookhaven folks are thanking God that you don't live there. Perhaps it will take someone to step up with legal action to get the town's representatives better aquainted with the Public Trust Doctrine. I am no legal expert, but I know that several towns with "private beaches" in NJ were taken to court and forced to provide public access to the water.

Your description of the meeting and their reaction to your comments shows that they are interested only in keeping the beaches for themselves. The problems provide their excuse for doing so. Fortunately, this is America - not the United States of Brookhaven.

BTW - you know you are on to the truth when your opponents are made to feel "uncomfortable."

rpsurf5
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posted 10/04/2008 08:42 PM

Stan from Rocky Point Fishing Stop

Here is Stan's recap of the meeting :

<<
I wish I could be more optimistic, however, I firmly believe the town has no plans to help either the fishermen or beach associations with the enforcement issue, or open Shoreham to fishing. We went to the meeting with all good intentions of the town helping both parties involved with workable solutions to the enforcement and access issues. The only good I saw were the solutions that the property association came up with in order to allow local fishermen to use the beaches. We are both on the same plane with these issues. But, that does not help the other 450,000 tax payers get access to the public domain. I would like to state that I met Dave Ramondo and Chris Calan, both of Shoreham, who were miss represented by various news articles. They are both supportive of the local anglers, but have, like us, issues with the"element" on the beaches that leave garbage and vandalize property. I saw pictures of garbage on the beaches that reminded me of a land fill and lean twos that were built out of trees that were cut down from residents property. They are both articulate and friendly men that have solid, workable solutions to our access problems. I look forward to working with them. It's a shame that the town does not have the initiative that the beach associations have.

John Sinner was nice enough to make time from his schedule to attend the meeting with me. He lives in Riverhead which has a workable solution to parking and access issues. As John was bringing up viable input to some of the problems, Jane Bonner chimes in and insults him. You can only guess how embarrassing that was to me. I have lost all respect for her and will do all I can next election year to have her removed. I feel she showed ignorance and insensitivity to the fishermen. She kept stating that the beach was designated by the town as a non fishing beach and always was. Then start proceedings to make it a fishing beach and access point that does not conflict with swimmers. It seems simple enough to me. The BBCA, fishermen and associations were addressing the issues looking for solutions, but the Town couldn't or did not want to come through. She was very angry about some of the posts on the NESW blog about her, and especially the posting of her address, which I agree was wrong. She also mentioned comments made by "egore" and "tiderunner" that got under her skin. Thank god someone from the town said that her comments had nothing to do about the Shoreham issues and we resumed the meeting in an orderly fashion.

Trying another angle, I mentioned that my and other businesses in the community lost a lot of money this summer by keeping non resident fishermen from Manhattan, Queens, Nassau and Suffolk from utilizing the beaches. These are the people, "TURISTS", who ran our economy before the building boom started 25 years ago. What now! I guess the town doesn't see it coming. Also, the problem with "the element" escalated because they just stopped fishing Shoreham and moved into all the private areas. Seems pretty stupid, doesn't it.

All in all I came away from the meeting disappointed, realizing that there has to be changes made for the wants of the majority of Brookhaven's constituents. This is a terrible administration. If the residents and the fishermen are in agreement why can't the town help with solutions? I always believed in trying to solve problems by intelligent rather than radical means. However, as Willie Young said "let Stan be the nice guy, but it probably won't work" hit home. I realize now that it is like talking to a brick wall. They just don't get it!

Reviewing the blog on the NESW web site, I realize there has been a lot of solid input from passionate people as ourselves, some a little radical or could have been stated in a different way, however, in between the lines, it makes The Town of Brookhaven look like clowns.

"PUBLIC TRUST DOCTRINE" here I come!

Stan
>>

Delegate of the New York Coalition for Recreational Fishing

Member Montauk Surfcasters Association, LIBBA

This post edited by rpsurf5 04:42 PM 10/05/2008

tiderunner70

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Location: long island

posted 10/04/2008 10:08 PM

If Mrs. Bonner did not do wrong against the public and the recreational fishing community, I would have never made any comments. Infact I would not even know her name. However the facts lay where they are. She seems to be the one behind it all. It was all a charade from the beginning and now the truth is coming out. Somebody is definitely not cominig out of this smelling like roses. She and the town must have thought the recreational fishing community would have just sat back and been discriminated against. As you all can see they are starting to realize the recreational fishing community is not going to tolerate being discriminated against. First it was safety accorcing to them; now its illegals and trash. It is simply not acceptable to hear any town state that they do not have the resources to do what is proper for the majority of the people. It is quite obvious a select few are rubbing elbows together while alienating the rest of the public. I have know for quite some time now that the board members and others have been viewing these threads. That is quite fine by me. For they may realize the ramifications of there blatant discrimination against the fishing community. I have personally emailed Mrs. Bonner in regards to this issue without ever receiving any response from her. Is it because sometimes the truth hurts certain individuals? Or is it because she simply does not want to hear the perspective of an avid angler? I am afraid I will never know the truth but that does not even matter anymore. The truth has come out and it is time to keep fighting for our rights. Our rights have been clearly violated and there is no reason to stand for it at all.

As far as Mrs. Bonners concern of her address or anyone elses address being released online I do apologize. There were no mal intentions in doing so. However if this is a major concern for anyone they may want to look into having there numbers non published. Some individuals numbers are all over the net listings which has nothing to do with me or anyone else.

If Mrs. Bonner would like to have a calm and civil conversation with me in regards to this matter she can feel free to contact me at any given time. She already knows how to contact me.

Last but not least the comments that were made in the meeting in regards that my comments had nothing to do with her actions are very true. Like already stated, if it was not for her actions against the recreational fishing community, no comments would have ever been made. Also do not forget the Public Trust Doctrine is in place to protect all of us from what is currently going on! This is a battle we should not even have to be fighting. However it is a battle we can not afford to lose.

Thank You,
Tom Farrell

Tom Farrell
Vice President - New York Coalition for Recreational Fishing

MSA
LIBBA

likeitreallyis
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posted 10/05/2008 10:44 AM

so if I read this right, the closing of Shoreham beach will stop the illegal immigration problem?

Posting reports on ******.com is fine but it must be a general report not specifying exact location of the fish caught. These will be edited.

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posted 10/05/2008 11:22 AM

Regarding my use of the word "immigrant" in the above report, I find it impossible to report accurately on this situation without the potentially politically incorrect use of the word. Having been at two meetings where the phrases “illegals” and “people who don’t belong here” and “people who don’t speak English” and other phrases more specific to country of origin were used repeatedly and consistently, I find the word “immigrant” to be the most sensitive way to convey what was expressed at the meetings.

A Season on the Edge
FishersLog

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posted 10/05/2008 03:25 PM

I think it is important to note that Councilwoman Bonner was a board member of the North Shore Property Owner’s Association. If she still has a seat on that board, it would appear to be a very direct conflict of interest in the matter of Public access. As a councilmember she is elected to represent the interests of Brookhaven's residents - not just the North Shore Property Owner's Association.

It seems as though it would be a slam-dunk in the courts if it ever got that far.

rpsurf5
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posted 10/05/2008 04:10 PM

NYBightEditor wrote:
I think it is important to note that Councilwoman Bonner was a board member of the North Shore Property Owner’s Association. If she still has a seat on that board, it would appear to be a very direct conflict of interest in the matter of Public access. As a councilmember she is elected to represent the interests of Brookhaven's residents - not just the North Shore Property Owner's Association.

It seems as though it would be a slam-dunk in the courts if it ever got that far.

Jane Bonner lives very close to the beach. That and the following exchange with her comment abouth "The Tides" as noted by John tells you everything you need to know.

<<At the September 16 meeting, a lady brought up the possibility of the Town using some land it owns in Rocky Point (old Pickwick Property?) to provide fishing access. Everyone at that meting thought that was an excellent suggestion. When Stan brought that up at Friday’s meeting, Jane Bonner acknowledged the Town land there, but said, “there’s no beach access there”. To which Stan replied, “Then make some”. To which Bonner responded “But the Tides are right next to there!” (The Tides is another beachfront residential community).
>>

Delegate of the New York Coalition for Recreational Fishing

Member Montauk Surfcasters Association, LIBBA

tiderunner70

Joined: 11/09/2003
Posts: 5959
Location: long island

posted 10/05/2008 04:17 PM

it is clear that eliminating access is on her agenda.

Tom Farrell
Vice President - New York Coalition for Recreational Fishing

MSA
LIBBA

ebbtide357

Joined: 10/08/2005
Posts: 159
Location: Babylon

posted 10/05/2008 08:04 PM

NIMBY Literally LOL

captraykelly

Joined: 05/25/2007
Posts: 18

posted 10/06/2008 11:45 AM

Keep the beach open for fishing

It's simple. The beach should be open for anglers. Fees should be established (Ex: parking permits for anglers, etc)so the Town of Brookhaven can do this. Littering and loitering laws should be enforced by the Town Pulic Safety Dept and the SCPD. Most towns throughout the country allow fishing on their beaches.

It would also be great to have a fishing pier by the Shoreham Power Plant or into the LI Sound (As was done for Cedar Beach in Mt. Sinai)constructed but I know that is not going to happen. A fishing pier like the piers in Florida, North and South Carolina and other states become tourist attractions and generate revenue for the towns.

In closing, please open the Shoreham Beach for fishing!

Sincerely,

Capt. Ray Kelly
Adventures In Fishing
www.adventuresinfishing.com

And Remember- "Let's get kids hooked on Fishing...NOT on drugs!"

tiderunner70

Joined: 11/09/2003
Posts: 5959
Location: long island

posted 10/06/2008 12:37 PM

captraykelly wrote:
Fees should be established (Ex: parking permits for anglers, etc)so the Town of Brookhaven can do this.

its a shame that we have to be permitted to death with the amount of money we already pay in taxes here on long island. also there is no excuse for the town not being able to provide enforcement. maybe too much money is slipping through the cracks somewhere if that is the case.

Tom Farrell
Vice President - New York Coalition for Recreational Fishing

MSA
LIBBA

stripedbass75

Joined: 02/25/2003
Posts: 14

posted 10/06/2008 03:01 PM

There is one thing we can do and vote Jane Bonner out of office. She seems to make choices in office based on her relationship with the North Shore Beach Property Owners Association of Rocky Point and their views.