Category Archives: Progress

Our Village, Progress

More Progress in the Village

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By:  Progress For WHB

On November 22, 2009, after years of running a successful restaurant in the village, Johnny Chih filed a voluntary petition for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.  The estate in bankruptcy included two adjacent parcels of property located at 85 and 105 Montauk Highway.  This included Mr. Chih’s eponymous restaurant (now Boom Burgers), and the demised Corner restaurant, formerly Dora’s,  on the adjacent parcel at 105 Montauk Highway.

In the final accounting the bankruptcy trustee reported that 85 and 105 Montauk Highway secured debt totaling $650,000.00.  Mickey Biss purchased both of these properties for a total of $35,000.00 subject to the $650,000 secured debt.  That made for an effective purchase price of $685,000.00 for the pair of properties.

A quick check of the final assessment rolls for 2016 prepared by the Southampton Town assessor for the properties located at 85  and 105 Montauk Highway has the properties assessed at $281,400.00 and $374,000.00, respectively, for a combined valuation of $655,000.001)with a purchase price of the two vacant buildings in 2010 for a value of $685,000 followed by the introduction of the young men running Boom Burger successfully, followed by the 2016 assessment of the properties at the reduced value of $655,000 we have to agree with the assessor that commercial assessments do need to be reviewed.  Mr. Biss was straightforward about his intentions. He wanted to hold the property until he could find a purchaser for the two properties for complete redevelopment.  If, in the interim, he could open the Corner restaurant to provide some income pending the resale of the pair of properties that was great, but he did not want to make a substantial investment when he envisioned the best course was to sell the pair of properties.

It appears that that the purchaser(s) are interested in making a bona fide effort to improve the property as they have secured the services of architect Nick Vero.   We can all keep our fingers crossed that improvements to this visible corner in our village are in the near future.

 

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1. ↑ with a purchase price of the two vacant buildings in 2010 for a value of $685,000 followed by the introduction of the young men running Boom Burger successfully, followed by the 2016 assessment of the properties at the reduced value of $655,000 we have to agree with the assessor that commercial assessments do need to be reviewed.
Progress

Closing The Asphalt Plant

By:  Progress For WHB

When you start a business from nothing the risks are highest but the possibility for reward is greatest; when you buy an existing business the risks are more modest, but the possibility of rewards are also reduced.  In 1945 the asphalt plant at 100 Rogers Avenue was built, and for over 70 years that first venture has been rewarded.

We have been a nation of risk takers beginning with the colonization of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.   In 1862 the Homestead Act rewarded the risk takers who were ready to settle the frontier.  With the passage of the Homestead Act  it was the policy of the government to give federal land away to settlers willing to risk everything, travel great distances, and build where there was nothing.

homesteading-family

We support those who make something from nothing.  We even condone outright theft of private property to do it!  If a person takes a chance and occupies empty land, uses it, is obvious about it, and if the owner doesn’t throw him off the property within ten years he gets to keep that property without paying for it.  There is a risk.  If he improves the property, builds a home and clears the land he can still be ejected by the owner before the ten years has elapsed and he will have nothing.  This is the law of “adverse possession.”

When the asphalt plant on Rogers Avenue opened in 1945 the owner created a factory where there had been nothing.  At the same time he also planned to take air quality Continue reading Closing The Asphalt Plant →

Progress

An Honorable Breach…

By:  Progress for Westhampton Beach

Mayor Moore is again departing from the protocols of the past to make our village government more transparent.

In recent years the mayor did not hold a public Board of Trustees’ meeting in March for the Board to consider the tentative budget, ask questions and make changes.  Instead, the first public meeting about the budget had been at a public hearing in April.

New York State Village Law provides:

On or before March 20th of each year the budget officer (the Mayor) shall file a tentative budget.

The village clerk shall present the tentative budget to the board of trustees at a regular or special meeting to be held on or before the thirty-first day of March.  At such meeting the board of trustees shall review the tentative budget and make such changes, alterations and revisions as it shall consider advisable.

A public hearing shall be held upon the tentative budget, as changed, altered or revised, on or before the fifteenth day of April.

After completion of the public hearing, the board of trustees may further change, alter and revise the tentative budget…

Such budget, as so revised, shall be adopted by resolution not later than the first day of May

* * *

This year Mayor Moore filed her tentative budget with the Clerk on March 19, 2015, and the Clerk provided copies to the Trustees on March 20, 2015.  The Mayor has scheduled a public meeting for March 31, 2015 at 5:30 pm for the discussion by the Board.

At the March public meeting residents will be able to hear the presentation of the tentative budget and observe the trustees as they work their way through the budget and make such changes as the Board sees fit.

In April there will be a public hearing where residents can be heard about a budget that our residents will have already had an opportunity to consider.  The Board of Trustees can then evaluate public comments, and adopt a final budget on or before May 1st.

This is an honorable breach of past village protocol.  The final budget will now be one in which the Mayor, the Board of Trustees and residents have had a fair opportunity to fully consider.