Susan Williams, whose “messy yard” has been at the heart of a Town-wide debate, appeared in Town Hall Friday to demand the Town Board table its controversial Yard Sale Law.
Williams, who described herself as suffering from hoarding disorder and having had clinical depression, acknowledged that her front yard at 37 South Midway Road is a source of concern for neighbors.
“This whole yard sale proposal has been brought about by my messy yard,” said Williams, who appeared at Town Hall to speak at a public hearing on the law. “Yard sales are not the problem, it’s the mess in my yard.”
Town Supervisor Gerry Siller and Councilman Jim Colligan were present in the room. Councilman Albert Dickson participated, along with other members of the public, via Zoom.
Williams criticized Siller and Colligan for their approach to the problem. She said they’d ignored her calls and indicated she could only speak with the Town Attorney, behavior she deemed “despicable.”
“As a constituent, I resent that you have never applied or addressed me as to what your issues are,” she said to Colligan, who initiated the Town Board discussion of the proposed law earlier this year. Later in the meeting, both men disputed her description of their efforts to help.
“This issue is not a tag sale, the issue is my messy yard,” she said. “Having no tag sales is not going to solve that problem at all.”
The law as proposed would not bar people from holding yard sales, instead it would limit the number and duration of sales at any one property and require residents to notify the Town Clerk of their planned sale and to follow rules about signage, parking and cleanup after the event.
See the proposed law on the Town website.
No animosity
“There are other yards as messy, but you focused on this,” Williams said. “Is this a democracy or a dictatorship? The majority of people do not want yard sale regulation and if you don’t believe me, why don’t you put it to a vote instead of dictating what goes on in this town?”
The Councilman said that under advice from the Town Board he had not directly answered her emails, but did apologize for not personally responding.
What’s more, he did not want to publicly rehash “some of the things that you were directing at me”, but Williams said, “Oh, I do.”
“A ‘slow and painful death,’ you really want to wish that on somebody the day before they go in for surgery?” he asked, referring to an email she’d sent apparently unaware that he was about to have an operation.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” she responded.
“There’s a limit to what people are going to be able to take,” he said. “I still, after that, have no disrespect, no animosity, there is no hidden motive.”
If you missed the meeting, you can watch a recording at townhallstreams.com (the Yard Sale Law hearing begins at the 43-minute mark), or on Channel 22, the Town’s public access station.
Colligan said he believes he has a duty to respond when contacted by Islanders about problems, citing as other recent examples that got Town Board attention: atypical crowds at Bootleggers Alley, the cell tower at Cobbett’s Lane, and barking dogs in the Center.
“People around the Island may or may not have an opinion until you’re directly involved in a situation,” he said. “I don’t think we need 90 or 100 phone calls. I think the vast majority of people were concerned about it who live in that immediate area.”
Offers to help
Colligan disputed Williams’ description of support offered personally by members of the Town Board.
“We never came at you in any form with any bullying or hard-nosed thing,” he said. “We said we’d do anything we possibly could to help you and assist you to clean this up.”
“That’s not true,” Williams said, describing one attempt at cleanup offered by the Supervisor, who owns a landscaping business and, with her consent, sent workers to her home. But they “stomped around in my beautiful garden” and took nothing away, she said.
“It seemed like a tactic of intimidation,” she said.
Siller objected to the characterization. “They’re gardeners. They know what they’re doing. They weren’t stomping around.”
“I was willing to help you out of my pocket with my men,” he said. “We came over. We walked the entire property with you. You showed us what to do.”
He said he returned an hour later and found his workers had left. They reported to him that she had changed the direction they’d agreed upon. After that encounter, Siller said Williams called him a liar and questioned his motivation for offering to help. From that point, he directed communication with her to the Town Attorney.
Delayed action
Colligan noted that the Town Board had delayed a vote on the proposed law in order to give people more time to comment.
“We got some great feedback from people,” he said. “There was nobody [on the Town Board] that was dying to run out and do a garage sale law. If we could find another way to clean up this issue and this problem and it would go away, we would tear up this law and just move on.”
The Board’s collective goal, he said, is to resolve the issue.
“Tear up the yard sale resolution if you’re willing to do so and we can sit down and have a meeting to resolve this problem ourselves,” Williams said.
Siller said the problem has to be resolved first.
“Let’s get this done in a humane and neighborly way,” Williams said.
“Amen, I say to that,” Colligan said.
Others weigh in
Zibby Munson of 36 South Midway Road who was also present at Town Hall spoke early in the meeting to say she’d told Williams, “I have nothing against yard sales whatsoever, my objection has been the mess that’s left afterward and the fact that it hasn’t been picked up.”
She suggested to her neighbor that she plant a privet hedge and “put whatever is left behind.”
Craig Wood, a Town Assessor who attended the meeting to assist with broadcasting it via Zoom, spoke in his capacity as a resident, and thanked the Board for keeping the hearing open.
“I very much appreciate that you kept it open and that we kept having dialogue before you made the law, and hopefully we’ll get to something that resolves the issue,” he said. Wood singled out Councilman Albert Dickson, who had spoken strongly against the law at previous hearings.
“Thank you to Albert Dickson for standing on his convictions and realizing that democracy does not take a unanimous decision,” Wood said. “He can be against this and still be part of the Board and speak his mind and I appreciate that we can do that and I want to encourage all of your board members to do so.”
Keep neighbors in mind
Kathleen Minder of 32 South Midway Road asked the Board to keep in mind the rights of neighbors. She noted the neighborhood is part of the Town’s C zone, a medium-density residential development with some “carefully controlled non-residential uses” permitted.
These uses include “nothing that looks anything like what we’re talking about with the house in question,” she said. Neighbors initially approached the Town Board in part “because we don’t have any other way to deal with it.
“We’re talking about something that has been a mess for many years with many of us talking to you, Susan, about it, at different times and in different ways in the best way we could and as neighborly as we could,” Minder said. “And it hasn’t changed in well over 10 years and that’s why we’re at our wit’s end and decided to deal with it as a Yard Sale because there’s definitely sales going on there. “
In response, Williams said, “a yard sale regulation is not going to clean up my yard.” She said she hasn’t run a sale since she was notified by the Town about possible code violations. “I’m aware that you’re not allowed to run a business, I don’t feel I was running a business.”
Instead, she said she’s trying to clear out storage lockers by selling items. “I have charming stuff and lots of people like it. But I understand it’s a problem in the neighborhood and like I said I’m willing to move forward in a productive way with my neighbors.”
“My yard is a mess. I suffer from hoarders disorder. I have suffered from clinical depression, I am completely broke,” she said. “I even can’t afford $400 for a dumpster. So the issues are not the yard sale.”
Minder reiterated a point she’d made at an earlier hearing that potential buyers looking at her house reported “they couldn’t have children who lived across from some of the obscene things that are in your yard and that they didn’t want to live across from an extension of the dump.”
“They clearly have said they do not want to buy our house because of your yard,” Minder said.
“If you say so,” Williams replied.
Consider changing the proposed law
David Hoffman of 40 South Midway Road said he believes there is a need for regulations to govern yard sales and referred board members to specific suggestions he made in an email.
Williams repeated her belief that no new regulation was needed and that Islanders should be permitted to have sales if they choose. “I don’t think my yard should affect everyone else’s personal freedom.”
“I’m not happy with my yard,” she said. “This is not something I’m proud of. This is not something I’d like to continue. I simply something I seem incapable of doing on my own.”
Renewed offers of support
“I have a different perspective about you just meeting you for the first time,” Colligan said. “It took a lot of guts to come in here and say the things that you just said.”
“The first thing that we need to do, rather than focusing on the law, is that if you’re reaching out for help, is for us to help you,” he said. “If we can help you in any way, shape or form to resolve this issue, let’s focus in doing that.”
“As long as you stay in this frame of mind, I think we can make some headway here,” he said.
Dave Gentile of Hay Beach, who’d spoken out against the proposed law, said, “I’m really pleased with what I’m hearing here tonight. It seems this is more what I expect to happen on Shelter Island, instead of a new law people getting together, banging heads a little bit, but getting to a solution.”
“I expect that you’re probably going to bang heads a little more and I hope that you will stick with it. The last thing I think we need is more regulation.”
His sister, Laura Gentile of 111 North Ferry Road said she was glad the Town Board was not immediately passing the law. “I wanted to volunteer to help Miss Williams.”
Her brother said he’d help, too.
Set a deadline
Lynne Weikart of 13 Sylvan Road joined the conversation via Zoom, said, “I’m sorry this has become so acrimonious. I feel for the Town Board. I think you guys do a great job. But I do think we have to keep the neighbors of Miss Williams in mind. This has been going on for a very long time. And if you can’t clear it up in the next few weeks then we need to do something more.”
She suggested setting a deadline. “I don’t think you should leave the neighbors hanging for a long period of time.”
Kathleen Minder’s husband, Stephen Gessner, said he was pleased to hear of interventions that don’t involve passing a new law. But agreed there was need to be sure “we will move expeditiously. This thing could drag on a long time.”
“We’re here because the Town told us that they couldn’t do anything without a law. And that’s why we ended up pushing for a law, drafting revisions to the law. Because it was the only way to get some resolution to the issue. It sounds like we have alternatives now and I’m happy to hear that.”
A plan emerges
Siller called on Tom Cronin, a retired police officer who has spoken out against the law and was participating in the meeting via Zoom. Cronin has assisted Williams with earlier attempts to clean the property.
The Supervisor proposed that he would send workers from his landscaping company, at no cost to the Town, to work under Cronin’s direction on assisting Wiliams with cleaning up.
Williams suggested instead that donations could be collected to defray the costs. Siller agreed, but said something has to happen “sooner than later.”
Williams said she has already sorted items for disposal and that removing them “would be a huge improvement.”
But, Siller said, “We’re not just going to take your garbage and leave, we’re going to address the problem.”
“The first thing is to take the garbage and then work from there,” Williams said.
Cronin said, “whatever is not considered garbage, Susan, we could move to the backyard. That would really take the heat off you immensely. And I think that would be a fantastic start.”
Siller noted she’d done a lot already to clean up the front yard.
“I’m not going to lie,” Siller said. “It looks better. I know you’ve been working on it.”
How to join the conversation
The Supervisor recessed the meeting. As the passage of the proposed law remains an open question, members of the public are welcome to comment. Send your thoughts to townclerk@shelterislandtown.us, or by regular mail to Town Clerk, PO Box 1059, Shelter Island NY 11964.
Please note, the Town does not acknowledge anonymous correspondence.
