Riverheard Councilman John Dunleavy wants to ban beach driving!!!
Riverhead Councilman John Dunleavy wants to ban beach driving!
More dangers politicians out there , we need to stop people like this in their tracks. Also, we need to support people like town supervisor Sean Walter who protects our rightful access to the beaches.
Article from Riverhead News Review:
<<Supervisor: Get rid of beach signs
But homeowners say this sand is their sand
BY TIM GANNON |STAFF WRITER
TIM GANNON PHOTO These signs are a bone of contention between the town, which wants them removed, and beachfront homeowners in Wading River, who say the signs accurately mark private property.
Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter said this week that before July 4 he'll order town police to remove the "no trespassing" signs waterfront homeowners in Wading River have placed along the beach.
"We're going to enforce the rights of the public to use that beach," Mr. Walter told the News-Review. "We're not going to allow one or two property owners to dictate who can and can't use a public resource."
Mr. Walter's comments came Tuesday, a day after he got involved in a heated dispute with Jim and Amy Csorny, who own one of the homes behind which "no trespassing" signs were stabbed into the beach. The argument happened after a press conference the supervisor and other Town Board members attended near the Long Island Sound beach in Wading River.
We're going to enforce the rights of the public to use that beach.'
Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter
The Csornys, who have complained about vehicles on the beach for years, say that what the supervisor is trying to do is illegal, and that they have a deed and a study of where the public beach ends to prove that the land in question is theirs.
"This is nonsense," Ms. Csorny said. "He's sending police to private property to take down our posted signs."
Mr. Csorny said Mr. Walter told him the public is entitled to walk or drive on the beach, and that the entitlement comes through what's known as a "prescriptive easement."
"A prescriptive easement. Do you know what this is?" Mr. Csorny asked a reporter Monday following the dustup with Mr. Walter. "It's saying that because you've traveled across land for so long without people complaining, that you're now entitled to do it. Well, you need to go to court to get that. You don't just decide that because you're the supervisor, that it's a prescriptive easement."
"The public does have rights to use that beach," Mr. Walter said in an interview. "There's a whole series of legal theories where the town can enforce the public's right to use the beach. A prescriptive easement is one of them."
Traditionally, the boundary between public and private property on beaches is the mean high-water mark, which is determined by the U.S. Geological Survey every 18 years. The mean high-water mark, sometimes called the "seaweed mark," is an average of where the water comes up to during high tide. Everything seaward of that mark is considered public, everything landward is private.
Mr. Csorny said about 10 homeowners along the Sound beach paid a licensed surveyor, Young and Young Surveyors of Riverhead, to determine where that mark is. The "no trespassing" signs, he said, are actually closer to land than the actual location of the high-water mark.
Mr. Walter disputes that the residents have marked the land correctly.
"The last time I walked down there, those signs were in the water. They are ridiculous," the supervisor said. "The signs along the edge of the water have to be removed. The signs along the bluff are fine, but I want that beach open by July 4th."
Mr. Csorny says Mr. Walter is wrong about the prescriptive easement because that can only be granted if no one objects to the public's use of land for 10 years continuously. He said he and his neighbors have been objecting to vehicles driving on their property for years.
"The day you give opposition, it goes back to zero," he said.
Councilman John Dunleavy and Councilwoman Jodi Giglio also met with the Csornys on Monday.
Afterward, Mr. Dunleavy said he believes the town should simply ban driving on the beach altogether. "This has been going on for 40 years and it's never going to get solved," Mr. Dunleavy said.
Ms. Giglio said that instead of an outright ban, the town needs to better enforce beach driving regulations, and should give out information on where driving is, and is not, permitted when it sells beach driving permits.
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Originally Posted by strikezone31
