First Electronic Shinnecock Billboard Up on Sunrise Highway

HAMPTON BAYS, NY — Visitors braving the Memorial Day traffic will notice a new addition as they're headed east — a large electronic billboard on Sunrise Highway that has some elected officials and residents seeing red and others, thankful for the economic opportunity it symbolizes.

The first of the two large structures was erected Thursday.

Recently, a number of East End elected officials sent a letter to Shinnecock Tribal Council members, calling upon the Shinnecock Indian Nation to "immediately halt construction," of the billboards, to be located on the north and south sides of New York State Route 27 in Hampton Bays.

The rectangular structures are 61-feet tall, with 30-foot high by 20-foot wide electronic billboards on each side, and "are completely out of character with our rural area. They would be more fitting in New York City’s Times Square or in Las Vegas, Nevada," the letter said.

But despite stop work orders and a cease and desist letter from the New York State Department of Transportation, work continued this week, with the first billboard on the eastbound side of the highway erected Thursday in time for Memorial Day weekend.

After the cease and desist letter, the Shinnecock Tribal Council fired back a response: "The New York State Department of Transportation continued an unfortunate and unjust pattern of mistreatment and total disregard for the economic welfare and Sovereignty of the Shinnecock Nation. Without any legal basis, the NYSDOT sent the Shinnecock Nation a cease and desist letter regarding the work being conducted on tribal territory alongside Sunrise Highway," a release said.

The letter continued: "We have been good neighbors since 1640, but our good nature has been met with encroachment, theft of land, racism, and double talk."

The project, the letter said, will provide substantial resources to the Nation and allow its people to address the "economic disparity that has plagued our community for generations."

The NYSDOT and Southampton Town officials, Shinnecock tribal members said, attempted to illegally impose state and town law on its sovereign territory by referring to an illegal easement on Sunrise Highway which does not grant the state title to the land.

"The project has a small footprint, yet town officials have engaged in a misinformation campaign. Town officials have mischaracterized the project in an effort to sow seeds of fear in the East End community and smear the Shinnecock people as the harbingers of the end of the beauty of the Hamptons. These actions have pressured state agencies and our congressional representative to unjustly issue a legally flawed cease and desist letter and false statements," the statement from Shinnecock tribal member said.

Elected officials, in the letter to the Shinnecock Tribal Council, said the signs were an eyesore and could detract from the East End's bucolic quality of life. Some residents also organized a protest of what they feel are unsightly signs.

"We work hard every day to protect our community character. Although we respect the Shinnecock Nation’s desire to improve living standards for its members, we believe these structures directly hurt our region by urbanizing the landscape," the elected officials, including Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman and other Southampton town board members, Suffolk County Legislators Bridget Fleming and Al Krupski, and elected officials from Riverhead, East Hampton, Westhampton Beach, Sag Harbor, North Haven, Southampton Village, Quogue, Sagaponack and Westhampton Dunes, said.

Elected officials also said they questioned whether the structures complied with federal highway law in terms of setbacks from the roadway and fall zones from a designated evacuation route. They also expressed fears that motorists, distracted by the signs, might crash into the signs — and about the impacts of light pollution on nearby residents and wildlife.

"We understand that the tribal council believes that these are sovereign lands, immune from local, county and state regulation," the elected officials wrote. "Whether or not such immunity exists, we implore the Shinnecock Indian Nation to stop construction and work collectively with other South Fork governmental jurisdictions on economic development projects that are more in keeping with our area."

Schneiderman said next steps will involve the New York State Attorney General's Office; the state, he said, enforces federal highway law on is roads.

But on Thursday, Lance Gumbs, a Shinnecock tribal trustee, posted a Facebook live video as the electronic billboard was erected, complete with the Shinnecock Indian Nation's raised seal, on land he said the tribe has long owned in Westwoods.

"For 400 years we have lived in this area with the colonists, and we have been oppressed. We have been held down," he said.

In 1984, Gumbs said, the Town of Southampton "tried to stop our cigarette business and hold us down economically. In 2003, the Town of Southampton and the state tried to stop our casino. They got away with it — temporarily. And in 2019, they came after us once again, trying to shut down our ability to do this sign project."

The sign, which some elected officials and residents have deemed an eyesore, is sited just a short distance from a cell phone tower that stands 150' in the air, Gumbs said.

And, he said, the Shinnecock tribe has watched its forests and lands destroyed by McMansions and overdevelopment.

"Their sense of entitlement seems to want to entitle us to do nothing — and those days are over," he said.

Despite three stop work orders and a cease and desist order, the work has continued. "Our Nation said, 'No more,'" Gumbs said, adding that the land is owned by the Shinnecock Indian Nation. "We live in the richest community in the Hamptons, surrounded by opulence and wealth. We will no longer be house cleaners and servants for the rich and famous in this community."

Gumbs scoffed at an offer from the town to buy the land, a town he said has treated the Shinnecock Nation as "second class citizens" and stepchildren.

He added: "We are taking control of our destiny. We are no longer going to be second class citizens on our own land. Those days are over. This is a great day for the Shinnecock Indian Nation. For our people."