Current Fire Island Power Map (2024–2026) and the Mainland-Island Class Structure

This file answers two related questions raised by the user:

1. Who are the loudest active voices on Fire Island today, and what are they fighting for?
2. Why does Oyster Bay show up so prominently in the historical record while Islip and Bay Shore — the towns that physically service Fire Island — are nearly invisible in the Moses-resistance narrative?

The two questions are connected. The same structural asymmetry that made Oyster Bay legible in 1925 makes the Manhattan-transient Fire Island homeowner class legible in 2026, while the mainland Bay Shore working class — the captains, contractors, and tradesmen who actually build and maintain the island — remains structurally absent from the historical record despite doing all the load-bearing work.

Part 1: The current power map

The institutional voice — Fire Island Association (FIA)

• Continuous since 1962. Founded as the Fire Island Voters Association by Maurice Barbash and Irving Like specifically to fight Moses; renamed Fire Island Association after the 1964 FINS victory. Same organization, 64 years and counting.
• Current president: Suzy Goldhirsch (described as “longtime president” in November 2025 Suffolk County Legislature meeting minutes; quoted constantly in Newsday, Fire Island News, NY Post 2024–2026).
• Represents 17 Fire Island homeowner communities. Speaks at Suffolk County Legislature, NY State capital, federal Army Corps proceedings.
• Goldhirsch is the de facto spokesperson for the entire 64-year-old “we beat Moses, we will keep beating threats” institutional tradition. Where Barbash + Like are the founding patron saints, Goldhirsch is the operating CEO.

The community-level powerhouse — Fire Island Pines Property Owners’ Association (FIPPOA)

• President: Henry Robin. Got Governor Hochul to visit Fire Island Pines personally in August 2025.
• Worked with Tom Ruskin (Seaview Association president) to win a $52 million federal Army Corps emergency beach project for eastern Fire Island after the storms of 2022 and 2023 left those communities with “tremendously long odds of getting the government to come to our aid” (Robin, quoted in Fire Island News, Sept 14, 2025).
• Andrew Kirtzman (FIPPOA board) called the eastern Fire Island fight “an epic campaign… basically a campaign to save Eastern Fire Island.”
• The Pines, being the wealthiest and most politically connected community on the island, functionally drives the federal-funding agenda for all 17 communities.

The 2024 archival institutionalization — Stony Brook University

• September 2024: The Barbash family (siblings Cathy, Susan, and Shepard Barbash — Maurice’s children) donated the Citizens’ Committee for a Fire Island National Seashore Collection to Stony Brook University Libraries’ Special Collections.
• Includes meeting minutes, press releases, correspondence with Governor Rockefeller and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall (Kennedy/Johnson administration — the federal seashore framework).
• Timed deliberately to the 60th anniversary of FINS (1964→2024).
• Will be digitized and made freely available online.
• This is the anti-Moses canonization moment — Barbash papers joining Like papers (already at Stony Brook) in a permanent academic archive ensures the founding myth has institutional infrastructure for the next century.
• Cathy Barbash explicitly framed the donation as ensuring “the legacy of their father and uncle’s civic activism continues to inspire future generations of researchers and environmental advocates.”

What they are fighting for in 2026 (priorities, ranked by money and intensity)

1. The $1.7 billion Fire Island to Montauk Point (FIMP) Coastal Storm Risk Management Project

• Authorized (not yet appropriated) September 2025 by Governor Hochul + NY State Legislature.
• Funds storm-risk and erosion management across 83 miles of South Shore from Fire Island Inlet to Montauk Point, over 50 years (30 years for Fire Island).
• Funding structure: 50% federal (Army Corps), 50% non-federal. Of the non-federal share: 70% NY State, 30% local sponsor towns.
• Local sponsor towns: Babylon, Islip, Brookhaven, East Hampton, Southampton. Suffolk County is also a local sponsor for its beaches.
• Replaces the FEMA-after-emergencies model with planned periodic renourishment every 4–5 years.
• Template: 15-foot dunes, 90-foot beach berms, sand dredged from offshore borrow areas.
• This is the single biggest active fight, and FIA is at the center of it.

2. Offshore wind opposition (specifically Empire Wind)

• Empire Wind (Equinor): up to 174 turbines, 22 miles SE of Fire Island Lighthouse. Visible from Fire Island under clear conditions. Lights visible at night even in average visibility.
• Sunrise Wind: not visible, but undersea cable passes beneath Smith Point County Park.
• The fight is internally divided: some Fire Island homeowners hate the visual impact (“world class ocean views”); environmentalists support wind as the real climate solution.
• NPS issued a 2015 memorandum to BOEM expressing concern about visual + light pollution on FINS — citing the Organic Act of 1916 mandate to “conserve the scenery.”
• This is the next-generation Moses fight: a federally permitted infrastructure project potentially imposed on the seashore against local preference. Different opponent, same structural dynamic.

3. Offshore oil drilling opposition

• Largely defensive — opposing any return to Atlantic offshore leasing.
• The seashore designation is the core legal protection; FIA’s job is to prevent any federal weakening of it.

4. Climate / sea-level rise / breach management

• The Otis Pike Wilderness breach (opened by Hurricane Sandy 2012) is under continuous NPS management debate.
• FIMP funding is part of this answer.
• FIA frames climate as “the greatest threat to Fire Island” — barrier islands are uniquely vulnerable.

5. UNESCO World Heritage Site push

• Long-shot, mentioned in Verga’s book (2019) and FIA materials.
• Would add another international layer of preservation status above federal designation.

The interesting fault line

Goldhirsch (FIA) and Robin (FIPPOA) want federally funded sand poured on the beach forever. The National Park Service wants to “let nature take its course” on its federal lands. Goldhirsch directly: “The National Park Service doesn’t allow restoration of its federal lands. They believe in letting nature take its course. They also would only agree to renourishment on Fire Island for 30 years, not 50 years.”

So Fire Island in 2026 has an internal contradiction the founders never had: the federal seashore designation that protects the island from developers is now in tension with the homeowners’ desire for maximum federally funded beach engineering. The 1964 victory is simultaneously the 2026 constraint.

Part 2: The Oyster Bay vs. Islip/Bay Shore asymmetry

Why Oyster Bay shows up everywhere in the historical record

Oyster Bay is the landowner of record. The Town of Oyster Bay holds municipal title to:

• Tobay Beach (operating as resident-restricted beach, marina, recreational facility since the 1920s)
• The 500-acre JFK Memorial Wildlife Sanctuary parcel behind it
• This title is traceable back to the original colonial-era town patents and was defended by the 1925 Save Our Beaches Committee against Robert Moses.

Because Oyster Bay is a legal party to every preservation agreement on this parcel, every NYT article (Dec 8, 1960), every preservation report (SPLIA 2004), every sanctuary designation document names “the Town of Oyster Bay.” The town is permanently inscribed in the documentary record because it is on the deed.

Why Islip and Bay Shore are nearly invisible

Islip has no equivalent landowning fight to inscribe. The Town of Islip’s role on Fire Island is structural and operational, not proprietary:

• Ferry terminus: Fire Island Ferries operates out of Bay Shore, in Islip jurisdiction. Islip processes the ferry permits, the marina leases, the bulkhead approvals. (Confirmed: Islip Town Board public hearing agenda Feb 24, 2026 includes “contract with the Bay Shore Fire Protection District.” Fire Island Ferries Incorporated has appeared in Islip Town Board zoning matters.)
• Building permits: Fire Island has both incorporated villages (Ocean Beach, Saltaire) that handle their own zoning AND unincorporated hamlets (parts of Seaview, Ocean Bay Park, Davis Park) that fall under Islip’s town code. The Seaview Association v. Town of Islip case (NY App Div, Nov 8, 2023) concerned wood decking and fencing in violation of Islip Town Code.
• Evacuation logistics: Suffolk County’s emergency response document (Section 9.23 Town of Islip) confirms: “The Town utilizes the Fire Island Evacuation Plan in conjunction with the Fire Island Ferry Service. … Bay Shore Highway Yard (145 2nd Ave, Bay Shore NY).”
• Tax collection: Islip’s 2025 budget (passed Nov 7, 2024) included additional tax hikes for eight Fire Island communities to fund future beach renourishment projects — Islip is the legal pass-through entity for FIMP local-sponsor obligations.

So Islip is the plumbing. It moves people, processes paperwork, and collects taxes. But it never had the parcel-level fight that Oyster Bay had in 1925, because:

• The famous Fire Island land was never owned by Islip as a town. The 17 communities are private homeowner associations (FIPPOA, Seaview, Ocean Beach Village, etc.) and the wilderness/preserved sections are federal (FINS).
• The barrier-island land that Moses did try to grab on Islip’s mainland frontage (Gilgo, Captree) was already in state-park control by the time the 1962 Fire Island parkway fight happened.
• Islip’s politics are dominated by mainland constituencies — Brentwood, Central Islip, Bay Shore, Sayville, the airport — not by Fire Island homeowners.

The class structure underneath

The mainland-island relationship is structurally a labor relationship.

The Bay Shore / South Shore Suffolk working class:

• Operates the ferries (Fire Island Ferries, Davis Park Ferry, Sayville Ferry Service)
• Provides the contractors, plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs who maintain the bungalows
• Owns the boats and crosses the Great South Bay daily for work
• Lives year-round in the mainland Suffolk towns
• Has volunteer fire / EMS that responds to island emergencies
• Stocks the marinas, runs the supply houses, drives the work skiffs

The Fire Island homeowner class:

• ~95% transient: primary residence in NYC, Fire Island house used as weekend / summer escape
• Median home value $1.4M+ (Ocean Beach), median listing $1.67M
• Disproportionately professional class — attorneys (Like’s profession), homebuilders / developers (Barbash’s), media, finance, advertising, plus the historic LGBTQ+ communities of Cherry Grove and the Pines
• Has the social capital, press contacts, federal political access, and time to organize

The historical record over-indexes on the homeowner class because they write the historical record. Maurice Barbash’s papers go to Stony Brook in a formal donation ceremony; the Bay Shore boat captain’s logs do not. FIA hires lobbyists; the Bay Shore tradesman shows up to a town council meeting about parking. The homeowner class produces letters to congressmen; the working class produces structures.

The pattern is universal in American shoreline history

This is not unique to Fire Island. It is the structural relationship at every American barrier-island summer community:

In every case the mainland working town:

• Provides the ferries, the boats, the trades labor
• Holds the year-round school district enrollment
• Has the volunteer fire / EMS
• Eats the property tax disadvantage (the rich houses are over there)
• Gets characterized as “not caring about the island” when in fact they keep it physically functional
• Is invisible in the preservation narrative

Why this matters for the Oyster Bay / JFK Sanctuary story

The reason Oyster Bay’s defense of the Tobay parcel reads as morally clean and Islip’s relationship to Fire Island reads as bureaucratic transactional is not a difference in town virtue. It is a difference in what kind of relationship the town has to the famous land:

• Oyster Bay = title-holder + defender → produces a clean preservation narrative (“we kept this from Moses”)
• Islip = service infrastructure operator → produces a transactional record (permits, evacuation plans, tax pass-throughs) that doesn’t read as heroic

If Oyster Bay had not happened to own the Tobay parcel in 1925, they would not be in the Moses story at all — they’d be just another Nassau commuter town. The defense was a function of holding title at the moment Moses showed up demanding it.

Conversely, if Islip had owned Fire Island land outright in 1962, they probably would have fought Moses too — but Fire Island was already a patchwork of private homeowner communities, state park (the Moses tip), and unprotected federal-eligible land. There was no Islip parcel for an Islip “Save Our Beaches Committee” to defend. The fight got organized along homeowner-association lines instead, and the homeowners were the Manhattan transient class.

The 2026 echo

The class structure persists today and is visible in the FIMP funding fight:

• Goldhirsch (FIA) and Robin (FIPPOA) lobby Albany and Washington for federal sand
• The Town of Islip is one of five “local sponsor” towns required to chip in 30% of the 50% non-federal share of FIMP project costs — passed through as higher tax bills for the 8 Fire Island communities in Islip’s jurisdiction (Newsday, Nov 14, 2024)
• The Bay Shore tradesmen will be hired to do the work when the sand arrives, paid by the day, going home to mainland houses they can afford because Fire Island’s $1.4M median locked them out 60 years ago

The 1964 victory permanently scarcified Fire Island. The scarcity drove the homeowner class to the only people who could afford it: NYC professionals. The professionals’ political and cultural capital makes them the visible defenders of the seashore. The mainland working class still does the work. Oyster Bay still holds the deed to the Tobay parcel.

Same structural pattern, three different generations of expression.

Source notes

• Fire Island News, Sept 14, 2025: “New York State Authorizes $1.7 Billion to Fund Fire Island to Montauk Point Storm Resilience”
• Fire Island News, Aug 11, 2023: “How Will Offshore Wind Energy Development Impact Fire Island?”
• Stony Brook University Magazine, Nov 21, 2024: “Safe keeping” (Barbash collection donation)
• Suffolk County Legislature General Meeting Minutes, Nov 25, 2025
• Newsday, Nov 14, 2024: “Islip budget pierces tax cap, includes hikes for 8 Fire Island communities for beach projects”
• Suffolk County Government, Section 9.23 Town of Islip emergency response plan
• NY App Div decision, Seaview Association of Fire Island, NY, Inc. v Town [of Islip], Nov 8, 2023
• Town of Islip 2026 Town Board public hearing agenda, Feb 24, 2026
• Various FIA / FIPPOA quotes in NY Post, News 12 Long Island, 2025–2026