Island Fever

While at the neighborhood park, one woman who moved to Lido in 1998 was stunned to hear other moms talking about how the property values would shoot up $50,000 the minute a gate was erected. She would cringe when others would chime in to rave about how thrilled they would be when outsiders couldn't get past the gate—how much better all island lives would be.

A line had been drawn in the playground sand, and she was definitely on the other side of it. As they spoke, this woman pushed her 2-year-old boy on the swing and thought, "How much better can this get?"

The gate was a stupid idea from the start. It made comfortable neighbors feel vulnerable. It led to a knee-jerk obsession with crime and the silliness of everyday people spouting off "part I and part II crime stats," as though they all moonlighted as watch commanders.

But the gate turned out to be a sad idea, too. It exposed some of the self-important elitism that Lido Isle residents usually keep hidden, along with pathetic examples of lack of perspective.

The good news? The gate was overwhelmingly voted down in an April 8 referendum in which more than 75 percent of the Lido residents cast ballots.

The not-so-good news? The issues raised by the proposed gate will linger. The same week the gate was rejected, a car was stolen from an open garage at the end of the island. You would have thought a triple homicide had occurred. The police responded with at least six squad cars, two helicopters, a law-enforcement boat circling the island and sniffing dogs. Policemen lined the bridge and questioned all drivers leaving the island.

A serious manhunt was on, and the man being hunted on Lido Isle might as well have been trying to escape Alcatraz. After abandoning the stolen car on the island, the suspect hopped on a dock and attempted to steal a boat to escape. It didn't work. The cops caught him—and he turned out to be a friend of a neighbor kid.

When it was over, some people tried to use this kid's short, soggy joy ride as evidence that voters had erred in rejecting the gate. "If there was a gate, this wouldn't have happened," they said, ignoring the fact that this thief would most likely have been allowed onto Lido anyway because his friend gave him access.

The incident is proof of something else: Lido Isle doesn't need a gate. It already has a moat.