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Suffolk's top law enforcement official said a seven-month narcotics investigation led to the first seizure in the county of carfentanil, a potentially deadly synthetic opioid that is 100 times stronger than fentanyl and used to tranquilize large mammals. Michael O'Keeffe reports in NEWSDAY that Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said yesterday four Long Island residents are accused of selling large amounts of carfentanil, fentanyl and cocaine, criminal sale of controlled substances, weapons charges and other crimes as a result of the probe.

"As hard as it is to believe, carfentanil is even more potent and more lethal than fentanyl," Tierney said in a statement. "The influx of this drug in Suffolk County is alarming and poses a clear and present danger to the public."

John Sims, 40, and Tyeisha Kisswani, 39, both of Freeport, and Robert Day, 65, of Hempstead, were members of a conspiracy that sold "copious quantities" of carfentanil, fentanyl and cocaine on multiple occasions between January and July, Tierney said. Adrian Spooner, 36, of Bay Shore, sold cocaine 12 times during the investigation, including more than a half ounce of the drug on July 17.

Fentanyl is a cheap and deadly synthetic opioid responsible for most of the fatal overdoses on Long Island and nationwide in recent years, officials have said. Carfentanil is often used as a tranquilizing agent for horses, elephants and other large mammals, officials said.

Authorities executed multiple search warrants at multiple locations on Aug. 28, Tierney said. Officials found a loaded .357 revolver, a high-capacity ammunition feeding device, cocaine, U.S. currency, digital scales and packaging materials while executing a search warrant at the home Sims and Kisswani share in Freeport. Kisswani was arrested at the scene and Sims was taken into custody at another location later that day.

Suffolk Supreme Court Justice John B. Collins ordered Sims held without bail at his arraignment in Riverhead on Monday. Sims, who faces 12½ to 25 years in prison, is scheduled to return to court on Nov 14.

The development of logistics centers, last-mile fulfillment centers and truck terminals would be banned in most of Riverhead Town’s industrial areas, under a proposed code amendment unveiled yesterday. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that legislation drafted by town planners and discussed at the Riverhead Town Board work session would define those uses separately from warehouses and prohibit their development in industrial zones. Warehouses — which would be redefined to a use with “limited trucking activity” — could still be developed.

Logistics centers, last-mile fulfillment centers and truck terminals are critical to e-commerce and other distribution industries and are considered warehouses under the current Riverhead Town code.

Concerns about warehouse development…especially the potential for them to bring heavy truck traffic to local roads, has drawn hundreds of residents to public meetings over the last few years. The Town Board, after years of resistance, adopted a six-month long industrial moratorium at the start of this year in a unanimous vote; the board in a split vote extended it for another three months in July.

That led to yesterday’s proposal. Along with banning those truck-heavy uses, the legislation would overhaul the town’s industrial zoning districts and decrease the allowable density of any new industrial development in the Town of Riverhead.

Southamptonfest, the annual fall festival hosted in Southampton Village, will return for its 12th year this weekend.

There will be plenty to see and do for lovers of art, fashion, food, music, and a long list of activities and sights for children as well.

The weekend begins this evening at the Southampton Cultural Center, sponsored by the Southampton Rotary Club. The evening will feature live music, light food and complimentary beer and wine from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., followed by a cash bar until 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $35.00 in advance. $45.00 at the door. Contact your favorite Southampton Rotarian for tickets and information.

The Boys and Girls Club of Shinnecock Nation will also perform a special dance tomorrow. The Rogers Memorial Library will bring the library to the community and distribute free books for adults and teens, as well as answer questions about library services and collections. They will also offer outdoor games. Heart of the Hamptons will provide a children’s scavenger hunt throughout the village, and hayrides will be offered in Agawam Park.

The Southampton Animal Shelter will be on hand with its pet mobile, with dogs and cats looking for a forever home.

AND, Paula Hinck of 88.3 WLIW FM will be there tomorrow, too!

The sponsors of a controversial Suffolk County bill that would cap executive pay at nonprofits contracted by the county are revising parts of the legislation after fellow Republicans expressed apprehension. The bill, sponsored by Legis. Rob Trotta (R-Fort Salonga) and Legis. Trish Bergin (R-East Islip), once again came before a public hearing during Tuesday's legislature meeting. The legislature voted 11-6 along party lines to recess the public hearing, which keeps the bill alive and allows for amendments. The next regular meeting is set for Nov. 26. Vera Chinese reports in NEWSDAY that the measure would bar the county from funding nonprofits that pay any employee more than the New York governor’s budgeted annual salary, which currently stands at $250,000. It would also require all nonprofits to list all gifts and donations they receive along with the donors. The restriction would not apply to nonprofit hospital systems or federally qualified health centers such as the Sun River Health system. Several members of the majority Republican caucus, including Nick Caracappa (R-Centereach), James Mazzarella (R-Moriches) and Stephanie Bontempi (R-Centerport), said they would not support the bill as it was written in part because it singles out the nonprofit sector. The Democratic caucus remains opposed to the bill. It would need a simple majority of 10 to pass, but it is not clear if it will get that support. Legislation expires if it is not adopted by the end of the year. Meanwhile, about 20 nonprofit representatives once again urged lawmakers to reject the proposal during the second public hearing on the matter this week. Speakers said the proposed law could make it difficult for nonprofits to recruit top talent and have a chilling effect on their willingness to work with the county.

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A woman who served as secretary to the mayor of Southampton Village during the administration of Jesse Warren has filed a lawsuit against Warren and the village, alleging that she was subjected to gender discrimination, harassment, a hostile work environment and retaliation during her time as a village employee and is owed unpaid overtime wages and monetary damages. Brendan J. O’Reilly reports on 27east.com that Miranda Weber took the position in late 2020 and resigned in April 2022, at which time she said she was leaving “on good terms.” But nearly a year after resigning, her attorney sent a demand letter to the Village of Southampton’s labor counsel that detailed her allegations against Warren and the village and claimed she is owed almost $90,000 in outstanding pay. Warren shared that letter with The Southampton Press, an action that Weber’s lawsuit calls “retaliation for raising claims against him.” The lawsuit, which was filed in Suffolk County Supreme Court on September 20, states that Warren “regularly had volatile outbursts, made inappropriate and gendered comments, and encroached on Ms. Weber’s personal life” and “threatened to withhold a promotion and raise unless she capitulated to his various demands.” Weber accuses Southampton Village leadership of being aware of “discriminatory conduct” and failing in their duty to protect her. Due to the “intolerable working conditions,” Weber resigned to protect her “physical and mental health and safety,” according to the lawsuit. It further states that Warren had promised her a payout for overtime at the end of her employment but that she has never received that payment. Current Southampton Mayor Bill Manger said the village is aware of the lawsuit but has yet to be formally served.

Sk8tober, a community celebration and skate contest, will be held at the Greenport Skate Park, 170 Moore’s Lane in Greenport tomorrow from 12 Noon to 5 p.m…the competition hosted by Dan Berkowitz of “How to Skateboards.”

The Greenport Skate Park is a 20,000 square foot concrete-and-wooden outdoor facility located in Greenport, New York. Built in 1998, the park serves as a central recreational outlet for the local community and surrounding townships. Greenport Skate Park welcomes all wheels - boards, scooters, skates, and BMX.

Greenport Skate Park Inc., a 501c3 dedicated to fostering a healthy, more active community, asks you to “Help us revitalize the Greenport Skate Park, which has fallen into disrepair. We are working towards raising the capital necessary to make the critical infrastructure repairs and aesthetic updates that will ensure the safety of current users and attract new users to the park.”

Saturday’s Sk8tober event is from 12 noon to 5pm.

More details are at greenportskatepark.org.

Freshman Republican Rep. Nick LaLota leads Democratic challenger John Avlon by eight percentage points (50%-42%) among likely voters in the race for New York’s 1st Congressional District, according to an internal poll released by the GOP campaign. Boosting LaLota in the competitive race is the presence of former President Donald Trump at the top of the Republican ticket. Carl Campanile reports in THE NY POST that Trump, 78, leads vice president and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, 59, by six (50%-44%) in the district that stretches from Huntington to Orient and Montauk Point. Democrats are hoping for an upset by Avlon, 51, a former CNN commentator, author, and founder of the centrist group No Labels. But LaLota, 46, a Navy veteran who succeeded longtime Rep. Lee Zeldin in Congress and reported $1.45 million remaining in his campaign treasury, appears to have the upper hand…according to a survey conducted for the LaLota campaign Sept. 26-29 which has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.9 percentage points. “The positive feedback I receive from constituents, confirmed by our latest polling, shows that Suffolk County families want a common-sense conservative and lifelong Long Islander to tackle issues at the border, strengthen the economy, and lead on world issues,” LaLota said. Avlon’s campaign dismissed the poll and claimed the Republican would be in for a shock Nov. 5. “Nick LaLota’s campaign is setting themselves up for heartbreak in November by rushing out a poll as it becomes clear that John Avlon has a cash and enthusiasm advantage in the last month of the race,” said the Democrat’s campaign manager, Bryan Sokolowski. The Avlon campaign said the candidate had raised $2.5 million between his two campaign committees and will have a cash advantage during the final stretch of the campaign. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has added Avlon to its “Red to Blue” program, indicating the party is making flipping the eastern Suffolk seat a top priority.

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This past Tuesday, October 1, the 14th anniversary of the Shinnecock Nation becoming a federally recognized Native American tribe, the Town of Southampton hosted the inaugural Shinnecock Heritage Day in the Town Hall auditorium in Southampton Village. Shinnecock Tribal Council Chairwoman Lisa Goree called the event a “very important first step” as a townwide occasion to intentionally and publicly acknowledge the tribe, its culture and its vital place in the greater Southampton Town community. “It’s about acknowledging that the Shinnecock Nation exists, and that we are a very integral part of this community,” Goree said. “I think that’s very important.” Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that Tuesday’s event included an educational panel discussion, a showcase of traditional song and dance, and traditional food tasting. It marked the first time the Town of Southampton held an official event recognizing the Shinnecock Nation’s sovereign status as a federally recognized tribe. Members of the Shinnecock Nation who helped plan and participated in the event looked at it as an opportunity. “We looked at this event as another opportunity to educate the public about our federal recognition and what that means, and who we are as a people, providing historical context,” Tribal Trustee Bianca Collins said. She added the tribal members often have to engage in the work of dispelling misconceptions about “who we are as a people,” and provide information about how the nation contributes to the Southampton community in modern times, and how it has contributed in the past. The Shinnecock Indian Nation is one of the oldest self-governing tribes in the State of New York and was formally recognized by the United States federal government as the 565th federally recognized tribe on October 1, 2010.

Revisions to Riverhead’s rental dwelling code were unanimously approved by the Town Board Tuesday. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the new regulations make it illegal for landlords to rent to people that are not a “family or the functional equivalent thereof.” They also impose restrictions on the number of commercial vehicles that can be parked in driveways on rental properties and establish other new requirements for driveways on rental properties. The rules also prohibit more than two “lawful” sleeping rooms in the basement of any home, other than a pre-existing basement in a single-family dwelling that contains more than two lawful sleeping rooms, as long as the dwelling had a valid certificate of occupancy. The rules ban sleeping rooms in basements of two-family and multi-family homes, garden apartments, condominiums and townhouses —with the exception of lawfully pre-existing habitable space or bedroom(s) in such structures. The regulations drew both support and opposition from residents and advocacy groups at a Sept. 17 public hearing in Riverhead Town Hall. Riverhead Town Board members voted without comment to pass the measure at Tuesday’s Town Board meeting. It will take effect 20 days after it is filed with the New York Secretary of State.

Southamptonfest, the annual fall festival hosted in Southampton Village, will return for its 12th year this Friday and Saturday.

There will be plenty to see and do for lovers of art, fashion, food, music, and a long list of activities and sights for children as well.

The festival is sponsored by the Peter Marino Art Foundation, Northwell Health, the Southampton Association and the Lake Agawam Conservancy. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the weekend will begin tomorrow evening at the Southampton Cultural Center, sponsored by the Southampton Rotary Club. The evening will feature live music, light food and complimentary beer and wine from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., followed by a cash bar until 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $35.00 in advance. $45.00 at the door.

Saturday’s lineup features live music, with Gene Casey and the Lone Sharks, Charles Certain and Next Level performing in Agawam Park. There will also be a chowder contest, with entries from local restaurants, and several food trucks on hand offering a wide range of culinary options. The Boys and Girls Club of Shinnecock Nation will also perform a special dance. The Rogers Memorial Library will bring the library to the community and distribute free books for adults and teens, as well as answer questions about library services and collections. They will also offer outdoor games. Heart of the Hamptons will provide a children’s scavenger hunt throughout the village, and hayrides will be offered in Agawam Park. The Southampton Animal Shelter will be on hand with its pet mobile, with dogs and cats looking for a forever home.

AND, Paula Hinck of 88.3 WLIW FM will be there, too!

An owner of a now-defunct Long Island bus company pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiracy to commit bank fraud in a check-kiting scheme used to obtain more than $9 million from a pair of financial institutions to keep his failing business operational, court records show. Grant Parpan reports in NEWSDAY that former East End Bus Lines owner John Mensch, 54, of Quogue, is facing at least 5 years in prison under the plea agreement before U.S. District Judge Nusrat Choudhury at the federal courthouse in Central Islip. He faces a fine of up to $250,000 and will be required to pay $9.6 million in restitution to Bridgehampton National Bank and Wallkill Valley Federal Savings & Loan, records show.

"Rather than take lawful steps to wind down his failing businesses, John Mensch resorted to criminality, operating a scheme to defraud two banks into advancing him millions of dollars that neither Mensch nor his company ever had, or had any realistic expectation of obtaining," U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace said in a statement.

Prosecutors alleged that, between January 2017 and September 2018, Mensch and other company executives passed a series of bad checks between business accounts set up in Suffolk and Orange counties, withdrawing the cash from one financial institution before the check bounced at the other.

The fraudulently obtained funds were used to keep East End Bus Lines, which provided transportation for students on Long Island and elsewhere, in operation, investigators found.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anthony Bagnuola and Adam Toporovsky.

East End also made headlines in August and September 2018 when officials with the William Floyd school district said the company had defaulted on its contract, briefly leaving thousands of students without transportation as the 2018-19 school year began.

Mensch will remain free on bond pending sentencing.

The Mensch family has owned east end school bus operator Montauk Bus Company since 1972.

The hamlet of Springs in the Town of East Hampton may be a beneficiary of a New York State grant program aimed at funding projects such as public improvements, renovations and enhancements for businesses, elevating historical or cultural aspects, and increasing community programming. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that Samantha Klein, East Hampton Town’s intergovernmental relations coordinator, told the Town Board this past Tuesday that the New York Forward program plans to award $4.5 million to applications that include a variety of projects that contribute to revitalizing or reinvigorating an area. These can include public improvement projects like walkability, green infrastructure, streetscaping, direct assistance to businesses for renovations or elevating historical or cultural aspects of the area. Two such awards are anticipated on Long Island. One criterion is being Pro Housing certified, a designation the town received in August. A nine-question survey is open until Wednesday, October 9, at ehamptonny.gov/1946/NY-Forward-Springs-Application, and the board encouraged residents to participate. Should East Hampton Town’s application be awarded, a fresh planning process will be undertaken to raise or revisit ideas “and make sure anything implemented is supported by the community,” she said. The state would provide technical assistance via a consultant and project manager to facilitate stakeholder engagement. Awards are to be announced, on a rolling basis, late this year and early next year. The planning process with the Department of State would happen in March with projects identified, vetted and developed.

A second hockey rink is now open at the Peconic Ice Rinks in Calverton.

Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the outdoor rink, located at Veterans Memorial Park, is made out of sports court material and will be used primarily for dek and roller hockey programs, according to Jim Tamburino, general manager of Peconic Ice Rinks, which also includes the year-round indoor ice rink at the Riverhead Town-owned park.

The Peconic Hockey Foundation, which operates the rinks for the town, just started youth and adult roller hockey clinics on the outdoor rink. Tamburino said the rink is VersaCourt tile, an outdoor multipurpose sports court material.

Soon the rink will transform into a second ice rink for the winter months, Tamburino said. “We’ll have ice by the end of November or early December through March, depending on the weather,” he said.

“We’re gonna have some public sessions, maybe a holiday event,” Tamburino said of the outdoor rink in the winter. “Some of our travel teams will do some practices and games outside, and then some rent outs to the public, too.”

Information on how to register for events at the rinks can be found on peconicicerinks.com.

The luxury electric SUV and pickup manufacturer Rivian has proposed turning an online patio furniture showroom…the Patio.com building in Water Mill…into an EV charging “outpost” and customer lounge for the relatively small number of people who own the $75,000-plus vehicles. But the proposed facility would sit on a particularly troublesome portion of a very traffic congested intersection on Montauk Highway, just east of the merge with County Road 39A and Flying Point Road. As one is heading westbound on 27 upon approaching the junction of 27 and 27A, the Patio.com building is on your right. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that Rivian representatives said the existing building would be mostly unchanged, beyond a reconfiguration of the front entrance and the addition of an exterior door to the bathroom so it could be accessed at any time by its battery charging customers only, an outdoor children’s play area, indoor lounge facilities and a Rivian merchandise counter. The Southampton Town Planning Board told Rivian representatives that vehicles entering and exiting the property could pose a substantial hazard, to themselves and others. A Water Mill resident pointed out to the Planning Board last week that the property presently generates minimal traffic beyond what appears to be a single employee entering and exiting each day. Representatives of Rivian said they hoped their planned service station would get more use than that but noted that it is primarily a brand-recognition play by the company, with the added benefit of providing a convenience and comfort service to their vehicle owners. The Southampton Town Planning Board said it was going to require that an independent traffic engineering company conduct a full traffic analysis of the property and issue a recommendation for how the property could most safely and efficiently be accessed and exited — a prospect that would take many months.

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Tens of thousands of unionized dockworkers walked off the job yesterday, halting shipments in New York, New Jersey and dozens of other ports along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, while spiking concerns about the flow of goods and ramifications for consumers. Lorena Mongelli reports in NEWSDAY that the strike — by 45,000 International Longshoremen’s Association workers across 36 ports from Maine to Texas — is the union’s first since 1977.

The work stoppage shut down import and export operations at those seaports, which handle roughly half of the nation's imports. Locally, the possibility of an extended strike also sparked concerns about potential impacts for New York consumers and businesses.

Trade experts said each day of a strike would cause a 5-6 day backup at the ports. They were keeping a close watch on what an extended strike could mean for the price and supply of certain perishable items and other goods, with some experts indicating it would take weeks for consumers to feel any impacts while others said it would take only several days. Nelson Eusebio, government relations coordinator at the National Supermarket Association, which represents 700 supermarkets across the East Coast, said Tuesday most supermarkets have hedged against the strike by stockpiling goods. But he said concerns would emerge if the strike continues for longer than a couple weeks.

In Easthampton, Lisa-Jae Eggert, co-owner of 3 Moms Organic, which sells plant-based tick and mosquito repellents online, said she is worried about increased shipping costs if her supplies get rerouted to other ports.

"As a small business, your margins are very slim. You're counting every penny," Eggert said.

But locally and across the state, industry experts said shoppers shouldn't fear that basic staples will run out soon. They also advised against hoarding products, which could create a shortfall.

A century-old carousel in Greenport will be closed indefinitely while it undergoes “extensive” repairs, village officials said yesterday. Tara Smith reports in NEWSDAY that the attraction in Mitchell Park suffered a significant mechanical failure on Sunday, according to a news release.

Greenport Village trustee Julia Robins, the liaison to the carousel committee, said Tuesday the carousel was shut down late Sunday morning after several horses came off their vertical tracks.

There were a handful of riders at the time but no injuries were reported, she said.

“We have a world renowned carousel specialist who is coming to Greenport to evaluate repairs in the coming weeks, at that time we will be able to better gauge needed work,” Mayor Kevin Stuessi said in a statement.

The carousel, which has 36 horses and two sleighs, dates back to about 1920 and was originally used by a traveling amusement company. Stuessi said the ride has never been disassembled since it was donated to the Village of Greenport in 1995.

It’s the second time in recent years the popular attraction has been shuttered over equipment issues. In March 2023, village officials shut down the carousel after a restoration expert discovered lead paint on one of the horses.

The village spent $67,500 on remediation, according to municipal budget documents. That project involved encapsulating the horses with a clear coat of nontoxic paint and the attraction reopened in time for Memorial Day weekend, Newsday reported.

The attraction must pass annual safety inspections to operate, but Robins said the village should go "above and beyond" to assess the ride.

“It’s timely and due," she said. "The carousel gets a tremendous amount of use, we run it all summer long.”

It's also an economic generator for the Village of Greenport, bringing in $190,705 in 2023, according to an annual financial report.

The Riverhead Town Board yesterday appointed the first female police captain in the history of the Riverhead Police Department.

Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Lt. Danielle Willsey was promoted to the rank of captain by Town Board resolution and was sworn into the new position by Riverhead Police Chief Ed Frost.

Willsey, of Manorville, is an 18-year veteran of the Riverhead police force, having joined its ranks in September 2006. She was promoted to the rank of sergeant in July 2018 and to the rank of lieutenant in November 2021.

Willsey was the first woman to be promoted to the rank of lieutenant in the department’s history.

WIllsey’s husband Don and their children, Evelyn, Nick, Clare and Allie were on hand to witness the historic moment.

Sgt. Dino Isgro was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, filling the vacancy created by the elevation of Willsey to the captain’s post.

Tuesday’s ceremonies were witnessed by a packed house, with more than two dozen of Riverhead’s rank-and-file police officers lined up around the perimeter of the Town Hall meeting room and seats filled with friends and family members of the newest top brass in the department.

Suffolk County officials are considering a law that would empower Suffolk police to crack down on illegal cannabis retail shops, issuing them a fine as much as $25,000 and potentially padlocking them. Vera Chinese reports in NEWSDAY that a bill pending before the Suffolk County Legislature would grant police the authority to conduct inspections and pursue enforcement actions against businesses that are not authorized to sell cannabis products. It would allow police to inspect any marijuana store or vehicle retailer that is not listed on the directory kept by the NYS Office of Cannabis Management and issue violations, seize their product and close them down.

At yesterday’s legislature hearing in Hauppauge, Suffolk lawmakers voted 17-0 to advance the bill for a future vote.

"Although cannabis is now legal in New York State and will provide important revenue that will help fund the services government is mandated to deliver, there must be law and order in the industry," Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine, who proposed the legislation, said in a statement. "Legislation makes it clear that if you want to be in the cannabis business you need to do it legally."

Long Island has only three state-licensed cannabis shops, all in East Farmingdale. On Shinnecock territory in Southampton there are more than half a dozen smoke shops selling recreational marijuana. Meanwhile, unlicensed shops have opened across Long Island since weed became legal in 2021.

The Suffolk law would require a representative of the county’s labor, licensing and consumer affairs department to coordinate with the state and report the enforcement actions. Violators could face fines between $100 and $25,000 depending on the type and duration of the offense.

Members of the Long Island Cannabis Coalition, a trade group, support the bill.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island & The North Fork has scheduled a series of three virtual debates that will be streamed live on SeaTV (Channel 22 in Southampton) this month, for view later on SeaTV’s YouTube channel. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the first debate, for the New York State Assembly District #1 seat held for the past three decades by Fred W. Thiele, Jr., is next Monday, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m.

With Mr. Thiele’s retirement at the end of the year, Democratic Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni and Republican Shelter Island Town Attorney Stephen Kiely are vying for his seat, which represents Southold, Shelter Island, East Hampton, Southampton and a portion of Brookhaven Town.

A debate for the State Senate District #1 seat held by Republican Anthony Palumbo for the past two terms will be held on Monday, Oct. 21 at 6 p.m. Former Democratic Suffolk County Legislator Sarah Anker, from Mt. Sinai, is challenging Mr. Palumbo this election cycle.

Following the State Senate debate, the League hosts a debate for the First U.S. Congressional District race at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 21.

First-term incumbent Republican Representative Nick LaLota, a Navy veteran and former Suffolk County Board of Elections Commissioner, is being challenged by Democratic party candidate John Avlon, a former CNN political commentator and author.

Southampton Town residents who have made the quiet and bucolic Gibson Lane Beach in Sagaponack their go-to beach over the years had reason to rejoice recently, when it was announced at a Sagaponack Village Board meeting that Southampton Town beach permits will continue to be honored at the beach.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that in response to complaints from Sagaponack Village residents several weeks ago that Gibson Lane Beach was not being well cared for by the Town of Southampton — reports of overflowing garbage and overgrown foliage were among the issues — Mayor Bill Tillotson had proposed having the village take back control of the beach and issue its own village beach stickers. According to that proposal, only Sagaponack Village residents would have been guaranteed a beach sticker — and Southampton Town residents would have needed to purchase a more expensive nonresident pass. But after an outcry from town residents who have enjoyed the beach for years, the mayor and board backed down, deciding they would still take back control of the beach from the town but will continue to allow Southampton Town residents to use their regular beach passes to park there.

East Hampton Town officials have announced the intention to use $56 million of Community Preservation Fund money to acquire an iconic 30-acre parcel in Wainscott. If consummated, the acquisition would represent the largest CPF purchase in the town’s history. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the East Hampton Town Board is to issue a notice for a public hearing on the purchase of 66 Wainscott Main Street at its meeting tomorrow at Town Hall. The hearing itself will happen on October 17 at 6 p.m., also at East Hampton Town Hall. The intent is for the preservation of open space, agricultural lands, and historic places and property, and for water quality protection and improvement. The property is included in the town’s CPF project plan and is situated within an agricultural overlay district and harbor protection overlay district.

The seller is the businessman Ronald Lauder, heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics company, who in 2021 purchased the property for $66 million to prevent its development. “His willingness to consider selling the parcel to the town for considerably below fair market value exemplifies a profound commitment to land preservation,” according to a statement issued by the Town of East Hampton this past Friday.

The parcel includes Wainscott Pond, which the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has identified as an impaired water body under its Priority Waterbodies List.

The property had been owned in whole or part by the Osborn family since the 17th century. Thomas Osborn settled in East Hampton in 1648, the year of the town’s founding. His son, John Osborn, is credited as a founder of Wainscott, establishing a homestead in the area by 1668.

The Community Preservation Fund, created in 1998 to preserve open land and farmland in the five East End towns, is financed by a 2 percent real estate transfer tax.

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As the number of English-language learning students increases across Long Island, education advocates say teachers certified for bilingual-education classes are becoming harder to find. The lack of proper bilingual education could hurt the academic performance of English-language learners, advocates and educators say. Darwin Yanes reports in NEWSDAY that some see a need to provide teachers with incentives to pursue bilingual-education certification.

Newsday reported in July that the number of bilingual-education students in Long Island schools rose about 60% the past decade — to a total of 43,675.

Christa Stevenson, director of the Long Island Regional Bilingual Education Resource Network, said a bilingual-education certification, also known as an extension, is often looked at as "an afterthought" by college students seeking to become teachers.

"If we had [institutions of higher education] taking bilingual education more seriously, we could address all those issues in our teacher prep programs before we get to the point where we’re at a shortage," she said.

Her organization provides technical assistance, professional development and program consultation services to all Long Island school districts regarding the education of English-language learners. The agency is funded through the state Education Department’s Office of Bilingual Education and World Languages and administered by Eastern Suffolk BOCES.

Stevenson noted that having an established bilingual-education program at a school with mentors who help guide younger educators could be part of a solution. A strong support system for bilingual educators is key, she said.

Today is Shinnecock Heritage Day at Southampton Town Hall in Southampton Village with a celebration of the federally recognized tribe’s 10,000-year history and its impact on Long Island. All are invited to join the commemoration from 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM today.

Joe Werkmeister reports in NEWSDAY that earlier this year, the Southampton town board voted to designate every Oct. 1 as Shinnecock Heritage Day. The day marks the 14th anniversary of the federal government's decision to recognize the Shinnecock as the United States' 565th federally recognized tribe.

This afternoon’s event will offer traditional food tastings, ceremonies and a panel discussion. The talk will feature tribal members discussing the nation’s history and current state of affairs.

Bryan Polite, the former chairman of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, is scheduled to speak on the panel along with Lisa Goree, the current chairwoman, as well as Bianca Collins, the council secretary, and others.

"It’s really an event for us to talk about the enormous amount of contributions, the enormous amount of cultural pride the Shinnecock Nation has provided to the Southampton community and also to Long Island as a whole," Polite said.

That’s Shinnecock Heritage Day at Southampton Town Hall today from 4pm to 6pm. It’s free and all are welcome.

The Town of Southampton Youth Bureau will host an Open Mic Night on Friday, October 18, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Nice Place Coffee, 41 N. Phillips Avenue, Suite #4 in Remsenburg-Speonk. As reported on 27east.com, performing is free and open to youth in grades five through 12. Acoustic performers and bands, karaoke, spoken word, poetry and comedic acts are all welcome to participate. Another Open Mic Night will be hosted at Hampton Coffee Company, 749 County Road 39A in Southampton on Friday, November 1, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Reserve your performance slot by emailing pstrecker@southamptontownny.gov or call 631-702-2425.

Seventy-two Long Island high schools have been named 2023-24 Schools of Distinction or Schools of Excellence by the New York State Public High School Athletic Association. Michael R. Ebert reports in NEWSDAY that the School of Distinction status requires that 100% of a school’s varsity teams receive the association’s Scholar-Athlete team award, while School of Excellence status requires that 75% of varsity teams receive the award, the association said. To qualify for the Scholar-Athlete award, 75% of a team’s players must have a grade-point average for the season equal to or greater than 90%.

This year, 114 schools statewide were awarded the Schools of Distinction designation and 226 were given the Schools of Excellence designation.

“The efforts made by student-athletes in the classroom are paramount to their success in the athletic arena, and beyond their high school days,” said the association’s executive director, Robert Zayas.

Eastern Suffolk schools named Schools of Distinction are Center Moriches, East Hampton, Greenport, Miller Place, Patchogue-Medford, Pierson in Sag Harbor, Riverhead Charter School, Roslyn, Shelter Island, Shoreham-Wading River, and Westhampton Beach.

Long Island’s high schools named Schools of Excellence include east end schools Hampton Bays, Mattituck, Riverhead, Southampton, and Southold.

Returning to work after the death of a loved one can cripple employees’ well-being if companies ignore their needs, which may derail the careers of young professionals and spur them to search for more accommodating workplaces, according to a 2023 Bankrate survey.

If employers don't handle the situation well, it can hurt a company's ability to recruit, threaten overall productivity, and deflate the morale of other workers.

As reported in Newsday, the issue is intertwined with a broader struggle that companies face when trying to hire and retain employees younger than 27. That demographic overwhelmingly prefers employers who allow them greater flexibility in general, according to the Bankrate survey…which indicated that 78% of Gen Z workers wanted a new job within a year.

Employers have to pay about twice the cost of a staffer’s salary to replace them, according to Gallup.

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing this coming Thursday, October 3, on a proposed change to the town code pertaining to shellfish that would allow it to set the opening and closing dates of town waters to the harvesting of bay scallops to align with those of the Town Trustees, who likewise set the dates for harvesting in waters under their jurisdiction.

Thursday’s public hearing follows the Trustees’ vote last week to open the season for the taking of scallops from Trustee waters at sunrise on November 10 and close it at sunset on March 31, 2025.

Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that this year, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation has set the opening of scallop season in state waters for November 4. The Trustees have typically waited until the following Sunday to open their waters, both to allow additional time for scallops to spawn and mature and, by opening their waters on a Sunday, allow recreational harvesters the opportunity to dig for scallops.

The East Hampton Town Board has authority to manage the taking of shellfish in Montauk, where the Trustees do not have jurisdiction. Management of the harvesting of shellfish in other town waters is vested in the Trustees. The town code, as presently worded, stipulates that if no resolution is passed for the upcoming season, town waters open on the third Monday of October.

Councilman David Lys said that a vote on the East Hampton Town Board’s resolution could happen as soon as October 8, “which will give us enough time for this to be in effect, hopefully, for the upcoming season, based on the DEC’s calendar.”

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Nearly a month into the school year, the Tuckahoe Common School District sits at a three-way intersection as administrators contemplate the road ahead. Michelle Trauring reports on 27east.com that the first option is the status quo: to remain a prekindergarten-through-eighth grade school and send students on to Southampton or Westhampton Beach high schools. The second would be to merge with the Southampton School District — a move that failed in 2014 public vote . And the third option is to dissolve the current common school district and recreate it as a union free school district — which would allow Tuckahoe to partner with the Shinnecock Nation to build a high school. This past Monday, at a Tuckahoe School Board meeting, Superintendent Len Skuggevik presented a vision of what a future Tuckahoe High School could look like — its offerings and location on the Stony Brook Southampton campus — and a condensed pathway to get there, should a feasibility study prove that it makes financial and educational sense for the community. “I need everybody to know that what we are presenting tonight is a draft, and just a draft,” he said.

By the end of December, Governor Kathy Hochul will consider a bill that would allow Tuckahoe Common School District to hold a referendum to reorganize as a union free school district. Co-sponsored by Republican State Senator Anthony Palumbo and Democratic Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., the bill — if signed into law by the governor — would order a feasibility study to be completed before a public vote, which would include current and projected student enrollments and staffing; a plan for educational programs, curriculum and transportation; and the fiscal implications of the reorganization, such as changes in state aid, expenditures and local taxes.

“I can tell you, the nation is on board with this,” Lance Gumbs, vice chairman of the Shinnecock Nation Council of Trustees, said. “If it’s the move forward the community here in Tuckahoe really wants…we can provide a lot of resources and a lot of assets to bring this to fruition.”

After a four-year court battle, the Diocese of Rockville Centre has reached an agreement with hundreds of survivors of clergy sexual abuse that calls for the church to pay a total of just over $323 million, officials said in federal bankruptcy court yesterday. Bart Jones reports in NEWSDAY that while some steps remain to finalize the deal, the lead attorney for the diocese indicated that an agreement had been reached. "After nearly four years ... we do have a global resolution," Corrine Ball told U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Martin Glenn in Manhattan.

The agreement would benefit more than 500 people who have filed lawsuits against the diocese contending they were sexually abused by clergy when they were children. The Rockville Centre diocese is home to 1.2 million Catholics, and is the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the nation to declare bankruptcy.

The diocese in a statement Thursday said it was "grateful that preliminary terms have been agreed upon for the settlement of our bankruptcy case. For the sake of survivors and the Church's mission on Long Island, we pray that the plan is approved and completed as quickly as possible."

Richard Tollner, who heads the committee of survivors in the bankruptcy proceedings, said he generally supported the agreement after years of hard work to make it happen.

The long court battle "has been harsh on victims and their families," he said. "We look forward to full cooperation by the Diocese and all its representatives in reaching the finish line."

The diocese said the total payout would be just over $323 million. The diocese, parishes and other related entities will contribute $234.8 million, with some of the money raised from sales of diocesan property. Insurance companies will contribute just over $85 million. Counsel for the Creditor's Committee, a legal firm that represents the interests of the survivors, will contribute $3 million.

"All participated in order to help offer equitable compensation to survivors and move this difficult ordeal towards a conclusion," the statement said.

Hamptons Doc Fest invites middle and high school students on the East End of Long Island to participate in an exciting new documentary short film competition, honoring the “Hometown Heroes” who have made a significant impact in their lives and communities.

As reported on 27east.com, students are asked to create a documentary short (5 to 10 minute) film that showcases a “Hometown Hero,” anyone from nurses and doctors to teachers, family members, athletes, or artists who have inspired the student. All films must be original and created solely by the student applicant.

Applications will close on Friday, October 11. Entries will be judged by members of the Hamptons Doc Fest board and staff, professional filmmakers, and previous Hamptons Doc Fest alumni. Prizes include: for first place, a screening at Hamptons Doc Fest in December, a $500 scholarship, and a festival access pass; for second place, a $300 scholarship and festival pass; for third place, a $150 scholarship and festival pass.

To learn more about the competition and submission guidelines, go to hamptonsdocfest.com/young-voices or contact Stefanie Anarumo at stefanie@hamptonsdocfest.com.

PSEG Long Island is again lagging in performance standards that tie its annual bonus payment to "meaningful results for ratepayers," reporting it is "behind target" or "at risk" of missing 44% of the metrics, including those tied to customer satisfaction, outages and call-center answer times.

Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that PSEG for the past two years has fully met 70% of the performance metrics, cutting its annual bonus compensation by millions of dollars even as LIPA has reduced the number of metrics. Former LIPA chief Tom Falcone rated PSEG’s performance a "D-plus" during a public hearing last year.

The latest findings were disclosed in a midyear report by grid-owner LIPA at its monthly trustees meeting this week. Compared with past meetings' fiery exchanges over metrics, LIPA's board on Wednesday offered little criticism of the report's conclusions.

Asked why he didn’t challenge the results during the presentation, LIPA’s acting chief executive John Rhodes told Newsday after the meeting, "I don’t pose those questions in these board meetings."

As of midyear 2024, PSEG was "at risk" of missing performance metrics for the average length of customer outages, the frequency of outages, the number of momentary outages and a plan to reduce "sustained multiple outages," according to the report.

Jessica Bretana, LIPA’s senior manager of enterprise risk management, said weather played a role in many of the shortfalls, some of which are expected to improve by year's end.

PSEG also was "behind target" for the serious injury rate for employees, and at risk of missing the metric for improving reliability through tree removal. PSEG has since stepped up the tree-removal program.

The State of New York has begun taking applications from startup businesses for $10 million in loans, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced.

James T. Madore reports in NEWSDAY that the Main Street Capital Program offers loans of up to $100,000 per applicant with a fixed interest rate of 9.9%. The loan term is up to six years. The program targets the smallest businesses, particularly those owned by women and members of minority groups, the governor said.

Under the guidelines, borrowers in the first year can make payments less than the interest owed.

The loan program will be run by Albany-based Pursuit and Empire State Development, the state’s primary business-aid agency.

To apply for a loan, applicants must first complete a pre-application questionnaire to determine eligibility.

On Long Island, there are development centers at Farmingdale State College and Stony Brook University and assistance centers at Hofstra University and Suffolk County Community College.

More information may be found at esd.ny.gov/main-street-capital-loan-fund.

Kevin Law, chairman of the ESD board and a partner in the Ronkonkoma-based real estate firm Tritec, called the loan program "a game-changer for entrepreneurs across New York, especially on Long Island, where targeted investments will keep our region competitive and prosperous for years to come ... By empowering Long Island’s entrepreneurs, we are fostering economic growth, creating jobs and revitalizing communities from the ground up."

Temple Adas Israel, in partnership with the Children’s Museum of the East End, invites families of all backgrounds to a special celebration of Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, at “Rosh HaShanah: Happy Birthday, World!” The celebration will take place this coming Sunday morning, from 10 to 11 a.m. at the Children’s Museum of the East End, 376 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, Bridgehampton. The hour of fun will include songs, learning about the shofar and the opportunity to try to blow it. Plus, crafts, apples, honey, music and stories of the Jewish New Year Tradition! “We are so excited to partner with the Children’s Museum of the East End to bring this celebration to our community,” says LuAnne Geffen, Director of Community Engagement at Temple Adas Israel. “Rosh HaShanah is a time of renewal and joy, and we look forward to celebrating with families in a fun and engaging way.” Admission is free. To RSVP, visit the Children’s Museum of the East End website: cmee.org/en/whats-on/calendar/apples-honey-and-the-new-year. Or call (631-537-8250).

Three months after Gov. Kathy Hochul indefinitely paused the congestion pricing tolling program, its supporters are heading to a New York court today to try to revive it. Ana Ley and Winnie Hu report in THE NY TIMES that these supporters — including the City Club of New York, Riders Alliance and Sierra Club — have filed a pair of lawsuits against Governor Hochul and state transportation officials, arguing that the governor did not have the authority to stop congestion pricing and that the pause undermined the state’s environmental goals.

“We believe that the governor has overstepped her boundaries,” said Layla Law-Gisiko, president of the City Club, an influential civic organization.

The congestion pricing program — the first of its kind in the nation — was to have begun charging fees to most vehicles entering Manhattan below 60th Street on June 30. Passenger vehicles entering the zone would have been charged up to $15 once a day, with some exceptions.

Congestion pricing was expected to ease some of the worst traffic in the nation and improve air quality. The tolls were projected to raise about $1 billion annually, which would have been used to secure $15 billion in financing for crucial repairs to New York City’s sprawling transit system including the LIRR.

At today’s hearing, oral arguments in the two lawsuits supporting congestion pricing are scheduled to be heard before Justice Arthur F. Engoron in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. Before the hearing, congestion pricing supporters are planning to rally outside the courthouse.

Congestion pricing has also faced widespread opposition.

A Siena College survey in April found that 63 percent of New York State residents opposed congestion pricing. Many critics see the tolls as an unfair burden on commuters from the boroughs and suburbs outside Manhattan and have also raised concerns about the environmental impact on neighborhoods that could see an increase in traffic as drivers try to avoid the tolls.

Congestion pricing supporters have assailed the governor’s decision, saying that it has left critical transit services and improvements in limbo.

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is formulating a plan for the state to regulate — and possibly ban — the use of smartphones in schools, citing the harmful effects of personal electronics and social media on attention and mental health. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that over the past few months, Hochul has been on a listening tour across the state as she considers the particulars of a plan, which would be introduced by the end of the year for adoption in 2025. While there is no formal legislative proposal endorsed by the governor, Hochul has said that the bill would allow schoolchildren to carry simple phones that can send texts but cannot access the internet.

Teachers have raised concerns about the use of cellphones in schools, citing it as a major issue, according to surveys. National health experts, including U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, have issued warnings of the risks social media can have on youth mental health.

The New York State United Teachers, the statewide federation of teachers’ unions announced on Tuesday an endorsement of statewide restrictions on smartphones and other personal electronics in schools throughout the school day, with exceptions for instructional purposes and student needs.

NYSUT said that the restrictions should be designed locally. Educators should not bear the “sole or primary responsibility for the implementation or enforcement of these policies,” the unions said, and the state should supply resources to implement the policy.

Riders hopes of having the Long Island Railroad expand its capacity in Suffolk County, including by electrifying its tracks through Yaphank, could be dashed if the MTA is forced to downsize its next five-year capital program, according to the head of the transit authority, which approved the $68.4 billion plan yesterday.

Alfonso A. Castillo reports in NEWSDAY that the 11-member Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board unanimously voted in favor of the plan — the most expensive in its history — at its monthly meeting in Manhattan.

Final approval is still required by the NYS Legislature, which must also come up with a way to generate a new revenue stream to fund roughly half the plan, while also figuring out how to fill a $15 billion budget gap in the MTA’s current capital budget that was created with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s indefinite pause on congestion pricing.

If the $68.4 billion program can’t be fully funded, the MTA’s chairman said system expansion projects could be the first to go in a downsized plan.

That could include plans to study electrifying the LIRR’s tracks to Yaphank, and other improvements on the Port Jefferson and Montauk lines.

The celebration will take place this coming Sunday, from 10 to 11 a.m. at the Children’s Museum of the East End, 376 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, Bridgehampton.

The hour of fun will include songs, learning about the shofar and the opportunity to try to blow it, crafts and more.

Featuring apples and honey, music and stories of the Jewish New Year Tradition!

“We are so excited to partner with the Children’s Museum of the East End to bring this celebration to our community,” says LuAnne Geffen, Director of Community Engagement at Temple Adas Israel. “Rosh HaShanah is a time of renewal and joy, and we look forward to celebrating with families in a fun and engaging way.”

Admission is free.

To RSVP, contact Children’s Museum of the East End (631-537-8250)

Members of the Shinnecock Nation bristled this week at doubts raised about their legal right to develop the Westwoods property in Hampton Bays without oversight by the Town of Southampton. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that Shinnecock leaders and senior tribal members said that challenges to their sovereignty and right to develop land they own without seeking permission from the town were insulting and would be unsuccessful.

“The majority of the Town of Southampton is on stolen land … and still rightfully belongs to the Shinnecock Nation,” said Gordell Wright, a former tribal trustee, at Tuesday evening’s meeting of the Southampton Town Board.

“I don’t care if you lived there for 100 years, for 150 years. Stolen is stolen. You talk about being good neighbors, but every time we want to do something for our people, we get opposition, we get lawyers against us,” said the former tribal trustee.

As construction has continued on an approximately 10-acre portion of the 77-acre Westwoods property…just north of 27 westbound...neighbors have demanded that Southampton Town step in to stop the work and claimed that the tribe’s ownership of the land is not in the same legal realm as its 800-acre federally recognized territory on Shinnecock Neck, in Southampton.

This week, neighbors continued to urge town officials to take legal and legislative steps to halt the construction of what is planned to be a sprawling gas station and travel plaza with 30 pumps of gasoline and diesel fuel, a food mart and retail shops.

The Shinnecock have said they hope to be able to have the gas station accessed primarily from Sunrise Highway… pending NYS DOT approval…when it is completed next spring. But in the meantime the tribe is building a long access road to narrow and winding Newtown Road, and neighbors have said the construction has rattled their homes for months and erased the dense forests that used to be in their Hampton Bays backyards.

The New York State Union of Teachers (NYSUT) has announced it is calling for “bell-to-bell” restrictions on cellphones and other personal devices in schools.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the announcement calling for the restrictions — which would essentially be a ban on use during the entire school day — came immediately after the conclusion of last Friday’s Disconnected Conference, which was hosted by NYSUT and other partners, to discuss the effects of cellphones, social media, and technology on learning and mental health in schools. The conference included more than 500 educators, students, parents and policymakers who came together to discuss the issue. NYSUT’s Board of Directors passed a resolution calling for restrictions on smartphones and other personal devices like smartwatches and earbuds in schools. The resolution specifically supports a statewide law or policy requiring robust restrictions on the devices, from school opening to dismissal, with exceptions allowed for instructional purposes and student health and safety needs. The NYSUT resolution also specified that restrictions should be designed locally, with input from parents, teachers and unions, and should specifically address alternative communication methods and systems for parents and caregivers; educators should not bear the sole or primary responsibility for implementation or enforcement of policies; and state resources should be available for implementation costs so individual schools or districts are not financially burdened by any required investment.

There’s a new sign-post at Southold Town Hall, and it’s leading the way toward peace.

Just to the left of the entrance to Town Hall, you may notice a new white post covered with words in eight languages that have significance for the East End community.

“May Peace Prevail On Earth,” it reads, in English, Spanish, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Polish, Ukranian and Mohawk.

Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the post was placed at Southold Town Hall by the Greenport Ecumenical Ministries (GEM) in a ceremony this past Tuesday, but its origins span the globe, dating to the United Nations’ first International Day of Peace, 25 years ago.

“This day epitomizes our joint aspirations for a world devoid of discord and turmoil,” said GEM President Don Russo at the dedication ceremony. “A peace pole is an internationally recognized symbol of the hopes and dreams of the entire human family.”

Peace poles are found in more than 250,000 locations across the globe.

Tuesday’s multi-generational ceremony was highlighted by the participation of Greenport High School’s Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps, which presented the colors before joining with the Greenport High School a cappella chorus in fine-tuned harmony to sing the Star Spangled Banner.

Suffolk County this past Tuesday received a credit rating increase from Fitch, one of the three major credit rating agencies, which cited better operating efficiencies and more conservative revenue forecasts in its report. Vera Chinese reports in NEWSDAY that Suffolk’s rating has increased from A- to A, which is high credit quality, but still two rungs below the top rating of AAA. That means Suffolk’s ability to pay back debt on things like infrastructure projects, vehicles or civil liabilities is strong, but could be impacted if there's an economic downturn, according to the agency.

Fitch notes Suffolk’s regional and economic indicators, including the income, unemployment rate and educational levels of its residents, remain strong.

The county’s finances have improved in recent years due in part to higher than anticipated revenue during the pandemic years as well as an infusion of about $500 million in federal pandemic-related aid. But the agency notes that the county upgraded its budgetary practices, as well.

Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine has said he prioritizes improving the county’s credit rating, an assessment of a municipality's finances which affects interest rates when it borrows, or bonds, for projects.

In a statement yesterday, Romaine said, "The rating increase will save millions of taxpayer dollars over the long-term based on the County’s newfound ability to sell bonds at a decreased interest rate."

Interest rate savings free up money for other county spending on salaries, forward-facing services and more.

Fitch last upgraded Suffolk’s credit rating in August 2022, to A- from BBB+.

Standard & Poor’s last upgraded Suffolk’s rating in February, to AA- from A+ with a stable outlook. Moody’s Investors Service upgraded Suffolk to A3 from Baa2 in February 2023.

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Two commercially zoned parcels on Sag Harbor’s waterfront owned by developer Adam Potter that had been proposed as a future home for Bay Street Theater and an extension of John Steinbeck Waterfront Park have reportedly been sold. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that sources say the buyer is Jeremy Morton, who already owns restaurant properties in Montauk and Amagansett, as well as the commercial building at the corner of Hill Street and Windmill Lane in Southampton Village. The properties are the Water Street Shops building at 20 Long Island Avenue that is better known for its former tenant, 7-Eleven, and the building at 2 Main Street that was once derisively called “Fort Apache.” The properties were placed on the market in January 2023 after there was strong local opposition to the theater plans. Last summer, Hal Zwick and Jeffery Sztorc of Hamptons Commercial Real Estate at Compass, announced a push to “aggressively market” the two properties with an asking price of $34 million. At that time, Zwick said he had fielded a number of inquiries, three of which he described as serious. Besides owning the white commercial building that dominates the corner of Hill Street and Windmill Lane in Southampton Village, Morton owns the former Rick’s Crabby Cowboy Café site and Ruschmeyer’s in Montauk and Morty’s Oyster Stand in Amagansett.

Former LIPA chief executive officer Tom Falcone has taken the top job at a national organization of large public-power utilities. Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that Falcone, who spent a decade at LIPA in leadership posts, including president and finance chief, yesterday was named president of the Large Public Power Council, a Washington, D.C.-based not-for-profit advancing the interests of the nation’s biggest public power utilities. Falcone resigned as president and chief executive of LIPA in March, months after Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed a new chairwoman and her first slate of board members.

Falcone called his tenure at LIPA a "great and interesting job," one that helped focus his energies on the needs of large public power utilities. LIPA is a member of the council and Falcone had been chair of its board before leaving LIPA. "I’ve been involved a long time" in public power issues, he said.

At the Large Public Power Council, Falcone will work with the organization’s 29 utilities and their leadership to advance interests in Washington and their operations at home. He’ll meet with lawmakers, federal agencies and member utilities to "help utilities achieve their agendas" and advance best practices in their operations.

Falcone, who lives with his family on Long Island and is a former investment banker, was replaced at LIPA by former state Public Service Commission chairman John Rhodes, who remains in the post in an interim role. Rhodes is currently overseeing LIPA as it reviews new bidders for the contract to manage the utility as PSEG's contract expires next year.

This Friday, two lucky Moose members will walk away from the Riverhead Moose Lodge with major cash prizes totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s because, by an act of insane chance — a 1.8% chance, to be exact — the Queen of Hearts has evaded the capture of the lucky (but not lucky enough) Moose members who won the last 53 drawings of the Search for the Queen of Hearts raffle game, leaving only the Queen remaining and a jackpot of more than $500,000. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the Riverhead Moose Lodge has been running the game for forty years and this has never happened before. Under the rules of the game, the person who chooses the Queen of Hearts wins 60% of the jackpot. The rest goes to the lodge which uses the money to support the international fraternity’s endeavors, including Mooseheart, a residential childcare facility and school for children in need outside of Chicago, and Moosehaven, a senior living community for Moose members in Orange Park, Florida. But 60% of the current jackpot would exceed New York State’s limit on winnings. The member whose ticket is picked on Friday will automatically score the $300,000 maximum amount, minus taxes. A second ticket will be drawn for the rest of the 60% over $300,000. The jackpot, which sits at $504,960, still has time to grow by tens of thousands of dollars before Friday’s drawing.

The Shinnecock Indian Nation’s plan for a 10-acre gas station and travel plaza on the north side of Sunrise Highway in Hampton Bays is moving forward as the federally recognized tribe says it hopes that improved relations with the state could pave the way for the project’s planned completion next year. Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that Shinnecock leaders were in Albany this summer for an all-day summit with Gov. Kathy Hochul and her top commissioners to improve relations and iron out legacy issues, said Lance Gumbs, vice chairman of the Shinnecock Nation's council of trustees.

Among the topics was the nation’s Sunrise Highway billboards, which remain the subject of litigation by the state Department of Transportation. Shinnecock had four members at the summit, including newly named chairwoman Lisa Goree.

Gumbs said the leaders were able to discuss the issue of the signs and the lawsuit, which awaits a decision by a panel of the NYS Appellate Division. He said he emphasized the tribe had always been compliant with state regulations for the signs, a tribal revenue producer that are on Shinnecock owned land on the north and south sides of Route 27 just east of a rest stop in Hampton Bays. Gumbs said the discussions and the larger willingness to talk with tribes was a "chance to change the dynamics with tribes in the state."

"I’ve dealt with a lot of governors over my time in office, going back to Mario Cuomo," Gumbs said. "I have to say this was the most open and frank meeting that we have had as tribal leaders."

A spokesman for Hochul said the summit "was productive and agencies are still doing follow up."

The summit included members of tribes across the state, including the Unkechaug Nation in Mastic, but not the Montaukett Nation, which is awaiting Hochul’s signature on a bill to restore that historic tribe’s state recognition.

The NYS DOT would have to approve an off-ramp, including work that would allow for 27 eastbound traffic to access the travel plaza, which is located on the north side of the highway…the westbound side. The plaza, like the billboards, is on Shinnecock owned land known as Westwoods in Hampton Bays. In 1959, as part of the construction of Sunrise Highway, the state inked an easement with a tribal member, Charles Smith, that allowed the highway to move through tribal land, although the federally recognized tribe based in Southampton has questioned the easement’s validity. In its court filings, the DOT says its easements give it control over the paved lanes, shoulders and 60 feet of adjacent right of way. It has rejected the tribe’s claim of sovereign immunity in the case.

Colleges and universities would be barred from accepting financial support or gifts from foreign nations that support terrorism under bipartisan legislation introduced by two New York House members, who said taking such funds is “an act of national self-sabotage.” Carl Campanile reports in THE NY POST that the ban proposed by Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) and Andrew Garbarino (R-LI) would cover China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and other countries that support terrorism. A college must first report an offer of funding from a country to the US Secretary of State for approval in order to maintain or receive government funding under the “No Foreign Gifts Act.”

“The No Foreign Gifts Act represents a crucial step toward safeguarding the integrity of our nation’s higher education system from malicious foreign influence, which has become increasingly pronounced in the aftermath of Oct. 7,” Torres said, referring to terror group Hamas’ invasion of Israel last year and the ongoing war in Gaza.

“By prohibiting gifts from countries that have supported foreign terrorist organizations, like China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, this legislation would ensure that institutions of higher learning remain free from malign financial manipulation that is corrupting the minds of America’s next generation and causing social disorder.” “Foreign influence has no place in our education system — especially when it’s aimed at spreading antisemitism and anti-American sentiment on our college campuses,” Congressman Garbarino of Suffolk County said. “This legislation seeks to put an end to this dangerous flow of foreign funds, protect our students and preserve the integrity of our academic institutions.”

Temple Adas Israel, in partnership with the Children’s Museum of the East End, invites families of all backgrounds to a special celebration of Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, at “Rosh HaShanah: Happy Birthday, World!” The celebration will take place on Sunday, September 29, from 10 to 11 a.m. at the Children’s Museum of the East End, 376 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, Bridgehampton. The hour of fun will include songs, learning about the shofar and the opportunity to try to blow it, crafts and more. Featuring apples and honey, music and stories of the Jewish New Year TRADITION! “We are so excited to partner with the Children’s Museum of the East End to bring this celebration to our community,” says LuAnne Geffen, Director of Community Engagement at Temple Adas Israel. “Rosh HaShanah is a time of renewal and joy, and we look forward to celebrating with families in a fun and engaging way.”

Admission is free. To RSVP, email engage@templeadasisrael.org or info@cmee.org.

Or call Children’s Museum of the East End (631-537-8250)

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Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine has proposed a $4 billion county budget for the upcoming year that will raise property taxes while maintaining services, boosting information technology spending and adding a net 95 police officers. Vera Chinese reports in NEWSDAY that total spending under the plan, Romaine’s first since taking office in January and the first time in five years the county executive has submitted a budget on time, would rise about 3.7% from the current $3.9 billion. The additional spending is largely driven by a combined $128 million increase in employee health care and pension costs.

Romaine noted the budget stays within the state cap on property tax increases and keeps the county’s robust reserves intact, which Romaine said will help Suffolk improve its credit rating and lower interest rates on future borrowing. Those who live in the five western towns and pay into the county police fund would see an increase of about $49 per year. Those who live in the East End towns would see an average annual increase of about $4.60.

Sales tax collections account for about $2 billion, or about half, of all county revenue and the county is facing a $50 million projected shortfall in 2024 sales tax revenue.

Other challenges include the loss of about $8 million in red light camera program revenue after the program expires in December and $13 million in uncollected school bus camera program revenue.

Legislative Presiding Officer Kevin McCaffrey (R-Lindenhurst) said the spending plan appeared strong, but is awaiting a comprehensive report from the legislature’s Budget Review Office.

The Suffolk County Legislature must hold two public hearings and adopt the budget by Nov. 6.

Right on cue — and a couple of months early — the Christmas decorations are on prominent display at the Bridgehampton Commons Kmart. Unlike other years, though, the merchandise carries steep discounts of 75 percent and signs warning that “All sales are final.” That’s because the nearly 90,000-square-foot store, the last standing large Kmart in the United States, is slated to close on October 20.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that Kmart, once a retail giant, has been closing stores for nearly two decades after merging with Sears in 2005 and being taken over by a hedge fund controlled by Eddie Lampert. Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018, and Kmart continued to occupy an ever-shrinking footprint in malls across the United States. The Bridgehampton store is the last full-sized Kmart remaining in the United States. A smaller store continues to operate in Miami, and a handful of stores remain in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam. The Bridgehampton store’s closing was announced this weekend when large yellow signs with red lettering, announcing “Store Closing Sale!”, “Nothing Held Back!” and “Everything Must Go!” were hung from the ceiling along the aisles, where coffeemakers, bath towels, clothing and other merchandise remain on display. Things were quiet at the store yesterday, where a worker, waiting for the doors to open at 9 a.m., confided that the store’s last day would be October 20. There was not a single bargain seeker to be found, and a sole clerk waited at the register for the first sale of the day.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island and the North Fork will hold a public information meeting on “How to Confront Misinformation and Build Trust in the 2024 Election” this evening at 7 p.m. in the LTV Studios, 75 Industrial Road in Wainscott. Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that tonight’s program will explore the role of a trustworthy news media in a democracy, and how to identify and combat mis- and dis-information on the internet, digital platforms, and via AI. New, original research survey findings will also be presented showing how much “trust in elections” U.S. citizens have in 2024, and what might be done to build civic connections and legitimacy in this environment. League of Women Voters volunteers will be at this evening’s meeting to register voters and provide information and answer questions about this year’s election. The event will be live at the LTV Studio and available later on their YouTube channel; register to attend at www.ltveh.org.

With the prospect of stronger winds, more frequent floods and higher temperatures expected for the region by 2050, PSEG Long Island this week will present a plan to fortify the LIPA grid to help reduce outages and damage.

Paying for the plan will come from a combination of federal grants, some already committed to the utility, and from future rates, though costs for specific projects in the plan were not disclosed. They will be part of the annual budget process at LIPA, which owns the grid and commissioned the study. Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that the plan, which follows a study in the spring that examined the depth of Long Island's grid exposures, comes even as grid-owner LIPA is eyeing a possible replacement of PSEG as grid operator through a request for proposal process that will conclude in coming weeks and months.

PSEG’s plan examines real-world changes and projections for the region in outlining 30 different programs to help fortify the grid. Several of the projects, some already underway, make use of money already committed to LIPA by the federal government, either as part of storm hardening grants or mitigation from prior storms.

About a third of the proposed projects are entirely new initiatives, said Joanna Weissman, manager of climate change and resilience for PSEG Long Island.

The plan doesn't include potential impacts to power plants and other power sources for Long Island. Weissman noted that power generation wasn't included in the scope of the project. Costs for ratepayer-funded improvements in the plan will be funded through LIPA's annual budgeting process, she said.

Strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change on the grid include basic fixes such as replacing older and damaged poles with newer ones capable of withstanding stronger winds; to replacing and potentially moving essential equipment to higher ground.

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Attention Kmart shoppers: It's the end of an era. Kmart, a longtime retail chain known for its "blue light specials" and carrying everything under the sun at a discount, is set to close its last full-sized location in the United States next month. Lisa Finn reports on Patch.com that the Kmart, at 2044 Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton Commons, will shut its doors in four weeks…by October 20th and deep store-closing discounts of 40 to 75 percent off are currently available.

The retail space, owned by Kimco Realty Corp., will definitely close in October, Jennifer Maisch, vice president of marketing and corporate communications for the firm confirmed with Patch.

For years, folks on the south fork have headed to Kmart for the everyday basics at an affordable price — electronics, toys, clothing, bedding, furniture and home decor — that couldn't be found anywhere else without an hour-plus hike to Riverhead or up island.

Kmart is still a presence in the U.S. Virgin Island, with three stores, and in Australia, New Zealand and other locations overseas.

But the Bridgehampton K-Mart has been a dead store walking for several years now with numerous empty shelves and a scarcity of customers. K-Mart took over the Bridgehampton Commons site of the former Caldor in 1999. Some locals will recall before that the storefront was a Woolco.

Stony Brook University and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy continued to rank highly in the revamped 2025 U.S. News & World Report Best College rankings released today, while Farmingdale State College jumped into the Top 10 list of regional schools.

Stony Brook University tied its ranking in the list of national schools from last year at 58 — the highest rank the university had ever achieved. It's also the highest national rank for any State University of New York public institution this year. For the third year in a row, it is ranked as the No. 1 public university in New York, officials there noted.

Joie Tyrrell reports on Newsday.com that U.S. News & World Report's rankings, while remaining highly influential, have drawn sharp criticism in recent years over the criteria and data used in evaluations. While some prestigious professional schools such as Yale Law have stopped providing data, most undergraduate institutions continue to participate.

In this year's rankings, Princeton University claimed the top spot among national schools, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will spend $3 million to improve navigation in Mattituck Inlet.

Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski said dredging in the 2-mile channel is a crucial maintenance project needed to remove sand and sediment buildup in the area and keep the channel navigable for boaters. The project will ensure the waterway is at least 7 feet deep at low tide, officials said.

Tara Smith reports in NEWSDAY that Mattituck Inlet is the only harbor on the North Shore between Port Jefferson and Greenport and is a harbor of refuge during storms. There is a federal anchorage and several marinas in the harbor.

“It’s very shallow. If you had a larger boat that needed to seek safety, it could have a problem getting in,” Krupski said recently. Dredging will start Oct. 1 and is expected to finish in November. Seacoast Construction, a West Sayville marine contracting company, will complete the work.

Jeff Strong, who owns two marinas in the inlet, said dredging is beneficial for recreational boaters and commercial fishermen who rely on the channel for their livelihoods.

“If they can’t [get in and out,] it can become an economic loss,” Strong said, adding the inlet attracts boaters from across the tristate area and boosts tourism by visiting area shops, restaurants and wineries.

Crews will remove 9,985 cubic yards of sediment from the harbor, officials said. The dredge spoils will be taken by barge to the Beneficial Dredge Facility in Staten Island for processing and then used for landfill cover material in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according to Army Corps spokesman James D’Ambrosio.

Others said that while dredging is overdue, the current project does not address sand buildup at the mouth of the inlet from Long Island Sound.

Kevin Byrne, the commissioner of the Mattituck Park District, said sand has built up along the edge of a jetty at Breakwater Beach.

The park district owns two soundfront beaches on either side of the inlet.

Byrne, 75, said the buildup of sand has accelerated erosion at the eastern Bailie Beach and is easily mistaken by beachgoers as a swimming area.

Park district officials also worry the area could be breached during a storm.

The mouth of the channel was last dredged in 2014, according to Army Corps documents.

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The use of generative AI, such as chatbots and image generators that create content, has grown in schools. In some Long Island districts, more teachers are using these programs to help craft lesson plans, design classroom activities and grade certain assignments, educators said.

Concerns of misuse remain, as some worry that such tools could undercut student learning. Dandan Zou reports in NEWSDAY that a quarter of U.S. teachers say AI tools do more harm than good in K-12 education, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted last fall. About a third say there’s an equal mix of benefit and harm, while another 35% say they are not sure.

Even those in support of AI caution that such tools could undercut student learning if their use goes unchecked. But the potential misuse, some argue, underscores the need to teach students how to navigate an ever-changing digital landscape ethically and productively.

Nationwide, nearly 1 in 5 K-12 teachers reported using AI for teaching and another 15% have tried it at least once, according to a survey conducted last fall by Rand, a research nonprofit headquartered in Santa Monica, California. About three quarters of teachers who already use AI said they expected to use these tools more in the future.

Sy Doan, a policy researcher at Rand who co-authored the survey findings, said teachers have used AI algorithms to work on what he called “tasks around the edges.”

“There's a lot of concern that teachers are using generative AI to make full lesson plans,” Doan said. “We really haven't found that to be the case. It's things like image generation or adjusting content for certain groups or using it to make more versions of different worksheets that already exist.”

A proposal to fund water quality improvement and pollution prevention projects with Community Preservation Fund revenues will be the subject of a public hearing before the Riverhead Town Board on Tuesday, Oct. 1. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that if the proposal is adopted, the Town of Riverhead’s CPF funding for the first time could be used to help pay some of the cost of public water mains and water treatment projects to provide clean drinking water to residents whose drinking water supply has been contaminated by toxic chemicals. The funding could also be used for the first time to fund pollution prevention projects such as wastewater treatment projects. Community Preservation Fund revenues are generated by a 2% tax on the transfer of real estate in the five East End towns, pursuant to a state law enacted in 1999 with the aim of preserving farmland and open space. The transfer tax has generated $2.2 billion for the region since it was created in 1999 and has helped protect nearly 13,000 acres of land, according to NYS Assemblyman Fred Thiele of Sag Harbor, principal author of the law. The law was amended in 2015 to allow CPF revenues to be used for eligible water quality improvement projects. The amendment also reauthorized the CPF through 2050. It was approved by voters in a ballot measure the following year.

New, original research survey findings will also be presented showing how much “trust in elections” U.S. citizens have in 2024, and what might be done to build civic connections and legitimacy in this environment.

League of Women Voters volunteers will be at Tuesday evening’s meeting to register voters and provide information and answer questions about this year’s election.

The Kmart store in Bridgehampton — the last full-size Kmart in the United States — will close in October after 25 years in operation.

The closing will leave Kmart, a once-dominant discounter known for its blue light specials, with one small store in the United States, in Miami.

The Bridgehampton store will close Oct. 20, an employee said by phone Sunday, per a report in NEWSDAY by Tory N. Parrish. Located in the town of Southampton, the Kmart is at 2044 Montauk Hwy. in Bridgehampton Commons, a shopping center owned by Kimco Realty Corp., a real estate investment trust in Jericho, Long Island.

Kmart and sister chain Sears are owned by Transform Holdco LLC, which does business as Transformco. A Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based company.

Transformco also has a few Kmart locations in the U.S. territories of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Bridgehampton Commons is a 287,493-square-foot shopping center whose other tenants include a King Kullen supermarket, Gap, TJ Maxx, Staples and Wild Bird Crossing.

Occupying 89,935 square feet, Kmart is the biggest tenant in that shopping center and the largest big-box discount store in the Hamptons.

The store opened in 1999 in a space that had been vacated by Caldor, a now-defunct discount retailer that filed for bankruptcy in 1995…and before that Woolco.

Kmart Corp. paid $7 million to assume Caldor’s lease, which was to run through 2019 and had two, 10-year extensions, according to a February 2000 article published in Newsday.

Federal officials would bypass states like New York that have policies viewed as soft on crime and give law enforcement funding directly to localities under a new bill pitched by the Empire State’s GOP delegation.

Vaughn Golden reports in THE NY POST that the bill, sponsored by upstate Republican Congressman Marc Molinaro and shared exclusively with The Post, would distribute some federal law enforcement funding directly to localities if states have laws on the books like New York’s Clean Slate Act and loose bail laws.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook to prop up a regime in Albany that is making us less safe,” Molinaro wrote in a statement to The Post. "This bill will take funds from Albany and reinvest them directly into the local police, courts, and governments that are actually doing the work to restore public safety,” he continued.

The legislation is co-sponsored by all but one of New York’s Republican members of Congress.

The bill, which is light on details, would require the Department of Justice to withhold funding meant specifically for the states if they don’t allow judges to base bail eligibility on a “dangerousness” standard or if they have “a general policy providing for the sealing of the criminal records of felons.” Crime and public safety continue to be one of the most pressing issues on voters’ minds heading into November. In a Siena College poll conducted last month, 54% of likely New York voters said crime has gotten worse in the last year. The Republicans’ bill is almost certain to languish in the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate even if it makes it out of the House before years’ end.

With the sound of its mower blades revving, the blue-gray tractor aligned itself before the first row of an Aquebogue vineyard and then proceeded to cut the grass — all without a driver.

It's the latest step toward fully autonomous farm operation on Long Island that is being led by the region's vineyards. Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that earlier this month, Paumanok Vineyards served as the test bed for fully autonomous operation by the tractor, which is made by Livermore, Calif.-based Monarch Tractor. The otherwise quiet vehicle aligned itself before rows, turned up the blades and went to work down the long rows before turning around and starting up another aisle.

Paumanok, which also owns and operates Palmer Vineyards, took delivery of what some say is the region's first fully electric tractor this summer. The $90,000 vehicle, which joins Paumanok's fleet of 11 primarily diesel tractors, has been in use all summer, but without the fully autonomous feature. It chiefly is used to mow between rows and spray the vines for pests and disease.

Without the autonomous feature, which will be publicly available in about a year, the tractor can steer itself within rows, but it requires a driver to be onboard to turn at row’s end.

Similar automation has been used in vineyards before. In 2022, the owners of Rose Hill Vineyards used GPS-guided systems to plant vines and set posts for their new vineyard on Mill Lane in Mattituck, Newsday reported.

The Monarch tractor features eight cameras that keep it from veering out of the rows, and has a 110-kilowatt hour battery that can operate for most of a workday without a charge.

And Paumanok, one of the first Long Island vineyards to fully incorporate solar power into its farm, can use the power it creates from the sun to keep the tractor charged at low cost or for free, winemaker Kareem Massoud said.

"If I can have a tractor that drives itself and mows, that's a big win," he said, noting that tractors at Paumanok, which has a total of 128 acres, are "constantly mowing." Massoud’s got two more on order, for next year’s season.

The tractor has a power shaft that connects to equipment such as row-mowers and hydraulic sprayers to maintain the vineyards. The fully automated operating feature could make the tractor able to operate at night without supervision, cutting energy and labor costs, Massoud said.

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Members of the Sag Harbor School Board and school administration debated the merits of a potential move to get rid of class ranking at the board’s latest meeting this week. It was not the first time the topic was brought up for discussion at a board meeting. The potential merits and drawbacks of eliminating the rankings were presented initially at a meeting over the summer, and the specific issues were debated again on Monday night, without the board coming to any definitive conclusions about what to do. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that Superintendent of Schools Jeff Nichols presented three options for the board to consider: keeping the status quo, where every student is ranked, and a valedictorian and salutatorian are named for the senior class; eliminating class rank but keeping the valedictorian and salutatorian designations; or eliminating class rank, keeping the valedictorian and salutatorian designations, and adding a “Latin honors” system, where students who hit certain grade point average marks will graduate either summa cum laude (100 or higher weighted GPA), magna cum laude (98 or higher) or cum laude (95 or higher). Mr. Nichols pointed out that the College Board states there is anecdotal evidence that suggests eliminating class rank from students’ transcripts can increase their odds of getting accepted into a college. Additionally, the College Board states that schools that got rid of class rank did so “because they feel it penalizes many excellent students who are squeezed out of the top 10 percent of the class and then overlooked by elite colleges.” Getting rid of class rank has been a trend in recent years, with less than half of all high schools now still reporting student rankings. Nichols also pointed to a survey of 220 colleges that found that only 9.1 percent of the schools gave rank “considerable importance” during the admissions process.

The Sag Harbor Village Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review continued its review of four new houses proposed for a nearly 4-acre site on Marsden Street in Sag Harbor, focusing on two of the designs, at a hearing last week before adjourning the matter until October 10.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that the board agreed to consider two of the houses, one at 7 Marsden, which fronts on the street, and the other at 9 Marsden, which is on a flag lot off the street, at the request of attorney Denise Schoen, who is representing Matthew Pantofel of BJC Custom Builders of Southampton. Pantofel purchased the property from Pat Trunzo after voters last year rejected a Sag Harbor School District referendum to buy the land for school use. The houses proposed for the other two parcels, 11 and 15 Marsden, will be considered at the October 10 meeting. With the houses all in the range of approximately 5,000 total square feet, the board’s chairman, Steve Williams, asked Pantofel to try to reduce their mass when he returns before the board next month. The landscaping plans came under scrutiny from some residents, including Dawn Smith who said, “This home is considerably larger than anything in the neighborhood.” Except, of course, the 116 year old Pierson Middle School – High School which has been considerably larger than anything in the neighborhood since 1908 and is right next to Marsden Street.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island and the North Fork has arranged three virtual candidate debates on SEA-TV’s YouTube channel: Monday, October 7, 7 to 8 p.m. for NYS 1st Assembly District candidates; Monday, October 21, 6 to 7 p.m. for the 1st NYS Senatorial District; and Monday, October 21, 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. for New York’s 1st U.S. Congressional District.

Also, voter registration forms are available at the State Board of Elections website - elections.ny.gov.

Those with questions can contact the Suffolk County Board of Elections at 631-852-4500 or suffolkvotes.com.

Election Day 2024 is on Tuesday November 5.

First-term Republican Rep. Nick LaLota has been sending the blended message that while he’s volubly backing Donald Trump for president, he also works "across the aisle" to benefit his district in a "bipartisan" way. Dan Janison comments in NEWSDAY that the East End congressional district LaLota represents, CD1, has many unaligned voters and moderate Republicans possibly up for grabs as the incumbent congressman works to fend off John Avlon, the Democratic nominee and former media commentator. On Wednesday at Nassau Coliseum, LaLota helped gin up the crowd for Trump. "Are we ready to win the House, win the Senate and bring Donald Trump back to the White House?’" he said to cheers. "Nine months ago I became the first congressman in a purple district to endorse Donald J. Trump ... because I believe America is the greatest nation that the world has ever known."

Now Avlon, who already had been claiming the middle, has announced the formation of a committee called "Republicans for Avlon." He characterized it as a boon to voters "looking for bipartisan, common sense solutions to rebuilding the middle class and the middle of our politics, lowering the cost of living, securing the border and reducing gun violence."

The chairman is Mayor Thomas Gardella of the village of Sag Harbor, where Avlon lives. Others include former Staten Island Rep. Susan Molinari; former GOP mayoral nominee and onetime New York City Deputy Mayor Joe Lhota.

Also for Avlon: Former United States Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig — a notably conservative jurist who denounced the unconstitutional effort by Trump to reverse the 2020 election results — and Mathew F. Pottinger, a one-time deputy national security adviser in the Trump administration.

This kind of cross-endorsing committee is not typical, at least for the district. The question is just how much of a swing district CD1 will prove to be. The seat has been held by the GOP since Lee Zeldin was elected there 10 years ago.

The East Hampton Litter Action Committee will participate in National CleanUp Day tomorrow with a coordinated townwide cleanup effort. This initiative will see residents from Montauk to Wainscott come together to beautify the community in one of the largest single-day cleanup events in the United States.

National CleanUp Day, established in 2017, mobilized over two million volunteers last year. The East Hampton LAC is proud to contribute to this significant effort by organizing four cleanup events throughout the town. Cleanups will commence at 10:00 AM tomorrow and conclude by 12:00 Noon, with the exception of the East Hampton cleanup starting at 9:00 AM. The designated locations are:

The Rt. 27 Rest Stop at Georgica Pond in Wainscott
Ashawagh Hall (780 Springs Fireplace Rd, Springs, NY 11937)
The East Hampton Senior Center (128 Springs Fireplace Rd, East Hampton, NY 11937)
The office of Concerned Citizens of Montauk (6 S. Elmwood Ave. Montauk, NY 11954)

To support the cleanup efforts, the LAC will provide equipment such as garbage bags, safety vests, and garbage pokers, while supplies last. Residents are encouraged to participate in one of the organized cleanups or to arrange their own independent cleanup.

For more information, visit East Hampton Town’s website under the Litter Action Committee section. Questions can be directed to ehlitteraction@gmail.com.

The Southold-Peconic Civic Association hosts a discussion of “Stormwater Mitigation: Past Success & Future Plans” with Southold Town Engineer Michael Collins tomorrow at 10 a.m. in the Peconic Community Center.

Saturday morning’s event is free and all are welcome.

The Southold Peconic Civic Association was founded in 2022 to preserve and enhance the unique hamlets of Southold and Peconic by promoting civic engagement, ensuring residents are given a forum to learn, consider and act upon issues that affect our communities.

Once again, the Southold-Peconic Civic Association hosts a discussion of “Stormwater Mitigation: Past Success & Future Plans” with Southold Town Engineer Michael Collins tomorrow at 10 a.m. in the Peconic Community Center.

The State of New York finalized regulations this week to limit a chemical classified as a likely human carcinogen in certain household products sold in New York, making it clear no products will be able to get waivers starting in 2026.

But more than 1,000 products with higher levels of the chemical 1,4-dioxane manufactured by various companies — mostly shampoos, shower gels and body washes — are still allowed to be sold due to waivers issued from the state that expire at the end of the year. Lisa L. Colangelo reports in NEWSDAY that the law signed in 2019 required household cleaning and personal care products to contain no more than 1 part per million of 1,4-dioxane by the end of 2023. The limit on cosmetics of 10 ppm {parts per million} went into effect at the end of 2022.

Discussions over regulations continued through this winter as environmentalists and industry groups weighed in on how to implement the law.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified 1,4-dioxane as "likely to be carcinogenic to humans." The chemical is a byproduct in the manufacture of consumer products, as well as a synthetic industrial chemical used in several commercial and industrial processes.

"There is a legacy of contamination on Long Island," said Liz Moran, New York policy advocate for Earthjustice, an environmental law nonprofit group. "These are key regulations to make sure we are not adding 1-4 dioxane to products."

Even though New York has a law that limits the amount of 1,4-dioxane in drinking water, Moran said it’s important to limit the amount of those chemicals in products, before they get into water sources.

The regulations define the products covered by the law, the method of identifying 1,4-dioxane in them and outlining the waiver process.

In order to be considered for a one-year waiver, a company has to show it has taken steps to reduce 1,4-dioxane and is unable to comply. They can apply for one additional waiver if they show proof they have been trying to remove the chemical.

No waivers will be in effect after Dec. 30, 2025.

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Former President Donald Trump vowed to make Ground Zero a national monument, while painting a bleak picture of Long Island and New York City as overrun with Central American migrants during a raucous rally last night at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. As reported in NEWSDAY, Trump spoke for nearly 90 minutes before a packed crowd inside the 16,000-seat coliseum. Many of his supporters camped overnight outside the Uniondale arena, as the 45th president attempts a feat no Republican has accomplished in 40 years — to win solidly blue New York State.

"It hasn’t been done in a long time," Trump said, "but we are going to win New York."

Speaking to a sea of Long Islanders sporting largely red Make America Great Again swag, from hats and pins to flags and T-shirts, Trump vowed to lower inflation, increase wages and defend American jobs while cutting interest rates and insurance costs. He offered few details on his policies.

Trump credited the U.S. Secret Service for stopping an apparent attempt on his life on Sunday in Florida — the second assassination attempt on him in recent months — and vowed to rebuild the nation’s bridges, subways and highways while increasing tariffs on products made in China and other nations.

And 23 years after the nation’s worst terror attack, Trump said he would make Ground Zero in lower Manhattan a national monument maintained by the federal government.

Democrat Kamala Harris continues to lead Republican Donald Trump by 13 points in New York, with the race virtually unchanged here since Harris entered the race last month, according to a Siena College poll released today.

The Siena survey also found that U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand commands a generous lead in her reelection bid, a proposed "Equal Rights Amendment," which covers abortion rights, enjoys overwhelming support and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s popularity continues to slip.

Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that the poll of 1,003 likely voters in New York said Vice President Harris is favored by 55% of those surveyed while Trump is favored by 42%. That is essentially unchanged from the 14-point lead Harris held in August, when she replaced President Joe Biden atop the Democratic ticket.

The poll was conducted Sept. 11-16 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points, meaning the answers to any question can vary by that amount.

While Harris’ lead in the state isn’t threatened, it isn’t as big as posted by previous Democratic presidential candidates, Siena poll spokesman Steve Greenberg said.

"New York remains solidly blue, but perhaps not as deep blue as it has been in the last several presidential cycles," Greenberg said in a statement. "In the six presidential elections this century, Democrats have carried New York by at least 18 points, and at least 22 points in five of the six. President Biden won here by 23 points in 2020."

A U.S. presidential candidate has not won New York State since 1984 when President Ronald Reagan beat Walter Mondale with 53.84% of the popular vote over Walter Mondale with 45.83%, a victory margin of 8.01%.

To celebrate and recognize Hispanic Heritage Month a Latin Dance Night, hosted by the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton will be staged at the Bridgehampton Community House this coming Friday…that’s tomorrow evening from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that this year’s Latin Dance Night will follow the same format as it has from its inception in 2022. Attendees will participate in a half-hour salsa dance class taught by Scott Trevor from Touch Dance Studios — which hosts weekly classes at the community house — and after that will participate in two hours of live music and dancing. Dayton, Ritz and Osborne has agreed to cover the cost of tickets for attendees once again this year, and chips and salsa will be donated by Sabrosa. Participants are not required to bring a partner but can if they want. It’s an adults-only event (18 and older) and alcohol is not permitted. While the event is free, the library is asking attendees to sign up ahead of time. Tickets are available on the Hampton Library website calendar at myhamptonlibrary.org or through Eventbrite.

Southampton Town officials met last week with Shinnecock Nation leadership to discuss the nation’s ongoing construction of a gas station on land it owns in Hampton Bays — a move that has drawn months of outrage and demands from their neighbors for action by the town to somehow halt the work.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the day after the September 9 meeting, members of the Southampton Town Board said they were encouraged that the tribe seemed willing to work with the town to allay some concerns. But, at the same time, the board also approved hiring a Washington, D.C., attorney who specializes in federal land use issues.

Supervisor Maria Moore declined to discuss whether the town is preparing a legal challenge to the tribe’s gas station project. Councilman Michael Iasilli, who cast the lone vote against even hiring an attorney, said that the town should not embark on a lawsuit because it would be both expensive and divisive.

Residents of the neighborhoods that border the tribe’s 77-acre property, known as Westwoods, have been calling on the town to step in and halt the construction since contractors working for the tribe started clearing the 10-acre gas station property in the middle of the night last winter. They have said the town should be taking steps to block construction vehicles from accessing the property and have talked about staging protests themselves in an effort to halt the work.

Since early summer, work has been ongoing on the construction of a long access road connecting the large area that will hold the 30 gas and diesel pumps and a convenience store to Newtown Road in Hampton Bays, even though the Shinnecock have said their plans are to have the gas station accessed primarily from the westbound lanes of Sunrise Highway, which runs just yards away from the edge of the land the tribe has cleared.

Hampton Bays Civic Association Director Gayle Lombardi said that the town’s inaction on the gas station work has left many in the hamlet feeling that they are being “dumped on” by the town.

A Riverhead Town proposal would require landlords to rent homes to a single family or a "family equivalent" to cut down on overcrowding — but housing advocates say the bill could lead to discrimination against immigrants. Tara Smith reports in NEWSDAY that the bill would require landlords to rent to people who are "one family" or comprise the "functional equivalent" of one. A group that shares a common living space and household expenses would qualify under the town's rental code.

The proposal also sets maximum occupancy limits for rental homes. The changes also set new guidelines for driveway widths and ban more than two commercial vehicles from being parked on a single driveway.

The measure would limit the number of bedrooms to two in a basement in a single family home rental. Bedrooms in attics or third floors also would be prohibited in all rentals.

Riverhead Town officials say the changes are needed to prevent large numbers of people from occupying a single rental home and parking on narrow neighborhood streets. But housing advocates say the changes unfairly target people in shared living spaces, including immigrants. The high cost of housing on the East End often forces friends and co-workers into communal living spaces.

At a public hearing Tuesday at Riverhead Town Hall, housing and immigration advocates opposed the plan. Enforcing the law could lead to invasive inquiries about tenant relations, they said.

The Town of Riverhead has 1,900 rentals and receives 10 to 15 complaints of overcrowding each month, Downs said.

The penalty for violating the proposed rental laws range from $500 to $6,000 or 15 days in jail.

In Riverhead, the median rent is $1,833, according to U.S. census data.

Next Tuesday’s program will explore the role of a trustworthy news media in a democracy, and how to identify and combat mis- and dis-information on the internet, digital platforms, and via AI.

League of Women Voters volunteers will be at the meeting to register voters and provide information and answer questions about this year’s election.

The owners of the Tuckahoe building that for decades has played host to a series of popular nightclubs — most recently, Club Ultra — have proposed converting the property into a retail cannabis shop.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the proposal has been hesitantly supported by neighbors who, while expressing outrage at the chaotic and slovenly conditions that have swirled around Club Ultra in recent years, said they would welcome the property being converted to a use that has strictly limited hours and security protocols as pot shops do in the State of New York.

“This puts us in the uncomfortable position of either supporting this venture or agreeing to continue with the situation as it stands,” said Maia Yedin, who lives in the Southampton Point development across Tuckahoe Lane from the nightclub property which is just south of County Road 39 next to the only Carvel in Southampton. “[Co-owner John Flanagan] and his team do not deserve this license … but the residents of Southampton Point do. We deserve the peace and quiet and security that the trappings of having a licensed cannabis dispensary across the street promised us. We deserve the increased enforcement that this automatically ensures.”

Yedin and other residents of Southampton Point told stories of the noise from the club shaking their homes in the wee hours of the morning, of sprawling brawls drawing large police responses — including a recent one in which officers drew their guns out of concern about the violence of a fight — and of drunken clubgoers wandering into their neighborhood, using their yards and gardens as bathrooms, breaking windows and even one instance of a bloodied vandal cleansing his wound in the community swimming pool, forcing the cancellation of a 5-year-old’s birthday celebration the next day.

The neighbors told of pleading with the owners of the property — who ran the Tavern nightclub there in the 1990s and early 2000s but have leased it to other operators for the last 15 years.

“Their stance has been: We were here first, too bad for you,” Yedin said.

The New York State Office of Cannabis Management sets firm regulations on the licensing and operation of the nonmedical retail shops — including that they must close by 9 p.m. and must have in-store security.

The Southampton Town Planning Board closed the hearing on the pre-submission conference and will offer guidance to the business at a future meeting.

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PSEG Long Island has embarked on a monthslong storm-resilience project in East Hampton Village, Springs and Northwest Harbor. The utility announced the continuation of its “Power On” program last week to improve the reliability of the energy grid, part of a multiyear effort. “We are working hard to reduce the number of outages that occur during severe weather by strengthening the electric lines that directly power homes and businesses,” stated Peggy Keane, PSEG Long Island’s vice president of construction and operations services. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that work began this month and is expected to continue for approximately four months. Contractors will work along distribution lines in the aforementioned areas and provide traffic cones, flaggers and signs at the worksites as needed. Storm-hardening improvements for the East Hampton / Springs area include replacement of existing utility poles with poles capable of withstanding winds up to 135 mph. New poles will be approximately the same height as the existing poles, will have a stronger base and will be placed no more than 5 feet from the existing pole locations. PSEG Long Island also will install shorter cross arms atop some poles to help wires deflect falling limbs instead of catching them. Existing wire will be replaced with more resilient and durable wire, and worn equipment will be upgraded or replaced as necessary. According to PSEG, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Long Island Power Authority funding was used to complete storm hardening and reliability work on more than 1,000 miles of distribution mainline circuits.

A vacant bank in the heart of Mattituck is set to be redeveloped for affordable housing.

Tara Smith reports in NEWSDAY that the developers, Hard Corner Partners LLC, cleared a key hurdle after the Southold Town Board voted to grant additional sanitary system capacity, which will increase the septic flow required for 12 apartments at the corner of Love Lane and Pike Street. Plans also call for two retail shops and a 16-seat cafe.

The board voted 6-0 to grant seven credits to the project at an Aug. 27 meeting, a move Southold Town officials said will help address housing needs while encouraging reuse of an existing building.

Supervisor Al Krupski said the project is in an ideal location and will add to the town’s “limited” affordable housing stock.

The 17,447-square-foot building has been vacant since 2017, when Capital One bank closed the branch and moved to a new location.

Property records show Hard Corner Partners purchased the property for $1.7 million later that year.

Charles Salice, one of the developers, has sought to redevelop the site for nearly eight years. Earlier versions of the plan called for a 56-seat restaurant, retail and commercial spaces with one affordable apartment.

In an interview, Salice said plans were redrafted after the pandemic.

“Post [COVID-19], the concept of what we were doing … wasn’t as conducive to the needs of the community,” he said, adding that redevelopment can revitalize the long-unoccupied corner, which is in walking distance of a LIRR train station and bus stops, shops and supermarkets. “It creates foot traffic, it helps the merchants,” Salice said.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island and the North Fork will hold a public information meeting on “How to Confront Misinformation and Build Trust in the 2024 Election” next Tuesday, Sept. 24 at 7 p.m. in the LTV Studios, 75 Industrial Road in Wainscott. Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that the speakers will be Professors Don Waisanen and Sonia Jarvis of Baruch College/CUNY. A panel discussion will be moderated by Andrea Gabor and will include Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreation Center Executive Director Bonnie Cannon and OLA of Eastern Long Island Executive Director Minerva Perez. Next Tuesday’s program will explore the role of a trustworthy news media in a democracy, and how to identify and combat mis- and dis-information on the internet, digital platforms, and via AI. New, original research survey findings will also be presented showing how much “trust in elections” U.S. citizens have in 2024, and what might be done to build civic connections and legitimacy in this environment. League of Women Voters volunteers will be at the meeting to register voters and provide information and answer questions about this year’s election.

Also, voter registration forms are available at the State Board of Elections website - elections.ny.gov. Those with questions can contact the Suffolk County Board of Elections at 631-852-4500 or suffolkvotes.com. Election Day 2024 is on Tuesday November 5.

An increasing number of manufacturers and service businesses plan on using some form of artificial intelligence in the coming months, a recent survey from the New York Federal Reserve found.

Over the past six months, 25% of service businesses reported they had used some form of AI in their operations, compared with 16% of manufacturers in the same period, according to two surveys released by the New York Fed last week. Victor Ocasio reports in NEWSDAY that results from the Fed’s monthly Empire State Manufacturing Survey, which goes out to roughly 200 manufacturing executives in New York, and the monthly Business Leaders Survey, which goes out to 200 service industry executives throughout the state, northern New Jersey, and southwest Connecticut, were used in the AI report.

Forms of AI use referred to in the survey included virtual agents of chatbots, machine learning, text or data analytics, generative AI, voice recognition and robotic automation. Among service firms that had used AI in their operations in the past six months, 10% reported some reduction in staffing, while 5% said the adoption of AI tools required the hiring of employees. Among manufacturers, the use of AI had no impact on staffing. Service businesses include all industries outside of manufacturing and government, including law firms, finance, leisure and hospitality, education, and health care providers.

Business observers said it made sense that manufacturers might find less immediate use for AI tools, as much of the work they do was hands-on and involves proprietary processes and software.

To celebrate and recognize Hispanic Heritage Month a Latin Dance Night, hosted by the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton will be staged at the Bridgehampton Community House this coming Friday from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that this Friday’s Latin Dance Night will follow the same format as it has from its inception in 2022. Attendees will participate in a half-hour salsa dance class taught by Scott Trevor from Touch Dance Studios — which hosts weekly classes at the community house — and after that will participate in two hours of live music and dancing. Dayton, Ritz and Osborne has agreed to cover the cost of tickets for attendees once again this year, and chips and salsa will be donated by Sabrosa. Participants are not required to bring a partner but can if they want. It’s an adults-only event (18 and older) and alcohol is not permitted. While the event is free, the library is asking attendees to sign up ahead of time. Tickets are available on the Hampton Library website calendar at myhamptonlibrary.org or through Eventbrite.

Former President Donald Trump is holding a campaign rally at Nassau County Veterans Memorial Coliseum this evening which is expected to draw thousands and cause significant traffic disruptions. As reported in NEWSDAY, the rally aims to support Long Island candidates and generate enthusiasm for down-ballot Republican candidates, with over 60,000 ticket requests for the 16,000-seat venue. Security will be tight with heavy police presence, road closures, and a designated "First Amendment Zone" for counter protesters. Trump supporters have already begun gathering outside the coliseum in Uniondale, Long Island.

The rally is expected to be shown on video monitors to an overflow crowd in the parking lot.

Only ticket holders will be allowed to enter the parking lot at the Nassau Coliseum’s main entrance on Hempstead Turnpike.

The parking lot gates to the Coliseum were scheduled to open at 8 o’clock this morning, and the doors to the arena will open to ticket holders at 3 p.m., ahead of the 7 p.m. rally.

Nassau County officials said commuters around Uniondale, East Meadow and Hempstead should brace for delays, while police and the U.S. Secret Service plan to shut down roads around the Coliseum from noon until about 10 p.m.

Organizers said they ran out of tickets over the weekend for this evening's rally. There was no charge for those tickets.

However, local Republicans are promising to make the travel worth Mr. Trump’s while. The NY TIMES reports that Joseph G. Cairo Jr., the chairman of Nassau County’s Republican party, has organized a high-dollar fund-raiser on the sidelines of today’s rally that is expected to net several million dollars.

An invitation obtained by The New York Times offered tickets priced at $5,000 for reserved rally seating and $30,000 for a photo with the former president. For $250,000, the deep-pocketed few could enjoy the “V.I.P. Experience”: a brief chance to meet Mr. Trump, take a photo with him and lock down a “premium seat.” (Tickets for general admission were free.)

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Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, backed by a display of law-enforcement muscle, vowed to keep former President Donald Trump and his supporters safe at tomorrow’s rally at Nassau Coliseum, Trump’s first campaign event since Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt in Florida.

Blakeman and Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said the county is working with the U.S. Secret Service — which will be in charge of security inside the arena in Uniondale — and Homeland Security, the New York State Police, the NYPD and other agencies to prevent trouble.

"This will be the safest place in the country," Ryder said at a news conference yesterday in Mineola.

As reported in NEWSDAY, Blakeman and Ryder were accompanied by several mounted officers, a K-9 unit, an armored special operations vehicle, an Emergency Services truck and more than a dozen uniformed officers. A police helicopter buzzed over the news conference as Blakeman began speaking.

Blakeman said Nassau has a great deal of experience in hosting dignitaries and large events, citing the visit this weekend of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"This is nothing new," Blakeman said. "We are prepared and we are ready."

The doors of Nassau Coliseum will open at 3 p.m. on Wednesday and Trump’s rally is expected to begin at 7 p.m. Blakeman urged rallygoers to arrive well before 3 p.m.

"If you don’t have business in the area, stay away and traffic will be heavy for about 10 hours from noon until 10 p.m.," Blakeman said. "If you are not going to the rally, stay home unless you work in Uniondale or Hempstead. The traffic will be incredibly heavy."

Home prices in Nassau and Suffolk counties reached records in August, as competition for homes continued to push prices higher. The median sale price in Nassau rose to $835,000 among deals that closed last month, while the median in Suffolk climbed to $680,000. 8.8% higher than in August 2023. Local real estate experts said falling mortgage rates could increase competition if the trend is not adequate to sway sellers to list their homes.

“We’re in uncharted territory, and I would not be surprised if the prices do not peak yet,” said Richard Haggerty, CEO of OneKey MLS. “… You would think the prices would have had a chilling effect on buyers. I don’t see any signs of that.”

The market continues to frustrate homebuyers because there are too few new listings.

Jonathan LaMantia reports in NEWSDAY that there was a slight uptick of 3.5% in houses on the market in Suffolk compared with last August but the number of listings in Nassau fell 7.5% from a year ago.

Across Long Island, the number of listings was down 1.4% compared with last year. There are still fewer than half as many homes on the market as there were five years ago in August 2019.

The Cutchogue Civic Association will host a presentation and Q&A on “BESS: Another Look” with members of the Southold Town Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) Task Force, the Cutchogue Fire Department and other safety experts and the New York State Energy Research & Development Agency this evening at 6 p.m. in the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Free Library.

All Are Welcome to attend this evening’s event which is Free

That’s “BESS: Another Look” from 6pm – 7:30pm in the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Free Library.

The Cutchogue Civic Association is a not-for-profit, community-based organization whose mission is to inform and educate residents about issues of community interest or concern. The association provides a neutral forum that promotes discussion, collaboration and the expression of diverse ideas.

For more info visit Cutchogue Civic Association.org

Long Island’s roadways — many of which were designed nearly a century ago — are not equipped to handle the increasing frequency and severity of major rainstorms and rising sea levels, climate and infrastructure experts said.

But better maintenance of existing drainage systems could lessen the impact of flooding events, like the one that inundated portions of Suffolk County last month with more than 9 inches of rain, they said.

Alfonso A. Castillo reports in NEWSDAY that Long Island climatologists said transportation infrastructure built during a time when Nassau and Suffolk were far less developed and populated will struggle to keep up with modern weather events. Much of the "natural sponge" that once covered much of Long Island has been replaced with "impermeable surfaces that can’t take in water," such as paved roads and parking lots, said Jase Bernhardt, an assistant professor at Hofstra University and the director of the school’s graduate sustainability program.

"Many decades of development have really weakened our ability to take in water at the surface, and makes us so much more vulnerable to flash flooding," said Bernhardt. Putting further strain on Long Island’s roadway network is a changing climate, according to Bernhardt, who pointed to federal data showing sharp increases in "extreme precipitation" events in the Northeast over the last 70 years.

A 2020 study pointed to the need to upgrade and modernize road drainage systems on Long Island, and to better maintain aging drainage infrastructure, including basins that can't be located.

Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine, in a statement, said addressing the county's water and wastewater infrastructure is a "main focus" of his administration. He said the August storm "proves again that things have changed and extreme storms are becoming the norm."

Crime rates have dropped around New York State in the past year — even if people, according to public opinion polls, believe otherwise. Yancey Roy reports in NEWSDAY that updated statistics from the state Department of Criminal Justice Services show overall crime incidents in the 57 counties outside New York City dropped 9% from the first quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of this year.

Violent crimes declined 5% and murders are down 10%. To be sure, those rates are declining following what had been an increase coinciding with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, crime incidents dipped 12% in Suffolk County and 18% in Nassau County, though it has seen some fluctuations by category.

Property crime had climbed steadily through 2023 but dipped 9% in 2024 so far.

But the data doesn’t match perception.

Even though the numbers are dropping, New York residents — by a roughly 3-1 ratio — tell pollsters crime is getting worse.

“There’s certainly a variance between the concerns people have and the crime statistics,” said Don Levy, pollster for Siena College. He said sometimes public opinion of crime takes a few years to catch up with actual trends, but also media and the political treatment of crime are important factors.

“This perception has permeated people’s thinking, that we have a lack of safety,” Levy said.

In Siena’s most recent poll in August, 54% of voters who were surveyed said crime was getting worse in the state; 16% said it was getting better. Long Islanders essentially matched that: 55% said worse, 14% better.

Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine announced yesterday that new grant funding is available for homeowners whose houses were damaged by record flooding in Suffolk County on Aug. 18 and 19th. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the program is being administered by the Long Island Housing Partnership, Inc. with money from the New York Homes and Community Renewal agency, and is available for emergency home repair assistance and reimbursement for homeowners impacted by the flooding.

The application is online at lihp.tfaforms.net/5103433

The deadline to apply is October 7, 2024.

The storm, considered a 1-in-1,000-year rain event, forced the first-ever flash National Weather Service flood emergency warning in Suffolk County, and led to numerous road washouts, particularly along the North Shore of Long Island.

Suffolk County is advising residents who need additional information to contact the Flood Relief Program at nysfloodprogram@lihp.org or call 631.435.4710.

In the bitter weeks after Democrats lost their House majority in 2022, party leaders searched for explanations. There was painfully high inflation. Qualms about the southern border. Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker, singled out a less predictable culprit: New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul. Ms. Pelosi argued that Democrats had lost five key races there because Ms. Hochul’s lumbering campaign misjudged discontent about crime, pulling down the whole ticket.

Nicholas Fandos reports in THE NY TIMES that two years later, close allies of Ms. Hochul say she remains embarrassed and indignant over blame that she believes was unfairly cast. But her frustration is also fueling a decision this fall to put the full force of her governorship into proving that she, and her state, can set things right for Democrats.

The governor has positioned the House races at the center of everything from her galloping fund-raising schedule to state policymaking, most notably halting New York’s most significant public transportation project in a generation amid opposition to it from must-win suburbs.

She is also trying to transform New York State’s Democratic Party from a perennial punching bag into a sophisticated turnout operation with 37 field offices and nearly 100 staff members. While the coordinated campaign is a partnership with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, Ms. Hochul has covered most of the $5 million price tag.

The turnabout, and New York’s strategic importance, has made Ms. Hochul’s maneuvering a consequential subplot in the broader fight for Congress. And it is no act of political charity.

With re-election looming in 2026 and potential challengers already circling, Ms. Hochul’s own political future may depend on her ability to mend frayed relationships with her fellow Democrats and overturn the perception, fair or not, that she is a political featherweight.

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The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's next five-year Capital Program, set to be released this month, will include plans to "dramatically increase" spending on new Long Island Rail Road train cars and to "expand and upgrade" the LIRR's branches, the head of the MTA said yesterday.

What's less clear, MTA chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said, is how the transit authority will fund the spending plan, which a state comptroller's report estimates could cost up to $92 billion.

Alfonso A. Castillo reports in NEWSDAY that at a roundtable discussion with reporters at the LIRR's Jamaica headquarters, Lieber shared new details of the forthcoming capital budget, which will fund major infrastructure investments from 2025-2029. The MTA is required by law to submit its plan to the state for approval by Oct. 1.

While not releasing specifics of the proposal, Lieber said the MTA is planning a "substantial investment" in rail cars that would ensure the LIRR no longer has to resort to using 40-year-old trains.

"We're trying to get to the point where that will no longer be necessary," Lieber said of the continued use of about 100 M3 rail cars built in the mid-1980s. "I'm not going to talk about numbers, but we are committed to using this Capital Program to dramatically increase investment in rail cars."

LIRR president Robert Free said a "big focus" of the spending plan will be maintaining existing infrastructure, power systems, signals and aging bridges and tunnels.

The proposed plan, Lieber said, will "come out in the next couple weeks," after which state officials will have to figure out how to pay for it. Previous capital budgets have been funded by "little bits of lots of different taxes ... and fees," but the new plan will probably require "new funding sources," Lieber said.

A report this week by NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli projected that the plan could range in cost from $57.8 billion to $92.2 billion.

HarborFest, Sag Harbor’s annual celebration of its waterfront heritage, returns this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, September 14-15, with tasty food offerings, music, shopping, and numerous nautical-themed events, culminating in the annual whaleboat races at Windmill Beach….plus the weather will be delightful!

Full coverage of the weekend can be found in “Festival” magazine, which accompanies this week’s edition of The Sag Harbor Express.

Among the highlights will be a concert by the Nancy Atlas band and special guests that will kick off the weekend a bit early, at 7 p.m., on Friday, September 13, at the Old Whalers’ Church. The show will help raise funds for the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce’s “Save the Whale” fund to help restore the whale used in the whaleboat races. Tickets are $50 for general admission and $70 for VIP seats and can be purchased at nancyatlasharborfest24.eventbrite.com.

The waterfront — and some venues further afield — will be busy all day Saturday and Sunday, with food vendors and numerous local organizations setting up booths on Long Wharf, children’s activities, and an arts and crafts fair from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday in Marine Park.

There will be art shows at both the Eastville Community Historical Society’s Heritage House and the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum.

The whaleboat races, which have their origins in the Old Whalers Festival, which began in 1964 as an effort to help drum up tourism during the sleepy fall season, are the major draw of the weekend. This year, the races will be held in boats that have been restored by the crew at Ship Ashore Marina. Races begin at noon on Saturday and 11:30 a.m. on Sunday and will culminate with championships awarded in the Men’s, Women’s and Firefighters’ divisions on Sunday afternoon.

While median rent in 2023 rose faster than median home values nationally, the trend line on Long Island was mixed, according to U.S. Census Bureau survey estimates released yesterday. But the cost burden, or the money spent on housing and utilities, remains prohibitively high for Long Islanders, whether they are renters or homeowners, the data shows. Olivia Winslow and Arielle Martinez report in NEWSDAY that local housing experts say the gross median rents and median home values highlighted in the bureau's 2023 one-year American Community Survey are another indicator of high housing costs on Long Island that exceed national and New York State levels, putting great pressure on many families. The Department of Housing and Urban Development recommends monthly housing costs should not exceed 30% of one's monthly income. In Suffolk County, median rent has been falling for the past few years, while the county's median home values have been rising. And in Nassau, median rent increased while home values decreased. Both counties' trajectories differ from the national trend. Fair market rents on Long Island — as determined by federal guidelines — in 2023 ranged from $2,059 for a one-bedroom to $2,470 for a two-bedroom to $3,175 for a three-bedroom, according to RentData.org.

Entertainer Justin Timberlake is expected to plead guilty to a lesser charge today in his drunken driving case in Sag Harbor Justice Court, sources familiar with the details of the case said. Timberlake, the actor-singer-songwriter, is expected to enter the plea in person before Sag Harbor Village Justice Carl Irace, sources tell Newsday. Grant Parpan reports on Newsday.com that Timberlake, 43, of Franklin, Tennessee, was driving a gray 2025 BMW with Florida plates south on Madison Street at 12:17 a.m. June 18, 2024 when he failed to stop at a stop sign at the intersection with Jermain Avenue, police and prosecutors said at the time. He also failed to keep right, police said. His eyes were bloodshot and glassy, he had a strong odor of alcohol on his breath, exhibited slowed speech and was unsteady on his feet, police said. The report noted Timberlake "performed poorly on all standardized field sobriety tests." Timberlake was arrested at 12:37 a.m. Records also show Timberlake refused a Breathalyzer test at 12:55 a.m. "No, I’m not doing a chemical test," he told police. Timberlake was charged with DWI and given two tickets for failing to stop and failing to maintain his lane. He was taken to East Hampton Town police headquarters and arraigned later on the morning of his arrest. Today will mark the second appearance Timberlake has made in person in connection with the case. He appeared virtually for a follow-up arraignment Aug. 2. Timberlake's career was launched at age 11 when he appeared on TV's "Star Search" and as part of "The All New Mickey Mouse Club." It was his role in the boy band *NSYNC that launched him to superstardom. Timberlake has been married to actress Jessica Biel since 2012; they have two children.

A Shirley man charged with possessing the handgun fired in a drive-by shooting in October 2022 outside the home of then – U.S. Congressman Lee Zeldin pleaded guilty yesterday to attempted murder, criminal possession of a weapon and conspiracy. Noah Green, 20, entered his plea in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead almost two years after prosecutors say he shot at three men, hitting two in the chest, outside Zeldin’s Shirley home. An agreement with prosecutors calls for him to be sentenced to 12 years in prison, followed by 5 years of supervised release. Zeldin, who was the Republican Party’s candidate for governor at the time of the shooting, was not a target, but his daughters were at home during the shooting, prosecutors said. In a statement, Zeldin said the shootings were "traumatic for my family and couldn’t have hit any closer to home. I am thankful for Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, and the many law enforcement officials who swiftly acted to keep my daughters safe, transport the victims, and take the necessary legal action to hold Mr. Green accountable." Prosecutors said Green had boasted on social media about his gang affiliation and about committing the shooting. He posted photographs and videos of himself and other gang members with weapons and stolen vehicles, according to prosecutors.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island and the North Fork will host voter information tables from Westhampton to Montauk and on Shelter Island from Saturday, September 14, to Tuesday, September 17, in observance of National Voter Registration Day, which is September 17. The league will also host a forum on confronting misinformation and building trust in the 2024 election on September 24 at LTV Studios in Wainscott and three candidate debates in October. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the group will distribute voter registration forms and absentee ballot applications, information on ballot referendums, flyers with the Suffolk County early voting dates, sites and times, and information including the directory of public officials during Sag Harbor’s HarborFest this coming weekend September 14 and 15, and at the Southampton Town Anti-Bias Task Force’s annual Great East End Community Picnic in the Park, on Sunday September 15, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Red Creek Park in Hampton Bays. Voter registration forms are available at the State Board of Elections website, elections.ny.gov. Those with questions can contact the Suffolk County Board of Elections at 631-852-4500 or suffolkvotes.com. Election Day 2024 is on Tuesday November 5.

With anger and frustration over extensive closures of a popular beach to 4x4 vehicles due to nesting piping plovers still boiling over in the halls of Southampton government, a veteran biologist from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service this week addressed the protections that the Southampton Town Trustees have put in place in recent years to protect the birds and the criticisms they have been bombarded with in return. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that Steve Sinkevich, a senior wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said that many of the complaints he’s heard Southampton residents direct at town officials in recent weeks and years echo those of beachgoers from across Long Island where the tiny endangered birds have closed off or inhibited access to popular stretches of oceanfront. And his advice to them is the same: The best way to get beaches open is to help the plovers nest early in the season, see their eggs hatch, the baby plovers roam safely around the beach for 25 to 35 days and then learn to fly — after which they will depart with their parents and the beaches can be reopened. “The sooner the areas are protected, the sooner the plovers can nest, the sooner the eggs will hatch and they’ll be able to fly and they’ll leave the area,” Sinkevich, a senior wildlife biologist, told the Trustees on Monday morning. “Like it or not, they’re coming back, and if you don’t protect the area, the eggs can get crushed and then they’re going to renest and you’re just going to prolong the process. So the earlier the better.” James Duryea, who oversees Southampton’s plover protection efforts, said that 13 baby piping plovers were fledged from the sands inside the “Picnic Area” and the adjacent Shinnecock East County Park — which has also seen vehicles barred from its popular oceanfront campgrounds in recent summers. Plovers are listed as “threatened” by the federal government on the Atlantic coast. New York State categorizes them as endangered.

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The East Quogue school system has employed armed security staff at its one school building, officials said, marking yet another small Long Island district to place a guard with a gun on campus. Craig Schneider reports in NEWSDAY that the East End district, which serves about 400 students in grades K-6 in a single schoolhouse, brought in armed guards at the start of the school year on Sept. 3, said Michael Miller, the district's superintendent and principal.

"If ever something takes place, we'll have someone on campus who can save valuable time before the police arrive," said Miller, adding that the school board approved the measure this summer after a year of study by the district safety committee.

East Quogue has three security staff — all retired police officers — on duty during the school day, and two for after-school and nighttime events such as board meetings, said Jason Davin, a member of the safety committee. No new security staff will be brought on board, but one officer will be armed during the day and evening. Only one officer will be armed at a time, and the officers will rotate who has the gun. Their handgun will be concealed so as not to create anxiety among the students and staff, he said.

The arming of the guards will cost the district a total of $75,000 a year, about $40,000 more than it already had spent on the officers. The district is contracting Arrow Security to manage the arming of the guards, including training and certification, according to Mr. Miller.

East Quogue is among about 20 Long Island school districts, out of 124, that have brought in armed security guards, including several smaller districts, said Robert Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association. Other smaller districts that have armed security staff include Montauk, Tuckahoe and East Moriches.

Local officials and other community members gathered at Riverhead Town’s World Trade Center Memorial Park in Calverton Wednesday morning for a prayer ceremony honoring those who lost their lives in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Town Clerk James Wooten read a brief chronology of the horrific events of that September morning, from the time American Airlines Flight 11 struck the north tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. through the downing of United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m. The Town of Riverhead’s World Trade Center Memorial Park symbolizes “the resilience, our gratitude and our memory for what happened that day, a place where we can come and reflect and pray, meditate and remember —not only the tragedy, but who we are as a nation and what freedom means,” Wooten said. The memorial park, located at the corner of Edwards and Riley avenues, was the creation of Hal Lindstrom of Calverton, who conceived and designed the space and spearheaded a fundraising campaign to cover the cost of its construction. Riverhead Town workers in the building and grounds division did most of the construction work and continue to maintain the park for community use.

The Suffolk County Water Authority will be hosting the next installment of its WaterTalk series of educational forums this evening at 6 p.m. in the Cutchogue New Suffolk Free Library in Cutchogue.

This free event provides an opportunity for customers to learn more and ask questions about their drinking water. Those who are interested but cannot attend can view the event virtually, with the link available on SCWA’s website.

SCWA Chief Executive Officer Jeff Szabo says, “The North Fork public supply system is unique compared to the rest of Suffolk County, so addressing the sensitive aquifer and limited capacity to supply water in the area is important.”

The WaterTalk series features a panel of experts that will discuss important topics, such as the quality of drinking water, the ways in which SCWA is implementing new infrastructure to improve water service and quality, the importance of conservation and more.

During the discussion, attendees are invited to ask questions. Water is Suffolk County’s most precious natural resource and SCWA officials hope attendees walk away from this event with increased knowledge about their water and increased trust in the product being delivered to their homes.

Residents who are interested in attending SCWA’s WaterTalk can register by emailing WaterTalk@scwa.com. Residents who would prefer to attend virtually can do so at www.scwa.com.

Free

All boat traffic through the Shinnecock Canal has been halted until further notice after one of the gate doors on the canal’s lock suffered a mechanical failure that left it inoperable. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that Suffolk County has mobilized a repair crew that was expected to begin repair work today, but has warned that it still could be several weeks before the lock is operable again and the canal fully passable. A spokesman from Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine’s office said yesterday that a hinge on one of the manually operated gates to the lock failed and will have to be replaced. But that will require erecting a cofferdam around the lock doors and pumping out the water so that repair crew can work on the door. Southampton Town Police Marine Patrol officials said that the county has asked that boat traffic be restricted from transiting the canal for safety reasons. One of the tide gates has been pinned open to allow emergency vessels to transit the canal if needed, said Senior Marine Patrol Officer Richard Franks. The open gate on Wednesday’s incoming tide in Shinnecock Bay created a turbulent torrent of water and swirling eddys as the higher waters of Shinnecock Bay dumped into the Peconic Bay side of the canal. Running the single open lock could be hazardous even for emergency vessels, Franks said, so the U.S. Coast Guard is planning to move one of its launches from the USCG station near Ponquogue Bridge to the Suffolk County marina at the northern end of the canal and the Southampton Town Marine Patrol will station some of its boats to the Shinnecock Bay side so it has access to vessels in both bays. Franks said that it could be two weeks or more before the canal can be safely opened to boat traffic again. The 4,000-foot-long canal, constructed in 1884, sees upward of 27,000 boat trips each year.

Local officials and other community members gathered at Riverhead Town’s World Trade Center Memorial Park in Calverton Wednesday morning for a prayer ceremony honoring those who lost their lives in the terror attacks exactly 23 years earlier on Sept. 11, 2001. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Town Clerk James Wooten read a brief chronology of the horrific events which occurred that tragic Tuesday September morning. Then Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard stepped up and spoke to the sense of unity that existed for a precious few weeks following the 9/11 attacks. “If you can say there was a positive thing to come out of this, which is very hard to imagine, it was the unity that this country felt in the hours and days after the attack…It didn’t matter whether you were black, white, yellow, pink, green. Didn’t matter what your religion was, what your sexual preference was, we were a united country of one and a strong united country of one,” he said. “Memories tend to fade sometimes. 9-11 will never fade from us, but that memory of unity has started to fade. And I ask you today, when you leave here, when you leave this service today, go and talk to somebody and remind them of how we felt after this happened and how this country was,” said Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard yesterday at the World Trade Center Memorial Park in Calverton.

Former New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and his aides have mounted a forceful defense, paid for by state taxpayers, against accusations of sexual harassment and other misconduct. Benjamin Oreskes reports in THE NY TIMES that the state has spent about $25.4 million as of last month representing the legal interests of Mr. Cuomo and several of his top aides as they fend off civil complaints, criminal investigations and inquiries from the NYS Legislature. Of the $25.4 million, more than half has gone to defend Mr. Cuomo and several top aides in four lawsuits filed by three women in state and federal court. Because Mr. Cuomo’s alleged actions in these lawsuits took place while he was governor, state law requires taxpayers to foot legal bills related to the accusations.

The Town of Southampton plans to spend $3.8 million from its new Community Housing Fund to boost affordable housing in Tuckahoe and Sag Harbor.

In Tuckahoe, the town will use $2.5 million to acquire adjacent parcels where officials plan to build up to 10 affordable single-family homes.

In Sag Harbor, the town is purchasing a deed restriction on a 6-unit multifamily home at 11 Suffolk St. that will require the landlord, Sag Housing LLC, to continue charging affordable rents. The town board this past Tuesday approved spending $1.3 million to pay off the Sag Harbor property owner's mortgage.

"We need affordable housing in all different ways," said Kara Bak, Southampton Town’s director of housing and community development. "We need rentals and we need homeownership, so we're trying to diversify it."

Joe Werkmeister reports in NEWSDAY that the Town of Southampton has amassed more than $15 million in its Community Housing Fund, which voters approved in a referendum in 2022. The town generates revenue through a 0.5% tax on most real estate transactions and sets it aside for affordable housing initiatives.

East Hampton, Shelter Island and Southold also created housing funds in 2022. Those towns have established advisory boards to map out affordable housing initiatives.

Southampton Town is planning to set money aside for down payments and an accessory dwelling units program, Bak said.

The two purchases in Tuckahoe — at 320 Magee St. for $875,000 and 362 Moses Lane for $1.6 million — allowed the town to acquire parcels adjacent to another town-owned property. The town board approved the acquisitions, spanning 1.8 acres, in August.

Town officials hope to build 10 single-family homes on the new land, the maximum allowed under current zoning laws, officials said.

Based on current figures, the homes would be priced at about $507,000 and designated for homebuyers who earn up to 130% of the area's median income. That equates to an annual salary of $203,000 for a family of four. The homes would remain affordable "in perpetuity," Bak said.

In July, the median sale price in the Hamptons reached a new high of nearly $1.9 million, according to a report from real estate brokerage Douglas Elliman and appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

Bak said the purchases "wouldn’t have happened" if it weren't for the housing fund.

Once the sale takes place, the town board can decide whether to develop the properties in a partnership with the Southampton Housing Authority or to seek bids from developers.

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Former New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo clashed with members of a Republican-led subcommittee yesterday over his handling of policy for nursing homes and coronavirus patients in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Tom Brune reports in NEWSDAY that Cuomo, sitting alone at a long witness table before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, repeatedly rejected subcommittee findings that faulted his mandate to nursing homes to take in coronavirus patients and his report minimizing the number of deaths.

But Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), the subcommittee chairman, told Cuomo in a hearing room that included people who lost relatives in the pandemic, "Governor, you own this. It’s your name on the letterhead. This is your directive. You were the leader. The buck stops with you."

The hearing focused on effects of the Cuomo administration’s March 25, 2020, directive to nursing homes that required them to admit patients with COVID-19 and barred testing for coronavirus, and its July 6, 2020, report on the number of coronavirus nursing home deaths that excluded patients who died outside those facilities. Nursing homes admitted more than 9,000 recovering coronavirus patients released from hospitals under the directive, more than the 6,000 reported on July 6.

Overall, about 15,000 long term care residents with COVID-19 in New York have died, according to The Associated Press.

Wenstrup said New York changed the guidance issued by the federal government from allowing nursing homes to decline to accept patients with coronavirus to requiring those facilities to accept the ill patients and barring tests of them.

Eddie Kranepool, an original member of the New York Mets and key contributor to their 1969 World Championship team…who played 18 seasons for the organization…died at the age of 79 after suffering a cardiac arrest in Boca Raton, Florida, this past Monday. Joe Pantorno reports in DAN’s PAPERS that for more than two decades, Ed Kranepool and his wife were fixtures on the East End, living on their 68-foot boat on Three Mile Harbor. “We are incredibly heartbroken to learn of Ed Kranepool’s passing,” Mets owners Steve and Alex Cohen said in a statement. “We cherished the time we spent with Ed. We extend our thoughts and prayers to his family and friends.” A New York City native who attended James Monroe High School in the Bronx, Kranepool signed an $80,000 bonus to join the Mets and debuted as a 17-year-old for the “Amazins" in 1962. He went on to play 1,853 games with the team — a record that still stands to this day.

With two months of full operation under its belt, Long Island’s first offshore wind array has been a steady producer for the power-starved South Fork, LIPA said, reducing power needs from larger fossil-fueled plants, though not yet enough to eliminate temporary summer gas generators in the Hamptons.

The array, located in ocean waters 35 miles northeast of Montauk, exceeded its July forecast by around 17%, LIPA said, while August operation came in at 3% below projections. Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that the figures are generally in line with projections for the project as LIPA and contractor PSEG Long Island work to integrate intermittent wind power for the first time into a grid that relies chiefly on steadily producing fossil-fuel plants and always-available undersea cables for its power.

LIPA commissioned the South Fork Wind Farm originally with Deepwater Wind in 2017 and worked with Denmark-based Orsted and its partner Eversource to see it through to completion in March. The first power from some of the nearly 1,000-foot turbines off the coast of New England reached Long Island in December. The entire project was completed in March, but testing continued through the spring. South Fork Wind is the nation’s first utility-scale wind farm in federal waters, part of a project by LIPA to make sure the power-starved Hamptons had enough power as energy use increased there. The plan included two large battery storage units in Montauk and East Hampton and demand-reduction efforts that fell somewhat short of goals, observers have said.

Gary Stephenson, LIPA’s senior vice president for power supply, said the mercurial nature of wind power has required the utility to manage the grid’s demand and production curves more closely to make sure there’s enough power, particularly during peak summer loads. PSEG monitors the power source as part of its larger contract to manage the LIPA grid.

The East Hampton Town Board did not vote on a resolution, as it was expected to do, at its meeting last Thursday, September 5, that if passed would remove a triangular patch of land between the southern terminus of Three Mile Harbor Road and Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton from the town’s nature preserve holdings. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the parkland alienation would allow a referendum on the November 5 ballot as to whether to convey the approximately 2-acre parcel to Suffolk County in order to improve safety and traffic delays at the intersection through the possible incorporation of a roundabout into upgrades to County Road 40, as Three Mile Harbor Road and the portion of North Main Street north of Collins Avenue are officially known. That work is scheduled to commence in spring 2027. East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez had said at the Town Board’s September 3 meeting that it was the board’s intention to vote on a local law disposing of the Sherrill Triangle from the town’s nature preserve holdings on September 5. “However, while drafting the resolution,” she said last Thursday, “the town attorney realized that the town has not yet received a determination back from the Suffolk County Planning Commission indicating that it is a matter for local determination.” Once that correspondence is received, a vote will be scheduled, she said. At the September 5 meeting, two members of the public spoke about the proposed parkland alienation and conveyance to the county, both suggesting that it be reconsidered.

The World Trade Center Health Program faces a projected $2.7 billion shortfall that would start at the end of 2027. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Andrew Garbarino are sponsoring legislation to close the gap and say they see a pathway to passage this year. The program provides care for more than 132,000 firefighters, police and other responders, as well as residents and others in Lower Manhattan with ailments related to the 9/11 attacks. Tom Brune reports in NEWSDAY that the World Trade Center Health Program provides care for more than 132,000 firefighters, police and other responders, as well as residents and others in Lower Manhattan, with ailments caused by toxins that spread when al Qaida Islamist terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 11, 2001. The program faces a shortfall because of increased participation by injured first responders and survivors with diagnosed cancers, respiratory ailments and other illnesses from 9/11 which, along with inflation, has driven up the cost of care.

“Jacqueline’s Field” would be the name of the workforce housing development proposed at 350 Pantigo Road in East Hampton by the property’s owners, the principal of Whalebone Workplace Housing revealed this week. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that Kirby Marcantonio, the publisher of Montauk Life and Hamptons Life magazines, and a group of investors own the former Stern’s department store property. They propose the private development of up to 48 one-, two- and three-bedroom units that would be sold to qualified employers based on a minimum number of people they employ in the town.

Jacqueline’s Field, Marcantonio said, is a nod to the site’s former status as part of the Riding Club of East Hampton, where a young Jacqueline Lee Bouvier learned to ride horses, long before her marriage to President John F. Kennedy.

Last month, he proposed a 50-percent set-aside for health care professionals, which would likely go to the Stony Brook Medicine healthcare system. An additional 10 percent each would be set aside for the local school systems, town employees and local police departments.

The East Hampton Town Planning Board looked favorably, with some caveats, on the proposal at a June meeting. Eric Schantz, director of the town’s Office of Housing and Community Development, is planning a follow-up to the Town Board’s July discussion of employer-sponsored affordable housing at its work session on Tuesday, September 17.

In correspondence to business owners in the town, Marcantonio said that units will range from 600 to 1,200 square feet, each featuring full kitchens and baths and “built to residential standards.” He estimated their cost to range from $400,000 to $750,000 with an additional monthly maintenance fee of $600 to $900.

In order to build 48 units on the 4-acre site, the Town of East Hampton would have to amend the code to increase allowable density on affordable housing overlay districts from eight to 12 units per acre.

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A Riverhead man who police say fired five shots into a Hampton Bays home in early July was arrested on August 22 after an extensive investigation by the Southampton Town Police, Riverhead Town Police and Suffolk County district attorney’s office.

The man, Lawrence Brown Jr., 26, was indicted this week on felony weapons charges, District Attorney Raymond Tierney’s office announced yesterday. He’s been ordered held on $250,000 bail.

According to investigators, Brown drove to the Hampton Bays home of a person with whom he’d had a dispute and fired five shots into the house. There were several people asleep inside the home at the time but none were injured and had not initially realized the gun shots had been aimed at the house, until they discovered the bullet holes the next morning.

Police were able to recover the spent 9mm bullet casings from the street outside the home.

Following an extensive investigation, Southampton Town Police detectives and officers from several local agencies raided the Riverhead home where Brown lives, where they recovered a 9mm handgun from within his bedroom.

Southampton Town Police Chief James Kiernan praised his officers’ detective work and the help of the district attorney’s office in what he described as a complicated investigation that ultimately led to a dangerous criminal being taken off the streets.

D.A. Tierney’s office on Monday also applauded the work of the local departments and regional agencies in tracking down the suspect.

“This arrest is an example of the work that can be achieved when law enforcement agencies work together,” he said in a statement released by his office. “I commend the joint investigation conducted by the Town of Southampton Police Department, Riverhead Town Police Department, with our East End Drug Task Force along with our Gang Task Force. We look forward to holding this defendant accountable in court.”

Brown is charged with four felonies: two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, one count of reckless endangerment in the first degree and one count of criminal possession of a firearm. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Social media has become such a menace for kids that the NYC health commissioner is recommending parents don’t give their children cell phones till at least age 14. Carl Campanile reports in THE NY POST that pediatricians also should make talking to parents and children about social media part of check-ups, says NYC Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan.

“Adolescents using social media have a greater risk of experiencing poor mental health, including symptoms of depression and anxiety,” wrote Vasan and NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Chief Medical Officer Michelle Morse in a Sept. 5 letter to doctors and other medical professionals.

“Recommend parents and caregivers delay giving children a smartphone, or similar device that can access social media, until age 14, and then reassess based on current evidence of harms and the child’s strengths and needs,” the health commissioner stated. “When children begin to travel more independently in NYC, ask parents to start children with a phone that does not have the ability to access social media,” the department’s doctors added. Pediatricians also should discuss the perils of over exposure to smart phones and social media with parents and their children as part of a “family media plan” to curb or prohibit use, according to the letter.

Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing for a ban on smart phones in schools and currently conducting a “listening tour” to see how it can be done.

She and the NYS legislature approved a law in June to give parents more control over social media usage on apps such as TikTok and Instagram.

Last year, Pierson High School in Sag Harbor instituted a new cellphone policy that requires students to put their phones away in locked bags, called Yondr pouches, at the beginning of the school day. The phones stay in the pouches until the security team unlocks them at the end of the day.

The Southold Town 9/11 Memorial Committee will hold their Remembrance Ceremony on the Anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks tomorrow, Sept. 11 at 6 p.m. in Jean Cochran Park on Peconic Lane in Peconic. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that Riverhead’s annual Sound Park Heights Association’s 9/11 Vigil is scheduled for tomorrow at 6 p.m., with a memorial procession starting at Marine Street in Reeves Park and concluding at the memorial at the intersection of Park Road and Sound Avenue. Tomorrow morning, the Town of Riverhead has arranged a 10 am prayer ceremony at its World Trade Center Memorial Park at the corner of Riley and Edwards Avenue in Calverton.

State, county and local police will mount increased patrols this week to crack down on speeders in a twice-a-year campaign that Gov. Kathy Hochul said was responsible for more than 114,000 tickets last year.

This year’s second Speed Awareness Week began yesterday and will continue through Saturday. The first awareness week this year was in June. Michael Gormley reports in NEWSDAY that the number of individuals killed or injured in vehicle crashes in which speed was a contributing factor increased to 18,833 people in 2023, from 18,153 in 2022, according to the Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research at the University at Albany’s Rockefeller College.

The number of accidents resulting in injury or death increased even as the overall number of crashes in which unsafe speed was a contributing factor dropped to 33,844 in 2023, compared with 34,658 in 2022, according to Rockefeller College.

"Safe driving is not just about following the rules — it’s about protecting the lives of every individual on our roads," Governor Hochul said Monday. "By increasing patrols and focusing on speeding, we are taking a proactive step to ensure that our streets are safer for everyone ... Every ticket issued is a reminder: Your speed matters, and your safety is our priority."

Fines include $45 to $150 for speeding up to 10 mph over the speed limit, $90 to $300 for speeding 10 mph to 30 mph over the limit and $180 to $600 for speeding more than 30 mph over the speed limit, according to the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee website.

A driver’s license is revoked after three convictions in 18 months.

The committee warns that a driver can be ticketed for speeding even if the driver is traveling at the same over-the-speed-limit rate as traffic.

A congressional report released yesterday criticized former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly his administration’s efforts to conceal the true number of New Yorkers who died in nursing homes and shift blame for the deaths. Benjamin Oreskes reports in THE NY TIMES that the 48-page report, by the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, zeros in on March 2020 guidance from the New York State Department of Health that directed nursing homes to readmit patients who had tested positive for the coronavirus.

That guidance, the report says, had “predictable but disastrous consequences.” State health officials told the subcommittee that the Health Department had developed the guidance and that Governor Cuomo’s top aides had signed off on it.

The report also details how top advisers to Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, influenced the conclusions of a report from the Health Department months later in an effort to deflect blame for deaths in nursing homes.

Mr. Cuomo resigned in August 2021 amid sexual harassment allegations, which he denies. He is scheduled to testify before the subcommittee for the second time today.

In a statement on Monday, Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for the former governor, called the report sloppy. He added that the investigation, which was conducted by a Republican-led panel, was “all smoke and mirrors designed to continue to distract from Trump’s failed pandemic leadership.”

To produce the report, the subcommittee interviewed Mr. Cuomo and about 10 aides and reviewed close to 550,000 pages of documents. Its findings echo reporting by The New York Times and other news outlets about efforts by Mr. Cuomo and his administration to hide the true scale of nursing home deaths.

Between March 2020 and February 2021, more than 13,000 nursing home residents died from the virus in New York, according to the state Health Department.

For National Voter Registration Day next Tuesday, September 17, the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island and North Fork will spread out across the East End with voter information tables in communities from Westhampton to Montauk on the South Fork and on Shelter Island. Representatives will also be at HarborFest in Sag Harbor on September 14 and 15 and at Southampton Town’s Anti-Bias Task Force Picnic on September 15.

Early voting in Suffolk County this year is Saturday, October 26, through Sunday, November 3.

The Suffolk County Board of Elections mail-in deadline for receipt of voter registration forms is October 26. The mail-in or online deadline for the Board of Elections to receive an absentee ballot application or early mail-in voting application is also October 26, while the postmark deadline for the return of the absentee ballot to the poll site or by mail to the Board of Elections is Election Day, November 5.

Note that those voters who are issued an absentee ballot or early mail ballot may no longer vote in person on a voting machine during early voting or on Election Day and may only vote by affidavit ballot at a poll site.

Voter registration forms are available online by going to the New York State Board of Elections website at elections.ny.gov.

This past summer, a turtle was released after making a miraculous recovery fighting a near year-long rehabilitation. Solaria had been hit and completely crushed by a car on Old West Lake Drive in Montauk, suffering numerous fractures, and was rescued and named by the Turtle Rescue of the Hamptons. Willow DuBrovin reports on Danspapers.com that the Turtle Rescue of the Hamptons is a turtle rehabilitation center located on the North Fork of Long Island, equipped to handle 200 turtles annually. Solaria was admitted into their care with a double bridge fracture after the car’s tire went over her and crushed her down. Karen Testa, executive director of the organization further explains, “a double bridge fracture means that the piece of bone for the shell that holds the top and bottom shell together was broken.” When broken, that connecting piece causes terrible pain and can be extremely deadly.

“It’s really important to take care of these guys because they take care of our ecosystems,” Testa added. “Turtles are both an indicator and a keystone species.”

Being an indicator species means that turtles are affected by the chemicals we spray on the ground, such as pesticides, while being labeled as a keystone species means that the ecosystem around such species is dependent on it. Turtles disperse seeds, fertilize the ground, clean the water of bacteria, and maintain health around their ecosystem. Yet despite this, on Long Island, turtles are in constant danger.

“Turtles can live for 40-60 years, but like Solaria, are constantly hit by cars…so…many of their lives are cut short,” Testa said.

Turtles are only out from April to October, and when they are not out during the year they hibernate and live underground. A common misconception is that New York turtles are to be released in the ocean, however we don’t have any ocean turtles in New York, only migrating Florida turtles. While native turtles enjoy water, such as lakes, ponds, and the rain - to feed on slugs - no rescued turtles should ever be released into New York oceans.

The Turtle Rescue of the Hamptons center is located at 111 Manor Lane in Jamesport. It can be reached at 631-779-3737, and is open 7 a.m.–5 p.m. seven days weekly, with a 24-hour hotline. Visit turtlerescueofthehamptons.org for more info.

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Drivers in the Town of Hempstead last year were hit with nearly 40,000 more school bus camera tickets than drivers in Suffolk County, despite having half the population. Payton Guion reports in NEWSDAY that BusPatrol America, a Virginia-based company that runs the school bus camera programs, recorded 140,456 violations in Hempstead in 2023, compared with 103,532 in Suffolk. The town’s population is 793,409, while Suffolk is home to more than 1.5 million people.

A number of factors likely contributed to Hempstead's higher ticketing rate, but town communications director Brian Devine said the two biggest reasons were simple: Hempstead is denser and its camera program is newer. BusPatrol also said denser areas tend to see more tickets. Devine added that the number of tickets issued this year is down compared with last year, which is consistent with other BusPatrol programs as they mature.

Newsday analyzed the nearly quarter of a million tickets issued last year, providing the most comprehensive picture to-date of the bus camera programs in Suffolk and Hempstead town. Programs officials say bus cameras are necessary to protect children but critics have called it a "cash grab."

"The passing of school buses is such a problem in our state and nationally," said David Christopher, executive director of the advocacy group New York Association for Pupil Transportation. "This is just one tool of many that we can employ to keep kids safe. People are driving aggressively and they’re driving distracted, and kids are in danger when that happens."

Nearly 250,000 school bus camera tickets were issued in Suffolk County and the Town of Hempstead in 2023, according to a Newsday analysis of data provided by the county and town.

September is the peak month for mosquitoes and West Nile virus, but they got an early start on Long Island this year. Lisa L. Colangelo reports in NEWSDAY that health officials reported larger numbers of infected mosquitoes compared with recent years, as well as more human cases of West Nile and biting mosquitoes overall in Suffolk County in July and August, possibly setting the stage for additional cases of disease later this year.

Even more troubling to experts is the growing spread in the Northeast of eastern equine encephalitis, another mosquito-borne disease that can be more deadly. For the first time in five years, an EEE-infected mosquito sample was found in Suffolk County, officials reported Friday.

While there have been no human EEE cases in New York, they have been documented in New Jersey and Massachusetts. A man from New Hampshire died last month after contracting the virus and developing the disease, and concerns about transmission have led some New England towns to recommend 6 p.m. curfews on outdoor activities this month to avoid infected mosquitoes.

For now, the bigger threat in New York is the West Nile virus, especially for people over the age of 50.

Experts suggest people avoid outdoor areas when mosquitoes are biting. If you have to be outside, wear long sleeves and long pants. Use insect repellent registered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and follow label directions carefully. Eliminate standing water on your property, which can serve as mosquito breeding grounds.

Scott Campbell, chief of the Suffolk County Health Department’s Arthropod-Borne Disease Laboratory tells Newsday that the rainy spring on Long Island provided rich breeding grounds for mosquitoes, leading to high populations earlier than usual.

And the hot, relatively dry summer led mosquitoes and birds to share limited water sources.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has signed a bill into law that requires all New York school districts with a high school to include a student on the board of education, a move praised by some school officials on Long Island, where students already have taken a seat. Darwin Yanes reports in NEWSDAY that the legislation signed this past Thursday affects all school districts and BOCES in the state except those in New York City. The districts will now be required to establish a process to include at least one student on the board who has attended a high school in that district for at least a year.

The student will not have a vote on the board but rather serve as an advisory member. NYS lawmakers had been pushing the bill, saying the position would give students new opportunities to engage with their boards and build skills and habits of civic engagement.

They “will learn the power of their own voices, and the importance of listening to and engaging respectfully with those who may have a different point of view, while bringing valuable and unique perspective to board decision making,” State Sen. Shelley B. Mayer (D-Yonkers), who sponsored the bill, said in a statement.

Robert Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association, said it’s always good to have a student voice at the table, especially when discussing policies that will affect the students the district is serving.

“It’ll be interesting to get feedback in a couple years about how it goes and see what benefits came about as the results of the policy change at a state level,” he said.

The former aide to two governors accused of being an agent for China was part of a critical deal with the communist country to bring protective gear and ventilators to New York early during the COVID-19 pandemic. Michael Gormley reports in NEWSDAY that Linda Sun, of Manhasset, was among those inside then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive chamber in early 2020 working on the deal, which resulted in the donation of much-needed masks, surgical gowns and ventilators to New York.

Later, the state was billed more than $700,000 by a company owned by a friend of Sun's husband that shipped the ventilators to the United States, according to federal records reviewed by Newsday.

Last Tuesday, Sun was accused of working as an unregistered foreign agent for China in a scheme with her husband, Christopher Hu, to enrich themselves, according to the indictment by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York. Both pleaded not guilty to the charges.

In 2020, Sun was seen by co-workers as an ambitious 30-something with a political science degree from Barnard College and a master’s degree from Columbia University. Her roles included being the Asian outreach director for Cuomo and handling global business development.

The Southold Town 9/11 Memorial Committee will hold their Remembrance Ceremony on the Anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks this coming Wednesday, Sept. 11 at 6 p.m. in Jean Cochran Park on Peconic Lane in Peconic. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that Riverhead’s annual Sound Park Heights Association’s 9/11 Vigil will be held this Wednesday at 6 p.m., with a memorial procession starting at Marine Street in Reeves Park and concluding at the memorial at the intersection of Park Road and Sound Avenue.

Earlier this coming Wednesday, The Town of Riverhead will hold a 10 am prayer ceremony at its World Trade Center Memorial Park at the corner of Riley and Edwards Avenue in Calverton.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing for a ban on smart phones in schools and currently conducting a “listening tour” to see how it can be done.

She and the NYS legislature approved a law in June to give parents more control over social media usage on apps such as TikTok and Instagram.

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The credit card surcharge has crept into daily life like rust on a tractor — appearing so slowly that customers hardly notice it until it is, seemingly, all over. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the little signs on cash registers announcing, or acknowledging, that a surcharge of up to 4 percent will be added to the price of any transaction that is paid for with a credit card bother some consumers more than others, but everyone has noticed them.

The card surcharges have become most common at places like delis and small markets and modestly priced retail stores. They’re less common but not unheard of at some restaurants and pizza places. No large grocery or department store chains tack them on — yet — and few of the high-end shops on the main streets of South Fork’s hamlets bother with them.

It is “legal” for stores to charge credit card fees to customers — in case you were wondering, or thought otherwise — and has been for more than a decade.

But last winter, the New York State Legislature and Governor Kathy Hochul approved a new law requiring that merchants do so in a very different way than almost any stores do currently.

“There’s two things at the heart of the rule: merchants and vendors can’t charge more of a surcharge than they are being charged by the credit card companies themselves, and the other is this idea that the consumer has to be aware before they decide to purchase the item what the total price, including the surcharge, would be,” said NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who ultimately voted in favor of the bill.

“The debate over the law at the time was between the consumers’ right to know the full price of what they are paying for and not be surprised afterward, and the burden put on small businesses by this mandate.”

The Springs Historical Society hosts its fourth annual benefit art show and celebration, “Arts & Archives 2024” this weekend beginning today through Sunday. The event features more than 50 contemporary artists from Springs, a curator’s forum, historic tour and opening reception.

The show, organized by the historical society’s Arts & Archives Committee, supports the Springs Community Library, Elizabeth Parker Anderson’s former home donated to the historical society for use as a library to serve the Springs community.

Curated by Teri Kennedy, this exhibition is the only major invitational exclusively for Springs artists. This year’s showcase is inspired by James Brooks’ 1973 Fisherman’s Fair poster from the Springs Historical Society’s archival collection. It features more than 50 contemporary artists from Springs, working in a variety of mediums, from paintings to ceramics, jewelry to glassworks, on display today through Sunday at Ashawagh Hall at 780 Springs-Fireplace Road.

The exhibition “explores the works borne from the unique environment Springs fosters and its creative partnerships that shape a home and artistic legacy,” according to the historical society.

The exhibition will be on view to the public today from 1 to 5 p.m., Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

A reception for Springs Historical Society members will be held today from 5 to 7 p.m. and a public reception will be held tomorrow from 5 to 7 p.m.

For more information about this weekend’s activities and how to support the Springs Historical Society and Community Library, visit springshistoricalsociety.org.

Shelter Island Friends of Music welcomes back award-winning pianist Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner tomorrow at 6 pm in the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church. Sanchez-Werner previously played for Shelter Island Friends of Music to a standing-room only crowd at the Presbyterian Church in February 2023. The brilliant virtuoso will perform the music of Chopin, Liszt, Beethoven and Gershwin.

Admission is free; donations are appreciated.

A reception with the musician follows the concert.

That’s tomorrow evening at 6:00 PM in the

Shelter Island Presbyterian Church

32 North Ferry Rd.

Shelter Island, NY

11964

For more info visit shelterislandfriendsofmusic.org

Gibson Lane Beach, the quiet, unassuming ocean beach off Gibson Lane in Sagaponack Village, has, for many years, been accessible to anyone with a Southampton Town full-season beach parking permit. That has meant that it has not only been enjoyed by residents of Sagaponack, but also many families and individuals who reside in nearby hamlets and villages. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the beach is cherished by those who are not deterred by the lack of lifeguards or public bathrooms, those who have been happy to do without those amenities for a quieter, more relaxed experience.

But next summer, that dynamic is poised to change, as the Sagaponack Village Board of Trustees voted, 3-1, at a meeting in July to take back control of the beach, which it owns, from the Town of Southampton.

When the Village of Sagaponack incorporated in 2005, it could have taken over control of the beach at that time, but instead entered into an intermunicipal agreement with the Town of Southampton to have the town oversee the beach, essentially ceding that control in exchange for the town providing services like maintenance and garbage removal.

Sagaponack Village Mayor Bill Tillotson said earlier this week that he’s heard from many residents that they often cannot find a parking space at the beach, and he also added that the town has not done as good of a job maintaining the beach as he believes the village can do.

“The town has done nothing to keep it up,” he said. “They pick up the garbage, but it’s not enough. It overflows on the weekends.”

A lack of benches and bike racks, as well as overgrown vegetation are other problems Mayor Tillotson said the village can and will address when it takes back control of the beach from the town.

He also pointed out that non-village residents will not be prevented from going to the beach, but they simply won’t be able to park there unless they have a non-resident pass, if those are offered.

“It’s really about providing access for the people of Sagaponack,” he said. “And to make it look better.”

The Town of Islip will receive nearly $2.1 million in federal funding for improvements at Long Island MacArthur Airport, per an announcement yesterday. John Valenti reports in NEWSDAY that the money earmarked for MacArthur will be used for taxiway signage and lighting rehabilitation, snow removal equipment access, holding bays and reconstruction of the airport de-icing system, according to a statement from U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.

The funding is part of nearly $60 million for improvements at more than two dozen airports around New York State.

At Long Island MacArthur, $1.35 million will be used for holding bay construction; $363,600 for taxiway signage, lighting and rehabilitation; $219,090 toward a snow removal equipment access road; and $117,207 toward a deicing system reconstruction.

“From big cities like Buffalo [and] Syracuse to our rural communities in the North Country, Upstate NY’s regional airports are gateways for commerce, tourism and travel for residents," Schumer, the senior Democrat from New York and Senate Majority Leader stated.

Senator Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said: “New York’s airports welcome millions of travelers each year, and it is vital that they have up-to-date infrastructure needed for passengers to travel safely. This nearly $60 million in federal funding will bring much-needed safety and infrastructure improvements to airports across New York State.”

“We appreciate our elected officials advocating for federal funding to support Long Island MacArthur Airport," airport Commissioner Shelley LaRose-Arken said in a statement Thursday.

Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard will host a series of three public engagement sessions to provide residents the opportunity to meet the town’s new Chief of Police - Ed Frost - in an informal, conversational setting. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the three “Meet the New Chief” sessions will give residents the chance to ask questions, share concerns and offer ideas to the new chief, who started in his new role last Sunday.

The meet-the-chief sessions are scheduled for:

Saturday, Sept. 7

11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Riverhead Senior Center

60 Shade Tree Lane

Aquebogue

Tuesday, Sept. 10

6 to 8 p.m.

Riverhead Town Hall

4 West Second St.

Riverhead

Saturday, Sept. 14

11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Riley Avenue Elementary School

374 Riley Avenue

Calverton

Gov. Kathy Hochul yesterday insisted “we’re not fracking” in New York to boost the energy supply — despite Vice President Kamala Harris saying she now favors such drilling for natural gas. “We’re not fracking, we’re not burning coal. We’re not going backwards,” the Democratic governor said during a “future energy economy summit” in Syracuse. Carl Campanile in THE NY POST reports that it came after V.P. Harris, her party’s nominee for the White House, said during her recent CNN interview that she would “not ban fracking” if elected president – a major reversal from her position during her first run for the Oval Office in 2020.

“As vice president I did not ban fracking. As president I will not ban fracking,” Harris told CNN. Fracking is considered a jobs producer and popular in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state for the White House. But Governor Hochul made it abundantly clear she doesn’t want to “frack, baby frack” along New York’s gas rich southern tier of the Marcellus Shale formation that borders Pennsylvania. During the tail end of her speech on Thursday at the Future Energy Economy Summit in Syracuse, Hochul trumpeted carbon-free power generated by offshore wind, solar, geothermal or other types of energy.

Some of her energy officials also talked up nuclear power during the summit. Fracking is the drilling procedure injecting liquid at high pressure into subterranean rock to force open existing fissures and extract oil or gas.

A report by the Manhattan Institute think tank a decade ago estimated that 15,000 to 18,000 jobs could be created in the Southern Tier and Western New York if fracking were permitted, generating up to $11.4 billion in economic output and $1.4 billion in state and local tax revenue. After years of study and controversy, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo banned fracking in 2014 in response to a health department study which cited public health risks because of the potential to contaminate groundwater. There’s little support in the Democratic-run NYS legislature to revisit the issue. Vintners from New York’s growing wine industry in the Finger Lakes region also have opposed fracking.

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Customers are returning to the Long Island Rail Road, with ridership up 17% in the first half of 2024 compared with the same period last year and expected to climb even higher now that the summer season is concluding, the LIRR’s president said.

Though still below pre-pandemic levels, MTA officials and experts attributed the railroad’s recovery to the increased capacity and service that came with the completion of two major capacity-expansion projects, the Third Track in Nassau County, and the LIRR’s new Manhattan terminal, Grand Central Madison. Alfonso A. Castillo reports in NEWSDAY that the 35.8 million passengers transported by the LIRR in the first half of 2024 was well ahead of its forecasts and about 80% of the total for the first half of 2019 — a year in which the railroad went on to set a modern annual ridership record.

The recovery of the LIRR, whose ridership plummeted to just 3% of 2019 levels at the height of the pandemic, is outpacing all Metropolitan Transportation Authority agencies, including New York City subways, which are around 70% of pre-COVID levels. Metro-North has recovered about 76% of its riders, according to MTA statistics.

LIRR President Robert Free said the railroad’s numbers remained strong even through the summer months, when ridership tends to dip. The 271,784 customers carried by the LIRR on June 25 was the most for any day since the start of the pandemic in 2020. For the month of June, LIRR ridership reached 83% of pre-COVID levels.

This past weekend, Southampton Village officials sought to set the record straight about the decision to open drainage pipes from Lake Agawam and Old Town Pond that lead into the ocean after record-breaking rainfall and flash flooding that occurred August 18 and 19.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the Village of Southampton defended its decision to drain the overflowing water from the lake and pond into the ocean, acknowledging that while it is not ideal to drain that water — which has been polluted by harmful algae blooms — into the ocean, it is the only option for preventing flooding, and has also been standard practice for years after large rain events that produce the type of flooding seen last month. “While this is not the best solution, it has been done for decades to prevent flooding of these bodies of water into parking lots and roads,” a press release sent out by village officials on Saturday stated. “In the aftermath of the record rainfall, the Lake Agawam parking lot and several roads were flooded, creating stagnant pools of water where people walk, bike and walk their pets. Because of this public safety issue, there was no alternative than to drain the lake and pond through a pipe into the ocean and temporarily close the beaches.” Before taking that step, the village notified the Southampton Town Trustees and the Lake Agawam Conservancy, a nonprofit that raises money and puts together initiatives to help clean up the lake, and posted it on the village website and social media channels, while also putting up signs near the beaches to alert beachgoers that they should not swim in the ocean while the draining was occurring.

The East Hampton Trails Preservation Society has organized “A Springs Celebration: Pollock-Krasner, Springs Historical Society and Curator’s Tour of Arts and Archives 2024,” a 1.5-mile walk, to take place this coming Saturday, September 7, at 9:30 a.m. Starting at the Pollock-Krasner House, where Director Matt Ward will discuss its mission, the walk will continue to the Springs Library for a talk about the building’s history and to view a “Small Works” show curated by John Haubrich. The walk will conclude at Ashawagh Hall, with a tour of Springs Arts and Archives 2024 with curator Teri Kennedy. Meet walk leader Irwin Levy at Talmage Farm Lane, just off Springs Fireplace Road.

For more information, call Irwin Levy at 516-456-1337 or email irwintlevy@gmail.com.

Riverhead’s comprehensive plan update was unanimously adopted by the Town Board yesterday at a meeting that drew a standing room-only crowd. Alek Lewis and Denise Civiletti report on Riverheadlocal.com that the plan as adopted does not contain the controversial recommendation to allow agritourism resorts and spas on lands north of Sound Avenue zoned for residential use.

The previously scheduled Sept. 18 public forum on the concept of agritourism has now been canceled.

Removal of the agritourism recommendation was not without contention, with board members arguing that the resort development would increase the town’s tax base and provide much-needed property tax revenue to support the town and school district.

The recommendation was removed after it drew vocal opposition from community residents and farmers.

That was the only change to the plan since the final draft was circulated in July.

Despite their vote to adopt the document and praise for the planning consultants who worked to develop the plan with town staff, committees and members of the comprehensive plan steering committee, board members expressed reservations about how effective the plan will be to provide a blueprint and “financial way forward” for the future.

Riverhead Town Council Member Denise Merrifield said the agritourism resort use was a measure that would have preserved farmland even as it generated substantial tax revenues to fund town and school budgets. More than 6,300 acres of farmland in town are unprotected and the town does not have the resources to protect them, especially with the town’s lagging transfer of development rights program.

Rejecting commercial development ignores “immense tax problems that are coming,” she said.

More residential development is going to add to the problem, Merrifield said. “Keep an open mind” about alternative types of development, the council member advised.

Council members Ken Rothwell and Bob Kern, as well as Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard agreed.

Historic preservationists and residents of Southampton’s famed Art Village are lamenting the apparently illegal destruction of one of the cluster of cottages built in the late 19th century and very early 20th century around William Merritt Chase’s studio, and the art classes he taught there, and is credited with having sparked the rush of wealthy Gothamists to the South Fork. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the home at 13 Ochre Lane just west of Southampton Village was demolished in early July, neighbors said, when they thought the construction work at the site was only going to be a renovation and expansion of the original structure. A town stop-work order posted on the property has halted any work there and says that the project was in violation of Southampton Town code for not having had a demolition permit, as is required for the tearing down of any structure. The building permit issued on April 24 said that the construction work to take place at the property was for additions to the existing two-story house, extending the existing first and second floors and a rear porch. The house owner Chang Ge told 27east.com this week that the project had all the required permits and that the house was going to be rebuilt. “We are rebuilding the house,” she said. The cottages of the Art Village are all that remain of what was, essentially, the campus of the Shinnecock Summer School of Art, a plein air art school lead by William Merritt Chase that sprang up around Chase’s studio from 1891 to 1902.

Shelter Island Friends of Music welcomes back award-winning pianist Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner this coming Saturday, September 7 at 6 pm in the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church. Sanchez-Werner previously played for Shelter Island Friends of Music to a standing-room only crowd at the Presbyterian Church in February 2023. The brilliant virtuoso will perform the music of Chopin, Liszt, Beethoven and Gershwin.

Admission is free; donations are appreciated.

A reception with the musician follows the concert.

That’s this coming Saturday at 6:00 PM in the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church

32 North Ferry Rd.

Shelter Island, NY

11964

For more info visit shelterislandfriendsofmusic.org

They won’t even talk to him until they’ve had their coffee.

Jeanette Settembre in THE NY POST reports that fed up workers for the Village of Southampton fought back against the village’s mayor and his associates after their cost saving became so dramatic they stopped supplying hot beverages.

“The straw that broke the camel’s back was that the Mayor, William Manger Jr., and his staff had the bright idea to remove the coffee, plates and utensils from the lunchroom. “These are all the employees that take care of the beaches, the parks, the boats,” an anonymous source close to the situation told The Post.

The coffee-cutting move prompted unionized workers to appear at Southampton Village Hall last month with “show some respect!” signs. They were also protesting against cutbacks on overtime and hold ups which prevented them from signing their 2023 contracts, which they said were worded incorrectly. “You have a Mayor who lives in a multi-million dollar beach front home and he’s taking the coffee and vacation days away from the employees,” a source close to the situation told The NY Post. Manger Jr. was sworn in as the mayor of Southampton Village last July, and at the time vowed to lead the administration with a “balanced approach” that would “respect our cherished traditions while embracing progress.” A representative for Manger referred The Post to Manger’s recent “Letter to the Editor,” titled “False Claims,” he penned for the Southampton Press last month. “Under my administration, the village makes every effort to address employee concerns and treats all employees with respect,” Manger wrote. “The mayor and trustees have a fiduciary responsibility to protect taxpayer dollars and eliminate unnecessary expenditures. We provide our employees with fair compensation and generous benefits, and we are grateful for their efforts in providing great services to our residents.” In an emailed statement to The Post this week, Manger added: “The village has not broken the Taylor Law. The Village of Southampton honors its contracts with the unions in the Village. All Union employees receive their salary raises as outlined in the contracts. All necessary overtime is provided to employees.”

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Suffolk officials are projecting a roughly $40 million deficit in sales tax revenue by the end of the year, according to a budget review given to lawmakers yesterday. Tiffany Cusaac-Smith reports in NEWSDAY that the sales tax deficit is a nearly $2 million increase from the $38 million deficit originally projected, said Budget Review Office assistant director Benny Pernice. The sales tax collections, which help fund the county's operating and capital budgets, are expected to be approximately $2 billion.

“With the latest information, we’re increasing that projection to a deficit of a little bit over $40 million,” Pernice said, adding they need to recoup more money in the next two quarters to stay on budget.

Yesterday’s gathering comes ahead of the annual operating budget review process. The Suffolk County Legislature needs to pass the budget by November, which then takes effect in January. In July, Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine approved a 2025-27 capital budget plan that included sewer system upgrades and the improvement of highways.

As for the county sales tax revenue, Suffolk officials note it can fluctuate due to multiple local factors. Between January and July, sales tax revenue in Suffolk was around $1.1 billion, a 0.9% decrease from the same time period in 2023, according to data from State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

The Suffolk County projected deficit is likely to be offset through funding that includes a contingency account, less workforce hiring and higher-paid workers being replaced by newer ones, officials said.

Affordable housing took a step forward on both the North and South Fork yesterday. Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that the Southold Town Board unanimously approved the transfer of seven sanitary flow credits for 12 affordable housing units in a mixed use building that used to house the Capital One Bank branch on Love Lane in Mattituck. A proposal before the Southampton Town Board to purchase two properties in Tuckahoe using Community Housing Fund money passed unanimously, while another resolution to purchase a deed covenant to keep six apartments in Sag Harbor affordable in perpetuity was tabled to the Southampton Town Board’s next meeting Sept. 10.

In Riverhead, a Comprehensive Plan Update is slated for approval next Wednesday Sept. 4, including recommendations for how to deal with sprawling warehouses and downtown development. The plan’s recommendation that the Town of Riverhead consider creating a zoning district to allow for “agritourism resorts” will be discussed at a public forum 2 weeks later Sept. 18 at 6 p.m. in Riverhead Town Hall, where residents are invited to come discuss the legislation with town officials.

The 78th annual Shinnecock Powwow begins this coming Friday at the Shinnecock Nation powwow grounds.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the four-day event is a showcase of Shinnecock culture, heritage and tradition, and is one of the most well-attended powwows in the country, drawing spectators and tribal members from across the Americas, including Canada and Mexico.

Because it is a competitive powwow, representatives from tribes around the region and the country travel to eastern Long Island, making for a rich blend of Indigenous cultural experiences. The four days will be packed with dance competitions for tribal members of all ages, and will showcase singing and drumming groups and other musical performances, as well as displays of indigenous art.

The Shinnecock Powwow has the distinction of being rated as a top-five event by powwows.com.

Shinnecock tribal member and Pow Wow organizer Josephine Smith said the tribe has spent a lot of time and effort over the last year to do necessary infrastructure upgrades on the powwow grounds, and is hoping to continue that work over the next year.

The tribe is hoping to rebuild a new permanent structure on the powwow grounds, after having to tear down an older building last year. A new building would be useful not only for the Powwow but for other cultural events throughout the year on Shinnecock territory.

For more information about the Powwow, including scheduling, ticket costs and directions, visit shinnecock-nsn.gov/annual-powwow.

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A married couple whose Noyac rental house didn’t have working smoke detectors when it caught on fire, killing a pair of sisters from Maryland who were vacationing with their family in 2022, pleaded guilty yesterday to charges related to the fire, the Suffolk district attorney’s office said. Nicole Fuller reports in NEWSDAY that Peter Miller, 56, pleaded guilty to two counts of criminally negligent homicide and Pamela Miller, 55, pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless endangerment in connection with the fire that killed Lindsay Wiener, 19, and Jillian Wiener, 21, of Potomac, Maryland, prosecutors said.

"First and foremost, our hearts go out to the Wiener family, who lost these young women in this tragic fire. Such a loss is unimaginable, and our community mourns with them," Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said in a statement Monday. "We take all matters involving housing regulations very seriously, as they are crucial for public safety. If you have a rental home, you have a duty to make sure that it is safe."

Lindsay Wiener had just finished her freshman year at Tulane University, focusing on marketing and Jewish studies. Jillian Wiener was a rising senior at the University of Michigan who had just "finished a semester studying abroad, studying ocean conservation," according to a 2022 lawsuit filed by the parents against the Millers and other entities.

The origin of the Aug. 3, 2022, fire was an outdoor kitchen, which the Millers constructed on their own without a permit and without an electrical inspection, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said the Millers advertised the rental home as being equipped with smoke and carbon monoxide detectors on multiple popular vacation rental sites, but a post-fire electrical inspection report revealed they were not connected properly and there was not adequate fire detection throughout the home.

Miller is to be sentenced to three years probation and must serve 200 hours of community service. Pamela Miller must perform 100 hours of community service, preferably before her sentencing date of November 7, Horowitz said.

T.E. McMorrow reports on 27east.com that the two young women, who were both college students, Jillian Wiener, 21, and Lindsay Wiener, 19, both of Potomac, Maryland, found themselves trapped behind a wall of flames on the second floor of the house at 3 Spring Lane in Noyac.

Pamela and Peter Miller, who currently reside in Westhampton, were eventually charged with 29 counts apiece for various code infractions by the Town of Southampton. The charges alleged that there were multiple nonworking smoke alarms in the house, as well as illegal construction of an outdoor kitchen connected to the house and accused the Millers of illegally renting out the house for short-term rentals. The Millers both admitted to being guilty of those charges Monday as part of entering guilty pleas.

The Southampton case is currently still open, as is the federal lawsuit brought by the Weiner family against the Millers for their role in the death of their two daughters.

There are few places in the world where one feels safer than on the south fork of eastern Long Island. However, local police are urging residents to be sure not to leave keys or fobs in their vehicles when parked overnight after three cars were stolen from homes in Southampton Village this past Sunday night. Two of the three vehicles have already been recovered, Southampton Village Police say — one thanks to the manufacturer’s tracking service — but all were taken after their owners had left the keys in them and the doors unlocked. As reported on 27east.com, all three thefts occurred in Southampton Village’s estate section, and police said there were other reports of unlocked cars being rummaged through in the neighborhoods off Hill Street. One of the vehicles, a Range Rover SUV was abandoned by the thieves a short distance from where it was stolen. Another, a Hyundai SUV, was recovered through accessing the Hyundai Genesis app location finder. The third vehicle, a black Audi Q5 SUV, has not yet been located. Vehicle thefts have been a scourge on the South Fork in recent years, driven largely by the habits of leaving fobs in vehicles — which, unlike actual keys, do not have to be located and in hand for a would-be thief to start the ignition. Certain high-end European SUVs, like the Q5, have been frequent targets of thieves because the vehicles have a feature that automatically folds in the side view mirrors when the key fob is removed from the vehicle – creating a dead giveaway as to when the fob is still inside. Police are investigating the most recent thefts.

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President Joe Biden yesterday issued a federal emergency declaration for Suffolk County to aid disaster relief efforts after catastrophic storms hit Long Island last week, the White House said.

Biden’s declaration opened up the pathway for federal money to be available for certain emergency relief efforts.

With the declaration, Biden specifically enabled the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency "to coordinate all disaster relief efforts, which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population," and to provide "appropriate assistance for required emergency measures," the White House said in a statement. Tiffany Cusaac-Smith reports in NEWSDAY that the emergency relief can go toward protecting vulnerable infrastructure, as well as generally buttressing state and local endeavors, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul's office. The federal government can reimburse up to 75% of certain expenses under a FEMA program.

Last week’s storms caused severe damage in portions of northern Suffolk County, flooding homes and destroying other infrastructure. Suffolk County said there were 2,441 reports of damage to roads and dams as of Saturday. The county's updated figures as of that day show 72 homes sustained major damage. The county has estimated that the total damage sustained from the flooding could be as high as $100 million.

Hochul had issued an emergency declaration for the county on Friday.

Gov. Kathy Hochul will meet virtually with New York college presidents today as officials try to prevent more campus chaos after spring anti-Israel protests descended into vandalism and violence. Carl Campanile reports in THE NY POST that the “super Zoom” meeting is scheduled for this afternoon and will include presidents from both public and private universities across New York State to discuss safety plans for the new academic year, The Post has learned.

Classes begin this week or after Labor Day for most colleges and officials are on high alert after "Pro-Hamas" demonstrations since October 7th have made many Jewish students concerned for their safety.

“Governor Hochul is committed to ensuring every single college student can learn in a safe environment,” Hochul spokesman Avi Small told The Post yesterday. “To that end, she is convening public and private college presidents from across New York to discuss their safety plans for the upcoming semester and reiterate that there is no place for hate, bias or antisemitism in New York.”

The governor’s office has developed an inter-agency plan to address campus safety, which includes representatives from the executive chamber, New York State Police and the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services.

Governor Hochul directed her team to work with colleges to ensure a safe return to campuses this term, previously deploying the director of State Operations, Kathryn Garcia, to meet with school leadership to discuss their action plans.

“We want to know your safety plans. What are you doing to get ready to protect your students on campus? Because every student has a right to walk and go to class freely and not be harassed,” Governor Hochul said last week, in anticipation of today’s meeting.

Jewish advocacy groups — the Secure Community Network and Hillel International — recently announced campus safety measures to help protect Jewish students and staff at more than 50 colleges and universities across the country for the fall semester. The training will instruct Jewish students on what to do when confronted by protestors and how to report incidents to police.

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The number of new court cases involving immigrants lacking permanent legal status has plummeted on Long Island and around the country since President Joe Biden's June order restricting entry into the country for most asylum-seekers, according to a new federal data analysis. Robert Brodsky reports in NEWSDAY that Biden's presidential proclamation, issued amid a record increase of illegal border crossings, stated that migrants who cross the border without authorization — absent exceptional circumstances — wouldn't be eligible for asylum and would be subject to expedited deportation. It didn't affect immigrants who previously filed legal claims for asylum.

In New York State, new case numbers dropped 74% from December to July, while cases fell by 68% nationwide and nearly 61% on Long Island during that same time frame, according to the analysis from Syracuse University-based Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse or TRAC.

The policy is a change from the previous practice of letting most people who sought asylum after crossing the border illegally be freed from custody and live in the U.S. while awaiting court proceedings.

Under Biden’s order, migrants can be returned into Mexico or their country of origin when the 7-day average of daily border crossings exceeds 2,500 people. The restrictions remain in place until 14 days after the 7-day average drops below 1,500 people.

The rule allows unaccompanied children, victims of a severe form of trafficking and other noncitizens with a valid visa or other lawful permission to legally enter the U.S. People deemed ineligible for asylum still can apply for protection under terms of an anti-torture international human rights treaty.

The restrictions also don't apply to immigrants who present themselves at official border crossings with an appointment provided through a U.S. Customs and Border Protection mobile app known as CBP One.

East Hampton Town has issued a public alert stating that pieces of a 300-foot, fiberglass and foam turbine blade from the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind farm, situated 15 miles south of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, may wash up on the shores of Montauk.

“The debris has been described as ‘non-toxic fiberglass fragments’ and is deemed ‘not hazardous to people or the environment,’” according to a statement the town disseminated via social media on Wednesday. Nonetheless, the statement continues, Vineyard Wind is asking that “only their recovery team handle this material.” A team is being deployed to “clean up the affected areas.”

The public is asked to not handle any found debris, rather to contact Marine Patrol at 631-537-7575. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that Councilman David Lys, the East Hampton Town Board’s liaison to the Recreation Department, which oversees beaches and lifeguards, said yesterday that to his knowledge there have been no sightings or recovery of any such debris on town beaches or waterways.

A blade of an 853-foot-tall turbine at the 62-turbine wind farm, which delivers electricity to Massachusetts, collapsed on July 13. According to Engineering News-Record, the chief executive officer of Massachusetts-based GE Vernova, which designed the wind farm’s turbines, said that the collapse was due to a “manufacturing deviation” and not engineering or design.

Two baymen pulled a coin minted in 1736 — a duit, or one-cent piece, stamped with the crest of the Dutch East India Company, the currency of record in the years before the British colonies began minting their own money — out of the mud of Shinnecock Bay last week. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that Westhampton bayman John Gillin and his cousin E.J. were digging clams together in eastern Shinnecock on August 13 when they dug up the coin, worn down at its edges but still clearly displaying an etching on one side and three words on the other and the stamped date 1736. It is a Zeeland duit coin made of copper and minted in the Netherlands. The stamp on one side read ZEE-LAN-DIA on three lines with 1736 below it. The other side is stamped with the coat of arms of Zeeland, a province in the Netherlands, and that of the Dutch East India Company, one of the first international trading companies, which was based in Zeeland. Coins like it had been the currency in the Dutch colonies and continued to be used on Long Island into the 18th century.

The Town of Riverhead has sued the Southampton Town Board in an attempt to block the construction of a planned sewage treatment plant in the hamlet of Riverside. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the lawsuit, filed in Suffolk County Supreme Court Wednesday, accuses Southampton Town of violating state environmental laws, including the NYS Environmental Quality and Review Act, also known as SEQRA, and the Green Amendment of the New York State Constitution, which guarantees the “right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.” If successful, the lawsuit could derail Southampton Town’s plans to redevelop the blighted hamlet on the south side of the Peconic River with mixed-use development and affordable housing. A development plan for the area, the 2015 Riverside Revitalization Action Plan, is reliant on the creation of a sewage treatment plant. The Southampton Town Board voted unanimously on May 28 to establish the Riverside Sewer District and set its boundaries. The boundaries of the Riverside Sewer District do not include the county facilities located in Riverside — the Suffolk County Center, the Arthur M. Cromarty Criminal Court Complex and the Riverhead Correctional Facility. Those facilities are currently serviced by Riverhead Town’s sewage treatment facility and, Riverhead argues, should be hooked up to the Riverside plant, which will be located much closer to the county facilities. Riverhead Town wants to reclaim the 200,000 gallons it must set aside for the county facilities to be able to extend sewer lines to as many as 1,300 homes with antiquated septic systems which release harmful pollutants into the Peconic River estuary, and to redevelop the West Main Street corridor, as Riverhead Town continues its own downtown revitalization efforts.

MTA boss Janno Lieber and Manhattan lawmakers are “thrilled” that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will propose a plan by year’s end to fund the MTA’s massive capital program that could include a lower “congestion” toll to enter Midtown. Carl Campanile reports in THE NY POST that the governor shelved the controversial $15 fee in June, but The Post earlier this week reported she’s floating a plan — for after the pivotal November election — that would include a lower toll to enter Manhattan south of 59th Street with exemptions for some city employees who commute into the zone. “It’s good news that the governor continues to focus on this issue,” Lieber, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s chairman and CEO said during a press event yesterday. “I’m also thrilled she’s talking about the [2025] legislative session” to address MTA financing, Lieber said, adding, “Private conversations are underway.” Lieber said in June that he was blindsided when Hochul surprisingly reversed course — just weeks before the $15 toll would be implemented — by calling for a “pause” in the program, claiming it was too costly for motorists still struggling with inflation post-pandemic. Hochul denied reports that she postponed congestion pricing because it would hurt New York Democrats running for House seats in swing suburban districts.

When MTV premiered in August 1981, its first video was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles. Forty-three years later, MTV no longer plays music videos but radio is still a star.

Peter King writes in NEWSDAY that a new report from Nielsen found that radio remains by far the most popular ad-supported audio platform. For all consumers who listen to ad-supported audio offerings, 67% tuned in to radio in the second quarter. Podcasts, at 16%, were a distant second. Radio’s appeal spans all generations, with Nielsen noting it “consistently reaches all corners of the population.”

And even as local news icon WCBS-AM pulls the plug on its all-news platform this week, Nielsen found news/talk is the most popular radio format, followed by adult/contemporary music stations.

And of course, local, listener supported public radio is our favorite form of information gathering and audio entertainment.

The Riverhead Town Board unanimously voted Wednesday evening to postpone a vote to adopt its Comprehensive Plan Update to its Wednesday, Sept. 4 meeting. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard announced at the start of the special meeting, which was called solely to adopt the plan, that “within the past 45 minutes we realized an issue with what was posted online. It was not correct. We need to amend it to make it correct and put the adoption off for two weeks. We also got a lot of complaints from people that they didn’t have time to digest this, so it actually is a blessing in disguise. It will give people a lot more time to go through it. It’s thick. There’s a lot of reading in it,” said Supervisor Hubbard.

The Comprehensive Plan Update has been in the works for more than four years. Public hearings on the plan and its Environmental Impact Statement were held in May of this year, and the Town of Riverhead adopted the Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement (FGEIS) on the document Aug. 6. Economic Development Administrator Dawn Thomas said the document that was attached to the resolution prior to Wednesday night’s special meeting has since been removed from the resolution packet posted on the town’s website. Only the proposed findings statement remains posted there. Thomas said the town will post the “correct final version… the right final version, and then the public will have another couple of weeks to review it.” Under state law, the town has 30 days from the date of adoption of the FGEIS to adopt a findings statement for the comprehensive plan, according to Riverhead Town Attorney Erik Howard.

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With Election Day less than 11 weeks away, Republican U.S. Representative Nick LaLota and John Avlon, his Democratic challenger for New York’s 1st Congressional District seat, continue to needle one another over their residency and, by extension, their fitness to represent the district. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that LaLota, a first-term Republican, has relentlessly portrayed his Democratic challenger as a wealthy Manhattanite who is out of touch with the district. Avlon, an author, columnist and former CNN anchor who lives in Sag Harbor and Manhattan, counters that LaLota himself does not live in the 1st Congressional District. The congressman, born and raised on Long Island, lives in Amityville Village, outside of the district boundaries, but emphasizes his lifelong ties to Long Island. While members of the House of Representatives typically live in the districts they represent, they are not required to do so. They are required to be an inhabitant of the state they represent at the time of their election. Last week, LaLota publicized an August 13 New York Post article that asserted that Avlon was “apparently netting more than $2,000 per year in abatements by claiming his primary residence is in Manhattan.” The Post article said that the tax abatements are eligible only to units designated as a primary residence. Avlon cited “numerous fundamental inaccuracies” in the Post article. “The co-op in which I have an apartment filed for that abatement without consulting any of us individually,” he said this week. He said that he had been unaware that the abatement had been filed, but since he entered the 1st Congressional race this year, “the key point is whether the abatement will be filed in this calendar year, which it will not.” The Cook Political Report puts the 1st District race in its “likely Republican” column.

Southampton Village announced a new measure intended to mitigate the traffic nightmare that has plagued the area. Effective Wednesday, August 21, only right turns will be permitted from Lee Avenue and Captains Neck Lane onto Hill Street from 4 to 7 p.m. during that dreadful westbound trade parade traffic. Cones will be placed down the center of Hill Street to prevent U-turns. As reported on 27east.com, Hill Street residents will be able to access their residences, a village alert noted. The Southampton Village Police Department will be monitoring the pilot program, using daily motor patrols and drones. The pilot program will run through September 13.

Elementary school and pre-kindergarten playground expansion projects are in the works in the Hampton Bays School District. Desirée Keegan reports on 27east.com that Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Larry Luce said during Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting that plans for both have been approved by the state Education Department, with purchase orders going out this week or next. “We will start to see actual construction happening on both of those playgrounds in the next month or so,” he said of the projects, both of which are on state contract. “We don’t even need to bid them because of this, so that helps move things along a little quicker.” Also at the Hampton Bays Elementary school is a plan to upgrade the south-facing windows along the 1998 wing, and replacing the toilets in the 1957 and 1968 wings.

For Stony Brook Southampton Hospital’s new chief administrator, Emily Mastaler, the shift from working in a rural, remote hospital system near the Canadian border, to the South Fork of Long Island, with its mind boggling array of diversities, personalities and logistical challenges is a learning experience that she is still just beginning to get her arms around eight weeks into the job.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that Mastaler, 43, who grew up in Vermont and spent most of her career there working as a clinical psychologist, came to Southampton earlier this summer from River Hospital, a tiny 25-bed critical care hospital that served as the only health care center for a broad and remote region along the St. Lawrence Seaway north of Syracuse.

She has spent much of her first months on the job embedding with various units at the facility and attending “listening sessions” with a broad range of community groups and organizations to help build her understanding of the complex diversity in the communities that the hospital serves.

“It’s a huge footprint — which is awesome,” Mastaler said. “There’s a lot to get acquainted with. The needs in Hampton Bays are not the same as out in Montauk, and I want to make sure I get a chance to connect with all of it so that as we decide our next phase of our health care strategy, it is really inclusive.”

Mastaler calls the health care “ecosystem,” the cornerstone of her vision for how she will advance Stony Brook Southampton Hospital and its satellites’ role in health care on the South Fork in the coming years.

“The top priority has to be access — making sure that people can get the services that they need. There are many barriers … transportation, child care, access to health insurance, and we have to look at the whole health experience of our patients. Can they get to us, do we have service hours that allow people to get to appointments beyond their daily work hours. Child care and family dynamics can be a barrier. Sometimes we have to bring health care closer to our patients to make sure people can get the services they need.”

Mastaler tells 27east.com that decision by the hospital to construct a new standalone emergency room in East Hampton is illustrative of the types of things hospital systems like Stony Brook Southampton Hospital and the broader Stony Brook Medicine network need to do to improve the “ecosystem” of health care for their communities and patients.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the East Hampton satellite emergency department is on track to be completed by the end of October. After jumping through the hoops of numerous medical certifications, the hospital expects to have the facility up and running by April 2025.

“It’s all about access to care and making sure our services are where they need to be, and the East Hampton ED is going to be a huge part of that,” Mastaler said. “It’s going to be so important to people in that community.”

Mayor Tom Gardella has made the restoration of the currently abandoned Sag Harbor Fire Museum a priority.

Elaborating on the still-preliminary proposal in an interview with Stephen J. Kotz of 27east.com this week, the former Sag Harbor Village trustee who became mayor in 2023, said, “This has been a project I’ve been wanting to do for five years.”

He said he would like to tap into a $1.3 million village capital repairs fund to undertake a preliminary assessment of what needs to be done to protect the building until a more complete restoration plan that would continue to use the space primarily as a museum, perhaps with a public meeting room on the second floor, can be put together.

He stressed, however, that he did not envision using anywhere near the total amount in that fund and would seek other funding sources for the Sag Harbor Fire Museum.

He added that he also wants to see much needed work done on the Murray Hill Firehouse on Elizabeth Street.

The Sag Harbor Fire Museum occupies a historic building at the intersection of Church and Sage streets, which was built in 1833 and served as the one-time home of the First Presbyterian Church.

A sharp rise in Long Island driving deaths has prompted Brookhaven officials to start planning a townwide traffic safety program. Carl MacGowan reports in NEWSDAY that Brookhaven joins Suffolk County and a handful of Long Island towns developing so-called Vision Zero initiatives aimed at nudging drivers to slow down by narrowing streets, adding bicycle lanes and upgrading traffic signals.

Statewide traffic deaths rose by nearly 26% from 2019 to 2022, led by Long Island, which had 245 traffic fatalities in 2022, including 164 in Suffolk and 81 in Nassau, according to a June report released by NYS Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

Brookhaven Town Supervisor Dan Panico said the town is considering myriad solutions, including crackdowns on distracted and impaired driving.

“Every neighborhood I talk to has speeding issues,” he said. “Everybody needs to put down their phone ... and slow down in residential communities.”

The Brookhaven Town board voted 6-0 on Aug. 8 to hire a Florida-based consultant, NV5, to draft traffic safety recommendations. The company will be paid $475,000, 80% of which is covered by a $380,000 grant from the federal Safe Streets and Roads for All program, Brookhaven Highway Superintendent Dan Losquadro announced last year.

NV5 also will create a list of at least 55 intersections where safety improvements are most needed, Panico said, adding that the draft safety plan will make Brookhaven eligible for millions more in federal grants to implement the program.

Alec Slatky, AAA Northeast's managing director of public and government affairs, said reducing speed is key to improving safety, adding that fewer crashes would mean fewer injuries and deaths.

“If you live on Long Island, you know someone who’s been seriously impacted by a crash,” he said. “What worked in the city is not necessarily going to work in Medford and Port Jefferson … but let’s do everything we can to get these numbers down.”

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The East End Supervisors and Mayors Association is trying to keep pressure on the Long Island Rail Road and its parent, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, to follow through on a proposed major infrastructure project that would expand the number of trains on the popular South Fork Commuter Connection.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that this week, the organization, which represents all five East End towns and the villages in them, wrote to Robert Free, the president of the LIRR, reiterating its support for a project to add track and crew facilities at Speonk to accommodate up to three trains, and to construct a new platform to permit Montauk line trains terminating at Speonk to access the yard there without blocking the main track. The project also would add a new platform at the Hampton Bays station to allow trains to pass one another or be parked there. It would upgrade the Bridgehampton station with a new platform and pedestrian overpass, and connect an old freight line to the main track to allow trains to pass one another or be parked there as well. Siding work also would be done in East Hampton and Amagansett to allow trains to pass one another. NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who signed onto the letter along with other East End state and county officials, said that last year the MTA put the infrastructure project, which he estimated would cost more than $250 million, on its 20-year needs assessment. The next hurdle, he said, is for it to be added to the five-year capital budget, which the MTA is expected to vote on this fall. That may prove more difficult than originally thought, because when Governor Kathy Hochul put a hold on the congestion pricing plan for Manhattan earlier this year, the lost revenue blew an estimated $1 billion hole in the MTA’s capital budget for the next 16 years, Thiele said.

With just two weeks to go before the start of the school year, the Southampton Head Start program in Riverside finds itself suddenly homeless. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that renovations at the Riverside center on Flanders Road this summer disclosed unsafe structural conditions in the building which prevent its occupancy and use, according to Southampton Town officials. The Town of Southampton set to work constructing an extension of the building in a courtyard between the main structure and a second building that was to be occupied by Children’s Museum of the East End. When workers opened up the exterior wall adjoining the courtyard, they made a stunning discovery: the steel studs inside the wall had rusted out at the bottom and were detached from the steel footing along the floor — rendering the building structurally unsound, Southampton Town Council Member Tommy John Schiavone said. The condition was caused by the building foundation being about 12 inches too low and the slope of the land causing water to flow toward the walls, instead of away from them, Town Engineer Tom Houghton said on Friday during a tour of the facility. As it is, the building is unsafe for occupancy, he said. Schiavone questioned whether the building can be repaired at all, or whether it should be demolished and a new structure erected. Unless Southampton Head Start can quickly find an alternative location, it has no place to care for the 85 children enrolled in its preschool program that’s scheduled to begin Sept. 4, Long Island Head Start Director of Operations Annette Harris said this Monday. The organization has been scouring the area for available space, so far without any luck. Both Southampton and Riverhead towns have said they don’t have any room in town buildings, Harris said. “We’re sort of at the mercy of the community,” she said.

The Montauk Historical Society, the Eastville Community Historical Society, and the Southampton African-American Museum will present a week of celebration and commemoration of the 1839 Amistad uprising, featuring the Amistad Freedom Schooner, a full-size replica of the 19th century slave ship. Open house hours and activities are planned from this coming Friday August 23 through August 28, including the opportunity to board the ship and engage with members of the Discovering Amistad team to learn all about the Amistad, including its connection to Montauk and the East End. After a brief stay at Culloden Point, the Amistad will sail into Montauk Harbor, where it will be moored at the East Hampton Town Dock on Star Island for a week. There it will be open daily for free tours and activities presented by Discovering Amistad, the nonprofit group that runs its educational programs. Highlights of the week include a family day, with activities targeting children and young people, a professional development day, a VIP tour, and a panel discussion featuring New York State Historian Devin Lander, who will also give a presentation about preparations for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. For more information, got to montaukhistoricalsociety.org/events.

The Riverhead Town Board is holding a special meeting this evening at 6 p.m. to adopt the town’s Comprehensive Plan Update, and civic groups throughout the town have been pushing back against this hastily called meeting. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the Riverhead Town Board cancelled a public hearing last week on a proposal allowing agritourism resorts on Sound Avenue and instead decided to hold a public forum on the topic in September. This evening’s special meeting is expected to adopt the town’s Comprehensive Plan Update, which includes a recommendation that the Town of Riverhead adopt zoning to allow for agritourism resorts.

The Comprehensive Plan Update, in the works for more than four years, will replace the town’s current 2003 Comprehensive Plan.

A draft of the Comprehensive Plan Update released before a public hearing in May of this year included a host of recommendations ranging from changes to industrial zoning districts in Calverton, to an expanded transfer of development rights program to allow more development downtown, lifting the cap of 500 apartments that can be built downtown, loosening regulations governing accessory apartments, allowing for short-term rentals, vertical farming and allowing private schools on industrially zoned land.

Civic Associations throughout Riverhead have been actively urging residents to contact town leaders over the past two weeks.

The Comprehensive Plan Update is designed to serve as a guiding document to bolster the town’s case for future zoning changes, which would require the introduction of new local laws and more public hearings.

Tonight's special meeting, will be held in the Riverhead Town Hall meeting room at 4 West Second Street starting at 6pm.

The East Hampton Village Board voted to codify an amendment to the village code to tighten restrictions on landscaping and construction activity after closing a public hearing on the matter last Friday. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the amended code prohibits excavation, demolition, construction or exterior repair or alteration work in connection with any building, structure or improvement except between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Previously, the allowable start time was 7 a.m. It also prohibits such work on weekends and federal holidays, where it was previously permitted on Saturdays. The provisions are now in effect from May 15 through September 15; they previously took effect on June 15 each year. An exception exists only by permit issued by East Hampton Village’s building inspector prior to commencement of the work. The amendment also prohibits the use of any gas- or diesel-powered landscaping equipment by a homeowner or tenant on their own property, except between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, starting on May 15 and continuing through the second Friday in December. The new rules do not apply to the municipality itself when work is on a municipal property, nor to “a membership club on a golf course,” such as the Maidstone Club.

A Long Island recycling company accused of violating the Clean Air Act by failing to install pollution controls or properly report emissions at its Medford facility to the EPA will pay a $555,000 civil penalty as part of a proposed settlement with the federal agency. Joseph Ostapiuk reports in NEWSDAY that Gershow Recycling Corp., which was founded in 1964 and has nine locations on Long Island and in Brooklyn, shreds automobiles and other metals at its Medford location. That shredding vaporizes plastics, paints and oils, creating volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other pollutants that impact the environment, officials said.

The Environmental Protection Agency in 2021 issued Gershow a violation for allegedly breaching the Clean Air Act, established in 1963 to prevent and regulate pollution. Authorities yesterday announced the proposed settlement, filed in Brooklyn federal court.

As part of the agreement, Gershow also will install "critical emission control technology that will help improve air quality for local communities, including those with the most vulnerable residents,” stated Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

The agreement can be finalized after a 30-day public comment period.

Gershow spokesman John Zaher said, "As a result of this agreement, Gershow will be among the first companies in the U.S. to install VOC controls."

The company’s website says it is “one of Long Island’s oldest and most successful environmental companies.”

East Quogue will be added to the list of more than 20 school districts in Suffolk County that will have armed security guards or police officers on campus when school is back in session next month. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the East Quogue Board of Education is expected to approve, at its next meeting, an agreement with Arrow Security that will allow it to arm several of its existing security employees. Arming the security officers is expected to cost the district somewhere between $60,000 and $75,000, depending on the number of additional night and weekend events happening at the school during the year, according to Superintendent-Principal Mike Miller. Mr. Miller explained earlier this week that the district will not bring any new police or security officers into the school, but rather it will arm existing members of the security staff who are retired police officers. Only security staff members who are retired police officers will be armed, he added, and he said that their weapons will be concealed. Miller, who is entering his second year as the superintendent-principal at East Quogue, said the topic of adding armed security officers to the school came up several times in his first year on the job. Miller said the decision about whether to have school security officers carry handguns was one that needed to be made not just by him but by the community. Thus, the school’s Safety Committee researched the issue and then decided to implement a plan to arm some security officers. The security officers who are permitted to carry handguns will not have restrictions on where they can go while on campus, and the weapons will be concealed and thus not visible to students, parents or any other visitors to the school. So, starting on September 3, the first day of classes for students, there will be at least one armed security guard on campus whenever the East Quogue School is open.

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The Riverhead Town Board is set to adopt the town’s new comprehensive plan during a special meeting called for 6 p.m. Wednesday…that’s tomorrow evening.

The plan, which will help guide town policy for the next 15-20 years, includes recommendations on a range of issues, the most impactful of those being how land across the town should be used and what development should be allowed or prohibited, incentivized and discouraged. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the comprehensive plan draft and other documents related to the plan are available to view and download on a dedicated website, townofriverheadcomprehensiveplanupdate.com.

The new plan will replace the existing comprehensive plan, which was adopted by the Riverhead Town Board in 2003. The update has been a long time in the making, with the Town Board first approving a contract to develop the update with consultants AKRF in 2019. After more than two years of what town officials said was slow progress, the Town Board canceled the contract with AKRF and hired a second firm, BFJ, to take the plan over the finish line.

After the plan is adopted, Riverhead Town officials will decide whether to update town laws and regulations to implement the plan.

For the last four and a half years, town officials have discussed and debated the future of the plan with residents, local business leaders and land owners.

The Town of Riverhead held several public input sessions and accepted written comments from residents, town advisory committees and other interested parties. The town held a hearing on the plan in May.

A public hearing last week on a proposal to remove a triangular patch of land between the southern terminus of Three Mile Harbor Road and Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton from the town’s nature preserve holdings, the purpose of which would be to allow space for construction of a roundabout at the awkward intersection of those roads with North Main Street and Indian Hill Road, saw several residents speak against the proposal, while others spoke in favor. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that a roundabout would serve as an effort to address traffic delays and public safety, as southbound vehicles on Springs-Fireplace Road must navigate through a busy intersection with both northbound traffic from North Main Street and southbound traffic from Three Mile Harbor Road, all with no traffic lights and challenging sightlines. Construction of a roundabout would require use of at least a portion of parkland at the site. New York State Governor Kathy Hochul recently signed a bill enabling the alienation of the approximately 2-acre piece of land designated as parkland. The town acquired the property known as the Sherrill Triangle from the East Hampton Lions Club in 1971, and an adjoining northerly parcel from Edwin L. Sherrill in 1972. They were later combined. Should the East Hampton Town Board approve the parkland alienation, it would become subject to a November referendum seeking voters’ approval to swap the parcel needed for the roundabout with another parcel, at 16 Swamp Road.

New York breweries and distilleries are cheering a brand new bill that allows them to directly ship alcohol to consumers. Vaughn Golden reports in THE NY POST that the measure — which was temporarily in place during the COVID-19 pandemic — removes a restriction that prevented small distillers, breweries and cideries from shipping their goods directly to consumers and across state lines.

The newly signed law gives manufacturers of beer, ciders and liquor the same ability to ship their goods as winemakers have been able to do since 2005.

The new law also allows New Yorkers to order from other states as long as they have similar laws also letting their residents purchase from New York manufacturers.

The bill was signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul Sunday before she travelled to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago…where Governor Hochul addressed the DNC last night.

A public hearing on a proposal to increase the maximum density of affordable senior housing developments from eight to 12 units per acre brought a capacity crowd of residents to the East Hampton Town Board’s meeting this past Thursday, with 10 of them speaking in favor of it, and none opposed.

Those who spoke to the board put a human face on what can be an existential crisis for senior citizens in dire financial straits, some speaking almost poetically about how much they have gained — and how much they have lost, in terms of worry and fear — in securing an affordable housing unit. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the East Hampton Housing Authority, in partnership with Georgica Green Ventures, recently completed the 50-unit Green at Gardiner’s Point affordable housing complex in East Hampton and is screening applicants for occupancy.

The authority’s presently occupied properties are not age-restricted, but the percentage of senior citizens living in them is high, said Katy Casey, its executive director. More than 20 percent of East Hampton Town’s residents are 65 or older, she noted, and 11.7 percent of residents live below the poverty line.

In East Hampton, senior citizen housing is reserved for those 62 and older.

With a change in the zoning code to allow greater density, the town’s existing senior-citizen affordable housing developments — the Windmill Village I and II complexes in East Hampton and the complex at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Amagansett — could see an additional 54 units, the board was told.

“An additional 54 people will have a safe and affordable place to live as opposed to waiting, worrying, struggling” indefinitely, said Michael DeSario, a former chairman of East Hampton Town’s senior citizens housing complexes.

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Former Rep. Tim Bishop, a Democratic National Convention delegate, these days is an enthused member of the party chorus boosting his former close House colleague who’s newly on the ticket for vice president, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Dan Janison reports in NEWSDAY that Bishop, 74, of Southampton, represented the 1st Congressional District for six terms. He said that he first met Walz in the summer of 2006, the year of the latter’s first successful run for Congress. Walz also served six terms in the House before becoming governor of his state. The overlap brought them together on committee work and legislation, including bills affecting transportation, agriculture and veterans.

"I think the public is getting to know who he is — humble, down-to-earth and hardworking and funny as hell," Bishop told NEWSDAY on Sunday. "He’s a really, really good guy. Every now and then, someone comes along not only good at policy and good at politics but just a first-rate human being. He’s someone you’d be lucky to have as a best friend."

Bishop, who served through 2015, sees what other party stalwarts see as a big advantage: Walz comes from a Midwestern state, which figures to be valuable in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, he said. Bishop blasts Walz’s GOP rival JD Vance for trying to besmirch the governor’s military record, and insists the Democrat is "the real deal."

As for CD1 which includes the East End, the Democrats have been trying to get the seat back since Republican Lee Zeldin defeated Bishop in 2014, which was the second time Zeldin challenged him. These days, Bishop is a distinguished visiting lecturer at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Tomorrow afternoon, the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton presents –

A Visit with WLIW's Ann Liguori, author of Life on the Green, Lessons and Wisdom from Legends of Golf

That’s tomorrow from 1pm – 2:30pm in the Morris Meeting Room of the R.M.L.

In her new book, renowned sports talk show host and interviewer Ann Liguori shares insights and life lessons from twelve of the most interesting and compelling figures in the history of golf. Tom Watson, Bernhard Langer, Nancy Lopez, Dottie Pepper, Amy Alcott, Gary Player, Ben Crenshaw, Jan Stephenson, Padraig Harrington, Annika Sorenstam, Renee Powell and Jack Nicklaus reveal fascinating stories about their lives and careers on and off the course. There is something for everyone as these legends touch upon the universal themes of passion, integrity, sportsmanship, fear, success, humility, goal setting, preparation, positive thinking and family life.

Ms. Liguori will be available to sign books afterward.

There is no charge for this event. Registration is suggested.

For further info and registration click here.

The securing of a federal grant last month to restore three coastal wetlands in Suffolk County is the start of a lengthy process to make sure the work doesn't do as much harm as good. Tracy Tullis reports in NEWSDAY that the selection of the sites — Cupsogue Beach Marsh in Westhampton, Scully Marsh in Islip and the East Islip Preserve — and securing of funding represent years of advance work, including collecting data on tidal flooding, risk assessments and a cost-benefit analysis. The cost of restoring Cupsogue, for example, is estimated at $2 million, with losses averted totaling $50.6 million.

Now that the funding is secured, the next step will be surveying and modeling, which will continue until February. Then comes conceptual design of different alternatives starting this fall and continuing until next spring. Finally, environmental review and permitting is expected to last from January to September 2025. The earliest possible date to begin construction is spring 2026.

That’s nearly four years from the germ of the plan to breaking ground.

For many environmental restorations, the preparation takes far longer than the job on the ground. "You don’t want to screw up the wetland in trying to restore it," said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment in Farmingdale. These projects generally require years of planning: applying for funding; hiring an environmental engineering firm; conducting site surveys; developing proposals for restoring the site; submitting proposals for public comments; and seeking more funding to carry out the work itself.

Any work conducted in and around streams or wetlands must be reviewed and permitted by the appropriate agency, such as the Department of Environmental Conservation or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has jurisdiction over tidal wetlands.

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The Town of Riverhead is contemplating a zone change that could allow agritourism resorts on the north side of Sound Avenue. Resorts could be built on minimum 100-acre properties and must preserve 70% of the land for farming. Some farmers are wary of the proposal, which would restrict the type of agriculture allowed on the resort properties. Tara Smith reports in NEWSDAY that the Town of Riverhead is considering a zoning change to allow construction of luxury hotels on the north side of Sound Avenue, a move that could alter the town's rural landscape and challenge the future of farming. Town officials say the measure will grow the town's tax base, but it has ignited debates over traffic, noise and environmental impacts — and raised existential questions about the North Fork's identity even as neighboring Southold took another approach recently by approving a temporary pause on new hotels. A public forum on the proposal is set for Sept. 18 at 6 p.m., after Riverhead Town officials canceled a hearing last week "in response to an unusually high volume" of opposition, Supervisor Tim Hubbard said Thursday. By town estimates, Riverhead has 7,000 acres of open space, or developable farmland, but it lacks funds to buy those properties. Officials hope the proposal will preserve some of that acreage. “We want to preserve land, but that means there’s no income coming in,” said Councilman Ken Rothwell, who estimated one resort could generate $200,000 in annual tax revenue for the town.

The proposal also restricts how developers can farm the preserved land that some farmers say are “deal breakers." The proposed law says farming must be “dependent on the use of agricultural soils," or in the ground.

Seven properties, totaling over 700 acres, could be eligible for such developments, according to town planner Matt Charters. Properties for agritourism resorts must have a single owner under the proposed code.

That could lead to 1,050 or more hotel rooms on Sound Avenue in Riverhead.

The owner of the Route 58 building occupied by Friendly’s Restaurant in Riverhead is seeking approvals to renovate the building to create two separate restaurants, raising questions about the future of the last Friendly’s location on the East End. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that a Friendly’s Restaurant has operated out of the location at 949 Old Country Road, just east of the traffic circle, for nearly 40 years. It has been run by J&B Restaurant Partners, the franchisee that runs Friendly’s restaurants across Long Island.

Bell Boulevard Realty LLC, owner of the property has filed a site plan application with the Riverhead Planning Department detailing plans to renovate the existing 4,268 square-foot building and divide it into two separate restaurants. The east side of the building would be made into a QDOBA, a national Mexican restaurant chain, with 38 indoor seats, eight outdoor seats and a drive-through. The west side of the building would be converted into a restaurant with 50 indoor seats. No information was provided about the restaurant that would occupy that part of the building.

There are 10 Friendly’s across Long Island, including the Riverhead location. The first “Friendly” ice cream shop was founded by the Blake Brothers in 1935. There are 104 Friendly’s locations in the U.S., most of them in the northeast, according to the data company ScrapeHero.

The Riverhead Planning Board last Thursday unanimously approved a resolution setting a public hearing on the project’s site plan application for Sept. 5 at 6 p.m.

The Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton presents –

A Visit with WLIW's Ann Liguori, author of Life on the Green, Lessons and Wisdom from Legends of Golf

That’s this coming Wednesday from 1pm – 2:30pm in the Morris Meeting Room of the R.M.L.

Ms. Liguori will be available to sign books afterward.

There is no charge for this event. Registration is suggested.

Further info and registration are here.

It's in an empty lot at the end of New Suffolk Avenue-Main Street in New Suffolk, along a small stretch of beachfront on Cutchogue Harbor.

A historic marker marks the spot.

This quaint patch of seldom-visited Long Island, sandwiched between Great Peconic Bay and Little Peconic Bay, is to the history of the U.S. Navy Submarine Force — the "Silent Service" — what the Wright Brothers and the windblown sands of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, are to the world of aviation.

The birthplace of where imagination became reality.

John Valenti in NEWSDAY reports that it was here in 1899 that an Irish immigrant inventor named John Philip Holland came to New Suffolk to test his submarines, then called torpedo boats.

For six years, from 1899 to 1905, the site was home to the Holland Torpedo Boat Company and the Holland Torpedo Boat Station, the first submarine base in America.

It was during this time that Holland tested a series of seven submarine prototypes. And, it was during this time that the Holland Torpedo Boat merged with the Electric Boat Company, the firm later moving to Groton, Connecticut, where it eventually became General Dynamics Electric Boat — today, a leading-edge builder of nuclear-powered submarines for the U.S. Navy.

While submarine developments also took place in a host of other nations — Germany, England, France and Japan, to name a few — the lineage of American submarines and submariner history can all trace their roots to that one small overlooked lot on the water in New Suffolk.

"I think that is why people who do know find it so fascinating," said Wendy Polhemus-Annibell, head librarian at the Riverhead-based Suffolk County Historical Society. "It’s an iconic historical fact about New Suffolk, a part of our incredible military history on Long Island."

Cutchogue-New Suffolk Free Library local history librarian Mariella Ostroski noted it happened in New Suffolk at that time, “because they had just the right spot for it ... It just shows how important one little community can be to history."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will soon decide whether to approve a controversial bill that would force oil, natural-gas and coal companies to fork over billions of dollars to the state for contributing to climate change. Carl Campanile reports in THE NY POST that backers liken the plan — the proposed Climate Change Superfund — to the federal Superfund program that has been trying to hold polluters responsible for abandoned toxic-waste sites for decades.

But critics claim that New York’s climate-change version — which passed both the Assembly and Senate in the spring — is unworkable, would only end up costing customers in the long run and will be tied up in the courts for years if approved.

An analysis conducted for the bill’s sponsors - state Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) and Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-Bronx) - and obtained by The Post shows foreign-owned and American companies together would pay about $3 billion a year — or $75 billion over 25 years — under the plan.

Gov. Hochul has yet to say whether she will sign the bill into law, with a rep telling The Post that the governor is still reviewing the proposed legislation.

In August of 1839, the schooner Amistad anchored off the shore at Culloden Point in Montauk, and a small landing party disembarked in a rowboat looking for food and water. They were no ordinary crew, but a group of Africans who had been kidnapped in Sierra Leone to be sold into slavery in the new world. They had overthrown their captors and demanded they be taken back to Africa, but were steered instead up the East Coast of the United States.

For the first time, this coming week, the Connecticut-based replica of the storied Amistad schooner will be coming to Montauk for a series of educational events and celebrations of freedom. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that Georgette Grier-Key, Executive Director of the Eastville Community Historical Society in Sag Harbor, and Brenda Simmons, Executive Director of the Southampton African American Museum, were instrumental in working with the Montauk Historical Society to have a historic marker commemorating Montauk’s role in the Amistad story placed at Culloden Point on Aug. 26 of 2023, the anniversary date the people aboard the ship came ashore there.

Ms. Simmons said last week that educators these days are facing conflict when they try to teach about the history of slavery in America, but part of the Amistad’s mission is to help teachers overcome those difficulties, and they’ll receive tools to do that at a professional development day on board the ship while it’s in Montauk. This is the ship’s first visit to Montauk, though it had come to the South Fork before, docking at Sag Harbor’s Long Wharf in 2002.

After landing at Culloden, Amistad will be at the Town Dock at 73 Star Island Road Aug. 23 through Aug. 27, for a series of events.

A welcoming reception will be held on Aug. 24 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. (tickets range from $75 to $350), Amistad Family Day will be held on Sunday, Aug. 25 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., a professional development day for teachers to gain skills to teach about slavery will be held on Tuesday, Aug. 27 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., followed by a panel discussion at the Oceans Institute at the Montauk Point Lighthouse that evening from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Open tours will be held from 2 to 6 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 23, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 24, from 2 to 6 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 26 and Wednesday, Aug. 28.

More details about the schedule of events are on the Montauk Historical Society’s website.

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The NYS Public Service Commission yesterday approved a three-year rate hike that will allow London-based National Grid to raise average residential natural gas bills by $33 a month starting next month.

The six commissioners voted unanimously to pass the increase. Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that PSC commissioners generally applauded the rate plan, which was first filed in April 2023 and involved tens of thousands of pages of records as well as public hearings for Long Island and New York City customers, who are also seeing similar increases.

National Grid serves about 600,000 gas customers on Long Island.

On a year-over-year basis, average Long Island residential gas customers bills would increase $33.35 a month, or 22%, starting next month. They would rise another $8.19 a month, or 4.39%, in 2025, and another $18.81 a month, or 9.17%, in 2026. On a cumulative basis, average customers would pay a total of $1,622.88 more for gas service over the three years — $400.20 more the first year, $497.48 the second and $724.20 more the third.

A current average bill of about $150 a month for those using 83 therms would rise to $183.35 a month in the first year, starting Sept. 1. That same bill will jump to $191.54 a month in the second year and $210.35 a month in the third year.

"Long Island’s ratepayers are already struggling and this hike will only worsen the financial strain, particularly on low- and fixed-income households," said Laurie Wheelock, executive director of the Public Utility Law Project, a consumer group.

Noting more than 51,000 Long Islanders are behind on their gas bills by more than $51 million, she added the PSC's attempt to strike a balance between utility and consumer interests "must be accompanied by concrete measures to ensure that utility rates are affordable to all New Yorkers, especially those who are most vulnerable to rising costs." National Grid's rate hikes anticipate relatively stable commodity gas prices during the three-year period. Higher gas costs, which typically rise in winter, would increase bills proportionately, as would a colder winter, as bills would jump with increased use. Warmer weather generally moderates those costs.

The hearing on a proposed law to allow resorts on land north of Sound Avenue in Riverhead Town has been canceled “in response to the unusually high volume of opposition and commentary received” on the topic by Riverhead Town Board members, Supervisor Tim Hubbard said yesterday. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the supervisor said the board is not abandoning the idea of adopting the legislation, known as Agritourism Inn and Resort zoning. Hubbard said the town will hold a public forum on Sept. 18 at 6 p.m. in Riverhead Town Hall, where residents are invited to come discuss the legislation with town officials. “Supervisor Hubbard and the entire town board have agreed it would be beneficial and productive to host the public forum on the subject, rather than simply add the topic to an upcoming work session wherein members of the public cannot engage freely with town board members and/or planning staff,” Hubbard read from a statement at Thursday morning’s work session. “The forum format is intended to foster dialogue so that all sides of the issue can be freely discussed.“ Hubbard said some of the emails, calls and texts board members have received about the legislation “reflect a misunderstanding of the intent and or extent of the proposed change.” Once again, a public forum to discuss the Agritourism Inn and Resort zoning bill will be on Wednesday, September 18 at 7pm in Riverhead Town Hall.

SOUTHAMPTON VILLAGE OCEAN RESCUE announces that because of Hurricane Ernesto tomorrow’s 7am S-Mile Swim race Fundraiser has been moved from Coopers Beach in Southampton to Long Beach, SAG HARBOR.

SVOR is primarily funded by Southampton Village

However, their equipment needs, extensive training, and essential operational expenses require additional funding.

Thus, the SVOR annual S-Mile Swim Challenge fundraising event…which for tomorrow will be staged at Long Beach in Sag Harbor.

Founded in 2018, the mission of Southampton Village Ocean Rescue (SVOR) is to respond to emergencies in the ocean and bay, in and around the Village of Southampton • 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, via 911.

SVOR is a volunteer organization, dedicated to making expeditious and safe open water rescues at unprotected beaches.

For further info visit southamptonvillageoceanrescue.org

The East Hampton Housing Authority plans to build 50 affordable rental apartments in Wainscott for working professionals — the latest push to expand affordable housing on the East End. Earlier this month the town transferred two vacant wooded properties — spanning 6.5 acres — to its housing authority. The authority will partner with a developer to build and manage the new complex, which will be south of Route 114. Joe Werkmeister reports in NEWSDAY that the development is the town's second for moderate-income residents who earn up to 130% of the area's median income. The 26-unit Springs Fireplace Apartments, built in 2008, was the first, officials said. "We could have 10 more of those and have 100% occupancy," said Catherine Casey, the housing authority’s executive director. Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said the town needs to expand rental opportunities to support "working families who are the backbone of East Hampton," as well as seniors and young people. East Hampton paid a total of $1.8 million for the parcels in 2019 and 2020. In 2022, the town launched an "All Hands on Housing" initiative to address what officials referred to as an acute housing crisis. Peter Van Scoyoc, East Hampton Town supervisor at the time, called the housing issue one of the "most serious and immediate threats to the well-being and sustainability of our community." The housing authority recently built a 50-unit affordable housing complex on Three Mile Harbor Road — The Green at Gardiner’s Point. It's set to open in several weeks. The income limit is 60% of the area's median income, less than what is planned for Wainscott. Rents are $1,500 for a one bedroom, $1,784 for two bedrooms and $2,045 for three bedrooms. There was intense demand for spots at The Green at Gardiner's Point when a housing lottery was held earlier this month. A total of 543 prospective renters applied for 41 units, officials said.

During her visit to the East End last Friday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul presented a check for $1.2 million to Greenport Village Mayor Kevin Stuessi to rebuild the Mitchell Park ice skating rink. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the original ice rink at Mitchell Park was first opened in 2005. The rink has since fallen into disrepair and has been closed in recent years.

The $1.2 million in state funding will contribute to the estimated $1.7 million total cost for the engineering and construction of the new ice rink. Once completed, the rink is expected to boost winter tourism and support local youth sports programs, reinforcing the idea of Greenport as a year-round destination.

In addition to the ice rink, Greenport Village is undertaking several other infrastructure improvements at Mitchell Park and the marina, including rebuilding the marina bulkhead, enhancing stormwater management systems, and adding ADA accessibility to the park’s historic cultural walking paths.

Greenport is the only Disadvantaged Community certified under the state Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act on the North Fork.

"The populations of spotted lanternfly in Nassau and Suffolk counties are higher this year than they ever have been," said Brian Eshenaur, senior extension associate, invasive species, at Cornell University's Integrated Pest Management Program.

That's based, he said, on reports coming into the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets' spotted lanternfly reporting portal — yes, the problem is pervasive enough to warrant a special portal — as well as reports going directly to Cornell.

"The numbers are certainly up this year," Eshenaur said, adding: "The populations are highest the closer you get to the city, with very low numbers in Eastern Long Island and the North Fork of Long Island." But, noticeably present this summer in western Suffolk.

Eshenaur urges killing the spotted lanternfly on sight.

Matthew Chayes and Nicholas Grasso report on Newsday.com that the spotted lanternfly — Lycorma delicatula — is an invasive insect pest from Asia. It made big news in past seasons in New York City. Now it's Long Island's turn.

The black nymphs can be seen from April to July. Then the adults begin to appear that month, about an inch long and half an inch wide at rest, with what the state Department of Environmental Conservation calls "eye-catching wings" — grayish with black spots, red with spots and dark with a white stripe.

Robert Carpenter, director of the Long Island Farm Bureau, which represents about 550 farms, said his constituents have reported that the East End has been spared from the swarm — for now — but are dreading what could happen if, as predicted, the spotted lanternfly population spikes.

Carpenter said the pest "basically bores into the trunks of trees and grapevines and other wooded masses to lay their eggs," and can devastate crops.

Eshenaur said, "Grapevines are a favorite crop plant of this insect," particularly worrisome for a region like the eastern end of the Island and its wineries and vineyards.

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Seven Suffolk County residents have sued the county over its school bus camera program, arguing there was insufficient evidence to cite them for allegedly passing a stopped school bus.

Payton Guion reports in NEWSDAY that the lawsuit, filed last month in Suffolk Supreme Court, leans on a state court decision from last year that for months held up prosecutions of school bus camera tickets in Suffolk and eventually led to more than 8,000 tickets being dismissed.

That decision, by an appellate judicial panel, caused the State Legislature to amend the law that permitted local governments across the state to use bus-mounted cameras to catch and ticket drivers who pass stopped school buses.

The recent lawsuit against the county is the latest legal challenge to Long Island’s school bus camera programs, including a similar lawsuit against the Town of Hempstead and a federal suit against BusPatrol America, the company that operates the programs. "We’re alleging that they issued these notices of violation without evidence that a violation had occurred," said Martin Bienstock, a Washington, D.C., attorney representing the plaintiffs in Suffolk. "This huge population of people getting tickets wouldn’t be if Suffolk was following the law."

The plaintiffs claim numerous problems with the evidence provided against them by the county and BusPatrol, and say the violations issued weren’t valid. Suffolk has until Sept. 10 to respond to the lawsuit.

During her whirlwind visit to East Hampton Town last Friday, Governor Kathy Hochul visited The Retreat’s Stephanie House Shelter to announce that the state will allocate $575,000 to the nonprofit, which provides safety, shelter and support for victims of domestic abuse. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the money will be used for building improvements and technological upgrades to the shelter and the organization’s East Hampton administrative office.

“There’s not a lot of capital-project funding grants out there,” said Loretta Davis, The Retreat’s executive director. “Now we can do some improvements there and really try to maintain it better.”

The Retreat’s offices are in a donated beach house that was moved to its present location on Goodfriend Drive in East Hampton.

“We’re thrilled, because we’re pretty busy,” Davis said, “and you have to make these improvements, so clients are comfortable and safe.”

The federal government is arguing that a Montauk commercial fisherman owes $725,000 in restitution after his conviction on illegal fishing charges — but his lawyers are arguing for no restitution at all. Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that in a letter recently filed in federal court in Central Islip, federal prosecutors in the case against Montauk commercial fisherman, Christopher Winkler, 64, asked fisheries regulators from New York whether they would accept the money if a judge rules in favor of full restitution.

"Does the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation {NYSDEC} want that money…?" wrote Christopher Hale, of the Department of Justice’s environmental crimes unit, in an Aug. 5 email to the DEC, asking for a "prompt response."

Three days later, Julia Socrates, assistant director for the DEC’s Marine Resources division, writes, "I can confirm that NYSDEC will accept the restitution funds," earmarking the potential gain for the Marine Resources Account of the DEC’s Conservation Fund.

Federal District Court Judge Joan Azrack in Central Islip is expected to make a decision on restitution soon, after delaying the matter at Winkler’s sentencing last month. Winkler in October was found guilty of all five counts of conspiracy, mail fraud and obstruction against him. He’s sentenced to 30 months in prison with two years of supervised release and a $500 "special

Hale in his email to the DEC noted the restitution matter is "hotly contested," as Winkler’s lawyers are arguing for no restitution at all. His filing points out that in cases in which the federal government is a victim, "the court shall ensure that all other victims receive full restitution before the United States receives any restitution." Federal regulators who brought the case at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration "declined restitution," lawyers for Winkler wrote in their filing.

Motorists should expect some slowdowns when driving on or around Hill Street in Southampton Village today as vice presidential candidate Tim Walz will be arriving in the area after flying into Gabreski Airport in Westhampton. As reported on 27east.com, there will be no road closures but just intermittent delays, according to Southampton Village Police Chief Suzanne Hurteau. Those delays are expected to start this afternoon, around 3:15 p.m., and last until around 4 p.m.

Digital signs on Hill Street in Southampton this morning indicate motorists should expect delays between 12 noon – 7pm.

Once again V.P. candidate Tim Walz is scheduled to attend a fundraiser in Southampton Village this afternoon.

Meanwhile, Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that last week the Southampton Town Board appeared poised to impose new rules to limit the use of public property and town roadsides for displaying political candidate yard signs, which many people say leave some areas “trashed” during the campaign season — until three board members this week apparently changed their minds and left the proposal legislatively dead in the water.

On Tuesday afternoon, when Republican Councilwoman Cyndi McNamara read out the resolution on the Town Board’s agenda that would formally introduce the law and schedule a public hearing on it, other board members…all Democrats…were silent when asked for a second to advance the measure to a vote.

Without a second, procedurally the bill was stalled and could not even be discussed further. Councilwoman McNamara had introduced the idea of adopting similar restrictions on the displaying of political signs to those most local villages impose — barring them from municipal properties, preserved lands and the municipally owned roadside right-of-ways that are off limits to other signs but left open to political signs in Southampton Town code.

East End Food is currently a ship without a harbor — but, if all goes as planned, it won’t be for much longer. Michelle Trauring reports on 27east.com that the nonprofit, which seeks to support the local food system and agricultural viability on Long Island, is about two months away from moving into its newly expanded East End Food Hub on Route 58 in Riverhead, home to a communal commercial kitchen, year-round farmers market, an education space and local food storefront.

But construction delays have held up the project, explained East End Food Executive Director Marci Moreau, and paired with an expired lease at their former home on the Stony Brook Southampton campus, the organization has nowhere yet to land.

With kitchen operations halted, it also pushed the opening of the farmers market to the fall, she said, impacting growers, sellers and the surrounding community alike.

Last year alone, East End Food purchased 28,896 pounds of surplus fruits and vegetables from local farms to support and sustain regional food production, diverting nearly 4,300 pounds of composted scraps from landfills during processing in partnership with another local nonprofit.

To support their effort to come back stronger than ever this autumn, the organization has launched a Power of Food campaign, which aims to raise $2 million to support capital projects, kitchen facilities and staff salaries. The need is urgent, Moreau said, and the funds are pivotal.

For more information about the Power of Food fundraising campaign, or to donate, call 631-209-7383 or visit eastendfood.org.

A proposal for Southampton Town to purchase a workforce housing easement on a multifamily house in Sag Harbor with money from the Community Housing Fund received overwhelming support at a hearing before the Town Board this week. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that the Town of Southampton would pay Sag Housing LLC, which is a spinoff of the Sag Harbor Cinema, $1.3 million to ensure that the six apartments in the house would remain in workforce housing stock for perpetuity. Kara Bak, the town’s housing director, told the board to be eligible, tenants would have to work a minimum of 30 hours per week at a business located in town, live in the apartment year-round, and make no more than 130 percent of the median income in the region as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Currently, that is $162,000 for a family of two, she said. Tenants would have to sign one-year leases, and if their income grew to the point where they were no longer eligible, their lease would not be renewed. Sag Housing purchased the house at 11 Suffolk Street in 2021 for $2,995,000 as a way to provide affordable housing for its employees as well as others in the region as the local housing market spiraled ever higher. Susan Mead, the manager of Sag Housing and treasurer of the Sag Harbor Cinema, said they understood that the housing had to be made available to all town residents, “not just cinema people and not just Sag Harbor people.” Ellen Dioguardi, the president of the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce, called the proposal “the kind of innovative idea that business people hoped the town would start looking at” after establishing the housing fund to attack the widespread shortage of affordable housing. The board closed the hearing Tuesday but did not vote on the matter. That will be put off until later this month or early in September.

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The number of LIRR delays caused by problems with train doors was up 79% in the first half of 2024 compared with the same period last year, according to railroad officials. Alfonso A. Castillo reports in NEWSDAY that the door issues arising in the Long Island Rail Road’s decades-old trains are adding urgency to calls for the MTA to modernize its aging fleet. The railroad had planned to have retired the relics years ago but has been forced to keep them around because of delays in the procurement of new train cars to replace them.

The railroad also been hamstrung by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s recent decision to nix congestion pricing, and the billions of dollars that would have been generated to pay for new trains, according to transit advocates.

The increase in train delays attributed to “door defects” was revealed in the LIRR’s recent midyear operations report, which tracks trains’ capacity, on-time performance, and breakdowns — through June 2024. According to the report, the LIRR saw 102 delays caused by mechanical issues related to doors, up from 57 during the first half of 2023.

Asked about the delays, David Steckel, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the LIRR’s parent organization, noted that, overall, nearly 96% of trains have operated on-time so far this year, up more than 1% from last year.

Homeowners in the Willow Ponds condo complex on Sound Avenue are considering allowing the prospective developer of a resort hotel on adjacent Soundfront property to hook up to their sewage treatment plant in exchange for a cash payment and shared costs going forward. Denise Civiletti and Alek Lewis report in Riverheadlocal.com that representatives of Alfred Weissman Real Estate, based in Harrison, New York, met with Willow Ponds homeowners Friday evening to pitch the idea of connecting their proposed development to the condominium complex’s sewage treatment plant.

The developers had a prior meeting with the HOA’s board of directors, who set up Friday’s membership meeting so the Westchester-based real estate development company could present the idea directly to homeowners.

Alan Weissman, principal and CEO of the development company, told the homeowners he did not know how much capacity their sewage treatment plant has available, or how much wastewater would be generated by the resort and spa his company is proposing to build on the site immediately east of the condo complex.

Weissman did say that if sharing the sewage treatment facility meant it would have to be expanded the developer would pay for the expansion, share operating costs going forward and split any future major capital expenses with the HOA.

This evening at 7pm the Hampton Bays Alliance, a new Civic for Hampton Bays, will meet in the Helen Gould room at the Hampton Bays Public Library, 52 Ponquogue Ave, Hampton Bays for a meet & greet with Alfred Caiola.

Alfred Caiola, Hampton Bays resident and owner of the land at the epicenter of the Hampton Bays downtown revitalization effort, will join us in a casual setting to engage in a respectful and civil conversation about his proposed plans for the future of his properties. This is an opportunity for Hampton Bays residents to get to know a key revitalization participant in an informal setting, discuss with him the community’s expectations and concerns about Hampton Bays revitalization and find common ground in a joint effort to make revitalization a reality.

DUE TO THE INFORMAL NATURE OF THIS MEETING,

IT WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE BY ZOOM

For additional information, visit www.hamptonbaysalliance.com

That’s the Hampton Bays Alliance meeting at 7 this evening in the Hampton Bays Library

52 Ponquogue Ave.

Hampton Bays, NY 11946

Second Quarter Campaign Finance Disclosure figures are in for New York State races this fall. Former Democratic Suffolk County Legislator Sarah Anker’s campaign for the First State Senate District seat held by Anthony Palumbo has qualified for matching funds. Anker’s campaign raised more than $49,000 between April and June, and qualified for nearly $224,500 in matching funds under a new Public Campaign Finance Program enacted in 2022, according to its New York State quarterly Campaign Finance Disclosure Report released in July. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that to qualify for matching funds, State Senate candidates must have received 150 campaign donations between $5 and $250 from residents of their district, totaling at least $12,000 in a particular quarter. State Assembly candidates can qualify with 75 of these donations totaling at least $6,000.

The program, designed to level the playing field…as many feel large donors have had an inordinate influence in American elections since the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision…matches donations up to $50 in a 12 to 1 ratio, then in a 9 to 1 ration for donations from $50 to $150 and an 8 to 1 ratio for donations from $150 to $250.

Senator Palumbo raised nearly $7,500 in the second quarter, ending the quarter with just shy of $34,000 on hand, according to his Campaign Finance Disclosure form on file with New York State. Ms. Anker finished the quarter with just over $258,800 on hand.

Palumbo, an attorney from New Suffolk on the North Fork, has held the State Senate office since 2020, after winning election following the retirement of longtime State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle.

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More than 20,000 Long Islanders are among 100,000 New Yorkers who have so far applied for optional digital driver's licenses for their cellphones, even as concern over privacy and civil rights rises in the NYS Legislature. Michael Gormley reports in NEWSDAY that the new Mobile ID doesn’t replace the traditional driver's licenses, learner permits or nondriver ID cards, and not all police agencies accept Mobile ID for identification at this point. The Department of Motor Vehicles said not all taverns and other business accept Mobile ID for identification, either, but the state is working on that.

The state’s Mobile ID is accepted at nearly 30 airports nationwide by the federal Transportation Security Administration including at LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports.

There are, however, privacy and civil rights concerns.

Proposed legislation would prohibit law enforcement officials presented with a Mobile ID identification from searching a cellphone for data that could be related to immigration status or other sensitive information. Police would also be prohibited from asking for consent to search the phone.

"We don’t want a surveillance state," Assembly Deputy Majority Leader Michaelle Solages (D-Elmont) said yesterday. "People want technology to improve lives, but they also don’t want to be tracked."

The DMV said Mobile ID can’t be used to track the user’s locations or movements.

The notorious schooner Amistad was seized off the coast of Montauk in August 1839. The full size replica helps tell the story of the history-making uprising that resulted in a landmark Supreme Court decision and boosted the cause of freedom.

After a brief stay at Culloden Point, the Amistad will sail into Montauk Harbor, where it will be moored at the East Hampton Town Dock on Star Island for a week. There it will be open daily for free tours and activities presented by Discovering Amistad, the nonprofit group that runs its educational programs. Highlights of the week include a family day, with activities targeting children and young people, a professional development day, a VIP tour, and a panel discussion featuring New York State Historian Devin Lander, who will also give a presentation about preparations for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

For more information, got to montaukhistoricalsociety.org/events.

After more than a century, the Mattituck American Legion Post 861 will permanently shut its doors.

The 35-member group voted to close its post in a meeting last week, due to a growing lack of participation in recent years, commander Robert DeVito said.

Maureen Mullarkey and Nicholas Grasso report in NEWSDAY that the American Legion national bylaws states that a minimum quorum of three members are required to conduct official business. The decision to close came after numerous discussions with members and after DeVito, 73, of Southold, noticed that the post was not meeting the minimum head count.

While other legions have one member hold one position, DeVito said he has taken on multiple hats due to lack of participation. In addition to being commander, he is also post historian and membership chairman. He is also vice commander for the 4th Division of Suffolk County.

"The only job I don’t do is treasurer," he said.

The American Legion, chartered by Congress in 1919 — the year the Mattituck chapter was founded — has nearly 2 million members and more than 12,000 posts throughout the United States.

But Mattituck joins a growing number of American Legion posts, as well as VFW halls, that have been facing difficulties, from financial woes due to declining memberships. The number of veterans on Long Island has nearly halved in the last decade.

DeVito said he encouraged members to join Legion posts close to their homes. The Mattituck chapter will have one more meeting next month before it permanently closes, he said.

On the North Fork there are American Legion Posts in Greenport and Southold where the dispersed Mattituck legionnaires are welcome to join.

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WCBS/880 AM, the all-news radio station New Yorkers have known for decades by the trademark "Traffic and weather together on the 8’s" will sign off Aug. 26, parent company Audacy announced yesterday.

In a twist to an enduring sports talk radio battle, Audacy will license the 880 frequency to ESPN New York, rival to its own WFAN sports radio talk station. ESPN New York carries Knicks and Rangers games. The Mets will continue to be heard on 880 AM. As reported in NEWSDAY, dozens of staffers, including some of the best-known names on New York radio, will be laid off in the move, according to the union representing them.

In an on-air interview Monday on WCBS / 880 AM, morning anchor Wayne Cabot called the news a "gut punch."

Radio and podcast giant Audacy said In a news release that it would now focus its news efforts in the New York City metropolitan area on its other marquee New York station, 1010 WINS, which it called the most-listened to news station in the United States.

Adam Jacobson, editor-in-chief of Radio and Television Business Report, which covers the broadcasting industry, said Audacy, which received court approval for a plan to exit bankruptcy earlier this year, "needed to focus on its resources in a way that was most efficient and fiscally prudent in one of its most important marketplaces ... Having two all-news stations in the same market, under the same ownership in 2024 doesn’t make sense."

Staffing for news gathering can be costly, and news radio faces competition from unregulated digital media, Jacobson said. Also this year, Congress failed to pass a law that would have required automakers to include AM broadcast radio installed as standard equipment in new motor vehicles.

The signoff will come amid a yearslong retrenchment for the news business, said George Bodarky, a journalism professor and community partnerships and training editor at the city’s public radio station, WNYC. "It’s sad to see the shrinking of local journalism," he said. "Having local journalism and journalists on the ground is critically important to democracy."

Roughly two dozen staffers will be laid off because of Audacy’s decision, according to their union, the Writers Guild of America East.

1010 WINS and WCBS — or simply "880" to generations of listeners — battled for local radio news supremacy dating back to the mid-60s, with the launch of their all-news formats (1965, for 1010, and 1967, for 880). 1010 has long been a traditionally stronger station in New York City, while 880's stronghold has been Long Island, Connecticut, and suburbs north and especially east. The WCBS antenna, based on a small rock outcrop off City Island, directs much of its firepower due east, and can be heard clearly as far as Rhode Island.

A June audit revealed a problem with Suffolk County’s school bus camera program.

Between May 2021, when Suffolk County began ticketing drivers caught on camera passing stopped school buses, and December 2022, more than one-quarter of school bus camera tickets had gone unpaid, leaving nearly $13 million in fines uncollected. Payton Guion reports in NEWSDAY that the Suffolk County comptroller’s office, which published the audit, wrote that BusPatrol America, the Virginia-based company that installed cameras on school buses and manages the enforcement program for the county, "should establish processes for collecting past-due amounts."

It turns out BusPatrol had been trying to do so for months before the audit was released.

In a letter responding to the county audit, BusPatrol CEO Karoon Monfared wrote that the company "has already taken steps to contract with a debt collection agency to collect outstanding fines" and was waiting to hear back from Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine on how to proceed.

For BusPatrol to contract with a debt collector, the company would need to amend its contract with Suffolk County, according to Romaine spokesman Mike Martino.

But the collection of unpaid school bus camera tickets won't begin anytime soon, as Romaine has not signed off on the contractual change that would allow BusPatrol to hire a debt collector, as the county continues to deliberate on how to recoup the fines.

The Town of Riverhead is in talks to lease the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall to The Jazz Loft, a nonprofit performing arts organization in Stony Brook, according to town officials. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that officials from The Jazz Loft toured the Vail-Leavitt and are “very interested in making this work, as are we,” Supervisor Tim Hubbard said Friday. Riverhead Town is working out the particulars of a contract with the organization, which has operated a museum and music venue out of a historic building in Stony Brook Village since 2016.

Supervisor Hubbard said The Jazz Loft would run programs out of the historic building, which the town recently took back from a nonprofit organization that had owned and operated the theater for more than 40 years.

The Jazz Loft would also work on the building’s restoration, said Deputy Town Attorney Danielle Hurley.

“The Jazz Loft performed a very similar feat in Stony Brook wherein a historical building was restored and managed into a very popular venue. We are hoping they can do the same thing here,” said Hurley.

When Murray Braverman bought a Leisurama home in Montauk in 1964 for $16,000, his wife Laura said he was crazy. But he had toured the residence being displayed on the ninth floor of Macy's department store in Manhattan and — noting that it came equipped with everything from furniture to kitchenware — considered it a bargain.

Time proved him correct. But even he was shocked when one of his neighbors' homes sold for $1 million last summer. Another recently went for $2.1 million.

"Can you believe that?" said the 94-year-old retired dentist, who still visits his acquisition in the summer. "I can't believe it myself." James Kindall reports on Newsday.com that just over 200 Leisurama homes were built on Long Island and scooped up by early believers like Braverman. Now, as Montauk has made the transition from a remote blue collar community to a trendy real estate hot spot, these quirky, mid-20th century creations are commanding extraordinary prices and being appreciated anew for their carefree practicality.

"They are being well received again," said John D'Agostino, a broker with Martha Greene Real Estate in Montauk who has sold dozens over the years. Similar Montauk residences also near the water with beach rights have jumped in price, too, but the Leisurama models have the historical appeal of the swinging Sixties, he added. "They have that 'Mad Men' retro vibe and there's always a niche of people who love to buy them."

Anyone who wants to experience the vibe for themselves can visit the Montauk Historical Society, which is hosting a Leisurama interactive exhibition sponsored by the Gardiner Foundation through Labor Day. The society has created a furnished Leisurama replica inside its own headquarters.

"The marketing campaign was so brilliant, we thought it would work for us, too," said the director, Mia Certic, who owns one of the homes and spent summers as a child in Montauk. Most are only 1,000 square feet inside, but she marvels at their cunning design.

"There is not an inch of space that is not utilized," she said.

The Riverhead Free Library is offering a free English class for beginners starting on Thursday, Sept. 5. The class, led by a certified teacher, is designed to help participants build confidence in speaking, reading, and understanding English. As reported on Riverheadlocal.com, the course aims to expand vocabulary and improve pronunciation. The class provides a welcoming and supportive environment for adults just starting out or looking to strengthen their language skills.

Key details of the event are as follows:

– The class starts at 4:30 p.m. and ends at 7:30 p.m.

– Interested adults are encouraged to visit the library and complete a registration form before Sept. 3 to secure a spot.

– The class is completely free.

In addition, there is a Spanish version of the class available. Registrations for this class also need to be done in person at the Riverhead Library before Sept. 3.

For more information, contact the library at 631-727-3228 or email adultprograms@riverheadlibrary.org.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to overhaul the fraud-ridden $9 billion Medicaid home care program — which allows New Yorkers to get paid to take care of elderly adults — is facing a legal challenge from the “middlemen” companies who work as a payroll agent between Medicaid and the caregivers. Vaughn Golden in THE NY POST reports that the governor included a measure during state budget negotiations earlier this year to replace the hundreds of financial intermediaries that pay caregivers in the popular Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, or CDPAP, with a singular firm to be picked by the NYS Department of Health. A group representing the “middlemen” firms she is trying to cut out is now suing to halt the proposal. “This sweeping change to an eight billion dollar per year program was quietly adopted in the final days of the State budget process without public dialogue, discussion, or debate, let alone input from stakeholders and participants in the Program,” lawyers for Save Our Consumer Directed Home Care Program wrote in the lawsuit. “It will have the effect of putting hundreds of New York state companies out of business, costing thousands of jobs, and significantly disrupting services and/or fully depriving Consumers of services within their homes, forcing them to be institutionalized,” it continues.

Under CDPAP, New Yorkers can be paid around $38,000 a year to provide care for family members or close acquaintances. Hochul’s proposal was floated as a way of ensuring oversight — and to cut down on the rapidly ballooning costs. According to the latest Department of Health figures, spending on the program was just over $9 billion last year. Almost 250,000 New Yorkers received care through the program in 2023 compared with around 13,000 in 2015. However, the lawsuit argues the changes specifically target the fiscal intermediaries and violate their ability to do business under the state constitution, US constitution and federal Medicaid laws. The contract to replace the hundreds of middlemen firms with a sole firm is currently set to be awarded by Oct. 1.

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New York State Governor Kathy Hochul visited the Town of East Hampton this past Friday, when she announced $2.5 million in state funding toward restoration of the dune system at Ditch Plains Beach in Montauk, where three storms last winter devastated the beach and dunes and caused flooding in the surrounding neighborhood. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that later, at the newly constructed Green at Gardiner’s Point affordable housing complex in East Hampton, she announced the town’s designation as the first on Long Island to be named a Pro-Housing Community.

“The threat of climate change is no longer a threat,” the governor said in the Friday morning event at Montauk Downs State Park. Extreme weather, she said, “is our new normal. That is our reality here in the State of New York. It’s been such a threat to our coastal towns. It really impacts not just the natural beauty, but it affects communities,” from tourism and small businesses to residents. “I’m here today because I continue my commitment to protecting our beaches, our shorelines and making sure that as these threats continue and are becoming more ferocious, we will make the investments now so future generations know that we cared and we made a difference.”

Governor Hochul said “we also know that one storm can wash away everything that you built. Everything that you love can be gone in an instant.”

This, she said, is “why we have to build up resiliency. This is the peak of hurricane season. It is getting longer, more sustained than we’ve ever had.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has forecast an “above-normal” 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.

After the winter storms that left the beach profile “nonexistent and down to the hard pan,” as East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez described it last winter, a two-phase beach and dune restoration project at the popular beach saw the placement of 5,800 cubic yards of sand in June, sufficiently restoring the beach for recreational activity this summer. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that following the peak summer season, a project to restore the dunes along a 2,700-linear-foot stretch of shoreline running from just west of the main parking lot east to the edge of the stone revetment fronting the Montauk Shores mobile home park is to be completed.

Gov. Kathy Hochul visited a newly built affordable housing development in East Hampton this past Friday, as her office recognized the town as the first certified pro-housing community in Suffolk County. Jonathan LaMantia reports in NEWSDAY that the certification recognizes a municipality’s commitment to increasing available housing for its residents. As part of this year’s budget, the governor and legislature made the pro-housing designation a requirement to receive a portion of up to $650 million in state discretionary funding for economic development.

In addition to East Hampton, Hempstead Village and Long Beach have been certified by the state, joining Mineola, which was the first to receive the designation earlier this year.

Seven more municipalities have applied, and the state is preparing to certify their applications, according to state officials. They are the towns of Brookhaven and Riverhead, and the villages of Freeport, Farmingdale, Port Washington North, Sag Harbor and Westbury.

The development where the governor spoke on Friday, called the Green at Gardiner's Point, will offer 50 affordable apartments to renters who meet certain income requirements, with rents at $1,500 for a one-bedroom apartment, $1,784 for two-bedroom apartments and $2,045 for a three-bedroom apartment.

Tenants for the five-building complex, developed through a partnership of Jericho-based Georgica Green Ventures and the East Hampton Housing Authority, were selected through a housing lottery last week.

Municipalities have two ways to earn the recognition. First, they can submit data to the state showing they have approved permits that increased the number of housing units in their area by 1% over the past year or 3% in the past three years.

If municipalities haven’t met that standard, they still can be certified if they pass a pro-housing resolution - indicating the local government supports "housing production of all kinds in our community …" The locality must also pledge to streamline permitting for multifamily housing and affordable housing and incorporate regional needs into planning decisions, among other provisions.

Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, East Hampton Town's supervisor, said the town applied for the funding because she recognized the importance of affordable housing and wanted East Hampton to be eligible for state funding to support more projects like the one the governor visited on Friday.

The state’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative, NY Forward and Regional Council Capital Fund are among the economic development programs tied to achieving pro-housing community status.

East End Arts, the Riverhead-based arts nonprofit, has a new executive director. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Wendy Weiss, previously the organization’s creative director, was promoted to the top job on June 17. Weiss, 45, of Bridgehampton, got involved with East End Arts in March 2020 as a board member and was later hired to oversee the organization’s major arts exhibitions.

Weiss, grew up in Bridgehampton and graduated from Mercy High School in Riverhead. She has a marketing degree from Johnson & Wales University.

From her office above the organization’s main gallery on East Main Street in Riverhead Ms. Weiss told Riverheadlocal that she has ideas about expanding and refining the organization’s existing programming. One of them is adding more of the organization’s satellite art galleries across the twin forks and Suffolk County.

“It gives us the opportunity to rotate member artwork and have it on display in different places across the community,” she said. “And it’s become a really powerful program because it supports that mission of being regional and being out in all of the parts of the community and meeting new people. And it helps our members be able to get their artwork out there.”

After the Southold Town Planning Board determined in July that a planned expansion of the Gulf station at the Main Road gateway to Mattituck would need extended environmental review, the owners of the gas station are preparing a scaled back plan. Emre Ilgin, son of business owner Sukru Ilgin, told attendees at a July 29 Mattituck-Laurel Civic Association forum on the project that his family had already gone through the process of preparing a detailed Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Gulf station they recently built on the corner of Young’s Avenue and Route 48 in Southold, and would like to avoid having to prepare an EIS for this project. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the property at the intersection of the Main Road, Old Main Road and Bray Avenue in Mattituck is currently the site of a 1,600-square-foot mini mart and gas station with 9 pumps. In 2022, the applicants proposed merging the property with a vacant 1.12-acre lot immediately east of the current location, demolishing the existing gas station and pumps and building a new two-story, 5,000-square-foot office and convenience store and 12 gas pumps on the vacant lot.

“Since the last meeting, we went back to the drawing board,” Emre Ilgin told attendees at the Civic Association meeting, referring to the July 8 Southold Town Planning Board meeting at which the board issued a “positive declaration” for the project under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), which would mean the project would require an Environmental Impact Statement.

Ilgin said his family owns 12 gas stations on Long Island, but this is his father’s first gas station, and he wanted to move the corporate offices to this site. The expanded mini-mart, he said, is part of the reality of trying to operate a gas station business in these times.

“Back in the day, there was profit on gas,” Ilgin said. “Now businesses like Costco and BJs are selling gasoline at cost — they make their money from memberships. For me to stay in business, I have to move toward the convenience store side.”

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A limo and a ride-share driver allegedly supplying cocaine and ecstasy to clientele on the south fork were charged in an alleged million-dollar East End Drug Task Force bust in East Hampton Aug. 1, town and county court records show. Grant Parpan reports in NEWSDAY that Michael Khodorkovskiy, of Brooklyn, and Alexandr Dyatchin, of Hallandale, Florida, were each charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance and remanded to the Suffolk County jail at an arraignment in East Hampton Town last Friday.

Suffolk prosecutors, in a civil forfeiture filing this past Wednesday, said they intend to seek a grand jury indictment for the two men, who they allege generated nearly $1.2 million in drug sales, including more than $88,000 in transactions with two undercover officers during a yearlong investigation.

The undercover officers, working with the district attorney-led task force, made nearly two dozen purchases. The buys mostly consisted of cocaine, but on several occasions included quantities of ecstasy, and were made between July 14, 2023, and June 25, according to the civil forfeiture filing.

Khodorkovskiy, who described himself as the "main guy" and referred to Dyatchin as his employee, told one of the undercover officers during a January meeting in his Mercedes-Benz that he began selling cocaine while working as a private driver in East Hampton, prosecutors said.

The transactions with the undercover officers began small, mostly between $360 to $600 over the first month, eventually growing to $10,000 purchases of as much as 150 grams of cocaine on two occasions between May and June, court records show.

Suffolk County District attorney investigator Det. Paul Rauseo said, "Khodorkovskiy and Dyatchin have generated criminal proceeds in the amount of approximately $1,186,295.00," Rauseo estimated in the criminal forfeiture filing against Khodorkovskiy, Dyatchin and limo and ride-share businesses they each operate.

Locals are still buzzing about last Friday evening’s visit to Bridgehampton by former POTUS Donald Trump and the traffic congestion it created. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the South Fork is no stranger to sitting dignitaries, and to the hurdles that protecting them while they are on the road demands. Presidents, vice presidents and presidential candidates have been making fundraising swings through the Hamptons’ well-heeled social circles nearly every summer for decades.

Their Secret Service guards and motorcades have snaked through local hamlets and negotiated neighborhood roads largely without causing too many headaches or inconveniences, other than very localized delays or road closures.

But former President Donald Trump’s visit to a Bridgehampton fundraiser last Friday evening, August 2, coming just a few weeks after a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed the former president’s ear, was a very different story.

Heightened caution by a U.S. Secret Service still reeling from the nearly catastrophic failure of its duty to protect a presidential candidate, combined with a visit that overlapped with the region’s already crushing workday traffic, led to a traffic situation that was mind-blowing even to South Fork commuters seasoned in the snail’s pace travel conditions on a daily basis.

Some reported trips home from work, to dinner plans or even to gather children from daycare, stretching into hourslong ordeals that didn’t end until nearly midnight.

The invasive spotted lanternflies that have the potential to destroy North Fork wineries’ grape crops has spared wine country — for now — but officials remain on high alert and urge the public to be too. Timothy Bolger in Dans’ Papers reports that officials from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, Department of Environmental Conservation and Cornell University’s Integrated Pest Management issued a reminder that whenever the public spots the colorful-yet-destructive insect, people should kill the bugs immediately.

“We’re asking for the public to continue to be vigilant and check vehicles and equipment before traveling, use traps to control (spotted lanternflies) at home, report any sightings and smash (the bugs) when you see them,” AGM Commissioner Richard A. Ball said. “Early detection and continued survey is the key to slowing the spread of this harmful pest and protecting against damage to our trees and crops.”

The spotted lanternfly — striking for its red wings with black spots — is known to suck the sap out of 70 different species of plants and excrete honeydew where it lands. One of its favorites are grapevines, which is problematic for New York State, which is the third-largest grape producer in the United States and boasts a $300 million wine industry statewide, with dozens of wineries on the East End. Apples, hops and maple trees can also be negatively affected.

Riverhead’s town and school district will share a combined cost of about $417,000 to post an armed school resource officer in each the district’s two secondary schools during the 2024-25 academic year, according to a town official. John Hildebrand reports in NEWSDAY that the plan to station special police officers at Riverhead High School and Riverhead Middle School, starting this September, was confirmed late last month by school officials. At the time, those officials said costs would be divided, without specifying dollar figures.

More recently, the Town of Riverhead’s financial administrator, Jeanette DiPaola, who is handling fiscal calculations, provided figures at Newsday’s request.

According to DiPaola, the school district in 2024-25 will pay $104,000, or half the cost of one officer. The town will pay the remaining $313,000. DiPaola added that costs represented a combination of employee salaries and benefits such as health insurance, with benefits amounting to about 75% of salaries.

For the 2025-26 school year, the district will pay 50% of total costs of approximately $418,000, DiPaola said. The town will pay an equal amount.

Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard, yesterday, underlined the issue of safety. "I think every student deserves to go to school and feel safe when they're at school," he said.

Resource officers, or SROs as they are known, are typically regular police authorized to carry sidearms.

Riverhead Town Councilman Ken Rothwell, who supports the SRO plan, said the town and school district were “equally committed to providing the utmost safety for the children in our schools.”

Stony Brook University Hospital has been suing patients over medical debt — including sending summonses to those with tumors and other complex health conditions — at a higher rate than other health care systems statewide, records show. Sarina Trangle reports in NEWSDAY that NYS attorneys have filed more than 950 cases against people believed to owe Stony Brook hospital money in the first half of 2024, according to Suffolk Supreme Court records.

Last year, the Stony Brook system accounted for 52% of all medical debt cases brought by the state's more than 200 hospitals combined, according to one social service group's estimate. The state's budget guidelines, according to Stony Brook, require the hospital to refer certain delinquent accounts to the New York attorney general’s office.

Suing is so widespread that hospital staff are accustomed to having patients frantically present court papers to them, said Lynne Piazza, a social worker who also is facing a medical debt lawsuit from Stony Brook. "They’d run to your office . . . crying, worrying about immigration status, worrying about are they going to be able to keep their home," said Piazza, who started as an intern at Stony Brook in 2013 and has taken time off in recent years to deal with her own health issues.

Other regional hospitals have stopped suing patients over unpaid bills in recent years.

The suits are another stressor for patients recovering from surgeries and radiation treatment.

Long Island’s Nassau County was listed as the safest in America this week — in rankings that found the New York metropolitan area had 10 of the nation’s top 25 safest counties. Steve Janoski and Carl Campanile report in THE NY POST that County Executive Bruce Blakeman hailed Nassau’s victory in the US News & World Report study as a credit to the area’s law-and-order values.

“Our ranking as the safest county in the country is a tribute to our police officers, district attorney, and other law enforcement professionals who put their lives on the line each and every day to protect the residents of Nassau County,” he said yesterday.

The list scored counties on a 100-point scale that’s tied to their performance in key safety areas that went beyond crime rates, including health care and public safety capacity, the magazine said.

It also takes into account things like emergency services and crash fatality rates.

Suffolk County was named 22nd on the top 25 safest counties in the nation list.

At the next Sag Harbor Board of Education meeting, set for Monday, August 19 at 6:30 p.m., Superintendent of Schools Jeff Nichols will give a report on how the district fared while using the Yondr magnetic locking cellphone pouches for students during the last school year. He will speak to the pros and the cons of the system, which effectively banned cellphone use for students during the school day, and how students and faculty reacted, and whether the district will continue to use the pouches this coming year and into the foreseeable future. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that Sag Harbor became the first school district in Suffolk County to ban cellphone use in schools last year when it paid Yondr roughly $10,900 as part of a one-year contract to provide the cellphone pouches for every middle and high school student and help implement the system. The Sag Harbor School district announced at that time that if it chose to renew the contract for the 2024/25 school year, it would cost around $7,400 annually, with the caveat that the renewal pricing was subject to change. Yondr’s patented cellphone pouch locks magnetically when closed, and can only be unlocked by a small, handheld circular device similar to the mechanism used to remove security tags from clothing sold in retail stores. Students place their phones in the pouches at the start of the school day, a school staff member locks the pouch, and then they cannot use the phones again until they report to a staff member to have the pouch unlocked at dismissal. Companies like Yondr have popped up in recent years to meet a demand for restricting access to cellphones at concerts, private parties and other events, as well as in schools and workplaces. There has been a flurry of media coverage about the dangers and negative impacts of cellphone use in schools and its detrimental effects on students and their abilities to learn and socialize.

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Members of the Shinnecock Nation and supporters held a rally outside Southampton Town Hall this past Monday calling on the town to spend more Community Preservation Fund money to preserve land seen as sacred to the tribe in Shinnecock Hills.

With the rhythm of ancestral songs by two Shinnecock drummers in the background, a group of about 30 people brandished signs decrying the seizing of Native American lands and overdevelopment and vilifying billionaires and corporate America, to the honking of horns from cars traveling past on Hampton Road. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that tribal organizers said they are trying to call more public attention to their pleas for more land preservation in Shinnecock Hills in the hope of keeping pressure on the town as it earmarks funds from the millions of dollars it takes in each year through the CPF’s dedicated real estate sales tax.

“We owned the Hamptons, and to be surrounded by billionaires building their palatial mansions on stolen lands of the Shinnecock people and the Indigenous people of Long Island is a crime, and it has got to be reckoned with,” said Becky Hill-Genia, one of the leaders of the Shinnecock Graves Protection Warrior Society and the Niamuck Land Trust, two Shinnecock-led groups that have spearheaded the push to recover and protect former tribal lands that were ancient burial grounds.

“We are here to demand that the Community Preservation Fund of Southampton be used to purchase, preserve and protect what is left in our sacred Shinnecock Hills.”

In 2022, the Town of Southampton dedicated $5.3 million in CPF money to purchase the development rights to a 4.5-acre parcel at the top of Sugar Loaf Hill, the highest point in Shinnecock Hills where the tribe had buried its dead, facing the sea, for thousands of years. The land had been allowed to be developed with a large house in 1990, in spite of extensive evidence that human remains were likely on the property and cries of protest from the tribe.

Last evening in Riverhead, a drunk driver collided with several vehicles on County Road 105 just north of the Cross River bridge, before his vehicle overturned, killing his passenger, Riverhead Town Police said in a press release early this morning. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Christian Aroldo Mendoza-Baquiax, 38, of Riverhead, was arrested on a charge of felony driving while intoxicated, police said. He was transported by ambulance to Stony Brook University Hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.

His passenger, Nelson Gudiel Reyes Muxin, 33, of Riverhead, who was entrapped in the overturned vehicle was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the report said.

Mendoza-Baquiax was operating a 2010 Acura on County Road 105 Wednesday evening around 6:15 p.m. when he collided with several other vehicles on the four-lane highway south of Riverside Drive, before his vehicle overturned, police said.

In all, seven vehicles were involved in the crash, police said.

Eight people were injured, including one flown to Stony Brook University Hospital by a Suffolk County Police Medevac helicopter. No information about the injuries was provided by police.

A four-door Buick sedan sustained heavy front-end damage in a collision with the Acura. EMS personnel were seen administering aid to the operator of the vehicle, which was stopped in the southbound lanes of the highway, south of Riverside Drive, near the bridge.

The Acura sedan operated by Mendoza-Baquiax was overturned in the marked median less than 100 feet north of the mangled Buick sedan.

The redevelopment plan for the former Capital One bank branch on Love Lane in Mattituck could include as many as 12 affordable apartments. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the owners of the property, Hard Corner Partners, LLC, are asking Southold Town to give the project seven sanitary flow credits to be used to allow the greater septic flow created by the apartments. They had initially requested 1.6 credits, which were granted in 2021.

The Southold Town Board has scheduled a public hearing on the matter for its Aug. 27 meeting at 7 p.m.

The 17,652-square-foot building, on the corner of Love Lane and Pike Street in Mattituck, has been vacant since the Capital One branch moved to a location slightly west on the Main Road in 2017.

A new state audit says New York needs to do more to curb deaths of women from problems associated with childbirth or pregnancy, pointing to a recent increase in maternal mortality rates and racial disparities in those figures. Tiffany Cusaac-Smith reports in NEWSDAY that although New York has expanded access to doula care and started other maternal mental health initiatives, the state Department of Health is not doing enough to evaluate all of its maternal health programs, according to an audit from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office. The lack of evaluation means that the state is not able to fully gauge how its efforts are impacting the maternal health crisis, the audit said.

"Despite New York’s efforts to reduce maternal deaths and pregnancy related health conditions, progress has stalled," DiNapoli said in a statement. "The Department of Health needs to strengthen its oversight of policy initiatives and take steps to help ensure all mothers, regardless of race or ethnicity, have access to the highest level of care."

In 2020, Black women in New York had a pregnancy-related mortality rate of 54.7 deaths for every 100,000 live births — roughly five times the figure for white women, the state said.

The Health Department responded to the audit by saying, "The State Department of Health is committed to combating maternal mortality and continues to engage in a multifaceted effort to eliminate inequities and improve health outcomes."

The audit, which took place between 2018 and 2023, outlines how improved evaluation and rollout of maternal health recommendations are important factors in the state's effort to make childbirth safer.

Lack of follow-up evaluations of these programs could "affect the outcomes for birthing people across the state," said Dr. Dawnette Lewis, director of Northwell Health’s Center for Maternal Health.

Riverhead’s Alive on 25 street festival has been postponed due to heavy rain and thundershowers forecast for tomorrow evening, according to the event’s organizer. The festival will be held on its rain date, Friday, Aug. 23. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal .com that the downtown street festival, sponsored and organized by the Riverhead Business Improvement District, begins at 5 p.m. and offers live music, street vendors, craft beverages, restaurants, food trucks, artists, street performers and activities for kids. A laser light show that was planned for tomorrow at 9 p.m. is rescheduled to Friday, Aug. 23 at 9pm. The Aug. 23 event will be Riverhead’s second and last Alive on 25 event of the summer of ’24.

Two years after a ceremonial groundbreaking for the 50-unit Green at Gardiner’s Point, an affordable housing complex in East Hampton, a lottery drawing was held last Friday at East Hampton Town Hall to determine the order in which 543 hopeful applicants will be screened for eligibility.

As a number of applicants watched in the main meeting room, Katy Casey, director of the East Hampton Housing Authority, said that, for those deemed eligible, the Housing Authority is “hoping to get folks in within a matter of weeks,” and asked that “if you are contacted, please pull your documents together quickly so we can make a determination.” Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the complex, at 286 and 290 Three Mile Harbor Road, is being jointly developed by the Housing Authority and Georgica Green Ventures. The two entities previously partnered to develop the 37-unit Gansett Meadow affordable housing complex in Amagansett.

The unfurnished apartments are deemed affordable to households earning at or below 60 percent of the area median income, with eight apartments serving households at 30 percent of the area median income.

Casey said, “The rents, except for eight apartments, are not subsidized per se: The people who move in will be required to pay their rent, not on a sliding scale. They do have to income qualify.”

The monthly rent for a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment will be $1,500; for a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment, the rent will be $1,784; and for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment, $2,045.

The complex features 10 one-bedroom, 29 two-bedroom and 10 three-bedroom apartments across five two-story residential buildings. One apartment is set aside for the development’s resident manager.

That’s the 50-unit Green at Gardiner’s Point, an affordable housing complex at 286 and 290 Three Mile Harbor Road, in East Hampton, where the Town of East Hampton held a lottery drawing last week.

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A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the company that operates school bus cameras in dozens of school districts across Long Island, which has generated tens of millions of dollars in fines from drivers. Payton Guion reports in NEWSDAY that United States District Court Judge Edgardo Ramos on Thursday rejected all claims made against BusPatrol America by plaintiff Sarah Morgulis, who got a ticket after allegedly passing a stopped school bus in West Hempstead in April 2023.

The lawsuit said that BusPatrol does not provide sufficient evidence when issuing tickets to drivers who allegedly pass stopped school buses and that the company has been essentially acting as a governmental agency in recording and issuing these violations, which start at $250.

Judge Ramos rejected each of the 13 claims, calling one "woefully insufficient."

"The court’s decision is a well-reasoned analysis of why each and every claim alleged by the plaintiff lacked merit," BusPatrol spokesman Gary Lewi said in a statement.

Morgulis’ lawsuit is not the first challenge to BusPatrol’s school bus camera programs on Long Island. One case in state Supreme Court is still pending.

Suffolk County resident Alfred Croce III tried to get his school bus citation tossed by the Suffolk County Traffic and Parking Violation in September 2022. When that failed, he escalated his case to the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court.

Croce argued that the video captured by BusPatrol, and used as evidence for his citation, failed to prove the vehicle was actually a school bus and that it was stopped to drop off or pick up passengers, both of which are required under state law.

The three-judge appellate panel sided with Croce, saying that Suffolk County did not prove the bus was properly marked and equipped with flashing lights.

That ruling raised serious questions about Suffolk County’s school bus camera program, which was permitted by a 2019 state law. After the appeals court overturned Croce’s ticket for lack of evidence, Suffolk late last year paused prosecution on more than 9,000 citations for passing a stopped school bus.

Passing a stopped school bus brings a $250 fine for a first violation, increasing with subsequent violations.

Long Islanders favor Republican Donald Trump in the presidential race, but Vice President Kamala Harris has given Democrats a significant boost statewide since replacing President Joe Biden on the ticket, according to new polls.

In a Newsday/Siena College survey of 507 likely voters on Long Island, Trump leads Harris 50% to 44%. There is a noticeable split by county: Nassau County residents give Harris a 3-percentage point lead while Suffolk gives Trump a 14-point edge. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that in a statewide poll, Harris quickly has pulled in support where Biden had been lagging, Siena pollster Don Levy said. Whereas Biden led Trump by 8 points statewide in June, Harris has jumped to a 14-point lead (53%-39%) in a Siena poll conducted separately, but simultaneously with the Long Island poll.

The Newsday/Siena poll also asked Long Islanders their views on some key issues, finding they strongly support approving a statewide "equal rights amendment," banning smartphones in schools and amending a law that capped state and local tax deductions on federal tax returns.

The survey of 507 likely voters in Nassau and Suffolk counties was conducted July 28 to Aug. 1. The margin of error is 6.1 percentage points, meaning the answers to any one question could vary higher or lower by that amount.

Trump has a 6-point lead over Harris in a head-to-head match. When Siena asked about minor-party candidates, the margin remained the same.

The North Fork Environmental Council presents a forum on the pros and cons of the emergent technology of Battery Energy Storage Systems this evening at 7 p.m. in the Peconic Landing Auditorium at 1500 Brecknock Road in Greenport. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that this evening’s presentation will address the good, the bad, and the ugly of BESS featuring NFEC experts on the topic. Tonight’s event is FREE.

Find out more here.

On the website of the federal Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, these words appear in big letters, announcing an even bigger policy shift: “Process to Promote the Unity and Stability of Families.”

For undocumented residents of the U.S. who have lived here for at least 10 years and are married to American citizens, that means that the government has opened up a new way to lawfully obtain a green card. It is “a key step toward fulfilling President Biden’s commitment to promoting family unity in the immigration system,” the Department of Homeland Security said in an announcement last week. Christine Sampson in THE EAST HAMPTON STAR reports that the change revolves around the concept of “parole in place,” meaning that people can wait out the green card process in the U.S. rather than having to go back to their home countries while their applications for lawful residence are processed. Before this policy shift, which was announced in June, that is what undocumented individuals had to do.

“The parole in place would be the equivalent to that lawful admission,” said Lucia Damerau, an immigration attorney for Organizacion Latino-Americana of Eastern Long Island (OLA).

“The main issue is how they entered [the U.S.]. That’s what’s preventing them from getting a green card — it’s looked at as a big violation.”

The measure is expected to allow about half a million people to remain in the country legally.

On the East End, with many communities that are home to large immigrant populations, OLA anticipates being unable, in most cases, to assist. That is because a family with a non-citizen spouse must make a minimum threshold of income in order to petition for a green card; OLA mostly helps people who don’t qualify under this.

Ms. Damerau said OLA hasn’t gotten many calls about it.

Johanna Sanchez, owner of Bilingual Law Practice in East Hampton and Riverhead, has done preliminary screenings for about 30 clients so far for eligibility under this new procedure. “I don’t have a specific number” of people on the East End who may qualify, she said, “but I can estimate it will probably be a couple of thousand people.”

While the government is not accepting applications until Aug. 19, both Ms. Sanchez and Ms. Damerau warned that scammers are already trying to take advantage of vulnerable people, claiming to be able to expedite their applications, for a fee.

A charitable organization co-founded by Mayor Eric Adams’ brother auctioned off a dinner with Hizzoner during a south fork fundraiser over the weekend — raising eyebrows with ethics watchdogs.

But Angels Helpers, a non-profit that provides city youngsters access to arts and culture, said yesterday it would be pulling the prize after The NY Post asked whether the non-profit had cleared the dinner prize with the city’s Conflict of Interest Board.

It wasn’t clear who made the winning bid — upwards of $3,500, according to sources with knowledge of the event — for the dinner with the mayor and his brother Bernard Adams. Craig McCarthy reports in THE NY POST that the sit-down was auctioned off during a Saturday gala held at a sprawling, nearly $15 million estate in Southampton that offered a gourmet dinner and drinks, a performance by the singer Polina and live painting by the artist Ross Pino.

Billed as an “enchanting summer night,” tickets for the Angels Helpers event ran between $500 and $1,000. Bernard Adams, co-founder of Angels Helpers NYC and the mayor’s former head of security, promoted the event saying his brother Eric would be a special guest, but it doesn’t appear Hizzoner attended.

Pressed by The Post on whether the non-profit had cleared the dinner prize with the city’s Conflict of Interest Board, fellow co-founder Alisa Roever called it an “oversight.” She blamed the person holding the event for making a mistake before hanging up.

Roever was listed on the invitation as the chair of the gala, which was first reported by Politico.

A City Hall spokesperson stated that the mayor “was never asked about, never agreed to, and will not be participating in this dinner that was auctioned off without his permission.”

“If not already done, we expect the charity to immediately rectify the situation and fully refund the individual who made the bid,” the rep said.

The Southold Town Planning Board has tabled a decision on the proposed Strong’s yacht storage project on Mattituck Inlet to its Sept. 9 meeting, in order to allow planning staff time to review a revised site plan submitted in mid-July. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that Planning Board Chairman Jim Rich said at the board’s meeting yesterday that he anticipates the project will require a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement and that future public hearings will be held.

And tonight, The North Fork Environmental Council presents a forum on the pros and cons of the emergent technology of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) this evening at 7 p.m. in the Peconic Landing Auditorium at 1500 Brecknock Road in Greenport.

The Peconic Estuary Partnership is educating the community on responsible stewardship of our natural lands, including residential lawns. The organization has launched a number of initiatives to address the diverse issues that affect the estuary, including helping residents establish Peconic-friendly yards. Amanda Olsen in THE SUFFOLK TIMES reports that one concern is build-up of excessive nutrients in the Peconic estuary. These come from many sources, including agriculture, outdated cesspools and septic systems, residential fertilizer use, stormwater runoff, sewage treatment plants and animal waste. One result is loss of critical habitat, specifically salt marshes and eel grass, which are critical for both marine and avian life. Salt marshes filter out terrestrial pollutants, but increased nitrogen actually suppresses root growth in salt marsh plants. When the environment has an overabundance of nutrients, plants don’t need to develop strong roots that reach deep into the ground to find those nutrients. This makes them less effective as a storm barrier and in securing the coastline.

It’s also important to reduce the watering of yards because that excess moisture increases stormwater runoff. Added water input that flushes lawns, driveways, parking lots or streets becomes runoff and ends up directly in waterways. “Along the way it’s picking up things like motor oil, fertilizers, animal waste, all of these toxins.” Valerie Virgona, outreach and communications manager for PEP, said at a recent workshop.

It also makes sense to reduce fertilizer use to prevent overloading the water with nutrients. “We want to create green infrastructure to help filter that stormwater, we want to create habitat that supports wildlife and we want to prevent runoff from washing out of the yards,” Ms. Virgona said.

Stormwater that is filtered through soil, sand and gravel within rain or native plant gardens is dramatically cleaner when it enters the groundwater than water that runs through storm drains. Additionally, rain barrels offer an opportunity to catch rainwater and prevent it from becoming runoff.

The PEP website offers a variety of tools to aid homeowners in planning native plant gardens, including an easy-to-use database to help users choose plant species that will suit their needs. There is also a planning tool for yard layouts.

In addition, PEP has a rewards program through which homeowners can get a rebate of up to $500 on the purchase of native plants and rain barrels.

Both New York State and Suffolk County offer grant programs on septic system upgrades. Visit reclaimourwater.info for more information.

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Although thoughtless passengers long have been a staple of the Long Island Railroad, many LIRR regulars believe commuter courtesy is at an all-time low — worsened by advancements in technology and pandemic-related societal changes. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that with fare evasion and assaults on conductors on the rise in recent years, some riders say the lack of consideration contributes to an increasingly unpleasant commute. It's one in which passengers lug oversized electric bikes onto trains, run charging cables across aisle floors, blast music from Bluetooth speakers and even clip their toenails — all with little regard for their fellow passengers, and often without reprimand from train crew members.

Gerard Bringmann, chairman of the LIRR Commuter Council, the railroad’s state-regulated rider watchdog group, also believes boorishness on the railroad “has gotten a little worse” as of late, with the most despicable behavior coming, not from regular commuters, but from “day trippers,” like some of those who pack the trains bound for the Hamptons on the weekends, hogging up precious seats with their belongings and engaging in the kind of boisterous revelry that some weary 9-to-5 commuters abhor.

Bringmann said, while there's always been "that 3 to 5% that don’t give a damn about anybody else," that segment of riders seems to be growing, due in part to more riders being immersed in their cellphones and oblivious to their surroundings.

"I think the pandemic kind of accelerated that a little bit, too," Bringmann said. "You’ve got people back and they just don't know how to interact with other people. They're just so used to doing everything that suits themselves that the civility has gone way down." What's worse, Bringmann said: "I don't know what you can possibly do about it.”

In Sag Harbor Village Justice Court on Friday morning, Justin R. Timberlake, 43, of Franklin, Tennessee, was arraigned for the second time on the same misdemeanor DWI charge from June 18. As reported on 27east.com, Timberlake was arraigned virtually, appearing on a pair of video screens, live from Antwerp, Belgium, where the pop music star was scheduled to perform a sold-out show on Saturday.

The reason for the second arraignment was because the police had improperly filled out the complaining document against Timberlake back on June 18. Instead of a superior officer signing off on the complaint, which had been filled out by the arresting officer who had been on the force for three months, an officer with even less experience on the force signed off on the document.

On July 2, the arresting officer filled out an amended criminal complaint against Timberlake, following proper procedure. That new complaint was filed by the district attorney’s office with the court on July 2, well within the 90-day period such errors are allowed to be corrected in.

Sag Harbor Village Justice Carl Irace once again suspended Timberlake’s New York State driving privileges for refusing to take a breath test after his arrest at police headquarters. The prosecution, led by Assistant District Attorney Ashley Cangro, agreed to share all video with the defense.

The next court date, on Friday, August 9, is procedural.

The North Fork Environmental Council presents a forum on the pros and cons of the emergent technology of Battery Energy Storage Systems tomorrow, Tuesday, Aug 6 at 7 p.m. in the Peconic Landing Auditorium at 1500 Brecknock Road in Greenport.

Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that tomorrow evening’s presentation will address the good, the bad, and the ugly of BESS featuring NFEC experts on the topic.

The event is FREE.

North Fork Environmental Council

631.298.4649

office@nfec1.org

It's called the Spotted lanternfly. Keep an eye out for this bug. And if you see it, take pictures, kill it, collect it and report it. This invasive species poses a serious threat to North Fork vineyards and the local economy. That’s the word from the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets, which is tracking populations of the spotted lanternfly across the state and in particular on the North Fork of Long Island, because the insect poses a serious threat to vineyards. It’s important to raise public awareness about the threat of this insect and what people who see them should do, Kareem Massoud, winemaker at Paumanok Vineyards in Aquebogue told Denise Civiletti of Riverheadlocal.com this past Friday. Grapevines are among the insects’ favorite plants to feed on and a spotted lanternfly infestation in a vineyard can do serious damage to the vines, including defoliation, dieback, loss of crop yield and even plant death. An infestation is what vineyard owners are most worried about. When there’s an infestation, the vine is just crawling with them, Massoud said. While there have been documented sightings on the North Fork this season, the good news is that there have been no known infestations at local vineyards, he said. Vineyard managers have been setting out traps for the insects and so far, Massoud said, the traps in his vineyards have not captured any and he has not heard of other local vineyards finding or trapping them. The Massoud family owns Paumanok Vineyards and Palmer Vineyards, both based in Aquebogue. “We’re bracing ourselves,” Massoud said. The spotted lanternfly is an invasive species native to China, thought to have arrived in the U.S. in 2012 as egg masses on a shipment of stone, according to Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. It has been in the U.S. for a little more than a decade. The first known infestation was in central Pennsylvania in 2014. The insects have been moving east and have established populations in western Suffolk. They were first detected on the East End in small numbers during the past two years.

As the developer of Empire Wind sets the stage for construction of a project 12 miles off Long Beach, in Nassau County, Long Island, officials and residents are keeping an eye on the aftermath of an offshore wind turbine blade break off the Massachusetts coast. Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that the blade mishap, in waters 12 miles from Nantucket Island, has left a debris field on popular beaches and led to a halt of turbine construction work for Vineyard Wind, the nation’s second project in federal waters, which already had begun producing energy.

Turbine manufacturer GE Vernova blamed the problem on a "material deviation" at a Canadian factory that made blade components. The company said it would reinspect all blades in use.

Vineyard Wind, in a series of dispatches, said its workers were "on the beach monitoring for debris to assist in maintaining safe conditions for beachgoers and swimmers. Vineyard Wind is focused on assisting in the recovery of debris caused by GE Vernova’s damaged wind blade." A federal investigation is underway, and officials from Long Beach to Albany say they’re monitoring the event.

It comes as Equinor, the Norway-based energy conglomerate that is developing Empire Wind, has begun work on its project off Long Beach that will bring power to New York City.

Equinor spokesman David Schoetz said the company is monitoring the Vineyard Wind investigation "for any lessons," but is not changing "any elements of our offshore construction" as a result.

New York State, meanwhile, is also monitoring the investigation of the blade break, but has not changed course with new rules or procedures for state-contracted projects. New York has among the most aggressive offshore wind programs in the country, with about 9,000 megawatts expected over the next decade.

A "failure of leadership" to fortify computer networks and plan for the Sept. 8, 2022, ransomware attack magnified the impact of one of the nation’s longest and most costly cyber intrusions, according to a long-awaited report by a special committee of the Suffolk County Legislature.

Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that the bipartisan report, nearly two years in the making, catalogs a long list of technological deficiencies, ignored warnings and missed opportunities to detect and correct myriad problems, including an FBI alert directed to the county while the attack was underway.

The attack shut down Suffolk County's main website for more than five months, shut down county email and phone systems and affected 911, payment and traffic-agency systems.

The Town of East Hampton is in the process of adopting a Renewable Energy Roadmap to continue its work toward reaching its goal for the past decade of freeing the town from the use of fossil fuels.

In 2014, East Hampton set a goal to power the entire community’s electric consumption with renewable energy by 2020, and to have all of its other energy needs like heating and transportation met with renewable energy by 2030. Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that the town “didn’t quite make the goals,” East Hampton Energy Sustainability Committee member Lena Tabori told the town board at a July 18 hearing on the Renewable Energy Roadmap, but “it drove us to realize we needed a roadmap from outside the community that took a look at what the needs of the community were. The goal was to make the 2030 goals more realistic and more possible.”

The town declared a Climate Emergency in 2021, a resolution declaring that it would make all its decisions through the lens of the impact on the climate, update its Climate Action Plan, first drafted in 2015, and educate and engage the community in the effort.

The Renewable Energy Roadmap, commissioned by the Town of East Hampton in 2022, was completed by GDS Associates, Inc. Engineers & Consultants in 2023.

It included an assessment of the town’s current greenhouse gas emissions and the best ways forward for reducing those energy needs and transitioning them to renewable sources.

“I have a terrible fear that, with the growing consequences of climate change, we’re going to spend more of our capital adapting and overcoming the consequences rather than mitigating to prevent future consequences,” said Ms. Tabori. “This particular roadmap addresses that very specifically. Change is not convenient, but we are a coastal community and are extremely susceptible to the changes climate change is going to bring us.”

A second public hearing on East Hampton Town's Renewable Energy Roadmap is expected shortly.

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The clubhouse, a traditional social hub in housing complexes, would have exam rooms. Senior apartments would be equipped with technology for telehealth visits and monitors to check for vitals, like blood pressure and heart rates. A shuttle will bus residents to nearby medical centers.

Northwell Health is pitching a senior and workforce housing development on 44 acres in Eastport to bring health care services to the town's aging population.

The concept serves a dual purpose by creating affordable housing for Northwell staff and units specifically designed to meet the needs of seniors, according to the health group. Joe Werkmeister reports in NEWSDAY that the proposal is a first-of-its-kind project for Northwell, the state's largest health care provider, and would address a critical need for affordable housing on the East End, developers said.

Andrew Mitchell, former president and CEO of Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead — a Northwell hospital — is leading the project as a consultant. He pitched Southampton town board members on the plan at their July 25 meeting. About 217 units would be designated for senior housing, with another 60 for health care employees and others. The shuttle would be available to bus residents to Northwell’s Manorville complex, where the Northwell Health Grossman Imaging at Manorville and other facilities are located.

Growing the supply of affordable housing for seniors has been a top focus for town officials.

About 23% of Southampton Town's population is 65 or older, compared with Suffolk County, where 18.2% of residents are 65 or older, according to U.S. census data.

Riverhead’s controversial emergency order, originally intended to stop migrants and asylum seekers from being relocated to the town, will be renewed indefinitely, Supervisor Tim Hubbard told RiverheadLOCAL recently. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Hubbard, who has continued to renew the emergency order first issued by former Supervisor Yvette Aguiar in May 2023, said on July 18 that he would stop the emergency “when they stop shipping migrants up north towards New York City and there’s just even a remote possibility that they would be brought here.” “I don’t know that there’s a statistical point” when the order would end, Hubbard said. There is still the “threat” of people who need housing in border states coming to the town, he said. “There’s going to have to be a much stronger stance on the border crossing than there is now,” he said. Hubbard said he “would like to see it go back to the norm of, if you come into this country the proper way. Period. Just like many, many, many immigrants have done. Legally. Through the proper channels.” It’s been almost 15 months since Aguiar declared the emergency, claiming on May 16, 2023 that “well over 1,000” migrants were imminently being bused to Riverhead by New York City. Former Riverhead Police Chief David Hegermiller told RiverheadLOCAL he had “no credible knowledge” supporting rumors of migrants being bused to the town.

The Southold Town Board and Greenport Village Board remained at an impasse over the best way to spend Community Preservation Fund money after a testy two-and-a-half hour joint work session this past Tuesday. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that for the past 25 years, each of the five East End towns has been collecting money in a dedicated fund for environmental preservation, paid for through a 2 percent transfer tax on real estate transactions. Initially the program enabled the towns to use the funds primarily for land preservation, but those uses have expanded over the years to include water quality and historic projects. Greenport residents and representatives initially came to the Southold Town Board’s July 16 meeting asking that a portion of Southold Town’s CPF money be used within Greenport Village boundaries — the village is within Southold Town and CPF money from real estate transfers there goes to Southold. Though the town has preserved about 345 acres surrounding Greenport Village, it has not used the money in the village, which is one square mile and mostly built out.

At the July 30 work session, village representatives pointed out their aging sewer infrastructure and drainage and flooding issues.

But Southold Town staff members who work on land preservation and water quality projects gave presentations arguing that preserving land — particularly farmland — continues to be a priority of the town CPF program, and the town has been using other sources of money for water quality projects. Southold Land Preservation Coordinator Lillian McCullough gave an overview of how the village can be involved in the future with adding potential projects to the CPF project plan, which is due for an update. Members of both boards agreed to work together on this issue, and Southold board members agreed to attend an upcoming work session in Greenport Village to continue the discussion. CPF funds in the five East End towns are enabled by New York State law that gives rigorous guidelines for how preservation projects are considered, and requires the plan be updated every five years.

Southampton Town Police have issued traffic advisories for extensive delays expected late this afternoon and evening, in anticipation of a fundraising visit to the South Fork by former President Donald J. Trump. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that police say motorists should expect “rolling road closures” between Westhampton and Bridgehampton on Friday afternoon and evening…asking motorists to avoid traveling local roads if possible. “There will be extensive rolling road closures and heavy gridlock throughout the afternoon and evening hours in the areas of Westhampton, Hampton Bays, Southampton, Shinnecock Hills, North Sea, Water Mill and Bridgehampton,” police said. “Please avoid the area and make alternate route plans.” Former President Trump is expected to attend a fundraiser party in Bridgehampton hosted by Howard Lutnick, the CEO of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald. Bloomberg News reported this week that attendees are contributing as much as $500,000 to the former president’s election campaign to attend this evening’s event. Trump last visited the east end in 2020 when he was raising money for his reelection campaign. On that visit, he flew into Gabreski Airport on Air Force One then flew by helicopter to Southampton and traveled by motorcade to two fundraiser parties, one in Southampton Village and one in Bridgehampton.

The Sag Harbor Community Band will perform Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, accompanied by 3rd NY Regiment Musketeers, this coming Tuesday, August 6, from 8 to 9 p.m. in Marine Park in Sag Harbor as part of its 66th summer season. The 1812 Overture tells the story of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, and Russia’s eventual victory over the French invaders. Tchaikovsky composed the musical story through a masterful mix of recurring themes and melodies that are punctuated with cannon fire. To mimic the sound of the 5-inch cannons in the piece, musical director David Brandenburg has brought in the 3rd NY Regiment Musketeers, to play the “cannon” part of the 1812 Overture, as they have the past 10 years. Admission is free, and donations are accepted. Audience members are encouraged to bring a blanket or chair to sit on.

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A taxi driver died and a passenger remained in serious but stable condition after a Long Island Rail Road train struck the cab at a grade crossing in Manorville yesterday, MTA police said.

John Valenti and Nicholas Grasso report in NEWSDAY that according to Metropolitan Transportation Authority police, Daniel Seagren, 49, of Ronkonkoma, was driving an East End Transportation taxi northbound on Wading River Road in Manorville around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday. Following a preliminary investigation, police said Seagren drove the taxi around the crossing gates while they were in the down position with lights flashing and bells sounding. A spokesperson for the MTA police said the taxi "appeared to have stopped on the tracks" and was subsequently struck by the eastbound LIRR train destined for Greenport.

Seagren and the taxi's passenger, who MTA police did not immediately identify, were inside the vehicle, which authorities said sustained major damage.

Seagren was extricated by ambulance to Peconic Bay Medical Center. He was pronounced dead last night, the MTA said.

The taxi's passenger, who Second Assistant Manorville Fire Chief Chris Steel said was in the back seat of the vehicle after he arrived on the scene Tuesday afternoon, was airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital. MTA police said he is in serious but stable condition.

Steel said he and other first responders arrived on the scene just after 12:30 p.m. He said he spoke to the train's conductor, who confirmed the 46 people on board had not sustained any injuries. The chief said a heavy rescue crew cut the roof and doors off the vehicle to extricate its occupants. EMTs then tended to the driver and passenger.

An LIRR spokeswoman said the train involved in the crash "proceeded east to Riverhead with passengers at approximately 2:15 p.m. The train terminated at Riverhead, and any passengers looking for service to Greenport were accommodated by substitute bus service."

As of last night, the Ronkonkoma branch of the LIRR was on or close to normal schedule. Earlier the branch had been suspended and bus service was substituted, the LIRR said.

The investigation is ongoing, the MTA said.

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand announced her push for federal funding to research tick-borne illnesses during a visit to the Quogue Wildlife Refuge on Monday afternoon.Dan Stark reports on 27east.com that the funding that Gillibrand is calling for in next year’s government funding bill would allocate an additional $200 million to fight tick-borne illnesses, specifically Lyme disease. This includes $30 million to the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a national strategy on tick-borne diseases, $30 million to the CDC for Lyme disease research, $9 million to the Department of Defense’s Tick-Borne Disease Research Program and $130 million to the National Institutes of Health for tick-borne disease research. Gillibrand said that addressing tick-borne illnesses is “a life-and-death issue,” specifically in New York and on Long Island, which have some of the highest rates of tick-borne illnesses in the country. She noted that this is particularly an issue during the summer. Senator Gillibrand also said that tick-borne diseases pose a particular threat to service members and their families, as “the vast majority of military bases are located in states where exposure to ticks and the diseases they carry is especially high,” which can pose a national security risk. The senator said that despite the increasing risk of tick-borne illnesses due to various factors, federal funding hasn’t increased enough to correspond with the risk. Gillibrand vowed to work with her congressional colleagues to secure the funding and “continue to prioritize this important reaching,” saying that “New Yorkers deserve the freedom to spend time outdoors without worrying about facing a debilitating or serious illness from a tick bite.”

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A memo released yesterday by the NYS Democratic Party outlining its effort to "reclaim the House majority" represents a goal state chair Jay Jacobs says he’s advocated for ever since he first took the role in 2009.

The idea of having the state party take an active role in federal and state contests other than gubernatorial races is nothing new. But Jacobs told Randi F. Marshall of NEWSDAY that it wasn’t something former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who first took office in 2011, ever supported. Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi, however, told Politico’s New York Playbook that under the former governor, the state party had indeed supported other races, including sinking $2 million into ads for State Senate races.

Jacobs said he talked with Kathy Hochul about the idea "within weeks" of her becoming governor after Cuomo resigned. And the party, Jacobs said, did open field offices and provide personnel, volunteers and money, for the 2022 races that followed.

That wasn’t enough at the time.

But Jacobs, also the Nassau County chair, said this is the first time in recent memory that the state party is playing a role in an election year that doesn’t involve a gubernatorial race at all.

The memo said the campaign will mount an effort worth more than $5 million, with more than 80 staff members on the ground by mid-August and 35 field offices opened. The memo said the focus will be to "protect our two swing-state Democratic incumbents and flip five Republican-held seats."

Twelve of those campaign offices will be on Long Island, including the east end’s 1st Congressional District , where Democrat John Avlon is running against Republican Rep. Nick LaLota

CD1 "is an uphill climb but doable, and under the right circumstances, we can win there," Jacobs said, noting it needed people, money and resources.

There is an Offshore Wind Open House at Rogers Memorial Library, 91 Coopers Farm Road, Southampton, NY 11968, on Wednesday, July 31, 2024 from 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. ET

Registration Encouraged , Walk-ins Welcome!

The Rogers Memorial Library invites you to join New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), New York State agencies, and offshore wind project developers to learn about the State’s work to responsibly develop offshore wind to advance the critical clean energy targets of New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. That's tomorrow from 12 noon to 2pm at Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton.

Then the day after, on Thursday, August 1st, there is an Offshore Wind Open House & Union Apprenticeship Awareness Day at Stony Brook University Research & Development Park Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology (CEWIT) 1500 Stony Brook Road, Stony Brook, NY 11794

New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), in collaboration with Stony Brook University’s Economic Development team, will convene offshore wind developers and workforce partners to create an interactive environment and facilitate dialogue about offshore wind development in New York State. Attendees will have the opportunity to speak directly with representatives from Long Island labor unions and company representatives about future careers in this industry.

Also, local high school students from neighboring communities will be attending Thursday to meet with potential employers and learn about apprenticeships in the offshore wind industry. The public is invited to this free event with lunch being served.

Registration is encouraged but not required.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and Stony Brook University’s Economic Development Team presentation is this coming Thursday, August 1, 2024 from 11:00 am - 2:00 pm

WHERE: Stony Brook University Research & Development Park Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology (CEWIT) 1500 Stony Brook Road, Stony Brook, NY 11794

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A recent surge in deadly motorcycle crashes on Long Island after a statewide increase last year in such fatalities is putting a spotlight on the issue, including among motorcycle riders who are concerned about their safety. Lorena Mongelli reports in NEWSDAY that motorcycle crashes in May and June claimed at least 12 lives across Long Island, surpassing last year's death toll of at least six people during the same months, according to a Newsday analysis.

Chris Beckhans, president of the nonprofit Long Island ABATE, which stands for American Bikers for Awareness, Training and Education, said the statistics speak volumes about the increasing dangers riders face in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

Distracted driving, he said, is becoming more problematic, both on the part of car and motorcycle operators. Another big threat occurs at intersections, where cars making left turns fail to adequately judge the speed or distance of motorcycles or just don't see them at all, according to Beckhans.

Details of the crashes authorities released showed that of the 12 motorcyclists who recently died in local crashes, six were 30 and under. Two were in their 30s and four were in their 40s.

Police said factors linked to the crashes included loss of control, speeding and cars turning left.

Preliminary statistics show 193 people died in motorcycles crashes in New York in 2023, a nearly 12% jump from 2022, and a 45% increase compared to four years earlier.

Southampton Town is working this summer to roll out down payment and accessory dwelling unit assistance programs funded through its new Community Housing Fund, a new dedicated supply of money generated through a ½ percent real estate transfer tax, which had collected more than $12 million by April of this year. Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that East Hampton Town rolled out similar programs this spring, and the conversation there this summer turns to whether to allow increased density in exchange for the construction of senior affordable housing and employer-owned housing.

The Town of Southampton is also considering the purchase of several properties in Tuckahoe to be used to build affordable homes, and purchasing a covenant on an affordable apartment building in Sag Harbor to ensure the units remain affordable in perpetuity.

Public hearings on the Tuckahoe and Sag Harbor proposals will be held at the Southampton Town Board’s Tuesday, August 13 meeting at 1 p.m.

Southampton has allotted $1.25 million each to the down payment assistance and accessory dwelling unit (ADU) programs, and has contracted with the Community Development Corporation of Long Island, which already administers its state-funded Plus One ADU accessory dwelling unit grant program, to administer both programs.

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A Southold highway department employee alleges he endured racist taunts and was denied overtime and other opportunities, according to a civil rights lawsuit filed this month. Tara Smith reports in NEWSDAY that in the suit filed July 19 in Suffolk Supreme Court in Riverhead, Robert DeJesus, 44, of Cutchogue, alleges he was subjected to racial slurs and routinely denied overtime and passed over for promotions as the only Black employee in the department.

The suit names the Southold Town highway department, former deputy highway superintendent Roger Tabor and foreman Donald Sayre as defendants.

The suit alleges Tabor and Sayre violated state Human Rights Law and “denied [DeJesus] opportunities and advantageous privileges of employment that were afforded to white employees within his crew.”

DeJesus reported to Sayre. Tabor now is a heavy equipment operator for the department.

Town records show DeJesus was hired in 2014 as an automotive equipment operator in the highway department.

DeJesus is seeking unspecified monetary damages for emotional suffering, loss of career fulfillment, humiliation and court costs, according to the lawsuit.

At its annual organizational meeting earlier this month, the Sag Harbor Board of Education discussed staffing issues. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that Superintendent of Schools Jeff Nichols admitted that it has been a challenge for the district recently, saying that there has been a noticeable drop in both the number of applicants for open teaching positions and the quality of those applicants. “We’re being resourceful and trying different paths to make sure we hire the best people,” he said. When board member Alex Kriegsman asked why hiring had become an issue, Nichols said it was clear. “It’s the commute, and the cost of housing,” he said. It’s a problem that’s plaguing the entire East End and seems to get worse every year, without any clear solution for local school districts. “It’s not unusual for our employees who live one town west of Hampton Bays to take an hour and 45 minutes to get here in the morning, and at the end of the day,” he said. “So you have people spending three to three and a half hours a day in the car — and I think that’s a deterrent,” said the Sag Harbor Schools superintendent. The principals of Pierson Middle-High School and Sag Harbor Elementary School said they have lost employees because of the commute and the cost of housing. The problem of the commute and cost of housing isn’t just affecting the teaching positions. School Business Administrator Jennifer Buscemi said she’s had the experience of sending out hundreds of canvass letters in an attempt to hire civil service workers, and not receiving a single application. When she worked in other districts, she said they would receive “tons” of applicants. “It really just is the location,” she said.

Five years ago, New York adopted an ambitious climate plan to dramatically shift the state’s reliance on fossil fuels such as oil and gas toward renewable energy like wind and solar. But the transition has proven more challenging and slower than anticipated. Keshia Clukey reports in Newsday that Gov. Kathy Hochul and the agencies charged with implementing the climate plan this month said the state won’t meet its first goal: getting 70% of energy from renewable sources by 2030. It may take another three-to-five years, and Hochul said the state may need to rethink its plan. Currently nearly 29% of the state’s power comes from renewables. This comes at a time when New York’s power grid is demanding more and more energy as the state tries to become a national player in the semiconductor and artificial intelligence industries — both of which require massive amounts of energy. While there are no immediate repercussions if the state doesn't meet its climate goals, New Yorkers will continue to face the negative and expensive consequences of hurricanes, floods and extreme weather if climate change is left unaddressed, experts said. Environmental advocates say the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) report is a "call to action." "We’re certainly not ready to waive the white flag," said Julie Tighe, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters. "We have to keep moving forward and making progress on those," she told Newsday. Tighe said the state is ahead of schedule on its goal of 6,000 megawatts of distributed solar by 2025 and 10,000 megawatts by 2030. The state earlier this month announced the start of construction on the 924-megawatt Sunrise Wind project — the state’s largest offshore wind project located off the coast of Long Island. And earlier this year the first large-scale offshore wind farm, South Fork Wind, became operational, delivering power to Long Island and the Rockaways. The transition was never going to be a "smooth line, it was always going to be sort of big jumps," Tighe said.

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Starting this fall, the Riverhead school district will post armed school resource officers at its high school and middle school, the district has announced.

The district has not yet announced costs of the initiative, but a district spokesman, Ron Edelson, said 75% of the first-year expense would be carried by Riverhead Town, and the remainder by the district. Thereafter, half the total costs will be borne by the district.

Resource officers, or SROs as they are known, are typically regular police authorized to carry sidearms. A recent Newsday analysis found at least 20 districts in Nassau and Suffolk counties already employed armed guards in schools or planned to do so. John Hildebrand reports in NEWSDAY that not all armed personnel are police officers, however. Under Riverhead's plan, officers will be employees of the town police department, with one assigned to Riverhead High School, the other to Riverhead Middle School.

Officers will work both inside schools and outside on patrol, working five days a week. Along with duties related to security such as surveillance, Riverhead's SROs will instruct specialized classes in subjects such as crime prevention and drug and alcohol education, according to district representatives.

Cheryl Pedisich, the district's interim superintendent in a letter yesterday stated, "The SROs will enhance the safety and security at these two buildings, while also serving as helpful resources for our students and their families, providing educational opportunities, and enhancing the relationships of students and the community with law enforcement."

The Southampton Town Board this week extended a townwide moratorium on the construction of battery energy storage systems, or BESS facilities, for another six months, but seemed uninclined to grant an exemption to a proposed 100-megawatt facility that would be built off North Road in Hampton Bays, as a committee of town officials works on drafting new codes for where and how such facilities should be constructed. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the board heard a pitch on Tuesday night from lawyers for the group that has proposed the BESS facility in Hampton Bays that the project should never have been caught up in moratorium to start with, as it was on the verge of an approval vote by the town’s Planning Board after more than a year of review and should now be exempted to allow the application to proceed. “There is no basis for the applicant to remain in the moratorium — the project is too important to the Town of Southampton to remain on pause any longer,” attorney Keith Archer said — making a case that seemed to be a preamble to a legal challenge should the town not take his side. An engineer made the case that the designs of the proposed facility — 30 separate battery modules in individual enclosed steel “cabinets” — pose essentially no risk beyond the property lines of the 4.9-acre parcel nestled between the entrance and exit ramps to Sunrise Highway from North Road. Neighbors were not assuaged by the assurances, to say the least, and told the Southampton Town Board to stay the course in its ongoing effort to craft a new, better thought-out approach to siting BESS facilities than the one adopted into town code in 2021 that allowed the systems to be placed in residential zoning districts if granted a special exception permit by the Planning Board.

Long Island home prices reached new highs in the second quarter as intense competition for homes pushed buyers to spend more, according to a report released today. Jonathan LaMantia reports on Newsday.com that the median price among sales that closed from April to June was a record $670,000 on Long Island, excluding the East End, according to the report from real estate brokerage Douglas Elliman and appraisal firm Miller Samuel. That was nearly 12% higher than in the same quarter a year ago. The firms report data for the South Fork and North Fork separately from the rest of Nassau and Suffolk counties.

On the South Fork…aka The Hamptons...the median sale price reached a new high of just under $1.9 million, 30.8% higher than the same figure a year ago. The number of sales also jumped 74% to 451 during the quarter.

Meanwhile on the North Fork, prices slipped slightly. The median deal sold for $963,000, 1.7% lower than in the previous year, as the number of listings jumped 49% at the end of June to its highest level since 2020.

The continued shortage of listings led to frequent bidding wars for homes. About 57% of homes on Long Island, excluding the East End, sold for more than sellers’ asking prices, which was just shy of the record of 59% set two years ago.

At the end of June, there were fewer than half as many available properties as there were in the same month five years ago, said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel.

The second quarter did offer one brighter milestone for buyers. It was the first time in five quarters in which there were more houses on the market than the year before.

However, It could take three to five years for the number of listings on Long Island to return to pre-pandemic levels.

"The idea of a significant improvement in affordability for homebuyers in any scenario I can think of over the next year or two seems remote, unfortunately," according to the Miller Samuel CEO.

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A Riverhead man who admitted selling fentanyl-laced cocaine that killed four people on the North Fork and Shelter Island on the same day in 2021 was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison yesterday as some of the anguished victims’ families called for a tougher punishment. Nicole Fuller reports in NEWSDAY that Marquis Douglas, 39, pleaded guilty last year in connection with the opioid deaths of Swainson Brown, of Shelter Island; Matthew LaPiana, of East Marion; Seth Tramontana, of Greenport, and Navid Ahmadzadeh, of Southold — all of whom died after consuming a fentanyl analog on Aug. 13, 2021.

"It's an outrage that so many people in our small town of Greenport had to die," said Patricia LaPiana, the mother of Matthew LaPiana, as she addressed the Central Islip courtroom Tuesday.

She described how her husband found their son "lifeless and cold" in his bed and was "unable to revive him."

Tears fell as she and other family members spoke, remembering their loved ones.

U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert sentenced Douglas to 25 years in prison and 5 years of supervised release — a term recommended by the prosecution and defense as part of a plea agreement.

The judge added: "He might be out in 20 years with good behavior."

Prosecutors said the four victims died after ingesting cocaine laced with a fentanyl analog that had been distributed by Douglas and ultimately sold to the victims by a street-level dealer in Greenport. When Douglas was arrested in May 2022, he had 105 grams of fentanyl and 135 grams of cocaine.

Beverly Samuels, the mother of Brown, said she was "really disappointed" Douglas' sentence wasn't longer. She thought Douglas would receive 25 years for each victim, she said.

"There's so much hurt and anger," Samuels, 62, said. "Four people died, four young people. I have to go to the grave all the time to talk to my son."

Strong’s Marine has submitted a revised site plan for its proposed yacht storage buildings on Mattituck Inlet, scaling back the proposal to one 65,100-square-foot building designed to accommodate 56 yachts. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the applicants say the project will also reduce the amount of sand removed from the site by 48 percent. The original proposal, first submitted in 2018, called for two roughly 50,000-square-foot buildings that would accommodate 88 yachts averaging 60 feet in length. It would also have called for the removal of 135,000 cubic yards of sand from the site.

The project’s scale has galvanized environmentalists on the North Fork for half a dozen years. The Southold Town Planning Board had tabled a resolution denying the project, and a findings statement that highlighted numerous environmental impacts that could not be mitigated, at its July 8 meeting, in anticipation of receiving the revised site plan. The Southold Town Planning Board, which originally adjourned voting on a denial resolution to its Aug. 5 meeting in anticipation of the new plan, could now direct the applicant to prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the project, as Southold Town Planning Director Heather Lanza told the Suffolk County Planning Commission at its June 20 meeting disapproving the application. Ms. Lanza said yesterday that the Planning Department will likely have more information on the Planning Board’s course of action by the middle of next week.

As the southern pine beetle continues to infest and kill pine trees in East Hampton Town, a new vector is now killing beech trees, albeit more slowly and on a smaller scale. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that Mark Abramson, the assistant environmental protection director in the town’s Natural Resources Department, and Andy Drake, a senior environmental analyst in the Land Acquisition and Management Department, told the Town Board last week that areas of East Hampton and Amagansett, where the highest density of beech trees is found, as well as in Montauk, are seeing “a majority of all the beech trees” affected. A nematode subspecies called Litylenchus crenatae mccannii, or Lcm, is believed to be the cause, affecting leaves and eventually killing the trees “because they cannot photosynthesize and get nutrients,” Abramson said. Lcm invades beech tree buds from June to October, when they feed and overwinter. They are likely to be dispersed by birds and insects. Infected leaves will display dark veins and may curl and turn brown. In severe cases, buds are killed, and no new leaves or shoots are produced. Beech leaf disease is mostly found on East Hampton Town’s nature preserve properties, Drake said, where it is affecting most of the European and American beech trees. This, he said, “is the first instance anywhere where a nematode is causing tree mortality. So for that reason, there’s not a lot known about this.” Studies are underway, he said, “but there’s not enough data at this time to really know what a successful treatment or management might look like. … Unfortunately, large-scale management of our public lands is probably not yet feasible for that same reason — we just don’t know enough about it.” Beech leaf disease, Drake said, is killing around 90 percent of affected trees. But at smaller stands, trees may be saved or their lives prolonged through management.

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New York delegates to the Democratic National Convention yesterday unanimously approved an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris to replace President Joe Biden at the top of the party's ticket for the November election, the New York State Democratic Party said. Tom Brune reports in NEWSDAY that New York’s backing of Harris came as she appears to have won support in California and across the country of more than the 1,967 Democratic delegates needed to clinch the nomination for president, according to a count by The Associated Press.

“Tonight the New York State Delegation to the Democratic Convention endorsed Kamala Harris to be our Party’s nominee,” Jay Jacobs, the state Democratic chair, said in a statement to Newsday describing a Monday evening Zoom meeting.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, state Attorney General Letitia James, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and others “made the case for her candidacy,” said Jacobs, who also is Nassau County Democratic chair. “And on a voice vote, the Committee enthusiastically endorsed Harris for President,” said Jacobs, who on Sunday joined all of the other state Democratic chairpersons in support of Harris.

“We're going to finish the job Joe Biden started and send Trump packing in November,” the New York State Democratic Party posted on the social media site X.

Harris has solid support in New York, which will send 307 delegates to the convention. Nine of its 14 Democratic members of the U.S. House and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) have publicly endorsed or expressed support for Harris as the nominee.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn), who both serve as members of the Democratic National Committee leadership, have not endorsed anyone.

“[Harris] is rapidly picking up support from grassroots delegates from one end of the country to the other. We look forward to meeting in person with Vice President Harris shortly as we collectively work to unify the Democratic Party and the country,” Schumer and Jeffries said in a joint statement.

Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski extolled the town’s work going back decades to preserve the town’s rural character in his first State of the Town address last Thursday.

“When people who are unfamiliar with Southold visit, it’s not readily apparent why our town is the way it is. We have a lot of open space, both woodland and farmland, beaches open for swimming, and times of year when you can safely make a left hand turn,” said Supervisor Krupski in a speech at town hall before a crowd of civic leaders and town department heads. “We have clearly defined hamlet centers, not suburban sprawl. Our visitors always note the relative absence of big box stores and sprawled-out formula food franchises. All of this happened here very intentionally. Our town isn’t different from the rest of the towns by accident.”

Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that although Mr. Krupski is new to the Town Supervisor role, he has served in Southold Town and Suffolk County government since 1986. Krupski promised to continue the Town of Southold’s work to preserve its rural nature through a zoning update project that is currently underway, and with changes to the town’s limits on short-term rentals expected to be proposed by a working group. Recommendations from volunteer committees working on both issues are expected later this summer.

Al Krupski and his wife Mary and family run Krupski Farms in Peconic.

Presidential campaign issues largely won’t change much, but a new face could give Democrats a chance to bridge an enthusiasm gap with some of the party’s key voter groups — women, African Americans and young people, as well as swing voters — that developed under President Joe Biden, pollsters said yesterday.

"There was weakening among young voters for Biden. There was a weakening among Black voters and there was some weakening among women," Siena College pollster Don Levy said. A new candidate "will have a chance to speak to those groups." Yancey Roy reports in NEWSDAY that it’s all still under the heading of "maybe" and "potentially" as the Democrats try to sort out their new ticket and hold their convention.

Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take on Republican nominee Donald Trump, and many Democrat leaders have coalesced behind her…including New York State delegates to the Democratic National Convention who yesterday unanimously approved an endorsement of Vice President Harris to replace President Biden at the top of the party's ticket for the November election.

Marist College pollster Lee Miringoff struck a similar chord about closing the enthusiasm gap among Democratic voters.

T"You have a huge reset going on," he said. Among the changes, Biden’s withdrawal means "Donald Trump is now the old guy in the race."

As Harris emerges as the nominee, Miringoff said: "The issues all remain. But when you move from vice president to presidential candidate, you can choose what part of the Biden record is yours and which parts you want to disinherit."

Any polls about Harris as vice president before this week aren’t worth much because becoming the actual presidential candidate changes the whole dynamic, analysts said.

Miringoff said: "Republicans can say she’s part of a failed Biden administration. But it’s all different now because Democrats are energized."

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New York Democrats clearly believe they will get a bounce from President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek reelection, saying Sunday that a new ticket will reverse what had been a "palpable" lack of excitement. Striking a similar note, a veteran Republican strategist said GOP candidates in New York view Biden’s decision as "not good news" for them — though the full impact hinges on the new Democratic ticket and unity. It might be one of the few times the parties agree these days. Yancey Roy reports in NEWSDAY that Biden announced yesterday he will end his campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, the former president. Some Democrats want a wide consideration of other potential candidates. For now, the 81-year-old Biden’s decision changes a national campaign in ways not seen since 1968 and shifts dynamics in New York, too. "I think that any of the people who are currently under consideration to be our nominee will do well in New York. I think one thing is for certain: Whoever the nominee is, this will excite and energize Democratic voters across the state," Jay Jacobs, the state and Nassau County Democratic chairman, said on Sunday. The stakes in New York are high, with 27 congressional seats and 213 state legislative districts up for grabs. Democratic control of the State Legislature isn’t expected to change, but their veto-proof "supermajorities" in both the Senate and Assembly could be on the line.

A majority of Democrats in Congress and nearly half of the country’s Democratic governors announced their support for Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the Democratic ticket in the hours after President Joe Biden stepped out of the race on Sunday.

As reported in THE NY POST, New York’s Democratic leaders quickly coalesced around Vice President Kamala Harris to be the party’s standard bearer for the White House, including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

However, there were a couple big exceptions to the calls to unite around Harris. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and N.Y.C. Mayor Eric Adams were both silent Sunday night about who should replace Biden.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, meanwhile, endorsed Harris just before nightfall Sunday — becoming one of the later New York Dems to throw her support behind the vice president. “As Democrats, our mission remains the same: doing everything in our power to defeat Donald Trump,” she said in a statement sent shortly before 8 p.m. yesterday. “When President Biden picked Kamala Harris to be his Vice President he unleashed incredible excitement for a new generation of political leadership. That same energy will carry us to November 5 with Vice President Harris leading our ticket.”

Long Island political leaders have publicly responded to President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from his re-election campaign, including candidates running for the East End’s First Congressional District. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that in a series of posts on the social media platform X, incumbent U.S. Congressman Nick LaLota, a Republican from Amityville, stated, “We should genuinely wish President Biden well. After 50 years of service, it’s good to see his family finally acknowledging his mental decline…President Biden’s obvious lack of mental acuity requires him to resign so America can have a Commander in Chief with basic cognitive abilities. Our national security is at risk, and the 25th Amendment must be considered if he does not step down.”

Standing outside Tweed’s restaurant in Riverhead yesterday shortly after President Biden’s announcement, the Democratic Party’s candidate in the 1st Congressional District race – John Avlon of Sag Harbor - responded on Instagram, “I don’t think this changes the stakes of this race. Joe Biden has been right about this from the beginning. The defining struggle of our time is democracy versus autocracy, and that struggle will continue as the torch is passed to a new generation,” said Mr. Avlon, whose statements did not go as far as endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. “I respect that President Biden has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris…I look forward to working with Democrats up and down the ballot here on Long Island to build a broad patriotic coalition to defend our democracy, rebuild the middle class and win in November.”

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Over the course of four days, in battleground Wisconsin, Republicans gathered for the GOP national convention seeking to project unity behind their presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump. Laura Figueroa Hernandez reports on Newsday.com that New Yorkers had several starring moments over the course of the convention.

Former Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin of Shirley, delivered a Wednesday night primetime address in support of Trump’s foreign policy.

Zeldin’s remarks were preceded by the Plainview parents of Omer Neutra, the Israeli soldier who continues to be held hostage by Hamas. Ronen and Omer Neutra vowed to continue fighting for their son’s return.

Rep. Elise Stefanik of upstate New York, the top New York House Republican who serves as House GOP Conference chair delivered a speech on Tuesday night praising Trump’s domestic agenda while vowing, “We the people will never give up on President Trump.”

Bob Bartels, the manager of the Steamfitters Local 638, which represents pipefitters working in New York City and Long Island, spoke about his decision to vote for Trump.

“Whenever I talk to President Trump, which is a lot, he always asks about New York and how his polling is doing in New York, and he’s a big believer that Republicans are making inroads in New York,” Congresswoman Stefanik told the state delegation at a Thursday reception. “He has been a believer that Republicans can get New York and I share that belief.”

A state plan to eliminate the need for students to pass Regents examinations to graduate could help Riverhead students and lead to higher graduation rates, according to Riverhead Central School District Interim Superintendent Cheryl Pedisich. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the proposed changes to the graduation requirements, which were outlined in a blue ribbon commission report to the New York State Board of Regents last month, would allow students to demonstrate their proficiency in a subject in different ways and sunset the standardized testing requirements for a diploma. The Board of Regents, which started studying a change to graduation requirements in 2019, are in the midst of creating a plan to implement the commission’s recommendations.

Pedisich said this week that the state’s changes could lead to better outcomes in the Riverhead Central School District, where the graduation rate was 82% in 2023 — below the state and Long Island averages

According to the blue ribbon commission report, a student can demonstrate their proficiency in a subject through passing an assessment or completing a capstone project, as well as participation in the arts, passing high school courses, completing certain career and technical education (CTE) programs, and earning college credits while in high school.

While the Regents exam requirements would sunset, state assessments would continue to be administered as a requirement of federal education law, which mandates standardized testing for certain subjects.

All are welcome to join Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Back to the Bays Initiative as they present “This is Seaweed” at Ashawagh Hall in Springs this weekend. The exhibition starts this evening with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Gallery hours this Saturday and Sunday are 10am – 4pm.

This weekend’s Ashawagh Hall event aims to bring awareness to the work being done by Cornell Cooperative Extension to help improve water quality through macroalgae harvest and aquaculture, and raise funds for their Back to the Bays Seaweed Initiative. The event will also showcase the current project CCE is working on in partnership with the Town of East Hampton to remove excess seaweed from Hog Creek in Springs, an effort being funded by the Town’s Community Preservation Fund.

To learn more about CCE’s Back to the Bays Seaweed Initiative, or contribute in support of these efforts please visit backtothebays.org.

A widespread Microsoft outage is disrupting flights, banks, media outlets and companies around the world today, including causing delays and cancellations at NYC airports.

Escalating disruptions continued hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services. Maureen Mullarkey reports on Newsday.com that the website DownDectector, which tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded growing outages in services at Visa, ADT security and Amazon, and airlines including American Airlines and Delta.

This morning, at least 60 departing flights out of JFK were delayed, and in addition to 12 cancelled flights, according to its flight tracker.

LaGuardia reported at least 27 delayed flights and 14 cancelled flights.

As of 7:30 a.m., 156 departing flights at Newark were listed as delayed while eight were cancelled for this morning.

Three early morning departing flights from Islip MacArthur Airport scheduled at 5 a.m., 5:25 a.m., and 5:50 a.m., were also delayed.

In a post on X, the MTA indicated that "some MTA customer information systems are temporarily offline" due to the worldwide technical outage" but its "train and bus service is unaffected."

A message on the MTA's TrainTime app alerted users that train arrival information would be unavailable, and warned customers may also have issues buying tickets with a saved card. Instead, they should use Google/Apple Pay or re-enter payment details and not select save.

Ticket machines were still working.

The MTA encouraged riders to listen for announcements in their station, on their train, or on their bus.

Both Suffolk and Nassau police confirmed that 911 operations were not affected by the outage.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said that the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.

For generations, Indigenous people have relied on the medicine wheel when it comes to living a healthy and balanced life.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the specifics of the medicine wheel can vary in different native communities around the country, but the general concept is the same: a belief in the circular, interconnected nature of the mental, physical, spiritual and emotional aspects of life, and the way they form a holistic picture of an individual’s health and well-being. Dyashwa Sylvester is a member of the Shinnecock Nation and the head of the tribe’s chapter of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Sylvester and several other members of the Shinnecock Nation will share the knowledge and values represented by the medicine wheel with the greater East End community this weekend when they host the Shinnecock Indigenous Whole-listic Health Expo and Fundraiser on Saturday, July 20, on the Shinnecock Territory. Tomorrow's event will be a full day of fun and information, for people of all ages, with participation from both Shinnecock Nation organizations and outside groups, meant to help people live healthier, more complete lives and embrace overall wellness.

ReWild Long Island will be at Golden Acres Organic Farm in Riverhead on Saturday, July 20 at 9 a.m. for a program about the many ways North Forkers are composting to keep food scraps out of the landfill and instead enrich our soils.

Guest speakers include Samantha Jo, ReWild’s Gardens Project Manager, Master Composter and Vermiculturist.

Family activities include: Show and Tell with worms, seed ball making, and family farm tour. Tomorrow morning’s event is free and open to the public.

ReWild Long Island Presents Let’s All Compost! at Golden Acres Farm, 652 Peconic Bay Blvd., Riverhead, NY 11901 tomorrow from 9:00 am – 10:30 am.

A new zoning concept introduced at Tuesday's East Hampton Town Board work session would allow local businesses to house their workers in a multiunit development, with the employers owning the units and renting them to the employees. Kirby Marcantonio, the publisher of Montauk Life and Hamptons Life magazines, and a group of investors own the former Stern’s department store property at 350 Pantigo Road in East Hampton, one of two vacant sites in an affordable housing overlay district within the town. There, he hopes to build 48 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the concept is privately developed housing that would be sold to qualified employers based on a minimum number of people they employ in the town, perhaps four or six. Employers would provide the housing to their employees as part of their compensation package, alleviating the daily “trade parade” traffic and, it is hoped, fostering staffing for essential workers like doctors, teachers, and police officers, among others. In what he described as a preliminary discussion, Eric Schantz, director of the town’s Office of Housing and Community Development, told the board that existing affordable housing is mostly a result of public-only or public-private partnerships, with few existing units funded and built privately. Private sector-created affordable housing would complement traditional affordable housing developments, he said. East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said that she supports the proposal conceptually but stated that “we need guardrails...The trade parade is starting earlier and earlier,” she said. “I think this is something we need to pursue.” Schantz said that he will meet with the Planning Board and East Hampton Town attorneys and “process their concerns, prepare an evaluation and report with options and ideas.”

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Political experts and Long Island voters appeared divided yesterday about whether unity is possible amid a turbulent political climate, a day after President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump urged Americans to find common ground in the aftermath of an attempt on Trump's life at a Pennsylvania rally. Michael Dawidziak, a Bohemia political consultant who works predominantly with Republicans, told Newsday on Monday that "People have been pleading with the political discourse propagators to 'listen to our better angels,' as Lincoln put it, for a while now, and it hasn't happened yet. Could an incident like this maybe finally wake them up and say, 'This has gone too far?' Yeah, hopefully."

But the veteran analyst warned change is unlikely to happen overnight, particularly in an election season.

"I do think things can change," said Dawidziak, adding that a growing number of Americans define themselves as politically independent. "And if our republic is to survive it will change. I'm just not sure it's happening this quickly."

Hank Sheinkopf, an independent political analyst, told Newsday yesterday that efforts to change the political tone will not only be fruitless, but could pose problems for Democrats. "In a presidential election year — when political parties are in battle for the world’s biggest prize, the call for political unity is meaningless. Politics is war. And war is not unity," said Sheinkopf, who has consulted for Democrats. "Calls to tone down nasty rhetoric will force the Democrats into a new quandary: How do you attack the man nearly murdered by an assassin without damaging and destroying your campaign? And today there is no clear answer."

Former President Donald Trump named freshman Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his vice presidential running mate yesterday.

Ending weeks of speculation, Trump announced Vance, 39, as his pick on the first day of the Republican National Convention.

Laura Figueroa Hernandez reports in NEWSDAY that New York’s Republican delegation at the convention celebrated Vance’s selection, saying the 39-year-old, who will turn 40 next month, brings youth and vigor to the ticket as Trump continues to run a statistically tight race with Democratic President Joe Biden, 81, and Vice President Kamala Harris, 59.

NYS GOP chairman Ed Cox, speaking from the convention floor, told Newsday he believed Vance, a father of three young children, is a known commodity to voters, citing his book and frequent appearances on the Sunday morning political talk show circuit.

“He’s brilliant,” Cox said. “His background as described in 'Hillbilly Elegy,' his brilliant defense of Donald Trump on the Sunday news shows; it’s a terrific choice.”

Before Vance’s selection, New York Republican leaders sought to project a united front, saying the recent assassination attempt against Trump would ultimately galvanize support behind the party’s nominee.

Suffolk GOP chairman Jesse Garcia told Newsday that he hoped Saturday’s failed assassination attempt would make both parties realize there needs to be a positive discourse.

"Almost directly after this incident one of the first words Trump said was ‘America unite’ . . . I think that’s the direction we need to move in," Garcia said.

Winters Bros. Waste Systems, Long Island’s largest independent hauler of garbage, was purchased by industry behemoth WM, formerly called Waste Management, yesterday for an undisclosed amount, both companies announced. James T. Madore reports in NEWSDAY that Winters Bros., based in West Babylon, dates to the 1950s and specializes in solid waste removal and recycling on Long Island and in New York City. It has about 525 employees and serves homeowners, businesses and governments.

WM, based in Houston, is a publicly-traded company with 48,000 employees in the United States, Canada and India. The company operates 263 landfills, 332 transfer stations and 102 recycling facilities in North America, according to a securities filing.

Winters Bros. acquired Emil Norsic & Son a couple years ago. The Norsic family had owned and operated the Southampton garbage collection company since 1932.

By the time Gov. Kathy Hochul made the abrupt decision to cancel congestion pricing in New York City last month, transit leaders had already allocated more than a half a billion dollars to get the long-awaited tolling program off the ground. Ana Ley reports in THE NY TIMES that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority entered into a $556 million contract for cameras, software and other tools that would have been used to detect vehicles entering the planned tolling zone south of 60th Street in Manhattan.

The true amount spent by the M.T.A. to implement the program is almost certainly higher. The city’s Independent Budget Office said the resources devoted to the long-delayed endeavor over the course of decades were “unquantifiable.” But Rachael Fauss, the senior research analyst for Reinvent Albany, a watchdog group, said the amount is likely to be close to $1 billion, given the amount of staff time that was dedicated to planning.

With the program indefinitely suspended, that money is, at least for the moment, wasted.

Congestion pricing was designed to rein in traffic and pollution while improving travel speeds in some of the world’s most crowded streets. The money raised from the first-in-the-nation program would have generated $1 billion annually for the M.T.A., which would have used it to pay for critical upgrades and improvements to the city’s transit network.

The M.T.A. had planned to start charging the tolls on June 30, but Ms. Hochul announced less than a month before the program was set to begin that she had changed her mind.

Ms. Hochul, who said that the planned tolls were too high — most drivers would have been charged $15 to enter the Manhattan tolling zone during peak hours — has insisted that she is only temporarily pausing the program. She has not committed to a new start date.

A Siena College survey in April found that most New York City residents were against congestion pricing, with 64 percent opposed and 33 percent in favor, and that suburban respondents disliked it even more.

Considering the feverish state of political tensions in the country - the United States AND the former president BOTH narrowly survived a gunman’s bullet on Saturday evening, according to an esteemed security expert.

In a Boston Herald interview on Sunday, former New York City and Boston Police Commissioner and L.A.P.D. Chief Bill Bratton spoke about the apparent attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

“There was a significant security failure at this event. Mr. Trump and the country both dodged a fatal bullet. If, God forbid, he had been killed, there would have been absolute chaos,” said Bratton who currently serves as Co-Chair for the Secretary of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council.

“I think it’s becoming very clear that security for this event was deficient. The fact there was a near-successful attempt on the former president’s life, it’s going to raise all kinds of questions going forward,” he said.

In the meantime, there is going to be a “fog of confusion” surrounding Saturday’s shooting, which will only be resolved through the course of an investigation according to Bratton who is a long-time resident of Hampton Bays.

“The first story is never the last story.”

Even the best laid security plans are fallible, Bratton said, and the Secret Service deserves praise for how quickly they neutralized the danger to the former President, but they’ll still need to answer for their preparations leading up to the event.

“It was a great response after the fact — but how did it get to the fact?” Bratton asks.

North Shore University Hospital and NYU Langone-Long Island landed on a list of the top hospitals in the country for the second consecutive year. Sarina Trangle reports in NEWSDAY that several Long Island institutions were highlighted in the annual hospital rankings released today by U.S. News & World Report, a publication that specializes in rankings and consumer advice. The outlet named the Manhasset and Mineola hospitals on its "honor roll" of 20 top institutions nationwide. Long Island hospitals made up more than 30% of the roughly 30 best facilities in New York State, according to U.S. News & World Report.

Hospitals — and their marketing teams — are quick to highlight the data behind these designations. U.S. News & World Report compiles its lists by assessing inpatient and outpatient clinical outcomes, factoring in facility staffing and technology, and incorporating patient and physician surveys. Although the designation can be helpful for patients, experts say the research isn't as relevant for the average patient, who is considering their doctor's recommendations, insurance coverage and ability to travel.

Suffolk County officials yesterday announced the start of a multimillion dollar state and federal grant project that aims to restore wetlands at Scully Marsh in Islip, East Islip Preserve and Cupsogue Beach Marsh in Westhampton.

"This project serves to harden our coast by restoring the area to its natural conditions, protecting neighboring communities and safeguarding the area from erosion," said Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine, in announcing the grants Monday. Maureen Mullarkey reports in NEWSDAY that according to county officials, Suffolk received a grant totaling $1.29 million for phase one of the program through a FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant administered by the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services. Phase two funding, for $2.75 million, will come from the federal government. The entire project will cost $4.3 million.

The three marshlands are each listed as "high priority wetland sites" in Suffolk's coastal resiliency plan. Scully Marsh is 25 acres, East Islip Preserve is 35 acres and Cupsogue Beach Marsh is 80 acres.

"Past human interventions and weather have disrupted the area’s natural hydrology, decreasing the marsh’s natural ability to act as a buffer from flooding, " the county said in a release.

Enrico Nardone, executive director of the Seatuck Environmental Association, which operates the Scully Estate, said that Long Island marshes have been mistreated for centuries, contributing to habitat loss and impact after extreme weather.

"We used to think that it's just a waste," he said. "Now we recognize how important they are to the health of the bay."

Marshes act as a sponge to water and are a first line of defense against sea level rises and storm surges, Nardone said. They are also home to crustaceans, birds, and many other animals.

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Long Islanders, from elected leaders to everyday citizens, spent Sunday like millions of others nationwide: feeling outraged by an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, and condemning political violence and polarizing rhetoric.

As new information about Saturday's shooting continued to emerge our east end U.S. representative spoke with Newsday.

“[I hope] that we can go up from here, that we can understand each other better, and that we can focus more on policy disagreements, rather than people and personalities,” Republican 1st Congressional District Rep. Nick LaLota told Newsday yesterday. LaLota, of Amityville, said he was at dinner with family Saturday night when he received word of the assassination attempt, describing it as “troubling news to digest.”

He initially took to social media with sharp criticism of the “mainstream media” over its recent coverage of President Joe Biden's comment that it was time “to put Trump in the bull's-eye.”

Congressman LaLota on Sunday said it was time for something else: a “change in the rhetoric.”

"[It's] difficult news to deliver to young kids, that this is a part of American politics,” he said. “This is not normal. This should not be accepted. Every American, regardless of the party, Republican, Democrat, independent, should reject not only Saturday's events, but what got us here.”

Several Long Island and South Fork elected officials and candidates reacted swiftly to the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Saturday evening. John Avlon, the Democratic Party’s nominee to challenge incumbent Republican U.S. Congressman Nick LaLota, issued a statement on X. “Political violence is what we all must stand up against,” he posted on Saturday evening. “It has no place in our country.” Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine, a Republican, also issued a statement. “Hatred and acts of violence toward an elected official or candidate for office regardless of political affiliation have no place in this country,” he said. “As Americans, we stand united on the principles that make our country strong. While there are no reported threats in Suffolk County at this time, my office will continue to monitor the situation.”

Free sunscreen dispensers are available at beaches and parks in the Town of Southampton this summer.

Officials announced the plan at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Ponquogue Beach last Wednesday. Dan Stark on 27east.com reports that dispensers with SPF 30 sunscreen have been placed in 13 parks and beaches operated by the Southampton Town Parks and Recreation Department.

The dispensers will be available until Labor Day.

The dispensers are a collaboration between the town and Creative Advertising Concepts, an agency which first brought the idea to the town in 2019. For the past few years, the dispensers were sponsored by Stony Brook Southampton Hospital.

This year, the dispensers are being sponsored by UnionDerm, a dermatology clinic based in New York City that has an office in Water Mill, as a way to connect with the local community.

At the ribbon-cutting, Tatyana Petukhova, a dermatologist at UnionDerm, spoke of the importance of using sunscreen and taking other precautions like wearing hats and shirts with long sleeves to prevent skin cancer.

“SPF 30 is a broad spectrum [sunscreen] and you want to reapply it frequently at least every two hours,” said Petukhova. “So, hopefully, everybody will have a fun, sunburn-free summer, and we’re happy to service the Town of Southampton.”

The assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump on Saturday came amid harsh political rhetoric from the campaigns and supporters of both Trump and President Joe Biden, especially in social media posts, lawmakers and political strategists said yesterday.

The lawmakers and strategists who spoke to Newsday this weekend also warned that lowering the temperature of political discourse could be difficult because of the extreme and divisive language on social media posted by some individuals, politicians and advocacy groups.

“I think that all parties need to analyze their rhetoric on how they approach their own politics and focus more on policy, not on personalities,” U.S. Congressman Nick LaLota (R-Amityville)…who represents the east end…told Newsday in a phone interview. But that will not stop the divisive posts on social media, he said. “Facebook and Twitter are both sewers of people spewing their vitriol,” LaLota said. “They've made comparisons of Trump to Hitler. They had called him a fascist, because they essentially say the world will end if he has a second term. I think that sort of rhetoric and hyperbole has gotten us to where we are today.” Tom Brune reports on Newsday.com that Michael Dawidziak, a Long Island political consultant who mostly works with Republicans, said the Trump campaign already had begun to pull back on harsh rhetoric, for a very practical reason.

“The Republican base is already energized," Dawidziak said. “The smart play is to be a kinder, gentler Republican Party and start attracting those moderate swing voters who are going to make the difference."

Dawidziak also called the “echo chamber” of social media, television and radio catering to the left and right a “huge problem” that will be hard to address. “We have built a society where you can insulate yourself from the truth if you want to. You can live in your own echo chambers,” he said.

In the wake of the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump and with this year’s Republican National Convention beginning today, Tom Brune reports on Newsday.com that Steve Israel, a former Long Island Democratic congressman who serves on the Democrats’ platform committee for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign told Newsday, “Trump has fully consolidated. He's at his ceiling. Biden has not consolidated, which means that for Biden to win he's got to get those moderate independent persuadables, who are still making their judgments.”

“Trump can't do any more to fire up his base. He needs to lower the temperature to appeal to the moderates,” he said.

Asked what the shooting means to a Biden campaign that had focused on Trump, Israel said, "Welcome to the dozens of phone calls and texts I have received today asking that question."

The ex-congressman also said he expected a tightening of security.

“The plain fact is that all the security in the world cannot guarantee a candidate safety unless a candidate decides not to leave his or her home. And that makes democracy a casualty, right?” said Israel. “So, the best thing we can do is increase security, but also decrease the anger.”

The Democratic National Convention will begin in Chicago on Monday, August 19, 2024 and conclude on Thursday, August 22, 2024.

The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation is providing an opportunity for Long Island museums and historical societies to offer employment and receive assistance from students through the 2024 Gardiner Young Scholars Program. The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation created the Gardiner Young Scholars Program to bring youthful energy, skills and interest to local historic sites. The program enables applying historic organizations to engage students between the ages of 15 and 22 to assist them with daily operations. The program requires a selected Young Scholar to complete 100 hours of service and provides a stipend of $1,600 to be paid to the student. To apply for the program, organizations must submit a letter of request to: Gardiner Young Scholars, Terry Tirado, 30 West Main Street, Suite 309, Riverhead, N.Y. 11901. Letters of request must be received by July 31.

For more info visit the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation website at www.rdlgfoundation.org

Shortly after the shooting, Representative Nick LaLota, a Republican from Amityville who in January endorsed President Trump in his 2024 re-election bid, and his opponent in the First Congressional District race, John Avlon, a Democrat, released statements.

"Prayers for President Trump and for the safety of everyone at today's Pennsylvania rally," said Congressman LaLota Saturday night. Avlon of Sag Harbor stated, "Political violence is what we all must stand up against. It has no place in our country."

Tom Brune reports on Newsday.com that Michael Dawidziak, a Long Island political consultant who mostly works with Republicans, said the Trump campaign already had begun to pull back on harsh rhetoric, for a very practical reason.

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Inflation in the United States cooled in June for a third straight month, a sign that the worst price spike in four decades is steadily fading and may soon usher in interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. However, the opposite took place in the 25-county metropolitan area that includes Long Island: the Consumer Price Index here climbed 4.2% last month, compared with June 2023. That rate of year-over-year growth was slightly higher than May's 3.9%, the U.S. Labor Department said on Thursday. As reported by The Associated Press on NEWSDAY.com, nationwide, consumer prices were up 3% in June, compared with a year earlier — and cooler than May's 3.3% annual rate.

"Inflation may be more resistant on Long Island relative to other areas of the United States due in part to the acute shortage of apartment space," said John A. Rizzo, an economist and a Stony Brook University professor. "This will bid up the prices for homes as affordable apartment space is challenging to find" in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

He also noted the spike in electricity prices in recent months but said "this is probably an anomaly that will not affect inflation on Long Island over the longer term."

Other spending categories where prices climbed in June, compared with a year earlier, included groceries and recreation, which rose 1.2% and 7.4%, respectively. The latter increase "reflects strong demand for leisure activity on Long Island during the summer tourist season," Rizzo told Newsday.

The price rises were partially offset by declines in the cost of gasoline and medical care, which fell 1% and 1.3%, year over year, respectively.

A proposal to extend the Calverton industrial moratorium for three months could be voted on by the Riverhead Town Board at its next meeting, scheduled for this coming Tuesday at 2pm, after its approval by the Suffolk County Planning Commission Wednesday and the conclusion of a Town Board public hearing last week. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the six-month moratorium, adopted in January, is set to expire on July 12…today…which is six months from the date of its filing with the New York Secretary of State. The proposed three-month extension drew few comments at a Town Board public hearing last week, though the town received “a lot of correspondence from people who couldn’t make it” to the Tuesday afternoon hearing and they were all in favor of extending it, Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard said during the hearing. Jen Hartnagel of Group for the East End said the organization supports the extension and asked the Town Board “to further scrutinize the recommendations of the DGEIS [draft generic environmental impact statement] and the comp plan as it directly relates to … warehouse and industrial development issues in Calverton.” The approval requires Riverhead to report back to the county planning commission at the expiration of the three-month extension in October, should the town want to extend it again.

The Town of Southampton’s solar array atop the former North Sea Landfill is expected to be completed in early 2025, and the town is now seeking 500 residents to participate in its Community Solar program, which will use a portion of the power generated there to provide residents of modest means with PSEG-Long Island electric bill statement credits of up to 10 percent of their bill over the next 20 years.

Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the project, being built by Kearsarge Energy, is expected to provide 4.5 megawatts of renewable energy to the electric grid when it is completed next year. It will provide power to Southampton Town’s buildings, to 500 customers through the Community Solar program, which is the first municipally-led community solar project on Long Island, and on the open market.

Southampton Town is giving priority in its lottery to enter the program to “Low-Moderate Income” households, with maximum incomes of $82,000 per year for a family of one up to $154,600 for a family of eight.

Bill credits will begin in 2024. However, enrollment in this program is limited, early registration is strongly recommended.

The application can be found online at southamptontownny.gov

Christopher Winkler, a Montauk fisherman who was convicted last year of falsifying records in order to sell fluke and black sea bass in quantities that vastly exceed legal limits, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison.

The sentence was delivered by Judge Joan M. Azrack in federal court in Central Islip yesterday. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the government had sought a sentence of four to five years in federal prison as well as three years of supervised release — during which Winkler would be prohibited from fluke fishing — forfeiture of $750,000, restitution of $750,000, a fine of up to $200,000, and surrender of his fishing licenses.

Richard Levitt, an attorney representing Winkler, said in an email on Thursday that “issues of forfeiture and restitution are still outstanding and a judgment will not be entered until those issues are resolved.”

Winkler has a surrender date of December 10, and will not be designated to a particular correctional facility until shortly before that date, Levitt said. Winkler’s lawyers had asked for six months of home confinement and three years’ probation.

In October 2023, Winkler, captain of a trawler, the New Age, was found guilty on five counts of conspiracy, mail fraud and obstruction of justice for filing false reports to federal regulators. According to the Environmental Crimes Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, he filed more than 220 false reports with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The federal government tried and convicted him for what it called an almost three-year scheme to overharvest at least 220,000 pounds of fluke and black sea bass, wrote Christopher Hale, a trial attorney in the Environmental Crimes Section. The fish he harvested illegally “was worth between $750,000 and $900,000," according to the government.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is not saying goodbye to President Joe Biden — unlike her lieutenant governor.

Hochul doubled down yesterday on her support for Biden and downplayed the apparent rift with Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who a day earlier sent political shockwaves across New York and beyond by calling for the 81-year-old president to drop his re-election bid.

“It’s not a surprise that there are various voices that emerge with different opinions within the Democratic Party,” Hochul said during an unrelated news conference on Thursday. “I stand firmly with the President.”

Vaughn Golden, Khristina Narizhnaya and Matt Troutman report in THE NY POST that Delgado is one of an increasing number of Democrats who’ve taken their private anxieties over Biden’s electability public after his doddering debate performance June 27 against former President Donald Trump.

Hochul said that Delgado gave her a heads up on his move. She also brushed off a report by City & State New York that she was “furious” with her lieutenant governor.

“Do I look furious?” she rhetorically said to a staffer during the news conference. “Well, there is your answer.”

Hochul argued that focusing on Biden’s age distracted from the “existential threat of Donald Trump” becoming president again.

Private meetings with Biden, including right after the debate, leave no doubt he’s fit to serve, Hochul said.

“I’ve seen him have these conversations, they’re engaged, they’re thoughtful, they show that he is in command,” said Hochul, who last saw Biden in Washington DC on July 3.

“I saw nothing to be concerned about in terms of his ability to make sure that we are victorious against Donald Trump in November.”

Free sunscreen dispensers are available at beaches and parks in the Town of Southampton this summer. Officials announced the plan at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Ponquogue Beach this past Wednesday. Dan Stark on 27east.com reports that dispensers with SPF 30 sunscreen have been placed in 13 parks and beaches operated by the Southampton Town Parks and Recreation Department. The locations include the East Quogue Village Green, Good Ground Park, the Old Ponquogue Bridge Pier, the Tiana Bayside Recreation Facility, the North Sea Community Park, Pikes Beach, Tiana Beach, Ponquogue Beach, Flying Point Beach, W. Scott Cameron Beach, Mecox Beach, Sagg Main Beach and Foster Memorial Long Beach. The dispensers will be available until Labor Day. The dispensers are a collaboration between the town and Creative Advertising Concepts, an agency which first brought the idea to the town in 2019. For the past few years, the dispensers were sponsored by Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. This year, the dispensers are being sponsored by UnionDerm, a dermatology clinic based in New York City that has an office in Water Mill, as a way to connect with the local community.

The East Hampton battery storage unit that was disabled for a year after a devastating fire last year is back online, according to LIPA and the contractor, NextEra Energy.

The 5-megawatt unit, which first went into operation in 2018, was returned to service July 3, said Bill Orlove, a spokesman for NextEra, which owns the unit with National Grid Ventures. The fire took place May 31, 2023.

Orlove, in written responses to Newsday, confirmed NextEra “will not charge” LIPA and its ratepayers for the cost of repairing the facility, but he declined to disclose the cost or say what caused the blaze. Nor would he say whether the unit conforms to 15 new fire-safety standards proposed for new battery storage systems by the state in February following a joint task force on battery fires across New York. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that the East Hampton unit, at Cove Hollow Road in a residential and business area of East Hampton Village, was built under a $55-million contract to LIPA as part of a plan to shore up the power-hungry South Fork with new green energy sources and bigger transmission lines. The battery is capable of handling excess power from the South Fork Wind Farm which recently began transmitting energy from a wind array off the coast of New England.

Orlove said the project came back online July 3 “after the project was rebuilt according to all applicable regulatory requirements, and pursuant to our contract” with LIPA.

He said the battery’s water-based fire suppression systems “operated as designed and quickly contained the May 31” fire, and “no further emergency response was required.”

Orlove said all the company’s energy storage facilities are “managed, monitored, and cooled in a controlled manner to keep project equipment functioning safely.”

Newsday reported that it took 30 hours of continual dousing by the internal water systems at the East Hampton facility to extinguish the fire, and that fire officials had been planning a 1-mile evacuation zone while it burned, but ultimately didn’t enact it.

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The Town of Riverhead has retained an attorney to sue the Town of Southampton over its proposed sewer district for the hamlet of Riverside — a facility that is essential to developing mixed-use housing in the hamlet, as called for by a plan approved by Southampton nearly a decade ago. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the Town Board at its meeting last week ratified its authorization for Riverhead Town Attorney Erik Howard to retain Rockland County attorney Steven Barshov to bring an action against Southampton Town to prevent it from taking any further action “in connection with the Riverside Sewer Treatment Plant and establishing the Riverside Sewer District,” according to the resolution passed by the Town Board July 2.

The lawsuit had not been filed as of yesterday.

The resolution authorizes a lawsuit “for the purpose of enjoining further action” by the neighboring town with regard to its planned sewage treatment plant in Riverside. It is not clear what Riverhead Town’s underlying claims or what the nature of the suit will be.

The Southampton Town Board voted unanimously on May 28 to establish the Riverside Sewer District and set its boundaries. The board on that date also passed a resolution appropriating $44.6 million to establish the district and construct a sewage treatment plant. Southampton has lined up financing from the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation, the Community Preservation Fund Water Quality Improvement Fund, the County of Suffolk, and other sources.

Riverside is in the Town of Southampton and derives its name from being on the south bank of the Peconic River.

A Stony Brook University scientist says that a rare oceanic algae bloom is responsible for the unusual turquoise color of the ocean along most of Long Island’s Atlantic coastline since late June.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that regular beachgoers in recent weeks remarked often at the color of the water, comparing it most often to the bright, light blue of the Caribbean. But unlike Caribbean water, which is typically crystal clear, the waters off area shores have actually been a chalky opaque with visibility of only a couple of feet. Marine science professor and renowned water quality expert Dr. Christopher Gobler said this past Tuesday that after analyzing water samples, the condition appears to be the result of an explosion of a unique but not entirely uncommon aquatic phytoplankton called Coccolithophores. The plankton is a common species in the coastal sea but is usually only present in relatively low densities. But they have been known to see population explosions when certain conditions present themselves, such as sustained winds, with very similar results to what’s been seen locally this summer. "So, why this color? The most distinct trait of Coccolithophore is that they have a shell that is made of calcium carbonate — they’re the only group of phytoplankton that has that,” Gobler said. How long it will take for the water to go back to its usual murky blue-green of summer, Gobler could not say: “I presume this is going to fade away now that the winds are not sustaining, but it’s hard to say how long the color will take to dissipate.”

For more info visit the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation website at www.rdlgfoundation.org

The three tidal gates at the Shinnecock Canal are in the midst of a months-long, $4.2 million rehabilitation by Suffolk County that includes the replacement of some components that are as much as 70 years old.

Contractors working for the county’s Department of Public Works began the painstaking process of replacing steel sheets lining the canal bulkheading in January, and the work is expected to run through the fall.

Along with replacing steel that county staff said dates to 1954, the crews are doing regular maintenance of the tidal gates, which is necessary about every 10 years.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that boat traffic through the 4,000-foot canal is not being impeded by the work. The canal sees an estimated 27,000 boat transits per year, according to the Atlantic Marine Academy.

To access the steel below the water level the contractors have to create a sealed cofferdam work area that can be pumped clear of water, allowing them to remove and reconstruct portions of the bulkhead that are usually submerged.

The Shinnecock Canal was constructed from 1884 to 1892 at a cost of $12,000 at the narrowest point between Shinnecock and Peconic bays — a site that had been a Native American canoe portage for centuries. The original impetus for the canal’s construction was not just the boon to boat traffic but to boost salinity levels in Shinnecock Bay, which at the time was not permanently connected to the ocean and was suffering from collapsing shellfish populations.

After several different configurations over the first seven decades of the canal’s operation, the current lock and tidal gates system was constructed in 1967.

The current rehab work is being conducted by H&L Contracting and overseen by LK McClean Associates. The project was budgeted at $4.192 million.

Next year, New York will join California as the only two states in the country to ban the ubiquitous small plastic toiletry bottles in larger hotels beginning Jan. 1, 2025. Washington State has passed a bill to phase out plastic toiletries by Jan. 1, 2027, and other states are weighing similar measures. Claire Fahy reports in THE NY TIMES that the New York State ban will only apply to hotels with 50 or more rooms. Hotels will be fined $250 for initial violations and $500 for further infractions. The money raised will be funneled to the state’s Environmental Protection Fund.

Hotels and motels with fewer than 50 rooms will need to comply with the law beginning Jan. 1, 2026.

The bill was originally introduced in the New York State Legislature in 2019 by Todd Kaminsky, a former state senator, and Steven Englebright, a former state assemblyman who is now a Suffolk County legislator. Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the measure into law in 2021, but its implementation was delayed to give hotels a chance to use the small bottles they had already purchased, Mr. Englebright said.

“New York is the size of many countries, so New York’s role is watched,” Mr. Englebright said. “When we do something important, it has the potential to be looked at as a model for our sister states.”

The ban reflects a nationwide push to reduce plastic waste in the hotel industry. The InterContinental Hotels Group and Marriott are among the larger chains that have pledged to curb their reliance on plastic, starting with toiletry bottles.

A wire mesh receptacle crafted in the form of a giant fish has been gobbling up recyclable cans and bottles at Riverhead Town’s Iron Pier Beach in Northville, helping to keep the beach — and Long Island Sound — clean. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Riverhead Town’s new receptacle was created by local sculptor Clayton Orehek, sponsored by the town’s litter committee with support from National Grid.

Inspired by Yoshi and Goby, fish-shaped wire receptacles have been helping keep beaches clean in India and Bali for several years

The creative 4-foot by 6-foot Riverhead receptacle was installed last fall and emptied for the first time yesterday. The Riverhead Town Buildings and Grounds Division did the honors, with local officials gathered around for the event. The fish held some 300 recyclable containers that might have otherwise littered the beach and wound up in the waters of the Sound, a designated estuary of national significance, where they would pose a threat to marine life.

The containers will be processed for recycling by Riverhead’s solid waste contractor Waste Management, town officials said.

Riverhead Town Litter Committee Chairperson Deborah Wetzel said the fish receptacle draws attention to the need to properly dispose of wastes, especially on the shorelines, to keep the water clean and protect fish and other marine life who live in the waters and along the shore.

A marina owner - whose plans to build a pair of yacht storage buildings on Mattituck Inlet which faced steep public opposition - said he will downsize his project after the Suffolk County Planning Commission rejected his application. Tara Smith reports in NEWSDAY that Jeff Strong, owner of the family-run Strong’s Yacht Center, said this past Tuesday he plans to reduce the scope of the proposal, which calls for two storage warehouses totaling 101,500 square feet to store up to 88 boats.

Heated winter storage is in demand as yachts become more sophisticated, Strong said. But in a report and subsequent vote to deny the application, the planning commission validated concerns raised by neighbors and environmentalists.

“It is evident that the proposed project … will result in significant negative environmental impacts,” the report said.

The project called for clearing a forested hillside of 600 oak and beech trees and excavating nearly 135,000 cubic yards of sand that would be hauled away using an estimated 9,000 truck trips.

An environmental review found the construction would impact traffic and noise and potentially worsen flooding, since excavating would create a “bowl” on the property.

Mattituck Inlet is not wide or deep enough to remove the sand using a barge to reduce tractor trailer traffic, the report said.

The planning commission rejected the application in an 8-4 vote on June 20. But Southold’s local planning board voted 4-0 Monday to delay a final decision until Aug. 5, allowing Strong time to revise his plans.

On Wednesday, Strong did not specify what changes would be made, only that there would be “significantly less” square footage and excavation required.

Strong faces a July 22 deadline to submit revised plans ahead of the August town planning meeting.

Strong, 67, said the storage facilities must be built on site because transporting yachts larger than 60 feet by truck is “just not realistic.”

He said the company is trying to address concerns while remaining a viable shipyard.

“Working waterfront is very much under pressure, because the highest and best return for us as a family and property owner would be to sell it for development.”

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NYS lawmakers plan to reintroduce legislation early next year lowering the legal threshold for what constitutes driving while under the influence of alcohol from the current limit of a 0.08% blood alcohol concentration down to 0.05%. Utah, which lowered its BAC level for DWI, saw its fatal crash rate drop by nearly 20% in 2019, the first year under the new legal limit. Experts said motorists experience a decline in coordination and motor function at a 0.05% BAC, but critics of lowering the legal threshold contend most fatal crashes involve drivers with considerably higher intoxication levels. Robert Brodsky reports in NEWSDAY that fatal motor vehicle crashes involving drunken drivers are on a precipitous rise across the state and now represent nearly one in three traffic deaths across Long Island, federal statistics show.

The National Transportation Safety Board estimates that enacting lower BAC laws nationwide would result in an 11% decline in fatal alcohol-related crashes and save at least 1,700 lives annually. Leaders in the state’s hospitality industry, however, fear the measure will hurt their bottom line while preventing few fatal crashes — the bulk of which involve drivers with considerably higher intoxication levels.

On Long Island, where 31% of all fatal crashes involve a motorist driving under the influence, 90 people died in alcohol-related crashes in 2022, according to the Institute for Traffic Safety in Albany.

Suffolk County voters will be asked to approve a ballot measure in November to authorize a ⅛-cent county sales tax hike for funding wastewater infrastructure aimed at reducing nitrogen pollution in waterways and groundwater. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine signed legislation this week creating a countywide wastewater management district and authorizing a voter referendum on the ⅛-cent sales tax to fund sewer infrastructure improvements and the installation of advanced septic systems in the county. A dedicated wastewater infrastructure fund will be established with revenues from the new one-eighth percent sales tax. The fund will be distributed equally between sewage infrastructure improvements and advanced septic system installations. The new sales tax is expected to generate nearly $3 billion from 2025 to 2060, the length of time that would be authorized by passage of the referendum. The referendum would also extend the existing ¼% county sales tax that funds the county’s drinking water protection program to 2060. That tax is currently set to expire in 2030. The legislation signed Monday was passed by the Suffolk County Legislature on June 25.

Join the North Fork Suffolk Alliance for Pollinators for a self-guided tour of public and private gardens across the North Fork. These gardens are in various stages of transformation to eliminate invasive species, incorporate more native plants, and provide critical habitat for wildlife.

The tour begins at Custer Preserve in Southold. Maps will be available at Custer Preserve, as well as 1489 Sound Avenue in Baiting Hollow and North Fork Audubon Society in Greenport.

Group for the East End is a proud co-founder of the North Fork Suffolk Alliance for Pollinators.

This event is free and reservations are not needed. Rain date is Sunday, July 14.

Group for the East End is conducting a North Fork Garden Crawl this coming Saturday, July 13 from 9:00 AM

12:00 noon.

Join the North Fork Suffolk Alliance for Pollinators for a self-guided tour of public and private gardens across the North Fork. These gardens are in various stages of transformation to eliminate invasive species, incorporate more native plants, and provide critical habitat for wildlife.

This Saturday’s tour begins at Custer Preserve in Southold at 9am. Maps will be available at Custer Preserve, as well as 1489 Sound Avenue in Baiting Hollow and North Fork Audubon Society in Greenport.

Group for the East End is a proud co-founder of the North Fork Suffolk Alliance for Pollinators.

This Saturday’s event is free and reservations are not needed.

For more info click here.

While driving back and forth on County Road 39 in Southampton over the past year or so, it’s been hard to miss the transformation of the former potato barn on the southwest corner of County Road 39 and Magee Street. Known as the Rosko Barn, it was built by the Roskos, a prominent local farming family, in 1946 and changed hands since then. At the end of 2021, it was purchased by the Mezynieskis, another multigenerational Southampton family, and they set about a transformation and restoration of the historic structure. They have kept their intentions for the 23,000-square-foot old barn close to the vest, until now, as they reveal their plans to open a garden supply retail store and showroom, and to make it the corporate offices for their family businesses. Brendan J. O’Reilly reports on 27east.com that husband and wife Steven Mezynieski and Gretchen Sontag-Mezynieski own Southampton Excavation & Site Development, Driftwood Farms in Orient Point, and a material supply yard in Tuckahoe. They originally intended to name their new venture Southampton Farm Supply, but Steven Mezynieski explained during a recent tour of the restored building that after hearing every visitor call it “the barn,” they settled on naming the new business The Barn Southampton. Mezynieski constructed a cornerstone that pays tribute to the former owner, Constantine Rosko, who is now 94 years old and came by a couple of times a week while the building was under construction. The cornerstone reads “Rosko 1946” and “Mezynieski 2023.” The Barn Southampton will sell hard goods for landscapers and homeowners as well as nursery plants and mulch. “All the stuff you need to work in your garden,” Mezynieski said.

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The Southold Town Planning Board adjourned votes to Aug. 5 on a denial resolution and a findings statement for the proposed Strong’s Yacht Center yacht storage buildings in Mattituck Monday in anticipation of receiving a new, scaled-back plan “within two weeks.” Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the two proposed buildings, roughly 50,000 square feet each, would have required the removal of about 124,000 cubic yards of sand from a hillside adjacent to a nature preserve overlooking Mattituck Inlet, and environmentalists and neighbors have been harshly critical of the proposal as it worked its way through the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) process over the past several years. A crowd including members of Save Mattituck Inlet, Save the Sound, the North Fork Environmental Council and local civic groups packed the Southold Town Hall meeting room Monday night to hear the Planning Board’s decision. Strong’s attorney David Altman, in asking for the adjournment recently said that Strong’s “is preparing a revised site plan that will substantially reduce the scale of the project, from two buildings to one building…Moreover, adjourning the issuance of a Findings Statement gives the Planning Board, the Planning Department and the community the opportunity to consider Strong’s revised plan.”

Construction of a roundabout at the awkward intersection of North Main Street, Springs-Fireplace Road and Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton took a step closer to fruition when New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill enabling the alienation of a small triangular piece of land between the latter two roadways, currently designated as parkland. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that a roundabout at the three-way intersection, long under discussion and advocated by town officials and residents alike, would represent an effort to address traffic delays and public safety. Southbound vehicles on Springs-Fireplace Road must navigate a busy intersection with both northbound traffic from North Main Street and southbound traffic from Three Mile Harbor Road, all with no traffic lights and less than perfect sight lines. Construction of a roundabout would require use of at least a portion of the parkland. The governor’s signature followed the East Hampton Town Board’s May home rule request to the State Legislature. Moving forward with a roundabout at the intersection, however, now becomes subject to a November referendum seeking voters’ approval to swap the triangular parcel needed for the roundabout with another parcel, at 16 Swamp Road. Construction of a roundabout could be incorporated into upgrades to County Road 40, as Three Mile Harbor Road and the portion of North Main Street north of Collins Avenue are officially known, which are scheduled to commence in spring 2027. The scheduled work is expected to cost Suffolk County $14 million, and construction of a roundabout would substantially increase that figure.

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A Patchogue man used an ax and a shopping cart to cut up a woman’s body and dispose of her remains in three separate locations after she died in his presence last month, prosecutors said at his arraignment on a grand jury indictment in Riverhead yesterday.

Gary Cowell, 72, who grew up in Water Mill and attended Southampton High School, pleaded not guilty to felony counts of concealment of a human corpse and tampering with physical evidence for his alleged actions following the death of Yvette Leonard, 56, of Patchogue, who prosecutors said was last seen heading toward Cowell’s home on Edwards Street June 13.

“Rather than attempt to render aid to her, rather than call for medical assistance or call the police, [Cowell] took an ax and butchered Ms. Leonard into four pieces,” Assistant Suffolk County District Attorney Kieran Rogers told acting State Supreme Court Justice Anthony Senft in Riverhead. Grant Parpan and Brianne Ledda report in NEWSDAY that police previously said the remains were found along Montauk Highway near Sills Road in East Patchogue. Cowell made a confession to police, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.

Prosecutors described Cowell, who was charged June 27, as a “longtime acquaintance” of Leonard.

Cowell’s court-appointed attorney, Jeremy Scileppi, of Hauppauge, said that his client spoke with police for nine hours and “told a consistent story with respect to what happened.”

“It seems as though police are still very much involved in investigating what went on,” the attorney said.

Judge Senft kept bail for Cowell, who has been in custody since his arrest, at $1 million cash bail, $2 million bond or $10 million partially secured bond.

Cowell is due back in court July 25.

Riverhead Town is asking for a court to temporarily shut down Scott’s Pointe amusement park in Calverton until the property gets in compliance with town law, according to a lawsuit filed in Suffolk County Supreme Court last week. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the town is asking the court to issue an injunction that would restrain Island Water Park Corp., which operates the park, and its tenants from “using, occupying and/or maintaining the subject premises” until several town code violations are remedied, according to the complaint filed by the town on July 3. The town is also asking the court to order the park to remove the unlawfully built go-kart track and pickleball courts — restoring the property to “pre-violation status” — and to impose a financial penalty of at least $100,000 on the company. The go-kart track and pickleball courts were built without approvals on what was supposed to remain a wooded area, violating multiple provisions of the Riverhead Town Code, according to the complaint. The business was also issued a notice of violation late last month by the State Department of Environmental Conservation for violating the terms of its permit allowing the construction of the lake. The violation ordered the business to cease use of the inflatable aquapark and other public recreation in its groundwater-fed man-made lake.

Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni announced this week that the town has been awarded nearly $3 million in state grant money from the Transportation Alternatives Program for pedestrian safety and traffic calming projects in Noyac. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that Schiavoni said the money would be combined with $1 million the town already has in hand, including a separate $250,000 state grant procured by NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. The funds will be used for a number of improvements from Ruggs Path in Noyac to Cove Avenue East just outside the Village of Sag Harbor. Schiavoni said the town has been working on the proposal for four years. “It began essentially as a call from the community for pedestrian safety enhancements and traffic calming measures along the Noyac corridor,” he said. Schiavoni said the goal is to begin construction in the spring of 2026 with an anticipated completion date in the fall of 2027.

The number of English language learners in Long Island schools has surged over the past decade — almost 60% — creating challenges such as a shortage of specialized teachers and addressing the students' problems with attendance and dropping out, educators say. Craig Schneider and Michael R. Ebert report in NEWSDAY that English learners increased from 27,477 in the 2012-13 school year to 43,675 in 2022-23, a jump of 16,198, according to figures from the NYS Department of Education. During that same period, they increased from 6% of Long Island's student population to about 11% of the total Nassau / Suffolk enrollment of 421,990 students, state figures show.

Many districts have seen their numbers more than double in a decade, including Bay Shore, Bridgehampton, and Center Moriches in Suffolk and several in Nassau.

The students are integrated into the student population upon their arrival, picking up the language through a mix of targeted English instruction, bilingual classes and mainstream instruction, educators said. In addition, educators said, more than ever, they are embracing students' home language and culture, using them as springboards to help them learn English, rather than, as in years past, simply trying to replace them.

"There are very significant changes going on in our schools right now," said Selene Yoel, Stony Brook University's director of bilingual programs and teaching English as a second language.

Long Island is suffering from a shortage of teachers for English learners, she said.

"I would say most districts [on Long Island] need more teachers who are certified in English as a New Language," Yoel said.

LIPA expects to pay off in 2026 the last of billions of dollars in debt it accrued from the 1998 acquisition of the Long Island Lighting Co. Meanwhile, the LILCO name, which has remained active as a subsidiary of LIPA, primarily for tax reasons, is set to be discontinued. LIPA reported that as of Dec. 31, there was $321.14 million remaining of the LILCO “acquisition adjustment,” with the authority paying off around $111 million a year.

Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that LIPA wouldn’t say whether wiping out the LILCO debt would result in lower rates.

The 1998 purchase price included the mothballed Shoreham nuclear power plant and an agreement to settle a tax challenge LILCO had filed on the never-used plant. LIPA paid $1 for the Shoreham power plant. Residents have been footing the bill ever since.

A 2-year-old boy was found floating unconscious in a backyard pool at a house in North Haven on Sunday afternoon. As reported on 27east.com, Southampton Town Police said that emergency responders were called to a home on Sunset Beach Road in North Haven at about 12:30pm on Sunday. Police and EMTs arrived to find family members performing CPR on the boy.

A Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance crew took over resuscitation efforts and transported the boy to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital where he was then taken to Stony Brook Hospital for more advanced treatment.

Police said that as of Monday afternoon they have not been notified of the boy’s condition.

The incident is just the latest in a rash of similar tragedies countywide. Four toddlers have been found unconscious in residential swimming pools around Suffolk since mid June, at least one of whom subsequently died.

Yesterday Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine’s office sent out a pool safety alert imploring homeowners to be aware of the dangers for young children surrounding swimming pools and to take steps to keep their home and pool safe.

Drowning is the number one cause of accidental deaths for children between the ages of 1-4 years old per the water safety website stopdrowningnow.com.

Adults should always keep a watchful eye on children anytime they are in the vicinity of a swimming pool and never let a toddler out of arm’s reach when poolside. In-ground pools should be surrounded by fencing with latches that young children cannot open and above ground pools should have their ladders removed when not being used by adults.

Local building codes require that all gates leading to pool areas have self-closing hinges and latches and that latch releases be at least 4 feet off the ground. All doors leading to pool that is not surrounded by a fence must have alarms on them and many municipalities require that a floating splash-detector with an alarm also be in the pool when it is not in use.

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Facing the potential of a new state law that would set a maximum classroom temperature for public schools, districts statewide and across Long Island will have to choose whether to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to add air conditioning to their aging buildings. Districts that don’t could be forced to send students home and turn to remote learning as heat waves become increasingly common in September and June because of climate change. By law, schools are required to have 180 days of instruction or risk losing state aid. The measure would take effect in 2025, if signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul. Hochul’s office has said she will review the legislation.

Health experts say increased heat cannot only adversely affect the physical health of students, but also their mental health and ability to learn. Keshia Clukey reports in NEWSDAY that less than 10% of public-school buildings in New York State are fully air-conditioned, largely because on average most buildings are more than 60 years old, according to the New York State School Facilities Association Energy Committee. Installing air conditioning can cost tens of thousands to millions of dollars depending on the scale.

Younger children are much more susceptible to extreme heat because they have smaller bodies and less developed sweating mechanisms, said Adrienne Wald, an associate professor of nursing at Mercy University in Westchester County. Elementary school students may have difficulty communicating if they are feeling nauseous or dizzy — the early signs of heat exhaustion, she said.

The New York State Legislature in June approved a bill that would require public schools to take action such as turning on fans and pulling down blinds if room temperatures reach 82 degrees.

If temperatures hit 88 degrees, students and staff would not be allowed to occupy the space and in extreme cases would be sent home, according to the bill.

There is no district-by-district state data on how many schools are fully air-conditioned and no designated state funding source for installing air conditioning in New York schools.

Eleven Long Island school districts have sued Facebook and other leading social media companies this week, alleging the “addictive and dangerous” platforms have sparked an increase in mental health problems among students.

The school districts also allege the platforms have caused the districts “serious financial and resource disruptions.”

Jim Baumbach reports in NEWSDAY that more than two dozen other districts across Long Island also intend to file similar lawsuits, according to William Shinoff, a San Diego, Calif.-based attorney who represents 37 Long Island districts and about 1,000 districts nationwide.

School officials are seeking money for added costs of employing mental health professionals, adapting lesson plans to educate children on alleged harm caused by social media and investigating online threats to the school communities.

The 11 districts each filed nearly identical five-page complaints that accuse the social media companies of negligence and being a public nuisance. The lawsuits, filed in federal court in California, also name Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube as defendants.

The districts’ social media lawsuits are part of a consolidated multidistrict federal lawsuit in which parents, school districts and state governments are suing the companies for similar reasons.

Letitia James, New York state attorney general, and attorneys general from 32 other states filed similar suits in October 2023, alleging the companies created addictive features that have negatively affected young people’s mental health.

The Southold Town Planning Board meets this evening at 5 p.m. (this is a time change from the originally scheduled 6 p.m. meeting). Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the board can vote this evening on a final determination on the Strong’s Yacht Center yacht storage building proposal, though attorneys for the applicant have asked the board to hold off on the determination while they prepare a scaled back plan for one building instead of two. The public can attend in person at Southold Town Hall or via Zoom.

Embattled President Joe Biden could jeopardize Democrats running for House races even in blue New York if he remains on the ballot – with high-ranking Democrats from the Empire State saying he should step down and not seek re-election, it was revealed yesterday.

Manhattan Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and Joe Morelle of Rochester, the top Democrat on the House Committee on House Administration, were among Democrats who said the party is better off with Biden off the ticket, media outlets including Politico, the NY Times and NBC reported.

But Biden’s weakness as a candidate in New York was known before his debate debacle.

Carl Campanile reports in THE NY POST that a Siena College Poll released a week before the June 27 debate found Biden leading former Republican Donald Trump by just 8 points – 47% to 39% – largely on the strength of being 25 points ahead in overwhelmingly Democratic New York City.

Yet right now, “If the election were held today and I’m a Democrat running in a marginal seat in New York, I’d be nervous,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg.

“The findings should be very concerning to Democrats running for U.S. Congress and the NYS Legislature in swing districts,” added Greenberg.

Political consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who worked on ex-President Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, said Biden could make it difficult for Democrats to win the suburbs of the Big Apple.

“It’s called crime, chaos, the migrant crisis and Biden,” he said. “His disastrous debate performance will increase Republican turnout and hurt Democrats even in New York.”

2023 was Long Island’s deadliest since at least 2013 for young people behind the wheel, with 32 fatal crashes, according to preliminary statistics. A top contributing factor to those crashes: speeding. ‘Flexibilities’ for driver’s ed — announced by the state starting in 2020 during the pandemic and continuing until June 30, 2023 — allowed parents, instead of professional instructors, to oversee and certify student drivers’ practice hours behind the wheel.

Motor vehicle crashes long have been the leading cause of death for U.S. teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Matthew Chayes and Jacqueline Cole report in NEWSDAY that

The latest surge comes after NY State adopted an honor system of sorts starting during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed teens’ families, instead of instructors, to certify that in-vehicle practice hours had been completed. The surge also comes amid a broad spike in speeding that started during the pandemic and became an “epidemic” of its own, according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

The 32 crashes last year involving young drivers caused 33 deaths, including 8 young drivers. Since 2013, there have been 251 fatal crashes in Nassau and Suffolk involving young drivers that have killed 288 people, the statistics show.

“You are giving kids keys to a rocket ship,” said Syosset High’s driver’s ed program director, Richard Faber, who’s taught Long Island teens for over three decades. He added: “You’re asking a 17-year-old whose brain is not entirely developed to multitask at the highest level.”

DMV records show there are roughly 86,000 young drivers 16 to 20 on Long Island with a valid license.

Like any place where random groups gather, the dog park in Southampton Village is not immune to occasional issues. There might be a little growling from time to time, maybe some baring of teeth, occasionally even a small scuffle.

And that’s just among the people.

Lisa Daffy reports on 27east.com that in the 10 years since the Southampton Village Dog Park at the Lola Prentice Memorial Park first opened its gates, it has become a mainstay of the community, providing a welcoming space where furry visitors and their people come to socialize. 75 dogs and their humans showed up on Southampton Village Dog Park’s opening day ten years ago - June 8, 2014.

The identifying symbol for the park is an iconic big red dog, which was designed and contributed by Southampton artist Robert Lohman.

It seems all weekend long local folks have been complaining about traffic and the drivers causing it. Even before the 4th of July, at 5:45 a.m. on Friday, June 28, eastbound traffic on Montauk Highway leading into Water Mill was a bumper-to-bumper trade parade crawl.

Nearly 15 hours later, at 8:35 p.m., Hill Street’s westbound lanes were in the same condition, and the two westbound lanes on County Road 39 in Southampton were inching along only slightly quicker.

In the hours in between, the small talk in the hallways of Southampton Town Hall, at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, at schools and on sidewalks was all about the traffic. The word “crazy” is uttered frequently.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the traffic on the South Fork has indeed become crazy — a seemingly hopeless morass beset by problems of both gridlock and unsafe speeding, at the same time, with few options for alleviating the condition that does not elicit either scoffs or eyerolls at the likelihood to either make a difference or be financially and logistically possible.

But two new efforts are currently underway to tackle those entangled challenges. Suffolk County has begun what will likely be a yearslong examination of the County Road 39 corridor, an effort to detail the problems, the hurdles to “fixing” them and the possibilities for real solutions that will at least ease some of the problems.

Locally, a traffic task force was empaneled by Southampton Town earlier this year. The group held the third of the six meetings it is scheduled to hold before submitting a report this fall cataloging what it sees as both short-term and long-term steps that could be taken to ease some of the worst impacts of the traffic on the region and on specific locations in its midst.

“We can’t say there is nothing we can do — that is defeatist,” said Southampton Town Councilman Michael Iasilli, who sits on the task force and, in fact, called for its creation shortly after taking office in January. “I don’t know what the solution is going to be, but we’re collecting information and data and trying to be as proactive as possible on the short-term stuff while we work out the long-term issues.”

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Striking Stop & Shop workers who walked out of the supermarket chain’s East Hampton and Southampton stores yesterday are expected back on the job today.

Victor Ocasio reports in NEWSDAY that unionized meat and seafood workers and Stop & Shop reached a tentative contract deal last night after a strike at two of its east end stores earlier Tuesday and months of negotiations, union officials said.

Workers at Stop & Shop in Southampton and East Hampton went on strike early Tuesday after a late-night bargaining session between Stop & Shop and members of UFCW Local 342.

The daylong strike was limited to the two locations, where the union represents all workers, including cashiers, officials with Local 342 said.

Hours after the union had called for a strike of the stores, a contract deal was reached, officials with Local 342 said.

Speaking on behalf of Local 342 president Deana Abondolo, Keeley Lampo, director of activities and communications for the union, said Abondolo was “proud of the negotiation committee.”

“She was blown away by their efforts, their dedication and perseverance to not just settle for anything, but to get exactly what they deserve,” Lampo said. “The back-and-forth with the company over the last several weeks were not for the weak of heart.”

The local represents around 1,230 workers, mostly meat and seafood workers, at 68 of Stop & Shop’s locations across the Northeast. Members voted to authorize a strike on June 20 after eight months of negotiations following the expiration of their previous contract in October.

A Calverton man was arrested yesterday on charges of unlawfully selling fireworks valued at $500 or more, Riverhead Police said in a press release Tuesday afternoon.

As reported on Riverheadlocal.com, the arrest came after an investigation by the Riverhead Police Department Detective Division into community complaints about illegal fireworks being used and sold by Thomas Smith of 65 Laurin Road, Calverton, police said..

The investigation revealed that Smith was traveling to Pennsylvania to purchase large quantities of illegal fireworks for resale on Long Island, police said.

Police yesterday arrested Smith, 60, for violating New York State Penal Law §270.00 (2)(ii), a class A misdemeanor, according to the press release.

The investigation into Smith and his customer base is ongoing, police said. Police urge any additional witnesses to contact them at 631-727-4500 or the Department’s Crime Hotline at 631-727-3333. All calls will be kept confidential, police said. The Riverhead Police Department said residents should remember that, due to the inherent danger of handling fireworks, firework demonstrations should always be left to the professionals so they can be enjoyed in a safe environment.

Riverhead Town will be hosting a fireworks display at the Alive on 25 street festival on Friday July 5 beginning at 9 p.m.

The Southampton Village Independence Day Parade tomorrow will be one of the largest and longest running 4th of July Parades on Long Island. The parade begins at 10am in Railroad Plaza…where you’ll be able to see a special Heart of the East End live broadcast from 9am to 11am tomorrow on air and on the street with Gianna Volpe and Michael Mackey speaking with local folk and other dignitaries celebrating the United States of America’s founding 248 years ago…then from the train station the parade marches south on North Main Street, to Main Street, makes a right onto Jobs Lane, and concludes in front of the review stand by Monument Square at Agawam Park.

That’s the Fourth of July Parade tomorrow morning in Southampton.

Suffolk County Sheriff Errol J. Toulon Jr. held a press conference at Coast Guard Station Shinnecock in Hampton Bays yesterday to discuss DWI and boating while intoxicated enforcement during this Fourth of July week. Dan Stark reports on 27east.com that Sheriff Toulon said area police agencies and the Coast Guard will increase BWI enforcement this year, as he noted that “boating while impaired is equally dangerous, but historically harder to enforce than driving while under the influence.

Toulon said that the enforcement efforts will feature more checkpoints conducted by the department’s Marine Bureau and the East End Marine Task Force. He also said that there will be more enforcement on the roads as well.

“We will be enhancing patrols throughout Suffolk County, from the Hamptons to Huntington, on both roadways and waterways,” Toulon said. “We have already increased our DWI enforcement efforts this year, making 71 arrests so far, and we will continue to crack down on impaired driving, especially during the high-risk summer months.”

At Tuesday afternoon's press conference, Coast Guard Station Shinnecock Commanding Officer Christopher Skala talked about the importance of boating safety practices for those on the water this summer, including wearing life jackets and having the proper fire safety gear. Regarding BWI incidents, Skala said that “just like driving a vehicle, operating a vessel under the influence is inherently dangerous for yourself and other boaters.”

Additionally, Allen Bode, chief assistant district attorney from District Attorney Ray Tierney’s office, encouraged people to use rideshare apps if they plan on drinking. Bode said that with the amount of rideshare apps and services available, “there’s no excuse in this day and age not to preplan before you party.”

The Farrell Companies have purchased the Dime Community Bank building at the corner of Montauk Highway and Snake Hollow Road in Bridgehampton and plan to make the new building the firm’s headquarters as soon as it is renovated. The building was originally constructed in the 1990s as a main office for the Bridgehampton National Bank. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that Farrell Companies founder Joe Farrell, who recently completed construction of a new headquarters for his expanding business a few blocks east on the south side of Montauk Highway, across from the Bridgehampton Post Office, said he couldn’t turn down the opportunity to buy “arguably the best piece of property in the Hamptons, period.”

“I just thought it was an incredible opportunity to put our brand on that building for the next 100 years,” added Farrell.

After negotiating for about a year, Farrell said he and Dime agreed on a $12.5 million purchase price.

Dime Community Bank, which was created by the merger of BNB Bank and Dime Community Bank in 2021, has its headquarters in Hauppauge.

Dime will continue to lease space for a branch office in the Bridgehampton building, according to Steve Miley, Dime’s chief marketing officer.

Farrell said he would convert most of the building into office space for his real estate and construction businesses. He said he planned to renovate the basement of the building into a gym with a boxing ring, among other amenities, to be used by his employees.

Farrell built his first office building on the site of the former Elaine Benson Gallery. He has since leased that property to Greenberg Traurig LLP, a law firm. He said he would also lease his new office building, which is right next door in Bridgehampton.

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Long Island congressmen and most other members of the New York delegation have taken advantage of the taxpayer-funded reimbursements for lodging and meals under a new policy that does not require receipts to verify costs, a Newsday analysis found. Tom Brune reports on NEWSDAY.com that the policy for the first time allows House members, who are paid $174,000 a year, to get reimbursed for housing and food expenses when the House is in session and during committee work in an attempt to ease the costs of maintaining their homes in their districts and in Washington.

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville) whose district covers the east end, was reimbursed $29,595, the seventh most among New Yorkers, and Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) here in Suffolk County received $20,482, the eighth most, an analysis of the five quarterly House disbursement reports from Jan. 3, 2023, to March 31, 2024, shows.

At the top of the list of New Yorkers is Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-Schuylerville), chair of the House Republican Conference, with $38,221 in reimbursed expenses.

Government watchdog groups have not criticized the House’s decision to allow members to obtain expense reimbursements, but some warned that failing to require receipts could open the door to abuse of the system.

The House Administration Committee “strongly encourages” lawmakers to keep receipts of their expenses, even if they don’t have to file them, according to officials. Press aides to LaLota and Garbarino said their offices keep copies of their receipts and records of expenses.

The policy does not raise the amount of taxpayer funds that House members get for their offices and official duties, but it allows them to reimburse themselves with money from their office accounts for official travel and staff salaries.

New York Republicans called the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision yesterday to uphold presidential immunity for official acts a victory for Donald Trump and the rule of law, but Democrats warned that it sets a dangerous precedent and weakens democracy. Tom Brune reports in NEWSDAY that Congressman Nick LaLota (R-Amityville) said, "America needs less politics in the courtroom and more focus on policy in presidential campaigns." "Today's ruling helps that dichotomy and is a defeat for politically motivated prosecutors...," said the 1st Congressional District representative.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), said, “This is a sad day for America and a sad day for our democracy. The very basis of our judicial system is that no one is above the law. Treason or incitement of an insurrection should not be considered a core constitutional power afforded to a president.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in a social media post on X quoted Justice Sonia Sotomayor's opinion in the case: "The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law ... With fear for our democracy, I dissent."

Gillibrand added, "Justice Sotomayor's dissent should be a warning to every single American."

The Southampton Village Independence Day Parade this coming Thursday will be one of the largest 4th of July Parades on Long Island. The parade begins at 10am in Railroad Plaza…where you can see a special Heart of the East End live broadcast on air and on the street with Gianna Volpe and Michael Mackey speaking with local folks celebrating America…then from the train station the parade marches south on North Main Street, to Main Street, makes a right onto Jobs Lane, and concludes at the review stand by Monument Square at Agawam Park.

The East Hampton Town Board has set July 18 as the date of a public hearing on a draft renewable energy road map plan. It would be an action plan to reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, adapt to a changing climate, and recover from the conditions and events that climate scientists agree will increasingly alter the environment. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the road map was crafted by consultants hired in 2022 with input from the town’s Energy and Sustainability Advisory Committee, the Natural Resources and Planning departments, and the previous Town Board, which agreed to its recommendations as presented in December 2023. The intention is to adopt the road map into the Town of East Hampton's comprehensive plan.

The move to adopt the road map comes amid a second year of record temperatures, flooding, wildfires and other manifestations around the world of a changing climate. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts a very high likelihood of an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season, with 17 to 25 named storms, eight to 13 hurricanes, and four to seven major hurricanes. Record-warm sea surface temperatures in the region of the tropical Atlantic, where most tropical storms form, are “a major factor” in this year’s hurricane season outlook, according to NOAA.

In 2014, the Town of East Hampton became the first municipality in New York State to commit to achieving 100 percent of its energy consumption with renewable sources by 2030. The following year, it adopted a Climate Action Plan, and in 2016 was recognized with “bronze” status by the state’s Climate Smart Communities program; it is now working toward silver certification.

The week of July Fourth will be the busiest ever, according to auto club AAA. Lanning Taliaferro reports on Patch.com that if you’re among the 70.9 million Americans expected to travel 50 or more miles from home for an extra-long holiday weekend, AAA offered advance notice on when to get out of New York including Long Island and, especially, when to avoid the heaviest-traveled road over the holiday in the metro region — the Garden State Parkway.

For its travel forecast, AAA looked at the entire July 4th week, plus the Saturday before and the Sunday after the holiday, for the first time. It found: This year’s projected number of travelers for that time period is a 5 percent increase compared to 2023 and an 8 percent increase over 2019.

"With summer vacations in full swing and the flexibility of remote work, more Americans are taking extended trips around Independence Day," states the AAA Travel forecast.

The best times to travel by car are in the morning or evening after 6 p.m., AAA said.

Here is more analysis from AAA:

The worst traffic delays will be on Wednesday and Sunday
The best travel times Tuesday through Sunday will be in the early morning.
Afternoons Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday will be among the worst travel times.
Traffic will be bad Friday between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. and between 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Saturday
Travelers returning on Monday, July 8th should avoid rush hour traffic. The best travel time will be after 8 p.m.

Reminders of Long Island's uneasy relationship with consumer fireworks were on display yesterday ahead of the nation's 248th birthday.

On Monday, Suffolk County officials detonated a load of the fireworks, which are illegal in New York State, inside an SUV at the county fire academy in Yaphank, a demonstration intended to warn the public of the dangers of untrained use. On Saturday, a Brentwood man was severely injured when a firework blew up in his hand.

On June 17, Suffolk police seized more than1,500 illegal fireworks with a street value of $5,000 from a shipping facility in Bay Shore in what authorities said was part of an ongoing investigation. Nicolas Villamil and Nicholas Spangler report in NEWSDAY that across much of the nation, the consumer fireworks industry is booming and beloved. Last year, Americans bought $2.2 billion worth of consumer fireworks, according to a trade group, American Pyrotechnics Association.

On Long Island, professional — legal — fireworks shows are common at Jones Beach and other places, but police, elected officials and the medical establishment take a dim view of consumer use.

“If people followed the law, my job wouldn't exist,” said Dr. Steven Sandoval, medical director of the Stony Brook University Hospital Burn Center, in an interview at the demonstration.

It is a misdemeanor in New York State to sell most fireworks. Repeat offenders can be convicted of a felony. Using or even possessing them is a violation. State law prohibits firecrackers, bottle rockets, roman candles, spinners and aerial devices. A 2018 change in state law permitted sale and use of sparklers and similar devices across much of the state, though not in Nassau, Suffolk, New York City and a few other counties.

In 2023, Sandoval said, Stony Brook University Hospital had 10 firework-related emergency room consults and 15 patients were referred to its burn center from other hospitals.

Sandoval warned against sparklers, a pyrotechnic he said typically causes accidents because parents perceive them as harmless to their children.

Rudy Sunderman, deputy commissioner of Suffolk Fire Rescue, said sparklers burn at over 1,000 degrees — hotter than matches.

“You wouldn't give a child a burning match,” Sunderman said. “Why would you give them a sparkler?”

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Two days after a debate performance that has many Democrats panicked over their prospects in the November 5 election, President Joe Biden arrived at the Further Lane, East Hampton Village residence of Barry and Lizanne Rosenstein for a fundraising event on Saturday at 2:42 p.m. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the president and first lady, Jill Biden, arrived at Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton before transferring to Marine One, the call sign given to any United States Marine Corps aircraft carrying the president of the United States, usually a helicopter, to fly on to East Hampton Town Airport in Wainscott. From there, a large motorcade traveled via Route 114 to East Hampton Village and Further Lane.

Shortly before the president and first lady's arrival, Further Lane was closed to traffic amid a heavy New York State Police presence, along with police from Suffolk County and East Hampton Village.

At the Further Lane fundraiser President Biden said, “I didn’t have a great night, but neither did Trump."

Of Trump, Biden said, “The big takeaway was his lies.”

Around a half-dozen mostly youthful protesters from New York City, who cited the president's June 27 debate with Trump, urged him with signs and slogans to step aside, fearing a second Trump administration will be the outcome if he does not. Earlier, two men waving Trump flags stood on Egypt Lane, a few hundred yards from its intersection with Further Lane.

In addition to the Rosensteins, the host committee for the afternoon event comprised Nicole and Michael Fox, Stacey and Eric Mindich, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and Tracy Pollan and Michael J. Fox.

Long Island Rail Road conductors are now regularly checking passengers' tickets before they board trains at Penn Station. The pilot program began late last year for trains departing after Madison Square Garden events but has more recently been extended to the evening rush hour. The fare "gating" operation aims to address the growing problem of fare evasion, which costs the Metropolitan Transportation Authority about $700 million a year. LIRR officials, and some commuters, said the operation has been orderly and does not inconvenience riders, who flow through a barricaded ticket checkpoint at the top of the stairs leading down a platform at Penn.

Alfonso A. Castillo reports in NEWSDAY that Anthony Simon, who heads the LIRR conductors' union, said that while gating makes sense for special events that can attract big crowds for certain trains, trying to make it a part of the regular rush hour "is not achievable and a waste of manpower for the high traffic" at Penn.

"Conductors can better serve the riders as well as provide for their safety by being onboard trains where they belong," Simon said.

For Long Island high school students who want to take a college-entrance exam this summer: Be prepared to travel.

There are only a handful of SAT sites for the Aug. 24 exam on Long Island, and they have been booked for weeks. The other college entrance exam, the ACT, is not given in New York in July. Joie Tyrrell reports in NEWSDAY that the New York City-based College Board, which runs the SAT, said it does not expect to add sites for the August date. It’s typically up to schools to host the exam, but that can be difficult in the summer months, educators said. Sites also must be approved by the College Board.

Working people living in their vehicles appear to be a growing subset of the homeless population in America, according to authorities. Co-workers and employers may discriminate when they learn an employee is living in their car. A lack of personal hygiene and adequate sleep could cause a worker living in a car to lose their job due to a failure to present professionally. Lisa Irizarry reports in NEWSDAY that some experts interviewed for this story — part of Newsday's continuing “Feeling the Squeeze” series — say living in vehicles is becoming a new affordable housing option.

There are no statistics on how many working or unemployed people on Long Island or elsewhere have turned to living in their vehicles, experts on homelessness said. Additionally, they said, the working homeless who live in their cars are usually hesitant to make themselves known to agencies, co-workers and others because they’re embarrassed about their predicament and don’t see themselves as stereotypical homeless people.

“While on Long Island the number of persons living in places not meant for human habilitation is still much less than those in shelters, it is the area of the unhoused population that is growing the fastest in our region,” said Greta Guarton, executive director of the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless.

It’s harder to identify people who are living in their cars than others who are living in tents or encampments, Guarton said.

Steven Crawford, a chaplain and founder of Homeless Long Island — an outreach ministry for the homeless said, “About 40% of all homeless, according to HUD [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development], live in their car, and from our calculations, based on our street outreach and calls we receive, about 10% of that number work,” said Crawford, whose outreach ministry was started in 2007.

Weeks after Gov. Kathy Hochul abruptly pulled the plug on New York City’s congestion pricing program, state lawmakers have privately begun an informal campaign to persuade her to move ahead with the tolls, but make them less expensive. Dana Rubinstein and Grace Ashford report in THE NY TIMES that in a series of recent conversations, the legislators suggested to Ms. Hochul that she could bring back a modified form of the initiative, which would have been the nation’s first central business district tolling program.

If the governor agreed to reduce the yearly amount of money that the law requires to be collected from the tolls, she would have some cushion to alter the program — potentially lowering the proposed $15 charge to enter Manhattan below 60th Street.

The ambitious but contentious program had the twin goals of generating billions of dollars for the region’s transit system and cutting congestion in Manhattan.

But on June 5, less than four weeks before it was to go into effect, Ms. Hochul indefinitely paused it.

By that point, the state-controlled Metropolitan Transportation Authority had already allocated roughly half a billion dollars for tolling infrastructure in anticipation of the program’s June 30 start date.

Reducing the toll revenue target would require an act of the Legislature, which is not scheduled to meet again until January 2025. Ms. Hochul has the power to call lawmakers back to Albany for a special session, but such a move would be politically risky without assurances from legislative leaders of broad support.

Lowering the tolls would most likely mean less revenue for the transportation authority; lower tolls might also be less of a deterrent to drivers thinking of motoring to Manhattan — potentially undercutting the dual goals of revenue generation and traffic reduction.

While Democrats debated about THE DEBATE this weekend, President Joe Biden made his pitch in Bonac on Saturday afternoon. The president and first lady arrived at the Further Lane, East Hampton Village residence of Barry and Lizanne Rosenstein for a fundraising event on Saturday at 2:42 p.m. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the Bidens first landed at Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton before transferring to Marine One, the call sign given to any United States Marine Corps aircraft carrying the president of the United States, usually a helicopter, to fly on to East Hampton Town Airport in Wainscott. From there, a large motorcade traveled via Route 114 to East Hampton Village and Further Lane.

Shortly before the president and first lady's arrival, Further Lane was closed to traffic amid a heavy New York State Police presence, along with police from Suffolk County and East Hampton Village.

THE NY TIMES reports that as Mr. Biden swung through the Hamptons to gobble up cash at the home of the billionaire hedge-fund manager Barry Rosenstein, he addressed his shortfalls onstage. “I understand the concern about the debate — I get it,” he said. “I didn’t have a great night.” On his way there, his motorcade passed a group of people holding signs that read, “Please drop out for U.S.” and “We love you but it’s time.”

In addition to the Rosensteins, the host committee for the Saturday afternoon event comprised Nicole and Michael Fox, Stacey and Eric Mindich, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and Tracy Pollan and Michael J. Fox.

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Traffic fatalities rose sharply across New York between 2019 and 2022, with Long Island leading the surge, as risky behaviors such as speeding and drunken driving spiked since the pandemic, according to a new state report. Robert Brodsky reports in NEWSDAY that in 2022, there were 1,175 motor vehicle fatalities statewide, the highest in a decade and up nearly 26% from 2019, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Nationwide, traffic-related deaths increased nearly 17% during that period.

Long Island led the state with 245 traffic fatalities in 2022, including 164 in Suffolk and 81 in Nassau, the report shows.

Suffolk in 2022 also led the state in the number of fatal crashes involving a driver who was distracted, speeding, drunk or with occupants not wearing a seat belt, data shows.

Suffolk and Nassau ranked numbers one and two, respectively, in motor vehicle fatalities statewide every year since 2008, federal data shows.

The spike in fatalities, experts said, is linked to an increase in risky behavior since the pandemic, including speeding, running red lights, changing lanes aggressively and texting while driving.

Most fatal crashes, the report found, occurred on expressways and freeways and often involved occupants not wearing a seat belt and motorcyclists not wearing a helmet.

In a statement, Suffolk police said they have increased enforcement at high-crash locations and target aggressive and distracted driving, the leading causes for fatal crashes.

Despite the recent increase in traffic fatalities, New York ranks 11th nationwide, trailing California, Texas and Florida, per NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

In the wake of last night’s debate during which the incumbent’s performance was headlined by the NY TIMES as “fumbling…prompting a wave of panic among Democrats and reopening discussion of whether he should be the nominee at all”, President Joe Biden and first lady, Dr. Jill Biden, are scheduled to attend a fundraiser for the president’s reelection campaign in East Hampton Village tomorrow. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that an invitation from the Biden Victory Fund lists the Saturday afternoon reception’s host committee as Barry and Lizanne Rosenstein, Nicole and Michael Fox, Stacey and Eric Mindich, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and Tracy Pollan and Michael J. Fox.

The time of the reception is to be announced and the address given upon RSVP, but an emailed invitation indicates that the Rosensteins are hosting the event. Bloomberg Government reported this month that the fundraiser would take place “at the oceanfront estate” of the Rosensteins on Further Lane in East Hampton.

Tickets for the event range from $3,300 for a “supporter,” to $250,000 for a “chair,” which includes a photo line for two people and preferred seating. Supporter tickets were sold out as of Tuesday. Other tiers included “friend” for $6,600; “advocate” at $10,000; “champion” at $30,000, which includes a photo for one person and preferred seating; and “co-host” and “host” at $50,000 and $100,000, respectively, both including a photo for two and preferred seating.

Local, state, and federal officials have been tight lipped about details regarding Air Force One’s arrival and the president’s itinerary this weekend in THE HAMPTONS.

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Hispanics on Long Island continued their population growth between 2022 and 2023, mirroring a national trend, while the smaller Asian population grew at a faster rate, according to estimates publicly released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Meanwhile, the non-Hispanic white population, both locally and nationally, continued to drop, according to the bureau's Vintage 2023 Population Estimates. Whites, though, remain the largest racial or ethnic group, followed by Hispanics, who can be of any race, the Census Bureau said.

Olivia Winslow and Arielle Martinez report in NEWSDAY that on Long Island, the Hispanic population rose 1.1%, growing by an estimated 6,871 people between July 1, 2022, and July 1, 2023, for a total population in Nassau and Suffolk counties of 610,696, according to a Newsday analysis of the census data.

Long Island's estimated total population in 2023 was 2,904,885, a decrease of 8,383 from the prior year, according to the estimates.

However, the non-Hispanic Asian population on Long Island posted larger percentage and numerical increases. The Asian population's 2023 estimate was 252,957, up 10,761, or 4.4%, from the year before, according to Newsday's analysis.

On Long Island, the non-Hispanic white population declined 1.6%, going from 1,738,325 in 2022 to 1,709,773, a drop of 28,552, according to Newsday's analysis. The non-Hispanic Black population rose 0.7%, or 1,849, to 281,016.

Shinnecock Nation leaders said that the Palm Tree Music Festival held this past Saturday, on the nation’s territory in Southampton went very smoothly, and they celebrated the event as a resounding success for the tribe and for the more than 10,000 music fans who attended. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the council’s vice chairman, Lance Gumbs, said the festival drew 10,358 people to the venue on the tribe’s Powwow grounds on the Shinnecock Neck territory, and that nearly without exception everyone was very well-behaved…”Not one fight!, exclaimed Gumbs”…and the immense organizational effort by the festival’s leaders went off without a hitch.

The bulk of the attendees were dropped off at the festival site by cars, either ride shares or prearranged private transportation, rather than attendees driving or taking one of the shuttle buses and trains offered by the festival. Only about 200 people came in on the LIRR train that arrived in Southampton Village shortly after 2 p.m. on Saturday, and Gumbs said that none of the parking areas at the college or on Shinnecock were completely filled. Municipal agencies had worried that the harried change in venues from Gabreski Airport in Westhampton to the Shinnecock Territory and the lack of some planning steps normally required for such a large event posed safety and logistical concerns and would cause traffic tie-ups for the surrounding community. Ancillary delays on local roads were manageable during the day. On Saturday night for a couple hours after the event concluded around 10:30pm to past midnight motorists driving westbound from Southampton through the Shinnecock area encountered congestion like a bad trade parade evening or like some infamous days during the 2018 U.S. Open Golf Tournament. Nonetheless, Gumbs said the event was a “tremendous boost” to the tribe economically, both from the payment by the festival for use of the territory — which he declined to enumerate — and for the jobs provided to tribal members who worked at the festival site.

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Former CNN anchor John Avlon beat chemist Nancy Goroff in the closely watched 1st Congressional District Democratic primary yesterday, according to unofficial Suffolk County Board of Elections returns. Vera Chinese reports in NEWSDAY that as of 11 last night, with 98% of votes counted, Avlon had 70.2% to Goroff's 29.6%., according to the BOE.

Avlon, 51, of Sag Harbor, will face incumbent Rep. Nick LaLota in the Nov. 5 general election. Lalota is a Republican from Amityville who was first elected to congress in 2022.

Avlon declared victory Tuesday night in a speech to supporters at Riverhead Brew House in Riverhead.

“Today we proved that the positive defeats the negative,” Avlon said.

“Today we showed the politics of addition can defeat the politics of division and that's going to be the key to finally flipping this swing seat and winning in November,” he said.

“Now is the time for all Suffolk County Democrats to come together,” Avlon said. “We need to unite so we can fire up the base and then because Democrats are in fact the last big party that believes in bipartisanship we need to reach out with clarity and confidence to get to the real business going — winning this election and winning back Congress.”

Avalon’s landslide Democratic primary victory notwithstanding, Republicans said last night they are confident Congressman LaLota will keep the seat.

Former CNN political analyst John Avlon will be the Democratic candidate in this fall’s race for the East End’s First Congressional District seat, after taking home a decisive 70 percent of the vote in yesterday’s Democratic primary against Nancy Goroff, a chemist and former chair of the chemistry department at Stony Brook University. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the 1st Congressional District, which includes all of the five East End Towns along with Huntington, Smithtown and the northern part of Brookhaven, is currently represented in Congress by Republican Nick LaLota, a first-term incumbent from Amityville.

With a centrist message focusing on keeping Long Island affordable and protecting democracy, Mr. Avlon, a former speechwriter who lives in Sag Harbor, has energized voters throughout the brief campaign with the assertion that CD1 is a swing district, and could be returned to Democrats this year, when party control of Congress is very much in play.

At his acceptance speech in Riverhead last night Avlon said, “We in Suffolk County are lucky to live in a swing district. Most Americans don’t. That’s a problem. That’s what’s lead to all this poisonous hyper-partisanship that has frustrated so many of us. But here, we can do something about it, because winning in a swing district requires the politics of addition, not division.”

“The positive defeats the negative,” Avlon told supporters gathered at the Riverhead Brew House on the Peconic Riverfront in downtown Riverhead. “Now is the time for all Suffolk County Democrats to come together.” Avlon said with unity, Democrats can win the 1st Congressional District and win back the House in November’s general election. Republicans say they are confident incumbent first term Rep. Nick LaLota of Amityville will keep the seat. Savannah Viar, spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement that Avlon “leaves this primary bruised and with more baggage than what he packed for his temporary trip to Long Island from his permanent residence in Manhattan. No amount of posturing will fool voters into thinking he is anything other than an opportunist who only wants to see himself on television. Rep. LaLota has been delivering for Long Island since he took office and will continue to do so.” Avlon, who owns a Manhattan condominium, switched his voter registration to Suffolk County in 2020, county Board of Elections records show. Avlon has not said when he moved to Sag Harbor, only that he purchased his home there in 2017. Avlon, 51, of Sag Harbor, is a journalist, author and political commentator who registered as a Democrat in August and left his job at CNN in February to run for Congress.

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Polls opened at 6. a.m. today in Democratic primary races across Long Island, including the closely watched First Congressional District contest between John Avlon and Nancy Goroff in Suffolk County. New York's 1st Congressional District includes the East End.

Voters can cast their ballots until 9 p.m.

Vera Chinese reports in NEWSDAY that there also are five Democratic primaries for State Senate and Assembly in Nassau and Suffolk, and two town Democratic primaries, in Riverhead and on Shelter Island.

There are no Republican primaries on Long Island this year.

Avlon, 51, of Sag Harbor is a former CNN anchor, and Goroff, 56, of Stony Brook, is a former chair of the Stony Brook University chemistry department. Both have argued they have the best chance to defeat first-term U.S. Rep. Nicholas LaLota (R-Amityville) and flip the seat, in a swing district that stretches from Huntington to Montauk, from red to blue.

Voters must cast ballots at their designated polling site. Voters may look up their voting sites at voterlookup.elections.ny.gov.

For further info Suffolk County voters may visit suffolkcountyny.gov or call 631-852-4500.

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The Suffolk County Planning Commission has disapproved of Strong’s Yacht Center’s proposal to excavate a hillside to build two roughly 50,000-square-foot yacht storage buildings alongside Mattituck Inlet. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the project is currently under coordinated review by the Southold Town Planning Board under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), and the Planning Commission’s disapproval is an advisory recommendation that can be overridden by the Southold Town Planning Board.

Members of the Commission were at odds over the application, and passed the disapproval motion in an 8-4 vote at a special meeting last Thursday.

Their action may be moot, however, as Strong’s representatives said they’d asked that morning to meet with Southold Town planners to discuss a scaled down version of their plan.

“We are open to scaling back the building size, and significantly scaling back the sand transported from the site,” Strong’s Marine President Jeff Strong told the Planning Commission at the meeting, which was called specifically to discuss this application after the Commission deemed it incomplete, seeking more information from Southold Town, at its June 5 meeting.

The project comes under scrutiny from the Suffolk County Planning Commission because it is within 500 feet of a navigable creek.

The Southold Town Planning Board next meets on Monday, July 8 at 6 p.m., at which time it can issue a findings statement and a final determination on the project.

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More than a quarter of all tickets issued in Suffolk County under a school bus camera program operated by BusPatrol America have not been paid, according to a county audit released Thursday, leaving nearly $13 million in potential revenue in legal limbo. Mark Harrington and Sandra Peddie report in NEWSDAY that the $12.9 million in unpaid fines for tickets issued under the BusPatrol program during the audit period of September 2020 through Dec. 31, 2022, represents about 51,954 tickets, nearly 26% of the total issued, the audit found. The audit recommended BusPatrol, which receives 45% of the county ticket revenue, “should establish a process for collecting past-due amounts.”

Moreover, the audit by Suffolk County Comptroller John M. Kennedy Jr. said Suffolk's Traffic and Parking Violations Agency “failed to invoice and receive reimbursement from BusPatrol for the county's incurred administrative and adjudication expenses” during the audit period. Under its contract with BusPatrol, the county agency should be reimbursed for the expenses quarterly, the audit says.

One week after Kennedy notified BusPatrol of the audit's finding of the past-due balance, the company paid $358,331 that the previous administration never billed, he said.

Total revenue from fines tied to the program during the audit period was $34.7 million in Suffolk and $2.23 million for East End towns, which have a separate revenue-sharing model. Suffolk received $15.6 million of the $34.7 million as its share, while East End towns took in $904,090, the audit found.

Tomorrow’s Palm Tree Festival on Shinnecock Nation territory in Southampton, is expected to draw more than 10,000 people. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that there will be more than 200 security officers and more than 100 New York State Police Troopers overseeing the site, two medical tents staffed by Northwell Health, and up to 10 ambulances from emergency services agencies between Southampton and Mastic Beach standing by.

The concert is set to start sometime around 3 p.m. Saturday, with the gates to the property opening at 1 p.m. The music’s over at 11 p.m. tomorrow night followed by a mass exodus of concert goers out of Shinnecock.

The festival’s organizers have arranged both trains and buses to shuttle concertgoers from New York City and from Montauk. The trains will utilize the Southampton Village train station, arriving at 2 p.m. and departing at midnight. Buses will disembark at the Stony Brook University Southampton campus, where there will also be a ride-share drop-off area.

A fleet of 65 school buses will shuttle attendees from the train station and the college campus into the Shinnecock property. There will be parking on the Shinnecock land for about 700 cars that paid a premium up-charge and for another 300 or so cars at the college, according to schematics of the plans.

Southampton Town and New York State Police have issued a warning to residents to avoid using Montauk Highway (27A) between Southampton Village and Hampton Bays on Saturday from noon until at least after midnight, when the specially scheduled train just for concert attendees to get back to the city will depart Southampton. Traffic delays could persist until as late as 2 a.m. Sunday, per NYS Police.

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Southampton Town officials say they are concerned about the haste with which the Palm Tree Festival has been shifted to the Shinnecock Nation territory, given the more than 10,000 people who are expected to attend this coming Saturday, and the complicated ballet of transportation services that the festival’s organizers have set up to get the huge crowd into the Shinnecock property.

But the tribal hosts say that the seasoned professionals organizing the event have covered all the bases, and they expect the concert to go off smoothly despite the harried influx and departure of crowds that will certainly accompany it. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that there will be more than 200 security officers and more than 100 New York State Police Troopers overseeing the site, two medical tents staffed by Northwell Health, and up to 10 ambulances from emergency services agencies between Southampton and Mastic Beach standing by.

The concert is set to start sometime around 3 p.m. on Saturday, with the gates to the property opening at 1 p.m. The music's over at 11 p.m.

There’s a long-held belief in Montauk that there is a schism between the business community and environmentalists, but as coastal flooding has become a frequent reality here, that schism may be melting. Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that this past winter, a private donor funded The Nature Conservancy’s involvement in a conversation with Montauk’s business community on the topic of coastal resilience, which “has been a very hard, complex topic to tackle,” Montauk Chamber of Commerce President Leo Daunt told an overflow crowd that gathered at the Montauk Library earlier this month to discuss “Coastal Resiliency and the Future of Our Town.”

There were more than 100 people in attendance, some watching via a livestream upstairs in the library, and many more participated by Zoom. The forum was organized by Concerned Citizens of Montauk, and is expected to be the first of many community meetings as East Hampton Town works to implement its 2022 Coastal Assessment Resiliency Plan, known locally as CARP.

One of the most contentious recommendations of the CARP is the eventual relocation landward of a block of hotels that line the downtown Montauk oceanfront.

The Town of East Hampton also began work this week to renourish the beach at Ditch Plains and build a 15-foot high, FEMA-compliant dune there, with the help of the firm Coastal Science and Engineering. They hope the project will protect the beach this winter.

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Industrial development agencies, which grant tax breaks to expanding businesses, would be required to have representatives of unions and public schools on their boards of directors under a bill adopted by the NYS Legislature. James T. Madore reports on Newsday.com that the bill passed the state Senate in a 51-10 vote earlier this month after being approved by the Assembly, 128-19.

The bill is expected to reach Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk later this year for her signature or veto. “The governor will review the legislation,” her spokesman Justin Henry told Newsday this week when asked for Hochul’s stance.

The bill is among several introduced in the 2023-24 regular legislative sessions that proponents argue would provide much-needed transparency of IDAs and ensure their tax-break deals benefit unionized construction workers and public schools. Supporters include the state School Boards Association, the Fiscal Policy Institute, Reinvent Albany and the state AFL-CIO, an umbrella group of unions that includes New York State United Teachers.

“The working residents of Riverhead have had no say in whether or not these [tax] abatements are given, but we are all aware of the increasing tax burden,” said Colin Palmer, president of the Riverhead Central School District’s board of education.

Opponents of the legislation, including developers, IDAs and their trade group, the New York State Economic Development Council, argue that business expansions, job creation and additional housing for workers would be stymied.

The bill stipulates that the board of each of the state’s more than 100 IDAs have seats reserved for “a representative of a local labor organization and either a school district superintendent or a representative of a school board.”

Montauk will see the introduction of mobile app-based paid parking at three downtown locations starting on Saturday, June 15…that’s tomorrow. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the initiative, as explained by East Hampton Town Councilman David Lys is about modernization of timed parking and its enforcement, as well as adding nontax revenue that he said will assist the town in providing other resources. Payment is via the ParkMobile app, with users able to pay by downloading the app and paying through an account; by scanning a QR code on the ParkMobile sign, or by text message. ParkMobile contact information will be on every sign erected at the paid parking locations. “Virtual permits,” also called sessions, will be issued and enforced through a vehicle’s license plate number, with users entering the zone in which they are parked, with zones listed on installed signs. The ParkMobile app is in use in East Hampton and Sag Harbor villages. Paid parking will be at locations near the Atlantic Ocean beach: on the east side of South Edison Street between South Elmwood Avenue and South Emerson Avenue, where there are approximately 19 spaces, and at spans on the north and south sides of South Elmwood Avenue between South Edison Street and South Essex Street, where there are approximately 20 spaces. The cost to park in these Montauk locations will be $25 for a four-hour session, and $35 for an eight-hour session. Sessions can be extended using one of the same methods used for initial payment. The cost to park at the Kirk Park Beach lot, where paid parking has been in effect for the past few years with attendants collecting the fee, will remain at $35 per eight-hour parking period, but will also move to the mobile app-based system. Cash will no longer be accepted at the lot. An attendant will be there this weekend only, Lys said. Vehicles with a valid town beach parking permit can park at all of these locations with no charge or daily time limit.

Today is FLAG DAY 2024…it commemorates June 14, 1777, when the Continental Congress determined the composition of the nation’s banner: “Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

As posted by AP, President Woodrow Wilson issued a 1916 proclamation of June 14 as Flag Day and in 1949, President Harry S Truman signed the formal observance into law. And it falls during Flag Week, after another congressional dictum in 1966.

Although officially recognized nationwide, government services are still open on FLAG DAY and the mail still gets delivered. Only Pennsylvania marks it as a state holiday, allowing residents to stay home from work and school...and celebrate "Old Glory."

The Southampton Town Board denied a zoning change this week with a vote that blocked a proposed 50-unit affordable housing complex that would have had 25 apartments for veterans from going forward. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that board members cited traffic and environmental concerns before Tuesday's 4-1 vote and said the proposed location on County Road 39 in Southampton did not support the construction of the complex, which had been under consideration for years.

The 50 units, in what would have been called Liberty Gardens, would have carried a maximum annual household income restriction for tenants. “It’s a good idea but it’s in the wrong place,” Councilman William Pell said.

Ralph Fasano, executive director for nonprofit developer Concern Housing, said in a statement the town rejected the Medford-based organization's proposal “despite good faith efforts to address all legitimate traffic, water treatment, and logistical issues.”

He added: “The town voted down this plan to increase affordable housing and support veterans without allowing Concern or any project advocates to be present to rebut inaccuracies.”

The developer is reviewing legal options as a next step, Fasano said.

The board’s resolution also ended the environmental review for the project that spanned nearly three years, with a findings statement that said in part that “the proposed action does not meet the spirit and overall objectives of the Town of Southampton's long-term planning efforts.”

The zone change denied this week would have allowed an increase in residential density to build the development.

Several board members cited wastewater sewage treatment as a concern that wasn't adequately addressed.

Concern Housing, formerly Concern for Independent Living, has built dozens of single family and multifamily homes in the past 50 years, including four others that cater to veterans in Amityville, Port Jefferson, Ronkonkoma and Brooklyn.

Board members on Tuesday noted they've taken several steps to address affordable housing, specifically after voters in November 2022 approved the new Community Housing Fund that generates money for affordable housing initiatives through a .5% tax on most real estate transactions.

Early primary voting begins tomorrow statewide and will continue for nine days before the traditional primary Election Day on Tuesday, June 25. Michael Gormley reports on NEWSDAY.com that in a primary with potential implications regarding control of Congress, Democrats Nancy Goroff and John Avlon are vying for the party nomination in the 1st Congressional District…which includes the east end…to take on first-term Rep. Nick LaLota, a Republican, in November.

Primary voters also will cast ballots in five Democratic races for state Senate and Assembly in Nassau and Suffolk counties. Town Democratic primaries are also scheduled in Riverhead and Shelter Island. There are no Republican primaries.

Early voting begins Saturday, June 15th and extends through Sunday, June 23.

Primaries are for registered voters who are enrolled in a political party. This year, only Democrats have primaries.

Any eligible voter may vote at any early polling place in their county. Wherever in the county a voter seeks to cast an early ballot, the voter will be provided a ballot that contains only the races for which they are eligible to vote, based on their residence.

On the traditional primary day, June 25, voters must cast ballots at their designated polling site. A voter may look up his or her voting sites at: https://voterlookup.elections.ny.gov/

A New Yorker may register to vote at his or her local board of elections or at most state agencies on any business day. But to be eligible to vote in the primary, prospective voters must have their application for registration received by their local board of elections no later than Saturday.

A voter seeking to change his or her party’s enrollment for the primary must have submitted an application to change party enrollment at their local board of elections no later than Feb. 14, according to the state Board of Elections.

In Suffolk County, the early voting sites are at the Rose Caracappa Senior Center in Mount Sinai, Brookhaven Town Hall in Farmingdale, Suffolk County Board of Elections office in Yaphank, Manorville Fire Department, Robert Reid Recreation Center in Shoreham, Greenlawn Fire Department, Huntington Library Station Branch in Huntington Station, Dix Hills Fire Department, Kings Park High School, Nesconset Elementary School, Riverhead Town Hall, Shelter Island Youth Recreation Center, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Westhampton Beach, State University of New York at Stony Brook in Southampton at the Student Activity Center, Windmill Village in East Hampton and the Southold Town Recreation Center in Peconic.

In Suffolk County, early voting sites will be open:

Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Monday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Wednesday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Thursday from Noon to 8 p.m.
Friday, June 21, from Noon to 8 p.m.
Saturday, June 22, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday, June 23, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

For Suffolk County voters: https://suffolkcountyny.gov/Departments/BOE or by calling 631-852-4500.

Juneteenth, the anniversary of the day enslaved people in Texas learned that they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation is a federal holiday which is next Wednesday, June 19. This coming Saturday, June 15th, the Village of Greenport will host a day-long celebration beginning at 10 a.m.

The event, organized by Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, Coming to the Table, and the Southold Anti-Bias Task Force, will start at the church at 614 Third Street at 10 a.m., with remarks by Pastor Natalie Wimberly. A parade will progress to Mitchell Park at 11 a.m., followed by a day-long celebration with music, dance, poetry and yoga. At 2 p.m., the newly opened North Fork Arts Center will host a screening of the documentary “Juneteenth: Freedom and Faith,” followed by a panel discussion.

That’s the JUNETEENTH celebration tomorrow in Greenport.

For the first time in its 22-year history, OLA (Organización Latino Americana) of Eastern Long Island has secured a place in the New York State budget, ensuring the advocacy organization will receive $50,000 in state funding to support its teen mental health program, Youth Connect, during the 2024-25 fiscal year.

NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., of Sag Harbor, who was instrumental in helping OLA secure this line item, has also allocated an additional $50,000 in discretionary funding to support OLA’s ongoing work to improve access to mental health services for youth and families, for a total of $100,000 in support for this fiscal year.

“I am deeply honored to stand alongside OLA of Eastern Long Island as they tirelessly strive to create a more just and inclusive community for Latino immigrants on the East End,” Thiele stated. “By advocating for equitable policies, offering vital legal representation and support, and empowering youth through education and arts programs, OLA is fostering a stronger, more vibrant, and united community that celebrates the rich diversity and contributions of its residents. I am thrilled to have allocated $100,000 to support OLA’s invaluable work, knowing that it will directly contribute to the positive impact they are making in the lives of individuals and families in our community.”

Launched in 2022, OLA’s Youth Connect is a program for all East End youth, Latino and non-Latino alike. A bilingual prevention-focused crisis counseling program, it provides East End adolescents (middle- and high school-aged youth) with access to immediate support and guidance in Spanish or English through an anonymous, confidential helpline that local youth can text or call seven days a week to speak with a trained crisis counselor. In addition to staffing the helpline, Youth Connect’s crisis counseling team delivers interactive presentations and workshops in English and Spanish in middle schools and high schools, which have overwhelmingly welcomed Youth Connect in all five East End towns.

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The number of umpires, referees and officials is declining on Long Island and nationwide, a decrease blamed on the onslaught of verbal abuse from parents, spectators, players and coaches, according to Newsday interviews with more than two dozen sports officials, school administrators and high school coaches. Statistics from Nassau and Suffolk counties show there has been a sharp drop in the number of people willing to officiate since 2011-12. According to lists published by each county, Nassau has seen a 25% drop in the number of referees since the 2011-12 school year, while Suffolk has experienced an 18% decline.

Gregg Sarra, Ben Dickson and Carissa Kellman report on NEWSDAY.com that the verbal abuse and concerns about safety have made recruiting new referees difficult, and those interviewed said the problem has become worse in recent years thanks, in part, to social media and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most of the referees said that while the extra money is nice, it's difficult to do the job unless you love sports and working with kids. Long Island referees have ejected nearly 400 players, coaches and spectators at public school events this school year.

“Fan behavior and negative behavior in general is the number one reason sports officials are quitting or not coming back or not entering in the first place,” said Bill Topp, the president of the National Association of Sports Officials.

Topp said the decline began long before COVID, but said, “[COVID] just pushed it over the cliff.”

"The officials are taking more abuse than ever," William Floyd High School football coach Paul Longo said. "It starts on the sideline and extends into the stands. And people are abusing officials in Little Leagues and through college."

An IDA reform measure passed both chambers of the New York State Legislature in the closing days of the legislative session was welcome news to Riverhead Central School District officials. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Assembly Member Jodi Giglio, who voted in support of the bill, attended Tuesday night’s school board meeting to announce its passage. The bill, sponsored by Assembly Member Michaelle Solages (D-Elmont), mandates the appointment of a representative of the school district and a representative of a labor union to the boards of directors of industrial development agencies in the State of New York. The bill makes mandatory the appointment of a school superintendent or their representative, or alternatively, a school board member, as well as a representative of a labor union, to every industrial development agency in New York State. “Adding school board members to IDA boards guarantees tax abatements take into account local schools’ financial obligations while empowering labor to advocate for quality job opportunities,” Solage said yesterday. “This bill fosters inclusive economic development that prioritizes equity, and I encourage the Governor to sign this legislation into law,” Solages said. Assembly Member Fred Thiele (D-Sag Harbor) and State Senator Anthony Palumbo (R-New Suffolk) both voted in favor of the measure. Giglio said she expects the governor will sign the bill into law.

School districts may end up canceling school for “heat days” under a bill approved by the State Legislature last week that would set maximum temperature levels in classrooms and learning spaces and in extreme cases require students be sent home. Keshia Clukey reports in NEWSDAY that the measure, which now heads to Gov. Kathy Hochul for her consideration, would require public schools to take action such as turning on fans and pulling down blinds if room temperatures reach 82 degrees. If temperatures hit 88 degrees, students and staff would not be allowed to occupy the space, according to the bill. The proposed legislation aimed at protecting the health of students and teachers comes as school districts statewide and across Long Island have faced rising temperatures in recent years because of climate change, experts said.

A dazzling Hamptons beach surrounded by multi-million dollar mansions has logged some of the worst fecal matter levels in the country – a perennial problem locals have had a hard time flushing away. Alex Oliveira reports in THE NY POST that Mecox Bay in Water Mill last year landed in the top 10 of US beaches that tested positive for dangerous levels of enterococcus — an intestinal pathogen commonly used as an indicator of how much fecal matter is in water. Enterococcus levels at Mecox Bay exceeded the amount considered safe by New York State standards in 46% of the tests undertaken in 2023 by the Surfrider Foundation, a water quality non-profit which samples beaches across the country. Mecox Bay, an inland body of water cut off from the ocean by a spit of land, is home to dozens of gorgeous waterfront mansions, including a 12,000-square-foot building with private dock and ocean access – and 220 feet of “direct water frontage” – listed for sale at $37.5 million. But locals say the bay is the receptacle for a considerable amount of the Hamptons’ watershed — nearly all the upland runoff from business, farms and homes packed into the area gathers there. Compounding the issue are the old septic systems and cesspools that the Hamptons largely depends on, meaning after a heavy rain — or even after an excessive lawn watering — tracts of human waste seeps into the bay. “All of that pollution ends up entering the bay,” said Scott Horowitz, president of the Southampton Town Trustees. To remedy the issue, the Town of Southampton periodically physically opens Mecox Bay to the ocean by digging a cut through the land separating it from the ocean, which drains the waste and also re-salinates and purifies the area on the rising tide. But come April 1 every year, endangered species like piping plovers and least terns begin to roost on the land where the cut is made, meaning the trustees need to delay the drainage until the species allow them to. “When you get a delay like that the water quality degrades. It just gets worse and worse and creates problems for the region,” Horowitz said, adding that the better job they do protecting birds every year the worse the water problem becomes the next as more come to roost. “Our strength becomes our weakness,” he said. “You can’t make this stuff up.”

New York City’s comptroller said he’s assembling a coalition of congestion pricing advocates with the goal of “exploring all legal avenues” to combat Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision last week to shelve the MTA’s long-planned tolling plan. Alfonso A. Castillo and Matthew Chayes report on Newsday.com that Comptroller Brad Lander joined other congestion pricing supporters at a noon rally yesterday outside the Municipal Building, where he said Hochul "took a disastrously wrong turn, so we're here today to steer our shared future back on track." He added: "The governor's sudden and potential illegal reversal wronged a host of New Yorkers, who have a right to what was long promised to all of New York — a world class mass transit system that works for everyone."

Michael Gerrard, a Columbia Law School professor who attended the rally noted the 2019 statute — passed by the legislature and signed by-then Gov. Andrew Cuomo — stated that the MTA "shall" implement congestion pricing. Failing to do so, Gerrard said, is a violation of the law and Hochul's duty to execute the law. Gerrard also cited laws relating to the environment and people with disabilities, as well as the violations of bondholder covenants. Lander said potential plaintiffs include disabled riders for whom promised accessibility upgrades to the transit system are less likely to be delivered; residents of the congestion zone impacted by congestion, particularly those with respiratory problems and MTA board members who support congestion pricing; and bondholders.

It’s been a week since Hochul’s surprise announcement that she was ordering an "indefinite pause" on the MTA's Central Business District Tolling Program, which was set to take effect on June 30. The first-in-the-nation plan would have charged most vehicles $15 for driving below 60th Street in Manhattan. Proponents said the policy would reduce traffic in Manhattan, improve air quality, and generate needed funding for transit investments.

Juneteenth, the anniversary of the day enslaved people in Texas learned that they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation is a federal holiday which is next Wednesday, June 19. This coming Saturday, June 15th, the Village of Greenport will play host to a day-long Juneteenth celebration beginning at 10 a.m.

That’s the JUNETEENTH celebration this Saturday in Greenport.

On websites like Facebook, X and TikTok, a complex set of algorithms helps create curated personalized feeds to keep users engaged on the platform for as long as possible.

But for children in New York, that is about to change. Claire Fahy reports in THE NY TIMES that the NYS Legislature passed a bill last week that will disrupt the relationship between tech companies and young people by restricting the use of algorithms on minors’ social media feeds.

The legislation, championed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, is meant to address growing concerns about the impact of social media on young people’s mental health.

“These are ruled by addictive algorithms designed to draw the young people deeper and deeper into that darkness over and over,” she said.

Governor Hochul is expected to soon sign the bill into law. It will go into effect six months after the state attorney general releases regulations, which is expected to happen sometime this year.

Under the law, social media companies will be required to obtain parental permission to provide algorithmically curated feeds to children under the age of 18. Social media companies would also be prohibited from sending notifications regarding addictive feeds to minors between the hours of 12 a.m. and 6 a.m. unless parents give explicit consent.

Young people will still be able to follow whichever accounts they choose without parental consent, but their posts will appear in chronological order.

The NYS attorney general’s office will be responsible for overseeing and enforcing the new regulations, which have not yet been entirely specified. It’s unclear how websites will verify a user’s age or ascertain that a parent’s permission was actually given.

Most social media companies already require users to be 13 years or older, but parental consent is not currently required for children who meet the age requirement to open an account.

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Suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann visited a Manorville gun club the day before the disappearance of alleged victim Jessica Taylor, whose partial remains were found days later in the nearby woods, a law enforcement source told Newsday.

The new information comes after prosecutors shared a July 20, 2003, excerpt from a day planner that showed Heuermann was scheduled to attend a rifle training event at the Peconic River Sportsman’s Club on River Road that morning. Online researchers then used that information to find photographs that appear to show Heuermann training young marksmen attending a similar event at the private club in 2006. Grant Parpan reports in NEWSDAY that an indictment charging Heuermann with second-degree murder in Taylor's death was unveiled on Thursday. The superseding indictment also charged him with another second-degree murder in connection with Sandra Costilla's death in 1993. He pleaded not guilty to the charges last week.

A law enforcement source, who said Heuermann was affiliated with multiple “shooting clubs” in the area, confirmed the photos depict Heuermann at the exclusive 600-member club, which boasts a yearslong waiting list for membership. A spokesperson for Peconic River Sportsman’s Club later told Newsday Heuermann had attended “a few” public events at its 400-acre property but was never a member. He last visited the club for a shooting competition in April 2010, club spokesperson Kerry Goldberg said.

“Mr. Heuermann was not and is not a member of the Peconic River Sportsman’s Club,” Goldberg said. “Mr. Heuermann did participate in a few high-powered rifle events at the club, which were open to the public.”

Peconic River Sportsman’s Club, which was founded in 1948, runs along a portion of River Road and Connecticut Avenue across from the Enterprise Park at Calverton. Connecticut Avenue becomes Halsey Manor Road just south of the club.

Suffolk County's red light camera program is scheduled to end Dec. 1 after a bill to extend it for five years failed in the State Legislature, leaving county leaders without a plan to make up more than $8 million in annual revenue. Scott Eidler reports in NEWSDAY that NYS lawmakers, who are up for reelection in November, did not extend the program before the legislative session ended last week. The state Legislature reauthorized Nassau County's camera program, which expires Dec. 1, for five more years.

With 216 camera systems in place at 100 intersections, the program is a major recurring source of revenue for Suffolk. The fine for ticket violations is $50.

Suffolk County issued 357,732 red light camera tickets last year, said Mike Martino, a spokesman for County Executive Edward P. Romaine, a Republican.

Suffolk Comptroller John Kennedy Jr., a Republican, told Newsday the $8 million shortfall in next year's county budget, “is going to have to be confronted and addressed, and we will work together to do it in the most prudent matter. It may mean some things have to be cut and trimmed. We will have to, working with the County Executive and the Legislature, tighten the reins on a budget that already has had diminished receipts on sales tax during the first half of the year.”

State and county lawmakers pointed fingers at each other yesterday for imperiling Suffolk's 15-year-old ticketing program.

The Suffolk County Legislature never took the required step of passing a “home rule message” to the state Legislature supporting the extension.

The Mattituck Lions Club Annual Strawberry Festival opens today at 5 p.m. with Hulling Night, where thousands of volunteers from the community come to help hull the approximately 100,000 berries that will be used to make shortcake and alcohol- free daquiris for the festival. The carnival and food court will be open on Thursday night with special Preview Pricing. A “Lite” fireworks show will take place at 9:15 pm tomorrow.

Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the full festival opens Friday night and operates thru Sunday when Dads’ get free admission.

A “Great” fireworks show will take place at 10:30 p.m. Friday & Saturday, weather permitting.

Further info and a full schedule of events is at mattituckstrawberryfestival.com

School districts may end up canceling school for “heat days” under a bill approved by the NYS Legislature last week that would set maximum temperature levels in classrooms and learning spaces and in extreme cases require students be sent home. Keshia Clukey reports in NEWSDAY that the measure, which now heads to Gov. Kathy Hochul for her consideration, would require public schools to take action such as turning on fans and pulling down blinds if room temperatures reach 82 degrees. If temperatures hit 88 degrees, students and staff would not be allowed to occupy the space, according to the bill.

The proposed legislation aimed at protecting the health of students and teachers, comes as school districts statewide and across Long Island have faced rising temperatures in recent years because of climate change, experts said.

Health experts say increased heat cannot only adversely affect the health of students, but also their mental health and ability to learn.

New York State United Teachers President Melinda Person in a statement Saturday said the statewide heat standards are a “vital step toward making sure our classrooms are healthy spaces where the focus can be on teaching and learning.”

Some education groups, though supportive of efforts to keep students and staff safe, have concerns about the implementation of the bill.

Brian Fessler, director of governmental relations for the New York State School Boards Association noted school districts could feel obligated to upgrade their infrastructure, such as air conditioning systems, at a cost to state or local taxpayers.

Governor Hochul’s office said she will review the legislation, which, if approved, would take effect in September 2025.

State law currently imposes a minimum classroom temperature of 65 degrees, but there are no legal limits for maximum temperatures.

The bill would require school districts and Boards of Cooperative Educational Services to develop policies for extreme heat conditions in educational and support service spaces. The measure excludes certain areas such as kitchens.

An $8 million increase in the estimated cost of a new upgrade to the Town of Riverhead’s wastewater treatment facilities was approved by the Town Board at last week’s meeting. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the cost of the project has spiked about 80% since the board first approved the plan two years ago. It was then estimated by consulting engineers H2M to carry a $10.5 million price tag. But when bids came in this year, the cost spiked to an estimated $18.65 million, according to H2M Senior Vice President Chris Weiss. The increased costs were largely the result of COVID supply chain issues, Weiss told the Riverhead Town Board at a June 4 public hearing. There were also some design changes, such as an increase in the size of the storage building, H2M wastewater engineer Nick Bono said.

The upgrade involves converting the facility’s existing sludge handling process to a Class A biosolids project. The current sludge handling process results in the production of a “sludge cake” that costs the town more than $500,000 per year to haul off and dispose at a landfill in Pennsylvania. Class A, or exceptional quality, biosolids meet the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s standards for land application and surface disposal, according to an engineering report prepared for the town by H2M in April 2021.

The new system will save the town an estimated $25 million in operational costs over 30 years, mostly in reduced disposal costs due to the reduction in volume and weight of the biosolids that would need to be disposed of, according to an analysis prepared by H2M and presented to the Town Board by Bono at the May 15 work session. There is also the possibility that the town will be able to give the material away, avoiding some or even most, disposal costs.

JetBlue Airways will start flying out of Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma in October, with nonstop service to three Florida destinations, Islip Town officials said yesterday. Brianne Ledda reports in NEWSDAY that JetBlue, the sixth largest airline in the nation, will become the fourth airline flying out of the Islip Town-owned airport, joining Southwest Airlines, Frontier Airlines and Breeze Airways.

Starting in late October, the low-cost carrier will operate daily service between Islip and Orlando, and four round-trip flights weekly between the Long Island airport and Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach.

The addition of the major airline is the latest in a spate of upgrades at the airport that have encompassed more than $100 million in planning and capital projects since 2016, including a ground transportation center and walkway and a fire rescue building.

The pending $2.8 billion Midway Crossing proposal is expected to build a walkway connecting a new MacArthur air terminal to Ronkonkoma’s Long Island Rail Road Station. The proposal calls for 2.7 million square feet of new construction, including a convention center, a 300-room hotel and health sciences facilities.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul may believe she has the power to unilaterally shut down the nation’s first congestion pricing scheme, which was slated to pump $1 billion a year into the coffers of the nation’s largest transit system.

Not everyone thinks she’s right, and her opponents are eager to prove their case in court.

Dana Rubinstein reports in THE NY TIMES that the New York City comptroller, Brad Lander, has assembled a collection of stakeholders to develop a legal strategy that would underpin one or more lawsuits seeking to get the central business district toll program back on track.

Mr. Lander is planning to outline the likely avenues of litigation at a news conference today. The gathering underscores the swelling outrage among environmental and transportation advocates who have spent years persuading the government to enact tolls on drivers entering Manhattan’s core — only to see Governor Hochul abruptly halt the plan less than a month before it was to go into effect.

Michael Gerrard, a prominent environmental lawyer at Columbia University, is spearheading the coalition’s legal strategy, alongside a New York University law professor, Roderick Hills, and Eric A. Goldstein, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Mr. Gerrard said the group believes Ms. Hochul may have violated a litany of laws, including the 2019 statute that the State Legislature passed and then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed saying that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority “shall” implement the congestion pricing program.

“It creates a mandatory duty, and it doesn’t give the governor the authority to cancel it,” he said. “We believe that the governor broke the law by putting an indefinite hold on congestion pricing.”

He also contended that Ms. Hochul violated the state climate law, known as the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which requires the governor to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Starting June 30, the M.T.A. was planning to charge E-ZPass drivers as much as $15 to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street, a move that would have raised roughly $1 billion a year in toll revenue. The M.T.A. was, in turn, planning to use that funding to support a $15 billion capital plan, which would have, among other things, enabled the purchase of new subway cars and buses, and the installation of new signals for a system seeing rapidly rising subway delays.

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Passage of NYS Regents exams, an academic staple for more than 150 years, would no longer be required for high school graduation, under a sweeping plan outlined yesterday during a two-hour meeting of the Board of Regents in Albany.

Also up for elimination are Regents diplomas, which thousands of students earn each year by passing at least four exams and related courses. John Hildebrand reports on Newsday.com that supporters describe the plan as an effort to meet student needs in the 21st century; opponents, as a downgrade of standards. To replace traditional exam requirements, students under the plan would be allowed other options for demonstrating knowledge and skills — for example, completion of year-end class projects or performance of public service. High school diplomas would continue to be issued, but there would be only one such credential, rather than the Regents-level and “local” diplomas now available. The status of Regents exams has been discussed and debated by Regents before, most notably at a Nov. 13 meeting featuring recommendations from an advisory panel. Monday's report by state education officials was notable for its explicit description of what lies ahead, including the proposed “sunset” of exam requirements.

State education officials who launched the movement several years ago, have contended the shift will allow greater numbers of students to quality for graduation. On Monday, Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa referred to the plan as a “bold vision,” while acknowledging that much work by state and local school authorities remains to be done.

New York teenagers will no longer need to pass Regents exams in order to receive their high school diploma under a new plan unveiled by the state Education Department yesterday. Allie Griffin reports in THE NY POST that the education department plans to scrap the requirement that students need to pass five Regent exams to graduate high school — but will continue to administer the tests as an option for students to “demonstrate their proficiency in meeting the State’s learning standards.”

The department presented its proposal at Monday’s Board of Regents meeting based on recommendations from a special commission of students, parents, educators, researchers and community leaders.

The “NYS Blue Ribbon Commission on Graduation Measures” was formed in 2019 as part of the Board of Regents and Education Department’s initiative to reimagine “what a New York State diploma should signify.

NYS Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa and her department associates have added that students will continue to take mandated exams in three subjects — English, algebra and a science — because these are required by federal law. While students would be required to take these exams, they wouldn't be required to pass them to graduate. However, that law does not require testing in history and government — a fact that stirs deep concerns among social studies educators on Long Island.

Officials expect to hold a series of public forums, then present a more detailed plan to Regents in November. There's no date for when this could be implemented.

A blood emergency exists in our region, according to New York Blood Center, which cites “a significant drop in blood donations preceding and following Memorial Day weekend.” Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that donations have not been sufficient to meet hospital demand, New York Blood Center said last week announcing the blood emergency. This places a strain on the region’s blood supply heading into the summer months, when demand for blood typically rises due to a spike in traumatic injuries, the blood center said. The region currently only has a two-day blood supply of types O- and B-, well below the optimal level of five to seven days, according to the blood center. Platelets and all other blood types are also in short supply, the organization said. The Riverhead Community Blood Drive will take place Wednesday…that’s tomorrow from 1 to 7 p.m. at Riverhead Fire Department Headquarters, 540 Roanoke Avenue, Riverhead. Donors are asked to make an appointment by either calling 1-800-933-2566 or visiting www.nybc.org.

The New York State Assembly failed to pass the NY HEAT Act, which climate activists have been pushing to help ween the state from natural gas to renewable energy sources, before the end of the legislative session this past Friday, but several other environmental initiatives made it through the legislature and now await Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that key among those initiatives is the Horseshoe Crab Protections Act, which was passed by both the state Assembly and Senate Friday evening.

The legislation bans the taking of horseshoe crabs for commercial and biomedical purposes, but does allow takings for scientific and educational purposes, which will be regulated by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation if signed by Governor Hochul.

“This is a terrific victory for a threatened species,” said David Ansel, vice president of water protection for Save the Sound. “Horseshoe crabs have been virtually unchanged for 450 million years and survived five mass extinctions, but humans have brought them to the brink in just a few hundred years. It’s past time to stop their overfishing. Connecticut had already enacted legislation to protect horseshoe crabs, but its effectiveness was limited without bi-state protections. Now that New York has followed suit, all of Long Island Sound can be a safe habitat for this vulnerable species.”

The NY HEAT Act, already passed by the State Senate earlier this year, would have further regulated the natural gas industry and supported the decarbonization of buildings, while capping energy bills at six percent of household income for low and moderate income New York ratepayers. It would not ban the use of gas or require existing gas customers to transition to clean fuels. East End Assemblyman Fred Thiele was one of its sponsors in the Assembly. In addition to not passing the bill, the Assembly also blocked its inclusion in the state’s 2025 budget.

New York, under a new state plan, would drop its requirement that students pass traditional Regents exams to graduate from high school. As an alternative, students could demonstrate skills through completion of research projects, public service and other achievement. Supporters say the plan will help more students graduate; opponents counter by calling this a slip in standards. John Hildebrand reports on Newsday.com that NYS Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa and her department associates point out that students will continue to take mandated exams in three subjects — English, algebra and a science — because these are required by federal law. While students would be required to take these exams, they wouldn't be required to pass them to graduate. However, that law does not require testing in history and government — a fact that stirs deep concerns among social studies educators on Long Island.

“I'm so flabbergasted, it's hard to find the words,” said Gloria Sesso, president of Long Island Council for the Social Studies, which represents about 1,100 school supervisors and teachers in the region.

“It seems they're betraying their commitment to make sure students are knowledgeable of the history of their country,” Sesso added, when told of the education department's latest plan. “And we can't be sure students know it, unless we have the exam results to show it.”

Officials expect to hold a series of public forums, then present a more detailed plan to Regents in November. There's no date for when this could be implemented.

The plan already has won tentative endorsements from state-level school groups including unionized teachers, school-board representatives and superintendents.

Robert Lowry, deputy director of advocacy, research and communication for the New York State Council of School Superintendents, described Monday's report as “the next step toward translating that vision into actual specific changes.” He added his group would now canvass members to see if the state's recommendations “match their hopes and expectations.”

Walking along Main Street in Bridgehampton on a sun-splashed day under blue skies, bright flowers and red geraniums burst from flower boxes, creating a welcoming scene that might well be depicted lovingly in a watercolor canvas of vibrant small-town life. Lisa Finn reports on Patch.com that the flower boxes beautify Main Street, and now, the Bridgehampton Village Improvement Society, which plants the geraniums every year, has designed a bright new logo in red and green, featuring a floral array.

The logo, which features the BVIS logo, name and website, was designed to showcase those flower boxes that line Bridgehampton's Main Street.

The Bridgehampton Village Improvement Society is dedicated to fostering the beauty and vitality of Bridgehampton, according to the group's website. "As a non-profit volunteer organization, we commit ourselves to the beautification of our community through various initiatives including installation of geranium boxes, lighting of Christmas trees and a Menorah along Main Street for the holiday season, and diligent cleanup of our surroundings."

So far, BVIS said, the new stickers have garnered a very positive response. "We are in the process of ordering stickers, with the logo design, that people can put on a car window."

Added BVIS: "Together, as committed volunteers, we aspire to inspire positive change while retaining the charm and legacy for future generations in Bridgehampton."

Volunteers are needed, to "help preserve Bridgehampton as a thriving and visually appealing haven for all to enjoy," they said. To donate or to volunteer visit bridgehamptonvillageimprovement.org

The head of the MTA yesterday said the transit agency is “not giving up on congestion pricing,” even as it takes steps to “shrink” its capital budget now that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has indefinitely shelved the tolling plan. Alfonso A. Castillo reports in NEWSDAY that Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman and CEO Janno Lieber, making his first public remarks since Hochul’s decision last Wednesday to nix congestion pricing, took a diplomatic tone, saying while the last week has been “incredibly difficult,” Hochul still deserves “kudos” for her past support for the transit system.

Congestion pricing, which would have charged most vehicles $15 for driving below 60th Street in Manhattan, was set to take effect on June 30. But Hochul on June 5th called for an indefinite “pause” on the plan, citing affordability concerns among New Yorkers.

While coming short of criticizing her decision, Lieber made it clear it would have a significant impact on the MTA, and the $15 billion it was expecting to raise from congestion pricing revenue to fund several infrastructure investments.

Without the money, the MTA is now working to “reprioritize, re-sequence and shrink” its current five-year, $55 billion capital program, with an emphasis on maintaining, rather than expanding, the transit system.

“This is the basic stuff to make sure the system doesn’t fall apart,” Lieber said, adding the MTA will give special priority to station accessibility projects and to trying to keep federal funding that may be at risk without matching state dollars.

Speaking in the Bronx Monday morning, Governor Hochul downplayed the significance of her decision on the MTA’s finances.

“To assume that the only funding source had to be congestion pricing shows a lack of imagination,” Hochul said, adding that she remains committed to keeping the MTA’s Capital Program on track using “alternative funding.”

Hochul has not identified where the money would come from, and failed in efforts to get the State Legislature to approve a payroll tax increase during the final hours of its session Friday evening.

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Gov. Kathy Hochul’s idea to raise payroll taxes on New York City businesses instead of imposing new tolls for driving into Manhattan received a rough reception yesterday in the New York State Legislature as time to find a solution whittles away.

Nothing is dead just yet, however.

Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that with the State Legislature planning on adjourning for the year today, lawmakers are scrambling to respond after Hochul, in a stunning reversal, declared Wednesday she wants to put congestion pricing for driving in Manhattan on hold “indefinitely.”

The State Senate’s second-most powerful Democrat called the tax hike a “horrible” idea. “A New York City-only payroll tax was used to bail out the MTA just last year,” Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria) told Newsday. “Doing so again would not only be grossly unfair, it would be bad policy.”

Others said the proposal, floated as a way to fill a $1 billion hole in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s budget, was “viewed very poorly” in closed-door Senate Democratic conference.

Congestion pricing, which would have charged drivers up to $15 for driving into Manhattan below 60th Street during busiest times of the day, had been years in planning by state and local officials.

Proponents say the charge would decrease gridlock, encourage the use of mass transit, reduce pollution and provide revenue for New York’s beleaguered subways, commuter rails and buses.

Opponents say it was too big a hit for suburban commuters and businesses that drive to Manhattan daily. A Newsday/Siena College poll in November found 72% of Long Islanders opposed congestion pricing.

The Manhattan congestion pricing plan had been scheduled to begin on June 30, 2024.

The NYS Legislature yesterday gave final legislative approval to a bill requiring that most passengers use seat belts on charter buses, a measure prompted by last year’s deadly tour bus crash involving the Farmingdale High School marching band. Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that the bill, which would apply to passengers 8 years old and older, now goes to Gov. Kathy Hochul for her signature to make the measure law or for her veto.

“Seat belts save lives,” said the bill’s co-sponsor, Assemb. William Magnarelli (D-Syracuse). “All we’re saying is you have to buckle up if you are 8 years old or older.”

The bill passed 145-0 in the NYS Assembly on Tuesday and 53-7 in the State Senate last night.

The bill would close what advocates have long called a flaw in the law: Although a 2013 federal law requires seat belts in charter buses manufactured since 2016, nothing requires they be used.

Under the measure, charter bus passengers 8 years old and older will be required to use safety belts. The parents or guardians of passengers 8 to 15 years old who didn’t use the safety belts could be ticketed with a violation if they also are on the bus.

The fine would be $50 for those parents or guardians and $50 to any passengers 16 years old and older ticketed for not using the seat belts.

“The bill requires passengers to put the seat belts on,” Magnarelli said. “It is not on the bus company and it is not the drivers’ responsibility.”

The Ladies Village Improvement Society of East Hampton’s Annual Fair is Bigger than Ever in 2024.

LVIS invites you to join them tomorrow…that’s Saturday, June 8th, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM on the LVIS Grounds, 95 Main Street in East Hampton, N.Y.

Started in 1896, the Fair has remained a major source of funding for the LVIS financial commitments in the East Hampton community. These include the care and maintenance of Trees, The Nature Trail, The Village Greens, Scholarships for high school seniors and preservation of local landmarks. Hundreds of LVIS members and other volunteers, the LVIS staff, and a huge number of donations from local businesses and individuals make this coming Saturday’s festivities possible and fun for folks of all ages.

Plus, the Carousel is BACK!!!

When:

Sat, Jun 8, 2024 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Where:

LVIS Grounds

95 Main Street, East Hampton, NY, USA

Alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann maintained a “planning document” between 2000 and 2002 that investigators believe allowed him to methodically plan out his kills and prepare to evade law enforcement. Grant Parpan and Nicole Fuller report on Newsday.com that the revelation came yesterday at Heuermann's arraignment in the two previously uncharged killings of Sandra Costilla and Jessica Taylor. He pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and is scheduled to be back in court on July 30. Hair found decades ago at the wooded crime scenes where the remains of Costilla and Taylor were found also provided the Gilgo Beach Task Force with a DNA link to charge the 60-year-old Massapequa Park resident in their killings, prosecutors said.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the Gilgo Beach murders suspect is now believed to have been responsible for the murder of a woman whose body was found near Fish Cove in North Sea in 1993, according to documents released by the Suffolk County district attorney’s office on Thursday morning. The body of Sandra Costilla was found in a wooded area off Old Fish Cove Road by two hunters on the morning of November 20, 1993. She had been stabbed multiple times and detectives at the time said they suspected she had been raped. This week investigators announced that three hairs removed from her body 31 years ago were tested by two DNA labs this spring and showed that the genetic signatures of at least one of the hairs was highly likely to be a match to Rex Heuermann. Another hair found on her body was shown to almost certainly have come from an unnamed woman with whom Heuermann lived in 1993. Costilla, a native of Trinidad and Tobago who lived at the time in Ridgewood, Queens, was 28 when she was killed. In the documents charging Heuermann with her murder, investigators say the body was extensively mutilated, with “numerous sharp force injuries … to her face, torso, breasts, left thigh and vaginal area.” Heuermann, now 60, would have been 29 years old in November 1993.

Concerned Citizens of Montauk (CCOM) is hosting a community discussion on “Coastal Resiliency and the Future of Our Town” this Sunday, June 9 from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at the Montauk Library. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that seating at the library has been filled to capacity, but one may still attend via Zoom webinar, and the meeting will be streamed live on LTV’s YouTube channel, where it can also be viewed afterward.

The panel “includes coastal experts, community leaders, and elected officials and we are thrilled to help continue the community collaboration and proactive planning required to ensure Montauk’s coastal resiliency and sustainability for generations to come,” according to CCOM.

East Hampton Town, with the help of a $600,000 grant from New York State, is kicking off a project to begin the difficult work of building community consensus in Montauk around the best way to protect the hamlet from coastal vulnerability and support a resilient year-round community.

CCOM Vice President Andy Harris will moderate.

TJ Maxx is moving to new space on Route 58 in Riverhead. The off-price clothing and home fashions retail store, longtime tenant at the Roanoke Plaza shopping center in Riverhead is moving to the store formerly occupied by Christmas Tree Shops, at 1791 Old Country Road, Riverhead. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the Riverhead Planning Board last night granted site plan approval to proposed changes to the facade of the building. Approval by the town’s Architectural Review Board is still pending. The retailer’s new home is in the 119,000-square-foot shopping center built in 2013 by Saber Riverhead, where other tenants include Dick’s Sporting Goods, Aldi, Buffalo Wild Wings, Five Below and Starbucks. It is across the highway from Home Goods and Marshalls, two other national retailers owned by the publicly traded TJX Companies. TJ Maxx is presently the anchor tenant in the largest store in Roanoke Plaza, one of Route 58’s oldest shopping centers, once home to an A&P supermarket and a Pergament Home Center store. Riverhead Town Planner Heather Trojanowski told Planning Board members that the town is not yet aware of any future tenant for the space being vacated by TJ Maxx. Christmas Tree Shops closed its doors last summer after a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. All 70 Christmas Tree Shops locations nationwide were shuttered.

The Town of Riverhead is ditching a key recommendation to allow charter schools on industrial land before the public comment period on the town's master plan ends after residents rallied against it, Supervisor Tim Hubbard said yesterday.

The zoning update was among the recommendations made in the 200-page comprehensive plan, which will guide future development. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that Supervisor Hubbard confirmed the town board plans to remove the proposal from the final proposal. The change will send charter school officials back to the drawing board as their plans for a new high school have run into obstacles.

“We decided we want to keep industrial, industrial and keep it for the tax base,” Hubbard said, adding there are other zoning districts available that would allow a charter school expansion. “They just have to keep looking.”

The zoning change, if approved by the Riverhead Town Board, could have paved the way for the charter school to expand on vacant industrial land adjacent to its main campus on Middle Country Road in Calverton.

Charter school superintendent Raymond Ankrum said the decision was “disappointing,” but remained optimistic. “We are actively exploring all available options for expanding our facilities within the existing zoning regulations of Riverhead, our home district, under New York State law,” said Ankrum.

Dozens of residents spoke out against the proposal at a May 22 hearing, many toting signs that read: “Industrial zones are supposed to raise revenue, not give it away.”

Greg Wallace, a Calverton resident and president of the Riverhead public school teacher’s union, has been vocal about his opposition to the charter school’s expansion and said he was pleasantly surprised by the board’s decision.

“There was no benefit to the taxpayer by gifting industrial lands to an entity that’s not going to pay taxes,” he said.

Written comments on the Riverhead Town draft plan are being accepted through June 10.

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The Jamesport-based Turtle Rescue of the Hamptons says a record number of turtles have been killed this spring on the North Fork as the animals emerge from hibernation. Just last week, 36 turtles were found dead or had to be euthanized because of traumatic injuries, the nonprofit organization said in a press release yesterday. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Turtle Rescue of the Hamptons founder Karen Testa called the rate at which turtles are being killed by motorists this spring “alarming.” What’s been happening is something she hasn’t seen before in the 12 years she’s been running the rescue organization. “In one day, we lost 10 turtles,” she said. This year’s toll so far is double last year’s, Testa said. Several of the 36 turtles killed or euthanized because of traumatic injuries last week had lived for 40 years, Testa said. Testa has two words she wants every resident and visitor to hear and heed: “Slow down!” The “turtle carnage” is taking place because people are driving too fast and are not looking out for them, she said. “Turtles are just waking up from six months of hibernation right now. They’re very slow,” Testa said. And they’re being hit by cars, many with their eggs exposed, she said. One of the most deadly roads for turtle crossings is on Osborn Avenue near Middle Road in Riverhead. Others are County Road 51 in Riverside and Chapel Road in Greenport. There are wetlands on both sides of the roads in those locations. The turtle strikes continue despite signs being posted in areas known to be the most dangerous for turtles. Other turtles died after they were hit by lawnmowers or weed wackers.,There are likely many more turtle injuries and fatalities that aren’t being reported, Testa said.

Long Island letter carriers were attacked by dogs 65 times last year — more than in all of New York City combined and equal to the number in top-ranked Los Angeles, according to new statistics from the U.S. Postal Service. Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that the data, released as part of the Postal Service's 2024 National Dog Bite Awareness Campaign, which runs through Sunday, shows that mail carriers in Suffolk County were attacked by canines 34 times in 2023.

Suffolk County's dog attack total ties with Philadelphia's for ninth-most nationwide.

The high number of attacks on Long Island stems from residents' propensity for dog ownership and the number of single-family homes versus apartments, the Postal Service said.

The five boroughs, which have nearly triple Long Island's population, reported 50 dog attacks on postal workers last year.

In total, there were 296 dog attacks on letter carriers in New York State last year, down from 321 in 2022, the data shows.

And Long Island is already on pace in 2024 to surpass last year's numbers.

Tips to keeping the letter carrier safe from your dog

Ensure the dog is on a leash or inside your home when a letter carrier is delivering mail.
Check and see that your dog isn’t near you if you need to open your door for a letter carrier.
Be aware of the general time your letter carrier delivers mail and ensure your dog is not outside during that time.

Source: United States Postal Service

The Ladies Village Improvement Society of East Hampton’s Annual Fair is Bigger than Ever in 2024.

LVIS invites you to join them this coming Saturday, June 8th, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM on the LVIS Grounds, 95 Main Street in East Hampton, N.Y.

Plus, the Carousel is BACK!!!

When:

Sat, Jun 8, 2024 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Where:

LVIS Grounds

95 Main Street, East Hampton, NY, USA

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is quietly maneuvering to delay a plan to toll drivers entering Manhattan’s central business district, just weeks before it is slated to go into effect, according to two people familiar with the discussions. Dana Rubinstein and Grace Ashford report in THE NY TIMES that the first-in-the-nation congestion pricing plan, which has been decades in the making, is slated to start June 30. Drivers using E-ZPass will pay as much as $15 to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street.

But even as Ms. Hochul believes that congestion pricing is good environmental policy, she has concerns that the timing’s less than ideal, according to a person familiar with her thinking. The governor feared that it might deter commuters from returning to the central business district, which has yet to fully recover from the pandemic.

Ms. Hochul’s gambit, if successful, could also help her fellow Democrats in the House who might otherwise face angry voters in an election year. But it would be a devastating blow to advocates and organizers who have worked for more than a decade to bring this change to New York City.

The tolling scheme was designed to reduce traffic congestion in Manhattan and produce $1 billion a year in revenue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the region’s subways, buses and two of its commuter rail systems…Metro-North and the L.I.R.R. That revenue, in turn, would fund the system’s vast capital construction needs.

To fill the $1 billion yearly gap, Governor Hochul is considering proposing a tax on New York City businesses. Such a tax would require the approval of the Legislature, which is far from assured, especially with just two days left in the legislative session.

The North Fork Audubon Society will not change its name to remove reference to John James Audubon, the namesake of the longtime American birding organization who was a slaveholder, racist and opponent of abolition, the group’s president said yesterday. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that most of the group’s membership, who shared their thoughts about the name change with the organization’s board, favored keeping the reference to Audubon, who was the country’s dominant wildlife artist and naturalist, President Peggy Lauber said in an interview. The organization’s board of directors voted to keep the name in late February and announced the decision during last night’s general membership meeting, she said.

“Everyone was saying, ‘we need to stay focused on connecting people with nature,’” Lauber said. “And then we felt that that was vital to that mission, to keep the name.”

The National Audubon Society decided last March to retain the Audubon name after a year-long process of examining Audubon’s personal history. Some local chapters of the Audubon Society, which are independent nonprofit organizations, decided they would change their names despite the decision…including the New York City Audubon Society which is now NEW YORK CITY BIRD ALLIANCE, INC.

The recently formed Hampton Bays Alliance will meet this evening at 7 p.m. in the Hampton Bays Public Library, 52 Ponquogue Avenue in Hampton Bays. Learn about the planning process and how it works in the Town of Southampton. Members of the Town of Southampton planning department and Planning Board will discuss the work they do, how they do it and what can be expected when applications affecting the Hampton Bays hamlet are filed.

The Hampton Bays Alliance is a nonprofit civic association founded to provide a civil and respectful space for members of the Hampton Bays community to learn about the various public and private community development projects affecting the hamlet, to exchange and develop ideas regarding the revitalization and conservation of Hampton Bays, and to promote policies and improvements that will benefit members of Hampton Bays residential and business communities for generations to come.

For more information visit hamptonbaysalliance.com

Fewer foreign migrants moving to New York City and Long Island could be an imminent local outcome of President Joe Biden’s order yesterday throttling illegal crossings at the Southern border. Matthew Chayes and Robert Brodsky report on Newsday.com that Biden's announcement of federal restrictions came as the city has surpassed a milestone: 200,000 migrants processed into the homeless shelter system since the local crisis began in spring 2022. Tens of thousands remain in shelter.

The order took effect at 12:01 a.m. today. There will still be a lag to the extent its ripples are felt locally — because the migrant journey between the Southern border and New York takes time, sometimes a week via bus.

“It should have a downstream effect in New York and other major cities, but we won’t see it immediately. It’ll take a while to be carried out, and it also depends how many people the Border Patrol actually apprehends, versus how many escape and come in,” said Cornell Law School professor Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, who co-authored the treatise “Immigration Law & Procedure” and also codirects a clinic at the university to help people apply for asylum. He added of the Biden order's potential effect: “It could be significant, but we won’t know for a while how significant.”

Some immigration advocates predicted the order would lead to fewer migrants eventually moving to Long Island.

“It would certainly affect people who’d be arriving here in the next year or so,” said Patrick Young, a professor of immigration law at Hofstra Law School.

For more than two years, New York City has been the flashpoint in the metropolitan region's struggle with an unending influx of migrants from Latin America and other regions. Until earlier this year, when a court loosened the rules of a decades-old legal settlement, the city was required to provide indefinite room and board to anyone in need.

On Tuesday, N.Y.C. Mayor Eric Adams welcomed the federal order.

“200,000 people entered our city, 200,000 people,” Adams said. “Larger than other cities, 200,000. Whatever could be done to slow the flow … I’m all for.”

Last week, about 1,200 more migrants came to the city, said Anne Williams-Isom, Adams’ deputy overseeing the crisis. Adams has said the crisis has already cost the city billions.

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The NYS Legislature yesterday approved a bill requiring stores that sell or repair firearms to post warnings that a customer’s purchase “significantly increases” the risk of suicide, deadly accident to children and lethal domestic violence. Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that under the bill, the signs must be “conspicuously” posted at an entrance and at least one other place wherever guns are sold by licensed dealers or serviced by licensed gunsmiths. A copy of the warning must also be provided to buyers.

The signs must be at least 8½ by 11 inches, use at least 26-point type and state: “Access to a weapon or firearm in the home significantly increases the risk of suicide, death during domestic disputes, and/or unintentional deaths to children, household members and others. If you or a loved one is experiencing distress and/or depression, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.”

The bill, which was advanced by Democrats, passed along partisan lines and will now go to Gov. Kathy Hochul for her signature into law or her veto. Hochul's spokesperson said Monday afternoon that the governor will review the measure.

Failure to post and provide the warning to firearms buyers would carry a fine of up to $1,000 and 15 days in jail. Each day the warning isn’t posted or provided to buyers would compound the fine and jail time.

The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens), passed last Tuesday in the NYS Senate.

“Education and information are key to responsible gun ownership, which will prevent injury and improve public safety,” Gianaris said. “I am proud to have shepherded this proposal through the Senate and look forward to its enactment now that it’s passed both houses.”

NYS lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul are in general agreement on landmark legislation that would regulate social media feeds for kids. Vaughn Golden reports in THE NY POST that the bill, which has been the focus of a last minute public relations blitz by Hochul, is meant to restrict social media companies from using addictive algorithms for users under the age of 18 and prevent the big tech firms from profiting off their data.

If passed, it would be the first law of its kind in the nation.

The tentative deal would restrict social media companies from using algorithms to shape the content that minors see – meaning kids’ social feeds would show posts of accounts they follow in chronological order rather than how the apps would otherwise serve them up. Social media companies use those algorithms to keep children scrolling and staring at their screens – in a way that’s creating a mental health crisis among the nation’s youth, critics have claimed. The bill would also include put a ban on apps sending alerts overnight between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. unless parents opt in. Companies would be prohibited from selling the data of people under 18 years old, sources added. Tech firms and social media companies have been lobbying against the effort, arguing against specifics surrounding how minors verify their age and other broad concerns about the bill.

One social media trade group, whose members include Facebook’s parent company Meta, said New York’s bill would violate First Amendment protections even though it wouldn’t block minors from choosing which accounts to follow.

The Southampton Youth Bureau’s 21st annual Battle of the Bands is bringing the sound of local bands back to Ponquogue Beach in Hampton Bays this coming Friday, June 7. Dan Stark reports on 27east.com that the concert is one of the biggest events of the year for local bands in the Town of Southampton. It’s one of the best opportunities to showcase the talents of local high schoolers on a stage with a sound system and lights — and a live crowd cheering them on.

Gates open at 7 p.m., and early arrivers will be treated with a series of special guest opening acts for the first hour. This year will feature three local high schoolers who participated in “Hamptons Got Talent,” a talent show hosted in Hampton Bays by the Youth Bureau in April. The three performers are Gimena Valdespino, who won first place, Samantha Hayes, who won third place, and Cole Dawson, who won the People’s Choice Award.

Then, at 8 p.m., the main show begins as the bands take the stage.

This year, there will be three bands in the competition: Daydream, Endless Summar and Swerv City. Each band will have 25 minutes to perform a set of four or five songs. The winning band also gets to perform an encore at the end of the show.

Republican U.S. Representative Nick LaLota of New York’s 1st Congressional District wasted little time last week in coming to the defense of Donald Trump after the former president was found guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to reimbursing his former attorney to cover up a hush-money payment made to a pornographic film actress. Christopher Walsh on 27east.com reports that LaLota, a first-term Republican who is seeking reelection, was critical of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in a statement posted to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

“The best way to unwind Alvin Bragg’s political prosecution and today’s conviction is for Governor [Kathy] Hochul to immediately announce her intention to pardon President Trump and pre-emptively commute any sentence,” he wrote. “To not do so is to allow America to become a banana republic. President Trump’s fate, and the 2024 presidential election, should be decided by voters, not overzealous politically motivated prosecutors and an imbalanced jury.”

LaLota announced his endorsement of Trump’s presidential candidacy in January.

Nancy Goroff, who is seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge LaLota, responded to the congressman, “Shame on you, Nick LaLota!” she wrote. “Trump was convicted on all charges by a jury of his peers, in accordance with our justice system.”

John Avlon, the author and former CNN anchor who is also seeking the Democrats’ nomination to challenge LaLota, stated, “Nick LaLota endorsed and is supporting a convicted criminal for President who paid hush money to a porn star to cover up their affair while his wife was pregnant,” he said in the statement. “It’s the opposite of character and family values.”

Goroff, who lives in Stony Brook, and Avlon, who lives in Sag Harbor, will face off in a June 25 primary election. The winner will face LaLota in the November 5 general election.

Alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann is expected back in court later this week on a new indictment charging him with an additional killing, multiple sources told Newsday. Heuermann, 60, will appear for arraignment before State Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei in Riverhead this coming Thursday, the sources said. The new indictment comes within weeks of a search by Gilgo Beach Task Force investigators in an area of Manorville where the partial remains of two Gilgo Beach victims — Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack — were found more than two decades ago and days after investigators completed a second search of Heuermann’s home in Massapequa Park. Grant Parpan reports on Newsday.com that Heuermann previously pleaded not guilty in the deaths of four women — Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello and Maureen Brainard-Barnes — who were the first of 10 sets of remains found within proximity of each other along Ocean Parkway between late fall 2010 and early spring 2011.

Heuermann, an architect who had an office on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, has been held without bail in Suffolk County’s Riverhead Correctional Facility since his July 13 arrest on first- and second-degree murder charges in the killings of Waterman, Barthelemy and Costello. He was charged in January with second-degree murder for the killing of Brainard-Barnes. He was previously due back in court for a conference June 18.

The Ladies Village Improvement Society of East Hampton’s Annual Fair is Bigger than Ever in 2024.

LVIS invites you to join them this coming Saturday, June 8th, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM on the LVIS Grounds, 95 Main Street in East Hampton, N.Y.

Plus, the Carousel is back!

When:

Sat, Jun 8, 2024 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Where:

LVIS Grounds

95 Main Street, East Hampton, NY, USA

Calling all citizen scientists: Peconic Baykeeper wants your help documenting coastal changes and rising sea levels on the East End — and all you need is your cellphone. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that the Hampton Bays-based environmental organization recently unveiled a multiyear, community-based initiative to visually record coastal changes in the Peconic Estuary — which includes all the bays and waterways between Long Island's North and South forks. It spans more than 125,000 acres of land and 158,000 acres of surface water, according to Suffolk County officials.

At 15 designated photo stations from Riverhead to Montauk, volunteers can use their cellphones to capture images of harbors, bays and creeks and email them to a specified address before the photos are put into a time-lapse slideshow through the website Chronolog.

Pete Topping, executive director of Peconic Baykeeper, said the nonprofit's goal is to consistently gather photos at the sites over several years to illustrate the changing environment.

Called Project RISE, which stands for Recording Inundation Surrounding the Estuary, the community science project also aims to highlight “some of the most beautiful publicly accessible places remaining in the Peconic Estuary” and create “a connection with the community,” Topping said.

Peconic Estuary Partnership, a Riverhead-based nonprofit whose mission is to protect and restore the estuary, awarded a $24,000 grant to Peconic Baykeeper to fund the project for five years. The grant covered acquiring the materials and using Chronolog's website, Topping said.

Joyce Novak, the partnership's executive director, said the project will create a “robust record” of what’s happening at each of the 15 sites.

“It’s just a really good example of things that we call 'citizen science,' ” she said. “People out there getting involved, loving their environment and with something as simple as their phone.”

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A recommendation in Riverhead Town’s draft comprehensive plan update to allow private schools in industrial zones will be removed from the draft plan in response to complaints from residents opposed to the Riverhead Charter School, Supervisor Tim Hubbard announced Wednesday night. “We heard you loud and clear,” Hubbard told a group of about 20 charter school opponents at the start of a meeting convened to hear public comments about the draft generic environmental impact statement on draft comprehensive plan update. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the draft plan accepted for review and comment by the Town Board on April 25 included a recommendation that the Town of Riverhead allow private schools in all industrial zones within the town by special permit. If implemented by an amendment to the town’s zoning code, the change would allow the Riverhead Charter School to seek a special permit for the construction of a new high school on industrially zoned land near the school’s main campus in Calverton. That recommendation drew loud opposition from the Riverhead school district community. District officials and the labor union representatives have been opposed to the Riverhead Charter School since its founding in 2001. Charter school opponents packed the Town Hall meeting room for the May 22 public hearing on the draft comp plan, and dominated the discussion that night. The supervisor’s announcement this past Wednesday was met with applause from the audience. “We heard you loud and clear,” Hubbard continued. “We agree with a lot of the points. And there is land available in the town where, if the charter school should choose to build a school, that it would be zoned appropriately for that,” he said. “We’re not going to give away industrial land for the use of the charter school.” The entire board supports the change, the supervisor said. It is unclear what this change will mean for the charter school’s plan to build a new high school.

Commercial truck drivers have joined the long list of opponents who’ve filed lawsuits to block the controversial first-in-nation congestion toll to enter parts of Manhattan.

Carl Campanile reports in THE NY POST that the Trucking Association of New York (TANY) slammed the congestion pricing program as unconstitutional and a “scheme for which there is no prior precedent in this country” in a suit filed Thursday against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the state in Manhattan federal court.

Motorists would pay a $15 toll to enter Manhattan’s business district south of 60th Street — but truckers would pay $24 to $36 depending on the size of their vehicle.

Barring judicial intervention, the MTA plans to impose the new toll on June 30.

TANY claims congestion pricing violates the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution granting Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce.

The lawsuit argues the high toll “imposes a financial burden … which is excessive.”

The trucker’s litigation follows lawsuits filed by Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella and the United Federation of Teachers, lower Manhattan residents and small business, and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy.

Congestion pricing is being implemented because of a state law championed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Democrat-controlled legislature in 2019, and the toll has been championed by Gov. Kathy Hochul to curb congestion and pollution in Midtown, while generating revenue to boost mass transit.

Cybercriminals are realizing there’s a better chance you’ll open their email than you’ll answer your phone. Peter King reports on Newsday.com that the Federal Trade Commission says frauds that begin via email or text accounted for 40% of scams last year, up from 19% in 2020. Scams via phone calls, meanwhile, fell from 67% of all reported frauds in 2020 to 32% last year.

More than half the reported scams were “impersonation frauds.” The scammer tries to get the victim to divulge financial information by pretending to represent a business such as Amazon contacting you about a suspicious charge, a bank claiming there has been unauthorized activity on your account or a government employee needing to verify account information because of a problem with your taxes or Social Security.

So, beware of emails or texts trying to get you to divulge financial information by pretending to represent a business, bank or government employee.

Many high school students are familiar with the stress of getting into college or a technical school — the pressure to earn good grades, star in extracurriculars and file application after application, hoping for a chance to succeed in the program of their dreams. When the good news arrives, the stress often melts away, replaced with relief. But for some, a new anxiety takes its place.

Michelle Trauring reports on 27east.com that at five local high schools — Hampton Bays, Southampton, Bridgehampton, Pierson and East Hampton — 44 percent of the seniors come from economically disadvantaged families, which forces some to drop out of college after their freshman year due to lack of funds, according to Vivian Shapiro. That’s where the Road Forward Scholarship Fund comes in, the nonprofit organization’s vice president said. “The only way to rise out of poverty is through education, and we can help them.” Since 2022, the organization has gifted nine scholarships to deserving students from the participating high schools. The number, and amount, for this year’s graduating class will be based solely on the amount of money raised, explained President Sherri Lippman — in part decided by its second annual benefit, “Cabaret for a Cause,” on June 15 at LTV Studios in Wainscott. “This is a communitywide effort,” Lippman said. “We are the boots on the ground, and we’re raising the funds. We’re getting the applications, we see the need, we’re connecting with them and mentoring them. But without the support from everyone else, we would have no scholarships to give.” The idea for the scholarship fund was born among members of the Social Justice Committee at Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor, who were helping families that lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An anticipated public hearing on an application seeking an exemption from the moratorium on the licensing and construction of battery energy storage systems, which was scheduled for Tuesday, was adjourned to June 25, the Southampton Town Board announced when it met on Tuesday evening. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that Canal Southampton Battery Storage, a project of Rhynland Energy, is seeking the exemption from the moratorium the board implemented last August and extended in February. It is the same company that proposed such a facility, known as a BESS, at 24 North Road and 27 Starboard Road in Hampton Bays, the very proposal that spurred the moratorium after widespread community opposition. That site is close to Montauk Highway, the Long Island Rail Road track, and the Shinnecock Canal. The hearing is a nondiscretionary act with which the board must comply to ensure due process. The board had expected members of the public to offer comment on the application. But due to a communication hitch, the applicant received a notice of the hearing date “extremely late,” Keith Archer, an attorney representing Canal Southampton Battery Storage, told the board via video conference on Tuesday. He said that he had requested an adjournment in two letters. “We appreciate that the board set the hearing date and would request the board set an adjournment date for this hearing,” he said. The hearing will instead be held at the board’s June 25 meeting, which starts at 6 p.m.

On the North Fork tomorrow, the New Suffolk Civic Association holds its annual meeting beginning with coffee at 9:30 a.m. and the meeting at 10 a.m. at the New Suffolk School at 1245 Fourth Street.

Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that also on Saturday, the Southold-Peconic Civic Association holds its annual meeting, with coffee and donuts at 9:30 a.m. followed by the meeting and a presentation on emergency management at 10 a.m. in the Southold Town Recreation Center at 970 Peconic Lane in Peconic.

And on the south fork tomorrow, the third Annual Hamptons Pride Parade in East Hampton Village steps off at noon from Main Street near Herrick Park. A ballon-free, flag-filled, family-fun event is planned.

What would ocean cruising be without its exotic ports of call? Alaska, Puerto Vallarta, Grand Cayman, Sag Harbor …

That’s right, for the first time, Sag Harbor, already deluged by a seasonal onslaught of jitneys, helicopters and mile-long traffic on nearby Scuttle Hole Road, now has something else to contend with: 100 or so passengers arriving at its shores courtesy of American Cruise Lines’ eight-day, seven-night Yankee Seaports cruises. Scott Vogel reports on Newsday.com that indeed, the American Eagle made its inaugural stop just offshore on May 7, at which point passengers boarded a 25-person tender for the final leg of the journey to Long Wharf. A second ship, the American Independence, sets sail from Boston on May 27, stopping at Sag Harbor five days later.

“Sag Harbor is a beautiful coastal village and is just the sort of off-the-beaten path place our customers love exploring,” Alexa Paolella, the cruise company's public relations manager, tells Newsday. As with ACL’s other East Coast sailings, she added, the goal of the Yankee Seaports cruises is to highlight “the local character, fun, and most intriguing attractions in every place we visit.”

There is only one other ACL sailing from Boston in the weeks ahead (the American Eagle, departing June 25). The next ship won’t make its way to Sag Harbor shores until after summer on Sept. 30, as part of a 15-day and 14-night fall foliage cruise leaving from Portland, Maine. After that, three more cruises will follow this year, on Oct. 4, 14 and 21. Six cruises are planned for 2025 and 12 in 2026.

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East Hampton Town officials say they’ve seen a trend emerging among property owners — they're building down rather than up. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that last week, a committee that looked at the town’s zoning code outlined several recommendations before the town board that could curtail the size of new houses, if adopted. While current code restricts houses to two stories, officials cited examples of elaborate finished basements that essentially add a third floor.

Jeremy Samuelson, the planning director, said the committee’s goal was to align code with the Town of East Hampton's comprehensive plan. That 2005 document says “future development should be harmonious with the existing character of the community.”

Samuelson framed the discussion around a single question: “How big is a house?” He said a “loophole” in zoning code allows builders to construct expansive lower levels that essentially make homes into three-story structures.

But the proposals, which would require legislation to become law, are facing pushback from community members who say the changes could be too restrictive and are unnecessary.

A key change the committee proposed would be to add the square footage of a home's finished basement or attached garage to the certificate of occupancy — meaning for the first time, those spaces would be measured as part of the structure's maximum allowable size.

The current code sets the maximum square footage of a house based on lot size. For example, on a half-acre property, the house size maximum is 3,600 square feet.

The committee, as part of its yearlong zoning code study, examined nearly half the 600 building permits the town issued since 2019. The analysis found six permits for homes between 7,501 and 10,000 square feet. But by including finished basements and attached garages, the number jumped to 48.

Any changes would be subject to a public hearing before a town board vote.

Lawmakers in Albany are rushing to put the finishing touches on proposed legislation meant to crack down on what they call “addictive” social-media algorithms — with a push from Gov. Kathy Hochul. Vaughn Golden reports in THE NY POST that NYS legislators are trying to get the measures passed before the legislative session expires at the end of next week and many begin to furiously hit the campaign trail before November.

Governor Hochul, speaking at an event with the Mental Health Association in New York a few miles from the state capitol yesterday, said, “We’re sticking with this fight."

“We’re not giving up,” vowed the governor, a mom of two adult children and a grandmother.

It was the governor’s third public event in the past week touting the proposed legislation. The measures would bar social-media companies from displaying content for kids using algorithms meant to keep their eyes on the screen. It would also restrict those companies from selling the data of users under the age of 18, as well as mandating that their services offer parental controls. Social media companies have been spending millions of dollars lobbying against the bill.

The Riverhead Town Board holds a Special Meeting this evening at 6 p.m. at town hall for a public hearing on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for its Comprehensive Plan Update. Written comments on the DEIS, and on the Comprehensive Plan Update itself, are being accepted through June 10. Beth Young in EAST END Beacon reports that last week, after hearing more than two hours of testimony on a final draft of its Comprehensive Plan Update, mostly from residents opposed to a recommendation that would allow private schools in industrial zones. Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard told the crowd that filled the room that a separate public hearing on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the plan will be held Wednesday May 29…which is this evening at 6 p.m. in Riverhead Town Hall.

Dr. Chris Gobler and Stony Brook University’s Center for Clean Water Technology have proposed to develop and implement a watershed management and remediation plan for Mecox Bay, the South Fork’s largest coastal pond, which continues to suffer from toxic algal blooms and low dissolved oxygen from excessive nitrogen seeping into the bay from the land above it. Mark McIntyre reports on 27east.com that the ambitious nitrogen management plan, backed by the Southampton Town Trustees and the Town Board, would rapidly upgrade up to 100 residential septic systems near its shores, and quantify and rank the nitrogen contribution from all sources, including septic systems, fertilizers, sediment, runoff, groundwater, the atmosphere and pets. It would identify shorelines where nitrogen barriers could be located, which may include acquiring the use of farmland and residential property, and develop a long-term watershed management plan, backed by stakeholders, that would identify the most effective and achievable ways to restore ecological balance to Mecox Bay. Dr. Gobler recently submitted his proposed Mecox watershed plan to Southampton Town, seeking $284,000 in water quality improvement funds via the Community Preservation Fund for the $473,000 study. The project’s timeline would be prompt: Producing data and developing a watershed management plan would take a year and be completed by spring 2026. The septic upgrades, guided by the Center for Clean Water Technology’s watershed manager, would start next year and stretch over three years.

On or about September 4th, 2024, Sunrise Wind LLC will commence pre-construction activities in New York State (NYS) waters, subject to public approvals. A Mariners’ Open House to communicate pre-construction activities in NYS waters will be held in person from 4-7pm today at 478 West Lake Drive in Montauk, NY, with the option to join online here.

The Open House will be an opportunity for mariners and fisheries stakeholders to consult with Sunrise Wind LLC on the following topics: Horizontal Directional Drilling and cable pull through at Smith Point Park in Shirley; temporary pier & barging route operations in the Intercoastal Water Way at Smith Point Park; and the installation of the Sunrise Wind export cable in NYS waters.

As the scheduled end of New York State’s legislative session quickly approaches on June 6, voting on a number of bills is coming down to the wire. Among those is a bill that would require companies to incorporate a “packaging reduction and recycling plan,” which could drastically reduce the number of packages wrapped in layers of plastic. Claire Fahy reports in THE NY TIMES that while many single-use plastic products may seem recyclable, they often are not because of the chemicals of which they are made. The flimsy thin plastic that makes up potato chip pouches, food delivery bags and juice squeezes makes them more difficult to collect and sort.

The bill would require companies that use single-use plastic packaging to find sustainable alternatives or pay a yet-to-be-determined fee, which would go toward covering the costs of municipalities’ recycling and waste disposal.

But powerful fossil fuel companies, chemical producers and large manufacturers of food and drink packaging are staunchly opposed to the measure and argue that it could cause, among other things, packaged food prices to increase.

Nicole Delma, a Sag Harbor business owner, said she has always been bothered by the large amount of plastic waste she encounters both locally and on her travels.

But volunteering for another beach cleanup can only accomplish so much, she said.

“There’s got to be something we can do about this plastic issue that’s less about cleaning up and more about getting to the root of the cause,” she said. “If we could stop the plastic at the source, that would be a lot better than trying to clean it up after it’s gotten there.”

So Delma, a digital marketer and boutique owner, decided to launch a petition on Change.org back in 2020, requesting that Amazon, which ships an astounding 7 billion packages a year, give customers the option of requesting plastic-free packaging at checkout.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that Delma said she was “overwhelmed” when the petition passed the 5,000-signature milestone. When the petition was picked up by Oceana, an ocean advocacy group which agreed to sponsor the effort, the number of signatures began to pile up. When they rolled past the 500,000 mark, Amazon agreed to come to the table to discuss the matter.

As the number of signatures continued to grow — it’s currently just above 784,000 — Amazon cried uncle, sort of. It agreed to give consumers a plastic-free option for their package materials, but it has yet to commit to a date for the changeover.

Delma said she is optimistic that will take place this July, when Amazon publishes its annual sustainability report.

Susan Rockefeller, a member of Oceana’s board of directors, said Delma’s petition “has grown to be one of our most impactful campaigns.”

Delma said. “I’m grateful to Oceana for taking the petition much farther than I could have and getting Amazon to change and to be more accountable about its impact on our planet.”

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A new federal lawsuit alleges an East Hampton agency violated federal housing law by refusing to let a teenager with “mental health and other medical conditions” live with his emotional support dog for 19 months before reversing its stance. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that the East Hampton Housing Authority repeatedly denied resident Kerry Morouney’s request for her son’s dog, a morkie named Lucky, to live in the Accabonac Apartments unit where the family has resided since April 2021, according to the complaint.

The agency, which has its own board of commissioners and isn't funded through town taxes, manages affordable housing developments.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found “reasonable cause existed to believe that illegal discriminatory housing practices had occurred,” according to the lawsuit.

HUD referred the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office, which filed the litigation on May 9 on the family's behalf and later declined to comment. Morouney, 36, cited legal advice while declining to comment in an email.

The lawsuit names the housing authority, its executive director, Catherine Casey, and the property owner, Seymour Schutz LLC, as defendants.

The litigation says in February 2021, Casey told Morouney only “bona fide service animals” were allowed in the apartment complex and an emotional support dog was considered a pet. It says the housing authority then reversed its stance in October 2022.

But in the months without Lucky, the young man, then 14 and 15, suffered “increased night terrors, panic attacks, insomnia, nauseousness, vomiting, and decreased appetite,” and missed “significant time” in school, according to the complaint.

The teenager's health improved once Lucky moved in again, according to the complaint.

Two South Fork beaches were listed in the Top 10 in the nation this week by Dr. Stephen Leatherman, the Florida professor known widely as “Dr. Beach,” who has put out a national ranking of beaches since 1991.

Coopers Beach in Southampton Village was ranked second, behind Duke Kahanamoku Beach on Oahu, Hawaii, and East Hampton Main Beach, ranked sixth, returned to the Top 10 list after a long absence.

“Main Beach provides the perfect blend of nature and built environment,” Leatherman says of East Hampton Main Beach on his website, DrBeach.org. “The big, wide sandy beach composed of grainy quartz grains has towering sand dunes and beautiful clean and clear blue water.”

Coopers Beach in Southampton Village has been a perennial Top 10. “The beach is backed by large sand dunes covered by American beach grass interspersed with large and extravagant mansions,” Leatherman says. “Some of the best beach access in the Hamptons exists on Coopers Beach, and a snack bar serving lunch and drinks can be found here as well.”

Leatherman uses a ranking system of 50 criteria to score beaches — from the softness of the sand and wave conditions to the food and drink amenities, the level of urbanization surrounding the beach and the ease (and cost) of parking.

Both Main Beach and Coopers have topped the list in years past.

Hawaiian beaches have taken the top spot in four of the last eight years.

The Southampton Town Board will hold a public hearing at its 6 p.m. meeting this evening in Town Hall, 116 Hampton Road, Southampton, on a request from Canal BESS, the project proposed near the Shinnecock Canal that has galvanized the Hampton Bays community, for an exemption from the town’s moratorium on Battery Energy Storage Systems. The meeting can be viewed live on Sea-TV’s YouTube channel. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON also reports that this evening at 7 p.m., the Hampton Bays Public Library hosts a meeting with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on an expedited Superfund cleanup proposed for the Hampton Bays Fire District property at 69 Montauk Highway in Hampton Bays.

A rash of lithium-ion battery fires — some deadly — has spurred New York lawmakers to approve a series of bills to regulate how the batteries are sold, charged and stored.

The package of five measures is aimed at e-bikes, or electronic bicycles, and not so much at large battery storage plants such as the East Hampton one that caught fire in 2023.

The State Senate passed the bills last Tuesday; the Assembly did so earlier this year. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will have to sign or veto the bills by the year’s end. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that the action comes following a dramatic increase in e-bike fires, including hundreds annually in New York City. In 2022, city officials said they were responding to an average of nearly four such fires each week.

Investigators say they are often caused by a lithium-ion battery, which can overheat while being charged and explode in an intensely hot fire.

Three pieces of legislation would change the laws around the sales of batteries, chargers and power cords.

One bill would prohibit the sale of batteries or chargers that aren’t certified safe by an accredited testing lab. Another requires chargers to have affixed tags providing information about safe use and storage and bright red labels suggesting power cords be unplugged when not in use.

Another bill in the NYS Legislature would expand the hazardous materials training administered by the state Office of Fire Prevention and Control to include protocols and guidance for responding to emergencies involving lithium-ion batteries.

Three lithium-battery storage sites in New York State caught fire in 2023…including the one in East Hampton. A study by the Hochul administration said “no harmful toxins” were detected at the sites.

That hasn’t satisfied some activists who have called for more research on the facilities — which are projected to sprout exponentially as the state tries to transition away from fossil fuels for its energy needs.

New Yorkers playing fantasy sports on gambling platforms may soon be able to place side bets on novel wagers such as how many points Knicks guard Jalen Brunson will score in a quarter, whether Yankees slugger Aaron Judge will hit a home run in his next at-bat, how long the national anthem will be sung, and what color Gatorade will be used to drench a winning NFL coach. Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that a legislative proposal would legalize these increasingly popular “prop bets,” but only for New Yorkers playing fantasy sports on gambling platforms such as FanDuel, a niche market in sports gambling.

These proposition bets can spice up a blowout game or add to the excitement of a close game for as little as $5 a wager, according to the bill's sponsors and academic researchers. Parlays or multiple-prop bets can yield bigger payoffs.

But there is a danger, too. The allure of these small, quick bets can add up fast, resulting in many more bets each game than a gambler may have planned, or is able to afford, gambling addiction experts say.

The Town of Southampton invites you to celebrate, with the Riverside community, the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the brand new Riverside Maritime Trail Park on the banks of the Peconic River tomorrow at 11:00 am.

Development of the Riverside Maritime Trail Park with pedestrian access to the Peconic River, passive recreation and shoreline/wetland restoration, was a cornerstone feature of the Riverside Revitalization Action Plan (RRAP) and the Riverside Brownfield Opportunity Area (BOA) Plan. The Park will facilitate a re-orientation of land use and community life toward the River, providing a linkage between a new downtown Riverside and the River and functioning as an anchor for new mixed use development and increased economic activity resulting in brownfield cleanup, blight mitigation and crime reduction.

As a public gathering space, the Park will provide a welcoming and safe environment, accessible and inviting to all ages and abilities. Programs, amenities and passive recreational activities that promote healthy living through design and enhance the livability of the community can begin to address the social isolation and other health issues that may be revealed in the Community Participatory Public Health Survey, which is part of the planning process.

The RRAP and the Riverside Overlay District envision and provide ultimately for a continuous, approximately 1.6-mile Trail from the east side of Peconic Avenue, eastward to Town owned land on the north side of NYS RT – 24 at the easterly end of the Riverside Overlay District, encompassing the County parkland as well as Town and privately owned properties that make up the balance of the river front.

Acrid brown smoke billows and swirls in the air on a late spring morning as students emerge from the fire simulators at the Suffolk County Fire Academy in Yaphank. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that there, in the Suffolk County Fire Academy in Yaphank. they had just watched flames unfurl in a converted steel shipping container designed to show what a fire looks like up close — and to let the firefighter trainees sense how deadly a flash-over fire, where gas and gathered smoke ignites overhead, can truly be.

Jargon bounces between the instructors and students, including — and especially — the expression “dancing angels,” which describes a signal that a fire is about to get a lot more dangerous by entering flash-over mode.

For the students to reach this point, they have already completed months of classroom learning and nearly three days of hands-on training, or HOT, at the sprawling campus that draws fire agencies from across Suffolk County and beyond for world-class instruction in best-practices firefighting.

But volunteerism is down, way down, and while there are some incentives — length-of-services payments, or LOSAP, and college credits — the volunteers say they are not in it for the money. They want to give back, they explain, and are drawn to the camaraderie, if not the thrill of fighting a fire and possibly saving a life in the offing.

Among this particular group of probationary firefighters — or “probies,” as they’re called — are roofers and chefs, tattoo artists and baristas, college students and COVID-era full-timers who moved out east from New York City. There’s a Slavic contingency from the Riverhead Fire Department, and Latinos from Flanders, East Hampton and elsewhere.

They all have a story about why they’re here. But by the end of the training, they will all graduate with the same New York State certificate in hand, Firefighter I, as paid for and administered by Suffolk County and the instructors at the facility.

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Long Island ranks No. 1 among the state's 10 regions in the number of jobs created by industrial development agencies, according to a new report. James T. Madore reports on Newsday.com that the office of NYS Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli found 47,521 people were added to local payrolls as of Dec. 31, 2022, by expanding companies, housing developments and other projects that were awarded tax breaks by Long Island's eight IDAs in recent years. That's almost one-quarter of the 204,147 jobs created statewide by IDA projects.

In addition, 2022 was the seventh year out of eight in which Long Island placed first in job creation in the state; New York City edged out Long Island in 2020.

“IDAs were created [in the 1960s] to help grow local economies, businesses and job markets,” said DiNapoli (D-Great Neck Plaza). “The tax breaks [that IDAs] provide businesses can impact local tax collections … and New Yorkers should be mindful about weighing the benefits these projects bring to their communities against their cost.” The release of the comptroller's annual IDA report card comes as state lawmakers consider bills that would exclude school property taxes from IDA aid packages, or about 70% of the property taxes paid by Long Island businesses. The legislation also would have local governments fund IDAs instead of having them funded by IDA application fees.

DiNapoli calculated the “net jobs gained” at each project by comparing its 2022 employment with that for the year before the project received IDA aid. Data for 2023 will be published next year.

The projects, as a group, saved nearly $232 million in property, sales and mortgage-recording taxes in 2022, or $80 per Long Island resident.

An amendment to the law that allows Suffolk County to increase its sales tax rate by 1/8 of a cent to finance the installation of sewer and advanced septic systems was signed into law yesterday by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the governor’s signature on the amendment, negotiated by state and county lawmakers, sets the stage for the county to put a referendum on the ballot in this year’s general election seeking voter approval of the sales tax increase.

The amended Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act provides that half the revenue from the tax will go towards wastewater treatment facilities, while the other half will help fund individual septic system projects. The law originally prioritized individual septic system projects, providing a 75-25 split in favor of the individual systems.

“Access to clean water is a basic need, and residents of Suffolk County deserve safe and reliable water infrastructure,” Hochul said in a statement. “I am committed to protecting the health of all New Yorkers, and this bill is a promise to future generations that we will do everything in our power to protect your well-being.”

Shelter Island Friends of Music presents Amy Burton {soprano} and John Musto {piano} performing songs from the Great American Songbook including music from Porter, Gershwin, Rodgers, and Bernstein this coming Sunday; May 26th at 6pm in Shelter Island Presbyterian Church, 32 North Ferry Road, Route 114 on Shelter Island.

There will be a pre-concert reception and admission is free.

For further info visit Shelterislandfriendsofmusic.org.

Thanks to unused snow days there’s no school today for kids on the east end. So no school buses out there right now but there is school bus news. Sandra Peddie, Michael Gormley and Mark Harrington report on Newsday.com that the passage of a measure to amend and extend a school bus camera law was the latest in a string of victories for the politically connected tech firm BusPatrol America. BusPatrol has hired several former top Suffolk County officials as its senior executives and retained six firms to lobby for them in New York State, spending $74,000 in the first two months of the year on the camera law amendment.

In Suffolk, the program generated more than $21 million in revenue in 2023, with 55% going to the county and 45% to BusPatrol. From May 1, 2021, through Dec. 21, 2022, BusPatrol generated nearly $37 million in revenue for Suffolk, with about $16 million of that going to BusPatrol.

Passing a stopped school bus carries a $250 fine for a first violation, a figure that increases with violations.

Supporters say the cameras have become a vital tool in protecting schoolchildren on sometimes dangerous roadways, and do so in ways that benefit government budgets.

Critics say the $250 starting fine is too steep and regressive, hitting those who can least afford to pay the hardest.

Suffolk officials said they were reviewing recently discovered amendments to BusPatrol's contract that limit the county's ability to end the contract. In the waning days of the Bellone administration, officials removed a standard clause that would allow the county to terminate the contract with 30 days' notice.

This evening in Southampton Village there will be a celebration of the Village of Southampton Commission on Veterans Patriotic Events, Veterans Hall and our Village Veterans on May 24, 2024 from 5PM to 7PM.

Local veterans will share personal stories starting at 6PM. Learn about Veterans Hall and honor our heroes. All are welcome!

Refreshments courtesy of Thyme & Again.

Location:
Veterans Memorial Hall
25 Pond Lane
Southampton, NY 11968

Date:

Friday, May 24, 2024
5PM to 7PM

And this coming Monday in Southampton Village -

Memorial Day Service

The Commission on Veterans Patriotic Events will be hosting a Memorial Day Service on Monday, May 27th at 11 AM in Agawam Park.

Prior to the service, there will be a short parade beginning at 10:45am from the First Presbyterian Church, down Jobs Lane, into the park. All veterans are invited to participate and asked to be at the church parking log by 10:30AM. Cars will be available for those who cannot march.

The guest speaker is Joshua Donohue. Mr. Donohue is a Professor of History at Farmingdale State College and Suffolk Community College. He holds a Masters degree in Military History and teaches courses in American Military History, U.S. History, and Western Civilization.

All are invited to the Veterans Memorial Hall for refreshments after the service.

A planned strike by fuel workers at John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens during Memorial Day weekend was averted after Gov. Kathy Hochul intervened to help settle the labor dispute, according to THE NY POST.

Teamsters Local 553 — representing 300 workers and mechanics who fuel commercial and cargo jets at the airport — announced a tentative deal for a new labor contract with Allied Aviation Services, the private firm that services the planes at the regional airports.

The union had been working without a new contract since June 30, 2023, and planned to walk off the job today — potentially leaving unfueled planes stranded on runways through the three-day holiday weekend.

Hochul personally called Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton to nudge the parties to break the impasse, and her office also reached out to reps with the Teamsters, a source close to the negotiations said.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey oversees the JFK, LaGuardia and Newark airports.

“We are happy an agreement has been reached, a need for a strike averted, and we are hopeful that the deal will be ratified by our members,” said Demos Demopoulos, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 553.

Guild Hall in East Hampton, New York is nearing completion of its two-year capital improvements project and is expecting to reopen the last phase of the project — the theater — in July. That collaboration with Peter Pennoyer Architects and theatrical consultants Apeiro Design, the space, which throughout its life has been known as the John Drew Theater, will reopen with enhancements, upgrades and a new name — the Hilarie and Mitchell Morgan Theater.

“Guild Hall announces the new Hilarie and Mitchell Morgan Theater in honor of a landmark gift from the Morgan family that has enabled this complete transformation,” reads a page in the organization’s recently published summer program guide. “Our beautiful performance space now operates at the highest level of technology and comfort, providing exceptional experiences for artists and audiences.”

According to Guild Hall, those enhancements include wider, more comfortable seating with greater row-to-row depth, a steeper rake for improved sightlines a new flexible social space at the rear of the theater, an audio lift system for improved sound for all sorts of art forms, advanced lighting and video systems, a remote-controlled camera system for livestreaming and recording, a relocated control booth and new lighting positions in the balcony.

When Guild Hall was built in 1931, the John Drew Theater was a memorial tribute to a well-known 19th and early 20th century stage actor who spent his summers in East Hampton. Guild Hall has said that it will acknowledge Drew with tribute signage and will name the senior staff position in the theater the John Drew director of performing arts in honor of this history.

As reported on 27east.com, to celebrate the reopening of the theater, Guild Hall will host a benefit concert with Emmy- and Tony-winning actor and singer Billy Porter, on Friday, July 12, at 8 p.m. For details, visit guildhall.org.

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Long Islanders' overwhelming approval of school budgets Tuesday marked one of the most unified and least controversial votes here in memory, sending a message that people living in Nassau and Suffolk value their schools and are willing to support them with their wallets, said education experts and officials. Craig Schneider reports on Newsday.com that Long Islanders not only approved virtually every proposed budget for their 124 districts, rejecting only the Sachem and West Babylon spending plans, but did so often by large margins, said Michael Dawidziak, a Bayport political consultant and pollster.

"I think this was probably the most cohesive school budget vote, largely lacking anger and controversy, that I've ever seen on Long Island," said Dawidziak, noting he's followed local voting since the 1970s.

The voting on school board elections and budgets occurred during a time when Gov. Kathy Hochul had threatened to eliminate the "hold harmless" policy, which guarantees no school district can receive less state aid than it did the previous year. The plan was eventually scrapped. Moreover, Dawidziak said he heard little of the rhetoric critical of teacher salaries, or calling for book bans or discrediting the methods of teaching diversity and equity. If anything, he heard more concern about the scores of teacher layoffs across Long Island.

Robert Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association, said he also saw a sense of solidarity among Long Islanders for their schools. He noted several districts approved their budgets by upward of 70%, "a very high approval percentage."

For example, Amagansett voters approved their school budget 148-43, a 77% endorsement. Commack voters approved theirs, 1,701 to 400, or 81%. And Brentwood voters' approval was 651-183, or 78%.

Once again, the power of the state teachers union showed itself in school board elections. Seventy-one of the 84 candidates endorsed by the New York State United Teachers were victorious, according to the union.

Representatives of Key Capture Energy, a company seeking to build a 50-megawatt battery energy storage facility on LIPA-owned property in Shoreham, will make a presentation to the Wading River Civic Association tonight. “The project is tentatively proposed,” said Key Capture Energy representative Phil Denara. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the company is currently conducting community outreach. “Our goal is to have a very inclusive process and ensure that all stakeholders are involved throughout the application process,” Denara said. Key Capture hopes to be able to begin construction in the fourth quarter of 2025, Denara said. The 57-acre site, which is located in the Town of Brookhaven, is already developed with the decommissioned nuclear power plant, built in the 1970s and ’80s, a 138kV substation and the Cross Sound Cable, which connects the LIPA power grid to suppliers in Connecticut. The BESS facility would be developed on a portion of the property on the west side of the site, which borders more than 300 acres of wooded, undeveloped land owned by National Grid. Battery energy storage systems, known as BESS, store electricity for distribution to the electric grid at times of peak demand or times when renewable energy production by wind or solar power generating facilities cannot meet demand. The civic association meeting will take place at 7:30 this evening at Wading River Congregational Church, 2057 North Country Rd., Wading River.

Friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt and South Fork Natural History Museum (SoFo) invite you to join them tonight on a leisurely-paced Full Flower Moon Hike through open-field trails. In most areas, flowers are abundant everywhere during this time. Thus, the name of this Moon. Other names include the Full Corn Planting Moon, or the Milk Moon. Refreshments afterwards. Meet at the SoFo Museum parking lot, 377 Bridgehampton Turnpike 200 yards north of the LIRR tracks at 8:30pm.

To register email: greenbeltnews@aol.com.

Leader: Dai Dayton, 631-745-0689.

The Palm Tree Music Festival the Hamptons, a day-long electronic dance music festival slated to take place at Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton on June 22, appears to have been displaced by the Federal Aviation Administration’s rejection of its application to hold it there. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the festival is to feature Swedish House Mafia, the Norwegian D.J. Kygo, the Florida-based duo Sofi Tukker and the German producer and D.J. Purple Disco Machine as well as Xandra, Will Sass and Flat Stanley.

The festival was held at the airport in 2021, 2022 and last year, but a new FAA policy on the temporary closure of airports for non-aeronautical purposes took effect last June.

“The FAA must approve proposals to temporarily close a portion of an airport for non-aeronautical purposes, and advised the airport it would not grant approval for the event in future years,” according to a statement provided by the FAA’s New York Airports District Office.

The notice of the new policy, published in the Federal Register, “outlined new requirements for FAA approval of temporary closures, which the FAA applied when reviewing this proposal,” the statement reads.

Nonetheless, Squadra Entertainment, the festival’s production company, continued to offer tickets to the event this week. Three tiers of general admission tickets are priced between $229.38 and $387.11. Three tiers of VIP admission are priced between $397.42 and $572.68. Shuttle passes from Montauk and New York City, as well as a parking pass, are also offered.

The airport is owned by Suffolk County.

County Executive Ed Romaine said on Tuesday that “the county’s position is that we’ll appeal” the FAA’s decision, “but we’re not too hopeful that the appeal will be addressed successfully.”

The executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey made an urgent appeal to passengers headed this summer to JFK Airport, which is undergoing an unprecedented $19 billion construction project: Take mass transit to get there.

“We are asking everyone, use mass transit when coming to JFK this summer,” Rick Cotton, executive director of the Port Authority, said in a news conference earlier this week. He added, “Leave extra time. And if you must drive, plan to use remote lots … We are pleading with people to access the airport by not coming into the close-in terminal area. That is what has the potential for the most congestion.”

He said the massive construction over the next two years, which will create two new international terminals and a new roadway network, seeks to transform Kennedy “into a world-class facility that will compare favorably to any airport in the country and abroad.”

Olivia Winslow reports on Newsday.com that the rebuilding of Kennedy comes as the start of the summer travel season — projected to attract a record number of travelers — gets underway. “The forecast for record summer travel will add to the potential for congestion,” Cotton said. “Nearly three-quarters of a million more passengers will pass through JFK than last summer.”

Travelers from Long Island can take the Long Island Rail Road to Jamaica station to the AirTrain or on the east end take Hampton Jitney’s airport connection to and from Queens.

Southampton Village Hall and History Museum invite you to a celebration of the Village of Southampton Commission on Veterans Patriotic Events, Veterans Hall, and Village Veterans on May 24th from 5pm to 7pm at Veterans Memorial Hall, 25 Pond Lane Southampton.

Local veterans will share personal stories at 6pm.

All are welcome.

For more information, visit southamptonvillage.org.

Long Islanders strongly favor a proposed “Equal Rights Amendment” to the state constitution but also support a Nassau official’s attempt to bar transgender athletes from competing in girls sports.

They also support restricting addictive social media feeds to minors, oppose hiking deposits on cans and bottles and paying higher power bills to support energy transition, and say the outcome of Donald Trump’s criminal trial won’t change their opinion of him one way or another.

Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that those were some of the findings in a survey Siena College conducted in conjunction with Newsday. The survey of 504 registered voters was conducted May 13-15 and has a margin of error of 5.9 percentage points, meaning answers could be that much higher or lower.

The Equal Rights Amendment would enshrine abortion rights in the NYS constitution, as well as establishing bans on discrimination based on several factors, including ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity.

Overall, Long Islanders support the proposal, 52% to 33% — but that is a smaller margin than Siena found statewide, 59-26. Plus, Siena’s survey shows lawmakers’ decision to include other issues besides abortion drags down support.

Asked about protecting transgender rights, 46% of Long Islanders favored it, while 36% opposed; statewide, it was 48-32.

Asked about supporting an amendment to protect abortion rights and transgender rights, Long Islanders favored it 52%-33% — but that was a smaller margin than the 59-26 Siena found statewide.

While supporting the amendment, Long Islanders also favored Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s attempt to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports at county venues. A judge recently overturned the ban because Blakeman tried to do it through executive decree rather than go through the county legislature.

Still, residents support the idea of preventing male born athletes from competing against female born athletes, 53%-34% in Nassau County and 53-31 in Suffolk County.

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A total of 118 school districts across Long Island reported budgets approved last night, often by lopsided margins, versus only two that failed.

Winners included East Hampton's $82.8 million budget, which passed 472-116, and which will allow the district to override its state tax-cap limit. Amagansett also pierced its cap with a 148-43 vote on a $13.4 million budget…as did Springs. John Hildebrand reports on Newsday.com that six districts in Nassau and Suffolk were seeking to override state tax cap restrictions yesterday as voters in 124 systems decided on proposed budgets, property taxes and board candidates. The two districts where budgets failed — Sachem and West Babylon — were among the six seeking those overrides.

Generally school budgets passed convincingly across long Island.

"We are very pleased to see the results ... that show overwhelming support," said Robert Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association. "Long Island's tradition of high quality public education continues to be supported by the voters."

"I'm so appreciative of our community's support," said East Hampton Superintendent Adam Fine. "They really came together."

All school budgets presented to east end voters yesterday passed…including 3 districts with pierced tax-cap budgets.

East Hampton residents came to the polls on Tuesday in support of a tax cap-piercing $82,885,992 budget for the 2024-25 school year, passing it 472-116. The 81 percent was well over the 60 percent voter approval needed for the tax cap-piercing spending plan, a 4.81 percent, or $3,806,675, increase from the current school year’s budget.

A $37,814,314 budget presented to Springs School voters was approved with 463 “yes” and 262 “no” votes. The 63.86 percent is just over the 60 percent needed to approve the tax cap-piercing spending plan for the 2024-25 school year. The approved budget is 6.8 percent, or $2,408,181, more than the current year’s budget.

Voters in the Amagansett School District approved allowing the district to pierce the state tax cap with its 2024-25 operating budget. The 148 “yes” votes, against 43 “no” votes, amounts to 77 percent approval — well beyond the 60 percent threshold required to approve a budget that would require exceeding this year’s 2.6 percent tax levy increase ceiling. The district had proposed an approximately 7 percent increase in the tax levy to support the $13.4 million budget, which hiked spending by a little more than $273,000, or about 2 percent.

Local veterans will share personal stories at 6pm.

All are welcome.

For more information, visit southamptonvillage.org.

School budgets passed throughout the East End last night, some by resounding margins, giving a boost to public school education at a time when many feel it is under attack. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that in Riverhead this past Monday after hearing more than two hours of testimony on a final draft of its Comprehensive Plan Update, mostly from residents opposed to a recommendation that would allow private schools in industrial zones, the Riverhead Town Board will accept written comments on the plan through June 10.

Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard told the crowd that a separate public hearing on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the plan, initially slated to be held Monday night, will instead be held next Wednesday, May 29 at 6 p.m. at Riverhead Town Hall. Written comments on that document will also be accepted through June 10.

Riverhead’s public school has been unable to garner public support for expansion efforts in recent years, despite climbing enrollment, and has eliminated more than four dozen teaching positions for the coming school year for budgetary reasons.

Most opposed to allowing private schools in industrial zones said allowing schools, which do not pay property taxes, in industrial zones, would further burden residential taxpayers in Riverhead, who are currently paying some of the highest taxes on the East End.

The proposal would be “diametrically opposed to the stated goals of the town board to bring more business to Riverhead and increase the tax base,” said Claudette Bianco of Baiting Hollow at the start of the public hearing. “It would be a double whammy for the taxpayers and would undermine an already overburdened school district.”

The Home Depot has increased spending by tens of millions of dollars for technology, security personnel and other anti-crime measures to combat the increase in theft at its stores, a company official said at a Long Island event Monday. Tory N. Parrish reports on Newsday.com that the retailer has seen a significant increase in organized retail crime in the past few years, Sean Browne, senior manager of Asset Protection Investigations at The Home Depot, said in Garden City at a roundtable discussion.

“I want to be clear to everyone that we’re not talking about petit shoplifting. Not theft for need, but theft for greed, and in many cases, to fund ongoing criminal enterprises,” Browne said at the event.

About a dozen officials participated in the roundtable including representatives from Walgreens and Walmart; Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney; and Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville).

Several attendees at the roundtable blamed the increase in shoplifting on New York State’s bail reform, which took effect in 2020. Criminal justice researchers have disputed the assertion that bail reform is responsible for the shoplifting increase.

The law ended cash bail in most cases that involved misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, including shoplifting.

For the second consecutive year, veterans and active-duty military men and women are being honored with the Hometown Heroes Banner Program at Good Ground Park in Hampton Bays. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that on Tuesday morning, local veterans, active military members and their families were celebrated by members of the Southampton Town Board along with Bill Hughes of the VFW Post 5350 in Westhampton Beach and David Agsteribbe of the Hampton Bays American Legion with a dedication ceremony for the banner program. More than a dozen personalized, 18-inch-by-36-inch banners featuring local men and women recognize and honor their service, along with information on their military service. The Hometown Heroes Banner Program at Good Ground Park will continue through Veterans Day.

The “cone program” at Canoe Place Road and Montauk Highway in Hampton Bays, a measure implemented to move eastbound traffic through Hampton Bays in the mornings, “clearly works,” Southampton Town’s highway superintendent said last week, predicting that it will continue into the fall.

“The problem,” said Charlie McArdle, “is that it works so well that it draws more and more people to come this way.” Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that such is the state, with another summer season arriving and with it a crush of visitors, of a roadway infrastructure that cannot adequately accommodate the “trade parade” of eastbound traffic in the morning.

The traffic that overflows from Route 27 and 27A onto residential streets, adversely impacting quality of life there, is one of the more intractable stressors on the south fork.

It is one of the most visible, and inescapable, consequences of the stratospheric cost of housing in “The Hamptons.”.

Workers who live to the west are bypassing a congested Sunrise Highway to take a southern route through Hampton Bays, McArdle said, spreading the daily traffic congestion there.

But the cone program, by which motorists traveling north on Canoe Place Road before turning east on Montauk Highway are guided into a right-turn-only intersection during the morning rush hour, is universally praised.

The program is funded by the Town of Southampton, which budgeted for both extra police officers and highway department staff to supervise it during the morning hours.

The Southampton Town Board’s Traffic Mitigation and Safety Task Force, created in February to address the chronic and worsening situation, has held two of six planned meetings. Its next meeting is scheduled for June 26 at 4 p.m. at Town Hall.

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A Newsday survey of Long Island school districts holding budget votes today found a majority at least somewhat optimistic over their financial prospects for the next several years, with a smaller number pessimistic.

One unanswered question, some responders indicated, was whether Albany lawmakers might ultimately make major changes in the way state funds are distributed. John Hildebrand and Michael R. Ebert report on Newsday.com that across Long Island, residents of 124 school districts are going to polls today to vote on school budget proposals totaling nearly $16 billion. Most polls are scheduled to close around 8 p.m.…some later.

In recent weeks, Newsday conducted its survey as part of a questionnaire sent to all districts to gather information on budgets, school board candidates and other issues. Of 104 districts responding to Newsday's poll, 56% expressed optimism over their future, while only about 16% were pessimistic. Others were undecided, or indicated they were unable to answer for other reasons.

The most common reason offered for inability to forecast was uncertainty over state funding for schools. Following a dispute over the issue this year, Gov. Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders agreed to sponsor a review of the state's funding system next year by the Rockefeller Institute, a think tank headquartered in Albany.

Insisting that improvements to the South Fork Commuter Connection be included in the MTA’s five-year capital plan, which is to be approved in October - elected officials, representatives from East End school districts and businesses, and a Stony Brook Southampton Hospital official demanded that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority provide more Long Island Rail Road service — and implored residents to lobby for the same — at a rally at the LIRR’s Hampton Bays station on Friday. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the bipartisan gathering included NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., State Senator Anthony Palumbo, Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine, and members of the Southampton and East Hampton town boards, many of the latter group arriving at the rally via the LIRR’s westbound train. Each spoke about the importance of the $260 million project to alleviate traffic congestion that they said is not only detrimentally impacting residents’ quality of life but adversely affecting the economy, the environment and public safety. The South Fork Commuter Connection, one speaker after another agreed, is a great success. Launched on the Montauk branch in 2019, the coordinated rail and bus system operates between Speonk and Montauk during peak commuting hours to provide a public transportation option, alleviating traffic congestion.

The MTA is bringing back a ticket discount program that aims to encourage Long Islanders to take the train, rather than their cars, when visiting Manhattan during the weekends. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials yesterday announced the return of the “Summer Saturdays” ticket promotion on their two commuter railroads, the LIRR and Metro-North.

Under the program, monthly ticket holders can travel anywhere in their respective railroad’s system on Saturdays in July and August at no additional cost, and bring up to two guests paying $1 per trip.

First introduced in 2018, the program aims to “incentivize taking the train instead of driving,” LIRR President Robert Free said at the monthly meeting of the MTA’s railroad committee.

The program, which hasn’t been offered since 2021, coincides with the June 30 launch date for the MTA’s congestion pricing plan, which will charge most vehicles $15 for driving below 60th Street in Manhattan during peak hours, including 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

The federal government is recommending that a Montauk fisherman convicted of a three-year conspiracy to illegally harvest fluke and black sea bass spend from 4 to 5 years in federal prison and pay more than $1.7 million in fines and other costs, according to court papers.

Lawyers for the fisherman, Christopher Winkler, are asking for 6 months of home confinement and 3 years of probation when he faces sentencing in July. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that Winkler, 63, captain of commercial trawler New Age in Montauk, in October was convicted of five counts, including conspiracy, mail fraud and obstruction, following a multi-year probe of a scheme that spanned from Montauk to the New Fulton Fish Market in the Bronx. He faced a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Winkler and Asa and Bryan Gosman were initially charged in 2021 as part of the federal government’s decadelong investigation of the commercial fishing industry, saying they conspired to mislabel packing boxes, falsify fishing reports and sell fish well over the limits.

Only one prior case in the government's ongoing probe went to trial, and resulted in a hung jury with no prison time for the defendant, Tom Kokell, of Northport, who entered a nonprosecution agreement with the government. More than a dozen men have been charged, with most pleading guilty and at least three serving prison time.

Winkler’s lawyers — Peter Smith, of Northport, and Richard Levitt and Zach Segal, both of Manhattan — in their 31-page filing in March portrayed Winkler as a “quiet man from a working-class family” who built his first fishing boat and worked 12-plus-hour days six days a week.

But federal prosecutors painted a considerably different picture, calling Winkler's conspiracy "extensive and systemic."

Sentencing is scheduled for July 11 before Judge Joan M. Azrack in federal court in Central Islip.

Volunteer fire and ambulance departments on the East End are constantly searching for ways to recruit new members to their ranks, as the cost of housing and burdens of local life have steadily depleted the demographics that long supplied them with ample altruism. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that East Hampton Village’s emergency responders have taken a modern-day tack, hoping to tap the social media accounts of young people drawn to the appeal of rewarding civic duty in their community.

In two professionally produced videos, volunteers for the East Hampton Fire Department and the East Hampton Emergency Medical Service showcase the two departments’ training, the dedication of their crews and the fraternal camaraderie that builds between the volunteers and staff of the emergency services. “If you’re looking for something that is noble, something that is adventurous, this is definitely the thing,” says Gerry Turza, East Hampton Village’s emergency services administrator and a former chief of the fire department in their video. Turza said he hoped the message in both videos would appeal to both young people looking for a sense of adventure and duty and older residents of the community who would like to volunteer, even if their firefighting days have passed.“We just want to say, come on down, this is what we’re doing, and we need help,” Turza said. “It’s more than just becoming an EMT or running into burning buildings. There’s plenty of roles we need people for who just have the time to drive an ambulance or come to a fire scene and help out or even help administratively at the firehouse.”

After hearing more than two hours of testimony last night on its Comprehensive Plan Update, mostly from residents opposed to a recommendation that would allow private schools in industrial zones, the Riverhead Town Board will accept written comments on the plan through June 10. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that a separate public hearing on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the plan will be held next Wednesday, May 29 at 6 p.m. at Riverhead Town Hall. Written comments on that document will also be accepted through June 10.

And remember, School Budget votes and School Board elections are being held today. Depending on the school district, most local polls close at 8 p.m.

Some on Long Island as late as 9 p.m.

As a child growing up in Bridgehampton, Lisa Michne would ride her bike to Hampton Library, where she said she “fell in love with books.”

After about two decades in various roles at East Hampton Library, Michne, 64, returned two years ago to her hometown library as executive director.

Now she's helping lead a planned $1.9 million renovation of the 147-year-old public library to expand its services to meet the community's growing needs. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that the library, after raising about $400,000 for initial groundwork, kicked off a capital campaign Saturday to seek donations to cover the remaining $1.5 million needed for the project.

“There's just a lot more demand for all of our wonderful services,” Michne said.

The Hampton Library in Bridgehampton collected about $1.7 million through taxes for its 2023 budget, officials said.

The renovation plan doesn't include a physical expansion of the 12,000-square-foot building on Main Street in Bridgehampton, but rather a refurbishment of heavily used areas to offer more programs, the director said.

The library district’s population, which covers Bridgehampton and Sagaponack, has grown 75% during the last 15 years, based on the most recent U.S. Census data, Michne said.

Highlights of the plan include:

Refurbishing the children’s room,

Expanding the young adult room,

Doubling the size of the literacy room where English language classes, educational programs and meetings are held, and

Expanding technology to accommodate assistive hearing capabilities, video conferencing, virtual reality and better internet speed.

Fred Schmeltzer, 68, of Bridgehampton, served as chairman of the fundraising committee when the library underwent its last renovation more than 15 years ago and said the facility, which opened in 1877, is “integral” to the community.

The bonding the library did for that renovation was paid off by early 2019, according to Michne.

Southampton Town last year established the Bridgehampton Historic District along a stretch of Main Street that includes the library and the building was included as a “contributing resource.”

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Nearly $16 billion in proposed school spending will appear on Long Island ballots tomorrow, along with 373 candidates running for boards in 124 districts, as voters make their annual trip to the polls to determine what their schools will look like in the next academic year. As reported by Newsday Staff, among the issues they will be considering: Overall school tax increases of 2.56%; spending that will rise an average of 4.18%; and in six districts, a proposed override of state cap limits on property taxes so those systems can raise additional revenue. In addition, dozens of districts have included special propositions on their ballots, some of which would raise taxes if approved.

School districts attempting to boost property taxes beyond the state's allowable cap limits usually warn residents that a "no" vote risks loss of student programs. Five districts in Suffolk County will try for cap overrides in Tuesday's voting - Sachem, West Babylon, East Hampton, Springs and Amagansett.

Under the cap law, overrides require voter majorities of at least 60%. Districts may submit budgets to voters twice, including revotes in June. Two failures force a freeze. This risk, while real, is relatively rare. In years past, most districts where residents voted "no" in the first round of balloting reduced budgets to keep within caps and win in the second round.

Long Island residents will go to the polls tomorrow to vote on school budgets, board members and propositions for the 2024-25 school year.

Riverhead school district officials said their spending plan would eliminate 33 faculty positions and 18 teacher assistants because the district faces a “fiscal cliff” of nearly $20 million, officials said. The $20 million was the amount the district received in COVID-19 recovery grant money, set to run out this fall, officials said. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the budget proposes spending $9.4 million more than the current school year’s operating budget — a roughly 5% increase. The budget requires raising the school district’s current tax levy by 3.34% — the maximum allowable under the school district’s tax levy cap — to generate an additional $3.48 million from property taxes.

The most significant cost increases are in employee benefits and health insurance expenses, and instruction expenses, according to presentations by Interim Assistant Superintendent for Business Marianne Cartisano. The spending plan also includes some controversial cuts, including the elimination of 56.8 full-time equivalent faculty and staff positions through layoffs and attrition, and cutting some programs and classes if they don’t meet certain enrollment requirements.

Suffolk County paid out $29.5 million in 2023 to settle lawsuits — including at least $13.1 million in cases involving police or prosecutorial actions — a nearly fourfold increase compared with 2022, records obtained by Newsday show. Settlement payouts reached $29,494,636 last year, compared with $7.7 million in 2022, according to documents obtained by Newsday through a Freedom of Information Law request along with the annual budget report of the Suffolk County Legislature's Office of Budget Review. Vera Chinese reports on Newsday.com that the county paid out $10.7 million in settlements in 2019, $2.7 million in 2020 and $17.9 million in 2021, when $16 million went to Keith Bush, who spent 33 years in prison for a 1975 North Bellport murder he did not commit.

This evening at 6 p.m. is the last chance the public will have to weigh in - in person - on Riverhead Town’s Comprehensive Plan Update before it is finalized. The public will get a chance to formally comment on the town’s new comprehensive plan at a public hearing before the Town Board beginning at 6 p.m. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the final draft of the Comprehensive Plan Update released April 25 includes several changes to a draft document released in March.

The Comprehensive Plan Update process began in 2020, and suffered several setbacks during the Covid-19 pandemic that eventually led the town to hire a new consultant, BFJ Planning, in late 2022 to finish the project, in the midst of much public concern over development pressures in Riverhead.

Much of the plan’s recommendations address Future Land Use.

One of the most significant aspects of the plan is a series of recommendations for changes to the town’s industrial zoning districts, many of which are in the hamlet of Calverton, where residents have been asking for change for more than a year after proposals for several “high-cube” warehouses. A six month moratorium on development in the Calverton area was passed by the Riverhead Town Board in January.

After this evening’s public hearing, BFJ is expected to respond to the public comments in a Final Environmental Impact Statement, which must be approved, along with the Comprehensive Plan, by the Riverhead Town Board. The board can then go about making the code changes, which would also require future public hearings.

For much of her whirlwind tour in Europe, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul focused on looking forward for solutions to worldwide crises like global warming and a lack of affordable housing.

But as she visited County Kerry, Ireland, Ms. Hochul paused to linger in the past. Claire Fahy reports in THE NY TIMES that here in Kilshannig, a small fishing village on a remote stretch of sandy beach, the governor is still known as Kathleen Courtney, the granddaughter of John Courtney and Mary Browne, who emigrated separately to the United States as teenagers over a century ago in search of greater opportunity.

They would later meet in Chicago, where they married before moving to Buffalo, the governor’s hometown, to work at the steel mill there. Every so often, as money and time allowed, the family would make the trip back to their childhood home in Ireland.

Yesterday, around 100 local residents, county council members and relatives gathered in Spillane’s Bar in Fahamore for a civic reception to honor Ms. Hochul.

Almost everyone who crowded into the low-ceilinged pub looking for a selfie or a handshake with their distinguished American guest claimed to share ancestry with the governor through her grandparents.

As Ms. Hochul smiled for photos, hugged and shook hands with the people and descendants of the people who used to call her grandparents neighbors, she tried to keep everyone’s stories straight, she said.

“It meant something to me,” Ms. Hochul said. “It’s humbling for me to know that I could be in a position like this, despite two generations ago where we started from.”

The sky at Main Beach in East Hampton will be filled with colorful kites this coming Saturday, May 25, when the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center hosts its second annual Kites for Kids Day from 2 to 5 p.m. Last year’s inaugural Kites for Kids had more than 1,200 attendees come out to raise money for the nonprofit child care organization.

Parking is free at East Hampton Main Beach for all attendees. Kites are $10 and may then be decorated at one of the kid art stations set up at Main Beach. Volunteers will be on hand to help decorate, fly, untangle, whatever help you need.

Proceeds from sale of kites helps the center maintain affordable childcare and high-quality early learning programs for children ages 18 months to 4 years old from working families.

For more information, go to ewecc.org.

Police officers across the North Fork will soon wear body cameras alongside their badges.

Riverhead and Southold police departments are each getting state grants — $1.47 million for Riverhead and $980,225 for Southold — to cover the cost of the cameras and systems required to store footage. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that the departments are the latest on Long Island to equip its officers with the technology, joining Nassau and Suffolk County Police Departments. Advocates say cameras enhance officer safety and accountability and improve public trust. More than 300 agencies statewide were awarded $127 million to boost public safety through technology upgrades like license plate readers and cameras, Gov. Kathy Hochul said May 13.

In Suffolk, 21 agencies were awarded $12.8 million, the largest grant of $7.1 million awarded to the county police department.

Riverhead Town Police Chief David Hegermiller said the grant will cover the cost of 100 cameras for the department, which has 95 officers and plans to hire five more.

"We have no issue wearing them," Hegermiller said. "It’ll be positive for the community and for the force."

Officers will need training on how to use the cameras and follow procedures for proper use.

In Southold Town, 45 officers will be outfitted with cameras. The grant also will fund new portable radios to allow officers to toggle between networks and communicate with other regional agencies.

Five Southold officers wore body cameras in a pilot program in August, according to Police Chief Martin Flatley.

He said he was “impressed” by the footage since it goes beyond traditional dashboard camera video. “It gives a perspective of what they're going through and the decisions that they have to make,” Flatley said.

Both police chiefs expect officers to be paid stipends to wear the cameras, but the exact amounts are still under negotiation with police unions.

Similar agreements are in place for the Suffolk County Police Department, which struck a deal in 2021 to pay officers a $1,000 annual stipend for the first three years, and $3,000 after. Nassau pays officers $3,000 annually to wear body cameras.

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NYS lawmakers approved a bill revising the teacher evaluation system — giving more local control to districts and eliminating student test scores as a required assessment tool. Under the bill, evaluation of a teacher's job performance would be subject to an agreement between representatives of the local teachers union and district leaders — much like the way contracts are negotiated.

The legislation, supported by the state Education Department and the New York State United Teachers union, awaits Gov. Kathy Hochul's signature. A representative from her office said yesterday the governor will review the legislation. Joie Tyrrell reports on Newsday.com that several statewide education groups, including the New York State Council of School Superintendents and the New York State Parent Teacher Association, have applauded the changes.

“This is a win for students, educators and communities, because it will allow instruction to focus on a love of teaching and learning, and it will treat our educators like the professionals they are,” said Melinda Person, NYSUT president, in a statement Wednesday.

The legislation, drafted by the New York State Educational Conference Board, creates a new system for measuring teacher and principal accountability that focuses on professional development and support, she said.

Person and State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa had jointly delivered the legislation to the State Capitol in March.

“We thank our allies in both chambers for overwhelmingly passing bipartisan legislation that would return teacher and principal evaluations to local control,” Person said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates sea levels around the contiguous U.S. coastline will rise by about a foot on average over the next 30 years. But it’s hard to fathom what that might look like, so NOAA has created an interactive map. Zoom in on Long Island, and as you click on 1 foot, 2 feet, 3 feet of sea-level rise, the map displays a widening ribbon circling the coasts — and that’s the land that will be permanently underwater. Tracy Tullis reports on Newsday.com that in Riverhead, when a nor’easter sweeps across the Peconic Bay, heavy winds push the water against the flow of the Peconic River, flooding the downtown. The large parking lot that borders the river is frequently underwater, and in the heaviest storms, floodwaters lap against nearby buildings. The Army Corps of Engineers surveyed Riverhead’s water problems and outlined possible fixes such as levees, walls, locks and dykes. With the help of Urban Design Associates, a Pittsburgh-based firm that specializes in resilient design, the town landed on a solution: flood protection as urban renewal.

By the end of this year, Riverhead expects to break ground on an expansive riverfront revitalization project that will provide green space for the community — in particular for Riverhead’s lower-income residents, who lack such amenities — and an attraction for visitors as well.

The project has been funded largely through state grants, including $400,000 from the Brownfield Opportunity Area program and $10 million through the Downtown Revitalization Initiative.

Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station will host International Water Safety Day tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The station is at 160 Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett.

The goal of International Water Safety Day is to spread global awareness of the ongoing drowning pandemic and educate youth in becoming safer in and around water. Representatives from local life saving groups will lead discussions and interactive activities on water safety.

Tomorrow’s Water Safety event at Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m is free. Water Safety Day is supported by the Hampton Lifeguard Association, whose mission is to waterproof Long Island’s South Fork.

For more information visit hamptonlifeguardassociation.com.

Invited by the Suffolk County Department of Public Works to a meeting about the proposed overhaul of Three Mile Harbor Road last week, comments poured in from East Hampton and Springs residents who travel the road nearly every day.

“If there’s one intersection in town that I’ve nearly had accidents at several times, that’s the intersection,” said Hy Mariampolski, referring to where Three Mile Harbor Road and Springs-Fireplace Road meet. “I consider that intersection the most problematic.” Christine Sampson in THE EAST HAMPTON STAR reports that Suffolk County is planning a $14.5 million reconstruction of North Main Street and Three Mile Harbor Road from Cedar Street to Copeces Lane — about two and a half miles, or the entire length of what’s considered County Road 40, but not all of Three Mile Harbor Road itself. “This project is at the preliminary engineering phase. No final decisions have been made,” said Bill Hillman, the county’s chief engineer of highway construction. “It’s a very appropriate time for us to hear input from the community.” The idea of a roundabout seemed very popular among the attendees, some 110 in the maxed-out capacity of the East Hampton Town Hall meeting room. But a roundabout is not in the plans at the moment because it would add significant expense and overlap with roads and parkland that fall within East Hampton Town’s jurisdiction, the Springs-Fireplace Road intersection in particular. The goal is to have a final design by this fall to go out to bid, with bid opening projected for the fall of 2026 and with the estimated start time in the spring of 2027.

Mr. Hillman thanked the attendees for their feedback and encouraged them to submit written comments and suggestions by email to public.works@suffolkcountyny.gov. Suffolk County Legislator Ann Welker will also act as a liaison between the town and the county; her office line is 631-852-8400.

Rising costs of flood insurance is one way Long Islanders are feeling the effects of climate change. Flood insurance premiums for single-family homes on Long Island are expected to nearly double over the next 5 to 10 years after the federal government recently changed the way it sets rates. Local real estate agents and insurance brokers say they haven't seen much change in buyers' choosing to live near the water.

Meanwhile, state officials have sounded the alarm. Sea levels are expected to rise in the range of 13 to 25 inches by the 2050s, according to projections from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation released last year. The DEC lists more intense storms, increased erosion and flooding in coastal communities among the consequences of climate change for Long Island. Jonathan LaMantia reports on Newsday.com that for some Long Islanders, the effects of climate change feel far off.

“The biggest problem is that people are still in denial. The water when they went a month ago, it doesn't look any higher today,” said Aaron Stein, owner of Norton & Siegel, an insurance brokerage in Babylon.

It was only 12 years ago that Superstorm Sandy battered nearly 100,000 Long Island homes and caused $19 billion in damage and economic costs.

The public is invited to the 47th Annual Meeting of the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island and North Fork, scheduled for this coming Sunday, May 19, at the East Hampton Public Library, 159 Main Street in East Hampton.

After mingling and refreshments at 1 p.m., the business portion of the Annual Meeting will begin at 1:30 p.m., to include adoption of the League budget for 2024-25, election of officers and directors, adoption of local program, and the presentation of two annual awards—the League’s Betty Desch Student Leadership Award of a $2,000 scholarship to a high school graduating senior, and the Carrie Chapman Catt Award to a League member for longtime distinguished service.

Guest speaker after the business meeting is Steve Long, executive director of the East Hampton Historical Society, who will give a PowerPoint talk titled “A Behind-the-Scenes Tour of the East Hampton Historical Society. After his talk…around 3:30pm…Mr. Long has graciously invited all on a complimentary tour of the newly-opened Dominy Shops Museum at 73 North Main Street (across from the IGA), in East Hampton.

Reservations for the Annual League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island and North Fork Meeting and tour this coming Sunday are being taken on the League phone at 631-324-4637.

As New York Gov. Kathy Hochul waited for Pope Francis in Clementine Hall, an ornate room with marble walls and frescoed ceilings in the Vatican’s papal apartments, her thoughts drifted to her father. Claire Fahy reports in THE NY TIMES that Ms. Hochul was last in Rome seven years ago with her father, who was celebrating his 80th birthday. He passed away suddenly in October, while the governor was on another diplomatic trip abroad, visiting Israel. And now, as she sat in the Vatican, she recalled her upbringing as a “social justice Catholic,” and how it shaped her political journey.

“It was a profound experience for me, sitting there reflecting on my family’s teachings,” Ms. Hochul said yesterday. “I was thinking in that room that this is really a culmination of a lifetime dedicated to service.”

The governor was in Italy for just over 24 hours to attend a summit on climate change hosted by the pope at the Vatican.

On Thursday morning, a conference, which consisted of mayors, governors, climate activists and academics, gathered in the papal apartments for a private audience with Pope Francis. Some attendees wore suits, while others wore tribal attire, including feather headdresses, or more casual tourist clothes. Many brought gifts for the pope: bottles of wine, statues, flags.

Ms. Hochul said that during her turn to meet the pope she asked him to keep his thoughts and prayers with the people of New York and invited him to visit the state. He asked her to pray for him, she said. Ms. Hochul described their interaction as “meaningful.”

“My dad would have been very proud to know that not only did I go back to Rome, but I met the pope,” she said.

Ms. Hochul will honor her grandparents this weekend when she travels to County Kerry in Ireland for a homecoming ceremony and a visit to her ancestral home. Her family’s Catholic faith underscored the importance of her visit with Pope Francis, she said.

“I grew up in a house where my grandparents had a picture of the current pope on the wall every day,” she said. “It was right up there next to John Kennedy.”

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A federal judge yesterday denied a motion by the Diocese of Rockville Centre to dismiss its bankruptcy case and appointed two high-powered mediators in an effort to break a 3½-year logjam of negotiations involving clergy sex abuse survivors. Bart Jones reports on Newsday.com that U.S. Bankruptcy Court Chief Judge Martin Glenn, expressing his irritation at the case remaining unresolved, issued the ruling after some survivors spoke in court of the pain they have endured and their frustration after more than $100 million in legal fees have been paid to attorneys but nothing to them.

Glenn said he was appointing retired U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Shelley Chapman and Paul Finn, a lawyer with deep experience in resolving sexual abuse claims, to try to get the diocese and lawyers for the survivors to reach an agreement. As a judge, Chapman oversaw the 2008 Lehman Brothers Holdings bankruptcy case — the largest bankruptcy case in U.S. history — and other Chapter 11 mega-cases.

After a 90-minute hearing in Manhattan, Judge Glenn pulled lawyers for both sides into his chambers where he privately gave them the news. “I think that a fresh look and a fresh push can be helpful.”

Glenn indicated he was reluctant to grant the church’s motion to dismiss the bankruptcy proceedings in part because it would mean hundreds of cases being returned to state civil court. He theorized the diocese could be hit with several mega-awards by state court juries in the first cases, leaving little or no money for hundreds of other survivors.

Nationwide, some 38 Catholic dioceses or religious orders have declared bankruptcy amid the sex abuse scandal that broke in 2002. Rockville Centre, one of the largest dioceses in the nation…1.2 million baptized Long Island Catholics… would be the first to have its bankruptcy proceedings dismissed.

Riverhead changing its laws to help the Riverhead Charter School site a new high school is the “biggest threat” facing Riverhead schools, the school district’s teacher’s union president said Tuesday night, as town officials consider allowing private schools to be developed in more areas around town. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard and Town Board members are “moving full steam ahead” to allow private schools on industrial zoned lands, which will enable the charter school’s expansion plans and “defund” the school district, Riverhead Central Faculty Association President Gregory Wallace said during the Riverhead Board of Education meeting Tuesday evening. “If the town adopts the proposed changes in the comprehensive plan, the impact on our school will be two-fold,” Wallace said. “Any special permit granted to this charter school for construction on industrial zoned land will remove that parcel from the tax rolls permanently; the school district would forgo tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue annually. Furthermore, the school would be on the hook for millions in increased tuition costs,” he said. “The effects on Riverhead schools public education system would be devastating.”

Colin Palmer, president of the Riverhead Board of Education, said in response to Wallace’s comments that the board is “opposed to any sort of expansion of the charter school.” “It’s just a result of privatization of public education” he added.

The draft of Riverhead Town’s comprehensive plan update, is a policy document currently being considered for adoption. The draft plan is the subject of a public hearing on Monday May 20th at 6 p.m. at Riverhead Town Hall.

The Riverhead Town Police Department has been awarded a state technology grant of more than $1.47 million to cover the cost of body-worn cameras for officers. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Riverhead’s grant funding was part of $127 million to Long Island police departments and sheriffs’ offices announced this morning by Gov. Kathy Hochul. Police Chief David Hegermiller said the grant funding will cover the purchase of body-worn cameras for every officer on the police force. Deploying body-worn cameras was part of the Riverhead Town Police Department’s “Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative Plan,” developed in response to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s June 12, 2020 executive order mandating the adoption of a police reform plan by all law enforcement jurisdictions in the state by April 1, 2021. The Riverhead Town Board unanimously adopted the plan on March 29, 2021. The chief said the grant will cover the purchase of cameras for 100 officers, as well as the equipment necessary to receive and store video.

While a Southampton Town moratorium on the licensing and construction of battery energy storage systems enacted last year and extended earlier this year will not expire until mid-August, the Southampton Town Board voted this week to schedule a public hearing for Tuesday; May 28 at 6 p.m. for an applicant seeking an exemption from the moratorium. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the applicant seeking an exemption hearing is Canal Southampton Battery Storage, a project of Rhynland Energy. It is the same company that proposed such a facility, known as a BESS, at 24 North Road and 27 Larboard Road in Hampton Bays — the very proposal that spurred the moratorium after widespread community opposition.

The exemption hearing is sure to elicit a marked response from the community.

“The site they have for the location for their facility is inappropriate, because it’s in a residential area,” Ray D’Angelo, president of the Hampton Bays Civic Association, said yesterday. The town board “went through the process, but subsequent research the residents and other people have done show that these are problematic facilities and shouldn’t be near private residences.”

The legislation passed last year that enacted the moratorium included a subsection called “applications that may be exempted,” according to the resolution scheduling the May 28 hearing, which will be held at Southampton Town Hall and available for viewing remotely via video conference.

A draft report issued by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority following three BESS fires in the state last year included 15 recommendations focusing on fire safety, plant security, inspections and establishment of new training protocols for first responders who could be called to extinguish a fire at a BESS facility.

Engineers for Suffolk County asked East Hampton residents to voice their ideas for the remaking of Three Mile Harbor Road, where the county plans to begin work in 2027. They heard an earful, but the main message sent by residents at East Hampton Town Hall last week was that the thing most needed is something that is not in the county’s playbook. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that for all the desperately needed improvements to drainage, to sidewalks and crosswalks and intersections and paving that the county and Springs residents agreed upon, a roundabout at the merge of Three Mile Harbor Road and Springs-Fireplace Road was the most important, the standing-room-only audience told the team of engineers.

“We need a roundabout,” said J.B. DosSantos. “You just did Springs-Fireplace Road, and there is a line of 50 cars...A traffic light is not going to solve the problem. Do it once. If you have to delay the project, do it. But we must have a roundabout.”

The county engineers said that they are still only in the preliminary stages of the planning for the road work, which is not slated to begin until the spring of 2027 and wouldn’t be completed until spring of 2028. The $14.5 million project will repave all of the 2.5 miles of roadway from the intersection of North Main Street and Collins Avenue to Copeces Lane, with bike lanes heading in both directions.

The engineers said that the overall roadwork along Three Mile Harbor Road, when completed, will look very much like the remake of Springs-Fireplace Road that was completed last year, with narrow travel lanes for cars, paved and marked bike lanes and sidewalks, and brick-faced retaining walls in some places — in the Head of the Harbor region, primarily — where grade rises steeply from the roadway.

A regulation two years in the making is finally taking effect in Southampton Village…today.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that effective today the use of gas-powered leaf blowers will be prohibited, making Southampton Village the first municipality on the East End to fully ban the use of gas-powered blowers because of noise complaints, health and safety concerns, and concern for the well-being of the environment.

As of today, both private homeowners and landscape contractors operating in the Village of Southampton will be required to use electric or battery-operated blowers to maintain properties.

The village is putting the word out on social media and will be distributing flyers with every resident’s tax bill informing them of the ban.

Residents can report any violations they see on Southampton Village’s “See Click Fix” app.

Code enforcement officers will be out and about as well during the busy spring season and will let landscapers know about the ban. They also will be armed with flyers to hand out to any contractors who are not yet aware of the ban.

Long Island communities are using various methods to get ahead of rising sea levels. On the east end for instance, after Sandy barreled through the Shinnecock Nation’s peninsula, causing significant erosion and flood damage, the Nation began to take a hard look at how the climate crisis would alter its 800-acre territory. Tracy Tullis reports on Newsday.com that a climate vulnerability assessment, prepared in 2019 in collaboration with the Peconic Bay Estuary, notes the coastal edges of the Nation’s territory, already a fraction of the lands that once were theirs, will be lost as the ocean moves inland. Parts of the peninsula, including a historic cemetery, already experience routine flooding, and the bluffs along the Great Peconic Bay and beaches on Shinnecock Bay have eroded. In considering solutions, the question has always been, “What’s the best way to protect the Shinnecock shoreline using the natural elements around us?” said Shavonne Smith, environment director for the Shinnecock Nation. After Sandy, in 2012, the Shinnecock and the Cornell Cooperative Extension restored 3,000 feet of beachfront along Shinnecock Bay, strengthening dunes, planting sea grass and building an oyster reef to soften the force of incoming waves. The reefs also would improve water quality and provide habitat for marine species.

The project was completed in 2016, with the help of a grant from the National Wildlife Federation, but last winter’s storms washed much of their work away. “It’s disheartening but not unexpected,” Smith said. “We are dealing with the tremendous force and power of nature.”

Now, the Nation is working with the U.S. Geological Survey to determine if the reef should be extended or angled differently to offer greater protection. And a Nature Conservancy project is studying the salt marsh that borders some of the Shinnecock’s land — nature’s best defense against floodwater — to determine if it will be able to migrate as the seas creep closer.

The Shinnecock’s approach is “working with rather than working against nature,” Smith said. “There has to be a point where you acknowledge that you can’t control it.”

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Ten Long Island school districts have been awarded a total of $8.1 million from the state Education Department to establish or expand their prekindergarten programs, NYS officials announced yesterday. Dandan Zou reports on Newsday.com that the Long Island district receiving the most state dollars is Garden City with nearly $2.4 million.

Next is the only Suffolk school district on the award list, Riverhead, with about $1 million awarded, while Farmingdale and Syosset are getting more than $900,000 each.

Statewide, 64 districts have been named to receive the grants, totaling $34 million. Awarded districts will be able to operate a 180-day program for the 2024-25 school year, the department said.

Long Island educators said the additional funding would allow them to offer more seats and expand programs for children.

All public districts in the state were eligible to apply for the competitive grants, according to the state. Grants were awarded based upon factors including the district’s plan to serve a community’s highest-need schools and students, the level of existing prekindergarten services, and the extent to which a district planned to maximize the number of eligible 4-year-olds served in its programs.

On Long Island overall, about 59% of the approximate total of 4-year-olds were served in either a half-day or full-day program in 2022-23, lower than the statewide rate of 77%, according to data compiled by the state’s Office of Early Learning.

In recent years, access to prekindergarten services expanded on Long Island and in the state. In 2019-20, only 32% of the 4-year-olds on Long Island were served. Statewide, the number was about 60% that year.

Southampton Town Councilman and candidate for New York State Assembly Tommy John Schiavoni has endorsed John Avlon, a Democratic candidate for New York’s 1st Congressional District, it was announced last week. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that Avlon also received the endorsement of the New York State United Teachers union last week.

“We need to flip this seat, and John is the one to do that,” Schiavoni said in a statement provided by Avlon’s campaign.

“I’ve known John for many years, and we’ve worked together to improve the civic life of Sag Harbor and the East End.”

In a separate statement, Melinda Person, president of New York State United Teachers, said that Avlon “knows local and federal politics, he knows Long Island, and he will seek solutions that uplift working families, public education and strong communities.”

The 1st Congressional District, she said, “deserves a representative who cares about finding common ground to tackle the issues that matter most in the district, and we are proud to support his candidacy in this decisive race.”

In the Democratic Primary next month Avlon, an author, columnist, and former CNN anchor who lives in Sag Harbor and Manhattan, will face Nancy Goroff, the Democratic Party’s 2020 candidate, who was defeated that year by U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin, the Republican from Shirley. The winner this June will challenge first term Congressman Nick LaLota, in the November 5 general election.

Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station will host International Water Safety Day this coming Saturday, May 18, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The station is at 160 Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett.

The goal of International Water Safety Day is to spread global awareness of the ongoing drowning pandemic and educate youth in becoming safer in and around water. As reported on 27east.com representatives from local life saving groups will lead discussions and interactive activities on water safety.

This Saturday’s Water Safety event at Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m is free. Water Safety Day is supported by the Hampton Lifeguard Association, whose mission is to waterproof Long Island’s South Fork.

For more information visit hamptonlifeguardassociation.com.

Early in last week’s Express Sessions panel discussion, “Climate Resilience in Sag Harbor,” Chris Gloninger, the senior scientist in climate and risk communication for the Woods Hole Group in Massachusetts, offered a startling fact he said should be shared with anyone who is skeptical about the causes of climate change.

“There is more evidence that atmospheric and climate scientists have that climate change is caused by humans than medical doctors have that smoking causes cancer,” he said.

Not that any members of the audience who attended Thursday’s gathering at the American Hotel had to be convinced of that. Between the audience and the panel, a number of steps, both big and small, that would help mitigate the effects of climate change on the village were aired.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that Sag Harbor Mayor Tom Gardella said mitigating climate change is a major concern of the village but said his chief concern is with the village’s stormwater sewer system, which is part of the federal Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System program, or MS4.

The storm sewers bypass the sewage treatment plant and discharge rainfall and road runoff directly into the bay. “We are in the process of taking a close look at our system, the condition of it, and how climate change will affect it,” he said.

Gloninger, a former broadcast meteorologist, agreed that Sag Harbor’s stormwater infrastructure was outdated, but he said the village should focus first on protecting the most vulnerable areas, such as low-lying portions of Water and Bay streets.

While handling increased rainfall is a concern, Gloninger said the village has to be prepared for slow-moving storms like Superstorm Sandy, which remain in place for several tide cycles, trapping water in the bay, leading to extensive flooding.

He added that global warming, which means there will be more 90-degree days, was another concern, especially for the elderly.

This coming Monday the public will get a chance to formally comment on Riverhead Town’s new comprehensive plan at a public hearing before the Town Board beginning at 6 p.m. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the 209-page planning document, intended to guide the town for the next two decades, is a roadmap for its land use policies, including the types of development that should be allowed or prohibited, incentivized and disincentivized, and where that development should go.

The town’s planning consultants released a first draft of the plan in February and invited public comment.

The final draft has been available for formal written comment since the Riverhead Town Board accepted it on April 25 and authorized the plan’s release for comment.

On Monday evening, May 20th, the Town Board will hear public comments on the comprehensive plan and the draft generic environmental impact statement. The board is expected to keep the comment period open for written comment for an additional 10 days.

The town’s planning consultants will then gather and review all written and oral comments and respond to them in a final environmental impact statement.

After the Riverhead Town Board adopts a final plan and impact statement, it will need to decide whether to implement the plan’s recommendations by amending the town code. Code amendments will also be the subject of public hearings prior to adoption.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is jetting overseas this week to attend climate and business events in Italy and Ireland.

Vaughn Golden reports in THE NY POST that it’s Hochul’s second overseas trip since she became governor in August 2021. The first leg of Hochul’s state-funded trip will involve a 15-minute address tomorrow at the Vatican about building climate resilience in the Empire State, Politico reported. Afterward, she will be part of an audience with Pope Francis and other foreign leaders at the conference on climate change at the Pontifical Academies of Science and Social Science there. Hochul will then travel to Ireland, where she is scheduled to meet with senior government officials before delivering the keynote address at an economic conference in Killarney. The governor last traveled out of the country — to Israel — in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ October 7th attack.

Since January, members of the First Baptist Church in Bridgehampton have been celebrating the congregation’s centennial year with guest preachers and other special activities. As reported on 27east.com, the observance will culminate this coming Sunday, May 19, when the congregation will gather at the church’s original home in what is now Dia Bridgehampton/the Dan Flavin Art Institute on Corwith Avenue at 8 a.m. before making its way down Montauk Highway to its current church on the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike. The Reverend Tisha Williams, who has served as the church’s pastor since 2018, said the Sunday morning worship will be held at 11 a.m. and be followed by “a fantastic fellowship lunch” at 1 p.m. There will be an afternoon service at 3, with Bishop Andy Lewter of the Hollywood Full Gospel Cathedral in Amityville. Professor Jeff Roberson and Nulife Gospel group will also participate. The weekend will include a service at 7 p.m. this Friday with the Reverend Reginald Sharpe. The congregation, which began with prayer meetings in private homes in 1922, was formally organized in 1924, with the former firehouse on Corwith Avenue…now the Dan Flavin Institute…serving as its first home. The congregation purchased the building two years later and remained there until November 16, 1980, when First Baptist Church in Bridgehampton moved into its new brick church on the Bridgehampton – Sag Harbor Turnpike.

“OUR GOAL FOR THIS TRIP IS SIMPLE: STRENGTHEN INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS THAT WILL CREATE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES FOR NEW YORKERS AND A CLEANER FUTURE FOR THE NEXT GENERATION,” HOCHUL SAID IN A STATEMENT. “FROM FIGHTING THE CLIMATE CRISIS TO HARNESSING THE POWER OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, NEW YORK CONTINUES TO LEAD THE WORLD WITH INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS TO GLOBAL CHALLENGES.”

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The Long Island Rail Road’s entire fleet of new electric train cars have finally arrived, LIRR officials said yesterday, about five years later than originally scheduled.

LIRR officials confirmed that the last of the 202 cars purchased from Kawasaki Rail Car for about $730 million was delivered to the railroad last month in time to meet the LIRR's latest target completion date of May 2024.

“The LIRR has had all of the M9 cars since April 3,” LIRR President Robert Free said in a statement. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that the delivery marks the culmination of a long and arduous journey for the M9s, which the Metropolitan Transportation Authority hired Kawasaki to manufacture in 2013.

Almost from the outset, the procurement was plagued with blunders and bad luck that led to cascading delays. In 2015, LIRR officials acknowledged that when designing the cars, they failed to include enough space to fit in new federally mandated crash prevention equipment, forcing a redesign. In 2018, the first eight cars to be manufactured by Kawasaki were damaged in a derailment before they could be delivered to the LIRR. The relative scarcity of the M9s among the LIRR's fleet of about 1,100 train cars led to some riders dubbing them the “unicorns.”

Many commuters lucky enough to catch an M9 have praised some of its new amenities, including electrical outlets on every row, push-button doors between cars, and closed-loop armrests that are less likely to snag on clothes than the LIRR's previous generation of trains, the M7s.

One common complaint about the M9s: LED interior lights that could be too bright for some drowsy morning commuters.

A roughly 18-acre parcel of vacant land on Route 25A in Wading River once slated for development with retail, office and restaurant uses called the “Central Square” plan has now been permanently preserved for agricultural use. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Peconic Land Trust yesterday announced the preservation of the remaining 8 1⁄2 acres with the acquisition in December of a conservation easement restricting the land to agricultural purposes — and eliminating the possibility of residential or commercial development. “The entire property is protected. The ‘Central Square’ plan is entirely dead,” Peconic Land Trust Senior Project Manager Julie Wesnofske said Monday. Funding for the conservation easement was provided by $2 million from New York State’s Agriculture and Markets farmland protection program, donations from the community and a bargain sale by the Zoumas brothers, according to Peconic Land Trust. The entire parcel was conveyed by Zoumas to the Condzella family in March for agricultural uses.

ERASE Racism is holding anti-racist trainings in Riverhead in the hopes of teaching community members about racism and how to have conversations surrounding race and diversity. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the trainings will be held at the Holiday Inn Express on Route 58 in Riverhead, with the first part tomorrow from 5:30pm to 8:30 p.m. The nonprofit, whose mission is to “expose and address the devastating impact of historic and ongoing structural racism on Long Island, in New York, and nationally,” is hosting the event in partnership with the Long Island Hate and Bias Prevention Unit of the state’s Division of Human Rights.

Part one of the training on Wednesday evening titled “Understanding and Unraveling Racism,” will give people a shared understanding of what racism is “and how oppression plays out” on Long Island, said Laura Harding, president of ERASE Racism.

That’s tomorrow from 5:30pm – 8:30pm at the Holiday Inn Express on Route 58 in Riverhead.

Worries about mental health and cancer are among the top concerns on the minds of Long Island residents, according to preliminary results from an ongoing survey. While mental health, depression, and suicide were listed as the top issues among Suffolk County respondents in their neighborhoods, cancer topped the list in Nassau. Residents in both counties were also anxious about heart diseases, stroke, diabetes and substance abuse. Tiffany Cusaac-Smith reports on Newsday.com that these were some of the early results from the Community Health Assessment Survey, which asks about residents' health concerns and those of their community. The Long Island Health Collaborative — a partnership that includes several area hospitals, health departments, and providers — compiled the findings based on roughly 400 survey responses.

Experts say the results point to the rise of mental health issues and the lack of available providers, and also reflect the realities of Long Island's higher cancer rate compared with the rest of the state. Still, physicians hoped to take those unsettling thoughts and turn them into action, from providing better cancer screening education to living a healthier lifestyle.

When respondents were asked what health issues required more screenings or education in their community, the top response was mental health screenings at roughly 32% in Suffolk County. Cancer, with about 24% of the picks, was the second-highest response, according to the survey, which allowed respondents to have multiple responses to the question.

Physicians say prevention in the form of screenings and a healthy lifestyle is the best advice they can give residents worried about cancer.

A new digital parking app in use at the parking lot behind Claudio’s in Greenport had the community buzzing last week — with more questions than answers. Greenport Deputy Mayor Mary Bess Phillips and former Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell were among those who weighed in.

Chris Francescani in THE SUFFOLK TIMES reports that Greenport Village Mayor Kevin Stuessi said that the village received “an amended site plan application from Claudio’s recently, which should cover all of their property, including current and proposed uses as requested.” He said Claudio’s management is scheduled to appear before the Greenport Village planning board on May 31, “to review all current ‘as built’ uses and any potential new ones for any needed approvals. As for this current parking system they just installed, village counsel is currently reviewing in advance of this meeting.” Jonathan Abbott, who runs events and marketing for Claudio’s, told THE SUFFOLK TIMES that that the only thing that has changed since last year is the form in which the parking payment is taken. In the past, parking attendants collected $10 fees to park on the lot. Now payment is made through the automated app.

Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station will host International Water Safety Day this coming Saturday, May 18, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The station is at 160 Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett. The goal of International Water Safety Day is to spread global awareness of the ongoing drowning pandemic and educate youth in becoming safer in and around water. As reported on 27east.com, representatives from East Hampton Volunteer Ocean Rescue, East Hampton Hurricanes, East Hampton Junior Lifeguard and Nipper Guard programs, East Hampton Marine Patrol, Eastern Long Island Surfrider Foundation, YMCA East Hampton RECenter, Amagansett Lifesaving Station, Paddle Diva, East Hampton Historical Society and Rotary Club of East Hampton will lead discussions and interactive activities on water safety. Water Safety Day will also have refreshments, prizes and a wealth of education to help waterproof our community. Saturday's event is free. Water Safety Day is supported by the Hampton Lifeguard Association, whose mission is to waterproof Long Island’s South Fork. For more information visit hamptonlifeguardassociation.com.

The Stony Brook University Faculty Senate yesterday narrowly defeated a motion to censure the school's president, Maurie McInnis, for her handling of the arrests of 29 pro-Palestinian protesters earlier this month. Bart Jones reports on Newsday.com that the SBU Faculty Senate defeated the resolution by a 55-51 vote, with three abstentions, said Richard Larson, a professor and president of the senate.

The senate originally was to vote on a “no confidence” resolution, but switched it to a lower-level censure vote with somewhat less critical language, he said.

President McInnis said she appreciated the backing.

“I am deeply grateful for the support of the Stony Brook faculty at this challenging time for so many universities,” McInnis said in a statement.

“I realize there remains passionate disagreement among members of our community on the issues we are facing, and I pledge to do whatever I can to help our campus heal and move forward,” she added.

The vote was largely symbolic — the faculty senate does not have any administrative power at the university. Professor Larson said the vote shows that the campus is divided.

Some faculty members have been circulating a petition supporting McInnis, said Gallya Lahav, a political science professor.

“I think she handled it with grace. I think she handled it in the best way she can,” Lahav said. McInnis forcefully spoke out against antisemitism on campus, she added.

SBU officials warned students protesting on May 1 that they had to move from the grassy hill where they had camped out, saying it was scheduled for other events. But the demonstrators refused, triggering the arrests.

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At least 20 school districts on Long Island have hired or are planning to add armed guards to their campuses, marking the rise of a controversial effort to heighten security at their schools, a Newsday analysis has found. Dandan Zou reports on Newsday.com that the armed districts range from some of Long Island’s largest, like Smithtown and Half Hollow Hills, with thousands of students, to some of the smallest, such as Montauk and Tuckahoe, with enrollments in the hundreds. Most of these districts are in Suffolk County. Only two are in Nassau: Massapequa and Farmingdale. In total, they serve more than 70,000 students, of Long Island's 420,000 students in 124 school districts. At least 17 districts already have armed guards, and two others, Farmingdale and Rocky Point, are planning to add them. These numbers show a marked increase in Long Island districts using armed guards over the past six years. Many districts began considering them after 17 people were killed in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018. “If it was a perfect world, we wouldn't have to worry about this, but we do,” said Bob Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association, of school boards’ responsibility to decide safety measures. “It's a sad reality but it is the reality.”

Though the popularity of armed guards at Long Island schools has risen, the issue remains highly controversial. Educators, parents and students disagree on whether they are effective in preventing school shootings and if resources would be better spent on other priorities, such as boosting mental health programs.

A Southampton woman, who apparently stepped on the gas instead of the brake, lost control of her BMW SUV as she pulled into a parking space on Main Street in Southampton Village Saturday afternoon and drove into Herrick Hardware.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that the vehicle smashed through a display window, damaging the window frame and the wall, according to Southampton Village Police. Alice Takhtajan, 44, who was the driver of the vehicle, and her two young children, who were in car seats, were taken to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital as a precautionary measure, police said. Her husband, who was also in the vehicle, was not injured. Main Street was closed in both directions for about a half hour after the accident, which was reported at 1:35 p.m. Saturday. Southampton Village Police Chief Suzanne Hurteau said it was fortunate that nobody was sitting on a bench that was struck by the vehicle and that no pedestrians or shoppers in the store were in the path of the vehicle. Stefan Grigoras, the manager of Herrick, said there was no warning. “I was at the register ringing up a customer when someone literally drove into the store,” he said. “Luckily, nobody was injured.”

ReWild Long Island is offering internships and community service opportunities in East Hampton for its second summer.

The 2024 Summer Program To Fight Hunger and Climate Change includes volunteer work in organic vegetable harvesting, regenerative food production, sustainable landscaping, pollinator garden design and composting.

The hands-on activities are intended to encourage a sense of connection among teenagers and the ecosystem.

ReWild welcomes high school students and rising freshmen to apply for either a role as a student intern or a student volunteer. Applications are open through May 15 and available on line at ReWildLongIsland.org/summerprogram.

Student volunteers are required to work a minimum of 30 hours (including training), and student interns are required a minimum of 60 hours (including training) and will receive a stipend of $300 at the conclusion of the program. All participants earn community service hours.

Suffolk County Transit, which underwent a major redesign six months ago, is getting mixed reviews from bus riders, with some praising the changes and other lamenting the loss of more than a dozen routes. Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine in a recent letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul requesting increased transit aid, said the county's funding constraints are limiting its ability to “effectively service residents.” Romaine noted that despite having a greater population and covering a larger geographical area, Suffolk County receives far less state funding for its bus system than Nassau or Westchester counties. However, Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that transit systems in those counties carry about six times as many riders as Suffolk's does, according to federal data.

Romaine called Suffolk's relatively low ridership, compared to other counties in the region, “a self-fulfilling prophecy.” If Suffolk had the means to adequately expand and promote bus service, ridership would grow, Romaine said.

With increased state aid, Romaine said the county would put back some of the eliminated routes and improve connectivity to the LIRR. In his letter to Governor Hochul, Romaine said the county would also add 50 “micro-transit vans” to its fleet, enhance accessibility, build bus shelters, improve security and upgrade to electric buses.

Charlton D'souza, president of Passengers United, a nonprofit rider advocacy group, said there's another reason the state should step up its funding of Suffolk County Transit — the forthcoming congestion pricing plan.

If state officials, who passed congestion pricing into law, want commuters to choose transit over driving into Manhattan, they need to improve access to public transportation in the suburbs, D'souza said.

“You're going to have a lot of residents who use the LIRR, but they're going to want bus service that connects [to the railroad], more morning service, more evening service,” D'souza said. “So I think the state budget should have included more funding for Suffolk County Transit. I think that that's a necessity.”

Guest speaker after the business meeting is Steve Long, executive director of the East Hampton Historical Society, who will give a PowerPoint talk titled “A Behind-the-Scenes Tour of the East Hampton Historical Society,” featuring the society’s many historic buildings and the launching of its participation in a new arts and culture app Bloomberg Connects, now used by over 350 museums worldwide.

After his talk, Mr. Long has graciously invited all on a complimentary tour at approximately 3:30 p.m. of the newly-opened Dominy Shops Museum—the home and workshop, on the original site, of the East Hampton family that is famous for its master craftsmanship of 18th and 19th century furniture and clocks and the nearby Hook Windmill. The importance of the Dominy family to American craft is made evident by the fact that the workshop was even recreated at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware.

The Dominy Shops is located at 73 North Main Street (across from the IGA), with parking behind the museum.

Reservations for the Annual Meeting and tour are being taken on the League phone at 631-324-4637.

The Greenport Farmers Market will be held this year for the first time in Greenport Village’s Mitchell Park at 115 Front Street on Friday afternoons. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the market, which will include about 20 vendors providing a wide variety of local products ranging from fruits and vegetables to wines, spirits and cider, fish, meat, cheese, baked goods and other local products, will open for the season this coming Friday May 17 and is scheduled every Friday, from 3 to 6:30 p.m., through Oct. 11. The Greenport Village Board approved the market’s public assembly permit at its April 25 meeting, after working through a range of concerns including keeping the village’s open container law enforced during the market, and sharing the park with marina users and the Greenport Community Band, which performs in the park on Fridays at 7:30 p.m.

Many Long Islanders earn salaries that could be sustainable in some other parts of the country but have difficulty putting food on the table in a region with a high cost of living. Some earn too much to be eligible for food assistance through the SNAP program but still face food insecurity. In Suffolk County, 40% of the approximately 80,000 food-insecure residents earn above the gross income SNAP threshold in New York, according to Feeding America, a food bank network that operates across the country. Formerly known as food stamps, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program…SNAP…has been instrumental in staving off hunger for millions. But experts say it is also ripe for changes to make it easier to apply for the benefit and more applicable to people who live in regions with high costs of living.

Tiffany Cusaac-Smith and Maureen Mullarkey report on Newsday.com that Together, this equation often leaves struggling residents in a dilemma. They either depend on steady visits to a food bank, and eat cheaper, less healthy foods — or go without.

The coronavirus pandemic and its ensuing job losses helped to open a window on the prevalence of food insecurity nationally and on Long Island. Many who could previously afford to put food on the table found themselves at food pantries and applying for SNAP benefits.

To live on Long Island, a family of four should have an income of roughly $100,000 for “basic necessities,” according to a 2022 report from the Suffolk County Legislature’s Welfare to Work Commission.

Conversely, SNAP benefits are guided by thresholds that include an annual gross income limit of $45,000 in New York for a family of four, according to the state’s website.

For a household with an elderly or disabled person with dependent care expenses, the annual income limit for a family of four is $60,000.

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The MTA could fall $25 billion short in its next capital spending plan — expected to cost more than $55 billion — and look to fare hikes and service cuts to help make up the difference, if the transit authority doesn’t get the revenue it is counting on from its embattled congestion pricing program, a new state report found. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s annual report on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s debt also raised concerns about declining investments in infrastructure and about the potential for funding shortfalls to lead to excessive borrowing.

The report focused on the MTA’s next five-year capital program, which is expected to be released later this year and include infrastructure investments through 2029. The current capital plan, which cost a record $54.8 billion, set aside nearly $6 billion in investments at the Long Island Rail Road, including funding for maintaining existing infrastructure and for megaprojects like Grand Central Madison and the Third Track between Floral Park and Hicksville.

MTA officials have signaled their next capital program will be even larger, and include money for accessibility upgrades at LIRR stations, new train cars and for renewing aging infrastructure, like tracks and bridges. But the MTA is relying heavily on its forthcoming Central Business District Tolling Program to pay for much of the capital plan. The first-in-the-nation congestion pricing plan, scheduled to take effect June 30, will charge most vehicles $15 for driving below 60th Street in Manhattan during peak hours.

The MTA expects to raise about $1 billion annually in tolls, which would be used to finance $15 billion in bonds that would fund the capital investments.

But DiNapoli’s report noted congestion pricing “still faces some implementation uncertainty,” including several lawsuits challenging its legality — the most recent of which was filed by the Town of Hempstead last week.

New York is one of the safest states to drive in, according to two studies. In fact, it's far safer than the most dangerous states. Lanning Taliaferro, reports on Patch.com that in "Safest and Riskiest States for Driving by Car Accident Fatality Rates, 2024" researchers for law firm Bader Scott analyzed 50 states' car accident fatality rates per 100,000 residents with data from the National Health Council.

In 2023, SafeWise ranked New York No. 3. SafeWise’s methodology for the "Safest and Most Dangerous States for Driving" was based on data from the Insurance Institution for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute on driving fatalities in each state and also looked at causes, including speed limits, driver age, drunken-driving and distracted-driving laws.

"Your security on the road depends on many factors. Seat belts, road conditions, and, perhaps most alarmingly, other drivers," researchers said. "Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death for people under fifty in America, and over 37,000 people die yearly in motor vehicle incidents. When it comes to driver safety, however, there may be another important factor to consider: where you live." Bader Scott researchers reported that New York is by far the safest state, reporting 5 deaths per 100,000 people.

"With a substantial population of over 19.5 million, New York stands as the safest state with a low fatality rate of 5 deaths per 100k people, totaling 1,055.92 deaths, which demonstrates their effective road safety policies in an extremely high-density region," the report said.

SafeWise's conclusions from the year before were similar. New York's fatality rate was the same, at .052 per 1,000 drivers, and that was very slightly above Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The most dangerous states — Wyoming and Mississippi — are far more dangerous, the Bader Scott researchers reported, with 27 deaths per 100,000 compared to five for New York.

You are invited to attend Southampton Public School’s Class of 2024 Wall of Distinction Induction Ceremony and Reception this evening at 6:00 PM in the Southampton High School Auditorium.

The celebration is free and open to the public.

The Wall of Distinction recognizes the rich heritage and tradition of successful academic and athletic programs of the Southampton School District, honoring Alumni, Coaches, Teachers, Administrators and Teams.

The 2024 Induction Class features Carol Gulija, Charles “Chuck” Henke, Vincent Mangano, Kristen Stephens and Dr. Merritt Burke White

The Induction Ceremony is this evening at 6:00 PM in the Southampton High School Auditorium with a reception to follow.

The event is free and all are welcome.

A group of Jewish Columbia University students has written an emotional and forceful public letter that takes on one of the most divisive issues on college campuses: whether opposition to Israel should be equated with antisemitism. Sharon Otterman reports in THE NY TIMES that in the letter, the students argue that “Judaism cannot be separated from Israel.” They also charge that anti-Zionist Jews who deny Israel’s right to exist and stand with pro-Palestinian protesters “tokenize themselves” and try to delegitimize the experiences of Zionist Jews on campus.

Some of the students who signed the letter, which had 540 signatories as of yesterday morning, have already spoken publicly against Columbia for the antisemitism they say they have faced there. One student testified before Congress about the issue; others have been counterprotesters at pro-Palestinian rallies. Others have not spoken out before.

In all, by Thursday the letter was signed by just over 10 percent of the estimated 5,000 Jewish undergraduates and graduate students at Columbia and its affiliated colleges. All signatories gave their names, college affiliation and year of graduation, unlike some public letters, that allow for anonymous signatures.

Titled “In Our Name: A Message from Jewish Students at Columbia University,” the letter represents the views of students who state that they love Israel, even though they do not always agree with the actions of the Israeli government.

The letter did not specifically critique any Israeli actions, stating that “our visions for Israel differ dramatically from one another.” Yet, it continued, “we all come from a place of love and an aspiration for a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

The letter comes as Columbia copes with a deeply divided campus reeling from two recent police interventions against pro-Palestinian activism on campus, including the takeover of a campus building that resulted in more than 200 arrests. On Monday, Nemat Shafik, Columbia’s president, canceled the main graduation ceremony...ceremonies were scheduled to begin today...citing security concerns, and the main campus remains in a state of partial lockdown.

ERASE Racism is holding anti-racist trainings in Riverhead in the hopes of teaching community members about racism and how to have conversations surrounding race and diversity. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the trainings will be held at the Holiday Inn Express on Route 58 in Riverhead, with the first part being held next Wednesday, May 15, and the second part scheduled for Thursday, June 13, both from 5:30pm to 8:30 p.m.. The nonprofit, whose mission is to “expose and address the devastating impact of historic and ongoing structural racism on Long Island, in New York, and nationally,” is hosting the event in partnership with the Long Island Hate and Bias Prevention Unit of the state’s Division of Human Rights.

Part one of the training…next Wednesday…titled “Understanding and Unraveling Racism,” will give people a shared understanding of what racism is “and how oppression plays out” on Long Island, said Laura Harding, president of ERASE Racism. Part two on June 13th is titled “Navigating Difficult Conversations” and will focus on responding to conflict and helping people have uncomfortable conversations.

Anybody interested in attending may email biasprevention@dhr.ny.gov to check availability.

New York State’s embattled ethics commission was created unconstitutionally and has no power to force former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to forfeit the $5.1 million he received from his COVID-19 pandemic book, a midlevel court ruled yesterday.

Keshia Clukey reports on Newsday.com that the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court ruled 5-0 the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government is unconstitutional because its structure for appointing and removing members violates separation of powers guarantees in the New York constitution. “We find that by enacting the foregoing scheme for the enforcement of the applicable ethics laws, the Legislature, though well intentioned in its actions, violated the bedrock principles of separation of powers,” Justice Mark L. Powers wrote for the court. The ruling could be appealed to New York's highest court. On Thursday, aides to Gov. Kathy Hochul and State Attorney General Letitia James — both Democrats, like Cuomo — said they were reviewing the decision.

Riverhead Charter School’s application to place three portable buildings at the charter high school site on Sound Avenue will be scheduled for a public hearing, members of the Riverhead Town Board agreed yesterday during a work session meeting with charter school representatives. But the decision came only after board members grilled Riverhead Charter School Superintendent Raymond Ankrum, the school’s attorney Kimberly Judd and engineer Alek Kociski about the placement and use of the portables, and how long the structures would be used as classrooms on the site. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Riverhead Charter School, which leases the current high school, is working to find an alternative site on which to build a new, larger high school, Judd said. The current high school building — originally the Northville School — is not large enough for the number of high school students Riverhead Charter School needs to accommodate, Judd said. As town officials already know, Judd said, the school is in talks with the owners of “two promising properties” and hopes to reach an agreement with one of them soon. “We’re very close,” she said. Meanwhile the charter school needs the portables to provide classroom space for its high school enrollment, she said. The school previously sought to build a new high school on vacant land adjacent to the current high school, but withdrew that plan in response to major backlash from area residents. Ankrum said the charter school no longer has any intention of maintaining its high school on Sound Avenue after the reaction of the community to the now-withdrawn plan. “We’re not welcome there,” the school superintendent said. The school would much prefer to locate its high school closer to its main campus, he added. The Riverhead Town Board at its May 22 meeting is expected to schedule a public hearing on the special permit application.

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Long Island’s two county health departments conducted required twice-a-year food safety inspections at only 6% of eligible schools in 2022-23 school year, a Newsday analysis of state records found. Schools that receive federal money as part of the National School Lunch program must obtain two inspections per year, and the state relies on local health departments for food-safety inspections. Among the violations found in cafeterias across Long Island were inadequate hand-washing facilities, rodent droppings, dead mice, both live and dead cockroaches and insufficient refrigeration for food storage.

Anastasia Valeeva and Robert Brodsky report on Newsday.com that critical violations pose a threat to food safety, possibly resulting in foodborne illness, according state and county health codes. Examples include violations regarding food temperatures, bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat foods and unapproved food sources.

Noncritical violations are commonly referred to as sanitation or maintenance violations. They typically involve general cleaning and maintenance of food service equipment or structural deficiencies. Violations for insects or rodents are not considered critical under current state and county laws.

Regan Kiembock, food service director in the South Huntington school district and a member of the Long Island School Nutrition Directors Association, said county health officials told her “unless there is a critical violation on the first visit, they will not follow up with a second inspection as they do not have staffing to do so.”

In Suffolk, the districts with the most cafeteria violations were Sachem and Brentwood, each recording 225 citations, followed by Middle Country with 200, inspection reports from 2017 to 2023 show. The National School Lunch Program was established under the National School Lunch Act, signed by President Harry Truman in 1946.

The Riverhead Water District and Suffolk County Department of Health Services are independently investigating a groundwater pollution plume in and around the former Northrop Grumman site in Calverton. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the town and the county hope to learn about how groundwater migrating from the site could impact the public water supply in the area, according to Riverhead Water District Superintendent Frank Mancini. The town is particularly concerned with synthetic “forever chemicals,” known as PFAS, which is present in groundwater at the site, Mancini said. The chemicals have been linked to cancers and other harmful health effects, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state health officials. Drilling for samples has already started, Mancini said. After the investigation, Mancini said, the town and county will have “a much better idea of how bad this PFAS issue is.” He said that depending on the outcome, the investigation can help put more pressure on the Navy to take action remediating the offsite pollution, which it has consistently refused to do. Riverhead Town will be paying for the PFAS analysis, while the county will take on the rest of the cost, including drilling wells for the tests, Mancini said. The Riverhead Town Board on Tuesday transferred $40,000 of its fund balance to a budget for the investigation. Mancini said he expects the testing to cost roughly half of that amount.

You are invited to attend Southampton Public School’s Class of 2024 Wall of Distinction Induction Ceremony and Reception tomorrow at 6:00 PM in the Southampton High School Auditorium

The ceremony is free and open to the public.

The 2024 Induction Class features Carol Gulija, Charles “Chuck” Henke, Vincent Mangano, Kristen Stephens and Dr. Merritt Burke White.

The Induction Ceremony is Friday May 10th at 6:00 PM in the Southampton High School Auditorium with a reception to follow. This event is free and all are welcome.

The architects working on the designs of the new East Hampton Town Senior Center have made changes to the plans that shaved some $4 million off the sticker price, Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez announced this week. Michael Wright reports on 27East.com that the architects, R2 Architects, have abandoned their preferred plans to shroud the flowing exterior in reflective stainless steel shingles and will mount solar panels on the building’s roof instead of having panels on stanchions over the parking areas — changes that Burke-Gonzalez said have led to cost savings, along with other changes she did not detail. The changes, Burke-Gonzalez said, have cut the estimated construction costs from the original estimate of $32 million down to $28 million, without sacrificing the building’s primary design features or the goal of “net-zero” energy self-sufficiency. The supervisor also announced on Tuesday that the commissioner of the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation had issued a ruling that the East Hampton Town Board should be the “lead agency” for the review of the Senior Center project — a decision that would allow the town to skip regulatory review by its own planning, zoning and architectural review boards and could shave a year or more off the time it will take to get the project ready for construction. With the Town Board as lead agency, Burke-Gonzalez has said she expects the board will ask the town’s independent regulatory boards for their insights and opinions on various aspects of the plans, but will not present formal applications to them, which could take months for each to complete and would allow the boards to force the town to make changes. The new East Hampton Town Senior Center will be located on a seven-acre parcel at 403 Abraham's Path, Amagansett, adjacent to the recreation park, and will replace the current 10,100-square-foot center at 128 Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton.

As the osprey population on the East End continues its decades-long rebound, with nearly 500 nests found across eastern Long Island during a 2022 census, the Group for the East End, which once focused on counting the local population of the birds, has shifted its focus to hazard and conflict mitigation. Now, in partnership with PSEG Long Island, the Group is launching an educational campaign that offers the community ways to address hazards and conflicts between people and nesting birds. As quoted on 27east.com, “In 1985, when I helped install Group for the East End’s very first osprey nesting platforms, I really didn’t know if this magnificent bird would ever truly recover,” said Group for the East End President Bob DeLuca. “But we knew we had to try. Nearly 40 years later, I am thrilled to see that our work alongside that of so many others has given our local osprey population a second chance. It’s an ongoing effort, and a worthy one, as we enter the next important stage of the osprey’s sustained recovery.” The public has played an integral role in the success of the osprey. As the East End community now navigates living with a thriving local population, many questions have come up, including what to do if an osprey builds a nest on a house or a nest or nesting platform appears to be in danger. In response, the Group has created a print and digital guide to use as a resource, which can be accessed by visiting thegroup.org/initiatives/osprey-conservation.

The Sag Harbor Village Board is expected to scale back a proposal to require paid parking in most municipal lots and will be forced to postpone a public hearing on the plan that it had originally scheduled for Tuesday’s monthly meeting.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that due to changes in the wording of the law, a new public notice will have to be published, and the hearing will be held at the board’s June 11 meeting.

Sag Harbor Village Mayor Tom Gardella said this week, after soliciting public input at a May 1 workshop, that the board likely would agree to require paid parking in only the National Grid gas ball lot, where there are an estimated 94 spaces, and the Meadow Street lot next to the Collette consignment shop, which has an additional 58 spaces.

The Village of Sag Harbor recently signed a three-year deal with developer Adam Potter, who holds a long-term lease on the gas ball lot, to sublet it for $52,500 a year. Village officials initially proposed paid parking in that lot as a way to provide the revenue needed to cover the cost of the lease.

“This is going to be an ongoing conversation,” said Trustee Aidan Corish, who favors requiring paid parking in most municipal lots. But Corish said he recognized it was important to reach a compromise after objections were raised to the initial proposal.

Sag Harbor Village first began experimenting with paid parking in summer 2021 when it launched a pilot program on Long Wharf using the ParkMobile phone app. The program was made permanent the following year, and in the three years it has been in place, the village has collected more than $250,000 in revenue. Those funds have been used for sidewalk repairs, drainage and road improvements, said Corish.

The vast majority of the people using paid parking were from outside the 11963 zip code, he said, providing the village with an important source of revenue that did not come solely from local taxpayers.

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Long Island has recouped the full number of jobs it lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the rate of recovery has been far slower than nationwide, according to a data analysis released yesterday. James T. Madore reports on Newsday.com that employment in Nassau and Suffolk counties was up 0.4% in March compared with February 2020, before the coronavirus struck, the data shows.

Employment in New York City was up 0.3% in the same period.

However, both NYC and Long Island lagged the job growth of the nation, which was 3.8%, based on the data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and the research firm Moody’s Economy.com.

Joelle Scally, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said the differences are due to the strengths and weaknesses of economic sectors in each area. For example, health care is a big employer on Long Island and that sector bounced back from the COVID-induced recession of 2020, she said.

“There has been a strong recovery in that sector over the last year,” Scally said during a briefing for journalists on Tuesday when the bank released its analysis of employment data for 2020-24.

“Almost 1 in 5 Long Islanders are employed in the health care sector. … And I think the strong growth in that sector” helped overall employment, she said in response to a Newsday question.

The state is providing new online tools and dispatching mobile units throughout Long Island in the next several months to help New Yorkers apply for the more secure driver’s licenses they will need for air travel beginning next year, motor vehicles Commissioner Mark J.F. Schroeder said yesterday. Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that the federal REAL ID Law will require a deeper level of security for a state driver’s license, learner’s permit or non-driver identification card to board even domestic flights beginning May 7, 2025. A REAL ID license also will be required to enter many federal buildings and facilities such as military bases.

Separate from a REAL ID license is the state's Enhanced Driver License, permit and non-driver ID, which are already held by thousands of New Yorkers. The enhanced license is all a holder needs to board a flight because those documents comply with the federal law passed in 2005.

The federal REAL ID Law is an outgrowth of homeland security measures begun after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“The deadline is fast approaching,” Schroeder said Tuesday at media events in Garden City and Queens. “There’s no time to waste.”

Schroeder advises appointments be made for DMV office visits at dmv.ny.gov/offices.

Come celebrate Southampton Public School’s Class of 2024 Wall of Distinction Induction Ceremony and Reception this coming Friday May 10 at 6:00 PM in the Southampton High School Auditorium

The ceremony is free and open to the public.

The 2024 Induction Class features Carol Gulija, Charles “Chuck” Henke, Vincent Mangano, Kristen Stephens, Dr. Merritt, Burke White.

The Induction Ceremony will take place Friday May 10th at 6:00 PM in the Southampton High School Auditorium with a reception to follow. The event is free and our east end community is welcome.

A community meeting has been planned to discuss improvements to Three Mile Harbor Road, or County Road 40, in East Hampton. Lisa Finn reports on Patch.com that the meeting is scheduled for this evening at 7 p.m. in East Hampton Town Hall, 159 Pantigo Road in East Hampton.

The Suffolk County Department of Public Works, and the East Hampton town board and town staff, along with Suffolk County Legislator Ann Welker are holding the meeting to discuss ongoing plans for improvements to Three Mile Harbor Road. Public comments will be received during the meeting, after the presentation.

Organizers say the project aims to achieve the following goals to improve various aspects within the Three Mile Harbor Road / Springs corridor:

Roadway resurfacing and pavement rehabilitation
Construct new curb and sidewalk on both sides of the roadway, providing continuous pedestrian facilities throughout the corridor.
Upgrade existing pedestrian facilities to conform with the Americans with Disabilities Act
Install bike lanes on both sides of the roadway between Springs Fireplace Road and Copeces Lane
Repair and upgrade existing drainage system
Traffic signal improvements at Cedar Street and Collins Avenue
Replacement of traffic signage and pavement markings

The meeting is scheduled for this evening at 7 p.m. in East Hampton Town Hall.

Long Island has regained all the jobs it lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks in part to strong hiring by health care institutions. Employment growth on Long Island was stronger than in New York City but lagged the nation according to economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They said the metropolitan area has returned to job growth rates seen in 2019 and early 2020.

James T. Madore reports on Newsday.com that employment in Nassau and Suffolk counties was up 0.4% in March compared with February 2020, before the coronavirus struck, the data shows. Employment in New York City was up 0.3% in the same period. Aside from the health care sector, the jobs recovery in Nassau and Suffolk also benefited from a new pool of employees: people who moved out of New York City and other densely populated places where the coronavirus spread rapidly, according to Jaison R. Abel, head of the New York Fed’s urban and regional studies department.

“The availability of workers is a key factor to growth,” he said. “…being able to attract workers, whether that’s people who left New York City or just attracting people from other parts of the country.”

Abel said employment in New York State's 10 regions has returned to 2019-early 2020 growth rates.

“We've shifted out of this recovery phase and resumed kind of normal growth patterns,” he said. “People have changed their behavior to some extent back to the pre-pandemic way and businesses look like they did before.”

Stony Brook University will go ahead with its main graduation ceremony on May 17th, school officials said yesterday, despite the turmoil on campus over the 29 arrests of students and faculty during a pro-Palestinian protest last week. Bart Jones reports on Newsday.com that the head of the university’s main governing body also said it has full faith in Stony Brook’s president, even with the possibility of a “no-confidence” vote by the Faculty Senate expected next week.

The responses came a day after a heated two-hour meeting of the S.B.U. Faculty Senate. That group overwhelmingly approved a resolution demanding that the university drop charges of disorderly conduct against students and faculty members who were arrested last Thursday after a standoff involving their encampment on campus.

The university did not respond directly to a question Tuesday about whether President Maurie McInnis will move to have the charges dropped and arrest records expunged, as the faculty demanded. It did say that of the 20 students who received interim academic suspensions, 15 appealed, 12 of those were granted, and three are pending. If the remaining five appeal their cases, they will be decided rapidly, the school said. The university referred questions about the charges to the Suffolk County district attorney’s office. It said its campus police department “works in close consultation” with the DA’s office.

Kevin Law, head of the Stony Brook Council, which serves as an oversight and advisory board for the university, said yesterday the council “has total confidence in Maurie McInnis as president.” “We believe Stony Brook has handled this properly … a lot better than other universities across the country,” he said.

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The NYS Board of Regents yesterday proposed revised, gender-neutral rules to determine when a female or male student can play on a school sports team of the opposite sex, potentially opening the door to more coed teams.

While supporters of the proposed change said it would bring greater equity to school sports, some critics lamented that it could compromise girls sports by allowing in boys who could dominate. Craig Schneider and Gregg Sarra report on Newsday.com that board trustees, who discussed the changes at their meeting Monday, said the new rules would apply when a school does not offer separate male and female teams for a particular sport. The rules would apply, for example, when a female student wants to play on a football or wrestling team, or a male student wants to play on a field hockey or girls volleyball team, they said.

Board members said they hoped to eliminate extra, burdensome requirements placed on students who wish to play a sport that traditionally caters to members of the opposite sex. “I think this is long overdue,” said Roger Tilles, Long Island's longtime member of the Board of Regents. “It's not just in fairness to girls who want to play on the football team, but it is going to open field hockey for boys.”

Tom Combs, the executive director of Section XI, which governs Suffolk sports, said the plan needs more scrutiny.,“I’m not in favor of anything that adversely affects the girls,” Combs said. “This was a proposal to examine and look at the mixed competition policy as written. There is nothing ratified at this time. It’s a proposal to be looked at in the fall.” Combs added, “We really have to think about the girls. We’ve come a long way in girls sports and the opportunities they’ve earned. I’d hate to see that change.”

The board will submit the proposed changes to a 60-day public comment period, before voting on it in September. It would become effective that month.

Two years after affiliating with Long Island Community Hospital, NYU Langone filed an application to fully merge assets with the Patchogue institution. Sarina Trangle reports on Newsday.com that the Manhattan-based health system received permission in February 2022 to become the “active parent” of Long Island Community Hospital and detailed longer-term plans for a full merger.

When the partnership was announced, NYU Langone said it would invest $100 million to improve the hospital, including its electronic records system, emergency rooms and operating rooms. Executives said more physicians and staff would be hired.

NYU Langone didn't specify how much of the $100 million investment had been made and by how much it had increased various types of clinicians in its merger application, which is dated April 26. The document notes the health systems are ready to fully merge assets, with Long Island Community Hospital at NYU Langone becoming a division of the NYU Langone health system.

NYU Langone spokesman Steven Ritea said in a statement yesterday. “A full merger is expected in about a year.”

The 306-bed Long Island Community Hospital reported more than $253.96 million in revenue on its 2021 tax return, but had roughly $2.14 million more in expenses, according to the most recent filing available through the state attorney general's charities database.

The hospital had about 43,500 emergency room visits and performed more than 4,700 surgeries that year, the form noted.

The Long Island Rail Road is going to be performing Sperry rail testing and track maintenance on the Montauk Branch from Babylon to Montauk each night…starting tonight…from Tuesday, May 7, until Friday, May 10, from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. each night. As a result, train service on the Montauk branch will be out of service each overnight between Babylon and Montauk, with buses running in their place. The railroad said the testing is part of its annual track maintenance program, which ensures its infrastructure is in a state of good repair. As reported on 27east.com, all train service will be replaced by buses in both directions between Babylon and Montauk. Passengers can expect approximately an additional hour and 15 minutes of travel time in either direction. Part of Sperry testing involves catching defects in the rail, and when possible, crews will address these on site. As such, while the Sperry train itself does not cause much noise, any potential remedial work that is undertaken will, so there could be extra noise in the vicinity of the outage.

Nearly a third of Suffolk convenience stores and gas stations targeted in a recent undercover operation by county law enforcement illegally sold nicotine vaping cartridges to minors, often in e-cigarette flavors banned by the state, officials announced yesterday in Yaphank. Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that in total, 17 of 53 businesses targeted since mid-March by the Suffolk County Police Department, or 32%, were issued citations that come with a $1,000 fine for a first offense — and $2,000 thereafter. The investigation also led to the arrest of 18 store employees. Those employees were charged with second-degree unlawfully dealing with a child, a misdemeanor, and issued desk appearance tickets. The businesses remained open.

Meanwhile, 3,000 illegal vaping products were seized on April 25 from a gas station in Shirley — the second largest seizure of its kind in Suffolk County history, officials said. The seized products, police said, will be incinerated. “The majority of businesses are following the law,” said acting police Commissioner Robert Waring on Monday as he stood before the seized products. “But approximately 30% of the stores checked sold to underage people. And that is simply too much. Young people often do not understand the health risks of nicotine use. We rely on the store selling these products to check IDs and to only sell to those legally permitted.”

The police crackdown, known as Operation Smoke Out, used minors to try to purchase vaping products, officials said. The recent raids, which targeted shops in Mastic, Shirley and South Huntington that were identified by community complaints, will expand to other areas.

“Do not sell them to people under 21,” Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine said of the vaping products. “It is not legal in the state and we will enforce it.”

Retailers statewide cannot sell vaping products to people under 21, nor can they sell flavors other than tobacco, mint or menthol. Flavored vaping products, however, are widely available online and across the country.

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The U.S. Navy’s Restoration Advisory Board for the the Enterprise Park at Calverton...the EPCAL site in Calverton...will meet this evening at 6 p.m. in the Riverhead Senior Center on Shade Tree Lane in Aquebogue. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that an Open House is scheduled before the meeting, at 5:30 p.m., which will include informational displays along with representatives from the Navy and partnering agencies.

Per the U.S. Navy, NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT CALVERTON, New York was a Government-Owned Contractor-Operated facility located in Suffolk County on Long Island, approximately 70 miles east of New York City. Established in 1954 for the development, assembly, testing, refitting, and retrofitting of Naval combat aircraft; Northrop Grumman Corporation was the sole operator of the facility from its construction in the early 1950s until it closed in February 1996.

In 1996, the land was returned to Navy control. In September 1998, the majority of the land within the developed section of the facility was conveyed to the Town of Riverhead for economic redevelopment.

There are currently no operational activities being conducted on the Navy’s 209 acres. Current Navy actions are limited to environmental investigations and cleanup.

Once again, the U.S. Navy’s Restoration Advisory Board for the EPCAL site in Calverton will meet this evening at 6 p.m. at the Riverhead Senior Center on Shade Tree Lane in Aquebogue. An Open House is scheduled before the meeting, at 5:30 p.m., which will include informational displays along with representatives from the Navy and partnering agencies.

A community meeting has been planned to discuss improvements to Three Mile Harbor Road, or County Road 40, in East Hampton. Lisa Finn reports on Patch.com that the meeting is scheduled for tomorrow at 7 p.m. in East Hampton Town Hall, 159 Pantigo Road in East Hampton.

The project aims to achieve the following goals to improve various aspects within the corridor, organizers said:

Roadway resurfacing and pavement rehabilitation
Construct new curb and sidewalk on both sides of the roadway, providing continuous pedestrian facilities throughout the corridor.
Upgrade existing pedestrian facilities to conform with the Americans with Disabilities Act
Install bike lanes on both sides of the roadway between Springs Fireplace Road and Copeces Lane
Repair and upgrade existing drainage system
Traffic signal improvements at Cedar Street and Collins Avenue
Replacement of traffic signage and pavement markings

The Faculty Senate at Stony Brook University voted overwhelmingly yesterday to demand that the school drop charges against 29 students and faculty arrested in connection with a pro-Palestinian demonstration last week. Bart Jones reports on Newsday.com that in a heated meeting that was also attended by university president Maurie McInnis, the senate also voted to investigate a new campus police operation McInnis has created. Speakers noted that the campus police seized the cellphones of some of the protesters and refused to return them, in what some professors characterized as an action more typical of an authoritarian police state.

The SBU Faculty Senate tabled for a week a third resolution declaring “no confidence in President McInnis’s capacity to perform the ongoing duties of her office in a wise and humane manner.” The resolution to demand charges be dropped is largely symbolic as the group has no direct power over the administration's actions in connection with the protest.

McInnis during the nearly two-hour meeting vehemently defended her handling of last week’s protest, saying university officials were put in an extremely difficult position and did their best to defuse a volatile situation.

“We did not want to arrest anyone,” she said. “We wanted to de-escalate the situation.” She noted that protests at other colleges around the country have ended far worse. Columbia University has canceled its main graduation after nearly 300 people were arrested there, along with City College of New York.

University officials said Monday that 20 students have received “interim suspensions,” up from the three they reported last week. They said the students can appeal, and that some have already successfully done so.

The campus has been in turmoil since campus police, Suffolk County police and New York State Troopers last week broke up an encampment the protesters set up and made the arrests.

Stony Brook officials have said the protesters were arrested after being repeatedly warned they had to move off the grassy area known as the Staller Steps after nearly two days of occupying it, in part because another group was scheduled to use the area the next day.

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The NYS Legislature plans to spend its 18 remaining legislative days debating hundreds of proposals, including bills to protect kids from addiction to social media and to limit the cost of measures to combat climate change. Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that other bills jammed into the session beginning today and scheduled to end June 6 include better protection for children in custody battles, under a bill named for a Manhasset girl who was murdered, and the SIT (Standing is Tiring) Act, which would require many employers to provide seats to employees who stand while working.

Regarding students in New York, the proposed Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation for Kids Act, or SAFE for Kids Act, aims to make online social media safer for kids. The bill has strong support in the New York State Senate, Assembly and from Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James. Supporters argue the addictive power of social media and the growth of dangerous “viral challenges” can harm some youths’ mental health and lead to anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and self-harm.

The measures would prohibit social media and online platforms such as Meta (formerly Facebook), Google (which owns YouTube) and Yahoo! from collecting and sharing personal data of users without consent. The provisions also would prohibit some practices that can be addictive by luring users from one link to another. Local bills expected to be debated include a bipartisan proposal that could lead to a Long Island glass recycling facility.

New federal nutrition standards will limit added sugars for the first time in school meals and cut back on sodium for millions of students nationwide. Schools will not be required to make any changes to their menus for 2024-25, according to the USDA. Changes in the rule will phase in between fall 2025 and fall 2027. The first phase limits the amount of added sugars allowed for specific foods that tend to be higher in added sugars: breakfast cereals, yogurt and flavored milk. Joie Tyrrell reports on Newsday.com that educators said school food often is the most nutritious meal accessible to students and a healthy diet can contribute to greater academic success. More local school districts have been able to offer free meals to students because of changes in federal guidelines in recent years.

The American Heart Association, Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and national School Nutrition Association said the standards represent a healthy upgrade for school meals.

“Particularly at breakfast, where cereals, flavored milks and even yogurts can have too much added sugar to fit into a healthy diet, USDA’s final rule will bring added sugars down to safer levels in alignment with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” said Meghan Maroney, CSPI's Federal Child Nutrition campaign manager.

But there are questions about funding and training staff when these changes come into play.

This evening at 6pm, the Heart of Riverhead Civic Association will commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day at Riverhead Free Library to honor the memory of the lives taken and of all who risked or sacrificed their own lives to save others.

This year, explore and reflect on Hearts and Minds; hearing the thoughts and emotions shared on diary pages written in hiding or in deathcamps; the memories of survivors whose life’s work became keeping their stories alive; and the reminders, written in essays and poems, that the future is in our hands.

This free program - Holocaust Remembrance Day – is this evening at 6pm in the Riverhead Free Library.

The event is presented as a community service by the Heart of Riverhead Civic Association. Advance registration requested, but not required. Call Riverhead Free Library at (631) 727-3228 to register.

New York State lawmakers, in an election year, made adjustments to sweeten retirement benefits for public workers hired after 2011 — changes that could help Democrats with their campaigns, but also increase costs for local governments and schools, experts say.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and her Democratic colleagues, who hold a majority in the State Legislature, in April approved a $237 billion state budget for 2024-25 that included tweaks to Tier 6 of the state retirement system. Keshia Clukey reports on Newsday.com that the adjustments, aimed at attracting workers and retaining those hired on or after April 1, 2012, essentially increase the level of benefits public workers receive when they retire and keep employee contribution rates low for those who earn overtime pay.

Statewide, there are approximately 703,000 members of Tier 6, including government workers, teachers, firefighters, police and health care workers at public hospitals such as Stony Brook University Hospital and Nassau University Medical Center, according to 2023 data from the state Comptroller's Office, state Teachers' Retirement System and the New York City Office of the Actuary.

Public employee unions across the state applauded the changes as long overdue.

But fiscal government watchdog groups warn the changes will increase contribution costs for state and local governments, some health facilities and school districts by millions of dollars, and continue to rise annually.

The salary calculation shift will cost public employers an estimated $377 million this year, according to the budget legislation.

Union leaders and some state lawmakers say the increase to employers is relatively minor.

“What we’ve heard from most is that it’s worth it and that it’s an essential investment,” said Melinda Person, president of New York State United Teachers, the state’s largest teachers union with nearly 700,000 members.

One of the newest members of the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office has already proved he’s doggone good at his job. Michael R. Ebert reports on Newsday.com that Hondo, a 1-year-old German shepherd, had just completed his eight-month training earlier this year when his skills were put to the test. A teenage girl had fled on foot from the county court complex in Riverhead, according to police.

“We got a call for a missing teen who ran away from her guardian,” said Deputy Sheriff Jason Figari, Hondo’s handler. “We got information from our Criminal Investigations Bureau after doing a camera canvass that they saw the area where she ran into, so I sent the dog in there for an area search and he kind of pulled me right to her.”

Thanks to Hondo, the girl was found hiding behind electrical components in a wooded area, Figari said.

The dog was recognized by Sheriff Errol D. Toulon Jr., who presented Hondo with his official police shield in March.

The K9, which will primarily be on traffic patrol with the DWI Unit of the Sheriff’s Office, has also helped with other tasks in recent months, including locating narcotics inside of a vehicle on the East End.

Hondo came from a kennel in western Pennsylvania last summer.

Hondo joins a force of five police dogs in Suffolk: two other deputy sheriff K9s and three Corrections Office K9s.

“Having this type of support from our K9s is integral to keeping our officers safe and keeping the public safe,” said Chief Deputy Sheriff Christopher Brockmeyer. “It’s important to have the tools necessary to get the job done.”

The U.S. Navy’s Restoration Advisory Board for the EPCAL site in Calverton will meet tomorrow night, that’s Tuesday May 7 at 6 p.m. in the Riverhead Senior Center on Shade Tree Lane in Aquebogue. An Open House is scheduled before the meeting, at 5:30 p.m., which will include informational displays along with representatives from the Navy and partnering agencies. Per the U.S. Navy, NAVAL WEAPONS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE PLANT CALVERTON, New York was a Government-Owned Contractor-Operated facility located in Suffolk County on Long Island, approximately 70 miles east of New York City. Established in 1954 for the development, assembly, testing, refitting, and retrofitting of Naval combat aircraft; Northrop Grumman Corporation was the sole operator of the facility from its construction in the early 1950s until it closed in February 1996

There are currently no operational activities being conducted on the Navy’s 209 acres. Current Navy actions are limited to environmental investigations and cleanup.

New York City’s congestion pricing program is scheduled to begin charging tolls to drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan next month, with the aim of generating a $15 billion windfall for the mass transit system.

That money would not translate into lower fares or a huge subway expansion. Instead, with a few notable exceptions, it would largely support the unglamorous but critical work of maintaining the century-old infrastructure that millions of New Yorkers rely on — repairing and upgrading aging equipment, modernizing signals and technology and making subway stations more accessible. Winnie Hu reports in THE N.Y. TIMES that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees congestion pricing, has already earmarked the entire $15 billion for long-planned projects…including $1.5 billion for the L.I.R.R. But now the money is in jeopardy as legal challenges to the plan threaten to blow a significant hole in the M.T.A.’s budget.

Congestion pricing, which is due to begin on June 30, is the single largest source of funding of the transit agency’s $51.5 billion capital program, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the total. Since congestion pricing has yet to get off the ground, the M.T.A. used other funding first for its capital program. And now that $15 billion accounts for half the money the authority is expecting to finance its remaining projects.

Seven lawsuits have been brought in federal courts in New York and New Jersey by opponents — including New Jersey’s governor, Philip D. Murphy — over the cost of the new tolls as well as concerns that, as drivers skirt around them, traffic and pollution could shift to other areas. The courts could rule before the tolls begin and possibly delay or upend the program at the last minute.

M.T.A. officials said they would have to delay or scale back projects if the congestion pricing money does not come through.

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The atmosphere at Stony Brook University was tense yesterday, less than a day after 29 people, including nearly two dozen students, were arrested during a confrontation with authorities. As reported in NEWSDAY, a pro-Palestinian protest broke out again on campus Thursday afternoon, although the demonstrators dispersed shortly afterward. And Jewish students, who gathered for a party in the space where Wednesday's protest took place, said the week's events had left them fearing for their safety.

Late yesterday afternoon, as students came and went to their final exams, roughly 100 students gathered at an outdoor campus concert, and later in front of the Earth and Space building, for an impromptu protest. They chanted “Free Palestine” and shouted “Shame” at university officials after the arrests of “peaceful protesters.”

The demonstrators chanted slogans against Israel and called for Palestinian resistance. One protester made an obscene gesture at a small group of students watching, one of whom was wrapped in an Israeli flag. The protest ended without altercations.

Shortly after midnight Thursday, 22 students, two faculty members and five others had been arrested after they refused to vacate a grassy area on campus known as the Staller Steps.

Meanwhile, students gathered yesterday for a Jewish heritage event in front of the Staller Center — the same site where protesters had been arrested and evicted hours earlier.

The event got underway amid heavy security. Campus police erected wood barriers and put up yellow police tape to control access to the site. It attracted about 50 people, a sparser crowd than the 500 who came last year, event organizers said.

The Alive on 25 summer street festival will return this year with two events which will bring fireworks and, for the first time, a laser light show, to downtown Riverhead. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the first event will be on July 5 and include fireworks starting at 9 p.m. The second event is on Aug. 9 and includes a laser light show over the Peconic River and in the Riverhead Town square starting at 9 p.m.

The events, which feature live music on multiple stages, local craft beverages, food trucks, street dining, vendors and activities on Main Street and the Peconic Riverfront, begin at 5 p.m. and officially end at 9:30 p.m. Rain dates for the events are July 19 and Aug. 23.

The Riverhead Business Improvement District Management Association, which organizes the festival, decided to cut down the number of Alive on 25 events down from four to two events this year.

For the first time, the street festival had a small financial loss last year, Riverhead Business Improvement District Management Association executive director Kristy Verity said at a recent BIDMA board meeting. The first event of the summer, which coincides with Independence Day weekend, typically has an “enormous” turnout, and that attendance seems to dwindle with the other three events, she said. That caused some vendors to bow out of the festival altogether because they had to commit to attending all four events, she said.

This is the second big change to the street festival in recent memory; in 2022, BIDMA moved the festival from Thursday to Friday with the hope that weekend traffic could boost attendance. The move to Friday nights has been “very successful,” Verity said.

A badly decomposed female minke whale was found in the ocean surf in Bridgehampton this past Wednesday morning. As reported on 27east.com, scientists with the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society conducted a necropsy of the 26-foot whale. The animal showed no sign of trauma, but it will not be possible to pinpoint a cause of death until the results of the examination are available in about a month, according to Rob DiGiovanni, the organization’s chief scientist. “This species is part of the unusual mortality rate” that has been reported in recent months, he said. The cause of death in most cases has been bacterial infections, he added. Although there has been speculation that the construction of offshore wind turbines may be playing a role in the death of whales, DiGiovanni said there was no evidence to support that conclusion. He said town, state and federal agencies assisted in the recovery and burial of the whale.

Nearly 1,100 immigrants without legal documentation living in Suffolk County were ordered deported by immigration judges between October and the end of March, ranking behind only New York City statewide during that period, according to new federal data released last week by a nonprofit research group. Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that nationwide, the highest number of removal orders issued by immigration judges during the first six months of fiscal 2024 — at just under 11,000 — went to immigrants living in the city, primarily in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, according to Department of Justice figures obtained by the Syracuse University-based Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan group that tracks federal data, including immigration.

TRAC's rankings merge the city's five boroughs into one region but separately list Long Island's counties. Nassau had about 300 fewer deportation orders than Suffolk.

The rise in deportation orders — which are significantly higher than in recent years — reflects, in part, an increased number of judges hearing cases but doesn't necessarily mean the immigrants are actually leaving the country, as many don't show up for court hearings, experts said.

While Long Island hasn't seen as many recent migrants compared to the city, TRAC's data shows that a high number of migrants have been nonetheless ordered removed from Nassau and Suffolk in recent years.

From Oct. 1, 2023, through March 30th of this year, 1,097 immigrants who listed Suffolk as their primary residence were ordered removed — the most of any region outside of the city and the 15th-highest among all counties nationwide, according to TRAC's data.

At its current pace, Suffolk would slightly exceed its highest year for deportation orders — 2,156 in fiscal 2019 — since at least 1998. There were 1,920 deportation orders to Suffolk residents in fiscal 2023, data shows.

MTA Bridges and Tunnels and the NYPD arrested 56 people and issued nearly 1,400 tickets to persistent toll evaders and for “ghost plates” designed to avoid license plate readers on New York City bridges and tunnels, authorities said. John Asbury reports on Newsday.com that authorities also seized 193 vehicles during the operation Monday and Wednesday that screened vehicles at the Robert F. Kennedy, Willis Avenue, Third Avenue and George Washington bridges and the Queens-Midtown, Lincoln and Holland tunnels.

Persistent toll evaders owed more than $1.2 million in unpaid tolls, fees, judgments and debts, authorities said.

Arrests included one out-of-state resident wanted on forgery charges and another person wanted on an outstanding robbery charge. Other drivers were stopped for violations including driving with covered or obstructed license plates, unpaid tolls, driving unregistered vehicles and driving with suspended licenses.

During 10 operations this year, since March, authorities have seized 618 vehicles, made 142 arrests and issued 4,247 tickets, totaling more than $5.2 million in unpaid tolls and other outstanding judgments. Authorities have impounded more than 1,000 vehicles this year for unpaid tolls.

Officials seized 2,731 vehicles in 2023, up 47% from 2022. A study by Newsday found drivers concealed, obstructed or used bogus license plates to dodge an average of 224,000 tolls a month last year at MTA bridges and tunnels. The MTA previously told Newsday that plate cheaters cost the authority about $46 million in toll revenue in 2022.

This free program - Holocaust Remembrance Day – is next Monday, May 6th at 6pm in the Riverhead Free Library.

The event is presented as a community service by the Heart of Riverhead Civic Association. Advance registration requested, but not required. Call Riverhead Free Library at (631) 727-3228 to register.

What do you do with a broken toaster? Or a bike with an out-of-true wheel? Or with a sweater full of moth holes? Toss it? No way! North Fork Environmental Council is organizing its sixth Repair Café at the Floyd Memorial Library in Greenport on Saturday, May 4…that’s tomorrow from 1 to 4 p.m. At the Repair Café, everything centers on making repairs. Various volunteer repair experts will be available to help make all possible repairs free of charge. Tools and materials will also be on hand.

People visiting the Repair Café will bring along their broken items from home. Toasters, lamps, hair dryers, clothes, bikes, toys, crockery… anything that is broken is welcome. And can more than likely be repaired. The Repair Café volunteer repair coaches almost always have the know-how.

By promoting repairs, North Fork Environmental Council {NFEC} wants to help reduce mountains of waste. This is absolutely necessary, according to Margaret de Cruz, who organized this Repair Café.

“We throw away piles of stuff in the United States..But Where is Away? There is no Away, except the Oceans and Earth’s floor, and landfills,” she said.

Repair Café is also meant to put neighbors in touch with each other in a new way, and to discover that a lot of know-how and practical skills can be found close to home.

“Jointly making repairs can lead to pleasant contacts in the neighborhood,” said Ms. de Cruz.

Repairing saves money and resources, reduces unnecessary consumption and can help minimize CO2 emissions.

“But above all, Repair Café just wants to show how much fun repairing things can be, and how easy it often is,” she said.

The North Fork Environmental Council’s sixth Repair Café at the Floyd Memorial Library in Greenport is Saturday, May 4th from 1 to 4 p.m.

All repairs are free of charge.

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Elected officials on the South Fork, Long Island Rail Road passengers, and leaders in education, small business and medicine are planning a rally to call for increased train service to the South Fork on Friday, May 17, at 3:45 p.m. at the Hampton Bays LIRR station. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the South Fork Commuter Coalition is asking the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to commit funding in its upcoming capital budget for long-discussed infrastructure improvements for the South Fork, which is widely considered to be underserved by the railroad. Specifically, the South Fork needs new and upgraded sidings, which are sections of track separate from, but parallel to, a main line that allow trains traveling in opposite directions to pass. This, advocates say, would improve efficiency and allow for more train service on the South Fork. Much of the LIRR’s Montauk branch, including all of the South Fork, features a single track. At its first meeting on April 11, members of Southampton Town’s Traffic Mitigation and Safety Task Force spoke of the importance of rail service in alleviating “trade parade” traffic congestion. The railroad is “the most under-utilized infrastructure we have,” NYS Assemblyman Fred Thiele said at that meeting. The MTA will approve its five-year capital plan in October. The South Fork Commuter Connection, which debuted on the Montauk branch in 2019, is a coordinated rail and bus system that operates between Speonk and Montauk during peak commuting hours to provide a public transportation option and alleviate traffic congestion. It comprises expanded LIRR service and the “Last Mile Connection” shuttle service to take passengers to their workplace on weekday mornings. Later afternoon bus and train service returns riders to their stations of origin.

Law enforcement officers descended early today on an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters outside Stony Brook University's Staller Center where they took several demonstrators into custody and forced others to leave.

As reported on Newsday.com, protest leaders and university administrators had reached an impasse before campus police along with New York State Troopers and Suffolk County police officers moved in after a deadline for demonstrators to leave passed at 11 last night.

Administration officials had earlier agreed to meet today with the student leaders but also threatened them with possible expulsion if they remained on the grassy common.

About a dozen protesters had remained camped out as the deadline passed. Another roughly 100 demonstrators who left the immediate area to avoid getting arrested formed a perimeter around the smaller group. Others began clearing out supplies that had been spread out in the encampment.

In a statement early this morning, university officials said among the 29 people arrested were "students, faculty members and others from outside our campus community for violating various legal statutes and university policies. What began as a peaceful demonstration escalated to include intimidation and harassment of other students and the erection of tents in violation of the University’s clearly stated policy. University administrators made every effort to avert this outcome."

ReWild Long Island is offering internships and community service opportunities in East Hampton for its second summer.

Locations and partner organizations include Share the Harvest Farm, LongHouse Reserve, Surfrider Village Green and Methodist Lane Bioswale, East Hampton Compost and East Hampton High School Pollinator Garden.

The hands-on activities are intended to encourage a sense of connection among teenagers and the ecosystem. Furthermore, ReWild offers students the unique opportunity to engage with local environmentalists, gaining insights into community-driven environmental initiatives and discovering ways to contribute to future efforts

As reported on 27east.com, ReWild welcomes high school students and rising freshmen to apply for either a role as a student intern or a student volunteer. Applications are open through May 15 and may be found at ReWildLongIsland.org/summerprogram. Student volunteers are required to work a minimum of 30 hours (including training), and student interns are required a minimum of 60 hours (including training) and will receive a stipend of $300 at the conclusion of the program. All participants earn community service hours.

The East Hampton Town Trustees have posted an $888,000 bond to cover the entire liability, plus anticipated interest, for contempt of court charges filed against them and East Hampton Town officials for violating a 2021 court order not to permit 4x4 vehicles from using a stretch of Amagansett beach - popularly referred to as “Truck Beach” - that has been ruled privately owned.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that posting the bond is expected to automatically lift a freeze placed on the Trustees’ checking accounts by an attorney representing the oceanfront homeowners that sued over control of the beach in 2009, who has demanded that some $740,000 in fines and legal fees be paid immediately, despite the court rulings being under appeal.

The Trustees have groused at being saddled with the entire financial liability, since the contempt charges appeared to have been precipitated primarily by the actions of East Hampton Town Board and East Hampton Town Marine Patrol officials who did not take steps to prevent 4x4 owners from driving onto the beach in protest of the ruling.

The town is automatically protected from the liability of the judgment against it by state law that protects a taxpayer-funded municipality in the case of a legal appeal ruling against it. But a judge ruled this past winter that the Trustees are not a municipality and are not afforded that same protection and that they could be held liable for the entire amount of the judgment in the contempt case, even though the fines and legal fees were leveled against both entities jointly.

Trustees Clerk Francis Bock said on Wednesday, “It was either do this now or wait until the hearing with the judge on May 16…and we’ve already gotten the Sheriff’s notice, which gives us 30 days, and if we missed the deadline the sheriff could just go in and seize the funds from our accounts.”

“We’re screwed either way, so this was the best way for us to get our accounts free again,” Trustee Bock lamented.

Long Island Game Farm officials said the giraffe that died in October was malnourished due to a resistance to medication from parasites and did not die due to starvation.

Bobo, a 3-year-old, 12-foot giraffe, died Oct. 2 when he collapsed at the game farm in Manorville while preparing to be returned to his home at a zoo in South Carolina.

The giraffe was leased to the game farm, where he spent his summers on Long Island. John Asbury reports on Newsday.com that a USDA report found the giraffe died of malnourishment, cold living conditions and a “heavy parasite load and poor body condition.”

Melinda Novak, the game farm’s president, said in a statement issued yesterday: “Bobo had a drug-resistant parasite that he was being treated for prior to his death. At the time of his passing, Long Island Game Farm was initially informed that heart failure had been the cause of death.”

The game farm followed a feeding schedule by Bobo’s owner, including a diet of feeding pellets, carrots and lettuce. The giraffe was under veterinarian care for about two months to be treated for the parasite, Novak said. She said a necropsy from Cornell found Bobo had an unusually small heart.

The game farm was issued a warning of violation following Bobo’s death and the USDA told the facility it must make improvements before it obtained another giraffe. A follow-up inspection by the USDA found no violations.

Novak said the game farm has been speaking with inspectors, who said it may obtain another giraffe after an inspection.

This coming Monday May 6th at 6pm, the Heart of Riverhead Civic Association will commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day at Riverhead Free Library to honor the memory of the lives taken and of all who risked or sacrificed their own lives to save others. This year, explore and reflect on Hearts and Minds; hearing the thoughts and emotions shared on diary pages written in hiding or in deathcamps; the memories of survivors whose life’s work became keeping their stories alive; and the reminders, written in essays and poems, that the future is in our hands. This free program next Monday, May 6th at 6pm in the Riverhead Free Library, is presented as a community service by the Heart of Riverhead Civic Association. Advance registration requested, but not required. Call Riverhead Free Library at (631) 727-3228 to register.

After 13 months of research and interviews, the BESS Task Force has submitted draft recommendations for regulating Battery Energy Storage Systems to the Southold Town Board.

BESS facilities store energy generated by renewable technologies, such as solar panels and wind turbines, for future consumption. The systems are currently not permitted under town code, but the technology could become a key component of the region’s energy supply. The Southold Town Board recently renewed a moratorium on BESS applications through April 11, 2025. Nicholas Grasso reports in THE SUFFOLK TIMES that the volunteer group — comprising seven area residents, including Norman Reilly of the Southold Town Fire Chief’s Council — examined the BESS codes of neighboring towns and interviewed local environmental advocates, town employees and elected officials to create its 39-page report, dated April 3. The group also met with representatives from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which promotes energy efficiency and renewable energies, as well as developers and consultants involved in the installation of BESS facilities.

Task Force recommendations state that any BESS facility with an energy capacity greater than 600kWh {kilowatt-hour} which classifies it as Tier 2, would require a special use permit, a SEQRA Type I environmental impact statement and a site plan approval process that would examine an array of fire and other safety plans.

With the task force’s mission complete, the Southold Town Board and various town departments — including building, legal and planning — must now review its recommendations.

“It’s got to go through almost everyone,” Supervisor Al Krupski explained. “It’s a public document, so it will be a very public process … It also concerns public safety, so the local fire departments are going to be encouraged to weigh in also.”

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E-ZPass is warning about a text message scam in which unsuspecting commuters are tricked into providing payment and personal information. John Asbury reports on Newsday.com that customers have received texts claiming to come from “NY Toll Services” and seeking to collect tolls, according to E-ZPass. The messages may include a fraudulent website phishing for payment or other information.

Toll officials said the messages and website are not authorized by E-ZPass or other toll agencies. Anyone who gets the text claiming to be from a toll provider is urged not to click on the website link and delete the message.

“E-ZPass New York will never ask” for a customer’s date of birth, Social Security number or other personally identifiable information, toll officials said in a message posted on EZPassNY.com. Real communications from E-ZPass New York will just refer customers to EZPassNY.com and TollsByMailNy.com, they said.

Text message and phishing scams have been reported in other states using E-ZPass.

The MTA previously issued warnings about a scam email to E-ZPass customers, which may look like it appears from the E-ZPass Service Center and asks customers to download a list of unpaid tolls.

Anyone who suspects they may have received a fraudulent message can contact E-ZPass NY customer service at 1-800-333-8655.

In an effort to beautify Veterans Memorial Park in Calverton, Riverhead Town is establishing a program to allow people to purchase a cherry blossom tree and marker for the park in honor of an armed services member. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the town would plant a six-foot tall cherry blossom tree and place a 12- by 6-inch granite slab with the name of the veteran at the foot of each tree, according to Council Member Ken Rothwell, Town Board liaison to the Riverhead Veterans Advisory Committee. Rothwell said the program would be open to both residents of the town and non-residents and cost $675, which covers the purchase of the tree, the marker and the installation of the marker. The new program could be approved by the Riverhead Town Board as soon as May 7. He said the idea came from the Veterans Advisory Committee as a way of both honoring local veterans and beautifying the park, which is undergoing changes with the addition of a hockey rink, paintball field and a new parking lot. The park is an “ideal location, right across the street from Calverton National Cemetery,” he said. The town has selected cherry trees that bloom at the end of May to coincide with Memorial Day weekend, Rothwell said. Once the trees are planted, Rothwell said the town could perhaps have a “cherry blossom festival” at the park in years to come.

This free program next Monday, May 6th at 6pm in the Riverhead Free Library, is presented as a community service by the Heart of Riverhead Civic Association. Advance registration requested, but not required. Call Riverhead Free Library at (631) 727-3228 to register.

New York Institute of Technology students, who used Sag Harbor as a model for their senior thesis projects in urban planning, will present their work at a combined open house and critique on Thursday, May 9, at Sage Hall at the Sag Harbor Learning Center. “Envisioning a Resilient Sag Harbor” is the theme for the students in the Architecture and Applied Utopia studio taught by Associate Professor Dong-Sei Kim and Ronald Reed, a Sag Harbor architect who serves on the Village Planning Board. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that next week’s presentation, which runs from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., will include a video of five projects, presentations by the students and feedback from a panel of architects and members of the public. Reed said that it was unusual for the public to get to sit in on what counts as a final examination on the work. He said he believed the more open program would also serve the students well in their professional careers when they find themselves presenting ideas before governmental agencies and boards. Early last fall, the class visited Sag Harbor to get to know the village and work on initial ideas. Their design work was unveiled at a first-semester open house and preliminary review in December. Projects that will be presented this month for review include one for alternative transportation for the village and surrounding area, a plan to move vulnerable housing to higher ground, a proposal to add stories to commercial buildings for affordable housing, and a network of walking trails and bike paths with stops at key historic sites designed to encourage nonpolluting forms of transportation around the village. Since their initial presentations, students have focused on a series of timelines envisioning what the village will be like in 10-year increments out to 50 years. “They will transition into the environmental impacts that will creep up on us as time moves forward,” Reed said.

Barring any last-minute delays, North Haven Mayor Chris Fiore will present to the public a site plan for a park the village is developing at the former Lovelady Powell property and two adjoining lots at the North Haven Village Board’s May 15 meeting. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that the mayor said that was his target date after a nearly 90-minute discussion of the park — and the village’s plans for it — with the Southampton Town Board last Thursday. Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni, a North Haven resident, has been pressing the mayor to submit a formal site plan for the park’s development since the village and town hosted a pair of informal hearings on the proposal last summer. The town is involved because the properties were purchased with money from the Community Preservation Fund. The site plan includes a walking path lined with maple trees along the former driveway to the Barclay estate, a pollinator garden, and a parking lot on the site of Powell’s house, which was torn down early last year as part of the agreement between the town and village because neither wanted the responsibility of maintaining it. The park will also include a trail that, if completed as proposed, would make a loop around the property, which would be made possible by the construction of a bridge over a man-made pond. Fiore has said that once the site plan is approved by the town, the North Haven Village Board will solicit comment and adjust it as desired.

A community meeting has been planned to discuss improvements to Three Mile Harbor Road, or County Road 40, in East Hampton. Lisa Finn reports on Patch.com that the meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday, May 8 at 7 p.m. in East Hampton Town Hall, 159 Pantigo Road in East Hampton.

The project aims to achieve the following goals to improve various aspects within the corridor, organizers said:

Roadway resurfacing and pavement rehabilitation
Construct new curb and sidewalk on both sides of the roadway, providing continuous pedestrian facilities throughout the corridor.
Upgrade existing pedestrian facilities to conform with the Americans with Disabilities Act
Install bike lanes on both sides of the roadway between Springs Fireplace Road and Copeces Lane
Repair and upgrade existing drainage system
Traffic signal improvements at Cedar Street and Collins Avenue
Replacement of traffic signage and pavement markings

Bobo the giraffe died last year at the Long Island Game Farm in Manorville because he was malnourished and living in conditions too cold for his species, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. John Asbury reports on Newsday.com that the 3-year-old giraffe died Oct. 2 “after a period of increased rain and decreased temperature,” and eating foods that didn't contain enough energy for him to thrive, according to an inspection report by the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

“The poor body condition of this giraffe may be attributed to the energy deficient diet,” the USDA report found.

“Such findings are associated with death in giraffes due to energy deficient diets and colder temperatures,” the report found. “Higher-energy feeds and temperature-controlled barns are associated with an increased survival of giraffes in such conditions.”

A necropsy after Bobo’s death found his body showed serious atrophy of fat, meaning body wasting due to malnutrition.

Giraffes are browsing animals, that, in the wild, eat leaves and shoots from shrubs and trees, flowers, fruit, vines and other vegetation, according to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation.

At the time of Bobo’s death, the game farm’s veterinarian ruled the cause as heart failure after the 12-foot animal collapsed. They noted the average life span of a giraffe in captivity is about 20 years.

Bobo was the game farm’s only giraffe and was living in a barn where the temperature was estimated at about 53 degrees, followed by more than an inch of rain in the three days leading to his death. The barn had a heater near the ceiling, but no surrounding insulation, chest-level heating or temperature gauge inside.

John Di Leonardo, an anthrozoologist and the director of the animal advocacy group Humane Long Island, said, “This animal basically starved and froze to death” from conditions unlike his native Africa.

Other animals kept at the game farm include zebras, foxes, lemurs, deer, bison and wallabies.

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A little-noticed provision of the new state budget clarifies a law against passing a stopped school bus after a court sided with drivers who argued that photographic evidence didn’t prove the vehicle they passed was a school bus or that it was picking up or dropping off children. Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that the issue was forced by a Nassau County driver who challenged a ticket he received in Suffolk County resulting from a 2019 law which allows cameras on school buses to reduce the danger to kids. The law allows the video of violations to be used in prosecuting offenders.

However, the driver argued that a video allegedly showing him passing a school bus wasn’t sufficient proof that a school bus was actually passed or, if it was a bus, that it was receiving or discharging passengers.

In November, a state appellate court agreed.

The court ruled that prosecutors failed to document the bus was “properly marked and equipped with flashing signal lamps” and had “school bus” printed on the outside of the bus, as required by the law. The court said the video showing the driver passing the camera wasn’t enough proof under the wording of the law to prove the vehicle was a school bus.

The new provision in the state budget deal adopted April 20 amends the law to address those issues.

The budget measure adds to the 2019 law a “presumption” that a stopped school bus is taking on or dropping off passengers or is behind a bus that is adding our discharging passengers. The new provision also creates a way for local governments to document that a vehicle that provided images used in a traffic case is indeed a school bus, with all the required markings and flashing lights.

A conviction for passing a stopped school bus carries a fine of $250 for a first violation. The fine rises to $275 for a second violation and $300 for a third or subsequent violations within 18 months.

A male motorcyclist - Devin Edward Wesch, 19, of Selden - died in East Quogue yesterday afternoon after he lost control of the motorcycle he was riding and crashed into a pole, according to Southampton Town Police. Sergeant Tim Wilson reported that police were alerted to the accident at 3:55 p.m. and that the motorcyclist was deceased when officers arrived. Police determined that the motorcyclist had been westbound on Montauk Highway near the cross street of Shinnecock Avenue when the accident occurred. The road was closed between Jones Road and Shinnecock Avenue during the police investigation.

Further east on Monday afternoon an overturned delivery truck closed the westbound lanes of County Road 39 in Southampton, snarling trade-parade traffic. The accident occurred just east of County Road 39 and North Sea Road, near 7-Eleven. The overturned truck, and the crews trying to tip it back up, blocked both westbound lanes. Traffic was detoured around the accident site at Wiltshire Street. There were no major injuries. As of 4:30 p.m. yesterday both westbound lanes and one eastbound lane were closed on County Road 39 in Southampton.

ReWild Long Island is offering internships and community service opportunities in East Hampton for its second summer.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said yesterday that the now weeklong search for human remains in the woods surrounding Manorville is a “necessary investigative step” in an ongoing homicide case. Grant Parpan reports on Newsday.com that Tierney, following a news conference on other cases Monday, declined to discuss with reporters specifics of the search in the woods surrounding Manorville, even as K-9 officers were simultaneously scouring forestland directly north of the Suffolk County courthouse, where he was speaking.

The district attorney declined to say if the Manorville woods had ever been so comprehensively searched in the more than two decades since partial remains of two of the victims in the Gilgo Beach homicide investigation had been found there, along with other individuals not connected to that case.

He acknowledged it is the first time police have searched Manorville for human remains since he took office in 2022.

Tierney said the time to talk about the multiagency search, which involves Suffolk County police, NYPD and State Police, will be when the evidence they uncover leads to an indictment.

Tierney even declined to connect the search, which has spanned sections of southeastern Brookhaven and into portions of Riverhead and Southampton towns to any particular ongoing investigation, though sources have told Newsday that the search relates to the Gilgo Beach homicides.

The Suffolk D.A. also declined to speak about why the search expanded to North Sea in Southampton on Friday, in woods where a woman’s body was found in an unsolved 1993 homicide that was never connected to Gilgo Beach.

Asked how much such an exhaustive search of thousands of acres of mostly preserved woodlands involving multiple departments might be costing Suffolk taxpayers, Tierney said he could not assign a dollar amount to it.

The Long Island electric grid, though bolstered by a decade of federally funded storm-hardening upgrades, remains vulnerable to climate-change impacts that will require new levels of customer-funded investments, a PSEG study found. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that the ongoing analysis was presented to LIPA’s board of trustees earlier this month, at a meeting in which energy activists raised strong concerns about the utility continuing under its existing business model and PSEG reported some improvements in call-center performance.

The preliminary climate-change vulnerability study, which is expected to result in a series of recommendations by the fall, found that some LIPA assets could be at risk because of sea-level rise and increases in maximum sustained winds and tropical cyclones would impact overhead power lines.

“We’re also expecting increases in heat waves,” said PSEG climate and resilience manager Joanna Weisman.

PSEG will come up with vulnerability scores for LIPA-owned infrastructure throughout the grid and develop mitigation plans to address vulnerabilities, Weisman said. There will be costs to implement the program, though LIPA senior vice president Billy Raley said government grants and a past decade of storm hardening could make those cost impacts lower than for some other investor-owned utilities.

Stony Brook Southampton holds its second annual Sea to Soil Symposium this Friday, May 3 from 12 noon to 4 p.m. The event will explore the synergy between regenerative agriculture and restorative aquaculture in coastal foodscapes, aiming to catalyze sustainable food production practices and ecosystem revitalization for healthier communities.

SEA TO SOIL SYMPOSIUM

Event Date: MAY 3RD, 2024

Event Time: 12:00-4:00PM

Event Address: Stony Brook Southampton Campus, 39 Tuckahoe Road Southampton, New York 11968; Chancellor's Hall Lobby

Contact: (631) 764-9040 or judiann.carmack-fayyaz@stonybrook.edu

A group that helped thwart the confirmation of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s choice to lead New York’s highest court last year has announced a campaign aimed at pushing elected officials to more closely scrutinize judicial nominees and appointees across the state. Hurubie Meko reports in THE NY TIMES that the group, the Center for Community Alternatives, which advocates for criminal justice reform, argued in a letter to Ms. Hochul this month that New York governors, who can nominate and appoint judges to several state courts, and the State Senate, which confirms the nominations, have failed to properly evaluate judges’ records and fitness to serve before placing them on the bench.

The new campaign, The Court New York Deserves, argues that reappointments have become routine, and that “too many people with influence over judicial selection have come to take for granted that once judges are put on the bench, they will serve until they reach the mandatory retirement age.”

In its letter, the group urged Governor Hochul to “change course from your predecessors and only nominate for reappointment judges who have shown sound judgment, exceptional integrity and commitment to New York’s values.”

A spokesman for the governor, Avi Small, said yesterday that “as she has done since taking office, Governor Hochul will select judicial nominees based on their experience, qualifications and judicial temperament.”

The campaign comes at a time when judges in New York are facing heightened scrutiny, particularly in the debates around bail reform, and a year after the Center for Community Alternatives spearheaded a grass-roots campaign against Ms. Hochul’s pick for chief judge, Justice Hector D. LaSalle, that led to the State Senate’s first-ever rejection of a governor’s nominee for that post.

Richard Lewis, president of the New York State Bar Association, said that the association had appointed a task force to conduct an in-depth analysis of the judicial appointment process.

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The Diocese of Rockville Centre may be on the verge of making history as the first Catholic diocese in the nation to have its bankruptcy case dismissed amid the clergy sex abuse scandal. Bart Jones reports on Newsday.com that after 3½ years and $100 million in legal fees, the diocese and hundreds of survivors of childhood sexual abuse by priests are in a stand-off in negotiations that bankruptcy experts say have all but blown up.

A court hearing on what happens next in the case is set for May 9, with the diocese now asking for the bankruptcy proceeding to be dismissed.

The abuse cases stem from the state’s 2019 Child Victims Act, which opened a two-year window for survivors to file lawsuits regardless of how long ago the abuse occurred. By October 2020, the diocese declared bankruptcy, saying payouts from the cases could leave it financially ruined. It started negotiating with the survivors for a settlement.

Robert E. Gerber, a former U.S. bankruptcy court judge who is now involved in the case as a lawyer, said in a response brief to the court that when survivors voted on the diocese’s “final offer” of $200 million this month, the 86% rejection rate was the most lopsided such vote he could recall seeing in his 15 years on the bench. Attorneys for abuse survivors want $450 million.

With negotiations at a stalemate, the diocese asked for the dismissal of the bankruptcy proceedings. That would essentially bring the diocese right back to where it started but with the sex abuse cases unresolved. The cases would then return to state civil court for individual trials – the same place they were before being transferred to bankruptcy court.

Rockville Centre is the eighth-largest Catholic diocese in the nation, with 1.2 million baptized Catholics. It contends its very existence is at stake, since an outsized settlement could leave it unable to carry on its mission of spiritual, educational and charitable work.

Church officials say they have done everything possible to reach an agreement – selling off the diocesan headquarters and 200 acres of prime real estate at its seminary in Lloyd Harbor, cutting staff and streamlining expenses.

Ice for Montauk's commercial fishing fleet comes from a machine at the Gosman's Dock property. Local fishermen say it's the lone machine capable of churning out vast quantities of ice they rely on to store and transport fresh catch. With Gosman's for sale, fishing interests are worried about the future. The East End Commercial Fishing Association formed last year to try to get financial support from the government for a new facility and ice machine. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that in 2018, the Town of East Hampton’s planning board approved a site plan application from Inlet Seafood Inc. that included a proposed 5,520-square-foot icehouse, storage and office building, town records show.

Bryan and Asa Gosman, who are cousins and part owners of Gosman’s Dock, said that 11.6-acre property remains for sale, with no contracts drawn up.

Bryan Gosman, 51, said he and his cousin plan to continue running the seafood operation.

“The ice plant as of now, there’s no plans of it going anywhere,” Gosman said, while acknowledging the future beyond the next few years is harder to predict.

He said their seafood business relies on ice generated on-site, in addition to the proceeds from ice sales to fishing vessels.

The Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame (LIMEHOF) is now accepting applications for its 2024 Student Scholarship program. The deadline for applications is Friday, May 10th, 2024.

Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame will award $500 scholarships to graduating students. These scholarships will provide funding to eligible graduating high school students from Nassau, Suffolk, Brooklyn, Queens, or Kings (Brooklyn) Counties who have shown an interest in pursuing a career in music. To apply and to read the eligibility requirements, please download the scholarship application.

Student Scholarships Applications Deadline: Friday, May 10, 2024.

All applications must be postmarked by the application due date in order to be accepted.

For more information about LIMHOF’s education recognition programs, contact Tom Needham, Education Advisory Board Chairman at info@limusichalloffame.org. More information and applications for both programs may be found here.

The LIMEHOF Education Committee will base selections on the completed application and the following:

· 400-to-500-word essay on education and career goals.

· High school transcript.

· Letter of recommendation from an individual who can attest to the applicant’s commitment to a career in music.

Eligibility criteria is:

· Graduating high school senior from Nassau, Suffolk, Queens, or Kings (Brooklyn) Counties.

· Minimum 2.5 GPA.

· Accepted full-time at an accredited college or university.

· Demonstrated interest in pursuing a career in music.

· Financial need.

· U.S. citizen or legal resident with I-55 permanent residency.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to restrict young people’s exposure to addictive social media feeds and increase child data protections fell out of the final state budget, but state lawmakers say they plan to pass both bills before the legislative session ends in June.

Both the social media algorithm bill and a bill banning online sites from collecting data from those under the age of 18 is expected to be taken up in the coming weeks. Keshia Clukey reports on Newsday.com that the bills have the backing of Democrats, who control the Senate and Assembly, as well as Hochul and NYS Attorney General Letitia James. They say the legislation will protect young people’s mental health by limiting potential negative effects of social media, including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, and keep minor’s data secure.

The proposals are running up against lobbying efforts of Big Tech.

Tech:NYC, a nonprofit industry group that has been lobbying on behalf of its members, including Meta, formerly known as Facebook, Google and Yahoo, applauded the decision to take the proposal out of the budget.

The budget process is not the "appropriate place to negotiate complex legislation," Tech:NYC president & CEO Julie Samuels said in a statement.

Hochul told reporters earlier this month that the lobbying efforts had nothing to do with the language not being included in the final budget, saying they just ran out of time, with negotiations focusing instead on a housing deal. Hochul said she and leaders plan to take up the legislation outside of session, which is scheduled to end June 6. The $237 billion state budget was approved April 20.

Stony Brook Southampton will serve as a satellite pick-up location for Heart of the Hamptons (HOH) Food Pantry every Friday from 10am – 12noon. It began this past Friday in the university’s Fine Arts Parking Lot. Presently, Heart of the Hamptons is located in the Basilica of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary R.C. Church in Southampton Village, but will be moving to their new location in Southampton Village once construction is completed.

Members of the HOH Food Pantry can come to Stony Brook Southampton Campus on Fridays between 10am and 12 noon to pick up a variety of nutritious foods, including non-perishable items like canned soup, cereal, pasta, canned tuna, peanut butter, frozen meat, dairy products and more. Each qualified family will receive three large grocery bags, which contain 40 meals for the week. Last year, Heart of the Hamptons provided nearly 350,000 meals to community members. This year, they are on track to provide 450,000 meals to families in need. Over the last four years, HOH has seen an increase of over 500% in members and requests. For further information click here.

The Hampton Bays Civic Association will hear updates on Southampton Town’s Battery Energy Storage System code update process and on the town’s upcoming hearing on transferring the former Bel Aire Cove Motel property to the Community Preservation Fund, along with information about Accessory Dwelling Units at its 7 p.m. meeting this evening at the Hampton Bays Senior Center, 25 Ponquogue Ave., Hampton Bays.

Last July residents of Hampton Bays boisterously opposed a large Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) just east of the Shinnecock Canal, during nearly three hours of testimony at a Southampton Town Board hearing.

Tonight’s meeting is at 7pm in the Hampton Bays Senior Center on Ponquoge Avenue.

Blade, the helicopter charter company, was founded 10 years ago as a way for commuters going between New York and the Hamptons to avoid vehicle traffic.

This May it is introducing a new service, the Hamptons Streamliner, that, starting at $195 a ticket, will take passengers to destinations on eastern Long Island aboard … a bus. Andrew Zucker reports in THE NY TIMES that like Blade’s helicopters, seats on which start at $1,025, its buses are marketed as a luxurious option for Hamptons-goers. Seats can recline up to 45 degrees and passengers will be offered free refreshments like espresso martinis, PopUp Bagels and Sweetgreen salads as they make their way from Manhattan to stops in Southampton, Bridgehampton and East Hampton via the Long Island Expressway.

The 19-passenger coaches, of course, will be subject to the same gridlock and hourslong traffic delays any vehicle can encounter on the expressway — making the onboard perks a main draw, said Roisin Branch, Blade’s chief marketing officer. “This level of service is commensurate to what you would see in private aviation,” she said.

Ms. Branch said that Blade leaders saw a space in the market between more affordable Hamptons bus services like the 54-seat Hampton Jitney or 30-seat Ambassador — tickets for which start at $41 and $64 — and pricier modes of transportation like helicopters, which have drawn mounting complaints from residents of New York City and the east end about noise and other disruptions.

The Hamptons Streamliner is a partnership between Blade and the Jet, a high-end motorcoach service between New York and Washington, D.C., which supplied the two buses being used for the new transit service. (Each bus cost about a million dollars to buy and outfit, said Chad Scarborough, the founder of the Jet.) Operations will start just before Memorial Day weekend and run into the fall.

Hamptons-bound buses will pick up passengers at only one location in Manhattan: Hudson Yards, the neighborhood of luxury apartment buildings, stores and office towers occupied by technology companies like Meta and financial firms like BlackRock and Point 72. Buses returning to Manhattan will stop at an East Side location before ending their route at Hudson Yards.

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The law enforcement search of Manorville grew in size yesterday, as more than a dozen K-9 police units from three agencies scanned sections of the hamlet's 6,900 acres of pine barrens looking for human remains in the Gilgo Beach homicide investigation. Grant Parpan reports on Newsday.com that cadaver dogs from the NYPD and State Police joined the Suffolk County Police Department's specialized K-9s to search a wide swath of land in Manorville and neighboring communities for the third consecutive day, an effort sources said could last more than a week.

From the woods near the power lines east of Connecticut Avenue to the forest land south of Middle Country Road in Ridge and U.S. Department of Energy property in Upton, the dogs and their handlers appeared to cover more land than they had a day earlier.

Police and prosecutors declined to say what has prompted the intense search of the hamlet more than 20 years after partial remains of Gilgo Beach victims Valerie Mack and Jessica Taylor were found in the woods near Halsey Manor Road, leaving local residents to speculate.

Ali Krieger of Manorville told Newsday, “We live in a very wooded area and not a lot of streetlights, so people like to dump things…we’ll see what pans out. I’d like to know what they’re looking for.”

Manorville is more than 25 square miles, with much of its open space in the search areas between the Long Island Expressway north to Middle Country Road. The entire hamlet is part of the 100,000-acre Central Pine Barrens, more than half of which is preserved, wild lands.

Brian Higgins, a lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the former Bergen County police chief, said it would be rare to bring in so many specialized animals unless acting on a lead.

“So it's not just random,” he said. “Something in the investigation led you to believe this is an area you should be searching with cadaver dogs.”

Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine visited a working farm in Riverhead this past Wednesday to sign legislation appropriating $15 million of new funding this year for farmland preservation. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that with Presiding Officer Kevin McCaffrey at his side, Romaine said he worked with legislators to increase the annual appropriation for the purchase of farmland development rights from $10 million to $15 million because the need to preserve farmland has reached a new level of urgency.

“We are in a struggle against development,” Romaine said.

The county executive said he intends to maintain at least that level of funding annually.

“Almost 6% of this county’s land is in farming, and we’re going to keep that number and look to increase it wherever possible,” Romaine said, standing at the edge of a field being prepared for planting at the Garden of Eve Farm on Sound Avenue in Riverhead. “We want to preserve our farm belt.”

The farmland preservation program is a critical investment in the county’s future, Romaine said, because farming is a crucial part of the county’s economy.

Suffolk’s first-in-the-nation program was conceived by County Executive John Klein in the early 1970s with input from county planners and the farming community.

Since Suffolk’s farmland preservation program was adopted 50 years ago, the county has protected approximately 11,000 acres of farmland through the purchase of development rights, according to county data. Another 9,000 acres in Suffolk have been protected through other preservation efforts, including county-town and nonprofit partnerships.

For more than 60 years, the whaleboat races have been the main draw of Sag Harbor’s annual HarborFest weekend, bringing crowds to Windmill Beach and Long Wharf. But today, the boats that have been in service for 60 years are in need of more than a little tender, loving care after years of banging against one another and being otherwise bruised and battered.

To help raise money for the effort, the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce and The Sag Harbor Express will co-host a fundraiser at Baron’s Cove Restaurant and Bar at 31 West Water Street in Sag Harbor on Thursday, May 2, from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Three of the five boats, which were purchased in 1964 for the inaugural year of racing at what was known as the “Old Whalers Festival,” will be restored, and funds are needed to cover the cost of labor and materials.

Summer on Long Island means sun, surf, sand … and ticks. Lisa L. Colangelo reports on Newsday.com that the increasingly warm winters have made the voracious, tiny critters — which can carry a number of diseases — a year-round problem. But they become even more frisky in the warm months. Experts are warning people, especially those visiting Long Island’s parks and beaches in the coming weeks, to take precautions.

Every year yields more information about ticks and the illnesses they cause. Clinicians said treatment should be based on symptoms and that a new surveillance criteria for Lyme disease may create a more accurate baseline for cases. And testing for Lyme disease isn’t always needed.

Researchers are also learning that Black people may be diagnosed with Lyme disease at a much later stage because their symptoms, including the rash, are not always immediately recognized.

“Ticks are very adaptive arthropods,” said Anna-Marie Wellins (DNP — doctor of nursing practice) who works at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital’s Regional Tick-Borne Disease Resource Center in Hampton Bays, which opened last summer. “But we can outsmart them through education and prevention.”

How to avoid ticks:

Check yourself every day. Ticks like skin folds such as under the arms, behind the knees, inside the belly button and around the waist. Children should be checked thoroughly as well.
When going outdoors, pull socks up over pant legs and tuck in shirts. Wearing light-colored clothing can help spot ticks. Use insect repellent but make sure to follow product instructions.
Shower as soon as possible after being outdoors. Throw clothing in a hot dryer before washing them.
Talk to your veterinarian about protecting dogs and cats with treatments.

The Village of Southampton was once again named a Tree City USA by the Arbor Day Foundation to honor its commitment to effective urban forest management. The Tree City USA program is sponsored by the Arbor Day Foundation, in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters.

“Tree City USA communities see the positive effects of an urban forest firsthand,” said Dan Lambe, chief executive of Arbor Day Foundation. “The trees being planted and cared for by the Village of Southampton are ensuring generations to come will enjoy a better quality of life. Additionally, participation in this program brings residents together and creates a sense of civic pride, whether it’s through volunteer engagement or public education.”

The Village of Southampton achieved Tree City USA recognition by meeting the program’s four requirements: maintaining a tree board or department, having a tree care ordinance, dedicating an annual community forestry budget of at least $2 per capita, and hosting an Arbor Day observance and proclamation.

Southampton Village’s third Arbor Day Gathering will be celebrated this morning at 10 a.m. in Agawam Park and all are welcome to attend.

The Southold Town Board has set a public hearing for Tuesday, June 18 at 4:30 p.m. on a proposed 12-month moratorium on hotel, motel and resort development proposals while the town updates its zoning code. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the board declined this week to take up a request earlier this April from the North Fork Civics coalition for a broader development moratorium while the zoning update is underway. That process is expected to be finished next spring with the help from a consulting company called ZoneCo.

In an April 10 letter to the board, and at a special meeting April 18 to discuss the hotel moratorium, members of the coalition asked the Southold Town Board to extend the moratorium to new commercial development, major subdivisions, special exception permit applications, zone change requests, and use variances.

In a presentation at the Town Board’s work session Tuesday Southold Town Planning Director Heather Lanza said she understands “why people want to put a pause on everything while we do the zoning update. People are worried about what might happen, and that we don’t have adequate protection in place.”

Ms. Lanza said the town Planning Department is not seeing a high volume of applications for large projects other than hotels, and her staff’s time that would need to be used to prepare the rationale for a moratorium “would be better spent on getting the zoning update done.”

“I think anyone proposing a project between now and next spring is taking a big risk, especially since those sorts of large projects are going to get the most scrutiny in the zoning update,” she said.

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A photo that's been widely circulated on social media the past couple days depicts a large white bus or van parking outside Macy's in Hampton Bays. Many have recirculated the photo, which shows a large group disembarking with suitcases and other bags and belongings. Lisa Finn reports on Patch.com that the photo has sparked an outcry on social media, many expressing concerns about the possibility that migrants have been sent from New York City to the area. Those posting commented on the new suitcases the group appeared to be carrying and the fact that cars were waiting to pick them up. Southampton Town Police Lt. Todd Spencer said a "suspicious incident" had been reported to the department Tuesday at 7:27 p.m. "The reporting officer received multiple reports of a large white van unloading approximately 40 to 50 individuals with luggage in the parking lot in front of Macy's. Upon arrival, the bus was no longer on scene," and the individuals were gone, as well, the report said. An officer interviewed a man who said that he'd seen the bus and the people, who were all picked up by cars within minutes of unloading, the report said. Police searched the area for the bus without success.

Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore said she spoke with Southampton Town Police Chief James Kiernan, who confirmed that the passengers were dropped off by a bus at Macy's in Hampton Bays Tuesday night at about 7 p.m.; all were picked up by private vehicles within a few minutes.

"We do not know where they came from or where they were going," Moore said. "But we do know that every spring local businesses hire H2-A visa workers to fill seasonal jobs. We're not aware of any other municipality sending individuals here."

Some residents claimed to have seen large groups of individuals dropped off in Riverhead.

The state will soon begin major summer construction on traffic projects across Long Island, including in Old Westbury and East Hampton, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced yesterday.

Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that the projects totaling $27 million are scheduled to be completed in the fall. On the east end they include:

Replacing the T-intersection in Southold of State Route 25 and Suffolk County Route 48 with a roundabout, including pedestrian access.

Installing left-turning lanes at the intersection of State Route 25 and Edwards Avenue in Riverhead. Pedestrian routes also will be improved.

Adding left-turning lanes from every direction at the intersection of State Route 114 and Stephen Hands Path in East Hampton with pedestrian access. Turning lanes in both directions will be built at the intersection of State Route 114 and Goodfriend Drive to improve traffic flow onto Goodfriend Drive.

Drivers are warned to slow down in the Department of Transportation work zones. Fines are doubled for speeding in a work zone, and two or more convictions can result in suspension of a driver’s license.

“As construction season kicks into high gear, our DOT crews will be working on these and other projects and we urge motorists to slow down, pay attention and move over to give them the space they need to do their jobs safely,” said Marie Therese Dominguez, commissioner of the NYS Department of Transportation.

A bird rare to the Northeast - a male Lazuli Bunting - whose sighting led to hundreds of human onlookers flocking to Flanders, Long Island for a glimpse, seems to have flown the coop.

"We are kind of sad about it, to be honest," said Meigan Madden Rocco, who saw the bird at her feeder over the weekend and on Monday.

"We loved watching him and seeing him every day — but if he has moved on to head home, we are happy and hope he arrives safely in time for breeding season!" she said…adding there were no sightings Tuesday and Wednesday.

"I'm told that Monday night had perfect conditions for flight — and a lot of birds were moving that night," Ms. Rocco told Patch.com yesterday.

Around 550 people came to Flanders to see the Lazuli Bunting, a species native to the west coast and Mexico, which had not been seen in New York State since 1998.

Southampton Town officials and the developer of Liberty Gardens, the 50-unit affordable housing complex proposed along County Road 39 in Southampton, have agreed to a 45-day extension for the Town Board to issue a findings statement and determination on a change in zoning required for the project. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the extension postpones a decision by the Town Board on the proposal to construct the complex on 5 acres of a 9-acre property owned by the Southampton Full Gospel Church. Concern for Independent Living, which does business as Concern Housing, plans to purchase the portion of the property that it wants to use for the development, and the church would maintain its current use once the land is subdivided. The extension expires on June 9, giving the board until that date to issue its findings statement and determination on the zone change request, Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore said last week. “We’re still discussing it,” she said of the board. The extension was agreed to “just to give us more time to work through any concerns that were still outstanding,” including the proposed housing complex’s traffic impact on County Road 39. On behalf of the Long Island Housing Coalition, ERASE Racism, which advocates for laws and policies that eliminate racial disparities and engages the public in furthering equity and inclusion, has placed full-page advertisements in The Southampton Press to encourage approval of Liberty Gardens.

An attorney acting on behalf of Amagansett oceanfront homeowners has frozen the East Hampton Town Trustees’ bank accounts, preventing the waterways and harbors authority from conducting any of its duties, paying any bills or even paying employees’ salaries for the past two weeks.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that it’s the latest blow in the 15-year legal saga over the strip of sand long known as “Truck Beach,” and has left the Trustees fuming and frustrated at being left exposed to the fines related to contempt of court charges they say were the result of actions by East Hampton Town officials but which the town is legally shielded from paying. Members of the Trustees paid the board’s secretary, Alyson Follenius, out of their own pockets for the last two weeks, before a judge ordered on Monday, April 22, that the Trustees are allowed to make payroll payments from their accounts. But the board remains unable to fund any of its other operations or obligations and likely will remain locked out of its accounts for at least three to four more weeks. The accounts were frozen by the Trustees’ bank, M&T Bank, at the behest of attorney James Catterson, one of the lawyers for the Amagansett homeowners who have battled East Hampton Town and the Town Trustees since 2009 over 4x4 access to the Amagansett beach near their homes. Catterson, the Trustees said, approached the bank and informed it of the Trustees’ liability for the more than $740,000 in fines and attorneys fees, and accrued interest, related to the contempt of court charges pending against both East Hampton Town and the Town Trustees. The Trustees have argued that they played no role in any of the actions by town officials that led to the contempt charges and were never called to participate in the contempt hearings, but were nonetheless cited for contempt alongside the town.

U.S, Congressman Nick LaLota announced yesterday that he has helped secure $1 million in federal funding for Southampton Village’s planned sewer district. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the village has long sought to install a sewer system as a way to improve water quality and help clean up Lake Agawam. A sewer system will not only greatly mitigate the negative environmental impacts of wastewater but also allow for further development and economic revitalization of the village downtown. The proposed sewer service area is projected to include 254 parcels, and the system is designed to accommodate a projected flow of 198,330 gallons per day. The Village of Southampton’s funding is provided by the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations bill, which was signed into law in March. Last week, LaLota announced $1.5 million in federal funding for the Suffolk County Water Authority’s Westhampton Water Main Extension project.

The median home price on Long Island rose nearly 10% during the first quarter, as the region’s shortage of for-sale listings deepened, boosting competition among buyers. The median sale climbed to $630,000, or 9.6% higher than the same figure a year ago, according to a report published today by real estate brokerage Douglas Elliman and appraisal firm Miller Samuel. The companies report sales separately for the east end. Jonathan LaMantia reports on Newsday.com that in the Hamptons, the median sale during the winter months sold for $1.8 million, or 32.4% more than the same figure in the first quarter of 2023. On the North Fork, the median price increased 6.4% year over year to $995,000. It was just a year ago when it appeared higher mortgage rates had finally gotten the best of the Long Island real estate market. In the first quarter of 2023, the median price among homes on Long Island, excluding the East End, fell about 1%, marking the first time that figure had fallen compared with the previous year in a decade. But through last spring and summer prices began rising again. In the more expensive Hamptons and North Fork markets, more listings have started to become available and that has benefited sales. The number of Hamptons sales in the first quarter increased 33% year-over-year, while North Fork sales climbed 18% compared with a year ago. The number of homes for sale on the East End remains well below historical averages for this time of year. That presents a challenge for buyers who are only looking within a narrow price segment of the market, said Robert Nelson, executive managing director at Brown Harris Stevens, which publishes its own market report on the region.

“If you’re a buyer right now out there looking, you’re still having a hard time finding the property that works for you,” Nelson said.

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New York State has unexpectedly hit the brakes on three large offshore wind projects it awarded last year for the waters between Long Island and New Jersey, citing “technical and commercial complexities” with a turbine manufacturer. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that the decision to nix the three projects comes atop months of hard knocks for the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry and poses big challenges for New York’s plans for some 9,000 megawatts of the green energy by 2035, including the state’s plan to subsidize the manufacture of turbines in New York.

The industry had already been beset by soaring costs for turbine materials and rising interest rates, leading to canceled projects in New Jersey, New England and Maryland. Overseas wind-energy developers have taken billions of dollars in impairment charges reflecting the lower value of the projects.

The three newly canceled New York projects, known as Community Offshore Wind, Excelsior Wind and Attentive Energy One, represented just over 4,000 megawatts of that plan — nearly half the state’s goal.

Officials blamed a decision by manufacturer GE Vernova to cancel its plans to make the largest turbines on the market, at 18 megawatts each.

New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) which has been administering the awards, said yesterday it would open a new “request for information” in advance of a new offshore wind bidding process.

So far, the only working commercial offshore wind project in the country is South Fork Wind, a project by the Long Island Power Authority. The 12-turbine project, which was not administered by NYSERDA, is sending its power to the South Fork of Long Island.

The dilapidated, historic windmill sitting at the heart of Stony Brook University’s Southampton campus is officially one step closer to returning to its former glory. Michelle Trauring reports on 27east.com that Governor Kathy Hochul’s $237 billion budget, which was approved this past Saturday includes authorization for Stony Brook University to enter into a long-term lease, not to exceed 100 years, with Southampton Town in order to rehabilitate the windmill — which was condemned last year — using money from the Community Preservation Fund. NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who introduced the legislation with State Senator Anthony Palumbo, said the repairs could cost up to $2 million and expects discussions between Southampton Town and Stony Brook University to start in the coming months. “The windmill’s always been a symbol of the campus and a symbol of that property. I think it’s gonna be a symbol again,” Thiele said. “The rehabilitation of the windmill is going to be the symbol of the rebirth of the campus.”

The Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame (LIMEHOF) is now accepting applications for its 2024 Student Scholarship program. The deadline for applications is Friday, May 10th, 2024.

Student Scholarships Applications Deadline: Friday, May 10, 2024.

All applications must be postmarked by the application due date in order to be accepted.

The LIMEHOF Education Committee will base selections on the completed application and the following:

· 400-to-500-word essay on education and career goals.

· High school transcript.

· Letter of recommendation from an individual who can attest to the applicant’s commitment to a career in music.

Eligibility criteria is:

· Graduating high school senior from Nassau, Suffolk, Queens, or Kings (Brooklyn) Counties.

· Minimum 2.5 GPA.

· Accepted full-time at an accredited college or university.

· Demonstrated interest in pursuing a career in music.

· Financial need.

· U.S. citizen or legal resident with I-55 permanent residency.

Former Rep. George Santos, who was expelled from the U.S. House last year over alleged ethical violations, has abandoned his bid to run for New York’s 1st Congressional District seat as an independent. CD-1 includes the East End. Laura Figueroa Hernandez reports on Newsday.com that Santos, a Republican who once represented the 3rd Congressional District, announced on the social media site X yesterday that he no longer planned to run for the seat currently held by Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville).

Santos, who is still awaiting trial on federal charges stemming from his 2022 campaign and allegations that he defrauded campaign donors, said he was dropping his latest congressional bid in order to keep the seat in Republican hands. “I don’t want to split the ticket and be responsible for handing the house to Dems,” Santos wrote in his X post.

Democrats John Avlon, a former CNN political commentator and journalist, and Nancy Goroff, the former chair of Stony Brook University’s chemistry department, are currently running in the June Democratic primary as both look to unseat LaLota, a first-term incumbent.

Santos’ removal from office forced a special election in February that led to the reelection of Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove). Suozzi’s victory and a number of early Republican retirements mean the GOP holds only a razor-thin voting majority in the House.

Santos has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

The Riverhead Town Board will begin its official public review tomorrow of the comprehensive plan update that’s been in the works since 2019. The board is scheduled to accept a draft impact statement for the plan, issue a notice of completion and schedule public hearings on the document at a special meeting Thursday morning.

Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the acceptance and notice of completion begins a period of public review and comment required by the NYS Environmental Quality Review Act. After the review and 30-day comment period are concluded, including the required public hearings, town planners will gather and respond to comments on the draft impact statement. The draft plan, comments and responses together will be published as a final generic impact statement, which will be then accepted by the board. That will complete the review process and allow the Town of Riverhead to adopt a findings statement and a final plan.

At that point, it will be up to the town to adopt code changes to implement the plan.

Representatives of BFJ Planning, the consulting firm hired to complete the comprehensive plan update begun by a prior consulting firm in 2020, are scheduled to meet with the Town Board tomorrow morning to present the draft plan and discuss next steps.

The special meeting is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Thursday at Riverhead Town Hall, 4 West Second St., Riverhead.

The meeting will be live-streamed on the Riverhead Town website and carried live on Optimum Cable Channel 22.

The meeting will also be available via Zoom at the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86764686629?pwd=ckNaTU1XZnUycW1CRE5WYVlYOHFKZz09 - or by phone at 1 (929) 205-6099.

For the first time ever, the Shelter Island Friends of Music and the Perlman Music Program (PMP) are presenting a Works In Progress chamber concert at the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church. Featuring 21 gifted young musicians, including 14 from Israel, the event is scheduled for tomorrow evening at 7pm. Perlman Music Program has featured an Israel Residency for its young students since 1999. “This year, more than ever, we are focused on fulfilling our commitment to nurturing young Israeli string players by providing them with a much-needed safer space to hone their craft...” they said. Shelter Island Friends of Music looks forward to hearing these

PMP chamber groups in our own acoustically wonderful venue.

As always, admission is free. Donations are encouraged and will be shared by SIFM and PMP.

For more information, visit ShelterIslandFriendsofMusic.org

Opportunistic squatters have long been a worry for New York property owners, but a portion of the 2024 state budget promises to change that, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Monday. “As part of the historic actions to address the housing crisis in the FY 2025 Budget, Governor Hochul reached an agreement to reinforce existing law to make clear that squatters are not tenants, supporting property owners statewide,” a Hochul spokesperson said.

The “optics” of a homeowner handcuffed after changing the locks on a squatter in her Queens home worth $1 million pushed New York lawmakers to enact a harsh new law to protect property owners, a real estate attorney told Fox News Digital. As reported in THE NY POST, a portion of New York’s 2024 state budget agreement, signed into law by Gov. Hochul specifically excludes squatters from tenant protections under state law. The language defines a squatter as someone staying on a property without permission from its owner or the owner’s representative. This wording, lawmakers said, will make it easier for police to intervene in squatting cases, sparing homeowners months or even years in housing court.

Real estate lawyer Michael Romer told Fox News Digital the case of Brian Rodriguez pushed lawmakers “over the finish line” to pass anti-squatter legislation. Rodriguez had allegedly commandeered and subletted a home in Queens and summoned police to detain owner Adele Andaloro after she tried to change the locks. Romer told Fox News Digital he has seen an “uptick” in instances of squatting complaints from clients compared to his earlier 20 years practicing real estate law.

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The New York State budget's aim to make college more affordable and accessible includes expanding tuition assistance and requiring all high school students to fill out the application for federal aid, known as FAFSA. Keshia Clukey reports on Newsday.com that state lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul this past weekend approved a $237 billion spending plan for fiscal 2024-25 that includes requiring students or their parents to fill out the free application, or if applicable, the José Peralta New York State DREAM Act, which helps certain students, whether they are in the United States legally or not, with access to grants and scholarships.

The FAFSA form is used to determine how much federal aid a student is eligible for, but also is used to assess eligibility for state and other aid. Last year, New York college students left more than $225 million of unclaimed federal financial aid on the table by not applying for FAFSA, according to the state Higher Education Services Corporation, which administers state financial aid.

The budget also boosts financial aid for New York students, whether they attend public or private colleges and universities, through changes to the state’s Tuition Assistance Program, known as TAP. The budget both expands income eligibility and increases the minimum award to $1,000, up from $500.

“Higher education can transform New Yorkers’ lives, helping students develop the skills they need to pursue their dreams,” Governor Hochul stated yesterday. “We are taking significant steps to ensure all New York students have access to the financial support they need to continue their education and become the next generation of leaders in our state.”

After former Southampton Village Mayor Jesse Warren raised an objection, the New York State Civil Service Commission delayed a decision on whether to grant the village a waiver to allow Village Administrator Anthony Carter to collect a government paycheck and pension at the same time. Brendan J. O’Reilly reports on 27east.com that during the commission’s monthly meeting last Wednesday, state human resources specialist Frank Belleville said that the commission received correspondence the day before from the former mayor and from a village resident objecting to granting Carter a waiver. “They asserted that information presented in the application for Mr. Carter was not accurate, so what I would be prepared to do today is recommend this item be calendared, and then I would like to afford all parties — the village officials as well as the former mayor and the concerned citizen — with an opportunity to come before the commission next month to present their side of the story, essentially,” Belleville said. The commissioners unanimously agreed to “calendar” the item until they meet again on May 15. “This delay is a direct result of the concerns I raised about the financial and ethical implications of allowing Mr. Carter to collect a six-figure pension on top of his nearly $200,000 salary for a significantly diluted position,” Warren said in a statement after the commission meeting. Southampton Village Mayor Bill Manger responded to Warren’s letter with his own letter to the commission. Manger wrote that Warren’s letter is “filled with falsehoods” and attributed Warren’s motivation to a “longstanding vendetta” against the village and Carter.

Perlman Music Program has featured an Israel Residency for its young students since 1999. “This year, more than ever, we are focused on fulfilling our commitment to nurturing young Israeli string players by providing them with a much-needed safer space to hone their craft...” they said.

Shelter Island Friends of Music looks forward to hearing these

PMP chamber groups in our own acoustically wonderful venue.

As always, admission is free. Donations are encouraged and will be shared by SIFM and PMP.

For more information, visit ShelterIslandFriendsofMusic.org

A bird rare to the Northeast that found its unlikely way to Flanders, Long Island continued to spark a flurry yesterday — as scores of awestruck ornithophiles lined up near one woman's bird feeder for a glimpse of the blue beauty. Lisa Finn reports on Patch.com that Meigan Madden Rocco said on Monday, about 150 more people came from as far as Buffalo; they began lining up at about 7 a.m.

"These are the most patient people I have ever met!" she said. "Some wait for over an hour to see him. Thankfully, he always makes an appearance! It's quite stressful hoping he shows up for everyone!" But, he’s back and forth to his Yankee Whipper bird feeder all day.

The bird had been coming to her house for a few days, Rocco said. "I knew he was special, so I reached out to a friend who worked as a wildlife coordinator for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and sent her the photo. She said it looked like a Lazuli Bunting — but the location didn't make sense, since they are a species native to the West Coast and Mexico."

"After checking with her former colleagues, they confirmed it was a Lazuli Bunting," she said.

The sighting was reported to the North American Rare Bird Alert database, Rocco said. "Everyone found out that way and started sending me messages, asking permission to come view the bird," Rocco said. "Apparently, it has only been seen in New York one other time, in 1998. So our little bird is a big deal."

She laughed. "It's crazy! Our bird has paparazzi! He is so beautiful."

So far, around 550 people have traveled to view and photograph the bird. "This will be only the second known sighting of one in New York — and he chose our feeder," Rocco said. "Visitors have quite literally broken down in tears, prayed, and sent thanks up. They're very kind people."

State highway crews have been filling potholes in the deteriorated pavement along Middle Country Road in Calverton, but resurfacing of the roadway is not scheduled until 2027, according to a NY. State Department of Transportation spokesperson. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the condition of the pothole-ridden roadway has prompted numerous complaints to Riverhead Town officials, including Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard and Highway Superintendent Mike Zaleski. Because Middle Country Road (NY-25) is a state road, there’s nothing town officials can do — other than field residents’ complaints and get in touch with the state agency to urge action. Zaleski said yesterday he’s been “all over them,” but State DOT officials “never gave us a date.” He said he understands the state has been doing drainage work along Middle Country Road in Calverton and plans to renovate the intersection at Edwards Avenue, so resurfacing would logically take place after those other projects are completed. “I’d rather hear it will be done in 2025 or 2026,” Zaleski said. “It’s nothing but a rumble strip,” he said. “It’s like a million pieces of bubble gum stuck on a board.”

Efforts are currently underway to create a digital archive of all 60-plus years of Dan’s Papers through Stony Brook University, which was gifted Dan Rattiner’s personal collection of newspapers and manuscripts last year. The school has already raised $80,000 for this massive and expensive undertaking, but it needs about $45,000 more to complete the work creating a permanent, searchable archive featuring more than six decades of this seminal local publication and Rattiner’s life’s work.

Oliver Peterson reports on Danspapers.com that S.B.U. has already begun the digitization process with the money raised so far, and they plan to make it all available for free and accessible to readers, students and historians both physically and digitally for generations to come.

Rattiner founded Dan’s Papers in 1960 and continues to contribute stories weekly.

The Best Fish Is Also the Most Local. Why Is It So Hard to Find?

Seafood caught in nearby waters has long been left out of the farm-to-table movement.

On a cold, windy February morning on Shinnecock Bay, Ricky Sea Smoke fished for clams from the back of his 24-foot boat. The fisherman, whose real name is Rick Stevens, expertly sorted through haul after haul as they were dumped onto the sorting rack.

But almost none of them are available locally.

Instead, at restaurants in nearby East Hampton, you’ll find pasta topped with Manila clams from the West Coast and shrimp cocktail with red shrimp from Argentina. At fish counters across Long Island, imported salmon fillets glisten in greater profusion than local mackerel and black sea bass.

What’s labeled Long Island seafood might come from any number of places. Seafood from big dealers like the ones at Hunts Point is notoriously hard to trace. Melissa Clark reports in THE NY TIMES that this startlingly inefficient path seems as if it should be an aberration, but it’s standard in the United States, where seafood is routinely trucked hundreds of miles to centralized dealers, changing hands four or five times before ending up at a local fish counter or restaurant, in far worse shape for the commute.

But late last year, Mr. Stevens found a workaround by sending his clams to Dock to Dish, one of a growing number of small businesses across the country — including restaurant suppliers, shops, farmers’ markets and community-supported fisheries — that are dedicated to helping fishing communities sell their catch directly to local markets.

Dock to Dish is committed to buying whatever seafood fishing boats bring in, limpets and all, then selling it directly to nearby customers, often within 24 to 48 hours.

Some 65 percent to 80 percent of the seafood consumed in the United States is imported, while the country exports much of its seafood (worth about $5 billion in 2023), said Joshua Stoll, an associate professor of marine policy at the University of Maine and a founder of the Local Catch Network. Sending seafood overseas shifts a significant portion of profits away from fishing communities that desperately need it.

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Long Island’s school districts will get an additional $205.6 million in state aid for the 2024-25 academic year — up 4.24% from the current year — as part of a state budget pieced together amid continued debate over future funding. John Hildebrand and Arielle Martinez report on Newsday.com that the financial package for Nassau and Suffolk counties, totaling more than $5 billion, represents a $64.9 million increase from Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed budget in January. Hochul and legislative leaders agreed on increases last week, after determining state tax revenues were running higher than expected.

Albany's spending agreement comes 19 days late. NYS lawmakers voted final approval this past Saturday.

Bob Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association, voiced relief over the approval of an aid package, but said he remains concerned over what might happen in 2025-26 and beyond.

Lawmakers have agreed to a study, led by the Albany-based Rockefeller Institute, that could result in recalibration of the state's formula for distributing aid.

“We are grateful that the governor and the legislature have finally come to an agreement,” Vecchio said Friday. “While many school districts avoided steep reductions in aid this year, we are very concerned with looking ahead to next year and what changes to the formula will be made in the near future.”

Late approval of a statewide aid package has created headaches for many local school officials who had been drafting district budgets without knowing how much financial support they could expect from Albany.

A payroll tax credit for local news outlets, modeled on the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, is included in the final state budget that Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature unveiled this past Saturday, making New York the first state in the nation to incentivize hiring and retaining local journalists.

New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the Senate bill sponsor said, “A thriving local news industry is vital to the health of our democracy and it’s our responsibility to help ensure New Yorkers have access to independent and community-focused journalism.” Over 200 local publications of the Empire State Local News Coalition helped pass the bill.

“The passage of this bill, which is the first of its kind in America, is truly monumental for community journalism,” Express News Group publishers Gavin and Kathryn Menu said in a joint statement. “With the nation divided on so many important issues, we believe the work of community journalism, focusing on hyper-local issues that affect our readers’ everyday lives, is more important than ever.”

The program — $30 million per year for three years — allows each eligible newspaper and broadcast business to receive a 50 percent refundable tax credit against the first $50,000 of an employee's salary, up to a total of $300,000 per business.

The MTA and law enforcement agencies seized 21 cars and issued nearly 800 summonses last week during a two-day operation targeting persistent toll violators and other traffic offenders. Darwin Yanes reports on Newsday.com that the targeted multiagency operation seized the vehicles for violations including unpaid tolls, unregistered and suspended licenses among other traffic infractions. The operation was conducted on Thursday, at the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, and on Friday, at the Throgs Neck Bridge, George Washington Bridge and Lincoln Tunnel, according to the MTA. “Amplified enforcement efforts have yielded big returns and hopefully sent a message to all scofflaws and aspiring scofflaws — if you try to skip out on the toll at any crossing in the metropolitan region, you will only end up paying more,” MTA Bridges and Tunnels President Catherine Sheridan said in a statement. The task force, which was launched last month, includes the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Bridges and Tunnels, NYPD, Port Authority police, New York State Police, state Department of Motor Vehicles and New York City sheriff’s deputies. The MTA said the scofflaws caught in the operation had amassed more than $586,000 in unpaid tolls, fees, judgments and debts. The operation led to 21 arrests and 793 summonses issued.

Some Long Island Rail Road riders have been issued IOU invoices for unpaid train tickets more than 100 times within just six months and owe thousands of dollars for those trips, according to the MTA's list of fare beaters obtained by Newsday. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that as the LIRR's list of “repeat offenders” grows, so too has the number of invoices issued to passengers who say they can't pay for their rides — up 60% last year, from about 100,000 in 2022 to nearly 160,000 in 2023, according to MTA figures. The LIRR’s most persistent evader, according to the data, received 155 invoices as of September, totaling $2,154 in unpaid tickets — the most owed by any person on the list. MTA officials said the list reflects six months of data, which means the individual skipped out on 155 fares in about 180 days. Even though Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials have acknowledged that sending scofflaws home with bills that most never pay doesn’t work, the system remains in place — recently augmented with increased police enforcement. The 10 passengers who have skipped out on the most fares received 1,119 separate bills, totaling $17,108, according to MTA data. The top 10 fare beaters each have been issued between 87 and 155 invoices, and owe between $1,277 and $2,154. Gerard Bringmann, chairman of the LIRR Commuter Council, an advocacy group, said he long had known about the list, which the railroad began compiling in 2014, but called it “shocking” that some riders had “actually cracked 100" unpaid invoices. “It’s not fare evasion. … That’s transit shoplifting,” said Bringmann, who also sits on the MTA Board as a nonvoting rider representative. “I would love, personally, to see some of these people get arrested.”

Shoplifting incidents reported to county police departments on Long Island last year rose nearly 20% as retail experts and law enforcement officials say thieves have become more brazen. Tory N. Parrish reports on Newsday.com that to mitigate the losses, some retailers are locking up everything from skin care products to liquor to lawncare equipment to laundry detergent.

Law enforcement and retail experts cited several factors for the spike in thefts: organized retail crime rings selling more stolen merchandise online; fewer employees working on sales floors; more self-checkout lanes, making it easier to steal; and the rising cost of living on Long Island. Another factor, law enforcement officials said, is New York State's bail reform law, which ended cash bail in most cases that involved misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. Some criminal justice researchers, however, dispute that claim. Shoplifters have gotten bolder, retail experts said. In Suffolk County, reports of petit larceny shoplifting rose 23% between 2022 and 2023, while reports of grand larceny shoplifting fell 11.2% during that same period. Still, the numbers are significantly higher than in 2019.

Shelter Island Friends of Music looks forward to hearing these PMP chamber groups in our own acoustically wonderful venue.

As always, admission is free. Donations are encouraged and will be shared by SIFM and PMP.

For more information, visit ShelterIslandFriendsofMusic.org

The Town of East Hampton now has $4.2 million in its Community Housing Fund, and over the next several months the town’s Community Housing Advisory Board is asking the town to begin spending that money on two pilot programs — for first-time homebuyer loans and loans to create accessory dwelling units — and for larger projects that will be reviewed by the Housing Advisory Board.

Town Housing Director Eric Schantz gave the East Hampton Town Board an overview of the plan at the board’s work session last Tuesday. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that four of the five East End towns (except for Riverhead) created Community Housing Funds last year after voters approved referenda asking whether the towns should instate a .5 percent real estate transfer tax to be used for workforce housing, which would operate like the Community Preservation Fund for land preservation. Director Schantz said that, with the average price of a home in East Hampton standing at about $1 million, a $30,000 loan wouldn’t go far if it was applied to residents who plan to buy homes on the open market. His office is instead planning to offer the loans to people looking to buy homes in the town’s Whalebone and Green Hollow housing complexes, or at the 16-lot Cantwell Court subdivision currently under construction, where homes are expected to sell in the neighborhood of $500,000 because the town will still own the underlying land. Schantz said he anticipates the town could make 20 $30,000 loans this year on the 16 Cantwell Court properties and on the resale of other units on town land, spending a total of around $600,000. To be eligible for the loans, applicants must be first-time homebuyers, be residents of East Hampton Town, meet the maximum income restrictions and it must be their primary residence. They can also apply for the New York State SONYMA First Time Homebuyer loan. Schantz said he would like the town to open up the application process for the ADU loans on May 1, with a deadline of July 12, and to plan to give out 10 $100,000 awards this year.

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Median teacher salaries have risen beyond $130,000 annually in more than 20 school districts across Long Island, while the median in most systems regionwide is up to $120,000, a Newsday analysis found. John Hildebrand and Michael R. Ebert report on Newsday.com that the numbers show the region maintains its long standing as one of the highest paying for teachers, not only in the state but in the nation. Teacher representatives say the pay reflects the region's high cost of living. Ten districts in Nassau and Suffolk counties and the lower Hudson region have the highest concentrations of well-compensated teachers in New York, according to Newsday's review. Rankings are based on state-computed median figures — that is, midpoints on the salary scale. Scarsdale in Westchester County is No. 1 among districts statewide, with median annual pay of $152,543. Carmel in Putnam County and Cold Spring Harbor in Suffolk rank second and third, at $148,461 and $148,402, respectively. Other high-paying systems include Byram Hills in Westchester at $147,563; Syosset in Nassau at $144,123, and Jericho, also in Nassau, at $143,392.

Educators' pay and staffing levels are topics frequently mentioned at local school board meetings these days as districts finalize budget proposals for public voting on May 21. Salaries represent the biggest cost for districts, and school taxes account for more than 60% of property owners' tax bills.

Riverhead Central School District’s non-instructional employees, whose union employment agreement expires in June, rallied at Tuesday’s school board meeting to ask for more pay and to underscore to trustees their importance to the district’s operations. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that more than 40 employees gathered in the Riverhead High School auditorium to support representatives of the union, who made the case to the school board that they should receive a raise in pay to reflect their loyalty to, and work for, the school district.

“Our members are a vital part of the day-to-day, to make sure school runs smoothly for all,” said Sonya Johnson, the unit president of the school district’s Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA). “Behind me are the very dedicated employees of the district here to represent their departments, which entails approximately 375 plus essential workers. They have been with me throughout and stand today to reflect what is happening on the ground.”

Employees are bargaining for increased wages and the implementation of a step rate-compensation structure, which would provide incremental pay raises over time, Johnson said in an interview.

Stony Brook Southampton Hospital will participate in a full-scale mass casualty surge exercise with local police, fire and emergency medical services departments this coming Sunday from 9 a.m. to noon.

The exercise is a drill and will not disrupt hospital services. Staff, patients and visitors will have unrestricted access. Area residents will also have access to and from their properties during the training.

Participating emergency vehicles will be on-site as well as patient actors.

Road closures are anticipated to take place, include Meeting House Lane between Lewis Street and Old Town Road; Lewis Street between Meeting House Lane and Herrick Road; Herrick Road between Lewis Street and Old Town Road; Old Town Road between Rogers Avenue and Wickapogue Road, and Wickapogue Road between Old Town Road and Narrow Lane.

The Southampton Town Board’s Traffic Mitigation and Safety Task Force, created in February to address a chronic and worsening situation, held the first of six planned meetings on April 10 at Town Hall.

“This committee needs to focus on two things: the long-term solution, and can we institute short-term solutions, so people aren’t so frustrated,” summarized Charlie McArdle, Southampton Town’s superintendent of highways. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that in February, the Town Board voted to create the group tasked with identifying and studying heavily trafficked corridors, collecting information from the public and traffic professionals regarding solutions and mitigation, and creating and issuing a report with findings and recommendations to be presented to the Southampton Town Board.

In addition to McArdle and his co-chairman, Tom Neely, a former traffic safety director for the town who now serves as a consultant, task force members in attendance were Supervisor Maria Moore and Councilman Michael Iasilli; Suffolk County Legislator Ann Welker; Charles Bartha, commissioner of the Suffolk County Department of Public Works; Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr.; Tom Houghton, the town engineer; Town Police Chief James Kiernan; Southampton Village Mayor Bill Manger; Steven D’Angelo, owner of North Sea Hardware; and Jason Korte, a former member of the Southampton Fire Department.

The task force is working concurrently with a Suffolk-led study of County Road 39, the most oft-mentioned roadway at its initial meeting.

The public has been invited to weigh in, and can submit comments to the task force at traffic@southamptontownny.gov. The group set May 1 at 6 p.m. as the tentative date and time of its next meeting.

Median teacher salaries have risen beyond $120,000 annually in most Long Island school districts, a Newsday analysis finds. The analysis shows the region maintains its long standing as one of the highest paying in the nation for teachers. Teacher representatives say the pay reflects the region's high cost of living. Some education analysts question whether the relatively high salaries paid in the state result in commensurate academic achievement. On Long Island, teacher representatives say income levels reflect a combination of socioeconomic factors, including parents' expectations that their children's instructors will be highly trained and skilled.

Kevin Coyne, president of the region's largest teachers union, in Brentwood, who also serves on the executive board of New York State United Teachers, an influential statewide union group, said that a shortage of experienced teachers in key areas such as advanced math and science has touched off a bidding war of sorts among districts.

This coming Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. is the annual Dandelion Festival at KK & Ira’s Farm in Southold.

The mission of the Dandelion Festival is to allow people to become aware of the benefits of the Dandelion leaf, flower and root. Dandelion is the symbol of spring and early food for the bees and other pollinators. Therefore, Dandelion Festival folk encourage us to stop spraying harmful chemicals on them, the earth and all living beings. This will help in the reduction of toxic chemicals entering our soil, aquifer, estuaries and bays. The mission of KK’s Farm is to demonstrate that high quality food can be grown using biodynamic and organic methods without any harmful chemicals. The Dandelion Festival will be held rain or shine! KK’s Farm is at 59945 Main Road, Southold, New York. Please park on Bay Home Road, not the Main Road. No pets, please.

The developers behind a 165-unit apartment complex planned for downtown Riverhead won more than $3.2 million in tax breaks from the town’s Industrial Development Agency. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that Commack developer Heatherwood Luxury Rentals wants to build 52 studios, 80 one-bedroom and 33 two-bedroom apartments on the site of a former Sears store on East Main Street in Riverhead. Rents would range from $2,400 for studio apartments to $3,600 for two-bedroom units and there would be shops on the first floor, executives said.

The Riverhead IDA voted 4-0 on April 8 to approve the benefits for the $82 million project, saying it aligns with ongoing revitalization efforts downtown. But school and fire district officials oppose the abatements, which they said disrupts their funding.

The incentives consist of nearly $2.9 million in sales tax on the purchase of construction materials and furnishings, a $357,656 mortgage recording tax exemption on their $47 million mortgage and 16-year property tax abatement.

Taxes on the 1.4-acre lot will remain at $22,558 for two years during construction and then gradually rise from $23,009 to $270,000 until 2040, according to a schedule of payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOT.

For developers, PILOT arrangements are less expensive than paying the full tax bill.

Riverhead IDA chairman Jim Farley said the project was “crucial” and praised developers for complying with design guidelines in the town’s pattern book and including retail and dining.

Under the PILOT agreement, taxes will be reduced for the town, county, school district and fire district, which generated criticism at a February public hearing.

Riverhead Board of Education president Colin Palmer asked the IDA to consider exempting the school district from tax abatements that put “significant pressure” on school budgets.

The hearing also drew support from housing and construction advocates who cited an “exponential” need for more apartments.

“If these developments were burdened with the full tax value, there would not be enough return on investment,” said Mike Florio, chief executive of the Long Island Builders Institute. “These projects would not get built.”

“After seven long years, this was a meaningful step in the entitlement process,” said Sean Sallie, director of planning and development for Heatherwood. “Obviously, we have some more work to do to get a shovel in the ground, and we are hopeful that we can get there.”

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The Southampton Union Free School District made history on Tuesday night when the School Board appointed Dr. Fatima Morrell, a nationally recognized administrator with more than 30 years of educational experience, as the next superintendent of schools — the first-ever African American administrator to lead the district. Michelle Trauring reports on 27east.com that effective July 8, she will replace Dr. Nicholas Dyno, who was named superintendent in 2017. She leaves her post as chief of culturally and linguistically responsive initiatives at Buffalo Public Schools. Speaking to some charges of racial prejudice in the Southampton School District Dr. Morrell said, “Some of the racial division that exists right now, it didn’t start with me, but it can end with me,” Morrell said at the meeting on Tuesday night addressing the School Board and audience, which neared 150 people in person and over 260 viewers online. “I can bridge us. I have the ability. I just need for you all to give me a chance.” Before the new superintendent spoke, members of the Parent Teacher Organization and others voiced apprehension about Morrell, who gained international recognition in 2021 for her emancipation curriculum. It promotes equity in schools and encourages conversations about the legacy of racism in the United States. “I’m not here to hurt our children,” she said. “I’m not here to teach children that white people are racist. I don’t believe that — I don’t believe that myself.” The public comment portion, which included two dozen speakers, quickly devolved into a debate over systemic racism and whether the classroom is the appropriate place to educate students about it.

The NYS Legislature could start voting on bills today to begin passing the state budget, already nearly three weeks overdue and drawing increasing criticism of the protracted process. Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that the Democratic majorities of the Senate and Assembly worked throughout yesterday behind closed doors to complete agreement on details of the more than $235 billion spending plan for 2024-25. Once the voluminous bills are crafted, Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to issue a “message of necessity” to suspend the three days’ public review required by the state constitution to pass the budget, which was due April 1. Debating and passing the package of bills could take the process into the weekend, rank-and-file legislators said Wednesday. “Is this a good way to do public policy? Is it a good way to do a budget? Clearly not,” said Assemb. Will Barclay (R-Pulaski), the minority leader. He said his minority conference hadn’t seen any of the budget agreements negotiated by Hochul and the Democratic leaders of the Assembly and Senate. Legislators in both parties are expected to have just hours to review the nearly foot-thick package of bills before voting on the budget.

The East Hampton Library Board of Managers has announced an opportunity for bi-lingual individuals interested in pursuing a career in library and information science. Through a private funding source, the library is offering a scholarship that will cover the tuition expenses of a master’s degree in library and information science, coupled with an employment opportunity at the East Hampton Library.

As reported on 27east.com, the scholarship aims to empower Spanish/English speaking scholars who are passionate about libraries, information science, and community engagement.

The application deadline is April 29.

Interested candidates should visit easthamptonlibrary.org/scholarship for complete information about eligibility criteria and for application guidelines.

For more information, contact Fabiszak at dennis@easthamptonlibrary.org or 631-24-0222, ext.7.

East Hampton Town plans to begin offering up to $30,000 in down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers this year and up to $100,000 in no-interest construction loans to homeowners who want to add an affordable accessory apartment to their property.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the town also plans to begin accepting applications in May for other affordable housing project proposals that could receive grant support from the town, including funding new affordable housing developments.

The grant programs are the first steps in the effort to boost housing for middle income residents using money from the Community Housing Fund, the dedicated housing fund created in 2022 and put into effect one year ago. The fund draws revenues from a half-percent tax on most local real estate sales.

One year into the program, East Hampton Town has $4.2 million on hand for the first round of grant funding.

An advisory committee has been working on East Hampton’s strategy for using the funds since shortly before the tax revenues started rolling in and presented the Town Board this week with its initial plans for how it thinks the money should be dispersed to greatest effect.

This week East Hampton Town Housing Director Eric Schantz and the Town Board said they hope to finalize details of the grant programs and bring them to the public for comment in May or June, so that they can be in place by early summer.

Down payment assistance and funding for the construction of affordable accessory apartments have been talked about as immediately impactful options for local people in search of housing since before the tax was approved by East Hampton Town, Southampton Town, Southold Town and Shelter Island Town voters in November 2022.

New York state officials announced new regulations yesterday for how to legally fish for sharks amid a recent increase in the appearance of the predators off Long Island's Atlantic shoreline. John Asbury reports on Newsday.com that the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation released new requirements for all ocean anglers with the aim at reducing stress and injury while handling protected sharks that are captured and then released, as well as protecting endangered species.

The new rules, which also govern fishing gear, are also designed to "maintain recreational opportunities" for legal shark species, officials said.

All prohibited sharks must be immediately released, according to the new regulations. Sport fishing enthusiasts must keep any shark not being taken in the water with its gills submerged, with the exception of smooth and spiny dogfish.

Recreational shark anglers must keep wire or bolt cutters available to free sharks from tackles and fishing lines and anglers must take precautions to improve survival rates for sharks released back into the wild.

State officials said the regulations are designed to protect sandbar, dusky and sand tiger sharks, which are listed as vulnerable and in need of conservation. They are often found during recreational fishing, both on shore and off boats near the shore each summer, officials said.

The NYS Assembly, by unanimous 147-0 vote on Monday, passed an updated version of the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act, which would raise an estimated $3 billion to $4 billion in funding for modern home wastewater treatment systems and to consolidate sewer systems and restructure rates in western Suffolk County.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that the bill, which is expected to be passed by the State Senate and signed by Governor Kathy Hochul, requires the Suffolk County Legislature to schedule a referendum. Only if it is approved by voters will the measure be funded by an 1/8 cent increase in the county sales tax.

The legislation would create a Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Fund, which will allow for the collection of the 1/8 cent tax hike until 2060.

This legislation also provides Suffolk County with the authority to create a countywide wastewater management district. A countywide wastewater management district will provide an integrated and efficient approach to managing wastewater services across the county and normalize the inequitable rate structure that has long existed.

“Save What’s Left” may be the North Fork Environmental Council’s motto, but this week the NFEC is no longer alone in asking the Town of Southold to do just that. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the leaders of nearly every civic association on the North Fork, along with the Group for the East End, spoke up at Southold Town Hall this past Tuesday advocating for a broad moratorium on development while the town finishes a zoning update expected to be complete in spring of 2025.

The Southold Town Board is considering a moratorium on accepting applications for new hotels during the zoning update process, but many community leaders said they want to see a much broader pause.

The prospect of a broader moratorium was first broached by North Fork Environmental Council Southold Land Use Coordinator Anne Murray at the board’s March 12 meeting, after the board first waded into a discussion of a moratorium on hotels — there are currently five potential hotel projects being proposed in Southold Town, Planning Director Heather Lanza said at that meeting.

In an April 10 letter to the town board, leaders of the North Fork Civics coalition of civic groups asked the town to develop a “carefully defined development moratorium that would be limited to not only new resorts, hotels, and motels, but also new commercial development, major subdivisions, special exception permit applications, zone change requests, and use variances.”

They then showed up at Southold Town Hall Tuesday to echo that sentiment.

“There’s no better time than now. You have the legal basis to do it and you have community support for it,” Group for the East End’s Senior Environmental Advocate Jennifer Hartnagel told the board, adding that the Group “is here to support a much broader, carefully scoped general moratorium.”

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New York’s highest court yesterday was the setting for the latest skirmish over abortion rights in a pivotal election year.

Church groups told the Court of Appeals that a regulation requiring insurance policies to cover medically necessary abortions not only violates their religious beliefs, but also doesn’t apply evenly across religious organizations. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that in contrast, an attorney for the state contended the insurance mandate mirrors a contraception insurance mandate that’s been upheld by the courts for two decades and that the group’s claims are undermined by the fact none of them sought a religious exemption provided in the regulation.

Though the courtroom battle was thick in legalese, the underlying issue in the case known as Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany v. Vullo centered on abortion access and the obligations on employers and insurance.

New York financial regulators approved the abortion coverage requirement in 2017; the State Legislature codified the rule into law in 2022. It requires employers to offer their workers health insurance that includes coverage for medically necessary abortions.

Technically, the lawsuit by the Catholic Church and other plaintiffs challenges just the regulation. But attorneys for both sides have said a Court of Appeals decision to toss the regulation could lead to overturning the state law.

The NYS Court of Appeals typically takes four to eight weeks to render a decision after hearing oral arguments in a case.

Greenport Village must make earlier-than-anticipated repairs to the bulkhead in Mitchell Park after an early April nor’easter pummeled the shoreline with torrential rain and whipping winds. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that the April 3 storm flooded neighborhoods, downed trees and wrecked floating docks in the municipal marina. It also damaged critical points along the wooden bulkhead, leaving gaping holes and cracked concrete in its wake.

Several small docks were ripped from their connections as waves tore through, twisting thick pieces of metal.

A total replacement of the 776-foot bulkhead was slated to begin later this year, using a $3 million federal grant. But the Village of Greenport may seek to tap into the funding for emergency repairs to bolster coastal resiliency amid more intense storms, rising seas and recurring flooding. Mayor Kevin Stuessi declared a state of emergency and said the next step is to seek bids for the repairs to get through the summer.

The worst of the damage is between the North Ferry landing terminal and Railroad Dock, according to village officials.

The bulkhead project was among more than 50 Long Island projects that received about $87 million in federal dollars through congressional earmarks, Newsday recently reported.

A 2018 engineering report found the existing bulkhead, which is more than 30 years old, was failing.

This coming Saturday, The Southampton Rose Society will hold its annual rose planting and pruning session with rosarian Peter Bertrand, who will demonstrate the fundamentals of planting and pruning a variety of rose bushes, including climbers. The session will be held on the grounds of the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton on Saturday, April 20, at 10 a.m. No registration is required for the hands-on session created to make rose gardening accessible for all. Take-home instructional pamphlets will be given to all participants. The rose is the official flower of the United States, New York State, and Southampton Village. The Southampton Rose Society is a nonprofit charitable organization, affiliated with the American Rose Society. It has created and maintains five public gardens in Southampton.

Former CNN analyst John Avlon jumped ahead of former professor Nancy Goroff with a $1.1 million haul in the money race for the Democratic nomination to face Republican Rep. Nick LaLota in the 1st Congressional District, new federal campaign finance filings show.

Tom Brune reports on Newsday.com that the figures reported Monday to the Federal Election Commission for the first quarter of the year show the early stirrings of the June 25 primary and the Nov. 5 general election.

All four of Long Island’s congressional districts appear headed for primaries: Democrats will face off in the 1st and 4th districts and Republicans in the 2nd and 3rd districts.

The new reports show LaLota, Anthony D’Esposito, Tom Suozzi and 2nd District Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) lead their challengers in fundraising. And U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has a significant lead in campaign funds in her bid for a third full term. In the 1st Congressional District…which includes the East End …Avlon’s entrance into the race for the Democratic nomination has drawn national interest — and big bucks for his campaign. About 170 of his donors gave $6,600 each, maxing out their contributions for the primary and general election.

Contributors to Avlon, of Sag Harbor, include well-known figures such as former Judge J. Michael Luttig, a conservative and never-Trumper; broadcast icons Maury Povich and Connie Chung; and billionaires such as Eric Schmidt, former president of Google.

Federal Election Commission figures from the first quarter indicate Avlon collected $1.1 million. Goroff, a former Stony Brook University professor, raised about $323,439 with $625,490 in the bank.

“The sums raised by Avlon are notable, even if they are behind [LaLota], in showing that Democrats believe they can win back the seat,” said Lawrence Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University.

One Democrat is seeking to challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in the state's June 25 primary, the state board of elections said yesterday. Scott Eidler reports on Newsday.com that Gillibrand has served since 2009 and is running for a third full term. To qualify for a Senate primary, candidates must submit 15,000 signatures from enrolled party voters. Of that total, 100 must come from voters in 13 of the state's 26 congressional districts. Petitioning ran from Feb. 29 until April 4.

The New York State Democratic Committee selected Gillibrand as its nominee during the party's convention in February.

Party surrogates have filed petition objections to the prospective challenger. State election commissioners will review signatures and decide on their validity in the coming weeks. The board will certify the state's primary ballot after meeting on May 1, said Kathleen McGrath, a spokeswoman for the elections board.

Democratic, Khaled Salem has filed petitions to challenge Gillibrand, according to the state board of elections. Salem's website says he is a human rights activist who was born in Egypt and immigrated to the United States from Kuwait in 1992.

Jay Jacobs, chairman of the state and Nassau Democratic Party, said in an interview that Gillibrand “is the nominee of the party.”

“It's clear that there was definitely something worth looking at” with regard to Salem's petitions, Jacobs said. “Whether or not it results in the candidate being knocked off the ballot remains to be seen.”

As reported on 27east.com, the scholarship aims to empower Spanish/English speaking scholars who are passionate about libraries, information science, and community engagement.

The application deadline is April 29.

Interested candidates should visit easthamptonlibrary.org/scholarship for complete information about eligibility criteria and for application guidelines.

For more information, contact Fabiszak at dennis@easthamptonlibrary.org or 631-24-0222, ext.7.

Legendary journalist Karl Grossman and Rabbi Daniel Geffen teamed up on Sunday for an open house at the recently renovated Temple Adas Israel sponsored by the Sag Harbor Historic Museum.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that before an audience of approximately 40 people, Grossman spoke about the Jewish presence in Sag Harbor and elsewhere on the East End, and Geffen spoke about the symbols of the Jewish faith, displayed the synagogue’s Torahs, and showed off the stained glass windows designed by Romany Kramoris, which, he said, represented the congregation’s openness to the surrounding community.

He noted that Sag Harbor, unlike other communities on the East End and on Long Island, welcomed Jews who moved to the village in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to work at Joseph Fahys’s watchcase factory.

“I can assure you I would not be talking to you right now, Karl’s family would not have been here, Karl himself would not have been here, had the community of Sag Harbor not welcomed us,” Geffen said. “And it’s not something we take for granted.”

Geffen showed off two of the synagogue’s four Torahs, one of which was donated to the fledgling congregation by then Colonel Theodore Roosevelt after his Rough Riders were quarantined in Montauk after the Spanish-American War, and the other, which had been rescued from the Nazis by the Memorial Scrolls Trust.

Temple Adas Israel was founded in 1896 as Temple Mischan Israel, and Geffen said it held its first High Holy Day services in 1898. Although the synagogue is thriving today, Geffen told the gathering it had been a largely seasonal house of worship for much of its first century and that he became only its second full-time rabbi.

Grossman, whose grandparents, Herman Grossman and Stefanie Spiegel were both Hungarian Jews, met in Sag Harbor after Grossman arrived in the village to work at the Fahys factory like many other skilled engravers who were recruited right off the boat. The couple later moved to New York City, where Karl Grossman was born and raised. Karl Grossman eventually moved to Noyac with his wife, Janet.

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New York will not reduce education aid immediately for school districts that have lost enrollment but will overhaul its school-aid formula to account for changes in the near future, Gov. Kathy Hochul said while announcing the “framework” of a budget deal yesterday. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that the final budget should come in at $237 billion, an increase of more than $3 billion over last year. School aid will be $35.9 billion, a $1.3 billion increase.

The governor said the “conceptual” agreement also will include New York’s first comprehensive housing expansion plans in decades. It will include no income-tax increase, a priority for the governor, a moderate Democrat.

At Monday’s news conference, Hochul affirmed many of the broad strokes of the potential deal Newsday and others reported in recent days. Those include crackdowns on illegal cannabis shops and retail theft rings, a ban on co-payments for insulin and a significant boost in tuition assistance for college students. The State Legislature had not signed off on all the details late Monday afternoon, multiple sources said. In fact, some lawmakers called the governor’s announcement “premature.”

“There are lots of open issues that need closing,” one Democrat said.

The budget was due April 1, but was hung up on the thorny issues of education and housing.

Hochul drew fire in January by proposing that the state end a policy in which no school district receives less aid than the year before despite enrollment changes — a so-called hold harmless policy.

Hochul's proposal would have meant reduced state assistance for 337 of the more than 700 school districts in New York — sparking opposition from Republican and Democratic state legislators, all of whom are up for reelection this year.

There are 53 "million-dollar" communities on Long Island, according to new data released by Zillow. Rachel Weiss reports on Newsday.com that the real estate marketplace company found that the United States has reached a record high in its number of cities where the typical home is worth $1 million or more.

There are 550 "million-dollar" cities currently, as inventory lessens and competition ensues on the housing market, according to Zillow's data. Last year, there were 491 cities on this list.

Out of 550 cities, 66 are located in New York State — and most of them are on Long Island. There are 32 Suffolk County communities named in the data, and 21 in Nassau.

Ten of the Long Island communities in this report have typical home values surpassing $2 million.

The priciest "million-dollar" location on the list in New York is Sagaponack, where the typical home value is $5,713,691, according to Zillow. Other East End communities include Water Mill, Bridgehampton, Amagansett, Wainscott, Quogue, Sag Harbor, Southampton, Montauk, and East Hampton.

The Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame (LIMEHOF) is now accepting applications for its 2024 Student Scholarship program. The deadline for applications is Friday, May 10th, 2024.

Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame will award $500 scholarships to graduating students. These scholarships will provide funding to eligible graduating high school students from Long Island who have shown an interest in pursuing a career in music. For more information, click here.

All applications must be postmarked by the application due date in order to be accepted.

The Southampton Board of Education is expected this evening to approve the appointment of Dr. Fatima Morrell as the school district’s superintendent effective this coming July 8th. Michelle Trauring reports on 27east.com that in 2022, Time magazine recognized Dr. Morrell as a National Innovative Teacher. Last year, she received the National School Boards Association Magna Award and Buffalo’s Excellence in Education 2023 “Trailblazer of the Year” Award.

In 2021, she was a recipient of a Pulitzer Center Grant and gained international recognition for her emancipation curriculum, which promotes equity in schools and encourages conversations about the legacy of racism in the United States.

“For all our children, we have to unpack white supremacy, as hard as that is to talk about,” Dr. Morrell told Time magazine. “It is important that every single child receives an anti-racist curriculum in the Buffalo public schools, and I’m going to continue to push that.

Regarding her upcoming role as Southampton Public Schools superintendent Dr. Morrell stated, “It is with great humility and honor that I begin my service as the superintendent of the Southampton Union Free School District. It is my greatest expectation that together we will continue to advance the educational excellence, innovation, and outstanding achievements of the Southampton UFSD community. I look forward to working collaboratively with the diverse district stakeholders to provide best-in-class educational opportunities that prepare all students to meet and exceed the challenges of the 21st century workforce and global economy.”

Tonight’s Southampton Board of Education Meeting will be held at 6:30 P.M. in the Intermediate School Music Room.

New York is expected to join a bipartisan, multistate system to combat voter fraud in state and presidential elections under a little-noticed proposal now in state budget negotiations. Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that the Election Registration Information Center system, known as ERIC, is a voluntary nationwide organization of Democratic and Republican election officials. The organization reports that it has uncovered millions of outdated, duplicate or fraudulent voter registrations since 2012, when ERIC was created.

The system is the only organization in which states share information from their voter rolls, federal death notices, driver's license records and Postal Service records to improve the accuracy of active voter lists and detect possible illegal voting.

The secure system based in Washington, D.C. identifies the names of dead voters, voters who have moved out of state, and voters who register in more than one community within their state. ERIC also identifies eligible residents who haven’t registered to vote. “If you care about voter integrity, this is literally the single best thing we can and should be doing,” said Sen. James Skoufis (D-Cornwall), a prime sponsor, in an interview with Newsday.

In Albany, the budget proposal appears to have wide, bipartisan support to be passed as part of the state budget deal, which is expected to be sealed between legislative leaders and Gov. Kathy Hochul in coming days.

The Town of Southampton has been awarded a $402,608 grant to upgrade the flooring and kennels at the Southampton Town animal shelter, officials said.

The Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation was one of only 10 agencies and organizations statewide to be awarded a grant from the program; $3.8 million in total was awarded to the 10 recipients, the town said. Lisa Finn reports on Patch.com that the grant is being awarded from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, under the Companion Animal Capital Projects Fund program. The Town of Southampton submitted a competitive grant application for a $447,342 project to repair and upgrade the flooring in the kennel area of the shelter, as well as to replace all current dog kennels, at Southampton Animal Shelter, 102 Old Riverhead Rd WEST in Hampton Bays.

Southampton Town Councilman Michael Iasilli stated, "As an advocate of animal welfare and town board member, I want to thank Ryan Murphy for working diligently with the shelter to provide the best conditions possible for our pets."

To that end, Iasilli said he worked with the town board to make April 30 "Adopt a Pet Day." On April 30, the shelter will hold an open house for families to come and learn about all the services they provide, he said.

In 2023 the Southampton Animal Shelter had more than 900 cats and dogs come and go through its doors. Almost 500 dogs called the animal shelter their temporary home over the course of the year, town officials explained.

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State legislation prompted by September’s fatal crash of a charter bus carrying members of the Farmingdale High School marching band would require most passengers in charter buses to wear safety belts or face fines.

The bill would close what advocates have long called a flaw in law: Although a 2013 federal law requires seat belts in charter buses manufactured since 2016, nothing requires they be used.

Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that the state bill would require charter bus passengers 8 years and older to use safety restraints on motor coaches. A violation could bring a $50 fine against passengers who refuse. Police could ticket the parents of passengers 8 to 15 years old if the violation happened when the parent or guardian was present on the trip, according to the bill.

The measure with strong sponsors in the State Senate and Assembly is in reaction to the crash on Sept. 21, 2023, when a charter bus carrying Farmingdale band members went down a 50-foot ravine in Orange County. The crash left two adults dead and dozens of students injured in the trip to a marching band camp in Pennsylvania. “The federal government basically mandated we put the seat belts in buses,” Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman William Magnarelli (D-Syracuse) told Newsday. “So, you would think we would use them.”

The National Transportation Safety Board continues to investigate the crash. Its preliminary report noted “several occupants were ejected from the motor coach,” including the educators who died.

Weeks after the crash, part of one of the notices of claim filed by relatives of crash victims in preparation for a lawsuit accused the school district of not requiring students to wear seat belts.

Previous NTSB studies reported 17 to 21 deaths per year nationwide in charter bus crashes, with spikes as high as 28 deaths per year. The agency found the most common cause of deaths was rollovers, and using seat belts reduces the likelihood of a death by 77%.

Robert Free, who started as a Long Island Rail Road station cleaner, was named the railroad's 42nd president, MTA officials said yesterday. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman and CEO Janno Lieber announced his decision to appoint Free, 54, to the position of permanent president, after serving in the role of acting president since October.

In a statement, Free, of Port Jefferson Station, said when he joined the railroad at the age of 22 he “never imagined that one day I would be running this incredible organization.”

“It’s been an amazing journey so far and I am excited to continue to build on our successes and make the riding experience even better for Long Islanders,” Free said.

Free joined the LIRR in 1992 and climbed through the ranks until eventually achieving the position of senior vice president of operations. He was instrumental in carrying out the railroad's Third Track project in Nassau County and the opening of Grand Central Madison in February of last year, MTA officials said.

Free is “the perfect choice to be the permanent president” of the railroad, said LIRR Commuter Council chairman Gerard Bringmann, who called the father of four a “solid railroad man.”

“He literally worked his way from the bottom up in the organization and knows the ins and outs … better than anybody,” Bringmann said.

Anthony Simon, who heads the LIRR's largest union, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers, called Free's institutional experience at the LIRR “a breath of fresh air.”

Marc Herbst, the newly appointed Suffolk County representative on the MTA Board and executive director of the Long Island Contractors Association, said Free has “demonstrated outstanding leadership” and that his appointment is “truly well deserved.”

April has been declared Dark Skies Month in the Town of Southampton. Southampton Town’s Dark Skies Committee urges everyone to go out and observe the night wonders above us. To see these constellations and planets we need to minimize light pollution – turning off outdoor lighting by 10:00 PM (it’s the law!) and shielding light fixtures.

Southampton Town’s Dark Skies Committee also invites you to attend their Celebrate the Night Sky event this evening at 7:00 PM in the Southampton High School Planetarium. Astronomy teacher John Walsh will lead an exploration of night sky wonders in the S.H.S. planetarium and step outside to observe the “real” sky…weather permitting.

Perfect for the whole family! Free admission. Tonight at 7pm in the S.H.S. planetarium.

Learn more about what you can do to protect our natural night sky on the Southampton Town website

Visitors to Sag Harbor may find themselves having to pay for parking in village lots if a measure introduced by the Village Board this week is adopted.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that with little fanfare, the board introduced a measure that would amend the code “to eliminate existing regulations for village parking lots and create paid parking at the municipal parking lots in the village.”

A hearing on the matter will be held when the board meets on May 14, but Mayor Tom Gardella said he planned to call a work session before that meeting to more fully explain the board’s intentions and to solicit public input.

Although most details need to be worked out, Gardella stressed that village residents and volunteers with the Sag Harbor Fire Department or the Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance Corps would be exempt from parking fees.

“As we expand the paid parking, we are going to need to look at the parking codes in the village, and we may need to update them or revise them accordingly,” Gardella said.

Besides providing exemptions for village residents and EMS volunteers, Gardella said the board is considering giving business owners a certain number of free parking passes for employees.

The Village of Sag Harbor has been charging for parking on Long Wharf since 2020 under a program introduced by Trustee Aidan Corish. Motorists are required to use the ParkMobile phone app when they park on the wharf. The first hour of parking is free, with each additional hour costing $4.

Paid parking would be in effect from 10 a.m. to midnight, from May 1 to November 30. Paid parking also will be extended to Havens Beach from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. from June 17 through September 4, although vehicles with a valid resident beach sticker will be exempt.

The Heatherwood organization’s application for financial assistance from the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency to build a 165-unit apartment building on East Main Street won unanimous approval from the agency’s board of directors this week. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency approved a 16-year real property tax abatement for the project, rather than the 25-year abatement requested by the developer in its application. The developer was also granted a mortgage recording tax exemption estimated at $357,656 on a nearly $47 million mortgage. It was also granted an estimated state and local sales tax exemption of nearly $2.9 million on the cost of taxable goods and services purchased for the $82 million development.

The property tax abatement reduces Riverhead Town, Riverhead Central School District, Suffolk County, and Riverhead Fire District property taxes. Special district property taxes are not reduced. Those include parking, sewer, water, ambulance and street lighting districts.

The apartment building will be built on the now-vacant 1.4-acre lot between East End Arts and the Riverview Lofts apartment building on East Main Street in Riverhead.

RIDA Chairperson James Farley said Monday the agency believes the Heatherwood building is “a crucial downtown revitalization project.”

Baseball season has begun across America…so some local boys are asking you to come out and play with them.

Hamptons Adult Hardball is a 30 & older Wood Bat Baseball League. Teams are limited to three players that are 26 to 29-years-old, non-pitchers.

Limited roster spots are available for the 2024 Summer League.

Outdoor workouts will take place on Sundays April 14, April 21 and April 28 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Mashashimuet Park in Sag Harbor.

Opening Day is in May. Playoffs to conclude in July.

For further info and player registration visit hamptonsadulthardball.com

Children under the age of 5 on Long Island were undercounted in the 2020 Census at a rate even higher than New York state or national rates, according to experimental data released by the U.S. Census Bureau yesterday, which noted that young children were undercounted in every state. Olivia Winslow reports on Newsday.com that the issue of census undercounts of young children in particular, along with some minorities, is something the Census Bureau has acknowledged is a long term problem despite efforts to address it, experts said.

“It’s really sad that the census for a couple of decades now has consistently missed so many children under 5,” said Steven Romalewski, mapping service director at the CUNY Graduate Center for Urban Research. “There are a lot of reasons for that,” continued Romalewski, who was a consultant for Long Island groups doing census 2020 outreach efforts, “but overall it’s really terrible for the nation [that] we’re not accurately counting such an important part of the population.”

The agency said it was redoubling its efforts by putting together a working group to study the issue and come up with solutions as it prepares for the 2030 Census.

The decennial census drives an estimated $675 billion to $1 trillion a year in federal funding to states and localities for a variety of services and programs and affects planning by businesses and municipalities.

The undercounting is significant because states use census counts to distribute money to a range of programs, including those aimed at improving the health and nutrition for children. The Census count also plays a role in planning for school enrollment and spending.

Vanessa Baird-Streeter, who now heads the Health & Welfare Council of Long Island, said, “We have complex living arrangements on Long Island, due to lack of affordable housing. We have multi-generations living together,” or households with unrelated people living together. So who gets included on the census sometimes depends on who is answering it, she said.

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Even though the solar eclipse further delayed negotiations over the state budget, local school district administrators can rejoice over the fact that, for now, any changes to the way school aid is calculated are off the table. Desirée Keegan reports on 27east.com that Governor Kathy Hochul announced the decision last week, months after her original proposal which sought to modernize the state’s education funding formula, projecting a significant loss of money for most East End schools. While NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said on Monday that the aid is being restored to at least what it was for this current school year, many school officials are still hesitant. That’s because the governor’s spending plan has yet to be approved, as discussions on the budget have been prolonged nearly two weeks past the April 1 deadline as differences over education, health care and housing have divided leaders in Albany.

Hochul has vowed to put a new process in place by next year.

But with school budgets needing to be adopted this month to be presented to voters in May, local administrators like East Hampton Superintendent of Schools Adam Fine were left scrambling to figure out how to present a plan with no definitive dollar amount. He said state officials need to provide districts with firm state aid figures early enough in the process to ensure the construction of accurate spending plans.

“As it now stands, we are struggling to know whether we will receive $775,000 in state aid in next year’s revenue plan. Given that uncertainty, it is nearly impossible to construct a spending plan to present to the voters,” said Mr. Fine.

Engineers can start drafting plans for a new police station and justice court in Southold after the town board unanimously approved the construction. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that the town board voted 6-0 on March 28 to approve a $528,000 contract with Nelson + Pope to design the two facilities. Town officials met with representatives of the Melville-based engineering firm last week to outline their vision for the new public safety campus in Peconic.

After more than five years of searching, Southold is expected to close April 19 and pay $1.4 million for 3.79 acres immediately west of the existing police station, according to town attorney Paul DeChance. There, a pair of barns will be razed to make way for a new police station, whose headquarters will be torn down to build a new justice court.

Police Chief Martin Flatley said a new police station was long overdue and the department of 54 officers had outgrown the more than 50-year-old building. Flatley said the new complex would bring the department closer to accreditation, a voluntary process in which the state Division of Criminal Justice Services determines if law enforcement agencies meet standards for training, storing evidence and reporting incidents, among others.

The new police station will be bigger, with more dispatch stations, and meet state standards for holding cells, interview rooms and evidence storage.

Lisa Goree has been elected as the new chair of the Shinnecock Nation Council of Trustees — making her the first woman in the tribe’s history to serve in the capacity since the trustee system was established in 1792.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that Ms. Goree replaces Bryan Polite, who stepped down with a year left on his term. Polite served a total of seven years as chairman.

Goree has worked for the Town of Southampton for more than 23 years and has been the town assessor for the last 12 years. She is the mother of three daughters, Kristine, Korrina and Kesi.

Goree chose to run for a one-year term rather than a two-year term and explained her decision. “I want to make sure it’s the right fit, and make sure people want me in there,” she said. Turnout was so high on the night of the election that it took tribal members longer than usual to tally the votes. “My focus right now is to make sure our senior citizens are properly cared for, and their voices continue to be heard, and to continue to foster the care for our young ones,” Goree said. “We have a lot going on, and it’s urgent and crucial, but my responsibility and obligation is to take care of the kids and the elders in our community. The elders are our priority — they’ve gotten us to where we are today, so they can’t be forgotten.”

The federal government will, for the first time, require utilities to limit “forever chemicals” in drinking water linked to cancers, developmental damage and other health problems, imposing stricter levels than current state standards on the contaminants in Long Island drinking water.

As reported in Newsday, the move will reduce exposure for 100 million people, the Environmental Protection Agency announced yesterday. At issue is a class of thousands of synthetic chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl, or PFAS, which are found in Long Island groundwater and can be detected in the blood of almost every American. Used since the 1940s to repel oil and water and resist heat, they are commonly found in products ranging from nonstick cookware to cellphones and medical supplies. They are called “forever” chemicals because their components break down very slowly.

New York State in 2020 set a limit of 10 parts per trillion for PFOS and PFOA, two of the most common forever chemicals, and most Long Island water providers already have equipment in place to meet that limit. The EPA is setting maximum contaminant levels at 4 parts per trillion for each of those compounds, the lowest levels the agency said are feasible for effective implementation. Public water systems have until 2029 to comply with the limits. Water providers said they’re in compliance with EPA standards or working toward it, but treatment will be costly.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, called the rule "one of the most significant public health victories in a generation. ... We have genuine hope this will reduce cancer rates throughout Long Island and the nation.”

James Neri, spokesman for the Long Island Water Conference, a trade group of water suppliers, said the number of Long Islanders drinking water that does not meet the new federal standard was likely far less than 1 million. “Most suppliers that have detected this compound have taken steps to address the contamination” after 2020 that meet the federal limits, he said.

In a significant step forward for the establishment of a sewer district and construction of a sewage treatment plant in Riverside, the Southampton Town Board this past Tuesday voted to accept a notice of completion for the supplemental final generic environmental impact statement, following its fifth public hearing on the matter. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the $35.5 million sewage treatment plant, in the planning stage for almost a decade and to be primarily funded with Suffolk County, New York State and federal funding, is intended to revitalize Riverside and the adjacent hamlet of Flanders. In its first phase, it is to tie in 237 existing residences, with others, possibly including the Suffolk County Center in Riverside, to follow.

The vote followed comment for and against the plan from about a dozen people, including a member of the Riverhead Town Board and other officials representing that town, and parents and administrators of the Phillips Avenue Elementary School in Riverside, who expressed concern about odor and potential toxic releases from a plant they said will be sited too close to the school.

Janice Scherer, Southampton’s planning and development administrator said the plant will be more than 900 feet from the school and 575 feet from its property line, and will be “heavily buffered.” The plant will be within a concrete building and designed to control odor, she said, adding, “The plant will treat waste to below 10 milligrams per liter…a drinking water standard…And then that water flows north: it does not flow toward the school, it flows away … It’s heading toward the Peconic River and it’s getting filtered by the soil in addition to all the filtration that’s happening as part of the treatment system.”

Riverhead and Southampton Town officials are scheduled to meet tomorrow according to Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore.

April has been declared Dark Skies Month in the Town of Southampton. Southampton Town’s Dark Skies Committee urges everyone to go out and observe the night wonders above us. To see these constellations and planets we need to minimize light pollution – turning off outdoor lighting by 10:00 PM (it’s the law!) and shielding light fixtures.

Southampton Town’s Dark Skies Committee also invites you to attend their Celebrate the Night Sky event tomorrow at 7:00 PM in the Southampton High School Planetarium. Astronomy teacher John Walsh will lead an exploration of night sky wonders in the S.H.S. planetarium and step outside to observe the “real” sky…weather permitting.

Perfect for the whole family! Free admission.

Learn more about what you can do to protect our natural night sky on the Southampton Town website.

Outdoor dining and outdoor seating permits were tentatively approved by the Westhampton Beach Village Board last week for the upcoming summer season for a majority of restaurants and food establishments that applied for them — save for five unidentified establishments that village officials said needed to modify their applications. Bill Sutton reports on 27east.com that the Westhampton Beach Village Board meeting last Thursday was packed with restaurant owners concerned that the board would deny the permits following a high-octane work session in late March, at which Mayor Ralph Urban and other board members said that approval of the permits had been on hold due to concerns from the Suffolk County Department of Health that the popular outdoor dining practice was being abused by some restaurant owners who were expanding the capacity of their restaurants without Health Department approval. The county had loosened restrictions during the pandemic but has been tightening them back up recently as officials had noticed an increase in sewer flow attributed to restaurants exceeding their allotted number of seats. When an eatery turns to outdoor dining or outdoor seating, it is required to reduce the number of indoor seats proportional to the outdoor seats. Many establishments in the county weren’t doing that, Mayor Urban said last month.

There is a distinction at the county level between outdoor dining, which offers wait service, and outdoor seating, in which tables are provided for self-service consumption of grab-and-go food. Restaurant owners became concerned about possible delays in providing outdoor seats by the beginning of the season, which is typically mid-April. Outdoor dining has become a staple, providing necessary revenue in the limited summer season.

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Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine and District Attorney Ray Tierney made a rare joint appearance in front of the Suffolk County Legislature yesterday, imploring members to sign on to a letter urging Gov. Kathy Hochul to adopt reforms aimed at improving child protective services. Vera Chinese reports on Newsday.com that the recommendations were contained in a grand jury report released last week after an investigation into the 2020 hypothermia death of 8-year-old Thomas Valva in Center Moriches.

The letter asks the NYS Legislature to amend social service confidentiality laws to allow a district attorney or grand jury to access unfounded sealed reports. The letter also asks the governor to convene two task forces to investigate the confidentiality laws and examine Civil Service requirements for caseworkers.

“We have a simple, modest proposal,” Tierney said. “We’re asking for [legislators] to co-sign that letter with us so we can implement some of these changes, so that we cannot only keep our children in Suffolk County safe, but children in New York State all over safe.”

The special grand jury, which Tierney empaneled to investigate Thomas’ hypothermia death on Jan. 17, 2020, released the report Friday, recommending no criminal charges against the county caseworkers who investigated allegations of abuse by the child’s father. Those caseworkers shielded themselves from public review of their actions — and potential criminal charges — due to confidentiality laws that must be reformed, the report found.

County Executive Romaine said, “I know that the overwhelming majority of people that work with social services are good, conscientious, hardworking,” he said. “But that does not mean we put accountability or transparency aside.”

Riverhead Supervisor Tim Hubbard celebrated the accomplishments of his administration so far, and highlighted changes yet to come, during his first “State of the Town” speech yesterday. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the speech, titled” A New Day in Riverhead: Transparency, Civility and Action,” was delivered in front of roughly 40 people in the Riverhead Town Hall meeting room — mostly town officials — on his 100th day in office. Most of the speech highlighted the town’s progress on initiatives already underway, such as downtown revitalization projects and improvements to the town’s infrastructure. But Hubbard also announced a few new initiatives, including plans to put police officers in two school buildings next school year. The supervisor said starting in September, the town anticipates having two armed police officers — also known as “school resource officers” — in school district buildings located within Riverhead Town. One officer will be in the high school and another in the middle school, he said. “This program not only makes our schools safe, but it builds community relationships with law enforcement,” said Hubbard, a retired Riverhead Police detective and former Riverhead school board member. “I have developed a strong relationship with the school district and we have agreed to work more closely going forward.” Neither the Town Board nor the Riverhead Board of Education have yet taken any formal action on an agreement regarding the school resource officer program.

April has been declared Dark Skies Month in the Town of Southampton. Southampton Town’s Dark Skies Committee urges everyone to go out and observe the night wonders above us. To see these constellations and planets we need to minimize light pollution – turning off outdoor lighting by 10:00 PM (it’s the law!) and shielding light fixtures.

Southampton Town’s Dark Skies Committee invites you to their Celebrate the Night Sky event this coming Friday at 7:00 PM in the Southampton High School Planetarium. Astronomy teacher John Walsh will lead an exploration of night sky wonders in the S.H.S. planetarium and step outside to observe the “real” sky…weather permitting.

Perfect for the whole family! Free admission.

Learn more about what you can do to protect our natural night sky on the Southampton Town website.

Former CNN anchor and analyst John Avlon has picked up another key endorsement in his bid to secure the Democratic nomination for the 1st Congressional District. As reported on 27east.com, Jay Jacobs, chairman of the New York State Democratic Party and chairman of the Nassau County Democrats, personally endorsed Avlon this week. Avlon hopes to unseat one-term incumbent Republican Nick LaLota in November, but first he must defeat Nancy Goroff in the primary election on June 25. Goroff ran unsuccessfully against former U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin in 2020.

A statement by Jacobs appears on Avlon’s website: “John Avlon’s unique background and career experience makes him the best candidate to unseat Nick LaLota,” Jacobs stated. “…he will work with President Biden to continue enacting meaningful, bipartisan legislation that will improve the lives of working families here on Long Island.” Since announcing his candidacy in February, Avlon has racked up a number of endorsements on the East End, including those of the East Hampton and Southampton Town Democratic committees, the members of the East Hampton Town Board, as well as State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and former Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, whom LaLota defeated in 2022.

Avlon left CNN in February. Prior to working with the network, he was editor of The Daily Beast and a one-time speech writer for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Avlon and his wife, conservative political commentator Margaret Claire Hoover, have a home in Sag Harbor.

CD-1 includes the entire east end and north shore of Suffolk County, New York.

This weekend, Long Island's volunteer fire departments will be holding open houses trying to recruit new members. The departments say membership has dwindled dramatically since the terror attacks of 9/11. Fire officials say they are looking for volunteers to perform a variety of duties to help out at emergency scenes, in addition to firefighting itself. John Valenti reports on Newsday.com that local fire officials said economics, time and lack of awareness and knowledge on how to get started are the main roadblocks to landing recruits. The annual RecruitNY weekend is designed to educate those who might be interested.

Training for Long Island-based firefighters is extensive, helping volunteers prepare for a myriad roles. In Nassau, would-be firefighters train at the Nassau Fire Service Academy in Bethpage; in Suffolk, they learn at the Suffolk County Fire Academy in Yaphank. But, as officials said, being a volunteer doesn't mean you necessarily have to be an interior structure firefighter.

Departments need administrators, maintenance staff, drivers. Even volunteers who can haul hoses — or, direct traffic — at an emergency scene.

Find out more at recruitny.org or visit the Firefighters Association of the State of New York website: fasny.com.

Or, FASNY president-elect Eugene Perry, a 44-year veteran of the Patchogue Fire Department suggests you just stop by your local firehouse on any given Sunday. “If you're really interested, go knock on the door,” he said. “Talk to somebody. Ask what you need to do to get involved … Believe me, it's rewarding.”

Baseball season has begun across America…so some local boys are asking you to come out and play with them.

Hamptons Adult Hardball is a 30 & older Wood Bat Baseball League. Teams are limited to three players that are 26 to 29-years-old, non-pitchers.

Limited roster spots are available for the 2024 Summer League.

Outdoor workouts will take place on Sundays April 14, April 21 and April 28 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Mashashimuet Park in Sag Harbor.

Opening Day is in May. Playoffs to conclude in July.

For further info and player registration visit hamptonsadulthardball.com

Riverhead Supervisor Tim Hubbard took aim yesterday at Southampton Town's revitalization plans for Riverside, saying construction of a sewage treatment plant in the hamlet could lead to residential development that would funnel more students into Riverhead's schools and drain other municipal resources. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that Hubbard, who took office in January, said during his first State of the Town address he had "made it clear" to Southampton officials that their plan to revitalize the Southampton Town hamlet across the Peconic River with up to 2,300 housing units would "place an unfair burden on services" in Riverhead. The supervisor listed Riverhead library, ambulance, parks and recreation services as examples and stated the Town of Riverhead might, “…pursue legal action designed to protect the interests of our town and taxpayers. Stay tuned."

A 2015 Riverside Revitalization Action Plan projected 2,300 new housing units could be built in the hamlet, half of which could be affordable apartments. Redevelopment of the Riverside area hinges on a new sewage treatment plant that Southampton officials have said is the key to spurring development. In 2022, the median household income for Riverside was $56,429, compared with a county average of $119,838, according to the latest U.S. Census figures. On Tuesday, Southampton's town board voted 5-0 to finalize the environmental review for construction of the sewage treatment plant — a key step in the advancement of the project. Funding for the $35.5 million project is in place.

But Hubbard added during his speech that he is urging Southampton to consider building senior housing as part of its revitalization effort in order to reduce the impact on Riverhead schools. The Riverhead supervisor also said he is “adamant” that Southampton's sewer district include the County Center and Correctional Facility, which currently use Riverhead’s sewer treatment plant.

Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore said that board members plan to meet Friday with Riverhead officials.

“We have repeatedly said we would consider the sewer expansion to include the County Center and the jail in future phases,” Moore added.

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One of the last vestiges of temporary measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic has left 35,833 drivers with suspended licenses because they didn’t pass a simple eye test, according to the NYS Department of Motor Vehicles. Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that these drivers can still take and pass vision tests through the DMV or an optometrist to lift the suspension. But after nearly two years of urging these drivers to comply in emails, letters and website alerts, the state has little else it can do, said state Department of Motor Vehicles spokesman Walt McClure.

The state DMV can’t take any other action to get these drivers’ vision tested, such as denying a vehicle registration or other motor vehicle service.

That leaves enforcement to use police stops if drivers drive with suspended licenses. A conviction of driving on a suspended license can result in a $500 fine plus other fees and a 30-day jail sentence or probation. The charges could rise to a misdemeanor or felony if a driver with a suspended license is also charged with crimes such as driving while intoxicated. “It is central to what we do at DMV to ensure that New York’s roads are safe for all drivers, which means that people have to show that they have an appropriate level of visual acuity to be able to operate a motor vehicle,” McClure said. “It is also key to ensuring safety that drivers be properly licensed.”

Research has long backed up the urgency of passing vision tests as a prerequisite for driving.

The vision test issue dates to 2021, the height of the pandemic, when the state temporarily waived the need to take a vision test to renew driver’s licenses. That measure was intended to avoid crowds at DMV offices, many of which had reduced services to curtail the spread of the virus. This relief was for drivers whose licenses were due to expire between March 1, 2020, and Aug. 31, 2021.

If drivers did defer, they had one year from the date of renewal to get their vision tested through DMV or by an optometrist. The majority of the 150,000 who deferred their vision test complied.

Southold police chased a suspect during a 45-minute pursuit yesterday along the North Fork, from Riverhead to Greenport, until they said he sped off a 100-foot cliff and landed in Long Island Sound. John Asbury reports on Newsday.com that the chase began after police responded to a domestic violence call in Southold, where a car had been damaged, said Southold Police Chief Martin Flatley.

The driver, Roger Foster, 56, of Florida, had two active warrants. He drove back and forth on Route 48 during the pursuit, where he reached speeds of up to 100 mph, Flatley said.

Foster maneuvered around traffic to Riverhead, before heading back east on surrounding roads before reaching Greenport. He headed down Sound Road, driving to the end of the street without slowing down and went airborne off the bluff and into the water, Flatley said.

The car's air bags deployed and the vehicle landed in 3 to 5 feet of water. Officers dove into the water, pulled out Foster and arrested him. He complained of pain, but had no visible injuries, Flatley said. He was taken to Peconic Bay Medical Center to be evaluated.

No other injuries were reported during the pursuit.

Rapid Recovery Towing responded with a heavy-duty tow truck and hoisted the vehicle up the bluff and onto the roadway; the vehicle was then impounded, police said. Once released from the hospital, Foster will be transported to Southold Town police headquarters, where he will be processed and held for arraignment, police said. Foster was charged with second-degree criminal contempt; third-degree criminal mischief; numerous traffic law violations; unlawful fleeing; and two outstanding arrest warrants.

People across the east end ventured outdoors yesterday afternoon to witness a historic sight: the solar eclipse that captivated millions of Americans from Texas to Maine. The partial eclipse visible from Long Island — less than the dramatic totality witnessed by people in other parts of the country— sparked excitement as enthusiastic residents donned special protective glasses to gaze at the rare celestial event. The special cardboard spectacles became a hot commodity as the day of the eclipse approached. As reported on Riverheadlocal.com, Riverhead Free Library gave away nearly 1,100 glasses to cardholders, and ran out of them quickly following the library’s announcement that they would be available, Assistant Director Catherine Montezem said. The last total solar eclipse seen in New York was in 1925, said George Lomaga, a retired professor of astronomy and geology at Suffolk County Community College. Eclipses like the one witnessed Monday, which at their peak coverage last three to four minutes, only occur about 790 times during a 10,000 year period, Lomaga told a crowd gathered at Hallock State Park in Northville. People hoping for a total solar eclipse on Long Island will have to wait until 2079.

Montauk’s Sands Motel, a longtime feature of the East End's bustling summer tourism scene, has a new owner with renovation plans, according to local real estate agents. Victor Ocasio reports on Newsday.com that Sands, a four-building, 43-unit oceanfront complex, has been sold to Enduring Hospitality after hitting the market last year for $28 million. A sale price was not disclosed.

Located at 71 S. Emerson Ave., the 19,500-square-foot property is near the downtown area along Montauk Highway and features 360-degree views of the ocean and Fort Pond. The hotel’s buildings have one- and two-bedroom units that each have a balcony or deck, according to a property listing. Enduring Hospitality plans a major renovation after the summer.

Hal Zwick, Hamptons director of commercial real estate with Compass, said the firm was hired last year by the Hausman family, which has owned and operated the motel for three generations.

Richard J. Hausman Sr., the longtime owner and operator of Sands, died in 2022 at 97, according to an obituary in the East Hampton Star. Hausman’s parents and brother built the hotel in 1951 and added buildings over the years.

A sale fell through in 2022 with another brokerage firm, Zwick said.

In a statement, Enduring Hospitality said the company’s goal “is to refurbish the existing hotel, centering on health and wellness, while safeguarding the authenticity of Montauk and its connection to surf culture.”

Zwick said Montauk’s Sands Motel will be open to visitors this summer after the new owners do some minor upkeep and maintenance.

Larger renovations are planned to begin after Labor Day and into the winter.

“They’ll introduce a new concept in the spring of 2025," he said.

East End governments have a busy day today. Here’s what’s going on as reported by Beth Young in EAST END BEACON:

The Southold Town Board will discuss climate change, drinking water protection, sanitary flow credits, the town’s CPF Stewardship Management Plan, landmark preservation and a draft of the town’s proposed moratorium on processing applications for new hotels at its 9 a.m. work session this morning. The board is slated to vote at its 7 p.m. meeting this evening on whether to hold a public hearing on the moratorium on May 21. Here’s the agenda for both meetings. Here’s the Zoom login for the work session, and for the evening meeting.
The East Hampton Town Board discusses water quality grant recommendations and permitted density in senior housing, as well as to vote to hire outside environmental counsel regarding the town’s airport at its 11 a.m work session this morning. Here’s the agenda, and the meeting can be viewed live on LTV’s YouTube channel.
Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard will give his first State of the Town address, titled “A New Day in Riverhead: Transparency, Civility and Action” this morning at 11 a.m. in the Town Hall Board Room at 4 West Second Street. The address can be viewed live in person, or on Channel 22.
The Southampton Town Board continues public hearings at its 1 p.m. meeting today on the formation of and funding for a Riverside sewer district. The district, long in the works, has come under challenge from neighboring Riverhead, which is concerned about the impact development there will have on Riverhead Town and School District resources. Here’s the agenda, and the meeting can be viewed live on Sea-TV’s YouTube channel.
The Shelter Island Town Board will discuss extending a moratorium on new docks, proportional lot size legislation, businesses on town property and Bridge Street parking at its 1 p.m. work session this afternoon. Here’s the agenda, and the meeting can be viewed live on the town’s YouTube channel.

Perfect for the whole family! Free admission.

Learn more about what you can do to protect our natural night sky on the Southampton Town website (search for Dark Skies Committee).

For those who say that an on-time budget in New York State is about as likely as a solar eclipse, the odds on an eclipse are improving. Grace Ashford and Claire Fahy report in THE NY TIMES that negotiations over the state budget, which was due on April 1, have stretched on for more than a week past the deadline as differences over housing, education and health care have divided Democratic legislative leaders in Albany.

Then an eclipse became grounds for further delay: The Assembly decided not to hold session yesterday to allow members to view the celestial phenomenon from the comfort of their home districts. Albany was not in the zone of totality for Monday’s eclipse.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, a moderate Democrat from Buffalo, has sought to use the budget to address what she sees as some of the most pressing issues facing the state: rising education and health care costs; a housing shortage; and the stubborn persistence and residual damage of retail theft.

But an increasingly progressive Legislature has its own ideas, rejecting the governor’s proposals on education and health care and calling for more tenant protections, climate measures and an expansion of free bus service in all five boroughs of N.Y.C.

Governor Hochul said that negotiations with leaders in the Legislature had been respectful and productive.

“We are not finished yet,” she said on Thursday. “But I also think there’s a lot of good progress made. Everybody’s rolling up their sleeves ready to work.”

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A year after voters rejected nearly doubling the Wainscott School tax levy — a vote that many suggested was tainted with selfishness, insensitivity and bigotry — and forcing deep cuts in services for its students, a district official says the school this year will restore all of the lost programs. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the proposed budget would create a new teaching position and add an in-house prekindergarten program at the school — all while staying below the state’s cap on increases in the property tax levy.

Music and art instruction, field trips and specialty instruction that were saved last year only by private donations from benefactors will return to the school budget for the 2024-25 school year. Also returning is a pre-K class, which the district will host at the school itself for the first time.

“This year we will present a budget that will be about a 0.06 percent year-over-year spending increase. The tax increase will be about 2.58 percent,” David Eagan, the president of the Wainscott School Board, said on Saturday at a meeting of the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee. “That is going to allow us to reinstate everything that was cut last year, so we’ll be back to normal. Eagan said the school will keep the fourth grade at the Wainscott School again this year, rather than sending pupils to other school districts, as the school had done before the fiscal crisis. By keeping the fourth-graders at the school, the district saves $250,000 it would have to pay in tuition for the seven students who will move up from third grade after this school year.

The Wainscott School Board expects to finalize the budget this week and will hold its public budget hearing on May 8, ahead of the May 21 budget vote.

With the lowest school taxes in East Hampton Town — less than one-quarter of what nearby Springs School District residents pay — Eagan said that Wainscott taxpayers are getting a bargain that he hopes will garner support from the public with the “politics” of the enrollment surge dampened.

In ancient China, they were seen as signs that a celestial dragon was devouring the sun. Some Mayan cultures thought they heralded destruction. Babylonians kept records of them on clay tablets and learned how to predict when they would occur.

Eclipses have captivated people for thousands of years. Professional and amateur astronomers are making plans to get the best view of the celestial event today — the last total solar eclipse visible from the contiguous United States until 2044.

Some will travel to upstate New York for the spectacle, but Long Islanders can still witness the stellar wonder from home. On the east end, the 90 percent partial eclipse should begin around 2:13 p.m. and is expected to end around 4:37 p.m. with maximum coverage of the sun expected to occur at approximately 3:27 p.m. today. Michael Shara, curator of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History said, “Everyone within 50 miles of Manhattan is going to see basically the same thing,” he said. “The path of totality, just by fluke, runs almost parallel to Long Island. The only way to see more is to go north and west up to Niagara Falls.”

The path of totality includes Jamestown, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Watertown, Old Forge, Lake Placid and Plattsburgh.

People hoping for a total solar eclipse on Long Island will have to wait until 2079, said Dave Bush, director of the Vanderbilt Reichert Planetarium.

April has been declared Dark Skies Month in the Town of Southampton. Southampton Town’s Dark Skies Committee urges everyone to go out and observe the wonders above us at night. In order to see these constellations and planets we need to minimize light pollution – turning off outdoor lighting by 10:00 PM (it’s the law!) and shielding light fixtures.

Perfect for the whole family! Free admission.

Newsday’s Lisa L. Colangelo helps us answer some key safety questions regarding this afternoon’s 90 percent solar eclipse across Long Island.

Why is it dangerous to look at the eclipse without special glasses?

Never look directly at the sun during an eclipse without special eye protection, said Dr. Matthew Gorski, an ophthalmologist with Northwell Health Physician Partners in Great Neck. People who do so can get a rare but serious injury called solar retinopathy.

“Solar retinopathy occurs when the UV light rays enter the eye and damage the delicate tissues of the retina,” Gorski said. “This damage can occur in a moment of looking at the sun.”

He said the symptoms — blurry vision, blind spots, distortion, light sensitivity — can develop hours to days and sometimes even weeks after the exposure.

“In some cases, symptoms go away and get better, but in other cases the visual disturbances can be permanent,” Gorski said.

How can I safely look at the eclipse?

“If you want to look at the eclipse, you need special glasses that carry the designation ISO 12312-2,” Gorski said. “These are the only types of glasses you should wear to look at the sun. Never try to make your own eclipse glasses. These are thousands of times darker than the regular sunglasses.”

Gorski said people should get these glasses from a reputable vendor and check them for damage such as scratches or holes before using them. And turn away from the sun when you take them off.

Can children safely watch the eclipse?

Gorski said parents need to be extra cautious with children. “You have to know your child and if they are going to be responsible enough to put on the glasses and use them properly,” he said. Also, make sure the glasses fit them correctly.

NYS Attorney General Letitia James says eclipse viewers should make certain their viewing glasses are approved by the International Organization for Standardization — and have an ISO rating of 12312-2, which will appear on the frame.

While the east end isn’t in the path of totality for this afternoon’s Great American Eclipse, the fervor over this rare phenomenon is being felt across the twin forks, too. Beth Young of EAST END BEACON reports that our eclipse experience begins at 2:13 p.m. this afternoon on Long Island, with maximum coverage (around 88 percent) at about 3:27 p.m., ending at about 4:37 p.m. today.

It is not safe to view a partial eclipse with your naked eye.

Eclipse viewers should make certain their viewing glasses are approved by the International Organization for Standardization — and have an ISO rating of 12312-2, which will appear on the frame.

If you are coming up short on a desperate hunt for eclipse glasses, NASA has some tips for building an eclipse projector using a cardboard box and a white sheet of paper. Really!

The East Hampton Library hosts an eclipse viewing experience from 2 to 4 p.m., with lawn games, refreshments and crafts for kids — eclipse glasses will be available free of charge. The Westhampton Free Library also hosts a viewing session, with glasses available free of charge, from 3 to 3:30 p.m. Libraries throughout the Suffolk County Library system have been giving out free eclipse glasses, but may have run out by the time you read this post.

Turtles are coming out of hibernation and, as they’ve done for millions of years, will begin their search for mates. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that this puts the reptiles, which are already in decline in New York, at risk of injury or death, especially as they cross local roadways, oblivious to vehicles — just as drivers are often oblivious to them.

Wildlife advocate Karen Testa, founder of Turtle Rescue of the Hamptons in Jamesport, is hoping bright new diamond-shaped signs going up on east end roads will raise motorists’ awareness and get them to slow down in areas where turtles are often in the roadway.

The yellow and black signs urge drivers to be aware that turtles may be trying to cross the road.

Turtles are usually active in areas where there are ponds or wetlands on both sides of the road.

For information on what to do to help a turtle that’s trying to cross the road, visit https://www.turtlerescueofthehamptons.org/

Anyone who finds a distressed or injured turtle on the East End is urged to call Turtle Rescue at 631-779-3737.

Montauk’s only pharmacy, White’s Drug & Department Store, will close at the end of October, potentially leaving residents of the hamlet without easy access to prescriptions — and the lone pharmacist worries that could lead to health crises for some who may go without crucial medicines because of the inconvenience or inability of trekking to pharmacies to the west.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that Frank Calvo, the pharmacist at White’s for the past 13 years, said that he is searching for a new location for a pharmacy, but that spaces of suitable size, and affordable rent, are proving difficult to find.

“I’ve scoured all of downtown Montauk looking for a feasible space for a pharmacy and, sadly, there is no other space anywhere,” he told members of the East Hampton Town Board this past Thursday.

He said he needs about 1,500 square feet to host a pharmacy, which must also have running water, and all he has been able to find in Montauk are spaces of less than 1,000 square feet — or places with rents of $100,000 a year or more.

The White’s space is about 4,000 square feet. Calvo said the new owner has other plans for the building.

The building was sold late last year by its previous owners, Dan Rattiner and Nancy Premisler, for $3.7 million. The buyer was a Kentucky-based limited liability company registered to Leon Kircik. Kircik, appears to own a home in Montauk.

Calvo said that he fills about 150 prescriptions per day in the offseason and more than 300 a day in summertime.

And more than 60 percent of the prescriptions he fills go to people over the age of 65, the pharmacist said, many of whom do not drive.

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With Monday's solar eclipse providing such a rare educational opportunity for children - schools and libraries across Long Island have scheduled programs to make the most of the event. Joie Tyrrell reports on Newsday.com that some schools are dismissing students early, and at least one district has extended the school day so classmates can watch it together. Much of the eclipse is expected to occur after school hours.

Some districts are distributing free glasses for students so they can view the eclipse safely. A library in Middle Country has scheduled events, including a program with the Vanderbilt Museum. Officials in the Middle Country district have extended the day for all elementary students to view the eclipse outside with their classmates and teachers. There also will be an option for those to watch inside school buildings on a livestream.

"We wanted to make sure first and foremost that students knew about eye safety and how they can safely engage, and secondly we really wanted to celebrate this exciting phenomenon," said Rachel Ndembera, coordinator of science/research for the district.

The Middle Country Public Library has had a longtime interest in the study of space. The library is a member of the STAR Library Network, a hands-on learning network for libraries nationwide led by the Space Science Institute’s National Center for Interactive Learning.

Local eclipse activities include offering viewing glasses for families, instructions on how to make a safe pinhole viewer, and a lesson with experts from the Vanderbilt Museum. There are planned events for the day of the eclipse with a viewing in the Centereach branch parking lot.

"Something like this only comes by every so often, and it really sparks that deeper interest in STEM concepts," said Kristine Tanzi, the library's coordinator for teen services who also serves as the point person for the space programs.

Ahead of the solar eclipse that will darken skies over New York on Monday, the state Attorney General’s Office is warning people planning to watch about fake safety glasses and lenses. John Valenti reports on Newsday.com that in a statement Wednesday, NYS Attorney General Letitia James says eclipse viewers should make certain their viewing glasses are approved by the International Organization for Standardization — and have an ISO rating of 12312-2, which will appear on the frame. Purchasers also should make certain glasses are registered as "Solar View Brand” with the American Astronomical Society, the attorney general’s office said.

“There are serious risks associated with not using proper eyewear when looking directly at an eclipse, which is why everyone should follow guidance to ensure their solar eclipse glasses are legitimate and safe to use,” James said in the statement. Anyone finding they’ve been duped with fake glasses should file a complaint with the attorney general’s office.

The eclipse begins this coming Monday at 2:12 p.m., hitting 85-90% totality from Long Island at approximately 3:27 p.m. and ending at 4:37 p.m.

The organization that oversee athletics for Suffolk County schools has moved all games to later in the day this coming Monday…after the solar eclipse.

“We’re moving all of the games and making them 4:30pm starts to avoid the solar eclipse,” said Tom Combs, executive director of Section XI, which governs Suffolk sports. “The athletic directors in each school district have also formed a plan for practices on Monday.

The eclipse begins at 2:12 p.m., hitting 85-90% totality from Long Island at approximately 3:27 p.m. and ending at 4:37 p.m. this coming Monday.

Solar eclipse viewing tips can be found on the NASA and American Astronomical Society websites. Officials warned that ordinary sunglasses should not be used as a replacement for ISOeclipse glasses. Viewers should also check to make sure glasses and filters are not torn, scratched or damaged in any way they might impede their ray-blocking abilities.

Schools in New York may be able to breathe a sigh of relief, as Gov. Kathy Hochul is largely retreating from her more controversial proposals to change the way the state determines how much funding districts receive, at least for this year. Speaking to reporters in an impromptu visit to the capitol’s press chambers yesterday, Hochul indicated she and legislative leaders will likely agree to delay the more significant proposed changes to the funding school aid formula until next year. “We talked about putting a process in place, so by this time next year, giving everybody the notice and warning that they all asked for that there will be a different formula,” Hochul said after chumming up reporters by handing out eclipse glasses and cookies. Details of the formula change, Hochul said, still need to be worked out. “I’m just deciding with [legislative] leaders how that mechanism will work,” she said. Vaughn Golden reports in THE NY POST that the governor’s remarks represent progress on one of the most heated debates needing to be ironed out between her and legislative leaders before reaching a final agreement on the state’s massive spending package. One of her most controversial proposals involves eliminating an aspect of the funding formula referred to as “hold harmless.” The provision stipulates that school districts cannot receive a reduction in state funding from one year to another. By removing the mechanism, almost half of school districts in New York would see a loss in state funding.

Hochul also proposed changes to how heavily inflation is weighted within the formula. The governor argues that, under her watch, the state has significantly ramped up school funding to a level dictated by a landmark court ruling, but that such spending is unsustainable in the long term. “This is overdue,” Hochul said. New York lawmakers gave themselves more time to negotiate over the state budget by voting yesterday to temporarily extend the deadline for the final spending plan, ensuring the National Guard gets paid and state operations run smoothly. Legislators had already passed an extension when they missed the initial April 1 deadline.

The Riverhead Police Department is ramping up its enforcement to combat distracted driving from now through Monday, the department said in a press release. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the effort is part of a statewide campaign to target vehicle and traffic law violations involving the use of cell phones while operating a motor vehicle, police said. The campaign’s tagline is “Put the Phone Away or Pay,” and is meant to remind drivers during National Distracted Driving Awareness Month of the deadly dangers and legal consequences of distracted driving, police said.

In 2001, New York State was the first to ban using a hand-held cell phone while driving and enacted legislation in 2009 prohibiting texting while driving and using other portable electronic devices, police said.

Police said drivers can follow these steps for a safer drive:

If you are expecting a text message or need to send one, pull over and park your car in a safe location.
Ask your passenger to be your “designated texter.” Allow them access to your phone to respond to calls or messages.
Do not engage in social media scrolling or messaging while driving.
Cell phone use is habit-forming. Struggling to not text and drive? Activate your phone’s “Do Not Disturb” feature, silence notifications, or put your phone in the trunk, glove box, or back seat of your vehicle until you arrive at your destination.

For more information, visit the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website.

The New York Yankees home opener today reminds us that baseball season has begun across America… including right here on the east end where some local boys are asking you to come out and play with them.

Hamptons Adult Hardball is a 30 & older Wood Bat Baseball League. Teams are limited to three players that are 26 to 29-years-old, non-pitchers.

Limited roster spots are available for the Summer League.

Outdoor workouts will take place on Sunday, April 14, Sunday, April 21 and Sunday, April 28 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Mashashimuet Park in Sag Harbor.

Opening Day is in May. Playoffs to conclude in July.

For further info and player registration click here.

The first total solar eclipse to pass over New York State in nearly a century is drawing crowds upstate to where the event will be best viewed this coming Monday afternoon, but on the East End the partially visible eclipse is also fueling excitement. Timothy Bolger in DAN’S PAPERS reports that observatories, parks and libraries are hosting eclipse viewing parties in the Hamptons and on the North Fork for those who are staying put and not driving eight hours to Buffalo to catch a glimpse of the Moon blocking out the sun for a few minutes. Viewers on Long Island will still be able to see about 90% of the eclipse, which will appear more like a crescent sun but will still require special glasses to be viewable without causing eye damage.

“It’s almost a religious experience,” said Fred Walter, a professor of astronomy at Stony Brook University who witnessed the most recent total solar eclipse to pass over the South and West in 2017. “It’s hard to describe what happens when the sun disappears … in the middle of the day and is surrounded by the corona, which is about the size of the full Moon, and then it comes back. It really is an amazing spectacle.”

On the East End, the partial eclipse should begin around 2:13 p.m. and is expected to end around 4:37 p.m. with the maximum coverage of the sun is expected to occur at approximately 3:27 p.m. on Monday Aril 8, 2024.

“We encourage people to take advantage of this unique opportunity, but we also encourage them to do so safely,” said Southampton Town Emergency Manager Ryan Murphy, who urged residents not to look directly at the eclipse without wearing ISO 12312-2 rated eye protection.

Officials warn that ordinary sunglasses should not be used as a replacement for ISOeclipse glasses. Viewers should also check to make sure glasses and filters are not torn, scratched or damaged in any way they might impede their ray-blocking abilities.

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New software the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles is buying aims to shorten in-person appointments, eliminate needless visits by moving tasks online and curb outages that have dogged the agency because of computer technology dating to the 1970s.

Those are some of the goals of a $277.6 million overhaul of Department of Motor Vehicles computers announced yesterday by Gov. Kathy Hochul's office to modernize a bureaucracy that regulates 20 million vehicles and 14.2 million drivers and permit holders.

Maureen Mullarkey and Matthew Chayes report on Newsday.com that the project is expected to take about four years, according to DMV spokesman Walter McClure, although there’s no set start date.

First to be rolled out: updating the computer systems for licensing and photo ID issuance for drivers and non-drivers, as well as administration and enforcement of traffic violations. Next: vehicle registrations, title issuance and insurance verification services, said McClure, who provided details of the project’s goals.

Each of these phases is expected to take about two years.

"Computer and system outages that have caused delays and long lines in DMV offices will become a thing of the past with the introduction of modern applications and proven successful solutions," Hochul's office said in a news release. Paper forms would be eliminated where possible, the release said.

The contract is with FAST Enterprises LLC of Centennial, Colorado, which is hired by governments across the country to modernize systems for taxes, child support and motor vehicle bureaus.

More than a dozen people — mostly residents of a subdivision on Jennifers Path — turned out to a Southampton Town Planning Board public hearing last Thursday to object to a proposed solar farm on Westhampton Beach Village-owned property on South Country Road in Quiogue.

Bill Sutton reports on 27east.com that the hearing was part of a presubmission application by CVE Community Solar to build a 4,000-panel, 2-megawatt solar array on 10 acres of the 13.5-acre parcel, a former Department of Public Works yard owned by the Village of Westhampton Beach that is currently used as a repository for leaf debris, composting and, at times, dead animals.

Neighbors oppose the project, citing environmental concerns, a potential threat to the adjacent Quogue Wildlife Refuge, excess noise from equipment for the project, and an impact on their property values in the mostly residential neighborhood.

While the parcel is in Quiogue, it is owned by the Village of Westhampton Beach, which last year entered into a 25-year lease with CVE Community Solar, which would supply the electricity generated to the Long Island Power Authority grid and pay the village a minimum of $22,000 per year for the lease, with a $50,000 bonus once it goes operational.

The company must seek approval from Southampton Town to move forward. The property is zoned for park/recreational uses, so it would need a special exception permit from the Planning Board, and, if the use were to be allowed, site plan approval as well.

While eastern Long Island does not fall within the path of totality during this coming Monday’s solar eclipse, viewers still need to take safety precautions to view the natural phenomenon. As reported by 27east.com, on the East End, the partial solar eclipse will begin at approximately 2:13 p.m., with maximum coverage at 3:27 p.m., and is expected to end around 4:37 p.m. on Monday April 8, 2024.

• Do not look directly at the sun without proper eye protection — and regular sunglasses are not adequate. If your eyes are exposed to the sun without the appropriate protection, it will cause “eclipse blindness,” which can temporarily or permanently damage your eyes.

• Wear International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 12312-2 certified eclipse glasses, or use a pinhole projector, to safely view the eclipse.

A vote by hundreds of clergy sex abuse survivors on a proposed $200 million settlement by the Catholic Church on Long Island has been delayed, attorneys for survivors said. Bart Jones reports on Newsday.com that survivors were supposed to submit their ballots by March 22, but the deadline has been pushed back to April 12, said James Stang, the main lawyer representing the survivors committee in bankruptcy proceedings involving the Diocese of Rockville Centre.

The results are expected to be known by April 15. The balloting is being conducted by Epiq, a court-approved global technology company that works in the legal industry and with corporations.

Stang and other attorneys said the balloting was delayed to give survivors more time to vote, since the process was complicated for some.

Some 600 survivors have filed lawsuits against the Diocese of Rockville Centre…which serves approximately 1.2 million baptized Catholics…total population in both Nassau and Suffolk is approximately 2.9 million.

The bankruptcy proceedings have been going on for three-and-a-half years, with at least $100 million in legal fees accumulated.

The cases stem from the 2019 Child Victims Act, which opened a one-year window — later extended to two years because of the pandemic — for childhood victims of sexual abuse to file lawsuits against perpetrators regardless of how long ago the abuse occurred.

Warning that payouts for the cases would cause financial ruin, the diocese filed for bankruptcy. The cases were then moved to federal bankruptcy court.

The diocese is urging the survivors to accept its latest proposal — which it called its final one — as the best way to guarantee they will be paid and also allow the church to continue functioning.

Attorneys for the survivors last year proposed a settlement of $450 million.

Riverhead Supervisor Tim Hubbard announced at Tuesday’s Town Board meeting that the agri-tourism resort code would not go forward because of a disagreement over what kinds of farming uses would be allowed on preserved land, north of Sound Avenue in Riverhead. The “appropriate balance” between the farmland preservation and development aspects of the code proposal “remains a source of ongoing discussion and debate,” Hubbard said at the outset of this week’s Town Board meeting. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that a resolution scheduling a hearing on the town code amendments to enable an agri-tourism resort development was set to be voted on but was not included in the final Town Board agenda on Tuesday.

“And quite frankly, it remains to be seen whether the perfect balance exists,” Hubbard said. “I remain open to further discussion but defer to stakeholders of our local farming community as to whether this is possible and we will keep the public updated.” Hubbard told Riverheadlocal yesterday that the town’s Agricultural Advisory Committee and the Long Island Farm Bureau, a farm industry advocacy group, want the town to allow vertical farming and indoor farming on the land, while the Farmland Preservation Committee wants the land to be “traditionally” farmed.

The group of shopfronts and second-story offices on the corner of Hill Street and Windmill Lane in Southampton Village, which have been largely vacant through the past decade or more, will have a new look this summer.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the units at 1 through 17 Windmill Lane and 1 through 15 Hill Street were purchased earlier this year by WHSH LLC, owned by restaurateur Jeremy Morton, who also owns several other properties on the East End, including Rick’s Crabby Cowboy Cafe and Ruschmeyers in Montauk.

He also owns Provisions, which had been located in Water Mill and will move into Southampton Village – a visible corner just east of Paul’s Restaurant and the Southampton Cinema, which was bought last year by New York real estate developer Aby Rosen and has been undergoing renovations.

Southampton Village Mayor Bill Manger said earlier this week that the theater is not expected to open until 2025.

Ye Olde Bake Shoppe, which has done business at the end of the complex on Windmill Lane for decades, will not return. Hal Zwick, the director of commercial real estate for Compass in the Hamptons said the owners, husband-and-wife duo Tom and Diane Mistler, chose to retire.

“They were at an age where retirement made sense for them,” he said, adding that they were asked to stay, but they declined.

Zwick said that a new bakery will fill the void.

He said the expectation is that the renovations will be done and the businesses will be up and running before Memorial Day weekend, adding that Provisions should be open by mid-May. “It will be a great draw to that area,” he said of the popular health food store. “It should help the entire complex. I think it will do very well.”

He added that he believes the village administration “will be very happy to see that what was beginning to look like an eyesore will be a really nice building in the Village of Southampton at a prominent corner.”

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A strong storm moving toward the coast from the west will bring damaging winds, heavy rains and flooding later today through late tonight, prompting warnings from the National Weather Service for the region, including eastern Suffolk County. As reported on Riverheadlocal.com, a high wind warning and a coastal flood warning are in effect this afternoon through the overnight hours. A flood watch for possible flash flooding caused by excessive rainfall is also in effect.

East winds of 25 to 35 mph with gusts up to 60 mph are expected this afternoon and evening. The high wind warning is in effect from 11 a.m. today through 6 a.m. tomorrow.

Damaging winds will blow down trees and power lines. Widespread power outages are expected across the region. Travel will be difficult, especially for high profile vehicles, per the National Weather Service.

An additional 2 to 2 ½ inches of rainfall is expected this morning through early Thursday, with most of the rain coming this afternoon and evening.

Widespread flooding of vulnerable areas near the waterfront and shoreline is likely — including roads, parking lots, parks, lawns, and homes and businesses with basements near the waterfront. Numerous road closures are likely, and vehicles parked in vulnerable areas near the waterfront will likely become flooded, according to the weather service. Flooding will also extend inland from the waterfront along tidal rivers and bays.

Along the twin forks, breaking waves of 4 to 8 feet Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, along with elevated water levels, will result in beach erosion with damage to shoreline structures possible, the National Weather Service said. Waves splashing over bulkheads and seawalls will likely exacerbate flooding of shoreline roadways and properties.

Storm warnings are in effect for all local waters.

Members of the Town of Southampton Youth Bureau recently participated in the YMCA’s annual Youth and Government conference in Albany. As reported on 27east.com, a total of 13 students from Westhampton Beach, Hampton Bays, Pierson, and Southampton high schools attended. Leading up to it, the students spent six months writing their own bills to amend current legislation. Students then had the opportunity to represent the Town of Southampton Youth Bureau and debate their proposed bills in the chambers of the New York State Assembly during the three-day statewide conference that took place March 22 to 24.

Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni, Assistant Director of Youth Bureau Peter Strecker, and Youth Services Specialist Cara Conklin-Wingfield accompanied the students to the Albany conference.

“After months of dedication to the YMCA Youth and Government program, students from Southampton Town showcased their leadership potential with excellence alongside 700 peers from across New York State. Congratulations to all who participated.” said Schiavoni.

The Town of Southampton Youth Bureau received an endorsement for one of the proposed bills from this year’s Youth Governor.

Work began last week in Southampton Village to create a turning lane and pedestrian islands on Hill Street near First Neck Lane and Varadian Way. The islands are intended to keep traffic flowing during peak travel hours on the busy road on the western side of the village’s downtown area. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the Southampton Village Board hired VHB Engineering to come up with a solution in that area, where westbound drivers seeking to make a left-hand turn on First Neck often slow down the rest of the westbound traffic, further complicating an area that already has traffic congestion challenges during the evening commute. The turning lane will allow traffic in the right lane to continuously flow, unimpeded by motorists waiting to make a left turn onto First Neck. Southampton Village Mayor Bill Manger said the entire section of Hill Street from First Neck to Windmill Lane will be repaved, which will require a temporary detour for a short period of time. The village will need to wait for the weather to be warm enough to pave the road, which could happen as early as next week.

NYS Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) doubled down yesterday on his stance that stiffer penalties don’t deter criminals. Vaughn Golden reports in THE NY POST that Heastie — who has previously opposed proposed rollbacks of the state’s controversial 2019 criminal-justice reforms — landed in hot water last week when he balked at backing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push to stiffen punishments for thugs who assault retail workers, claiming, “I just don’t believe raising penalties is ever a deterrent to crime.”

“I was simply asked a question of, ‘Do I believe that increasing penalties deters crime,’ and I gave a simple answer, ‘No,’ ” Speaker Heastie told reporters Tuesday. “I don’t believe, in the history of increasing penalties, has that ever been the reason that crime has gone down.”

Governor Hochul has been pushing the state legislature to jack up penalties for thugs who assault retail workers to the same levels as attacks on nurses, firefighters and sanitation workers. The governor is making the push as part of a package of measures to crack down on retail theft. Her proposal also includes funding for state police and district attorneys to better catch crooks, especially sophisticated organized rings that pilfer stolen goods. Heastie has left the door open on other aspects of Hochul’s proposal, but the increased-penalties component remains a sticking point. State Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton (D-Staten Island) sponsored a bill that mirrors Hochul’s proposal for increased penalties.

She told The Post yesterday that she thinks penalties are deterrents, but even if not, they should still be harsher to at least send a message that Albany cares about the same employees they hailed as frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. “If [opponents] don’t see it as a deterrent, then I think they need to start seeing it as valuing workers and their lives,” Scarcella-Spanton said. She called for the proposal not to be dropped from the state’s proposed budget.

Residents impacted by the often storm-socked Dune Road, among other areas in Southampton's towns and villages, will now have a new emergency preparedness notification system. Lisa Finn reports on Patch.com that the Southampton Town departments of public safety and emergency management have partnered with the Villages of Quogue, Westhampton Beach and West Hampton Dunes to implement a new "Notify Me" notification group.

Initiated after emergency preparedness discussions between the Town of Southampton and

the Village of Quogue, Southampton town officials are embarking upon the new community notification effort to be able to convey important information to residents quickly.

Two new notification lists have been created in the town’s Notify Me system. A new Dune Road closures/emergencies notification list, as well as a Village of Quogue residents' notification list, have been created, town officials said.

The two new notification group lists will allow residents in those areas to sign up to receive email notifications about incidents and events that are expected to have specific impacts to their communities.

To sign up for notifications click here.

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Fork (UUCSF), under the leadership of Reverend Kimberly Quinn Johnson, is now accepting applications for the latest round of High Impact Community Outreach (HICO) grants to support local non-profits and community organizations.

The High Impact Community Outreach program targets local nonprofit groups, grassroots organizations, and national organizations with East End offices.

Over the last four years, High Impact Community Outreach awarded $156,000 to 25 outstanding Long Island nonprofits. HICO provides financial assistance to institutions residing in or servicing any of the five Eastern Townships —East Hampton, Southampton, Shelter Island, Riverhead and Southold, and to the Shinnecock Nation.

To apply for a HICO grant, click here. Applications are available on the website and can be submitted electronically and via mail. Questions can be directed to pac@uucsf.org or call 631.537.0132.

The application deadline is May 1 and awards are expected to be announced in July 2024.

HICO’s 2024 Focus is targeting four specific needs: Support for new entrants to our community; Access to health care, including mental health services; Eldercare addressing loneliness, isolation, health and safety; and Promoting engagement with our history, cultural heritage or Democratic process.

The HICO program is made possible by the generous bequest of UUCSF member Paul Berman.

Long Island’s housing growth rate was among the slowest in the United States from 2012 to 2022, according to a new report. Jonathan LaMantia reports on Newsday.com that the number of housing units, including houses and apartments, in Suffolk County increased 2% during that 11-year period, while the number of units in Nassau increased 2.7%.

That placed Nassau 131st and Suffolk 132nd among 141 U.S. counties with 500,000 people or more, according to the analysis by Construction Coverage, which publishes research for builders and the real estate industry. The report used data on housing units from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

During the period, Suffolk added 11,238 units and Nassau added 12,423.

Restrictive zoning, environmental constraints and opposition from community members are among the obstacles to building, said Mike LaFirenza, CEO of San Diego-based Construction Coverage.

“It’s a lot more difficult to add to a community that’s existed for a century or more and try to add new housing units when many residents have been there for decades,” LaFirenza said.

Long Island housing advocates and real estate experts have cited a lack of new construction as contributing to rising rents and home prices.

During the period the report covers, the median sale price among all residential properties increased 81% in Suffolk to $543,000 and 71% in Nassau to $650,000, according to OneKey MLS data.

Since then, prices have continued to climb, and the number of homes on the market hit a 40-year low in late 2023.

Slow housing growth in the suburbs led Gov. Kathy Hochul to propose last year the creation of a state board that could override local zoning decisions in areas with little housing growth. Many Long Island lawmakers opposed that plan and instead Hochul has pursued an incentive-based approach for communities that approve housing.

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Polls opened at 6 o’clock this morning for voting in New York's presidential primaries. Scott Eidler reports on Newsday.com that the results are all but assured: President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and former President Donald Trump, a Republican, are already their parties' presumptive nominees and appear headed for a rematch in the Nov. 5 general election.

Biden and Trump clinched their party nominations on March 12.

The Republican National Convention will take place in Milwaukee from July 15-18, while Democrats will hold their national convention from Aug. 19-22 in Chicago.

Today’s New York primaries are not expected to draw much turnout.

Early voting took place from March 23-30, when 100,756 cast early ballots across the state, according to the NYS Board of Elections.

In Suffolk, 2,292 Democrats and 1,895 Republicans voted early, according to the county Board of Elections. There are 353,670 active registered Democrats in the county and 324,109 active registered Republicans, according to the state Board of Elections.

Polls close 9 p.m. tonight, and only registered Republicans and Democrats are allowed to vote in their respective party primaries.

Voters can determine their polling places through the state’s voter lookup at voterlookup.elections.ny.gov.

Voters in Suffolk can call the county Board of Elections at 631-852-4500.

The Nassau and Suffolk election boards are expected to spend around $2.5 million apiece to administer the primaries.

Inmates in New York are suing the state corrections department over the decision to lock down prisons during next Monday’s total solar eclipse. As reported by Associated Press the suit filed Friday in federal court in upstate New York argues that the April 8 lockdown violates inmates’ constitutional rights to practice their faiths by preventing them from taking part in a religiously significant event.

The plaintiffs are six men with varying religious backgrounds who are incarcerated at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Woodbourne, New York. They include a Baptist, a Muslim, a Seventh-Day Adventist and two practitioners of Santeria, as well as an atheist. “A solar eclipse is a rare, natural phenomenon with great religious significance to many,” the complaint reads, noting that Bible passages describe an eclipse-like phenomenon during Jesus’ crucifixion while sacred Islamic works describes a similar event when the Prophet Muhammad’s son died. The celestial event, which was last visible in the US in 2017 and won’t be seen in the country again until 2044, “warrant gathering, celebration, worship, and prayer,” the complaint reads. Thomas Mailey, a corrections department spokesperson, said the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation, but takes all requests for religious accommodations under consideration. Communities in western and northern reaches of the state are expected to have the best viewing of the total eclipse, including Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Lake Placid and Plattsburgh. The total eclipse is expected to be seen in those parts of New York around 3:15 p.m. and last mere minutes as the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, temporarily blocking the sun and turning day into night.

North Fork Audubon hosts its monthly “How To Get Into Birdwatching Without Getting Left Behind” walk through Laurel Lake Preserve tomorrow at 8 a.m.

Are you curious about bird watching, but don’t know the first thing about how to do it? Or have you ever been on a birding field trip and said to yourself “this stuff is for the birds,” meaning I’m not seeing what everybody else is seeing! Or maybe you’re thinking “I can’t see anything through these binoculars,” etc.

Well, now you can join Tom Damiani on “small group” field trips with a focus on effectively using binoculars, finding birds using your binoculars, and finding the best habitats for birds.

These outings will be held on the first Wednesday of each month, 8 – 10 AM. The bird walk location will be Laurel Lake Preserve.

Tomorrow morning’s walk is free, but registration is required. You can register here.

A push by the NYS Legislature to deliver tax relief for homeowners and working families is running up against Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plans to keep state spending at bay. Keshia Clukey reports on Newsday.com that Democrats, who control the Senate and Assembly, included in their election-year budget proposals credits for taxpayers with children as well as property tax breaks.

“We know New Yorkers have faced incredible uncertainty in the last four years, and families are still feeling the effects of it,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said in a statement provided to Newsday. The Assembly proposal sought to “relieve the tax burden on families and homeowners,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins recently told reporters her conference is also focused on affordability. “We understand that working people, they need help, too, and we want to make sure as we push for affordability, we don’t leave anyone behind,” she said.

Negotiations between the Democratic governor and legislative leaders are in full force, as they have missed the April 1 deadline for approval of the 2024-25 budget.

Plus, the Assembly and Senate tax break proposals come as all 213 legislative seats are up for election in November.

The proposed spending of the Legislature, however, is significantly larger than the governor’s, with each house looking to add about $13 billion to Hochul’s $233 billion budget plan.

The legislature called for increasing revenue by raising the tax rate for top earners, a proposal Hochul has called a “nonstarter.”

The governor’s budget proposal did not include tax breaks or credits this year.

Hochul spokeswoman Katy Zielinski said the governor will work with the legislature to ensure the final budget invests in New York’s future while “ensuring the state remains on a stable long-term fiscal trajectory.”

In the halls of the New York State Capitol, with a budget deadline as of yesterday, it seems that all that anyone wants to talk about is adultery. Erin Nolan reports in THE NY TIMES that the seldom-enforced state law categorizes adultery as a crime, and past efforts to repeal it have gone nowhere. But that seems poised to change.

The Assembly overwhelmingly voted in favor of a bill to repeal the adultery law last month, and a Senate committee last week moved a matching bill to the floor for a full vote that could come as soon as this week.

The developments have attracted global attention, with the Assembly bill’s sponsor, Charles Lavine, a Democrat from Long Island, fielding interview requests from Europe to South America.

“Any criminal law that penalizes intimate behavior between consenting adults does not deserve to be on the books,” said Mr. Lavine, who added that he has been “happily married” for 54 years.

While adultery is still illegal in a handful of states (in Oklahoma, Michigan and Wisconsin, adultery is considered a felony offense), the vast majority of states repealed their adultery laws long ago or never outlawed it in the first place.

New York’s law declares a person guilty of adultery “when he engages in sexual intercourse with another person at a time when he has a living spouse, or the other person has a living spouse,” according to New York’s penal code. Adultery is classified as a Class B misdemeanor, and it is punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine.

Youth and Government offers the opportunity for students to learn about a wide variety of issues, develop critical thinking skills, and articulate their beliefs while engaging constructively with their peers from around the State. Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni, Assistant Director of Youth Bureau Peter Strecker, and Youth Services Specialist Cara Conklin-Wingfield accompanied the students to the Albany conference.

The New York State Appellate Division, Second Department, issued two rulings last week in the ongoing litigation against East Hampton Town by users of the town’s municipally owned airport in Wainscott. Beth Young of EAST END BEACON reports that the appeals court ruled that East Hampton was not allowed to close its public use airport and reopen it again days later as a “private use” airport, as it attempted to do back in 2022, and ruled that the town must follow the procedural requirements of the federal Airport Noise and Capacity Act (ANCA)…what’s often characterized as a lengthy process… before adopting restrictions on aircraft that use the airport.

The lawsuits, brought by East End Hangars, Inc., Coalition to Keep East Hampton Airport Open Ltd. and Blade Air Mobility, Inc. in February of 2022, attempted to stop the town from closing and reopening the airport, but the Town of East Hampton decided to go ahead with changing the airport’s FAA identifiers despite a May 2022 temporary restraining order issued by Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Paul Baisley, Jr. one day before the planned closure.

The Town of East Hampton had planned to implement restrictions at the reopened airport, including limiting aircraft to one takeoff and one landing per day and setting airport hours of operation at 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends, as well as limiting noisy aircraft.

The town said it is now reviewing its further options.

“At this time, the Town Board is reviewing its options with counsel and carefully assessing a way forward, including seeking clarification from the courts and the FAA regarding the Town’s rights and obligations with respect to the Airport and any additional procedural steps that need to be taken prior to implementing proposed restrictions as part of the town’s ongoing environmental review,” according to the town. “The East Hampton Town Airport remains open to the public and fully operational.”

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A state appeals court has ruled that East Hampton Town may not close its airport — permanently or temporarily — without following a laborious, likely years-long federal application process.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that in a ruling released on Wednesday, March 27, a four-judge panel of the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division ruled that a lower court judge had been right in finding that the town was not legally capable of closing the airport without following the guidelines of the federal Airport Noise and Capacity Act, or ANCA, which lays out a specific process that must be followed to close any public airport facility.

The latest ruling appears to effectively shelve the Town of East Hampton’s plans to impose limitations on flights at the airport by closing it down temporarily and reopening it as a private facility that can dictate flights as it sees fit.

Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez’s office issued a reaction to the ruling on Thursday afternoon, saying the Town Board will be meeting with its legal counsel about its options going forward.

“The Town of East Hampton is deeply disappointed in the outcome of the appeals,” the statement reads. “The town proceeded in good faith to find a solution to address the long-standing noise and environmental impacts from the airport on the town and its surrounding communities and remains committed to that goal, as the status quo is not acceptable.”

The Southold Town Board voted 5-0 this past Tuesday to extend its widely-supported moratorium on Battery Energy Storage Systems, commonly known as BESS, for an additional year. Nicholas Grasso reports in THE SUFFOLK TIMES that the board previously approved a 12-month moratorium on BESS facilities last year, about eight months after Albany-based Key Capture Energy proposed building a 60-megawatt BESS facility on 27 acres along Oregon Road in Cutchogue. KCE’s proposal stirred controversy due to its location, potential environmental impacts and safety concerns, including local fire departments’ ability to effectively respond to emergencies at the facility.

The Southold Town Board’s moratorium, which was set to expire April 11 and will now run through April 11, 2025, allowed for the creation of a seven-member BESS Task Force charged with researching the battery storage industry to identify key safety concerns and existing regulations. Task force member Michael Macco said the board can expect a report from the volunteer group “probably in the next 30 days.”

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The MTA Board voted 11-1 on final approval for its first-in-the-nation congestion pricing plan yesterday. Most vehicles with E-ZPass will be charged $15 during peak hours weekdays and weekends; $22.50 for drivers without E-ZPass. Off-peak rates will be reduced 75%. Alfonso A. Castillo and Nicholas Spangler report on Newsday.com that the MTA Board’s new Suffolk representative, Marc Herbst, in his first board meeting, said he felt obligated to vote in favor of the plan because without it, the MTA would be deprived of the same capital funding that paid for critical infrastructure investments on Long Island, including the LIRR’s new $2.5 billion Third Track.

Herbst said he believes the congestion pricing proposal was “vetted wholeheartedly.”

Exemptions for the new congestion pricing system include east end bus and tour operator Hampton Jitney.

As quoted on 27east.com, Hampton Jitney President Geoffrey Lynch said, “We are extremely pleased to hear that Hampton Jitney, along with other commuter operations in and out of Manhattan, have been included in the Central Business District’s Congestion Toll Program Exemption List. We are grateful to all of our passengers who supported our exemption request, and pleased to see that the MTA recognized that commuter operations like Hampton Jitney will help the congestion mitigation the toll program is trying to accomplish.”

Members of the Shinnecock Nation Council of Trustees, including Chairman Bryan Polite, made a trip to Brooklyn this past Friday to be on hand for oral arguments that were finally scheduled, after a long wait, in the dispute between the Nation and the State of New York over the tribe’s construction of two 61-foot-tall electronic billboard monuments on both sides of Sunrise Highway on their Westwoods land in Hampton Bays.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that in 2019, the State Department of Transportation and the State of New York sued the nation’s seven tribal trustees individually, as well as the company the tribe contracted with to build the digital billboards, saying they violated state law by constructing and operating the billboards along a Sunrise Highway right-of-way without DOT work permits.

The timetable for a ruling is wide — the court could make a determination in less than two weeks, or as far out as June, when the current session ends.

The ruling, whenever it is handed down, will be of keen interest to both the Shinnecock and the general public.

The tribe is in the early stages of clearing and preparing 10 acres of land on its Westwoods property — very close to the monument on the westbound side of Sunrise Highway — for construction of a gas station and travel plaza, which would provide another economic boost to the tribe.

Both Shinnecock and Southampton Town officials are keenly interested in seeing the tribe and state work together to allow for ingress and egress points to the travel plaza from Sunrise Highway, rather than Newtown Road in Hampton Bays. Access points to the gas station off Newtown Road would create numerous traffic and logistical challenges, and would not be as economically viable as access points directly from the highway.

But the DOT has not as of yet engaged in meaningful discussions with the tribe on that possibility, citing the ongoing litigation over the monuments.

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One of the largest offshore wind farms planned for Long Island received another important approval from the federal government yesterday, while its developer gave the formal OK to move ahead with investing in the multi-billion-dollar project. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that the federal government approval of a “record of decision” for Sunrise Wind is among the last the 84-turbine project needs before construction can begin, as early as next year. Sunrise Wind developer Orsted, of Denmark, said it expects the federal government to approve the final permit — its construction and operation plan — this summer, with completion expected in 2026. Orsted recently completed the 12-turbine South Fork Wind Farm earlier this month.

Both are in the waters off Massachusetts and Rhode Island, with the Sunrise Wind power cable running more than 100 miles to Smith Point County Park before it begins a 17.5-mile journey through Brookhaven to a substation in Holtsville.

The record of decision announced Tuesday indicates that the 924-megawatt project will operate with fewer turbines than originally planned.

Most of the project’s power will enter the Long Island grid at Holtsville, and will be among the green-energy projects that are slated to replace fossil-fuel-powered natural gas plants over the next 25 years. Most Long Island power plants have contracts expiring in the next four years.

Strains in the working relationship between LIPA and its contractor, PSEG Long Island, have hindered the utility’s ability to resolve risks and meet green-energy goals, according to a state audit. The audit found that while PSEG had seen steady improvements in reliability since 2018, other problems loom large as LIPA embarks on critical decisions about its future. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that the findings come as another top LIPA official, Mujib Lodhi, announced on Monday he was leaving the utility after chief executive officer Tom Falcone announced his departure last week. Both come as Gov. Kathy Hochul has hired a new slate of board members at LIPA and turned a more critical eye on LIPA operations rather than PSEG.

LIPA has been planning for two years to separate vital computer systems from those controlled by PSEG in New Jersey, but the process has been beset by delays. Any delay could work in PSEG’s favor by making it difficult for any new service provider to take over from PSEG in the future, should LIPA decide to hire a new one.

Among the problems: PSEG “made the decision to refuse to make its employees available” to LIPA officials to discuss critical aspects of the plan. “Notably,” the audit emphasized, PSEG’s refusal was “inconsistent with LIPA’s rights” under its $80 million a year contract with PSEG.

Still, the report found that PSEG has a “well-structured” organization and program to forecast electric use on Long Island, and that system reliability under PSEG remains among the best in the state. But it also found deficiencies in renewable energy and efficiency programs, including some that could slow the utility’s ability to meet key goals in the state climate law.

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Four contiguous lots totaling 3.37 acres on the north side of Marsden Street in Sag Harbor are in contract, sold for an undisclosed sum, after being listed for $9 million by Saunders and Associates.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the lots — which have been owned by the Trunzo family for 50 years, and vacant for as long — were the subject of much controversy last year, as the Sag Harbor School District, with Pierson High School just across the street from the lots, had sought to buy them and expand the school district’s comparatively small footprint, for potential development into athletic fields or other school use that would have been determined with community input.

That opportunity slipped away on May 16, 2023, when a proposition on the school budget vote to purchase the four Marsden Street lots — as well as a smaller fifth lot across the street, also owned by the Trunzo family — with a combination of a $6 million bond and $3.425 million from capital reserves was voted down by district residents by a narrow margin, 1,156-1,081. Earlier this week, Pat Trunzo III when asked what the new owners might do with the property he said, “they’re building lots, so I’m sure they’re going to build houses on them.”

Proponents of the district’s proposal to purchase the lots were eager to see the land provide more opportunities for student-athletes because Sag Harbor School District lacks enough space to build a sufficient number of athletic fields for its interscholastic sports teams. As a result, teams have been forced to practice and play at Mashashimuet Park, located 1.1 miles away from the school.

The district pays a six-figure sum to the park annually to use its facilities, and much needed capital improvements at the park would likely need to be funded by the district.

The MTA is set to vote tomorrow on finalizing its congestion pricing plan, which now includes a few more exemptions, such as one for a popular east end bus company. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials confirmed Monday that the agency’s full board will vote Wednesday on the toll rates for its Central Business District Tolling Program, which will charge most vehicles $15 for driving below 60th Street in Manhattan during peak hours.

MTA officials hope to begin charging the new tolls in June, but have acknowledged that several pending lawsuits could delay the plan.

Juliette Michaelson, MTA deputy chief of police and external relations, said in a statement that the plan being considered by the board will be “closely tied” to the version recommended by an MTA advisory panel in October, but “with certain clarifications that include items raised by the City of New York and others.”

Those clarifications include granting exemptions to school buses contracted with the New York City Department of Education, commuter vans licenses by the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission, and bus companies providing scheduled commuter services, like Hampton Jitney…a private bus company which has sought to be granted an exemption, just as MTA buses will receive, because it too will help reduce automobile traffic coming into the city. The congestion pricing guidelines previously offered exemptions only to buses operating under government contracts.

Hampton Jitney runs an express deluxe motor coach service between Manhattan and eastern Long Island.

Patrick Condren, of BUS4NYC, a private bus operator advocacy group, said the previous plan had unfairly disqualified bus operators like Hampton Jitney, which, like public operators, run on fixed routes, and offer frequent, published schedules.

“All buses carrying the public, regardless of where they go, are part of the solution, not part of the problem,” he said at a public hearing last month.

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Long Island school districts are projecting higher tax increases in 2024-25, but a late boost in state financial aid could help keep rates under control. Per a Newsday review across Nassau and Suffolk, preliminary district reports show that property taxes would rise an average 2.67% during 2024-25. In comparison, estimates of regionwide taxes were up 2.21% at this time last year. The financial picture for Long Island's school systems remains in flux. While the governor recently reported annual state revenue higher than originally thought, federal COVID relief payments are due to dry up in the fall. John Hildebrand and Michael R. Ebert report on Newsday.com that Newsday's review was based mostly on reports from more than 120 Long Island school districts submitted to the state Comptroller's Office and covering nearly $9.8 billion in overall tax revenue. New York State law requires these projections as of March 1 each year as a kind of "early alert" for taxpayers. School levies account for more than 60% of homeowners' tax bills on Long Island.

Districts are scheduled to report final tax and spending plans by April 26. Public voting on proposed budgets will be held May 21.

North Haven Village Mayor Chris Fiore considers himself among the surging number of pickleball fans and players.

“I’m a senior citizen,” he said. “We all love the game.”

But like other Long Island municipal leaders, Fiore and fellow North Haven board members recently have had to confront a side effect of the sport's popularity: noise complaints.

With that in mind, last week the North Haven Village board adopted a six-month moratorium on building permits for courts for pickleball or padel, a similar racket sport, on residential properties.

The moratorium also applies to converting tennis courts for pickleball use but doesn't limit construction permits for new tennis courts. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that East Hampton Village approved a similar moratorium last year and Southampton Village discussed potential code changes last month that would set boundary requirements for pickleball and padel courts.

In North Haven, a village of about 1,100 residents nestled between Sag Harbor and Shelter Island, the moratorium will allow officials time to consider code changes, such as sound abatement requirements or banning pickleball courts on residential property, according to Mayor Fiore.

North Haven has a tennis court behind its village hall where residents also can play pickleball.

Fiore said the village plans to resurface that court with money from a federal grant. He said he also plans to propose adding $75,000 to the June 1 budget to build two pickleball courts at village hall — a safe distance from residential properties.

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A renewable energy company has proposed building a 2-megawatt solar array in Southampton Town that it says will help reduce fossil fuels and save residents money.

But neighbors of the proposed site in Quiogue, located between the villages of Westhampton Beach and Quogue, have raised concerns about the facility’s proximity to homes, potential noise it will generate and negative impacts to the environment and wildlife. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that New York City-based CVE North America proposes to install approximately 4,000 solar panels on property it leased from Westhampton Beach Village solely for the project. The company is at the beginning of a lengthy approval process.

Several residents objected to the solar array during a Southampton Planning Board public hearing last week on the company’s pre-submission site plan application.

Potential noise the panels typically generate topped the list of concerns raised by 10 residents at the hearing, some of whom described their neighborhood as “peaceful” and their home as a “sanctuary.”

In November, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced more than two gigawatts of community solar had been installed in New York with a goal of installing six gigawatts of distributed solar by 2025, according to New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

Community solar programs, such as the one proposed in Quiogue, are designed to expand access to solar energy.

Westhampton Beach Village approved a lease agreement with CVE in February 2023 for the company to build a solar farm.

The Southampton Town Planning board plans to reconvene March 28 and further address the solar proposal in Quiogue.

The clock is running down on a plan to transition LIPA to a fully public utility, as NYS Assembly sponsors struggle to bring the public measure to a vote while the state Senate has yet to introduce a companion bill. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that if the state legislative measure were to fail — as seems increasingly likely — and LIPA is not able to put the contract out to bid to find a new operator in the coming weeks, it would be a victory for New Jersey-based PSEG, which has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying against a fully public utility. One option that could be on the table is an extension of PSEG's existing contract, which expires at the end of next year. But NYS Assemb. Fred Thiele (D-Sag Harbor) said renewing PSEG's contract is "not a viable option, given their record of poor performance and public misrepresentations. Long Islanders deserve better."

Criticism of PSEG as grid operator by LIPA management and the state Department of Public Service followed its failures during Tropical Storm Isaias in 2020. After conducting a probe, DPS recommended that LIPA search for a new grid manager or operate the utility itself, according to a lengthy state report critical of PSEG.

Proponents of the bill to make LIPA fully public, which they say would save ratepayers $80 million a year and give Long Island lawmakers and a union seats on its board for the first time, have just over two months to get the measure passed by the legislature. LIPA, meanwhile, is working on a backup plan to put the contract out to bid should the measure fail.

That effort could be complicated by the resignation of LIPA chief executive officer Tom Falcone, which was announced this week. Falcone, a 10-year LIPA veteran, had been among the chief critics of PSEG's performance and has led a buildup of both LIPA's financial position and its bench of experienced executives.

"The resignation of Tom Falcone coupled with the lack of a Senate sponsor for transitioning LIPA to public power significantly clouds its future," said Assemblyman Thiele who is the bill's sponsor.

“The timeline is tight,” said Thiele, who noted his plan to pass the measure in the full Assembly could be the momentum that eventually leads to full legislative passage.

Thiele said the plan is to move it in the Assembly “as soon as possible.”

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Parents spoke out Tuesday night against cuts to the Riverhead Central School District’s elementary dual language program and instructional staffing reductions proposed by the administration in its 2024-25 budget.

Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that most of the criticism of the proposal was directed at the district gutting its K-4 school dual language program, in which both native English and Spanish speaking elementary school students learn by taking courses in both languages. District officials said that instead of being offered in all four of the district’s elementary schools, the program will be consolidated at Phillips Avenue Elementary School, where the program began more than a decade ago. The program was expanded to include the other three elementary schools in the current school term.

Eliminating the positions mentioned this week, which would eliminate 56.8 full-time faculty and staff positions from the district through layoffs and attrition, allows the Riverhead Central School District to reduce potential expenditures for salary and benefits by $6.68 million according to Interim Assistant Superintendent for Business Marianne Cartisano.

The administration has proposed a $201.4 million budget for next school year — an increase of $9.4 million, or roughly 5%, over its current budget. The proposal would require a tax levy increase of 3.34%, the maximum allowed by the state-imposed tax levy cap in Riverhead next year. Several of the positions being cut were funded by a portion of roughly $20 million in federal coronavirus recovery funding the district received over the last three school years. The federal funding runs out this year.

The Riverhead School Board is scheduled to vote on adopting a budget on April 16 and hold a hearing on the budget May 14. The budget will be up for a vote by district residents on May 21.

A shoplifting epidemic costing retailers in New York state $4.4 billion a year is creating a shadow re-sale economy that ranges from eBay to bodegas. Michael Kaplan reports in THE NY POST that shoplifting in New York City alone rose 64% from June 2019 to June 2023, according to the Council on Criminal Justice. In 2022, the total estimated loss to shops in the state was $4.4 billion, Governor Kathy Hochul said last month. And retailers and law enforcement told The Post that the need to sell the stolen goods has created a sprawling underground economy. Thieves and middlemen are selling shoplifted goods on resale sites such as eBay and Facebook Marketplace and filling warehouse spaces at illegal pawn shops. Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said he had busted a super-sized version of such an operation. “We surveilled the boosters and saw them transporting their goods to EZ Cash Pawn & Jewelry in Brentwood,” said Tierney. “The goods, which seemed to be stolen locally, would be kept in a room behind the pawn shop. It looked like a Home Depot warehouse.” Cross-state travel is part of the pattern, Suffolk County DA Tierney told The Post. “In a 2022 arrest, when a group cleaned out $94,000 worth of purses from a Balenciaga store in East Hampton, a defendant was wearing an ankle bracelet from a prior arrest in another jurisdiction,” he said. In other cases that law enforcement had dealt with, said Tierney, “Shoplifters would start in New Jersey, begin driving, and basically shoplift their way to Suffolk County to deliver the goods.”

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Legislation that rewrites the state’s teacher evaluation system — giving more local control to districts and eliminating student test scores as a required assessment tool — is expected to be delivered to state lawmakers today. Joie Tyrrell reports on Newsday.com that Melinda Person, president of New York State United Teachers, and state Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa are scheduled to jointly deliver the proposed legislation at the State Capitol, which union leaders said “rewrites New York’s flawed teacher evaluation system to finally support educators, administrators and students.”

“The extraordinary agreement is the result of deliberative discussions among the union, state officials and scores of stakeholders to fix the punitive evaluation system that was foisted upon teachers in 2010,” New York State United Teachers said in a release.

Some statewide education groups applauded the move. “We were extensively involved in developing the proposal and support its adoption. It was the product of months of discussion between the State Education Department and multiple school groups,” said Robert Lowry, deputy director for advocacy, research and communications for the New York State Council of School Superintendents. “The proposal would restore local control, eliminating some of the damaging parts of the current system and giving districts flexibility to negotiate plans that fit their local circumstances.”

The Town of Southampton is launching a Canoe Place Traffic Reduction Program on Monday April 1st designed to address chronic traffic congestion in that part of town. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that an announcement yesterday from Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore notes that the program will be implemented on weekdays from 5:30am to 9:30 a.m., and that the traffic light at the intersection of Montauk Highway and Canoe Place Road in Hampton Bays will be set to “flash.”

Left-hand turns from Canoe Place Road onto Montauk Highway will be banned at that intersection during those hours.

The flashing light means that the morning-commute traffic on Montauk Highway would flow east without having to stop at Canoe Place Road, though the blinking yellow light would hopefully provide an encouragement to slow down.

Canoe Place Road drivers would see a flashing red light, which is the equivalent of a stop sign.

The town will deploy resources from the Southampton Town Police Department to make sure the program goes down safely, while the Town of Southampton Highway Department will deploy traffic cones, signage and electronic message boards “to alert and inform motorists traveling through the intersection,” according to Tuesday’s announcement.

Supervisor Moore said the Town Board is committed to maintaining the program through the end of September.

A Traffic Mitigation and Safety Task Force that was created via a Southampton Town Board resolution earlier this year will begin meeting in April, Moore noted, “to review other possible traffic mitigation strategies and make recommendations to the Town Board in the fall.”

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Riverhead schools plan to cut nearly 38 teaching positions, making it the latest school district on Long Island to announce layoffs as federal COVID funding is set to run out and state budget negotiations continue. Dandan Zou reports on Newsday.com that the full-time equivalent of 37.8 teaching positions would be eliminated after the school year ends, said district spokesman Ron Edelson.

Of those, 19 would be “excessed completely” and four reduced to below full time, said Gregory Wallace, president of the Riverhead Central Faculty Association. Fifteen positions would be cut through attrition; those jobs would not be filled, he said.

Wallace said the affected teachers, none of them tenured, were notified last Friday.

“It’s heartbreaking and heart-wrenching to go through this,” he said. “This is purely budgetary. It’s not based [on] what the students need. … They are losing out on needed services and academic intervention.”

The affected positions include 11 in elementary schools and 1.5 in music assigned to elementary schools, Wallace said. On the secondary level, the cut positions include two in English, one in foreign languages, 1.7 in art, two in social studies, 1.2 in math and 0.4 in science.

Wallace also pointed to charter school tuitions, tax abatements given by the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency, and years of underfunding from the state as reasons for the district’s financial woes.

Riverhead’s proposed 2024-25 budget is $201,464,530, up 4.93% from $191,999,210 in 2023-24.

Under Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed budget, Riverhead is projected to receive 4% more in total aid in 2024-25 than the current school year, Newsday reported in January. State budget negotiations are continuing, with the budget due April 1.

Over a week now since their hometown hero’s trans-oceanic nationally proclaimed seven seas trek triumphantly concluded, Bonac is still buzzing about Cole Brauer, the 29-year-old, 5’ 2’ 100 lb. 2012 East Hampton High School graduate who had been sailing solo around the world since Oct. 29. She arrived at the Global Solo Challenge race’s finish line in Spain, early morning on the 8th of March, on her 40-foot boat, First Light, becoming the first American woman to sail solo nonstop around the world’s three great capes, and the 18th woman to do it overall. The Bonac community along with 450,000 other friends closely followed Brauer’s journey since the early days of her solo voyage, cruising along with each of Cole’s posts and stories. Ms. Brauer tells the NY TIMES that she received as much from her followers as she gave them. “They are so loving,” she said. “I send a photo of a sunset, and they paint watercolors of the scene to sell and raise money for the campaign. When I start to feel down, they let me stand on their shoulders.” Cole Brauer finished the Global Solo Challenge in second place. She was both the youngest skipper and the only female sailor in the fleet of 16 boats.

The flag of the Republic of Ireland flies on the village green in Jamesport.

Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Linda Simonsen and Leanne Simonsen, grand marshals of the 2024 Jamesport St. Patrick’s Day Parade later this month, hoisted the Irish tricolor up the flagpole on Wednesday afternoon. Past grand marshals, local elected officials and community residents looked on. A bagpiper from the Suffolk County Emerald Society provided music for the event, which was organized by the East End Emerald Society, sponsor of the annual Jamesport St. Patrick’s Day Parade…which began in 2014 — the first St. Patrick’s Day parade held in the Town of Riverhead, where Irish is the top self-reported ancestry. The 2024 parade will commence on Saturday, March 30 beginning at 1 p.m. The parade steps off on Main Road at Washington Avenue and continues east to Manor Lane. Grand marshals Linda and Leanne Simonsen are the mother and widow of fallen NYPD Officer Brian Simonsen, a Jamesport native who was killed in the line of duty in February 2019.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was in Southampton yesterday where she announced the formal completion of the South Fork Wind Farm, the nation’s first utility-scale offshore wind array in federal waters. Governor Hochul called the LIPA project a “triumph of New York ambition.” Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that Hochul, who visited the Stony Brook / Southampton campus to pull a ceremonial switch for the $2.01 billion, 12-turbine array, said it marked “an incredible milestone of progress for New York” and for “all America,” with enough energy to power 70,000 homes. “This is how you get it done,” she said of the project built off the coast of New England 35 miles from Montauk Point and contracted by LIPA in 2017. The event included U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine, a Republican proponent of offshore wind. Romaine said the completion of South Fork Wind “will give me a guidepost for the next project,” Sunrise Wind…a cable project he helped negotiate through Brookhaven Town. “We’re all together in this,” he said. South Fork Wind was developed for the Long Island Power Authority by a joint-venture partnership between Denmark-based Orsted and New England utility Eversource. Eversource has since sold its interest in the project. Hochul said bigger setbacks for the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry would not slow the state’s progress for 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035. The South Fork project at 130 megawatts is the only offshore project in the state, and in federal waters, but two other state projects are slated for completion by 2026. Sunrise Wind, at 924 megawatts, is “on the path to move forward,” Hochul noted. The state last month approved a preliminary new contract that gives Sunrise, as well as Empire Wind 1 slated for 12 miles off Long Beach, more money for their power.

Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that native Long Island tribes and fishermen said the milestone fell short of including their interests. Outside the event on the SBU / Southampton campus, Becky Genia, a Shinnecock Indian Nation member and chairwoman of the Shinnecock Graves Protection Warrior Society, held a sign suggesting that turbines should be built on golf courses, not in the ocean. “This is not about eco-friendly or green energy or clean energy, it’s about who’s going to make the most money in the least amount of time,” she said, adding that tribal nations have only received “token inclusion” in the federal review and benefits of the projects. Bryan Polite, outgoing chairman of the Shinnecock Nation, who did attend the event, said the federally approved project has fallen short in including Native members in the benefits. He said Shinnecock members have not been offered training or jobs from offshore wind and attempts to include the tribe in the regulatory review process have fallen short. And while there have been “conversations about jobs,” there’s been “nothing specific for training anybody from Shinnecock. We’d love to be involved,” said Chairman Polite.

Some Long Island fishermen expressed dismay at completion of South Fork Wind and the project’s promised benefits. Long Island Commercial Fishing Association executive director, Bonnie Brady, noted that South Fork and other New York projects have yet to provide a mechanism for compensation for lost fishing grounds and income from those who fish waters hosting turbines and cables. Commercial fishermen in Rhode Island and Massachusetts have access to programs that compensate them for those losses, Brady said, but New York fishermen can only get compensation for lost fishing gear, if they can prove it, through an application process administered by Orsted.

Christopher Walsh in THE EAST HAMPTON STAR reports that a triumphant and long-awaited moment for proponents of clean energy followed when the governor and other officials including the wind farm’s developers flipped an oversize switch — “it really works,” the governor said — to “officially bring the turbines online…And I assure you, it will have national ramifications.” Construction of the 12-turbine, 132 megawatt wind farm, located around 35 miles off Montauk Point, was recently completed. It will provide clean, renewable electricity sufficient to power around 70,000 average-size houses. The developers, Orsted and Eversource Energy, and state and local officials had celebrated the first power flowing from the first completed turbine just three months ago at an event at East Hampton Town Hall. On Thursday morning, the governor was among officials noting that a ceremonial groundbreaking for the wind farm’s construction had taken place almost two years ago to the day, at LTV Studios in Wainscott. The wind farm’s export cable makes landfall in Wainscott at the ocean beach by Beach Lane. Some residents sought to create an incorporated village to thwart the town and town trustees’ agreement allowing the developers to land the cable there and send it underground to the Long Island Power Authority substation in East Hampton. That effort was unsuccessful, but the governor acknowledged “some tough decisions” required of the East Hampton Town Board. “This was not an easy lift for you, because you certainly heard from a lot of constituents,” she said. “I understand that pressure and I commend you for powering through all that and making sure that we could be here today.”

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As the seas rise and altered weather patterns bring more frequent and intense storms, Long Island's shores are getting heavily battered, raising questions of how to deal with continued coastal erosion. Tracy Tullis reports on Newsday.com that in three storms in December and January, heavy waves and raiinfall scraped away the foundations of the North Shore’s iconic bluffs. The most alarming damage was on South Shore beaches, including at state parks such as Gilgo Beach and Hither Hills, and on Fire Island. Replacing sand is the most immediate remedy, but it is a costly and temporary fix. Most experts advocate “nature-based” solutions, but say rising seas will begin to outpace even the most effective remedies. Many communities are asking for help from the state or the federal government, but there's no guarantee their projects will be funded.

Ditch Plains Beach in Montauk is one that residents and the local government are hoping can be restored. Until this winter, it was several hundred feet wide at high tide. Now the water reaches within about 100 feet of the dune, even when the tide is out. Storm surge in January overtopped the dunes, ripping the porch from one shingled house. The small dune the owner had built to protect the property has disappeared.

“Sand does get redeposited seasonally, but we’ve never seen anything like this,” said Kay Tyler, of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, a year-round resident of Montauk for 12 years. “A lot of it won’t come back.” The Town of East Hampton has asked the state for funds to restore Ditch Plains Beach, which was not included in the federally funded U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sand project recently completed at Montauk’s Main Beach, at a cost of $11.2 million. Excluding Ditch Plains “was a huge oversight,” Tyler said, “because Ditch is a destination for Montauk. Anyone who knows Montauk knows Ditch Beach, for the surfing, for the scene — it’s the coolest spot.”

The Riverhead school district needs to eliminate roughly 38 full-time equivalent teaching positions next year, according to the district’s business official. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the full-time equivalent of 37.8 teaching positions in the district would be eliminated in the 2024-25 budget, Interim Assistant Superintendent for Business Marianne Cartisano told Riverheadlocal yesterday. Fourteen of those positions will be empty by the end of this year — due to retirements or resignations — and will not be filled next school year, she said. The district is working with employees and the unions to fit employees that are having their positions eliminated to other positions, if possible, Cartisano said. The teacher’s union, the Riverhead Central Faculty Association, started having layoff meetings last week, President Gregory Wallace said. The administration has proposed a $201.4 million budget for next school year — an increase of $9.4 million, or roughly 5%, over its current budget. Cartisano is expected to discuss next year’s staffing plans at the next two Riverhead Board of Education meetings. The school board is scheduled to vote on adopting a budget on April 16 and hold a hearing on the budget May 14. The budget will be up for a vote by district residents on May 21.

The Riverhead Central School District is hosting a free Parent Café workshop in the high school cafeteria this evening at 5:30 p.m. Beth Young of EAST END BEACON reports that in coordination with OLA of Eastern Long Island, the New York State Department of Labor, and local business Café Victoria, attendees will learn about the requirements, testing, license renewal, and financial information necessary to create a corporation or LLC. The Department of Labor’s Matthew Cereola will serve as keynote speaker, and Café Victoria will provide coffee and pastries for the event and share their story of success.

That’s this evening in the Riverhead High School Cafeteria starting at 5:30pm.

An unregulated marijuana compound, often marketed as “weed light,” has seen its popularity grow in recent years among high school seniors and is now a “potential public health concern,” according to a new national study. Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that the study, led by researchers from the University of Southern California and published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is among the first to track adolescent usage of Delta 8 THC, a cannabis product similar to the ingredient found in marijuana but which causes a somewhat less potent high.

Delta 8, which is synthesized from the hemp-cannabis plant, is only slightly chemically different from Delta 9 THC, the principal psychoactive compound found in marijuana, which is largely responsible for the drug’s high.

But while Delta 9 is regulated and legal in New York, Delta 8 is not permitted to be sold or manufactured in New York, according to the state's Office of Cannabis Management. In total, Delta 8 is prohibited in 17 states and restricted in 7 others, according to the National Cannabis Industry Association.

Experts, however, said Delta 8 is widely available online, often without age verification, and in retailers such as vape shops, gas stations and convenience stores in the form of gummies, edibles and vaping cartridges.

Heather Hugelmeyer, director of behavioral health at Northwell Health's Garden City Patient Center, said the major concern is that Delta 8 is largely unregulated but often marketed to minors. She said that, “…these substances are increasingly impactful on adolescent brains, which are still developing. Any substance in an adolescent brain has much more of an impact than it does in an adult.”

State and local officials, along with leaders from the Shinnecock Nation, gathered at Union Sushi and Steak in Southampton Village last Thursday for an Express Sessions conversation about a “new era” for the tribe. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the focus was on the economic development projects tribal leaders have been working on over the past few years, with the hope of providing a better, more sustainable future for the Shinnecock people.

The Shinnecock have a number of economic development projects they’d like to see to fruition over the next few years, including a gaming facility, a resort/spa, and a travel plaza and gas station.

While the first two are in the earliest possible stages of conception and, Tribal Council Chairman Bryan Polite has emphasized many times, still a long way from becoming a reality, the latter is already underway.

The tribe, through Shinnecock Tribal Holdings, already has begun work on the travel plaza and gas station, which will be on 10 acres of its land in Hampton Bays known as the Westwoods property. That piece of tribal-owned land stretches from the edge of Sunrise Highway in Hampton Bays — where the travel plaza will be — to the bluffs overlooking Peconic Bay to the north.

NYS Assemblyman Fred Thiele and members of the Southampton Town Board have said they are in support of the tribe building the travel plaza and gas station, but the main sticking point thus far has been where customers would enter and exit the station.

Long Island hospitals may soon need to comply with a new type of hygiene standards — cybersecurity ones. Sarina Trangle reports on Newsday.com that hackers have been breaking into hospitals' information systems in New York and other states, slowing clinicians’ communications with labs, pharmacists and insurers, forcing ambulances to reroute and delaying treatment for those in acute distress. Cyberattacks are not known to have disrupted clinical care at Long Island hospitals, but major health systems here declined requests to discuss the issue or to detail their experiences, with some citing concerns about raising their profile as potential targets. Mortality rates rise when a hospital is under attack, research shows. Cybersecurity standards are in the works at both the state and federal level.

A week since their hometown hero’s trans-oceanic nationally proclaimed seven seas trek triumphantly concluded, Bonac is still buzzing about Cole Brauer, the 29-year-old, 5’ 2’ 100 lb. 2012 East Hampton High School graduate who had been sailing solo around the world since Oct. 29. She arrived at the Global Solo Challenge race’s finish line in A Coruña, Spain, early last Thursday morning, as her 40-foot boat, First Light, “would have wanted it,” becoming the first American woman to sail solo nonstop around the world’s three great capes, and the 18th woman to do it overall. The Bonac community along with 400,000+ other friends closely followed Brauer’s journey since the early days of her solo voyage, cruising along with each of Cole’s posts and stories. “East Hampton could not be more proud,” Schools Superintendent Adam Fine said. “Cole epitomizes perseverance and positivity. This achievement is monumental. Her commitment to advancing women’s sailing is to be admired, and should be supported by everyone.” Ms. Brauer tells the NY TIMES that she received as much from her followers as she gave them. “They are so loving,” she said. “I send a photo of a sunset, and they paint watercolors of the scene to sell and raise money for the campaign. When I start to feel down, they let me stand on their shoulders.” Cole Brauer finished the Global Solo Challenge in second place, setting a new Class40 around-the-world speed record and amassing 450,000 followers on Instagram in the process. At just 29 years old, Brauer was both the youngest skipper and the only female sailor in the fleet of 16 boats.

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What do free bus rides, new taxes on the wealthy and a stiff drink in a movie theater have in common? All three have the support of lawmakers in the New York State Legislature. Grace Ashford and Erin Nolan report in THE NY TIMES that these ideas and thousands of others were tucked into the Senate and Assembly budget proposals released this week, offering a glimpse of legislators’ positions as Albany’s annual budget battle royale kicks off. Gov. Kathy Hochul must come to a consensus with leaders in the State Senate and Assembly on how to spend more than $230 billion by the state’s April 1 budget deadline.

The fact that all three leaders are Democrats does not mean there is any less to haggle over: Taxing the rich, tenant protections and school funding are all up for debate once more as Governor Hochul, a centrist from Buffalo, will be forced to find common ground with an increasingly left-leaning Legislature.

And while those debates have sometimes become intractable — last year’s budget was a full month late, after Ms. Hochul insisted on tightening the state’s bail laws — Democrats in both houses are eager to avoid a prolonged ordeal with a consequential general election on the horizon.

In January, Governor Hochul unveiled her $233 billion spending plan, which called for significant investments in mental health care, public safety and artificial intelligence research, as well as $2.4 billion to address the migrant crisis in New York City. But she also proposed cuts to education funding and health care that have drawn criticism.

Last month, Riverhead Town posted the draft chapters for its new comprehensive plan, giving the public a glimpse into what the final plan might look like, and what possible changes to town policy could be coming down the road. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the new plan, specifically its final chapter on “future land use,” will guide the development of new zoning laws, which regulate what can be built, where it can be built and what that development should look like through the next two decades. The chapter has a lot to say about topics of interest to many, among them the future of industrial development, farmland preservation and housing.

The draft chapters are not final and the Town of Riverhead is still receiving input from the public. The deadline for comments on the draft plan is this coming Friday, March 15. Comments will be accepted by email to compplan@townofriverheadny.gov.

The individual chapters can be downloaded separately on the town’s comprehensive plan website.

There will be more opportunities to comment on the document, including the mandatory public hearing the Town Board must hold before it can adopt the plan. The Riverhead Town Board will also need to decide whether to act on changes outlined in the plan after it’s adopted. Those changes will require town code amendments, which will also be the subject of public hearings prior to adoption.

Once the butt of jokes, LaGuardia Airport’s reputation is now sky-high.

The Airport Service Quality survey has recognized LaGuardia as one of the two best airports in its class in North America in 2023, according to a study published on Monday. Maureen Mullarkey reports on Newsday.com that the airport earned an overall passenger satisfaction score of 4.24 out of 5, which was 20% higher than its score in 2018, when passengers rated LaGuardia as the worst airport in North America. As a result, LaGuardia was named ASQ’s “Best Airport of 25 to 40 Million Passengers in North America.” More than 4,200 passengers participated in the survey at LaGuardia, which was conducted near the airport’s gates throughout 2023. The survey followed an $8 billion construction project to transform the airport, which broke ground in 2016 and was substantially completed in 2022, the Port Authority said.

Suffolk County could have avoided $13.8 million in information technology spending during the Bellone administration by not making unnecessary and redundant purchases, a preliminary review by the county comptroller’s office has found. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that had the county not spent that money as it did, annually recurring savings could have been $3.5 million, the several-month review by Comptroller John Kennedy’s office found, according to a letter summarizing the findings obtained by Newsday. “The degree of negligence on the part of the prior administration is unprecedented,” Kennedy told Newsday yesterday, adding that his review is in its early stages. “There’s more to come.” Kennedy noted that the county experienced a phishing attempt this weekend. “We will double down on our efforts and continue until we have every aspect of the dysfunction eliminated and systems stood back up in good working order,” he said. Former County Executive Steve Bellone, in a statement, called the comptroller's findings “factually inaccurate.” Current Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine stated, “This comes as no surprise as my administration continues to find evidence of wasteful spending and unfulfilled obligations.” Romaine called Kennedy's findings “just the tip of the iceberg, and we will continue to identify and claw back taxpayer dollars to make sure Suffolk County is a safer and more affordable place to live.” Romaine will hire an outside firm to conduct a “deep-dive audit” into the September 2022 cyberattack and money that was spent in response, his office said.

The Town of East Hampton has agreed to purchase a Montauk property less than one-sixth of an acre in size with a dilapidated cottage on it for a little more than $1 million. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the Town Board last week approved the purchase of 71 Navy Road from its current owners, William and Maryann Bailey, for $1,050,000. The deal requires that the Baileys tear down the existing cottage and other structures and any other signs of development, at their expense, before turning the land over to East Hampton Town. The lot the cottage stands on is just 6,800 square feet, or about .155 acres, wedged between Navy Road and the Long Island Rail Road tracks in Montauk. But it sits just feet from the beach and the waters of Fort Pond Bay. The property is seen as high risk for flooding and all of Navy Road was spotlighted by a recent town study of its coastal development as a problematic area for structures to remain as sea levels rise. Scott Wilson, the head of East Hampton Town’s Department of Land Management and Acquisition, said that removing structures from such properties allows coastal wetlands and habitat to retreat as sea levels rise and also reduces problems of nitrogen pollution from septic systems. “Since this is a flood-prone area, redevelopment and the ability for sanitary systems to meet minimum separations to groundwater is an issue,” Wilson told the Town Board last month.

A new task force will focus on snaring drivers who use phony or doctored license plates to dodge tolls, red light and speed cameras, and to flee crime scenes undetected, officials said yesterday. The announcement comes less than two years after law enforcement personnel announced in July 2022 a crackdown on "ghost cars," and fake and adulterated plates. The problem persists. Alfonso A. Castillo and Matthew Chayes report on Newsday.com that the task force comprises about 150 members representing several agencies, including the NYPD, MTA Bridge and Tunnel Officers, New York State Troopers, Port Authority Police, the New York City Sheriff’s Office, and the Department of Motor Vehicles. The different agencies will share intelligence and strategies, and coordinate on monthly sting operations at various tolling locations, according to officials. “We’re going after the ghost vehicles because we’re sick and tired of people taking advantage. And everybody else feels like a sucker, because they’re paying their tolls like law-abiding citizens,” declared New York Governor Kathy Hochul speaking from RFK Bridge in N.Y.C. on Tuesday.

News that a kayaker had been overturned and sucked out of Moriches Inlet into frigid ocean waters last month shocked many in the local boating community. The surprise was not just at the seemingly foolhardy venture of kayaking, especially near the inlet, in wintertime, but, for many, was also at the revelation that the U.S. Coast Guard station that sits on the bay’s northern shoreline, just a mile and a half from the inlet, is not manned with emergency response crews or vessels in the off-season anymore.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the East Moriches Coast Guard station is now officially manned by a single USCG rescue vessel and crew only on weekends during the summer months, deploying one of the boats otherwise assigned to the Coast Guard station in Shinnecock Bay, known as Station Shinnecock. The rest of the time, the East Moriches station is purely an administrative office.

To fill the gap in marine rescue emergencies, six local fire departments have formed a joint response team that trains with the Coast Guard and drills twice a week on water rescues and searches and a wide variety of scenarios. With a half-dozen vessels and more than three dozen volunteers, the Marine Incident Response Team, or MIRT, responded to 21 emergency calls in 2023.

The removal of the rescue deployment from East Moriches is part of a service-wide struggle with staffing levels within the Coast Guard that has plagued the service in recent years and is the second trimming of Coast Guard crews on the South Fork this winter. In December, the Coast Guard announced that it would be removing the cutter assignment from Montauk Harbor as personnel shortages have forced it to reduce the cutter fleet.

Coast Guard brass have blamed the shortages on recruiting and retention difficulties, especially since the 2020 pandemic. Currently, the Coast Guard is more than 10 percent below its target personnel level, forcing a consolidation of services.

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St. Anthony’s High School in Huntington will offer a college-level course in African American Studies in the fall, using principles of the Catholic Church that focus on dignity, school officials said. Deborah S. Morris reports on Newsday.com that the Advancement Placement course will be the second class added to the school’s curriculum in recent years that specifically focuses on the Black experience in America. The school established an African American literature class last year.

Nick Vasiliades will be teaching the AP class. It can accommodate 30 students and will be offered as an elective for seniors to fulfill their social studies requirement.

The College Board, the Manhattan-based nonprofit that creates the curriculum for Advanced Placement classes and sponsors the SAT, said the course officially launches in the fall after a pilot program in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years.

Seven school districts and two private/charter schools on Long Island piloted the course for this school year, said Sara Sympson, director of communications for the College Board.

The College Board said the AP class is an interdisciplinary course that draws from a variety of fields — history, literature, arts, geography and science — to explore the vital contributions and experiences of African Americans, from ancient African societies to the present.

At St. Anthony’s, the class will be taught using College Board criteria but through the lens of the seven principles of Catholic Social Teaching: dignity of the human person; options for the poor and vulnerable; dignity of work and the rights of workers; solidarity; call to family, community and participation; care for God’s creation; and rights and responsibilities, Vasiliades said.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that the deal is expected to be ratified by the entire Village Board when it meets at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 12. Gardella said the village would pay Potter’s 5 Bridge Street, LLC, $52,500 a year for the right to use the lot, which holds approximately 93 parking spaces. The Village of Sag Harbor will recoup the cost by charging for parking as it already does on Long Wharf. The mayor said village residents and first responders would not be required to pay to park and that he would like to see an arrangement by which free, or reduced fee, parking could be extended to employees of village businesses.

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a special meeting on Wednesday, March 13 regarding the environmental analysis of the new proposal to impose restrictions on the town’s airport in Wainscott which operates under the JPX call sign. The nearly 2,000-page analysis released by the town’s consultants last month examines the potential impacts that reducing flights at JPX might have at other airports in the region. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that regardless of public response or the Town Board’s assessment of the impacts, the Town of East Hampton will not be able to impose any restrictions at the airport in Wainscott until a state appeals court issues its findings in the appeal of the ruling that blocked the restrictions in 2022.

Democrats in the NYS legislature want to scrap Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed reductions to education funding and embrace aspects of an agreement to incentivize more housing as part of state budget negotiations. Vaughn Golden reports in THE NY POST that the state Senate’s wide ranging budget proposal released last night would be paid for by jacking up taxes on New Yorker’s making more than $5 million as well as an increased corporate tax.

The Senate’s proposal is a largely symbolic part of the process meant to scope out the parameters around which legislative leaders and the governor will hammer out the state’s budget behind closed doors in the coming weeks.

Hochul’s $233 billion budget proposal released in January includes changes to the state’s formula for distributing education funding called foundation aid. Under Hochul’s plan, 337 school districts, nearly half, would see a reduction in the amount of foundation aid they received this year.

Democrats and Republicans quickly and loudly rejected the education cuts along with powerful advocacy groups and unions like New York State United Teachers.

The state Assembly is expected to release its budget proposal sometime this week. While the state budget is due by April 1, Hochul and others have expressed skepticism that this year’s negotiations will be completed by the deadline, which also coincides with the Easter holiday. Easter Sunday in 2024 is March 31.

A Riverhead man was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in prison for manslaughter and weapon charges in the fatal shooting of a Riverhead man during a robbery in Coram in December 2021, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney. Marcus Reid, 24, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and five years of post-release supervision for the fatal shooting of Branzel Bonner, 25 of Riverhead, while attempting to rob him, the DA said in a press release Monday. Reid entered guilty pleas last month to charges of first degree manslaughter and second degree criminal possession of a weapon.

“Today’s sentence brings justice to Mr. Bonner’s family and also removes this dangerous defendant from our streets in Suffolk County,” Tierney said in a statement. According to court documents and the defendant’s admissions during his guilty plea allocution, Tierney said, on the morning of Dec. 2, 2021, Reid fired multiple rounds from a semi-automatic .40 caliber handgun at the ground below Bonner’s feet, demanding that he hand over his fanny pack. When Bonner refused, Reid repeatedly shot Bonner in the torso, Tierney said. Reid removed the contents of Bonner’s fanny pack and fled the scene. Bonner was pronounced dead at Stony Brook University Hospital within an hour of the shooting, according to the district attorney. In his haste to flee the wooded area where the shooting took place, Reid dropped his own debit card at the scene, which was recovered by law enforcement and was also captured on surveillance video, Tierney said in a press release. Reid was sentenced by Acting Supreme Court Justice Stephen Braslow.

Sag Harbor Mayor Tom Gardella said yesterday that the village had reached a deal to lease what is commonly called the gas ball parking lot from developer Adam Potter for three years. Potter, who has been scaling back plans for a mixed-use development on neighboring properties, has indicated on filings with the Village Planning Board that he intended to use at least some of the spaces in the lot to meet parking requirements. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that the deal is expected to be ratified by the entire Sag Harbor Village Board when it meets at 6 o’clock this evening. Gardella said the village would pay Potter’s 5 Bridge Street, LLC, $52,500 a year for the right to use the lot, which holds approximately 93 parking spaces. The village will recoup the cost by charging for parking as it already does on Long Wharf. The mayor said village residents and first responders would not be required to pay to park and that he would like to see an arrangement by which free, or reduced fee, parking could be extended to employees of village businesses.

The individual chapters can be downloaded separately on the town’s comprehensive plan website.

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COVID-19 is dramatically different from when it was declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020... 4 years ago today. Deaths and hospitalizations are down sharply. The virus remains potentially dangerous to the most medically vulnerable, including older adults and people who are immunocompromised. But unlike at the beginning of the pandemic, there are vaccines and treatments to mitigate risk for many. Experts say the way COVID-19 was handled — both the mistakes and the achievements — can help inform how the next pandemic is approached.

David Olson and Lisa L. Colangelo report on Newsday.com that COVID-19 still causes severe symptoms and death, and experts don't know how many of the millions of Americans with long COVID will continue to endure the sometimes debilitating long-term effects of the virus.

But today COVID-19 has largely receded into the background. Deaths and hospitalizations have fallen sharply. Mask-wearing is uncommon. Uptake of the updated vaccine is low. In a sign of the decreased threat from the virus that causes COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month ended its recommendation that those who test positive for COVID-19 isolate for at least five days. The new guidelines say people with COVID-19 can end isolation if they’ve been fever-free for at least 24 hours without medication and their symptoms are improving. Masks and other precautions are recommended for the following five days.

The World Health Organization still defines COVID-19 as a pandemic, but in May 2023 it said the pandemic was no longer a “global emergency.” The same month, the federal government declared COVID-19 was no longer a national public health emergency.

What appears to be a Risso’s dolphin was found washed ashore at Georgica Beach in East Hampton Village early Sunday morning. The animal, which was reportedly alive when it was first spotted by a passerby, has died. As reported on 27east.com, East Hampton Village police responded to the scene, and the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, was responding as well.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries website, Risso’s dolphins, sometimes called gray dolphins, typically live in temperate and tropical zones and prefer deeper, offshore waters. They are able to dive to at least 1,000 feet and hold their breath for up to 30 minutes.

The animals can range in size from 8 and a half to 13 feet and weigh between 650 and 1,300 pounds.

Although they are typically found in pods of 10 to 30 animals, they can also be found individually, according to NOAA.

A recent study found that vehicle front-end designs like those on many SUVs and pickups are deadlier for pedestrians. Adopting a 1.25 meter front-end limit — just over 4 feet — would save 509 pedestrians nationwide yearly, according to the study. Lorena Mongelli reports on Newsday.com that in 2022, more than 7,500 pedestrians were killed across the country, the highest toll since 1981 and an increase of 75% since 2010, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Governor’s Highway Safety Association. Pedestrian deaths have risen on Long Island, to 72 in 2022 compared with 65 in 2018, according to a state database. On Long Island, fatal pedestrian crashes caused by SUVs and pickups have increased, while those caused by cars have shrunk, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Thirty pedestrians were killed by SUVs in 2021, according to the latest information available, compared with 21 in 2016. Meanwhile, 18 pedestrians were killed by passenger cars in 2021 versus 30 in 2016.

To address a growing housing crisis, leaders in New York’s State Senate are set to propose sweeping legislation today that would encourage new construction, establish new tenant protections and also revive some older ideas for building affordable housing. Among them: the creation of a new public benefit corporation that would finance housing construction on state-owned land. Leaders are framing it as a successor to the popular 1950s program known as Mitchell-Lama. New York has faced rising rents and a homelessness crisis exacerbated by an influx of migrants. There is broad consensus that the state needs to act. But leaders have struggled to find a compromise that could unite a fractious group of stakeholders behind a housing program that meets the state’s needs. Grace Ashford and Mihir Zaveri report in THE NY TIMES that lawmakers in the NYS Senate are hoping that by incorporating ideas prized by tenant groups, unions and big developers, this year’s proposal might finally help to break the logjam. Last year, Gov. Kathy Hochul laid out an ambitious plan that would have forced suburbs and other communities to allow for more development, among other pro-growth measures. Lawmakers representing various constituencies balked, and little progress was made. The Senate’s proposal, which will be released in its One House budget bill today, can be understood as an opening bid in the coming budget negotiations: Each year, the governor and both houses of the Legislature propose their own visions for the state. Leaders in Albany have until the April 1 budget deadline to come to an agreement. The NYS Assembly is also expected to release its budget proposal today, which will touch on everything from funding for migrants to school aid to health care spending.

Riverhead’s former top planning official will be on leave with full pay until his resignation next year, according to an agreement approved by the Town Board last week. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Building and Planning Administrator Jefferson Murphree will consecutively use all of his accrued paid vacation, personal and sick leave, and then be suspended with pay after his leave has expired, until his retirement, according to his agreement with the town. The agreement requires Murphree to file a letter of resignation effective March 6, 2025, a year and one day after the Town Board ratified the agreement. The stipulation was approved by the Riverhead Town Board last Tuesday to resolve a disciplinary action brought against Murphree in 2023 by former Supervisor Yvette Aguiar, who accused him of incompetence, neglect of duty and insubordination. The agreement requires the town to withdraw all its charges against Murphree. Murphree, the town’s current elected officials, and Aguiar agree not to “make or encourage any other person to make, any statement that in any way defames, disparages or criticizes” each other, according to the agreement. The agreement only allows the town and Murphree to make a joint statement, which Supervisor Tim Hubbard read during Tuesday’s meeting: “The parties have resolved their dispute and the charges have been withdrawn in exchange for Mr. Murphree’s agreement to retire within one year,” Hubbard said.

A Southampton Town Board public hearing about Wildwood Lake Park scheduled for tomorrow, March 12, has been canceled. As reported on 27east.com, officials announced the hearing was canceled to give Town Attorneys time to rework language in a proposed Town Board resolution that would require a Town of Southampton permit to park at the popular Northampton freshwater swimming and fishing lake, which was created by the receding Wisconsin Glacier during the last Ice Age.

The lake has grown in popularity since the arrival of the Covid epidemic in 2020 and with that has seen a big increase in parking and park overuse problems, including sanitary issues. A pilot program was put in place to limit parking to Town of Southampton residents - the resolution as proposed sought to enshrine that program into town code.

Meanwhile, nearby residents were begging the town to do something about overcrowding at the lake during the height of the high season last July and said the permit-only program only served to push the parking problem onto local streets.

Southampton Town may buy adjacent properties in Quogue to open about 11.7 acres of waterfront property for public use.

Under the proposal, the town would spend about $7.6 million to acquire the two properties at the end of Second Neck Lane that overlook Penniman Cove and Shinnecock Bay. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that the money would come from the town’s Community Preservation Fund, which is used primarily to preserve open space. Money for the fund is generated through a 2% tax on most real estate transactions.

“It’s spectacular looking over the bay there toward Dune Road,” said Jacqueline Fenlon, Southampton's community preservation fund director, during a public hearing on the topic at a Feb. 27 town board meeting.

Fenlon said the properties are a “sleepy area” and would be kept as open space as opposed to a park with amenities like a playground or courts, citing the “sensitivity of wetlands.” She said there could be a trail on the property.

The town board is planning to consider resolutions tomorrow that, if passed, would formally begin the process of buying the land.

One of the parcels, at 38 Second Neck Lane, is 6.4 acres and owned by Pennimans Point Limited Partnership, according to Fenlon. That property is undeveloped, she said, and the purchase price is $3.8 million.

A separate trust in the same family owns the adjacent 5.3-acre property at 40 Second Neck Lane, Fenlon said. There’s open green space on the property as well as a retaining wall that’s in “good condition” that the town would leave in place, the Southampton official added. The purchase price is $3.85 million.

Councilwoman Cyndi McNamara said a plaque at the entrance to the area off Montauk Highway says the road is private property. She asked if that would be changed and Fenlon said she'd look into it further.

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The sparring between Gov. Kathy Hochul and Suffolk County law enforcement yesterday over the Babylon body parts case is calling attention not only to New York’s bail laws but also to how charging decisions can have courtroom and political impacts. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that four people have been charged with concealing a human corpse, along with other charges, after the discovery of body parts found strewed around parks on Long Island. Authorities say the victims were a 53-year-old man and a 59-year-old woman but otherwise have yet to identify them.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney charged the suspects with three Class E felonies — concealing a human corpse, tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution in the first degree.

None of those charges are considered “bail eligible” — in which a prosecutor can ask a judge to hold a suspect on bail — under a state law that was overhauled in 2019 and twice amended. So the suspects were arraigned and released, though forced to wear GPS monitoring bracelets. Experts said under the law, it is police and prosecutors who make charging decisions, and that determines whether bail will even be an issue.

Tierney, a Republican, issued a statement blaming the state’s bail law for the release of the suspects, saying it handcuffed his prosecutors.

But that triggered backlash from Hochul and others, and then a backlash upon the backlash.

Hochul, a Democrat, said instead of blaming the law, perhaps prosecutors should have investigated more thoroughly before leveling charges, giving them a chance to bring higher charges that could have triggered bail.

In a later news conference, Tierney said: “In laymen’s terms, they are not charged with anything more because you don’t have the evidence yet to prove it.”

”Suffolk police union president Louis Civitello said, “Instead of using this opportunity to fix New York's reckless bail reform law, the governor decided to attack law enforcement.”

Former Republican Rep. George Santos, expelled from the U.S. House three months ago over alleged ethical violations, said last night he plans to challenge Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville) for New York's 1st Congressional District seat. Laura Figueroa Hernandez reports on Newsday.com that Santos, elected in 2022 to represent the 3rd District spanning parts of northeast Queens and Nassau County, made his announcement on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter. He filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday to run in the 1st District, which covers Suffolk County’s North Shore and the entire east end.

Santos' post came amid his surprise appearance at the State of the Union address by President Joe Biden. As a former House member, Santos is still afforded the privilege of entering the House floor despite his expulsion in December after a damning House Ethics Committee report that accused him of defrauding campaign donors and filing inaccurate financial disclosures. The U.S. Constitution, which outlines requirements for House members, doesn't forbid expelled congressmen from running again.

LaLota, in a statement, said: "To raise the standard in Congress, and to hold a pathological liar who stole an election accountable, I led the charge to expel George Santos. If finishing the job requires beating him in a primary, count me in."

East End St. Patrick’s Day parades commence marching this weekend.

The Annual Westhampton Beach St. Patrick’s Day Parade steps off at noon tomorrow from the elementary school on Mill Road, marching south to Main Street, and finishing at the corner of Main Street and Sunset Avenue.

Westhampton Beach School District Athletic Director Patty Ziparo-Dalton will be this year’s Grand Marshal.

Also, tomorrow, Cutchogue’s Annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, sponsored by the North Fork Chamber of Commerce and the Cutchogue Fire Department, steps off at 2 p.m., from the traffic light at Cox Lane, marching west on the Main Road to the Cutchogue Fire Department on New Suffolk Road, where hot dogs and refreshments will be available for the community.

Paul Drum will be the Cutchogue Grand Marshal this year.

While a high-stakes presidential election and congressional races on Long Island are taking up much of the spotlight, there’s another ballot measure this November that one group in particular is arguing deserves the attention of voters in New York State.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that on Saturday, March 9th, the League of Women Voters will host what it’s promising will be a multi-faceted, free and, most importantly, educational event from 1 to 5 p.m. at LTV Studios in Wainscott, centered around a new Equal Rights Amendment to the New York State Constitution that will be on the state ballot in November. The New York State Legislature already passed the new amendment, on January 24, but it must be approved by voters to become law. If approved, the amendment would prohibit discrimination by the government based on a person’s ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex — including their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes. It would also protect against any government actions that would curtail a person’s reproductive autonomy or their access to reproductive health care. The ERA would, for the first time, explicitly include language to clarify that discrimination based on a person’s pregnancy or pregnancy outcome is sex discrimination. The League of Women Voters event is tomorrow at 1pm in LTV Studios, 75 Industrial Road in Wainscott. To register for the free event, visit ltveh.org.

George Santos, the disgraced former congressman expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives in December, last night announced he will challenge Rep. Nick LaLota for the Republican nomination in the First Congressional District…which includes the east end. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Santos made the announcement in a social media post during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. He was seated on the House floor during the joint session of Congress last night, exercising his floor access privilege as a former representative.

Santos filed a statement of candidacy form with the Federal Election Commission yesterday. Elected in 2022 to represent NY-03…a Nassau / Queens district…Santos, 35, was expelled from the House in a two-thirds bipartisan vote on Dec. 1, after a House Ethics Committee report found there was “substantial evidence” Santos had violated federal criminal laws, stole from his campaign and then used those donations for his personal benefit. New York’s primary election is scheduled for June 25.

The League of Women Voters of The Hamptons, North Fork and Shelter Island holds a multi-faceted, fun-filled and free educational program highlighting a new equal rights amendment to the New York State constitution, which will appear on the New York State ballot in November. The educational event is tomorrow from 1 to 5 p.m. at East Hampton Town’s LTV Studios in Wainscott.

While the New York State legislature has already passed the new amendment, it must be approved by voters via a November ballot measure in order to become law.

Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the purpose of the New York State Equal Rights Protection Amendment to the State Constitution is to ensure against discrimination based on a person’s race, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, creed, religion or sex, including sexual orientation, pregnancy and reproductive health care.

LTV asks that people register for the free program on its website at www.ltveh.org.

The event is tomorrow from 1 to 5 p.m. at LTV Studios in Wainscott.

Long Island’s economy has finally surpassed the number of jobs it had prior to the pandemic, according to state revisions of jobs data released yesterday.

After annual revisions were conducted earlier this month, it was found that Nassau and Suffolk combined had exceeded 2019 levels for total jobs — not including farm work — last August, September, and October, according to NYS data. January job counts also surpassed pre-pandemic figures. Victor Ocasio reports on Newsday.com that overall, revisions showed that Long Island had added more jobs in 2023 than initially estimated.

After benchmark revisions conducted earlier this year, the state found that Nassau and Suffolk added 15,700 jobs, compared with the previous year.

“The big news is that we’re above pre-pandemic levels,” said Shital Patel, labor market analyst for the state Labor Department’s Hicksville office. “This is welcome news for the region.”

John A. Rizzo, an economist and a Stony Brook University professor, said the new numbers paint the picture of a strong economy.

“Obviously, the labor market is growing strong year over year,” Rizzo said. “We also have inflation under control, a stock market near historic highs, and unemployment near historic lows.”

Despite that, Rizzo said consumer sentiment doesn’t reflect the positive signs in the economy.

“While inflation is under control, the absolute level of food prices is high,” he said. The fact that on average the economy is doing well masks the fact that a lot of people feel left out of this improvement.”

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Hampton Jitney is alerting its riders that potential fare increases could be on the horizon because of a congestion pricing proposal in the New York metro area, which would force the bus company to pay significantly more in tolls when it enters the city’s central business district.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the business district tolling program includes vehicles using the Queens Midtown Tunnel, which Hampton Jitney entered roughly 20,000 times last year.

H.J. President Geoffrey Lynch said last week he is hoping that Hampton Jitney will be offered an exemption from the congestion pricing, because the company and the service it provides is “part of the solution” to the traffic congestion issue in Manhattan. But he said that, thus far, in discussions with the MTA, an exemption looks like a long shot.

Lynch said the congestion pricing would add “hundreds of thousands” of dollars to Hampton Jitney’s annual toll expense, potentially doubling the cost of what it spends on tolls, and added that in 2023, Hampton Jitney spent half a million dollars on E-Z Pass tolls.

“And there are other cost inputs besides just tolls to consider. Trying to state what passengers will pay right now if Hampton Jitney is not exempted would require a whole new fare table, which we do not have yet. It’s safe to say that if we are subjected to the congestion price toll, it would add 25 cents to 75 cents to the cost of a fare.”

The MTA has opened the congestion pricing toll recommendations for public comment until March 11. Those who want to comment online can visit contact.mta.info/s/forms/CBDTP.

A business looking to open a marijuana shop in Riverhead believes the town law regulating the locations of dispensaries is overly restrictive and has asked state regulators to decide whether it complies with the state cannabis law. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that such a finding by the state would tee up a lawsuit challenging the town’s regulations.

The request to the NYS Office of Cannabis Management, sent this week by lawyers on behalf of the business, asks for an opinion on whether the town’s cannabis zoning is “unreasonably impracticable” and in violation of the 2021 law that legalized recreational marijuana in New York.

Tink & E. Co. Inc., which according to the letter is in line for a state cannabis license, wants to open its dispensary at a former bank building on Ostrander Avenue immediately off Route 58 in Riverhead. But the site does not comply with the town’s cannabis zoning, even after an amendment adopted by the Riverhead Town Board Tuesday in an effort to make the zoning less restrictive.

Town officials indicated Tuesday and in prior interviews that they would stand by the amended zoning code. While town officials say the zoning amendment is fair, those in the cannabis business have said it does not ease restrictions enough and continues to be “unreasonably impracticable.”

An erroneous online posting for employment opportunities in Rocky Point schools raised eyebrows Tuesday for encouraging people with a criminal record to apply. School district Superintendent Scott O’Brien issued a statement in response later Tuesday: He said the district “does not encourage individuals with a past criminal record to apply.” O’Brien said the district traced the wrong information, which circulated on some job-search platforms, to a recent posting on the jobs website Indeed. Dandan Zou reports on Newsday.com that the Rocky Point School District recently began to use Indeed in addition to its own website and OLAS, an online search platform that connects candidates to school jobs, to publicize its job openings. O’Brien said the district has contacted the third-party sites, which also included inaccurate information regarding salary and benefits, and requested that “the falsely advertised positions be removed immediately.”

“All prospective employees must undergo and pass a fingerprint-based background check in accordance with New York State law prior to employment,” he wrote.

The last of the 12 turbines that make up South Fork Wind has been erected and is due to come online soon, marking the final phase of the nearly seven-year process to construct New York’s first offshore wind farm.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the completion of the project will also mark a watershed moment for East Hampton Town, which is due to receive millions of dollars in financial contributions from the wind farm’s developer, Ørsted, when the project comes online.

Within 90 days of the wind farm coming online, the developer will deliver to the town $2.75 million that is earmarked for use in Wainscott, where the power supply cable comes ashore.

And within six months of the power flow starting, the company will pay the first of 25 annual payments to the town — the first starting at $700,000 and increasing 2 percent each year — that will be split between the town and the East Hampton Town Trustees. At the one-year anniversary of the project’s activation, the company will submit a second $2.75 million payment earmarked only for use in Wainscott.

On Saturday, Town Councilwoman Cate Rogers told the members of the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee that the town will be looking to compile suggestions for possible uses of the money in the hamlet and convene a committee to vet and discuss the possibilities.

Ørsted has already paid the town $1 million, Rogers said — $500,000 in 2021, when the Town Board and the East Hampton Town Trustees signed the agreement granting Ørsted an easement to lay the wind farm’s power supply cables beneath two miles of town roads in Wainscott and the ocean beach, which is owned by the Trustees, at the end of Beach Lane, and $500,000 in 2022, when construction began on the cable route.

The total amount of the one-time “milestone” payments and the annual payments will be $28.9 million by the end of the 25-year life of the host community agreement and easements.

A state audit of the Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund administered by the five East End Towns found that fund disbursements and debt service payments by all five towns were proper, according to a report issued yesterday by the Office of the State Comptroller. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the fund is financed by a 2% real estate transfer tax. The town board in each town is responsible for overseeing the fund and managing it for its intended purpose, generally, the preservation of open space and farmland.

The audit report singled out the Town of Riverhead for procedural deficiencies and made recommendations for corrections. The state comptroller’s audit reports for the other four towns in the Peconic Bay region, for the same audit period, found no procedural deficiencies and made no recommendations for improvements. According to data released this week by NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund transfer tax has generated more than $2.1 billion in revenue for the five East End towns since the inception of the CPF in 1999.

State legislators are seeking a partnership with Southampton Town to utilize money from the Community Preservation Fund to restore the historic, dilapidated windmill that sits at the heart of the Stony Brook Southampton campus.

Michelle Trauring reports on 27east.com that NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and State Senator Anthony Palumbo introduced legislation on Monday that would authorize Stony Brook University to enter into a long-term lease, not to exceed 100 years, with Southampton Town in order to rehabilitate the windmill, which was condemned last year — joining a growing roster of deteriorating Southampton campus buildings. “I think if Stony Brook is gonna be successful in convincing the public and the community that they’re committed to the revitalization of the campus, the windmill needs to be part of that,” Thiele said on Tuesday. “It’s hard to separate the campus from the windmill, and the windmill from the campus.” The English-style windmill, one of three originally built in Southampton Village, was constructed in 1714 on Windmill Lane, and it is the only one to have survived. Saving it from destruction, Janet Hoyt moved the windmill to Shinnecock Hills in 1888, where her husband, William Hoyt, opened the Shinnecock Inn, and she founded the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art. Samuel Parrish was a donor, and artist William Merritt Chase was its director.

A Cutchogue volunteer firefighter is accused of falsifying department records to claim that he and his family had responded to emergency calls they never actually attended, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office. Matthew Chayes reports on Newsday.com that James P. Burns, 27, of Cutchogue, was arrested and charged yesterday with tampering with public records, a felony, and official misconduct, a misdemeanor, the office said in a news release.

Burns was arraigned at Southold Town Court and freed without bail. The case is due back in court April 26. Burns faces up to 2 1/3 to 7 years in prison if convicted, but sentences are typically less.

He is accused of making 96 false entries to 55 emergencies in the Cutchogue Fire Department’s electronic records system.

False entries were allegedly made at the firehouse on Sept. 30, 2023, after Burns responded to an emergency call, the release said.

“While at the firehouse, Burns allegedly accessed an internal computer system that he was not authorized to use and made 96 changes to the records of 55 prior emergency calls,” the office said in the release. “In so doing, Burns allegedly gave himself and three family members credit for attending previous emergency calls they did not actually attend.”

The false entries extended Length of Service Award Program (LOSAP) credits to one of the family members, “which that family member allegedly did not earn, thereby potentially providing future fraudulent monetary benefits,” the office said.

According to a 2015 report by the NYS comptroller: “fire districts and municipalities that rely on volunteer firefighters have the option to offer pension-like benefit programs to facilitate the recruitment and retention of active volunteers.”

Tania Lopez, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office said the Cutchogue Fire Department detected the fraud and reported it to the authorities. Thus, no program credits were received because the fraud was detected before any award.

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Because of better-than-anticipated tax revenue, Gov. Kathy Hochul is willing to consider shelving her proposal to end a longtime policy that guaranteed no school district would receive less state aid than it did the previous year, the state budget director said yesterday. Keshia Clukey reports on Newsday.com that Hochul, a Democrat, proposed ending the policy, known as “hold harmless,” citing declining school enrollments over the last decade. The proposal was met with criticism from both Democrats and Republicans in the NYS Legislature, as it would mean less state assistance for 337 of the state’s more than 700 school districts — including 44 on Long Island.

The governor and state legislative leaders last week released their revenue and economic forecast for the current fiscal year, which projected the state will collect $1.35 billion more in revenue than originally predicted.

State Budget Director Blake Washington, speaking with reporters Tuesday, said that money will “go a long way to smooth out any rough edges that are seen by the legislature.”

“It could go toward any number of things that are in the executive budget,” he said.

When asked by Newsday if that means eliminating the proposed change to hold harmless, Washington said: “Modifying that, I think, is probably fair game.”

Hochul’s $233 billion state budget proposal released in January for fiscal year 2024-25 kept overall spending nearly flat and reduced some aid to schools through the elimination of hold harmless. The spending plan included nearly $35 billion in school funding statewide.

The final state budget is due by April 1.

Voters in New Suffolk yesterday approved by a vote of 83-14 shuttering a three-room schoolhouse and sending its six students to another district. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that the plan will turn New Suffolk into a “non-instructional” district, meaning students would be sent out of the district on a tuition basis. The three-member board of trustees last month selected the Southold Union Free School District as the school that students would attend. The four-year contract would take effect next school term.

New Suffolk, a prekindergarten-through-sixth-grade school, already sends students in the district to Southold for grades 7-12.

Six students attend classes in the red schoolhouse, which was built in 1907 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Another 17 students in the district are sent to Southold public schools and four attend private school, according to school officials.

Now that voters have approved the change, two full-time teachers and several part-time staff, including physical education, art and music teachers, are slated to be laid off.

The superintendent and district clerk will remain employed and the schoolhouse could remain in use, possibly as a community center. Adjacent ballfields would be open to the public as green space, officials said.

New York state prison inmates would get nearly $2,600 in taxpayer-funded pocket money to make ends meet after serving just six months in prison in a new bill making the rounds in Albany. Vaughn Golden and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon report in THE NY POST that the proposal from two NYC Democrats in the state legislature would up the amount of “gate money” given to ex-convicts from the current $40 — with the money used to pay for housing, transportation and other expenses, according to the Center for Employment Opportunities, which is backing the bill.

It calls for inmates being released from a correctional facility after paying their debt to get $2,550 over six months, with the payouts in monthly installments. To pay for the plan the lawmakers are asking that $25 million be set aside from the state general fund. “Today, people are sent home from prison with $40,” Sam Schaeffer, CEO for the Center for Employment Opportunities, said in a statement. “It’s hardly enough for even a day of food…We are not only investing in the futures of New Yorkers coming home from incarceration but fostering the creation of safer and more productive communities."

Those caught dumping on some Suffolk County public lands would pay larger fines, and those who spot and report the crimes would receive bigger payouts under legislation passed yesterday. Vera Chinese reports on Newsday.com that the Suffolk Legislature voted 18-0 in favor of the so-called “Evergreen Initiative,” intended to prevent dumping in county parks and the pine barrens. The activity is expected to increase when the Brookhaven Town Landfill stops accepting construction and demolition debris later this year.

"It will be more expensive [to dispose of debris] which will make people want to cut corners,” said Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney. “It will make it more appealing to try and dump things.” Dumping in wetlands and the pine barrens, some 105,000 acres of environmentally sensitive land in Riverhead, Brookhaven and Southampton towns, has worsened in recent years, advocates say.

Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine said he supports the measure and plans to sign the bill. Currently, the maximum fine for illegally dumping construction debris and hazardous waste on county land or in the protected pine barrens by an individual is $10,000 and $15,000 for companies. Whistleblowers who provide information leading to an arrest of a polluter are entitled to 25% of that penalty.

Under the new legislation, the fine would increase to $15,000 for individuals and $25,000 for corporations, with whistleblowers collecting a third of that amount.

Dumping other materials is now a $1,000 fine for an individual and $15,000 for corporations. The new law would raise it to $5,000 for individuals and keep it at $15,000 for corporations.

“Dumping is a problem for not only the preserved open space that we fought so hard to [protect], but also for the possible contamination of the aquifer,” said Nina Leonhardt, board secretary of the Riverhead-based nonprofit Long Island Pine Barrens Society. “Anything that has chemical contaminants can seep right through, percolate through the ground and enter the aquifer.”

The Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton is one of 144 airports around the country on the receiving end of nearly $1 billion in grant support from the Federal Aviation Administration via President Joe Biden’s 2021 $1.2 trillion infrastructure law and its Airport Terminal Program, or ATP. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the competitive grants were announced by the FAA in mid-February and will see $4.9 million go to pay for part of the estimated $16 million replacement of the 1940s-era air traffic control tower at Gabreski, which the federal government says has “exceeded its useful life and does not meet current standards.” The new tower will be built about 200 feet north-northwest of the existing tower in what’s now a grassy area between Gabreski Airport’s main terminal building and the aircraft parking apron. There’s no current construction timeline for the new building, said Nicole Russo, deputy director of communications for Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine. Russo noted that the “anticipated timeline is for the county to send the project out for bid [in] late summer 2024.” The old tower will be torn down when the new one is fully commissioned, said Russo. The demolition “is part of the construction project and will be included in the bid.” Gabreski was one of two New York airports to receive the ATP funding in the recent round of grants. Islip-McArthur received $14.1 million for upgrades to the main terminal.

St. Patrick’s Day parades marching across the east end begin this weekend.

Beth Young in EAST END Beacon reports that the Annual Westhampton Beach St. Patrick’s Day Parade steps off at noon on Saturday, March 9 from the elementary school on Mill Road, marching south to Main Street, and finishing at the corner of Main Street and Sunset Avenue. Westhampton Beach School District teacher and Athletic Director and Westhampton War Memorial Ambulance Volunteer Patty Ziparo-Dalton will be this year’s Grand Marshal.

Also, this Saturday, Cutchogue’s Annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, sponsored by the North Fork Chamber of Commerce and the Cutchogue Fire Department, steps off at 2 p.m., from the traffic light at Cox Lane, marching west on the Main Road to the Cutchogue Fire Department on New Suffolk Road, where hot dogs and refreshments will be available for the community.

Paul Drum of the Paul Drum Life Experience Project in Greenport will be the Grand Marshal.

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York has been subpoenaed to appear before a House subcommittee to answer for his administration’s handling of nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic, reigniting a flashpoint that could further damage his chances at a political comeback. Grace Ashford in THE NY TIMES reports that the Republican-led Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic accused Mr. Cuomo of “recklessly” exposing nursing home residents to the virus “with deadly consequence.”

The subcommittee chairman, Representative Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, said in a letter sent yesterday to Mr. Cuomo that there was “troubling evidence suggesting the Cuomo administration at best downplayed” the effects of its nursing home policies “and at worst covered them up.”

The subpoena will require Mr. Cuomo to appear on May 24.

The subpoena is the latest in a multiyear saga surrounding the former governor’s decision to require nursing homes to accept residents who had tested positive for Covid-19 in the spring of 2020. The decision, which presaged a virus outbreak in those facilities leading to thousands of deaths, has drawn broad scrutiny from state and federal investigators.

In January 2021, the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, a Democrat, concluded that the state had “severely” undercounted deaths in nursing homes — charges that were validated when the state later revised its figures upward some 40 percent. But her office’s report stopped short of blaming the governor’s policy for nursing home outbreaks, acknowledging that the policy was consistent with federal guidance at the time.

The former governor, also a Democrat, has repeatedly denied that the policy led to additional deaths.

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A marathon public hearing on the MTA’s congestion pricing program drew testimony from several New Jersey elected officials — including the state’s governor — bashing the plan as an ill-conceived cash grab. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that more than four hours into the hearing — the third of four scheduled through last night — the moderator called on “Phil Dutton,” who registered to testify over Zoom. When his camera turned on, Dutton revealed himself to be New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who noted that “Dutton” was his middle name.

“This is an incredibly ill-conceived plan. And it is not, frankly, about congestion or the environment. It is a means to solve the deficit,” said Governor Murphy.

The State of New Jersey was the first to file a federal lawsuit challenging the legality of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Central Business District Tolling Program, which would charge most vehicles $15 for driving below 60th Street in Manhattan during peak hours.

The MTA is looking to generate $1 billion annually to help fund infrastructure investments, including at the Long Island Rail Road, and projects the program will reduce congestion in the toll zone by 17%.

MTA officials hope to enact the tolls as early as June, but have said the effort could be delayed by the litigation. Murphy, in his testimony, said New Jersey officials are “willing to sit at the table with the MTA and find some common ground.”

“We want to be reasonable,” Murphy said. “But, if this is the plan, as it is constructed it is completely and utterly unacceptable to the commuters from New Jersey into Manhattan.”

The League of Women Voters of The Hamptons, North Fork and Shelter Island holds a multi-faceted, fun-filled and free educational program highlighting a new equal rights amendment to the New York State constitution, which will appear on the New York State ballot in November. The educational event is this coming Saturday, March 9, from 1 to 5 p.m. at East Hampton Town’s LTV Studios in Wainscott.

While the New York State legislature has already passed the new amendment, it must be approved by voters via a November ballot measure in order to become law. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the purpose of the New York State Equal Rights Protection Amendment to the State Constitution is to ensure against discrimination based on a person’s race, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, creed, religion or sex, including sexual orientation, pregnancy and reproductive health care.

East Hampton’s LTV Studios asks that people register for the free program on its website at ltveh.org.

Tomorrow evening in Southampton at 7 p.m., Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences is hosting a public lecture and screening of a documentary titled “Bayman – Our Waters are Dying.”

There will be a panel discussion after the film featuring SoMAS Faculty, former Southampton students, Baymen, and Southampton Trustees. The lecture and panel are free and will be presented in Duke Lecture Hall on the Stony Brook University Southampton campus.

This film was donated to SoMAS by Donna Burrell, whose father was president of the Bayman Association at the time the documentary was made. She gave the school the original reel to reel film, which they had digitized.

The event is this coming Wednesday at 7pm in Duke Lecture Hall on the SBU – Southampton Campus and the event is Free.

Got a complaint? New York State Attorney General Letitia James said you are not alone, kicking off National Consumer Protection Week yesterday with the release of the top 10 consumer complaints received by her office in 2023.

Topping the list with more than 5,500 complaints were retail sales issues, including price-gouging, defective merchandise, poor customer service — and, of note to animal lovers — problems with pet stores and animal breeders.

Rounding out the Top 5 were landlord-tenant issues; complaints related to auto sales, service, financing and repair services; debt collection, credit, banking and mortgage industry scams; and varied consumer services. Among them are complaints involving restaurants, movers, storage facilities, household services and dry cleaners.

John Valenti reports on Newsday.com that the Top 5 categories accounted for a total of 18,936 complaints filed with the Office of the Attorney General in 2023. The next five categories accounted for another 7,269 complaints filed last year. Stacey Finkelstein, a marketing professor in the College of Business at Stony Brook University, said in the modern age, many angry consumers air their gripes about a business on social media. Taking the extra step to file an official complaint, she said, can be cumbersome but may result in a better outcome.

For more information, residents can call the attorney general’s complaint hotline number at 800-771-7755. They can file a complaint online at here or can access online resources through that email link and then go to resources available to individuals or organizations.

Yesterday, hundreds of people voiced their opinions on the final day to weigh in on one of the most sweeping — and contentious — transportation projects in New York City in decades. Erin Nolan reports in THE NY TIMES that transit officials held public hearings to hear feedback on the nation’s first congestion-pricing plan, which officials hope will reduce traffic in one of the world’s busiest commercial districts and raise money for public transportation. The plan, expected to take effect as soon as this spring, would charge most drivers a $15 toll for entering much of Manhattan below 60th Street.

Transit leaders have reminded opponents that the final public comment hearings were about possibly fine tuning the details of the congestion-pricing program, not debating its merits. But that didn’t stop some people from voicing their passionate disapproval.

But supporters argued congestion pricing would make Manhattan streets safer, cleaner and less overwhelmed by traffic tie-ups. The MTA is looking to generate $1 billion annually to help fund infrastructure investments, including at the Long Island Rail Road, and projects the program will reduce congestion in the toll zone by 17%.

Urging transit officials to ignore “small but loud opposition and frivolous lawsuits,” Sarah Lind, a co-executive director of the nonprofit organization Open Plans, said, “As congestion decreases, we have the opportunity to reclaim space for people.”

The M.T.A. will review the public comments and consider whether or not to make any updates to the current plan.

Beth Young in EAST END BEACON alerts us to several local meetings today:

The East Hampton Town Board discusses the New York State “Pro-Housing Community” program, the Fire Island to Montauk Point beach replenishment project in downtown Montauk and Ditch Plains at its 11 a.m. work session this morning. The meeting can be viewed live on LTV’s YouTube channel.

The Riverhead Town Board holds a public hearing on an extension of the Riverhead Water District to Maris Farms at its 2 p.m. regular meeting this afternoon. The meeting can be viewed live on line at townofriverheadny.viebit.com.

The Riverhead Fire Department at 540 Roanoke Ave. hosts a New York Blood Center blood drive this afternoon and evening from 1 to 7 p.m. Walk-ins are welcome, but appointments can also be made online at donate.nybc.org/donor/schedules.

Stony Brook Southampton Food Lab at 39 Montauk Highway, Southampton. (Chancellors Hall, Second Floor) holds a Tea Talk Tuesday this afternoon from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Attendees will hear a presentation on elderberry syrup from Rachel Stephens of Sweet Woodland Farms, with products available for sale from the farm and Superfood City. More details are at TheFoodLab.org.

The Church in Sag Harbor hosts a preview of “Performance Con: Take One” this evening at 6 p.m. A master of movement-based improvisation and a poet working in video make a new work that considers notions of theater, performative relations, etymology and improvisation. More details are at thechurchsagharbor.org.

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Dozens of school districts across Long Island recorded passage rates of 90% or better during the latest administration of state Regents exams in algebra and English. John Hildebrand and Michael R. Ebert report on Newsday.com that in both of those heavily used tests, districts in Nassau and Suffolk counties ranked among the highest performing in the state, according to Newsday's review of data from the NYS Department of Education. In algebra, for example, 36 local systems were among the top 100 statewide.

A “proficient” rating means students have met the state's minimum requirement in math for earning a high school diploma. Many students scored high enough to attain academic “distinction” — the highest category of achievement recognized by the state. Seventeen of the 32 districts statewide where at least half of students scored with distinction were located on Long Island.

Results on English exams revealed a similar pattern. Of the 100 districts statewide with the largest numbers of student “proficiency” ratings, 34 were in Nassau or Suffolk counties.

“Long Island performs very well academically when compared to the rest of the state, and that's due to the high quality of education that is delivered systematically across the region,” said Bob Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association.

Vecchio acknowledged that some local districts continued to struggle, but added, “There are encouraging signs as we continue to emerge post-pandemic. Long Island continues to rebound.”

Exams were administered in August 2022, January 2023 and last June.

As participation among high school test-takers wanes on Long Island and nationally, an all-digital SAT will debut next weekend featuring an “adaptive” exam that's an hour shorter, comes with a built-in calculator and no longer includes lengthy reading passages. Joie Tyrrell reports on Newsday.com that those are among the changes to the Scholastic Aptitude Test, which has been used in the college admissions process for decades though many schools have gone “test-optional” in recent years. Test-optional means students can submit scores for college entrance if they choose.

The SAT, scheduled for March 9, will be about two hours, instead of three. The test is “adaptive,” meaning the exam's difficulty will be adjusted in real time based on how the student performs. The SAT's two sections will be split into two sets of questions, and how a student performs on the first will determine how hard the second group will be.

Students can use their own calculator or one that is included with the digital testing application. The exam, which measures a student's reading, writing and math skills, will be taken on a laptop or tablet.

Student participation in the SAT and the American College Test (ACT) fell after colleges and universities stopped requiring the scores during the COVID-19 pandemic, which made group testing unsafe. The ACT, which gives students the choice of an all-digital exam or pencil and paper, will be given next month.

A handful of elite schools, such as Yale University and Dartmouth College, recently announced plans to again require standardized scores for admission.

A free educational program highlighting a new equal rights amendment to the New York State constitution, which will appear on the New York State ballot in November, has been organized by the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island & North Fork. The event is this coming Saturday, March 9, from 1 to 5 p.m. at East Hampton Town’s LTV Studios, 75 Industrial Road in Wainscott. Beth Young of EAST END BEACON reports that while the New York State legislature has already passed the new amendment, it must be approved by voters via a November ballot measure in order to become law.

The purpose of the New York State Equal Rights Protection Amendment to the State Constitution is to ensure against discrimination based on a person’s race, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, creed, religion or sex, including sexual orientation, pregnancy and reproductive health care.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has completed the first phase of a long-awaited coastal restoration project in downtown Montauk to widen a vulnerable stretch of oceanfront beach — a project that grew in urgency after several winter storms recently battered the coast. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corp., the Army Corps’ contractor, dredged about 475,000 cubic yards of offshore sand that was pumped onto the beach on a stretch from Kirk Park Beach to South Edison Beach to widen it, according to East Hampton Town.

Officials said the contractor completed the dredging work in 20 days.

East Hampton Councilman David Lys said, “It was a novel project that the town and Montauk had never seen before. Residents are amazed by the transformation of the beach and how quickly and effectively it’s been done.”

The $11.25 million federal project was part of the larger Fire Island-to-Montauk Point initiative and followed an earlier stabilization project that began in 2015 as a stopgap.

James D’Ambrosio, public affairs specialist for the Army Corps, said, "The area now has a wider, more resilient shoreline reducing risk of flooding to residents, businesses and infrastructure from severe storms and tidal surges.”

Several hotels along South Emerson Avenue face the growing risk of the ocean creeping closer and closer.

The completed dredging project did not extend as far as Ditch Plains Beach, where winter storms seriously damaged existing dunes at the popular surfing spot east of downtown Montauk.

Harry Macklowe, one of New York City’s most brazen developers, has listed his East Hampton home facing exclusive Georgica Pond — with neighbors like Steven Spielberg — for $38 million.

There’s just one catch. It’s uninhabitable.

That’s because the mansion lacks a certificate of occupancy, and the new owners won’t be legally allowed to move in. Jennifer Gould reports in THE NY POST that Macklowe illegally cleared land on the property and built additions without permits, endangering the wetlands and garnering fines for more than 21 violations that haven’t been paid for five years, East Hampton Village officials say.

The off-the-books renovations on his Hamptons home echo his 1985 move to hire a mob-run company to blow up four buildings on West 44th Street in the middle of the night without city permits, hours before the city started to enforce a ban on razing single room occupancy buildings.

The demolition put people’s lives in danger, officials said at the time.

Macklowe paid a $2 million fine, but escaped indictment because “criminal intent” could not be proven, the Manhattan District Attorney said at the time.

The four-bedroom home in East Hampton comes with a pool and sits on 2.7 acres at 64 West End Ave. It is surrounded by preserved land, the listing notes. Macklowe paid $10.35 million for the home in 2017, then proceeded to clear land and build too close to wetlands — all without permits, village authorities say.

This coming Wednesday in Southampton at 7 p.m., Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences is hosting a public lecture and screening of a documentary titled “Bayman – Our Waters are Dying.”

That showing is this coming Wednesday at 7pm in Duke Lecture Hall on the SBU – Southampton Campus and the event is Free.

The United States Golf Association announced on Saturday that in 2036, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club will play host to both the 136th U.S. Open and 91st U.S. Women’s Open Presented by Ally, with the championships taking place in consecutive weeks.

“Few places can match the historic importance of Shinnecock Hills to golf in the United States,” said John Bodenhamer, USGA chief championships officer. “As an organization, we felt that this iconic venue would be an ideal stage for both our men’s and women’s premier championships. It will offer the perfect opportunity to bring the game’s best to one course and provide fans the chance to watch them compete for a national championship in back-to-back weeks.”

As reported on 27east.com, this will mark the third time that the USGA’s two most significant championships have been held at the same location in consecutive weeks. This will be the first time that Shinnecock Hills Golf Club hosts the U.S. Women’s Open and the seventh time the club will host the U.S. Open. Most recently, Shinnecock Hills served as the site for the 2018 U.S. Open, won by Brooks Koepka. The club will also host the 2026 U.S. Open Championship. One of the five founding member clubs of the USGA, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club is the oldest incorporated golf club in the United States, having been founded in 1891. The club has a long and illustrious history of hosting USGA championships. Brett Pickett, Shinnecock Hills club president said, “We are extremely excited to build on that legacy through this historic, back-to-back presentation of men’s and women’s major championship golf in Southampton in 2036. “We look forward to working closely with our friends at the USGA and with the Southampton community to develop these special weeks in Southampton in the years ahead.”

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Criminals have stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars in food stamps and other public benefits from Long Islanders since 2022, part of a statewide haul totaling at least $20 million, according to state records and elected officials. Nicholas Spangler reports on Newsday.com that in Nassau and Suffolk counties combined, records show, they took at least $374,311, going after the funds recipients access with Electronic Benefits Transfer cards, often using a “skimmer” device at a point-of-sale terminal to capture critical card data. The technique works, according to experts, because the cards lack security features that most credit and debit cards have had for years.

Lawmakers have proposed fixes and law enforcement has cracked down — including the indictment this week of two men accused of running a multimillion-dollar food stamp fraud ring out of a Brooklyn bodega.

In some cases, victims of benefits theft can apply for replacement of the stolen funds. Taxpayers foot the bill. Replacement is supposed to take no more than 30 days, though advocates and recipients say it sometimes takes longer. In the interim, the victims, who generally live near or below the federal poverty line, may turn to friends or food banks — or simply go hungry.

The root of the problem, some advocates and elected officials said, is the EBT card itself. Introduced decades ago to prevent fraud, it has become a conduit, they said. Participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, the country’s biggest anti-hunger program, use EBT cards to buy food.

Several state lawmakers have sponsored pending legislation intended to improve card security.

A Manorville woman has been named by the Democratic Party as its candidate for the Second Assembly District seat held by Republican incumbent Jodi Giglio. Alek Lewis reports on Newsday.com that Tricia Chiaramonte of Manorville is on the Democrats’ petition in the Second Assembly District, Suffolk County Democratic Committee spokesperson Keith Davies said in a statement yesterday.

Chiaramonte is the deputy director of human resources at the Suffolk County Regional Off-Track Betting Corporation.

Giglio, of Baiting Hollow, won election to the NYS Assembly in 2020 with 56% of the vote and was re-elected in a 2022 landslide with nearly 66% of the vote.

The Second Assembly District map was revised last year by the New York Independent Redistricting Commission, and signed into law, after the map used for the 2022 election was ruled invalid following that election. The district encompasses all of Riverhead Town and parts of Brookhaven Town that include Manorville, Shirley, Mastic, Moriches, and several North Shore communities west of Wading River up to and including Mt. Sinai.

Atlantic Marine Conservation Society biologists will provide participants with an inside look at AMSEAS’s Stranding Investigations Program this coming Saturday from 2pm to 3pm at the Quogue Wildlife Refuge. Presenters will define a stranding, discuss why marine mammals and sea turtles strand, and the required gear to properly respond to a stranded animal. They will share what they have learned from these strandings over the years and how they are trying to improve the marine environment for all of its inhabitants. By the end of the lecture, participants will understand the proper steps to take if they should ever come across a stranded marine mammal or sea turtle. The lecture will conclude with an open-ended discussion to touch base on any questions the lecture may not have addressed.

That’s this Saturday afternoon from 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm at the Quogue Wildlife Refuge.

To reserve a seat, go to quoguewildliferefuge.org.

New Yorkers yesterday sounded off on the MTA’s congestion pricing plan, with some calling it a burdensome new tax that will drive people away from the state, and others seeing it as an overdue step toward improving air quality and reducing traffic. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority held the first of four public hearings last night on its Central Business District Tolling Program, which will charge most vehicles $15 for driving below 60th Street in Manhattan during peak hours.

The hearing, at the MTA’s Manhattan headquarters but also open to virtual testimony over Zoom, invited a range of opinions on the plan, most coming from transit advocates, elected officials, and Manhattan residents living within the proposed tolling district.

MTA officials said there was high turnout for the first hearing, which lasted more than two hours and included several dozen speakers. Another hearing is scheduled for this morning, and the last two will take place Monday.

Congestion pricing is expected to generate $1 billion annually in toll revenue that will be dedicated to transit infrastructure investments, including at the Long Island Rail Road. The MTA hopes to start charging the new tolls as early as June, but has said the effort could be delayed by several pending lawsuits challenging its legality.

At the beginning of the hearing, Juliette Michaelson, deputy chief of external relations officer for the MTA, noted that “public comment has informed congestion pricing from the beginning,” with the agency taken into consideration nearly 30,000 individual comments and 55,000 written letters.

Michaelsen noted that 85% of the 1.5 million people commuting into Manhattan each day use public transportation.

New contracts for the offshore wind farms Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind I have been accepted by the New York Energy Research & Development Agency, Governor Kathy Hochul announced yesterday. The new contracts replace contracts cancelled by the wind farms last year amidst rising construction costs. The projects, totaling over 1,700 megawatts of clean energy, will be the largest power generation projects in New York State in over 35 years once they enter operation in 2026, and will continue progress towards achievement of the State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) goal to develop 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind energy by 2035 stated Governor Hochul.

Thursday’s awards are conditional on successful contract execution. In addition, the Community Offshore Wind 2 project has been waitlisted and may be considered for award and contract negotiation at a later date.

Anticipating Cuts, Rural Schools Look to Upcoming N.Y.S. Budget With Dread. Erin Nolan reports in THE NY TIMES that Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed budget would slash state aid for about half of all school districts in New York. Some are wealthy, suburban districts in places like Westchester County and Long Island, but many are low-income, rural districts that are less able to fill budget gaps with property taxes.

Rural district leaders from across the state said the new plan would mean that many rural students would end up with fewer opportunities than their suburban or urban counterparts, as schools are forced to cut staff members, after-school programming, course offerings and fine arts programs.

The cuts were included in the $233 billion spending plan that Governor Hochul unveiled in January, which would alter the Foundation Aid formula, the complex method New York uses to determine how much state aid is distributed to individual school districts. The plan requires the approval of the State Legislature before it goes into effect.

The updated formula would change the way the state considers an area’s cost of living. Currently, the state allocates aid based in part on what it cost to live in a given area in the past year. Ms. Hochul has proposed using the average cost of living over the past 10 years, which would result in all districts receiving less aid than previously anticipated. The new plan would also end a decades-old practice known as “hold harmless,” which guarantees that school districts receive at least as much aid each year as they did the year before.

The NYS Constitution mandates approval of the state budget by April 1.

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Northwell Health will seek regulators' approval to merge with Nuvance Health, another nonprofit health network and embark on an expansion that would give the state's largest private employer a presence in the Hudson Valley and western Connecticut. Sarina Trangle reports on Newsday.com that Northwell Health president and CEO Michael Dowling and Nuvance president and CEO Dr. John M. Murphy signed an agreement earlier this week to form a new regional health system, pending approval from the states of New York and Connecticut, and potentially, the Federal Trade Commission, the executives said. Formal applications haven't been submitted yet.

If approved, Northwell Health would become the parent organization for Nuvance, which has corporate headquarters and four hospitals in Connecticut, three hospitals in New York — in Rhinebeck, Carmel and Poughkeepsie — dozens of primary and specialty care offices and about 15,000 employees, according to Murphy. Northwell Health currently has 21 hospitals, hundreds of outpatient centers and a staff of more than 85,000, according to its website. The merger would be a cashless arrangement since both organizations are nonprofits, the executives said.

The combination would allow the organizations to share insight on new technology, along with clinical and administrative techniques, the CEOs said. Research shows mergers can benefit patients, although a number of other outcomes are also possible, including higher costs. Both CEOs said they envisioned upgrading Nuvance facilities, but it was too soon to assess what would be appropriate.

Researchers have found evidence that consolidation among health care providers has led to higher prices without evidence of improved quality, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group.

Tough decisions lie ahead in crafting next year’s budget, the school district’s business official told school board members this week, as the Riverhead Central School District approaches a “fiscal cliff” with the loss of nearly $20 million in federal funds. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the school district is in a “perfect storm, where your increased staffing is not going to align with your funding,” Interim Assistant Superintendent for Business Marianne Cartisano said at Tuesday night’s school board meeting. The district has been using $19.8 million of federal coronavirus emergency relief funds, which will expire at the end of the year, to supplement its budget over the last three school years.

The school district’s budget, which is roughly $192 million, has been bolstered the last few years by dramatic increases in state funding, as well as the federal relief funds. The boosts have allowed the district to hire more teachers and implement new programs. But in next year’s budget, the board must focus on stability, said Cartisano, an interim hired after the resignation of both the former superintendent and former business official. The Riverhead Central School district has 177 more staff members than it did five years ago, according to Cartisano. The district needs “to find a balance between what we can afford and what programs we want,” she said.

The Brookhaven NAACP will host a panel discussion of environmental issues, both past and present, as civil rights issues at the Suffolk County Historical Society Museum in Riverhead this evening from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Brookhaven NAACP Presents “Environmental Justice is Civil Rights: Long Island Retrospective”

You are invited to join the discussion as members of the Brookhaven NAACP are joined with panelists from local interest groups as we discuss environmental issues from both past and present. Learn what you can do to get engaged in your community!

This event is free, but seating is limited and registration is required. Call the Suffolk County Historical Society at (631) 727-2881 x100

The Town of Southampton is considering two land purchases in the Village of Quogue through the Community Preservation Fund that would preserve an exquisite point of land at the end of Second Neck Lane, where there’s recent and ongoing development of several mega-homes along the east side of the lane. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the Southampton Town Board held a public hearing this past Tuesday to talk about the parcels at 38 and 40 Second Neck Lane that are being offered to the town by their current owners.

The 5.3-acre parcel at 40 Second Neck Lane is being offered to the town by Robin Jeffery and the Jeffery 2018 Family Trust for $3.85 million, while the 38 Second Lane Neck property, at 6.3 acres, is for sale at $3.8 million and is owned by Pennimans Point Limited Partnership, which is also controlled by the Jeffery family, according to town officials.

The area, said CPF Program Manager Jacqueline Fenlon, is zoned as “Village Hamlet Green” but the owners, she said, “are just looking to preserve the wetlands and not have an active community park” at the contiguous locations.

Fenlon told the Town Board this week that the land identified for preservation will be utilized as a public passive park area.

But is the town considering buying land that could wind up being a town-funded, $7.65 million 11.6-acre private park for residents new and old on Second Neck Lane, given potential access issues for the general public?

The road is identified as private on a plaque that is mounted to a stone edifice at the turn-off onto Second Neck Lane from Montauk Highway.

Democrats in New York adopted a new congressional map yesterday, using their supermajorities in the State Legislature to draw district lines that would improve their chances of winning the House majority in November, but not drastically. However, enough so that Kyle Hill, a former congressional aide from Port Jefferson, dropped out of the Democratic primary for New York’s 1st Congressional District seat on Wednesday, becoming the latest candidate to suspend their bid to unseat Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville). Laura Figueroa Hernandez reports on Newsday.com that Hill’s departure from the race came a day after former State Sen. James Gaughran, a Democrat from East Northport, announced he was withdrawing from the primary after a newly drawn congressional redistricting map split the town of Huntington into two districts. Craig Herskowitz, a former New York City administrative law judge who lives in Northport, has also suspended his campaign.

The Democratic primary field in the 1st Congressional District, which includes the east end, is now down to two candidates - John Avlon, a former CNN political analyst who maintains residences in Manhattan and Sag Harbor, and Nancy Goroff, a former Stony Brook University chemistry department chair. Daniel Peter Foti has filed to run as a Conservative.

The primary election is scheduled for June 25.

That’s this Saturday afternoon from 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm at the Quogue Wildlife Refuge.

To reserve a seat, go to quoguewildliferefuge.org.

Long Island lost more than 110,000 residents between 2017 and 2022, a trend fueled by younger Long Islanders fleeing for other states, according to a report released today.

While Long Island continues to have an interstate migration deficit of nearly 38,000 residents annually, those numbers are offset partially by a surge of New Yorkers moving to Nassau and Suffolk from other parts of the state. They are predominantly coming from the five boroughs, data from the U.S. Census and analyzed by the Long Island Association's Research Institute shows. Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that a region's population can fluctuate from a host of factors, including the difference between birth and death rates and the balance of new immigrants arriving or departing. But domestic migration tends to be the most volatile indicator and the one most prone to economic, social and political conditions, researchers said.

The interstate migration deficit is the difference between the number of Long Islanders leaving for other states or other parts of New York and the number of those people relocating from those places to Long Island. “This is a tough place to operate a business and is a high-cost region for families, young professionals as well as employers,” said Matthew Cohen, president of the Long Island Association. “We hope the survey serves as a wake-up call and that policymakers enact new initiatives that are going to stimulate economic growth, expand the commercial tax base and create good paying, sustainable jobs for the future.” The data magnifies a trend that's been ongoing for at least a decade: more Long Islanders are leaving for greener pastures out of state than people are choosing to relocate here. Individuals leaving the region to move out of state are generally younger, less likely to have a four-year degree and more likely to be unmarried, without children and to have lower incomes than the median Long Islander.

The states most are leaving for are Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Seniors relocating to Florida and elsewhere in their retirement reflect a small portion of out-of-state movers, the report shows.

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Representatives from the Shinnecock Nation were at Town Hall last Thursday for a work session with the Southampton Town Board to discuss the tribe’s plans to build an 11,000-square-foot gas station and travel plaza along the north side of Sunrise Highway in Hampton Bays. Tom Gogola reports in THE SOUTHAMPTON PRESS that the Shinnecock first conceived of the travel plaza more than six years ago, and recently cleared a 10-acre lot out of 100 acres of a tract of Shinnecock land known as Westwoods, prompting concerns from neighbors and town officials about the clearing of the land, where now stands stacks of timber, heavy equipment, and a large pile of wood chips. A Shinnecock Nation plan to potentially utilize Newtown Road as an access point if necessary has raised further questions about how that might add more traffic to already congested local roads.

Shinnecock Tribal Chairman Brian Polite told the board he was appearing before the Town Board to dispel what he said was misinformation about Westwoods — “how we own it, what it means to us” — and presented a slide show to the board by way of explaining the tribe’s process and plans for the site, and historical claim to the land.

Polite noted that he was under no obligation to do so, and that some of his fellow Tribal Council members had opposed his appearance before the Town Board. However, he highlighted the Town Board’s recent vote to create a Shinnecock Heritage Day on October 1st in the Town of Southampton as a gesture of good faith that the tribe would like to build on.

The tribe’s preferred plan would be to provide for an ingress and egress to the travel plaza directly from Sunrise Highway, right near the billboards and the state’s rest area, but that would require the Shinnecock utilize the state right-of-way over tribal-owned land to connect the plaza to new highway ramps leading to and away from it…and presumably approval from the NYSDOT.

Heeding complaints from the licensed cannabis industry, Gov. Kathy Hochul said it’s high time that social media companies and tech giants such as Google and Meta stop promoting illicit weed dealers on their sites that hurt legal operators, aid the massive black market and deprive New York of tax revenues. “Right now, Google and others knowingly allow illegal stores to promote unlicensed products on their platforms. I’m calling on them to cease promotion of all illegal cannabis shops,” Hochul stated yesterday. The governor will deliver that message early this afternoon during a scheduled press conference at her Manhattan office, which will also highlight her other proposals to crack down on the illicit cannabis operators. The Post on Sunday reported on a letter that licensed cannabis operators sent to Governor Hochul urging her to launch a probe — and even consider suing — Google, Meta and others for engaging in “false advertising” of unlicensed marijuana shops. Carl Campanile reports in THE NY POST that Hochul will be accompanied by licensed cannabis operators and Manhattan business advocates today as she urges lawmakers to back her enforcement agenda as part of the 2024-25 state budget.

The Town of Southampton is seeking public input following a recent design-study presentation before the Southampton Town Board by the firm Historical Concepts focused on the downtown business district in Hampton Bays. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the survey is open through tomorrow and follows several meetings held in January between town officials and Historical Concepts and various Hampton Bays organizations, including the Hampton Bays Civic Association, the Hampton Bays Chamber of Commerce and the Hampton Bays Citizens Advisory Committee.

Residents are encouraged to take the Hampton Bays Conceptual Design Survey at southamptontownny.gov.

A new map of New York’s congressional districts would subtly shift Long Island districts to, in theory, help two Republicans and one Democrat. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that the new map was outlined in a bill drafted by the Democratic-led State Legislature late Monday night and is poised to be approved by lawmakers as early as today. It would give Democrats better chances than they currently have in three districts while trading off territory with Republicans, observers said.

But, overall, changes were modest. Republicans who floated the idea of challenging the new map were noticeably silent when details were published yesterday.

On Long Island, the 3rd Congressional District — held by Rep.-elect Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) — would move north and east. Suozzi would lose Republican-rich Massapequa and gain parts of Suffolk County’s North Shore, including Huntington, Huntington Station, Cold Spring Harbor and Lloyd Harbor. The Queens portion of the district essentially remains intact. As measured by the 2020 presidential vote, the district would change from a 54% Democrat majority to 56%, according to mapping data provided by Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York, which has extensively followed redistricting.

Moving the 3rd District would trigger other changes including in the 1st Congressional District — held by Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville). The 1st Congressional District, which includes the East End, would lose Lloyd Harbor, Cold Spring Harbor and Huntington, but pick up Moriches. It would go from 50% Democrat to 49%. Just hours after the maps went public, Democrat Jim Gaughran suspended his campaign to take on LaLota, noting much of his base in Huntington would become part of Suozzi's district.

Overall, the new map would make just minor changes to New York's current one, according to the head of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project of Princeton University. Though Democrats in the legislature control the redistricting process, Princeton's Samuel Wang said that the proposed map is “not a partisan gerrymander,” and that his group is likely to give it an “A” grade.

In the waning months of the Bellone administration, a top Suffolk County official initiated a $75,000 contract for a Huntington Station nonprofit that later named the official its chief executive, Newsday has learned.

Formal paperwork for the county’s contract with the Health & Welfare Council of Long Island was initially approved by the county's Department of Social Services on Dec. 21, 2023, according to a copy of the contract obtained by Newsday. At the time, Vanessa Baird-Streeter was still a deputy county executive. Mark Harrington and Sandra Peddie report on Newsday.com that weeks later, on Jan. 4, the Health & Welfare Council announced it had selected Baird-Streeter as president and CEO from a list of more than 60 applicants. Baird-Streeter, 55, started in her new job on Feb. 5. Suffolk County mailed a “fully executed contract” to the council on Feb. 6.

Language in the contract earmarks more than $70,000 of the $75,000 contract award to salaries and benefits to the agency, including $10,000 for a “to-be-determined” chief executive whose total salary was listed as $200,000 when the contract was drawn up.

Baird-Streeter told Newsday her hiring and the contract were unrelated, noting the Bellone administration included the $75,000 funding in its Oct. 11 recommended budget for 2024.

Baird-Streeter said her aim in initiating the contract was to address the lag by Suffolk County in processing SNAP-benefit applications, which is the council's primary mission.

Seniors on much of Long Island who receive New York’s basic STAR exemption have until this coming Friday – March 1st - to apply for an enhanced program that could save them thousands of dollars more on their property taxes, per the state Department of Taxation and Finance.

Chris Kahn reports on Newsday.com that New York’s School Tax Relief (STAR) program helps homeowners pay for property taxes in the form of credits or exemptions. The benefit increases for residents who are 65 and older — in some localities the “enhanced” credit or exemption can be double the basic benefit.

The Friday deadline applies only to those who already have a STAR exemption. If you’re already receiving a STAR tax credit, you don’t need to apply for the enhanced benefit — the tax department will upgrade you if you’re eligible.

Tax officials urge seniors to check with their local assessor's office for details on how to apply.

Adam Potter, whose previous proposals for mixed-use developments of property he owns on Bridge and Rose streets in Sag Harbor have drawn intense opposition, has gone back to the drawing board.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that earlier this month, he submitted plans for a scaled-back development of the site that would consist of a three-story building with 7,935 square feet of non-retail commercial space on the first floor and 44 apartments, 14 of which would be set aside as affordable, on the upper two floors.

The total size of the building would be 61,155 square feet, and 44 parking spaces would be provided in a ground-floor parking garage.

Unlike two earlier proposals, which would have made use of five separate lots totaling 1.4 acres, the current design would use only two parcels totaling just under 1 acre — the former Dodds & Eder building at 11 Bridge Street and a house at 7 Bridge Street.

Three other parcels on Rose Street, which Potter had included in his original development plans, have been dropped from the proposal and put up for sale. Each of those lots have houses that are listed as contributing structures in the village’s historic district. Their removal or razing would have required variances and the approval of the Sag harbor Village Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review.

Potter said the changes he has made show he has been trying to work with his critics to achieve an acceptable outcome.

“I’m listening to what people are saying, and I’m making accommodations,” he said this week. “If they don’t like it, it’s really because they don’t want affordable housing.”

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The State Legislature yesterday voted down a proposed map for New York’s 26 congressional districts that was drawn by a bipartisan panel. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that the action clears the way for Democrats, who overwhelmingly control both houses in Albany, to enact a different map that could give the party better odds at gaining seats in elections this fall. Officials hadn’t finalized lines for such a new map, but were confident it would be completed and approved this week.

Internally, Democrats were weighing how aggressive to be with their rewrite, multiple sources said, with the Assembly wanting to be more cautious than the Senate. The Democratic conference in each house scheduled closed-door meetings with members to begin after 8 p.m. Monday and work through the night.

The new map will be watched around the political world because the flipping of a few seats could impact which party wins Congress this fall. Republicans have floated the threat of a lawsuit to block a Democratic-drawn map.

In Albany, the vote to kill the map drawn by the bipartisan Independent Redistricting Commission was, to little surprise, done quickly and largely along party lines.

The Senate rejected the IRC map, 40-17; the Assembly, 99-47.

Further, the Senate planned to approve a bill that would limit geographically where a future Republican lawsuit against the map could be filed.

And lawmakers said they are “very likely” to also reduce petition requirements to qualify for congressional primaries since the petition period was scheduled to begin today.

The IRC map would have made very slight changes to the congressional map that is currently in effect — a map Republicans uniformly supported.

Democrats called the map flawed, contending it unfairly split counties into different districts in at least six instances and didn’t consider “communities of interest,” which would hurt minority voting power.

A new nationwide survey by an education nonprofit found that 15 states, including New York, do not require high school students to take a personal finance class as a graduation requirement. In New York, personal finance concepts, such as budgeting, debt and credit, are integrated into a mandatory high school economics class where students learn about capitalism and economic policies. Last November, the State Education Department’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Graduation Measures recommended to the Board of Regents that financial literacy be a graduation requirement. Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that opponents of making personal finance a mandatory course requirement say efforts would be better spent improving existing curricula. Adding another mandatory class, they say, could crowd out other learning objectives. Some Long Island high schools offer elective courses on financial planning, investing and managing credit scores.

Marsha Iverson, associate professor and program director of business education, family and consumer sciences at Hofstra University, said of financial literacy, “It's probably the only topic that students are going to need for the rest of their lives and deal with on a daily basis…In a personal finance course, students learn about paying for college, the cost of credit and maintaining good credit. Your life's report card is your credit rating.”

Six bills have been introduced in the NYS legislature mandating high schools provide a course on financial literacy as a condition of graduation.

Seniors on much of Long Island who receive New York’s basic STAR exemption have until this coming Friday, March 1st to apply for an enhanced program that could save them thousands of dollars more on their property taxes, per the state Department of Taxation and Finance.

Statewide, 562,000 seniors received more than $815 million last year from New York’s enhanced STAR exemption.

Hampton Jitney, the deluxe bus and tour operator which provides an express motorcoach service between Manhattan and the east end, warned that it may be forced to hike ticket prices when New York City’s congestion pricing takes effect in mid - June. Shannon Thaler reports in THE NY POST that under the city’s tolling proposal, the private bus company will pay double in tolls to carry passengers from Manhattan to the Hamptons and Long Island’s North Fork, according to an email sent to riders on Feb. 25 obtained by Bloomberg.

“We are asking for help from our ridership,” Geoffrey Lynch, Hampton Jitney’s president, wrote in the email, which encouraged Hampton Jitney customers to voice support for the firm to receive an exemption from the new toll.

Under congestion pricing, Hampton Jitney buses entering Manhattan south of 60th Street will shell out a $24 fee during peak periods. Hampton Jitney-branded buses traveling through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel will receive a $6 tunnel credit during the peak hours in question, between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends.

Still, the Queens-Midtown Tunnel also charges a toll. The spike in toll costs for Hampton Jitney — which is entering its 50th year of service — could trickle down to passengers, according to Bloomberg. For reference, Jitney vehicles entered that tunnel about 20,000 times in 2023, according to Lynch’s email, per Bloomberg. As it stands, Hampton Jitney charges $40 for a one-way prepaid ticket from New York to the Hamptons, or $47 if purchased onboard. The transit authority has said it anticipates as much as $1 billion in annual revenue to come from the new levies. The MTA plans to raise $15 billion to modernize and upgrade NYC’s transit system, which is more than 100 years old, Bloomberg reported.

Democrats seized control over drawing New York’s congressional districts yesterday, rejecting a map proposed by the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission in favor of drafting new lines that could make key swing seats more Democratic.

On a day of high drama inside the State Capitol in Albany, party leaders argued that the Senate and Assembly had no choice but to reject the commission map in lopsided votes because it improperly split counties, broke up naturally occurring communities and favored incumbents.

But THE NY TIMES’ Nicholas Fandos reports that in private conversations, Democrats made little effort to hide their true objective. With the battle for control of the U.S. of Representatives likely to run through New York this fall, Democrats here and in Washington are determined to use their supermajority in the State Legislature to tilt the playing field against Republicans from Long Island to Syracuse.

The exact contours of the replacement districts remained to be seen as of late last evening. State lawmakers were expected to quickly release a draft of the replacement map in preparation for approval later this week, but Monday’s discussions stretched into the night

LIRR acting president Robert Free yesterday set forth several goals for the railroad in 2024, including shortening wait times for commuters changing trains at Jamaica and achieving a 75% customers satisfaction rating. Other LIRR initiatives planned for this year are adding 175 security cameras throughout the system and sprucing up train stations. Some planned LIRR infrastructure upgrades, including the purchase of a new train fleet, may be delayed by ongoing lawsuits challenging congestion pricing. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that the LIRR maintained an 81% customer satisfaction rating throughout 2022. In a November 2023 survey the rating was only 70 percent…after the opening early last year of Grand Central Madison, which upended the commutes of tens of thousands of riders.

East Hampton Village crews last Wednesday and Thursday cut down two of its largest and most visible elm trees as a precaution, as the century-old trees were in failing health and posed a potential hazard from falling branches.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the trees were American elms, the species that now lines most of East Hampton’s Main Street but were not suffering from disease — just old age and the stresses of the environment in which they grew.

“They’ve been in decline for a couple of years now — we were trying to keep them up as long as possible, but they were getting to the point of being hazardous, if a large branch were to fall,” said Michael Bouker, the deputy superintendent of public works for East Hampton Village. “They were just old.”

The two trees stood on either side of Main Street in East Hampton, one on the northwest corner of the intersection with Newtown Lane, the other on the southeast side of Main Street in front of the J. Crew building.

Each was between 80 and 100 years old, according to Olivia Brooks, chairwoman of the Ladies Village Improvement Society’s tree committee, which has overseen the care and management of hundreds of soaring trees that line village streets for the last 125 years.

“Trees are like people, we get old and we get sick and we fall apart,” she said. “We could not keep them on life support any longer.

Bouker said the village crews will grind down the two huge stumps, but removing the massive roots of the trees will be impossible, he said.

The LVIS and village will meet with an arborist in the coming weeks to discuss the possibilities for replacing the trees — which will be challenging, considering the location.

The LVIS purchases all the replacement trees and pays for their planting and a “little tree program” of organic fertilization and care for the first three years after they are planted, after which the village incorporates them into its regular tree care program.

“These trees are landmarks. They are historically what we love about the look of this village. When you come into the village on the highway, those trees are what you see,” said Ms. Brooks. “So we will put our heads together on how to replace these trees in such a high-profile location. We’ll come up with something great."

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A year after the Long Island Rail Road began running full service to Grand Central Madison, reviews remain mixed. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that some riders are thrilled about a modern, spacious alternative to Penn Station, while others are frustrated with the difficulty navigating the sprawling terminal and the lack of dining options. Grand Central Madison is being used by nearly 80,000 riders each day, accounting for about 40% of all Manhattan LIRR trips, according to the MTA. Even among those regularly using the new terminal, there are some lingering complaints, as evidenced by a drop in satisfaction among regular Grand Central commuters compared with when it first opened, according to the LIRR's most recent rider survey. Among the criticisms: that Grand Central Madison is too difficult to navigate, it's barren of dining options and that the LIRR still hasn't figured out the right amount of trains to run to and from the station. Still, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials have portrayed Grand Central Madison as a success. The 700,000-square-foot station already has been used by about 17 million people — more than most major commuter railroads in the United States, according to the MTA. Although LIRR ridership has returned to nearly 75% of pre-COVID levels, Grand Central Madison is carrying less than half of the 162,000 daily passengers projected by the MTA in 2018.

Long Island schools saw a significant increase in the number of reported computer hacks and other cyber incidents last year compared to the prior year, rising from 23 to 35. About half of the problems were traced to worker mistakes such as publicly exposing students' disabilities, psychological evaluations or placements in special education, records showed. The reports highlight the often precarious state of privacy regarding student and staff information in schools. Craig Schneider reports on Newsday.com that the cyber incidents from Long Island's 124 public school districts track with increases statewide, as New York had a record number of such events in 2022, many due to human error. The state had 140 reported incidents that year, nearly doubling the 71 reports seen in the prior year, according to the NYS Education Department's 2022 Annual Report on Data Privacy and Security, which is the most recent data available. Across the country, there were more than 1,330 publicly disclosed cyber incidents involving K-12 schools from 2016 to 2022, according to the K12 Security Information eXchange, a Virginia nonprofit that tracks cyberattacks on schools. These mistakes, intrusions and thefts can be costly — losses to school districts range from $50,000 to $1 million per school data breach, as they often require replacing computer hardware and improving cybersecurity to prevent future events, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Southampton Village’s West Main Street parking lot will be partially closed starting today, as a drainage and repaving project begins. As reported on 27east.com, the project includes bioswales, which capture stormwater and filter it with vegetation before it returns to groundwater or surface waters.

Work begins on the north end of the parking lot, near Rite Aid, and proceed south toward the Southampton Arts Center, according to an announcement from the village. It is expected to take four to six weeks to complete.

“Access to the parking lot will be limited for the duration of this project,” the announcement states. “Working areas will change daily.”

The Village of Southampton asked businesses to advise their employees to avoid parking in the work area.

The village received $246,729 from the Southampton Town Community Preservation Fund for the bioswales.

Democratic state legislators - the majority party in Albany - plan to propose a new map for New York’s 26 congressional districts today, soon after they vote down a version supported by a bipartisan panel. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that the action could set up a vote on the new map by the state Assembly and Senate as soon as Thursday. On Friday, Newsday reported that a map approved by the bipartisan Independent Redistricting Commission was considered “dead,” according to sources, and would be formally rejected Monday. At issue is how to configure boundaries for the state’s congressional districts following an order by New York’s highest court to redraw a map imposed in 2022. Per the court order, the Independent Redistricting Commission {IRC} worked on and approved a new map Feb. 15, forwarding it to the State Legislature for approval or rejection. Redistricting is typically a bare-knuckle battle in every state, with the party in power trying to draw districts to help it gain a seat or more in the next election cycle. The IRC map made almost no changes to New York’s current congressional map, prompting criticism from some Democrats in part because the state could play a key role in which party wins control of Congress this fall and shifting district boundaries could make the difference in some swing districts. None of Long Island’s four districts — currently held by three Republicans and one Democrat — would have changed under the IRC map. Several sources said the new map would make “modest adjustments” to only some of the 26 districts. Democrats currently hold 16 congressional seats in New York; Republicans hold 10.

New York’s industrial development agencies are in the crosshairs of the State Legislature in the current legislative session which resumes today. “IDA reform is a priority for this session,” Assembly Member Fred Thiele (D-Sag Harbor) told RiverheadLOCAL earlier this month.

Thiele chairs the Assembly’s local governments committee, which has control over legislation relating to IDAs. “We have more than a dozen bills directed at IDA reform in my committee,” Thiele said. “We are reviewing them all. We are looking to develop a package of legislation for later in the session.” Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that IDA reform legislation has the support of the powerful New York State United Teachers, which represents more than 600,000 teachers statewide, including those employed by the Riverhead Central School District. According to data reported by the Riverhead IDA to the Office of the State Comptroller, net school property tax exemptions granted by RIDA in the decade from 2013 to 2022 totaled more than $15 million. Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard said last week at a Greater Calverton Civic Association meeting that IDA tax breaks work as incentives for business development that brings jobs and builds the town’s tax base.

The Town of Southampton is seeking public input following a recent design-study presentation before the Southampton Town Board by the firm Historical Concepts focused on the downtown business district in Hampton Bays. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the survey is open through February 29 and follows several meetings held in January between town officials and Historical Concepts and various Hampton Bays organizations, including the Hampton Bays Civic Association, the Hampton Bays Chamber of Commerce and the Hampton Bays Citizens Advisory Committee.

Residents are encouraged to take the Hampton Bays Conceptual Design Survey at southamptontownny.gov/2065/Hampton-Bays-Conceptual-Design-Survey.

The Hampton Bays Civic Association will discuss the extension of the Southampton Town moratorium on Battery Energy Storage Systems {BESS} and the Bel Aire hotel property, and will hear from a panel of Southampton Town representatives including Councilman Michael Iasilli and Police Chief James Kiernan and Public Safety & Emergency Management Administrator Ryan Murphy at its 7 p.m. monthly meeting this evening at the Hampton Bays Senior Center at 25 Ponquogue Avenue. All are welcome. More info available at hbcivic.org

On the North Fork this evening, the Mattituck-Laurel Civic Association will discuss Southold Town’s Zoning Update Project at its monthly meeting from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., the first of several meetings in the upcoming weeks to discuss the zoning project at civic associations throughout the North Fork.

The meeting will be held in the downstairs community room at the Mattituck-Laurel Library.

After an overview of zoning by Southold Town Planner Heather Lanza, residents will be asked to weigh in on concerns specific to their hamlets as well as the town. Topics such as traffic congestion and safety, housing, how to balance community character with hotels and other intense uses, protecting our cultural and natural resources, and cell service will be discussed.

The North Fork Civics are encouraging residents to attend their hamlet’s forum, as the more feedback they can provide the Town of Southold, the better the town can work to address community concerns as they develop the updates.

In addition to tonight’s meeting in Mattituck, this discussion will continue at the following North Fork civic associations in March:

East Marion Community Assoc. — Sat. 3/2, 10am, East Marion Fire Department

Orient Association — Sun. 3/3, 2pm, Poquatuck Hall

Greenport — Thurs. 3/7 at 6pm, Greenport Fire House

Cutchogue and New Suffolk — Thurs. 3/14, 5:30pm, Cutchogue New Suffolk Library

Southold Peconic Civic Assoc. — Sat. 3/23, 10am, CAST

Fishers Island — Thurs. 3/28, 6pm

For more details, visit southoldzoningupdate.com and take the town’s online zoning survey.

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Stony Brook Southampton Hospital announced this week that it has hired a new chief administrative officer, Emily Mastaler, after a lengthy search to replace Robert Chaloner, who was the hospital’s top administrator for 16 years before leaving last year.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that Mastaler is currently the president and CEO of River Hospital, a rural healthcare provider upstate, which she has led since 2019. She will take over at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital on May 20, the hospital says.

Prior to River Hospital, Mastaler was chief operating officer of Health Care and Rehabilitation Services of Southeastern Vermont from 2014 to 2019 where she had previously worked in clinical care.

“I am truly honored for the incredible opportunity to join the Stony Brook Medicine and Stony Brook Southampton Hospital team,” Mastaler said in a statement released by the hospital this past Wednesday. “I am strongly aligned with their unyielding commitment to the sustainability of exceptional healthcare within a diverse community. It is clear, Stony Brook Medicine has elevated the well-being of the East End communities, and I am thrilled to advance this mission in strong collaboration with our community partners, staff and patients.”

Mastaler holds a Master of Business Administration from Northeastern University, a Master of Arts in psychology from Antioch University and her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Elmira College.

Dr. Fredric Weinbaum, the longtime chief medical officer and chief operating officer who has also been serving as the hospital’s chief administrator since Chaloner’s departure, will remain in his medical and COO roles when Mastaler arrives in May, the hospital said.

A standing-room-only crowd packed the Riverhead Town Board meeting room Wednesday night to voice their opinions for and against the Riverhead Charter School’s plans for a high school on Sound Avenue in Northville. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that more than 50 people spoke at the meeting, and dozens more cheered in the audience, as the crowd urged the Town Board to approve or reject the special permit necessary to build the school along the state-designated scenic and historic corridor, located in a zoning use district that limits non-agricultural development. Although the board was not scheduled to take any action on an expansion — the charter school has yet to even submit a formal application — the issue has already galvanized both sides of a contentious debate that touches a wide-range of issues, including farmland preservation, property values and educational opportunity. The crowd for the meeting overflowed into the lobby of Riverhead Town Hall. In an unusual move, the Town Board even changed its meeting agenda to allow the crowd to speak at the beginning of its regular meeting. The comments on the charter school alone - for and against expansion - lasted two-and-a-half hours.

The Town of Southampton is seeking public input following a recent design-study presentation before the Southampton Town Board by the firm Historical Concepts focused on the downtown business district in Hampton Bays. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the survey kicked off on February 12 and runs through February 29 and follows several meetings held in January between town officials and Historical Concepts and various Hampton Bays organizations, including the Hampton Bays Civic Association, the Hampton Bays Chamber of Commerce and the Hampton Bays Citizens Advisory Committee.

Residents are encouraged to take the Hampton Bays Conceptual Design Survey online here.

A Southampton landscaping business has been ordered to pay more than $1.1 million in back wages, damages and penalties after federal investigators found the company failed to pay workers overtime. Victor Ocasio reports on Newsday.com that Dario’s Landscaping & Masonry Inc., which does business as Dario’s Landscaping at 720 North Sea Road in Southampton, failed to pay 54 workers overtime pay over a three-year period, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.

Dario's employed the workers under the H-2B visa program, which allows businesses with temporary or seasonal needs to hire foreign workers for non-agricultural work on a short-term basis. The company also violated provisions of the visa program by interfering with the investigation, the labor department found.

“We have worked diligently with the Department of Labor to insure that our hard working employees are paid the proper wages to which they were entitled," company owner Ruben Dario Gracia said in a statement sent to Newsday on Wednesday.

"While some unintentional mistakes were made, we have taken steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Dario Gracia said.

The company violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by not paying workers overtime, and by providing false documentation to division investigators “to attempt covering up wage violations,” the Labor Department said in a news release.

Between October 2018 and October 2021, the division said the company did not pay H-2B workers their correct rate and “threatened that H-2B workers would not be re-hired” if they cooperated with Labor Department investigators. Workers were also coached to give false testimony, according to the release, amounting to violations of the H-2B program.

“Unfortunately, H-2B program workers are vulnerable to being shortchanged by employers,” David An, Wage and Hour Division district director in Westbury, said in a statement. “H-2B employers that willfully disregard the law could face debarment and costly penalties.”

More than 85 percent of union nurses and healthcare workers at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead and Long Island Jewish Valley Stream voted to ratify new contracts with Northwell Health this week, avoiding a strike that New York State Nurses Association members had planned to begin Feb. 21.

NYSNA said the new three-year contracts “improve safe staffing standards and wages— the key demands of NYSNA members at both Northwell facilities.” Beth Young of EAST END BEACON reports that according to the union, the Peconic Bay Medical Center (PBMC) contract, in effect Jan. 1, 2024 to Dec. 31, 2026 achieves improvements to safe staffing standards, including ratio and staffing level improvements to cardiac catheterization, telemetry, and emergency departments; stronger, expedited safe staffing enforcement; enhanced language to ensure members get meals and breaks, protection of NYSNA health and pension benefits; eligibility to participate in the employer’s pre and post 65 retiree health insurance; increased tuition reimbursement, average wage increases of 18 to 20 percent over three years, depending on experience and job title and a greater voice in epidemic and pandemic preparation and safety, including participation in the Infection Prevention Committee.

NYSNA represents approximately 400 RNs, x-ray technicians, lab technicians, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead.

The Southold Peconic Civic Association hosts an informational meeting tomorrow at 10 a.m. at the Southold Recreation Center at 970 Peconic Lane to hear from developers Rona Smith of Housing Initiatives LLC and David Gallo of Georgica Green Ventures on their plans for Peconic Point Homes on Carroll Avenue in Peconic.

Southold Town owns the property, which it agreed to sell to Georgica Green Ventures for $500,000 in December of 2023, pending approval of the project by the town’s land use boards.

The proposal details a neighborhood of eight single-story buildings with four cottage-style attached homes in each building.

The floor plans show a mix of one to three bedroom apartments ranging from 659 square feet to 1,151 square feet, which would be sold to individuals who meet the income qualifications at prices ranging from $285,000 to $380,000.

That informational meeting is tomorrow morning at 10am in Southold Recreation Center at 970 Peconic Lane in Peconic.

The Town of Riverhead wants more public input on a plan to ease its zoning restrictions for recreational pot dispensaries before voting on the measure. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that the proposal would increase the number of eligible sites from five to 144 by removing a 1,000 foot distance requirement from homes only along commercial corridors. Current zoning requires the shops to be 1,000 feet away from residences. Potential applicants said at a hearing Wednesday that it still leaves them with too few options.

Two Riverhead Town board members agreed, suggesting the town follow state zoning guidelines instead of stricter local ones established in 2022.

State guidelines say dispensaries cannot be on the same road and within 500 feet of school grounds.

It also recommends a 1,000 feet distance between dispensaries for towns like Riverhead that have more than 20,000 residents.

More than a dozen applicants want to open dispensaries in Riverhead, but the town has rejected nearly all of them because they are too close to homes.

That requirement wiped out many shopping centers on Route 58, the town’s main commercial hub since many abut residential neighborhoods.

The board could vote as early as March 5 after a written comment period closes March 1.

Riverhead Supervisor Tim Hubbard said delaying dispensaries from opening means a “staggering” loss of tax dollars.

Towns get 3% of revenue from recreational cannabis shops.

The Town of Babylon is home to the only state-licensed dispensaries on Long Island. One of those, Strain Stars, took in $13.3 million in its first three months, Newsday reported.

Last month, Babylon reduced the radius between residences and dispensaries from 1,000 feet to 750 feet.

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Consultants for East Hampton Town have unveiled their sprawling new analysis of the potential impacts that new policies limiting aircraft traffic to East Hampton Town Airport in Wainscott might have on other airports in the region.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the analysis, nearly 2,000 pages long and stuffed with reams of data about air traffic, roadway traffic, noise impacts and pollution levels, will guide the next round of decision-making by the Town Board as it once again embarks on an effort to impose restrictions on helicopters, large jets and commercial charter aircraft using the airport.

It is unlikely that any changes to the airport’s operating rules will be in place by this coming summer.

More than a year in the making, the document, known as the draft generic environmental impact statement, or DGEIS, for the proposal to adopt a “prior permission required” policy at the airport, attempts to use data and hypothetical worst-case scenarios to forecast the impacts of new rules that the town had tried to use real-time data to guide their policy-making in 2022 before being stopped by a court injunction.

How wealthy visitors to the South Fork might react if they were unable to fly into the Wainscott airport — known as JPX on Federal Aviation Administration flight maps — and how those decisions would negatively impact those who live near airports in Montauk, Westhampton and Southampton compared to how it might positively impact those living around JPX is the crux of the town’s decision on how or whether to limit air traffic at its airport.

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing on the acceptance of the DGEIS on March 13 at Town Hall at which any member of the public will be welcomed to comment on any of the data in the analysis before the town votes to adopt the document — which is still several steps from imposing the new restrictions. The full DGEIS, hundreds of pages long, is posted on the town’s website. The public comment period on the DGEIS ends April 2.

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing on the acceptance of the draft generic environmental impact statement, or DGEIS, on March 13 at Town Hall during which any member of the public will be welcomed to comment on any of the data in the analysis before the town votes to adopt the document. The full DGEIS, hundreds of pages long, is posted on East Hampton Town’s website, and Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez urged anyone with an interest in the airport’s future to review the document and participate in the public comment period on the DGEIS, which ends April 2.

Democrat John Avlon, an author and former CNN political analyst, launched a bid yesterday to oust freshman Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville) in New York's 1st Congressional District. Avlon, 51, who maintains residences in Manhattan and Sag Harbor, said he recently left CNN, where he had worked as a senior political analyst and fill-in anchor, to make the run. Scott Eidler reports on Newsday.com that four other Democrats have filed to run. They include former State Sen. James Gaughran, of Northport; Nancy Goroff, a former Stony Brook University chemistry department chair who ran unsuccessfully for the seat in 2020; Kyle Hill, a former congressional staffer from Port Jefferson; and Craig Herskowitz, a former New York City administrative law judge who lives in Northport. Daniel Peter Foti has filed to run as a Conservative. The 1st District includes all of Suffolk County's North Shore and extends through the East End, covering both the North and South forks. Avlon said if elected, he would advocate for abortion rights and fight aggressively against climate change. Congressional primaries are scheduled for June 25. There are 565,446 voters in the 1st District, state board of elections data shows. Of that total, 33% are registered Democrats, 32% are Republicans and another 29% are unaffiliated with a political party. In 2022, LaLota defeated Democrat Bridget Fleming, then a Suffolk County legislator, by a margin of 54%-43%.

Mr. Avlon emerged in recent years as a piercing critic of former President Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party Mr. Trump has refashioned in his image. Nicholas Fandos reports in THE NY TIMES that in an interview, Mr. Avlon, 51, said he felt compelled to step from journalism into the political fray to help “break this fever” and oust “MAGA minions who are not even trying to solve problems in the national interest.” Winning the Suffolk County district will be no easy task for a Democrat. It is currently held by Representative Nick LaLota, a first-term Republican, who sailed to an 11-point victory in 2022. Democrats in Washington do not currently consider the district a top-tier target on par with more favorable suburban swing seats elsewhere in New York. But that could still change, as Democrats in Albany weigh whether to use a rare mid-decade court-ordered redistricting process to draw a more favorable congressional map.

Before any of that, though, Mr. Avlon is likely to face a difficult Democratic primary fight in June against 3 other candidates.

A longtime Manhattan resident, Mr. Avlon bought a house in 2017 in Sag Harbor with his wife, Margaret Hoover. She is a conservative who hosts “Firing Line,” the PBS talk show. Voting records show that Mr. Avlon voted in Suffolk County for the first time in 2020.

A Congressman LaLota spokesperson told THE TIMES today, “Avlon knows nothing about Suffolk County other than Sag Harbor croquet matches and summer cocktail parties in Bridgehampton.” He called Mr. Avlon a “Manhattan elitist” and the Republican incumbent a “common sense conservative voice.”

The Cutchogue Civic Association will take a comprehensive look at the Town of Southold’s community housing plan at a meeting this evening from 6 to 7 p.m., at the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Library, titled, “Southold Town Community Housing Plan: Who, What, When, Why, Where and How?” Beth Young of EAST END BEACON reports that Southold Council member Jill Doherty and town planning officials will discuss what the community housing fund is and when it will go into effect, why a plan is needed and who is intended to benefit, where community housing can be located, and how the fund will be administered. A question-and-answer period will follow their presentation. The meeting is open to the public, and all are encouraged to attend. That’s tonight from 6 to 7 p.m., at the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Library.

Sag Harbor Village has won a nearly $6 million New York State grant to help upgrade its aging sewage treatment plant. “It’s pretty exciting to get $6 million from New York State. I don’t think it’s ever happened before,” said Trustee Aidan Corish, who serves as liaison to both the sewage treatment plant and the village’s grant-writing efforts. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that for several years, the Village of Sag Harbor has been aggressively seeking funding from everywhere from the East Hampton and Southampton Community Preservation Funds to the federal government to help pay for a multimillion-dollar upgrade that will allow it to increase the capacity of its 1970s-era sewage treatment plant. It currently has awards to cover approximately $16 million for varying phases of the design and construction work. The plant currently serves the village’s business district and some nearby residential properties. But most properties in the village are not connected to the sewer line. Instead, they rely on traditional septic systems, which can help filter out toxins such as a fecal coliform but which do nothing to eliminate nitrogen from the wastewater flow. Some of that nitrogen eventually finds its way into the bay and coves, where it can lead to unhealthy algal blooms and other pollution. Working with Cameron Engineering, the village has been exploring ways to reduce that flow of nitrogen. Despite the good news, Corish said it was still too early to offer an estimated timetable or total cost for the work. But he said the expansion would be one of the largest public works projects in Sag Harbor Village history, with a total cost exceeding the village’s annual budget.

An unexpected change in venue for the annual Westhampton Beach St. Patrick’s Day parade fundraiser left the committee that puts on the annual parade scrambling this week to get the word out so that folks in the area would know where to attend the “party of the year.” Bill Sutton reports on 27east.com that scheduled for Saturday, March 2, beginning at 7 p.m., the fundraiser — which accounts for most of the $25,000 or so needed to put on the parade — will be held at Westhampton Beach Brewing Company at the Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton. The 2024 Westhampton Beach St. Patrick’s Day Parade will be held this year on Saturday; March 9th.

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As anticipated, the Southampton Town Board passed resolutions last week to extend the moratorium on the licensing and construction of battery energy storage systems {BESS} in town by six months, and to contract with a Hauppauge consulting firm, VHB, that will help chart the path forward to an eventual — if not inevitable — construction of a BESS plant somewhere in town. That path is anything but clear following the Southampton Town Board meeting last Thursday, which featured a public hearing on the moratorium before it was extended, with input from numerous stakeholders that included the attorney representing Canal Southampton Battery Storage, which is a project of Rhynland Energy. The company is seeking to build a BESS facility in Hampton Bays. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the public hearing and votes took place against the backdrop of a recent draft report from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority that was undertaken by Governor Kathy Hochul after three New York BESS facilities caught fire last year, including at a 5-megawatt lithium-ion BESS plant in East Hampton.

The draft report issued 15 recommendations focusing on fire safety, plant security, robust inspections and establishing new training protocols for local first responders who may be called out to fight a fire at a BESS facility. Public comment is open on the state authority’s draft report on BESS facilities through March 5. Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore said the town would have its own response.

Most Republican and Democratic state lawmakers agree on two things: All school buses in the state need to transition from diesel to emission-free buses, and that it won’t be an easy feat. Keshia Clukey reports on Newsday.com that school districts across the state and Long Island have started to create their plans for meeting the state mandate requiring school buses to be zero-emission by 2035. But it’s proving to be a complex task that might require additional legislation.

Several Democrats, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, have proposed changes such as tweaking state transportation aid and giving districts the ability to amend their transportation contracts. Republicans are saying the deadline should be pushed back entirely.

Education advocacy groups and many school leaders have expressed concerns about the cost of replacing their fleets, potential issues with power grid capacity, and questions about whether electric batteries and chargers can meet their needs.

The New York state budget requires all new school buses sold in the state to be zero-emission by 2027 and that all school buses in operation be electric by 2035.

The state is making $500 million available, along with federal funding, to help districts make the transition.

Many school leaders and bus contractors are worried that they may not meet the deadline, citing concerns over costs, power grid capacity and battery life.

The NYS Board of Regents wants to change an outdated formula to fund schools equitably, but state and local politics may be obstacles to fixing a system that analysts say leads the state to spend more on school aid each year. Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that the Board of Regents’ proposal calls for a $1 million study by independent education finance experts to identify improvements to the school aid formula. The formula includes benchmarks from a quarter-century ago that are still used to determine a district’s financial need and to allocate funding, despite the dramatic changes in schools and the communities they serve.

Many Democrats and Republicans agree the formula needs to be updated to more fairly distribute state aid to schools based on current conditions, such as poverty and enrollment. But some say the effort could continue to be thwarted if it means the formula dictates their school districts should get less state aid year-to-year.

The current school aid formula was implemented in 2007 and was considered a major political victory at the time. It consolidated 30 measures of a school district’s needs and wealth. The goal was to ensure greater fairness in providing aid to all schools, with more money going to the schools in most need, often in communities too poor and with too little tax base to supplement funding from local property taxes.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and the legislature could consider the Regents' proposal as they begin negotiations over the 2024-25 state budget, which is due by April 1.

The Regents' review likely will face opposition.

But, supporters say failure to revise the formula is costing some poorer districts critical funds while providing an unfairly large share to some wealthier districts.

The Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation donated more than $8.2 million in privately raised money to East Hampton Town last week to fund the bulk of the construction of a planned swimming pool and cultural center inside the cavernous empty half of the historic Playhouse building.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that with the foundation’s donation in hand, the East Hampton Town Board last Thursday, approved the nearly $14 million contractor bids for the construction of the pool and other facilities and said the work could begin as soon as this April and be completed by late summer 2025. The Town of East Hampton will contribute $5.5 million toward the construction — it increased its contribution by $500,000 last week — and the New York State Legislature has earmarked $1.7 million for a grant to support the second-floor cultural center component of the project. “This is probably one of the largest community projects in Montauk for which funds have been privately raised, an accomplishment that is a testament to our community’s philanthropic and civic-minded members,” the foundation’s president, Sarah Iudicone, said in celebrating the town’s advancing the project. “We will continue to fundraise as construction moves forward to plan for programming and to provide services that fulfill community needs.”

The Cutchogue Civic Association will take a comprehensive look at the Town of Southold’s community housing plan at a meeting tomorrow evening from 6 to 7 p.m., at the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Library, titled, “Southold Town Community Housing Plan: Who, What, When, Why, Where and How?” Beth Young of EAST END BEACON reports that Southold Council member Jill Doherty and town planning officials will discuss what the community housing fund is and when it will go into effect, why a plan is needed and who is intended to benefit, where community housing can be located, and how the fund will be administered. A question-and-answer period will follow their presentation. The meeting is open to the public, and all are encouraged to attend. That’s tomorrow from 6 to 7 p.m., at the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Library.

Two recent cases involving the removal of defendants' religious garments while in the custody of law enforcement are shining the spotlight on policies governing those practices on Long Island.

Michael O'Keeffe reports on Newsday.com that in Suffolk County, a policy that permits police officers to remove religious head garments from defendants came under fire last month after an East Setauket woman sued the county. The lawsuit prompted newly elected Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine to order a review of the policy.

In Nassau County, advocates for Long Island’s Muslim community are calling on Nassau officials to develop a clear policy on religious garments. Nassau leaves decisions regarding religious headwear to the police department and sheriff’s office. The lack of a clear and codified policy, Muslim community advocates warn, could lead to abuses, either through ignorance or prejudice.

The issue surfaced in a Nassau County courtroom in October, when Acting Supreme Court Justice Philippe Solages told an attorney for a Muslim defendant that the woman had to remove a niqab, a religious garment that covers most of the face, to verify her identity. New York State Court officials are reviewing the incident. Long Island is home to an estimated 80,000 Muslims, with dozens of mosques and Islamic centers across Nassau and Suffolk, and it is important for law enforcement officials to understand and respect the growing community’s beliefs, advocates say.

The New York City Police Department and other police departments across the nation have in recent years adopted policies allowing arrestees to wear religious garments.

Courts at the state and federal level in New York have similar policies regarding religious garments.

Inmates at Suffolk County jails are also permitted to wear hijabs and other religious head coverings, according to Vicki DiStefano, a spokeswoman for Sheriff Errol Toulon Jr. They are allowed to wear the garments during the mug shot process as long as their faces are clearly visible, she said.

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When industry analysts track gasoline prices around the country, a phrase comes to mind that’s almost unheard of here: look how cheap it is on Long Island.

While pump prices have been ticking slightly higher over the past few weeks, gasoline remains less expensive in Nassau and Suffolk counties than it is in other parts of the state. It’s also well below what it cost last year. Chris Kahn reports on Newsday.com that according to AAA, the average cost of regular gasoline rose 7 cents over the past month to $3.20 per gallon on Long Island. That is 10 cents less than the New York average of $3.30 per gallon and nearly 20 cents less per gallon than what Long Island motorists paid for gasoline this time last year.

Gasoline can be purchased for as low as $2.84 per gallon at an Ultra Fuel in Commack and $2.85 at 7-Eleven and Valero stations in Bay Shore, according to price tracker GasBuddy. There’s a Shell station on County Road 39 in Southampton where gas is going for about $3.06 per gallon. Closer to $3.40 east of Southampton.

Nationwide, gasoline prices are up nearly 20 cents per gallon over the past month to $3.279.

New York gasoline is especially sensitive to the global market for crude oil since a lot of it comes from foreign refineries, and so pump prices in the region tend to be in lockstep with crude import prices. Meanwhile, the price of gasoline in other parts of the country, especially Texas and the Midwest, has soared as power outages and other issues slowed production at several refineries that serve the middle of the country, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

Despite the refinery problems, government economists and market analysts agree that retail gasoline should see only mild increases this spring as temperatures rise and Americans take more road trips. Overall, U.S. pump prices are expected to be cheaper in 2024 than they were last year.

Northwell Health reached a tentative agreement with the nurses union at Long Island Jewish Valley Stream, avoiding a potential strike at the hospital near the Nassau-Queens border, the New York State Nurses Association said. Sarina Trangle reports on Newsday.com that the union and the New Hyde Park-based health system bargained through the night Saturday and came to an agreement early Sunday, NYSNA said. LIJ Valley Stream staff are slated to vote on the agreement today, one day before nurses had authorized a strike.

Hundreds of union members at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead are also scheduled to vote on a proposed contract today. Nurses, along with X-ray technicians, pharmacists, physical therapists, respiratory therapists, occupational therapists and lab techs, had threatened to walk off the job tomorrow but reached a contract proposal agreement last week.

NYSNA declined to provide specifics on the proposals until after members had voted on them. The contracts would collectively cover more than 700 people.

Northwell Health, the largest private employer in the state, said it is pleased to have reached tentative agreements.

The Cutchogue Civic Association will take a comprehensive look at the Town of Southold’s community housing plan at a meeting on Thursday, Feb. 22 from 6 to 7 p.m., at the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Library, titled, “Southold Town Community Housing Plan: Who, What, When, Why, Where and How?” Beth Young of EAST END BEACON reports that Southold Council member Jill Doherty and town planning officials will discuss what the community housing fund is and when it will go into effect, why a plan is needed and who is intended to benefit, where community housing can be located, and how the fund will be administered.

Presenters are Jill Doherty, Southold Town Council; Mark Terry, Assistant Town Planning Director, and Mara Cerezo, Town Planner. A question-and-answer period will follow their presentation.

The meeting is open to the public, and all are encouraged to attend.

That’s this Thursday from 6 to 7 p.m., at the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Library.

Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni will run for the NYS Assembly seat being vacated by Fred W. Thiele Jr., the longtime incumbent who announced last week that he would not seek another term this year.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that Schiavoni, whose Town Board term ends in 2025, confirmed in an interview on Friday, February 16, that he would seek to replace Thiele, who will have held the 1st District seat for nearly 30 years when he steps down at the end of the year.

Schiavoni is a resident of North Haven where he grew up and is a Pierson High School graduate.

Rich Schaffer, the chairman of the Suffolk County Democratic Committee, said that the party would be interviewing candidates for the opening this week, and that Schiavoni was “the leading candidate” for the Democratic nomination.

Last week, Suffolk County Republican Jesse Garcia said the GOP would nominate a candidate at its convention tomorrow.

In stating his case for the seat, Schiavoni said, “Public service has really been my calling my whole adult life.”

A longtime Social Studies teacher in the Center Moriches School District, Schiavoni has held appointed and elected office since serving a five-year term on the North Haven Village Zoning Board of Appeals from 2008 to 2013. He followed that by serving as a North Haven Village trustee. He also served on the Sag Harbor School Board and the Southampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals.

He was first elected to the Southampton Town Board in 2017 and was reelected to his second four-year term in 2021.

Schiavoni said there were a number of issues confronting the East End that he looked forward to tackling in Albany, including affordable housing.

Teachers Are Missing More School, and There Are Too Few Substitutes. Sarah Mervosh reports in THE NY TIMES that in some districts, teachers are taking more sick days since the pandemic. A shortage of substitutes can make matters worse. Making matters more difficult is a national shortage of substitute teachers, which many educators say has worsened since the pandemic. Schools serving low-income areas are the least likely to be able to find enough substitutes, research has shown.

Not all districts have experienced a rise in teacher absences, but those that have point to trends that reflect the broader American work force.

Employees in many occupations are taking more sick days since the pandemic. Women — who make up the vast majority of the teaching work force — may also be juggling more child care, as children stay home from school or from day care more frequently. (Mothers are 10 times as likely as fathers to take time off work to care for a sick child.)

The North Fork Audubon Society is weighing whether to rename the local chapter of the nature preservation group to remove the reference to John James Audubon, the namesake of the longtime American birding organization who was a slaveholder and opponent of abolition.

Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the National Audubon Society voted last March against dropping the renowned naturalist from its name, but some local chapters of the Audubon Society...including the NYC chapter...which are independent nonprofit organizations, decided they would change their names despite the decision.

Ellen Birenbaum, a North Fork Audubon Society board member, wrote on the subject in the most recent issue of the organization’s newsletter, The Kingfisher. The organization is undertaking its own review of the name and is seeking input from the group’s membership.

Birenbaum told RiverheadLOCAL that her group sent the article to approximately 1,800 people associated with the North Fork Audubon Society asking for their input.

John James Audubon, a French-American who lived from 1785-1851, was the United States’ most famous and influential wildlife artist and naturalist.

“His contributions to ornithology, art, and culture are enormous, but he was a complex and troubling character who did despicable things even by the standards of his day,” the National Audubon Society acknowledges in a profile of Audubon on its website. “He was contemporaneously and posthumously accused of — and most certainly committed — both academic fraud and plagiarism. But far worse, he enslaved Black people and wrote critically about emancipation. He stole human remains and sent the skulls to a colleague who used them to assert that whites were superior to non-whites.”

Birenbaum said that it would take “6 to 8 months to examine the impact of the ‘Audubon’ name on our mission to protect wild birds and their habitat and to connect people to nature.”

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Riverhead Town officials will revisit a proposal to allow agri-tourism resorts on land north of Sound Avenue, Supervisor Tim Hubbard said. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the public hearing on the code scheduled for this week’s board meeting has been canceled.

“After review with various representatives from the farming community, staff members, and after consultation with my fellow board members, we have unanimously agreed to cancel and reschedule the agritourism public hearing scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 21st,” Hubbard said at the outset of last Thursday’s work session.

“It is our intention to revisit the subject of agri-tourism at a future work session,” Hubbard said. “We feel the code changes regarding agri-tourism previously published need changes beyond those which can be made without republishing.”

Hubbard said Riverhead Town’s Agricultural Advisory Committee and the Long Island Farm Bureau raised concerns to him and other board members last week over the code’s limits on what can be done on preserved agricultural land.

The Southampton Town Board unanimously approved a six-month extension to its moratorium on Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) at its meeting last Thursday. Beth Young of EAST END BEACON reports that the board also agreed to hire consultants VHB, Inc. to help them develop new code for siting and safety of BESS facilities based on resident concerns and the recently released recommendations of a New York State BESS task force. “Our goal is to limit the size and deal with safety issues,” said Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore. “We’re going to be responding to the recommendations from the state.” The state battery working group is accepting public comments on their 15 code recommendations through March 5. Locals generally seem supportive of the moratorium extension, though some say they believe it should be longer, or that BESS should not be allowed in town at all.

The Riverhead Charter School plans to build a larger high school on farmland that would require a special permit from the town, and neighbors are rallying against the proposal saying the school will change the area’s rural charm. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that school officials want to build next to the existing high school, a schoolhouse on Sound Avenue that opened after $2.9 million in renovations in 2022. Superintendent Raymond Ankrum said the campus would include sports fields, which the school currently lacks. Ankrum said the schoolhouse was a “stopgap solution” that can’t accommodate growing enrollment. There are over 900 students enrolled from K-12, split between the high school and the main charter school campus on Middle Country Road in Calverton. The school is in contract to buy 71 acres from Potato Acres LLC and tapped $4.5 million in reserves to buy the land in November 2023. Neither the purchase nor design plans have been finalized. The school borders Aquebogue, where some neighbors say that granting one special permit will pave the way for future development on farmland. They said the school will negatively impact traffic, noise and property values. Four properties are included in the sale. Three closest to Sound Avenue can be developed, which is where the school plans to build. Suffolk County bought the development rights to the fourth property, a 60-acre plot, for use solely for farming. Riverhead is one of seven charter schools on Long Island and one of three that are K-12, according to JP O’Hare, a spokesman for the state Education Department. Charter schools get funding from school districts depending on how many students attend from each. In Riverhead, Ankrum said students come from 17 districts. A majority of those students, or 580, come from within Riverhead. The Riverhead Central School District spent $11.6 million on charter school tuition this year, according to a school business official.

New York State Nurses Association nurses and healthcare workers at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead reached a tentative contract agreement with the hospital’s parent company, Northwell Health, this past Thursday after a marathon bargaining session. If union members vote to ratify the contract tomorrow, they will avoid a strike authorized to begin this coming Wednesday. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that according to New York State Nurses Association {NYSNA} the agreement “includes improvements to safe staffing standards, stronger and expedited safe staffing enforcement, protection of NYSNA health and pension benefits, and major wage increases.”

“Our NYSNA negotiating committee worked hard on this tentative agreement and are proud of the safe staffing improvements and the fact that it will take us from some of the lowest paid healthcare workers on Long Island to being competitive with other hospitals,” said PBMC Local President and Southeastern Regional Director Chris Honor (RN, BSN, CAPA). “That will help us hire and retain enough nurses to provide quality care — our Number One goal as nurses and healthcare professionals.” The union says it will release more details about the agreement if it is ratified by members. After a Feb. 1 vote in which 99.5 percent of its 700 members at PBMC and LIJ/Valley Stream agreed to authorize a strike, the union said that pay at Peconic Bay Medical Center “stands out as the lowest-paid on Long Island. The low starting rate makes recruiting and retaining enough nurses and healthcare professionals a challenge and has led to high turnover and understaffing.” Nurses at Long Island Jewish/Valley Stream were also negotiating with Northwell on Thursday but said they were unable to reach a tentative agreement.

The Town of Southampton is seeking public input following a recent design-study presentation before the Southampton Town Board by the firm Historical Concepts focused on the downtown business district in Hampton Bays. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the survey kicked off on February 12 and runs through February 29 and follows several meetings held in January between town officials and Historical Concepts and various Hampton Bays organizations, including the Hampton Bays Civic Association, the Hampton Bays Chamber of Commerce and the Hampton Bays Citizens Advisory Committee.

Residents are encouraged to take the Hampton Bays Conceptual Design Survey here.

Cultivating marijuana plants at home for personal use will become legal in New York this spring — more than three years after the state legalized recreational marijuana. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that while the Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act, signed into law by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo on March 31, 2021, legalized limited home cultivation of marijuana for personal use, the law did not allow home-growing until the Cannabis Control Board adopted regulations authorizing it.

Home-grow regulations were approved by the Cannabis Control Board at its meeting Friday. But the regulations will not take effect until after a 60-day comment period, which will begin with publication of the proposed regulations in the N.Y. State Register.

The Cannabis Control Board adopted regulations last year allowing individuals with medical marijuana cards and their caregivers to grow their own plants at home.

The Cannabis Control Board on Friday also approved its first batch of non-conditional retail licenses. Until now, it had only approved non-medical retail licenses for applicants that met eligibility criteria under the state’s Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensaries (CAURD) program, which prioritizes justice-involved people. On Friday, the CCB issued 109 licenses, with 38 going to applicants seeking to open a retail dispensary and another 26 going to applicants seeking to operate a microbusiness license which allows a licensee to grow, process, distribute and sell all under one license.

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LIRR acting president Robert Free, speaking to the Long Island Regional Planning Council yesterday announced plans to purchase a “battery-powered rescue engine” for the Grand Central Madison tunnels.

“This engine will have the ability to go in and rescue a disabled train that we can’t get out of the tunnel, and not have to operate on third-rail power nor on diesel power. So it’s really a great technology,” Free said. “Now, I hope we’ll never have to use this engine.”

Free did not disclose any other details of the purchase, including how much it was costing the railroad, who was supplying the locomotive, or when it would roll out. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that if realized, the new rescue locomotive would be the LIRR’s first real foray into battery-powered trains. In 2021, the railroad began studying the feasibility of using “battery electric multiple units” on its Oyster Bay branch. The technology would have allowed trains to operate on third-rail power, where available, then switch to battery power where it's not.

But the LIRR abandoned the project in 2022 after several concerns arose, including the high cost of retrofitting trains with batteries and the need to remove seats to make the batteries fit. LIRR officials said at the time that they were still interested in incorporating battery technology in future fleets.

LIRR acting president Robert Free, speaking to the Long Island Regional Planning Council yesterday announced that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in December put a contract out to bid for the construction of a new station in Yaphank. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that bidding opened on Jan. 31 for the “New East Yaphank Station,” as it’s referred to in published MTA documents. The contract, which is estimated to cost between $10 million and $50 million, calls for a two-train car platform, a parking lot with 50 spaces, a platform shelter shed, and a “kiss-and-ride loop for drop-offs.”

The contract would also require the construction of an access roadway linking it to existing roads, and the demolition of the existing Yaphank station, on Yaphank Avenue and Park Street.

The LIRR has said it is looking to move the existing station farther east. Suffolk County and Town of Brookhaven officials have recommended a site just east of the William Floyd Parkway and south of the Long Island Expressway…nearer the Brookhaven National Laboratory… one of Long Island’s largest employers.

Free said the contract would be for both the design and construction of the new station, and that the hope is to begin work on the project by the end of 2024.

A Southampton vacation home owned by the Hilton family is set to hit the market for the first time in 25 years. Arielle Dollinger reports on Newsday.com that the home, owned by Rick and Kathy Hilton, is listed for $14.95 million, confirmed The Corcoran Group, which is listing the property.

The 10,500-square-foot house sits on 2.7 acres within a gated community, listing agent Jared Seligman of Corcoran wrote on Instagram.

The Hiltons, whose children include the reality television personality Paris Hilton and designer Nicky Hilton, purchased the Fordune Drive Southampton Village home in 1999 for $2.385 million, property records show.

The buyers would have access to Fowlers Beach, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Six Riverhead residents are among 31 alleged members of a subset of the Bloods street gang facing felony charges under a 103-count indictment announced yesterday by Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney. As reported on RiverheadLOCAL.com, the long-term investigation that led to the indictments covered 34 separate incidents, including 18 shootings, three armed robberies, three long-term conspiracies, including a conspiracy to commit murder, and the recovery of 12 loaded handguns used in 13 shootings and armed robberies.

A 44-year-old schoolteacher was shot and killed by gang members on April 1, 2023 in Hempstead, according to the D.A.’s press release. Per the indictment, the defendants are alleged members of the Bloodhound Brims street gang, which Tierney described as “an established and organized subset of the nationwide Bloods gang.” The investigation into a series of violent acts allegedly committed by members of the Bloodhound Brims got underway in early 2022 and was conducted by multiple law enforcement agencies from Suffolk County, Riverhead Town, Southampton Town, Nassau County, as well as federal agencies. Over the course of nearly two years, investigators executed over 100 search warrants into residences, vehicles, and digital sources to gather evidence and intelligence about members and associates of Bloodhound Brims, Tierney said.

“The investigation revealed the sprawling and extensive criminal conduct allegedly committed by members of Bloodhound Brims dating back to August 2021,” stated the press release.

The investigation culminated in a five-month grand jury presentation, Tierney said.

The Biden administration has awarded $4.9 million to Suffolk County to replace the decades-old air traffic control tower at Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach, officials said.

Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that the funding award, part of the Federal Aviation Administration's Airport Terminal Grant Program, represents about 30% of the more than $16 million requested by the county for the tower project.

Another $3.35 million has already been secured in state and federal grants, records show. The remaining $7.76 million needed to complete the project, county officials said, is expected to come from the FAA or Gabreski's fund balance.

The control tower at the county-run airport was built in the 1940s and has outlived its usefulness and no longer meets federal requirements, according to the FAA.

“Investing in our aging infrastructure, like the air traffic control tower at Gabreski Airport, ensures the safety and efficiency of air travel, while also contributing to the growth and prosperity of our communities,” Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine said.

The county expects to go out to bid on the project in the summer and to break ground in the fall.

Gabreski, which has three runways, is utilized by private aviation, corporate businesses and air taxi services and is home to the 106th Rescue Wing of the Air National Guard.

The existing 75-foot tower would be replaced by a new 164-foot tower, county records show. The existing tower will remain in service until the new tower is completed.

Opening its expanded 2024 season, Shelter Island Friends of Music presents the Horszowski Trio this Sunday at 3 pm in the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church. The piano, cello, and violin trio will play music by Franz Josef Haydn, Chen Yi and Dmitri Shostakovich.

Admission is free; donations are appreciated.

A reception with the musicians follows the concert.

The Horszowski Trio has become a vital force in the international chamber music world since their formation in 2011.

During a 21 concert tour of Germany in 2022, critics proclaimed, “This ensemble can play anything.”

They will be performing at Shelter Island Presbyterian Church this Sunday at 3pm.

For more information, please visit www.shelterislandfriendsofmusic.org.

The lines of Long Island’s four congressional districts would not change a bit under a new redistricting map approved yesterday by a bipartisan panel. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that the Independent Redistricting Commission, under a court order, unveiled its proposal for boundaries in New York’s 26 congressional districts. And more than 90% of the proposed map looks just like the current one.

The map still must be approved by the NYS Legislature.

The five-Republican, five-Democrat redistricting commission said only three districts contained any noticeable political changes; 10 weren’t altered at all. The most noticeable changes would improve Democrats’ chances at flipping a district in the Syracuse area and tinker with adjacent districts in the Hudson Valley and Catskills to slightly help a Democratic and a Republican incumbent.

In Nassau and Suffolk counties, no changes were made to any of the four congressional districts, which currently feature three Republicans and one Democrat. That’s because commissioners couldn’t come close to a consensus for the region.

“Long Island was the toughest place of all to consider changes,” Charles Nesbitt, the Republican vice-chair of the commission, told Newsday. “That’s because we had vastly different ideas of where the lines should be drawn. So in the end, we settled on the current lines and agreed to disagree.”

Next, the maps will be forwarded to the State Assembly and Senate for approval or rejection — a vote that likely will occur no earlier than Feb. 26th.

The petitioning period for candidates to qualify for June congressional primaries is set to begin Feb. 27.

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The Sag Harbor School District took what could be considered a radical step this school year, becoming the first district in Suffolk County to ban access to cellphones while school is in session. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that in March 2023, the district invited Andrew Richards, a representative from the company Yondr, to offer a presentation about the product his company offers at a Board of Education meeting. Yondr sells a patented cellphone pouch that locks when it is closed. The magnetic lock can only be unlocked by a small, handheld circular device similar to the mechanism used to remove security tags from clothing sold in retail stores. Companies like Yondr have popped up in recent years to meet a demand for restricting access to cellphones at concerts, private parties and other events, as well as in schools and workplaces. Sag Harbor administrators, teachers and parents expressed their support for the system, and it was implemented at the start of the current school year. Now, every day when they arrive, middle and high school students are required to place their phones in Yondr pouches and have the pouch locked, under the guidance of staff — to ensure that they don’t find creative workarounds, like slipping a stick of deodorant or a dummy phone into the pouch in lieu of their real phone — and then report back to a faculty member again at dismissal to have their pouches unlocked. Joe Bartolotto, who began his career as a high school art teacher in the Sag Harbor School District in 1995, is one of many teachers in the school who say they’ve seen a night-and-day difference in the school day since the arrival of the Yondr pouches. “It’s reduced negative interactions with students by a ton,” Bartolotto said. “It’s tremendous. Now you’re not arguing with kids who are trying to post something on Snapchat or calling home because they forgot their cleats for a game. It’s been really great.”

The engineering firm overseeing the designs of the new Montauk Playhouse swimming pool and aquatic center has recommended that East Hampton Town and the Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation tackle both the aquatic center and the planned second phase community “cultural center” at the same time. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that bids the town and the project managers, Island Structures Engineering, opened in December put the total cost of tackling both phases of the project at once at $13.93 million. The bulk of that cost is for the construction of the aquatic center, which will have two swimming pools — one 25-yard, four-lane, lap pool, and a smaller, shallower recreational pool for therapeutic classes and mothers with small babies — men’s and women’s changing areas and locker rooms around the perimeter, and a lounge area in the vaulted entryway that will be open to both the first and second floors. East Hampton Town Councilman David Lys said that the bidding process went very smoothly and that the town is happy that the construction costs were within the ranges anticipated. “We are confident that we’ll be going ahead with these bids and see this project come to fruition.”

The Riverhead school district is raising the bar on its celebration of Black History Month this evening, reaching out to involve more of the community as it highlights a message of equality and inclusiveness, school officials said. Craig Schneider reports on Newsday.com that tonight’s event, which runs from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Riverhead High School auditorium, not only includes art, food and performances by local students but also dances by the youth and adult ministries of First Baptist Church in Riverhead and the Butterfly Effect Project, a local nonprofit that works to empower girls, said Emily Sanz, district director of special programs and community outreach.

This is the district's 15th annual celebration of Black History Month. Sanz said the district changed from having a single administrator orchestrate it to a broader approach that included the district's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, as well as students, staff, parents and outside groups such as the Riverhead Anti-Bias Task Force Group. She emphasized the celebration takes into account that 80% of Riverhead School District’s parents speak Spanish, and the desire to include more of them.

Long Island renters face the worst housing cost burden anywhere in the state — even worse than renters in New York City. Jonathan LaMantia reports on Newsday.com that more than half of the region's renters — 51.4% — are considered "cost-burdened," which the federal government defines as paying at least 30% of gross income toward housing costs, per a new report from NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. That compares with 48.6% of New York City renters and 49.9% of renters in the Mid-Hudson region, which includes Westchester County.

“This serves as a stark reminder of the need to relieve the housing cost burden for Long Islanders,” said Pilar Moya-Mancera, executive director of the Greenlawn-based nonprofit Housing Help. Renters make up slightly less than one-fifth of Long Island households compared with two-thirds of New York City households. Around one-third of Long Island homeowners are considered cost-burdened by the federal standard, which includes mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance and utilities. The report, released yesterday, showed that renters earning the least tend to be the most likely to face a cost burden.

“For too many New Yorkers, finding and keeping an adequate and affordable place to live has become more and more difficult,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “Rising costs are stretching household budgets and forcing trade-offs with other essentials, like food and health care. The consequences of housing insecurity are wide-ranging and while low-income renters are the most cost-burdened, these financial pressures are increasingly felt by middle-class households.”

The Town of Southampton is seeking public input following a recent design-study presentation before the Southampton Town Board by the firm Historical Concepts focused on the downtown business district in Hampton Bays. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the survey kicked off on February 12 and runs through February 29 and follows a slew of meetings held in January between town officials and Historical Concepts and various Hampton Bays organizations, including the Hampton Bays Civic Association, the Hampton Bays Chamber of Commerce and the Hampton Bays Citizens Advisory Committee.

Residents are encouraged to take the Hampton Bays Conceptual Design Survey at southamptontownny.gov/2065/Hampton-Bays-Conceptual-Design-Survey.

After the Shinnecock Nation last week began clearing 10 acres of tribe-owned land on its Westwoods property in Hampton Bays, off the northern side of Sunrise Highway, as the first step in construction of a gas station and travel plaza, questions continue to swirl about the details of the economic development project, and the degree of involvement it will entail from both the State of New York and the Town of Southampton.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that a primary curiosity is whether the tribe will seek to create entrances and exits from Sunrise Highway to the gas station, which Tribal Council Chairman Bryan Polite said has a tentative opening date of spring 2025.

Earlier this week, Polite said that the nation definitely wants to create access to the gas station from the highway, but the tribe will not forge ahead with construction on those access points without cooperation from the State Department of Transportation. So far, he said, there has been little or no dialogue between the tribe and the state DOT, but not for lack of trying on the tribe’s end.

“It’s been almost a year of getting support to ask the DOT to work with us on an off-ramp. We hired an engineering firm that’s worked with the DOT and knows the ins and outs of that, and we’ve presented five different options, including a passover, but it’s fallen on deaf ears," said the Tribal Council Chairman.

Stephen Canzoneri is the public information officer for the Long Island region of the State DOT. He told 27east.com earlier this week that, “Due to the agency’s existing litigation with the nation, we have no comment.” The litigation he’s referring to is the suit the DOT brought against the tribe when it constructed the pair of 62-foot-tall electronic billboards on tribal land on each side of Sunrise Highway, another economic development project that has brought revenue to the Shinnecock Nation.

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The College Board, a New York-based nonprofit that for almost 125 years has developed and administered standardized tests as part of the college admissions process, has been fined $750,000 for what state officials said yesterday was the violation of students’ privacy and the unlawful selling of their personal data — information then used to solicit students with promotional materials. John Valenti reports on Newsday.com that in making the announcement, New York State Attorney General Letitia James and New York State Education Department Commissioner Betty A. Rosa said, in 2019 alone, the College Board “improperly licensed” the information of more than 237,000 state students who had signed up for College Board accounts in connection with SAT, PSAT and Advanced Placement exam courses.

“Students have more than enough to be stressed about when they take college entrance exams, and they shouldn’t have to worry about their personal information being bought and sold,” A.G. James said in a statement. State law requires organizations like the College Board to protect data collected from students — and “not sell it to customers for a profit,” she added.

The attorney general’s office said the College Board “solicited” students to provide information, such as their GPA — or, grade-point average — as well as their anticipated course of study, their interest in a religiously affiliated college or religious activities, and their parents’ “level of income” during the administration of PSAT, SAT and AP exams, as well as when students signed up for a College Board online account.

In its response to the attorney general’s announcement, the College Board says while it “disagrees with the state’s interpretation” of state education Law 2-D — the 2014 law it argued targets emerging technology companies “with no evident application to standardized testing” — it “is pleased to have resolved this investigation” and remains “committed to educational opportunity and success for the students of New York State.”

Before its meeting yesterday was pushed off to Thursday because of snowy weather, the Southampton Town Board was poised to vote to create a Traffic Mitigation and Safety Task Force, making good on a promise by Councilman Michael Iasilli that he would prioritize Southampton Town’s chronic and worsening traffic situation as a freshman legislator. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the task force will be staffed by a dozen representatives from government and the private sector. Two members have yet to be selected or identified. The resolution notes that the task force was created in the face of “significant challenges in terms of policy and practicality,” to alleviate enhanced traffic impacts resulting from a COVID-driven population spike on the East End. The task force is expected to identify heavily trafficked primary and secondary roads, gather information from traffic professionals and the public about possible solutions or mitigation efforts, and prioritize their congesting-beating recommendations from the list of identified roads. A report would then be issued offering findings and recommendations to the Southampton Town Board.

Some residents have started to organize against a plan by the Riverhead Charter School to build a new high school in Northville, which can only happen if the Riverhead Town Board grants a necessary special permit. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that a resident with a home near the 71-acres of open farmland along Sound Avenue being purchased by the charter school has started a Facebook page against its development into a 68,000 square foot high school. The page was also shared by the Facebook page of the Riverhead Central Faculty Association (RCFA), the union representing school district teachers, which opposes the charter school’s expansion plans.

Riverhead Charter School moved its high school-aged students into a restored Northville schoolhouse after its charter was renewed and expanded to allow it to teach grades 11 and 12, and increased the school’s enrollment by nearly 400 students.

The long-running battle over boundaries for New York’s 26 congressional districts will hit a major milestone tomorrow. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that a bipartisan redistricting panel plans to unveil and vote on a new map of districts — which could impact not only individual contests on Long Island and across the state, but also the balance of power in Washington. The Republican co-chairman of the Independent Redistricting Commission said yesterday it is fair to reason that the 10-member group has reached a majority consensus on the new map, but said it was premature to go into details. “I would expect that we will have some sort of agreement,” said Charles Nesbitt, the GOP point person and a former state assemblyman. “I’m not in control of the votes, but certainly there is an expectation we’ll leave with a plan in place. I would hope the legislature will approve it, but you never know.” Redistricting is a bare-knuckled process controlled by state legislatures which, following the latest U.S. Census, must adjust congressional boundaries to adjust to population changes. Mapmaking is often done to try to give one party a political advantage. The legislature’s vote likely will hinge on how much tinkering the commission — which isn’t really independent, but a group of five Democratic and five Republican appointees — does with the current map. The petitioning period for candidates to qualify for June congressional primaries is set to begin Feb. 27. If a new map isn’t approved before then, the legislature could be faced with a choice of either moving the primary date or easing some of the petition requirements and deadlines for qualifying, a step taken before in extraordinary circumstances.

The owner of Khanh Sports in East Hampton Village says that his store, a fixture of Park Place for the last 27 years, will close permanently this winter after he was told by the landlord that his lease would not be renewed. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that Khanh Ngo said the popular surf shop, which is currently closed because of construction outside the door, may not be able to reopen at all before his lease expires in April because of the ongoing work. He is looking for a storage location to stash the inventory while he considers where or whether to relocate the business. “We have two more months left in the lease, and we had been negotiating, but they have decided not to renew it, so now I’m scrambling to find a new place, or even a storage unit,” Khanh said last week from the shop he opened in 1997. Three other businesses in the building have also been told their leases will not be renewed, he said, as the landlord plans renovations to the building and a new focus in the back lot to food-related businesses. The building’s owner, Jay Eastman, declined to comment on the Khanh Sports lease or the status of the building’s other current and future tenants. The Eastman family has owned several buildings in the downtown area since the 1950s, including those currently housing Bookhampton, Set Point tennis shop and Amber Waves Outpost. Khanh Ngo is a co-owner with what he called “silent partners” of the much larger Khanh Sports on Montauk Highway between the village and Amagansett, but he owned the village shop by himself.

The Town of Southampton is poised to sign a right-of-entry agreement with the U.S. Army to allow it to access properties owned near the Gabreski Airport Air National Guard Base in Westhampton, where the Army will test for the presence of polyflouroalkyl substances, or PFAS. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that PFAS are otherwise known as “forever chemicals” and are present in commercial materials including firefighting foam, the suspected contamination culprit at and around the sprawling Gabreski facility in Westhampton. Part of the airport grounds was historically used as a firefighting training area. The Army will conduct a remedial investigation for PFAS and collect soil samples over the next 40 months, according to a resolution that the Southampton Town Board is expected to vote on tomorrow. The resolution, once it’s voted on, would green light an Army right-of-way agreement on the town-owned land.

A newly inked agreement clarifies which emergency department should respond to 911 calls at the Enterprise Park at Calverton. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that Riverhead town officials took a closer look at emergency responses to the site after two new recreation facilities opened there in November. The town teamed up with the Peconic Hockey Foundation to open Peconic Ice Rinks and Scott’s Pointe, a privately owned indoor adventure park with a 22-acre manmade lake for outdoor water sports. Portions of the 2,900-acre EPCAL property are split among three neighboring emergency districts: Riverhead, Wading River and Manorville. On paper, both recreation centers fall within the Manorville Fire District, which does not have an ambulance and contracts with the Riverhead ambulance agency for coverage. But entrances to both centers, on Middle Country Road, are in Wading River’s fire district. With both Riverhead and Wading River responding separately to calls over the past three months, the Riverhead Town board reviewed the issue to develop official emergency protocols and clear up what Councilman Ken Rothwell said is "confusion" over who is ultimately responsible for calls. Under a mutual aid agreement reached Jan. 29 among the entities, Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps and Wading River Fire District both will be dispatched to calls. Officials hope the collaboration will bring faster response times and avoid rewriting district lines that were created before development at EPCAL. Prior to the agreement, Rothwell said, dispatchers were unsure which department to activate. According to the agreement, both will respond to urgent emergencies. Minor calls will be handled by Riverhead, he said. The agreement was shared with Riverhead Police Department and the Suffolk County Department of Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services which dispatch calls to the respective agencies.

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A major winter storm is bearing down on Long Island that could bring nearly a foot of heavy, wet snow and a hazardous morning commute.

Most school districts, libraries, government offices, and some businesses have closed in advance of the storm, which began overnight as rain and is expected to bring Long Island's highest snowfall total in two years. That could mean treacherous roads and regional power outages.

The National Weather Service, which declared a winter storm warning for Long Island from 4 a.m. through 6 p.m. today, called for a rain and snow mix to turn into heavy snow around dawn, when temperatures will drop sharply.

A coastal flood advisory is also in effect for the East End, as well as for southwest Suffolk County. One and a half to two feet of inundation above ground level is expected in vulnerable areas near the waterfront and shoreline per the National Weather Service.

Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care has agreed to refund almost $15,000 — and pay $25,000 in penalties — after more than 700 patients were wrongly charged for COVID-19 vaccines, New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced yesterday. John Valenti reports on Newsday.com that in a statement, James said that due to “administrative errors” 731 patients at Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care centers were charged approximately $28 per vaccine dose. And 451 patients or their guarantors made out-of-pocket payments for charges that Northwell should not have billed for, the attorney general's office said.

The attorney general's office said unpaid accounts associated with 72 vaccine doses were also wrongfully sent to collections in violation of the law.

Under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Provider Agreement regarding COVID-19 vaccine distribution, in effect until Sept. 12, 2023, the attorney general’s office said providers such as Northwell Health-GoHealth, which operates 57 urgent care clinics in New York, were “required to administer COVID-19 vaccines at no out-of-pocket cost to the patient.”

New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who has represented the 1st District longer than any other legislator, confirmed this week that he would not seek another term this November. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that Thiele, who first won a special election in March 1995 and has been reelected to 14 consecutive two-year terms since then, will have represented the East End for nearly three decades when his term expires at the end of the year. He will have outlasted a pair of Republican stalwarts from Montauk, who served immediately before him — Perry Duryea, who held the seat for 18 years, and John Behan, who served for 16 years. “Every day I’ve been in the State Assembly has been an honor. I’ve enjoyed it immensely,” Thiele said. “But it’s time for someone else to have this opportunity.” A politician who is known for his willingness to work across party lines, Thiele, of Sag Harbor, has also changed parties more than once. He began his career in Albany as a moderate Republican before becoming a prominent member of the Independence Party. In mid-2022, he announced that he had joined the Democratic Party, which holds a majority in both the NYS Assembly and Senate. Although Thiele, who turned 70 last summer, said he still loved the job of assemblyman, he added that the long commutes to Albany and “living out of a suitcase for six months a year” had helped him decide to step down. “I plan to continue to be involved. I’m not looking to ‘retire’ retire,” he said. “I’ll look for opportunities that will be consistent with my interests over the years and try to make a difference in that regard.” He added that he and his wife NancyLynn would likely spend more time in the house they recently constructed in North Carolina.

Opening its expanded 2024 season, Shelter Island Friends of Music presents the Horszowski Trio on Sunday, February 18 at 3 pm in the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church. The Trio will play music by Franz Josef Haydn, Chen Yi and Dmitri Shostakovich.

Admission is free; donations are appreciated.

A reception with the musicians follows the concert.

The Horszowski Trio has appeared at major venues in the U.S., as well as Mexico, Canada, Japan, and throughout Europe and Asia. In 2019, the Horszowski Trio made its London debut in a sold-out concert presented by Wigmore Hall. Their success led to a 21-concert-tour in Germany in 2022, where they were acclaimed by major critics: “This ensemble can play anything.”

For more information about this Sunday’s concert please visit www.shelterislandfriendsofmusic.org.

Thomas Schultz remembers moving with his family to Medford in 1973 and wading into bays off the South Shore to catch shiners and sea horses — tiny fish in a rich habitat that included an abundance of clams.

By then, Long Island's oyster population was all but gone following decades of overharvesting.

But with the expansion this month of a Bellport Bay shellfish management area, where harvesting is barred to allow oysters to grow into maturity, a process that takes up to three years, efforts to rebuild the bay's bivalve population took another step forward, he said. Carl MacGowan reports on Newsday.com that restoring Bellport Bay's — and Long Island's — oyster industry is an essential part of local culture and the regional economy, said Schultz, 57, co-founder of the nonprofit Friends of Bellport Bay. It was an industry that was largely lost decades ago because of overfishing and nitrogen pollution caused by untreated sewage from cesspools, experts have said.

When oysters start growing outside the management area, “then they can be harvested by recreational shellfishermen and/or baymen,” Schultz said, adding that oyster shells provide habitat for other species. “Now we have a beautiful ecosystem teeming with life, and it starts with the oysters.”

The Brookhaven Town Board voted 7-0 on Feb. 1 to double the size of a shellfish management area 30 yards off the coastline in the Village of Bellport from 2 acres to 4 acres. The area is one of 11 such management areas in Brookhaven waters, covering a total of 13,460 acres.

Friends of Bellport Bay has a two-year, renewable contract with the town to supply oysters for the management zone.

The nonprofit has planted 3.5 million oysters since 2015 in the existing 2-acre management area, he said, adding oysters can spread from Bellport Bay west to Patchogue Bay and east to Moriches Bay.

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Student enrollment has declined in three out of four Long Island school districts over the past decade, as much as 25% in some, as schools grapple with families having fewer children, an aging population and people leaving who can't afford to live here, according to state figures and a Newsday analysis. Craig Schneider reports on Newsday.com that of Long Island's 124 school districts, 94, or 76%, saw their student population drop from the 2012-13 school year to the 2022-23 school year, with some districts seeing substantial decreases, including Kings Park (-29%), Port Jefferson (-26%), West Hempstead (-23%), Smithtown (-22%) and Commack (-21%), according to the most recent figures from the state Department of Education.

In total, Long Island's student population dropped by 33,394, or 7.33%, in the decade, from 455,384 to 421,990, the figures show.

The enrollment reduction occurred during a period when the Long Island population actually increased, according to the latest census data.

Experts say Long Island is aging overall, and that families are having fewer children.

Suffolk County saw a far greater loss of students than Nassau did.

Suffolk lost 26,610 students in a decade, a drop of 10.5%. In Nassau, enrollment declined by 6,784, or 3.3%, according to state figures. The numbers include students from pre-K to 12th grade. Local planners speculated that Nassau lost fewer students due to the proximity to the city and job opportunities.

The Southampton Town Board will vote tomorrow on whether to reject the numerous contractor bids that have been submitted for a proposed build-out of a new Westhampton Community Center on Old Riverhead Road in Westhampton Beach. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the fate of that long-in-the-making project is on the bubble after Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore said recently that she has questions about whether the site is appropriate for the services the town is seeking from a new community center. The proposed resolution to reject the community center bids follows news this week that the town is already considering an alternative location, via a letter to the Westhampton Beach School District Board of Education to gauge that board’s views on a possible community center being developed on town-owned land adjacent to the Westhampton Beach Elementary School on Mill Road.

Food pantries and nonprofit legal and social service agencies are being strained by a record influx of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally and in some cases making their way to Long Island, officials said. Bart Jones reports on Newsday.com that Long Island Cares, the largest nonprofit food assistance group on Long Island, says demand jumped by one-third in 2023. Last month, Pronto, a major nonprofit serving the Brentwood area, hit a number it had never reached since its founding in 1969: 469 new families given assistance.

It is the newly arrived immigrants — mainly from Latin American countries including Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Haiti — who account for most of the uptick in those seeking help, officials said.

“It's a very heavy burden to keep up with the rate of new immigrants coming in and providing the services that they need,” said Vivian Hart, president and CEO of Pronto, which offers food, clothing, immunizations, health insurance and other assistance. The strain is being felt across Long Island, with some groups asking Pronto for help because they don't have enough resources of their own to meet the demand, she said. Agencies' budgets are being stretched to the limit, forcing them to find more funding.

Officials said the root of the problem is a broken immigration system that in 2023 saw 2.5 million immigrants entering the U.S. illegally.

Immigrants without documentation are generally not eligible for many governmental public benefit programs, so it is falling to nonprofits, churches and other private groups to deal with the fallout.

Representatives of environmental groups, community groups and local government officials across eastern Suffolk County turned out for a two-hour, wide-ranging conversation with state legislators Thursday in Riverhead. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the environmental roundtable event, hosted annually by State Senator Anthony Palumbo, provides an opportunity for environmental advocates spanning Palumbo’s First Senate District, which takes in the five East End towns and northeast Brookhaven, as well as representatives of regional organizations beyond the district’s boundaries, to ask questions of and speak directly to state lawmakers.

Palumbo was joined by NYS Assembly members Fred Thiele and Jodi Giglio for the session at Suffolk County Community College’s downtown Riverhead campus. Rep. Nick LaLota of the 1st Congressional District stopped in to participate for about half an hour in the middle of the session. The event drew roughly 50 people including representatives of 25 different organizations and local officials. Clean water was top of the agenda for many officials and advocates in a region that is both surrounded by water and relies on groundwater as its sole source of drinking water…including the state legislators. The legislators and some of the environmental advocates at the roundtable Thursday had just come off a 10-hour joint legislative budget hearing in Albany Wednesday on the topic of environmental conservation. “Clean water funding is the main issue, as the governor slashed in half — what we asked for was $100 million more,” said Assembly member Giglio.

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While some retailers, such as Costco, Dollar General, Walmart and Wegmans, have reduced their number of self-checkout registers in recent years or changed the rules for the registers’ use due to shoplifting or other concerns, overall retailers’ adoption and customers’ use of the technology continues to rise. Tory N. Parrish reports on Newsday.com that some retailers expect advances in the technology, including artificial intelligence-powered cameras and intelligent sensors, to help tackle the issue of shoplifting at self-checkouts.

“Removing self-checkout registers may be an initial reaction to attempt to curb theft, but it’s unlikely to be an effective solution. We anticipate that the majority of retailers will continue to find that the value of self-checkout registers" outweighs any perceived negatives, according to RetailNext, a San Jose, California-based retail analytics company.

Self-checkout accounted for 30% of transactions in grocery stores in 2021, almost double the share in 2018, according to the Food Marketing Institute, an Arlington, Virginia-based trade group that represents grocery stores. The share remained steady in 2022.

Self-checkout was introduced to the U.S. in the 1980s as a tool aimed at reducing retailers’ staffing costs and increasing stores’ efficiency. In 2022, there were 3.4 million cashiers nationwide, and the number is projected to decline by 348,100, or 10%, by 2032 “because of advances in technology, such as the use of self-service checkout stands in retail stores and increasing online sales,” according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Riverhead Town Board this week unanimously approved a measure to dramatically expand the businesses allowed to operate at Tanger Outlets.

Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that once the zoning law goes into effect, general retail stores, interior design and furniture showroom and specialty grocery stores will be allowed at Tanger, in addition to manufacturer’s outlet stores.

The law also expands accessory uses to allow a sit-down restaurant as an alternative to a food court, as well as indoor and outdoor recreational uses. It also allows theaters built at the site to offer food and beverage service, including alcoholic beverages.

The amendment was made in consultation with Tanger executives. Riverhead Town officials said the law is intended to provide increased “flexibility” for the outlet center, which is the town’s largest taxpayer.

During the public hearing on the law, a prominent local real estate developer warned that expanding the types of businesses allowed at Tanger Outlets would disrupt Riverhead’s commercial economy, harming the rest of the Route 58 corridor and downtown Riverhead.

A state Supreme Court judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by the state NAACP and an environmental nonprofit that aimed to block a proposed Yaphank solid waste transfer station that would ship construction trash off Long Island by rail. Carl MacGowan reports on Newsday.com that an NAACP spokesman and Farmingdale nonprofit Citizens Campaign for the Environment said they would appeal.

The Jan. 8 ruling by NYS Supreme Court Justice Joseph A. Santorelli, if it is upheld, would remove a potential roadblock to development of a transfer station that Brookhaven officials have said will be needed when the town landfill is closed over the next three years.

Justice Santorelli said the Brookhaven Town Board had complied with a 2016 legal settlement that governs development of the Yaphank site.

Last March, the Brookhaven Town Board voted 6-0 to approve a site plan for part of a 350-acre industrial site at the southeast corner of the Long Island Expressway and Sills Road. Separate proposals call for the transfer station on one section of the property and a 1.2 million-square-foot distribution center on another part of the parcel.

The seeds of a possible restoration for Long Island’s cherished Peconic Bay scallops are being cultivated in tanks in a hatchery in Southold, the offspring of shellfish from nearby Moriches Bay. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that at the Cornell Cooperative Extension shellfish hatchery at Cedar Beach in Southold, marine biologists this year launched a novel approach to restoring Peconic Bay scallops after four straight years of die-offs. The plan: spawn scallops from Moriches Bay which appear to be thriving and introduce their offspring into the impacted Peconic scallop population.

The scallops are all of the same species, but researchers are hoping that the Moriches Bay scallops have a genetic advantage to help them thrive in the face of warming waters and a deadly pathogen that could be impacting the Peconic Bay scallops, and that they can bring any genetic advantage to the waters of the Peconic.

Part of the plan includes spawning the Moriches Bay scallops in the fall/winter period rather than their natural spring spawn, giving the scallops a chance to grow larger before being seeded in the wild without potential infection by a pathogen that Stony Brook University scientists discovered has contributed to the massive die-offs.

Work on this part of the program began last month when the fittest of 300 Moriches Bay scallops were used to produce more than 2 million fertilized eggs. In the weeks since, more than 1 million have metamorphized into scallops, said Harrison Tobi, aquaculture and shellfish specialist for the Cornell Cooperative, which is partly funded by Suffolk County.

Tobi and his colleagues decided to spawn the Moriches Bay scallops after finding they had a “really robust population” compared with the Peconic Bay scallops. “Landings in Moriches Bay are much higher than we saw in the Peconic,” he said.

“We are using that information under the assumption that those Moriches scallops might possess a genotype of tolerance to this parasite,” Tobi said.

A group of New York lawmakers demanded yesterday the state cough up $90 million to boost Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus services before the controversial $15 congestion pricing toll is finally rolled out — but critics raged they are already years too late. Jack Morphet , Carl Campanile and Emily Crane report in THE NY POST that the legislators, led by state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens), issued the rallying cry for a cash injection from Albany as they launched a “Get Congestion Pricing Right” campaign — just months before the long-planned toll is supposed to launch.

Their proposal in part calls for $45 million to be set aside in this year’s state budget to help expand bus frequency ahead of drivers being charged the $15 fee to enter Midtown Manhattan south of 60th Street, possibly as early as mid-June.

Opponents of the toll quickly ripped the legislators, arguing they were far too late in stepping up to ease the burden on commuters given the law to impose the nation’s first congestion pricing fee system was approved back in 2019.

Gianaris, who was among the legislators to approve the contentious plan four years ago, admitted that expanding bus services into Midtown should have been considered much earlier.

The New York state corrections department would gain the power to remove abusive guards from its prisons under a state senate bill filed on Monday. Joseph Neff and Alysia Santo report in THE NY TIMES that currently, the commissioner of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision does not have the ultimate authority to fire guards accused of serious misconduct and often must defer to third-party arbitrators who determine disciplinary outcomes. But the bill, filed by State Senator Julia Salazar, a Brooklyn Democrat, would give the commissioner the final say in such cases.

In a memo accompanying her bill, Ms. Salazar, the chairwoman of the Senate committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction, said she drafted the legislation in response to an investigation by The Marshall Project, published last year in collaboration with The New York Times. The investigation showed that New York’s prison department often tried but failed to fire correction officers accused of abuse or trying to conceal it. From the articles, Ms. Salazar wrote in the memo, “a stark picture emerged of a staff disciplinary system that is essentially completely broken and ineffective.”

Drawing on a previously secret state database obtained by The Marshall Project, the examination found that New York’s prison department tried to fire guards accused of abusing prisoners or trying to conceal abuse in more than 290 cases over 12 years — but succeeded in terminating only 10 percent of those officers.

Chris Summers, president of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, has previously defended the arbitration system.

“We have no influence over the decision the arbitrator makes,” he told The Marshall Project in December. “It is a system that is independent, fair and just.”

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The State Senate and Gov. Kathy Hochul are proposing to end the co-pay that New Yorkers are charged for insulin as part of a broad effort to cut medication prices. Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that the measures seek to reduce the cost to New Yorkers at the pharmacy as well as the cost to the state for medications purchased through the Medicaid and Medicare health care systems.

Last week, in addition to eliminating the insulin co-pay for 1.6 million New Yorkers being treated for diabetes, the Senate’s Democratic majority passed bills that would:

Have the state partner with drug companies to increase development of lower-cost generic forms of drugs and get them to market faster. The bill would allow New York to do what California did in 2023 by entering into an agreement to manufacture insulin with a drug company. That reduced the cost of a common dosage to $30 from $300, saving individuals $2,000 to $4,000 annually.

Attempt to seize on a January decision by the federal government to see if the state can buy common medications from the Canadian market, where prices can be a fraction of those charged by drug companies in the United States. However, federal and Canadian regulatory hurdles remain.

Strengthen New York’s buying power by joining other states to negotiate lower prices.

The legislation still has to pass the NYS Assembly before it can become law.

Meanwhile, Hochul’s current budget proposal also calls for a ban on co-pays and other cost-sharing fees for insulin, a critical and common medication, as part of her package of bills to lessen the burden of medical costs. She said her proposal would save New Yorkers an estimated $14 million in 2025.

East Hampton Superintendent of Schools Adam Fine said creating a balanced budget for the 2024-25 school year is going to be a difficult process, and that piercing the state tax levy cap is not off the table if it comes down to cutting the curriculum or raising taxes. “The administrators have met, and we’ve all been told what we need to do to try to make us cap compliant, but I think this year there’s no reason I would sacrifice our programming to remain under the cap,” he said this past Tuesday. “The most important thing for us is to maintain our academic programming across the board.” Desirée Keegan reports on 27east.com that to paint a picture of just some of the challenges the district is dealing with, health insurance fees are increasing $801,000, special education costs are up $637,000, retirement system fees are rising $394,000, Eastern Suffolk BOCES services fees are climbing $244,000, athletic fees are going up $179,000, security costs have gone up $125,000 and property insurance is increasing $91,000. Combined, that’s $2.4 million in mandatory upcharges alone, not including salary increases. The superintendent said the East Hampton School District is expecting tuition to drop $1.2 million, because neighboring districts are anticipating sending 51 fewer students to the high school. Fine said he’s foreseeing at least another 20-student decrease the following year. Then there’s also the current state aid proposal by Governor Kathy Hochul, which plans to cut East Hampton’s state aid by $774,000, though that could change before the budget is finalized. The non-negotiable increases coupled with the drop in tuition and a potential state aid cut instantly puts East Hampton in a $4 million hole.

The shot clock is finally coming to Long Island high school lacrosse. Owen O'Brien reports on Newsday.com that the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) decided on Jan. 31 to allow any section in the state to seek permission from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) to adopt a shot clock on an experimental basis. Section VIII, the governing body for high school sports in Nassau County, and Section XI, the governing body of scholastic sports in Suffolk County, were granted that permission and will use a shot clock on a two-year experimental basis for varsity boys and girls lacrosse games starting in the spring of 2025.

Coaches favor the move, mainly because it will help high school players better prepare for the college game, which already uses a shot clock.

Stalling or holding the ball without making any attempt to score a goal for minutes at a time has been a hot-button topic in the Long Island lacrosse community. It’s especially evident on the girls side, which doesn’t allow body checking.

Credit card users soon may be able to wave goodbye to hidden processing fees.

Long Island authorities on Sunday can begin enforcing a state consumer protection law that requires businesses to be much more transparent about how they’re passing on those surcharges to customers. Chris Kahn reports on Newsday.com that the law, which Gov. Kathy Hochul signed Dec. 13, codifies previous legal interpretations from the New York State Court of Appeals and clarifies rules that merchants must follow when their customers pay with credit cards. It also authorizes local governments to enforce those rules.

Previous reporting by Newsday showed that some business owners thought they were complying with the law when they were not.

Going forward, the law will require New York merchants to include credit card fees in the sticker price. They are not allowed to display just the lower “cash” price for an item, even if they post a sign that says they’ll charge more for credit card purchases.

Merchants are also forbidden from adding credit card surcharges as extra line items to a bill, which sometimes have been concealed with generic descriptions like “convenience,” “service” or “technology” fees. And customers cannot be charged higher surcharges than what the merchant pays in processing fees…which can range between 3% and 5% of the price. The state’s Division of Consumer Protection, which recently published additional guidance related to the new law, said that businesses must list the total price of an item, including any credit card fees.

Businesses that violate the law may be liable for civil penalties of up to $500 per violation, according to the Division of Consumer Protection.

A growing number of applications for docks in bays and harbors along Shelter Island’s shoreline has raised concerns among town officials about the long-term environmental impacts and safety.

Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that the town board on Monday adopted a three-month moratorium on dock permit approvals, a pause officials said gives them time to revise the town code in the face of accelerated waterfront development.

The board approved the moratorium in a 3-1 vote.

Members of Shelter Island Town’s Waterways Management Advisory Council, which examines applications for docks, bulkheads and moorings, are working on code revisions. They want to create new guidelines for docks that factor in environmental conditions and the appropriateness of certain locations, according to the council's chairman, William Geraghty.

Approval of a dock permit falls to the town board, which hasn’t always followed the advisory council’s recommendations on permits.

Town officials are trying to address differences between what could negatively impact the environment and what is legally permitted under the code, differences that sometimes have led the advisory council to recommend against a permit before the town council then grants it — with an eye toward possible litigation.

The Town of Shelter Island originally considered a six-month moratorium. But in a January report, the Suffolk County Planning Commission, which reviewed the proposal, urged the board to start at three months.

Spanish-speaking community members are calling on the Riverhead Board of Education to increase language accessibility at school board meetings and during other interactions. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the request came primarily from members of the education committee for the immigrant Center of Alliance, Solidarity, and Accompaniment (CASA) and the Rural and Migrant Ministry, who raised the concern during the Jan. 23 school board meeting. School district officials said a translator has been present for recent school board meetings, but acknowledged the service has not been announced, either in meeting notices or at the meetings themselves.

Sixty-three percent of students enrolled in the Riverhead School district are Hispanic or Latino, according to State Education Department statistics.

Suffolk County voters should get the chance to vote this fall on a broad new source of water quality protection funding that was kept off last year’s ballot by political gamesmanship, after county political and environmental leaders announced a new agreement to reintroduce the enabling legislation.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the renewed proposal calls for a referendum in November asking voters to approve the creation of a new one-eighth percent sales tax countywide that will fund a broad expansion of sewering and septic system upgrades to stanch the negative impacts of wastewater on tidal bays and harbors, freshwater ponds, and underground drinking water supplies.

“The future of this county depends on water, clean water,” Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine said this past Monday at a press conference announcing the initiative. “It’s time to take a stand. Let’s do sewers where we can, let’s do I/A systems where we can. Let’s make sure we always have clean water.”

Republican Legislator Kevin McCaffrey, the presiding officer of the Suffolk County Legislature, said that enabling legislation to create the new sales tax has been introduced to the State Legislature and is expected to be quickly approved and signed by Governor Kathy Hochul, giving the legislature the power to create the tax and put the approval referendum on the ballot this fall. The measure would need just a simple majority of voters to affirm it to be made law.

The tax is expected to generate more than $50 million per year, which will be split between the extension of sewers in densely populated areas and the installation of nitrogen-reducing septic systems at individual homes and businesses — as called for in the 50-year water quality improvement master plan drafted by former County Executive Steve Bellone’s administration.

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After local preservation advocates pressed the Riverhead Town Board to try to delay PSEG-Long Island demolition plans for a historic building that once housed one of Long Island’s first electric power plants, the utility company has shelved its plans — at least temporarily.

PSEG-Long Island spokesperson Elizabeth Flagler told RiverheadLOCAL last week the company is “happy to have discussions with the involved parties and give some time for those concerned with preserving the structure to develop an alternative plan.” Demolition of the brick building on West Main Street in Riverhead had been slated for early this month. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Landmarks Preservation Commission Chairperson Richard Wines of Jamesport and former Council Member George Bartunek of Calverton met with the Riverhead Town Board at its Jan. 25 work session to implore the board to seek a postponement in the hope that the building could be preserved and repurposed for some other use. The structure, which dates back to 1897, was built by the Riverhead Electric Light Company to house a 150-horsepower steam engine and two dynamos that generated electricity for the village of Riverhead. It is on the site of a dynamo driven by water wheels deployed at the Perkins woolen mill in 1888 to generate electricity for the Perkins Electric Company— the second electric generating company on Long Island, established one year after the Greenport Power and Light Company.

Earlier this week, the Shinnecock Nation officially began work on the construction of a long-awaited gas station and convenience store that will be built on 10 acres of Shinnecock sovereign land at its Westwoods property on the north side of Sunrise Highway, near the Shinnecock monuments, in Hampton Bays. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the nation has been planning on constructing the travel plaza, which would include not only the gas station but a convenience store and possibly another retail space, for years, dating back as far as 2017, according to Bryan Polite, the chairman of the Shinnecock Council of Trustees. Clear-cutting of the wooded 10-acre area that will be home to the gas station plaza began this week, and was visible from Sunrise Highway. The station will be owned by the tribe as a whole through Shinnecock Sovereign Holdings, a federally chartered corporation owned by the tribe to manage economic development initiatives. The gas station will give the Nation an economic boost, and should be popular with motorists, because it will offer tax-free gas. When asked when the gas station and travel plaza would be complete, Polite said, “I can’t really give a timeline on it. But we’re hoping to be complete within eight or nine months with the build-out, with a projected opening in the spring of 2025.”

Parents and staff at the Montauk Child Care Center are asking East Hampton Town to take over the operation of the Montauk Child Care Center after the Economic Opportunity Council of Suffolk, which has operated the center since 2006, announced Jan. 29 that they are discontinuing their contract to run the center, which is at the town-owned Montauk Playhouse on Edgemere Street. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the East Hampton Town Board’s Request for Proposals (RFP) to run the Center, approved at their Feb. 1 meeting, is asking for sealed bids to be received at Town Hall by no later than 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 27. A pre-proposal meeting and site visit will be held on Monday, Feb. 12 at 11am.

An important building with a rich history in Southampton Village is finally getting some much-needed TLC. After several years of benign neglect, Veterans Hall on Pond Lane is being attended to, with a few upgrades that were recently completed on the more than 100-year-old building, with more to come.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that Southampton Village, which owns the building, recently paid to have new flooring installed in the upstairs bathroom and in the kitchen and expansive barroom area on the main floor. New flooring was also installed in the short hallway that connects Veterans Hall to the Southampton Cultural Center, and new toilets were added to the men’s and women’s bathrooms in that hallway that are shared by both facilities, and other bathrooms in Veterans Hall as well. A new ice machine was also added.

Southampton Village officials have said they plan to do more in the spring, including adding a new energy efficient boiler, replacing the air conditioning on the second floor, painting, and maybe even adding a new roof.

The building has served a variety of different purposes since it was built in 1911. According to the Southampton History Museum, private citizens funded the construction of the building in 1911, touting it as a fireproof opera house. In its original design, the building was a 2.5-story gable-roofed, temple-style structure with a projecting gable pediment supported on four slender columns, which remain today. In 1932, the building became the home of the local American Legion post. Decades ago, the side of the building that is now home to the Southampton Cultural Center used to have bowling alleys.

Sarah Anker, a Democrat who served nearly 13 years in the Suffolk County Legislature until term limits prompted her exit last year, announced Monday she will run for the 1st District State Senate seat held by Sen. Anthony Palumbo (R-New Suffolk). Vera Chinese reports on Newsday.com that Anker, 59, of Mount Sinai, said she was focused on the opioid crisis, creating affordable housing opportunities, public safety and protecting water quality. She argued that, if elected, she would have an advantage in advocating for suburban issues as a member of the Democratic Senate majority.

Anker last month began working as an election form processor at the Suffolk County Board of Elections where she earns a $98,098 annual salary.

The 1st Senate District, which includes the Twin Forks and northern Brookhaven Town, hasn’t been represented by a Democrat since George L. Thompson in 1914. There are 78,838 registered Democrats compared with 71,473 registered Republicans and 68,262 unaffiliated voters. according to the state Board of Elections.

Palumbo, 53, who announced his reelection campaign last Wednesday, has served in the Senate since 2021 after serving in the Assembly from 2013 thru 2020.

State senators serve two-year terms and earn $142,000 a year.

Nominating petitions can begin circulating Feb. 27 for the Nov. 5 general election.

Gov. Kathy Hochul yesterday released draft recommendations for ensuring the safety of battery energy storage systems. The recommendations were developed by the Inter-Agency Fire Safety Working Group Governor Hochul established last summer after fires at battery energy storage facilities in New York, including one in East Hampton last may. A public comment period on the draft recommendations is open through March 5, 2024 at 3 p.m. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the recommendations are intended to “provide an overview of potential ways to improve the Fire Code based on WG [working group] discussions and Fire Code review, and to provide a list of recommendations for consideration for future code installments and other state requirements to address safety concerns,” according to the draft document. The recommendations apply only to lithium-ion battery energy storage systems that exceed the 600 kilowatt-hour (kWh) Maximum Allowable Quantity (MAQ) threshold, as established in the 2020 state fire code. Some of the recommendations suggest fire code updates, others make suggestions for fire code additions, and others are described as “additional considerations” that could help address potential issues with BESS fire safety “through other regulatory mechanisms.” “The battery energy storage industry is enabling communities across New York to transition to a clean energy future, and it is critical that we have the comprehensive safety standards in place,” Hochul stated Tuesday. “Adopting the Working Group’s recommendations will ensure New York’s clean energy transition is done safely and responsibly.”

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Widespread delays in processing applications for food stamps and other key assistance programs by Suffolk’s understaffed Department of Social Services last year meant some county residents waited months for help, records show. Nicholas Spangler reports on Newsday.com that federal law entitles eligible households to food stamps — the formal name is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — within 30 days of application. For applicants with scarce resources, the deadlines are even shorter.

But between June and November of last year, Suffolk failed to process at least a thousand SNAP applications each month within the 30-day deadline, according to New York State Welfare Management System reports obtained by the Empire Justice Center, an Albany-based legal advocacy organization.

In June, the month of the county's best on-time performance, 1,055, or 34.3%, of applications were late. In September, the month of the county's worst on-time performance, 2,703, or 51.3%, of applications were late, and the average processing time for late applications was 61 days. By November, the trend had moderated, and 2,209 applications, or 49.3%, were late. For each month from June to November, Suffolk's on-time performance was among the worst in the state, according to spreadsheets Empire Justice compiled comparing county-by-county data from the reports.

County officials said the Department of Social Services, like many such departments nationwide, faces staffing shortages and an increased caseload that have made it difficult to process applications on time.

Jessica Radbord, senior benefits attorney in Empire Justice’s Public Benefits Unit, told Newsday that Suffolk, appeared to be routinely violating the 30-day federal deadline for SNAP and a 30-day state deadline for cash assistance. Nicholas Spangler reports on Newsday.com that in Suffolk, 117,278 residents received SNAP benefits in December. About a third as many residents received benefits in Nassau, which has not experienced delays similar to Suffolk's.

Fire badly damaged a waterfront cottage off East Lake Drive in Montauk on Monday morning.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that it took firefighters more than two hours to completely extinguish the fire, which was called in by neighbors at 8:41 a.m. yesterday. “It was fully involved when I got there, flames were coming out the windows and through the roof — it was pretty intense,” said Montauk Fire Chief Kenneth Glogg.

The cottage, which looks out over Lake Montauk, is occupied, but there was nobody — and no pets — home when the fire broke out, Chief Glogg said. No firefighters were injured.

It took firefighters about two and a half hours to extinguish the fire and ensure there were no smoldering embers inside. The Amagansett Fire Department and East Hampton Fire Department both sent men and equipment to help the Montauk firefighters.

East Hampton Town fire marshals are investigating the cause of the fire.

A New Jersey developer wants to turn Dowling College's former Shirley aviation school into a public athletic complex with an ice skating rink as part of a planned warehouse development, Brookhaven Town officials said last week. Carl MacGowan reports on Newsday.com that the Morristown-based Hampshire Venture Partners plans to build the rink and a 596,000-square-foot warehouse on a 105-acre site off William Floyd Parkway, where Dowling had operated its aeronautics school before the college declared bankruptcy and folded in 2016 due to mounting debt and declining enrollment. The property has been little used since Dowling closed. Hampshire would build the rink and refurbish the former athletic fields on the property, Brookhaven Supervisor Dan Panico said, adding the rink and ballfields would be donated to the town as a public park. Brookhaven plans to hire a separate company to manage the park, Panico said. The Brookhaven Town board has scheduled a Feb. 22 public hearing to consider a zoning change for the property. The site, currently zoned for residential uses, would be rezoned for light industrial development.

A judge, yesterday, upheld New York’s law to allow early voting by mail, rejecting a challenge by the state Republican Party and a number of elected Republican officials. Justice Christina Ryba, of the state Supreme Court in Albany County, ruled the Early Mail Voter Act, which permits all qualified voters to vote early by mail rather than in person, is constitutional. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that Justice Ryba rejected Republicans’ argument that the New York Constitution strictly requires voting in person unless a person is sick or out of town on Election Day. She also said the Constitution gives the State Legislature and governor “broad power to establish laws governing the manner and method of voting,” including “authority to permit mail as a method of early voting.”

“Contrary to plaintiffs’ contention, there is no express language in Article II that requires all individuals to vote in person at their designated polling place on the day of an election,” Ryba wrote in an 11-page decision. “Nor does that provision contain any express language prohibiting the Legislature from enacting laws that permit all eligible voters to vote by mail.”

Republicans vowed to appeal Ryba’s decision to the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, New York’s midlevel court.

The Early Mail Voter Act was signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul in September. It included provisions Democratic leaders said would make voting easier and improve New York’s traditionally low turnout.

Among the changes, the bill altered the law to allow mail-in voting without an excuse during the early voting period before election days to any registered voter who requests one. Traditional absentee ballots still can be cast beyond the early voting period.

The Town of Riverhead has hired a law firm to defend the lawsuit brought last month by Calverton Aviation & Technology. Denise Civiletti reports on RIVERHEADLOCAL.com that the Riverhead Town Board is expected to approve a resolution at today’s meeting ratifying the appointment of Certilman Balin Adler & Hyman of Hauppauge as special counsel in the State Supreme Court action that seeks to enforce the purchase agreement between the town and Calverton Aviation & Technology.

Glenn Gruder, a partner at Certilman Balin, filed a notice of appearance on Friday afternoon on behalf of the Town of Riverhead, the Riverhead Community Development Agency and the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency, the three defendants named in the suit by Calverton Aviation & Technology.

Supervisor Tim Hubbard said the law firm is going to represent all three defendants to start, but the Riverhead IDA may “have to go off on their own.”

The Town of Riverhead is covering the legal fees for the defense to start out, Hubbard said. But it’s too early to know whether or not that will continue, he said.

CAT is seeking a judgment directing the Town of Riverhead Community Development Agency to transfer 1,644 acres of vacant industrial land inside the Calverton Enterprise Park, which the town agreed to sell to CAT, an affiliate of Triple Five Group, for $40 million in the November 2018 purchase agreement. CAT is also seeking money damages to compensate it for the town’s alleged breach of contract.

The left-leaning wing of the Democratic Party has long favored rent control and eviction bans to address the state’s housing crisis. Now, progressives in New York also want to revive an old concept: let the government develop thousands of affordable homes. Mihir Zaveri in THE NY TIMES reports that a bill, set to be introduced today, would create a government agency that could build housing using its own money or money raised in the bond market. It follows similar efforts in Atlanta, Rhode Island and Montgomery County, Md., and is an acknowledgment from the left that solving the housing crisis will inevitably mean building more homes.

The idea is reminiscent of the public housing that governments built decades ago, which was designed to keep rents lower than those private developers might charge. But supporters say the new agency, the Social Housing Development Authority, could avoid the neglect that characterizes many public developments by being less reliant on government subsidies.

The bill is likely to meet with resistance. The state, which is facing possible budget deficits, would need to provide hefty subsidies to make rents affordable to those with the lowest incomes.

Housing is a major point of contention in Albany this year. Most of the discussions have revolved around packaging a new tax incentive for the development of rental buildings and new tenant protections. But the real estate industry, left-leaning lawmakers and labor groups — key players in those discussions — have yet to come to any formal agreement. It is not clear they will do so this year.

Supporters of the new bill say it builds on the success of a 1955 program known as Mitchell-Lama, which spurred the construction of more than 100,000 middle-income homes by giving developers low-interest mortgages and tax abatements.

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Lawmakers from Suffolk County told school officials Saturday they would push back on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget proposal that would reduce aid to dozens of Long Island districts.

Members of the NYS Senate and Assembly told an audience of Suffolk County public school leaders at Longwood Middle School that they did not support cuts to foundation aid, the name given to a formula used to distribute state aid.

They also disavowed the governor’s call to end the “hold harmless” provision in school aid, which has allowed school districts to count on receiving as much state aid as the previous year.

Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that the lawmakers answered questions in front of more than 300 educators and students representing most of Suffolk County’s school districts at the 20th annual Regional Legislative Workshop hosted by Longwood Central School District, Eastern Suffolk BOCES and Suffolk Region PTA.

The event provided a forum for public school leaders to advocate directly to local lawmakers on pressing issues.

The most pressing issue centered on foundation aid, as school districts face uncertainty over how much state aid they can expect to receive while planning 2024-25 budgets. On Thursday, the state Education Department asked the legislature for a 3- to-5-year-phase-in of the governor’s budget proposal.

The governor in her budget address last month said the “massive increases” in state aid seen the past two years were unstainable.

State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa said at a legislative hearing on the budget that Hochul’s call to end the “hold harmless” provision in school aid this year would be too abrupt for school districts to handle.

New York State spends more per pupil — $26,571 annually — than any other state, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that Governor Hochul has argued the school aid formula should be followed because many school districts have lost enrollment and have built record high reserves in recent years because of spikes in state and federal aid. Hochul’s proposal is part of her budget theme to make New York State more affordable to stem an exodus of residents and to attract more employers. The governor’s budget proposal, centered on a theme of making New York State more affordable, includes nearly $35 billion in aid to schools statewide.

Charles Dedrick, executive director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents said this weekend that school districts are tasked with doing more for students, such as mental health initiatives, than ever before and that districts should be allowed to keep higher reserves, similar to municipalities.

He said while he agrees that recent increases were unsustainable, the current proposal amounts to “pulling the rug out from everybody.”

A message in a bottle written over 31 years ago by students at a North Fork high school was discovered by Adam Travis in Shinnecock Bay on Thursday.

Photos of its contents were posted on the Mattituck High School Alumni Facebook group, where thousands responded fondly remembering their late Earth Science teacher, Richard E. Brooks, who organized the project.

Dated October 1992, the note scribbled in pencil reads:

“Dear Finder, As part of an earth science project for 9th grade this bottle was thrown into the Atlantic Ocean near Long Island. Please fill in the information below and return the bottle 2 us. Merci, gracias, danke, thank you.”

It includes a return address to Shawn Magill, Ben Doroski and Mattituck High School science teacher Richard Brooks, plus postage of 19 cents.

Travis, 32, told Newsday he was “fascinated” by the discovery. The outdoorsman regularly finds vintage bottles along the shore.

“You find all this cool stuff that’s been hidden in the marsh,” he said Friday. “It’s a little piece of history.”

He shared what he found in a Mattituck alumni group on Facebook that got thousands of reactions, igniting nostalgia for students who fondly recall the activity and their teacher, who died from Alzheimer's disease last September at 83.

Long Island was home to an estimated 111,900 immigrants living in the United States illegally in 2022, an increase of nearly 20% from a year earlier, when the same population was about 95,600, according to a new analysis provided to Newsday of census data. Matthew Chayes reports on Newsday.com that the increase comes as more than 174,000 migrants — most having crossed the southwest U.S. border from Mexico and then traveled north — have been processed through New York City’s homeless intake system since spring 2022. Some of those migrants have moved out to Nassau and Suffolk counties.

But the analysis, by the Center for Migration Studies of New York, captures only part of the influx.

For instance, the analysis excludes those migrants who have been paroled into the country, under authority the Biden administration has exercised on a historic scale, admitting more than 1 million migrants since the president took office in 2021. The administration has done so under a decades-old law that Congress is now considering restricting.

The analysis also excludes migrants who have filed an asylum claim — including ones that are pending — or who otherwise are legally permitted to live in the United States, such as those subject to Temporary Protected Status, according to Matthew Lisiecki, a senior research and policy analyst with the Center for Migration Studies of New York.

And the analysis doesn't include those migrants who came after 2022.

The contractors working for the Army Corps of Engineers will begin the $11 million rebuilding of downtown Montauk’s beaches today.

The nearly 500-foot dredging vessel Ellis Island was expected to arrive in the waters off Montauk overnight Sunday and should begin pumping sand ashore by this afternoon.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the piping the dredge will use to pump sand ashore has already been installed, and a platoon of bulldozers and other equipment are in place and ready to mobilize when the Ellis Island arrives with the first load of sand.

“We are preparing for the imminent arrival of the dredge vessel,” East Hampton Town Councilman David Lys said yesterday.

The Ellis Island, a 433-foot suction hopper barge, and it’s 158-foot companion tug the Douglas B. Mackie, completed another sand nourishment project on Fire Island on Saturday and departed for Montauk on Sunday afternoon.

The dredge will be vacuuming up sand from the sea floor about 10 miles southwest of downtown Montauk and toting it to a connection pipe off Kirk Park Beach, where it will be pumped ashore and pushed into place by bulldozers.

Once the work begins, it will continue around the clock — bulldozers working beneath banks of floodlights at night — as long sea conditions allow the Ellis Island to operate effectively.

The MTA's congestion pricing plan, which aims to reduce traffic in New York City, is predicted to increase traffic at the Manhattan-bound Queens-Midtown Tunnel during the morning rush hour, in part because some drivers will no longer go out of their way to use the free Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge, according to the project's environmental review. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that MTA officials say the extra time spent at the tunnel will be made up for by reduced traffic in Manhattan, resulting in a net time savings for drivers. The environmental study predicts a 0.1% reduction in the average number of miles traveled by Long Island drivers. Congestion pricing is also projected to lead to an LIRR ridership increase of as much as 2%, which would mean about 4,600 additional passengers on trains each day. MTA officials say the railroad has enough capacity to handle the extra demand.

When our children can no longer afford to stay on the East End, are we still a community?

Of all the existential questions facing this region, this one cuts most close to home for everyone who has experienced the recent mass exodus of longtime friends and neighbors, and their own children. Beth Young of EAST END BEACON reports that the Village of Sag Harbor, which for a long time prided itself on being the “UnHampton,” is now decidedly unaffordable for working class people. The median home sale price in the historic village is now above $2 million, and Sag Harbor’s recent efforts to change its code to encourage affordable housing have met with setbacks, after a developer proposed a 100,000-square-foot, 79-unit mixed-use affordable housing complex in the heart of the village just a day after Sag Harbor adopted an affordable housing code in 2022. A portion of that code was struck down by the New York State Supreme Court in the spring of 2023 after a lawsuit by Save Sag Harbor. The suit alleged the village did not properly apply State Environmental Quality Review Act rules to its code changes.

The Village Board of Trustees reached out to the public during a Jan. 27 community meeting at the Brick Kiln Road firehouse for ideas about how to foster affordable housing.

Sag Harbor Village Trustee Aidan Corish said, “We need to look at community industrial development, and offer the opportunities our children will need to have a fulfilling life locally.”

He added that because of the limited land area in Sag Harbor Village, which is only 1.8 square miles, regional solutions are necessary.

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More than 700 nurses at Northwell's Long Island Jewish Valley Stream hospital and Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead may go on strike if a contract dispute is not settled, their union said.

A strike authorization vote won support from 99% of the clinicians. That empowers the New York State Nurses Association to deliver a 10-day notice alerting Northwell that nurses may walk off the job, the union said yesterday.

The labor organization said it was continuing to negotiate with the New Hyde Park-based health system over compensation and staffing ratios. Sarina Trangle reports on Newsday.com that in 2023, the New York State Nurses Association three times announced that nurses voted to authorize a strike at South Shore University Hospital, St. Charles Hospital and St. Catherine of Siena Hospital. All then reached agreements with their employers in time to avoid a work stoppage. The contract agreements came with double-digit wage increases over the course of three years, Newsday reported at the time.

Nurses did, however, strike in New York City at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx last year.

In Riverhead, the more than 440 nurses at Peconic Bay Medical Center have the lowest base salary of all nurses represented by the union on Long Island, per New York State Nurses Association. They're seeking more compensation in their next contract.

Northwell has spent months bargaining with the nurses, whose contract expired at the end of 2023, health system spokeswoman Barbara Osborn said.

“Our goal is to reach an agreement that continues to provide our valued nurses and allied professionals with competitive compensation and benefits and ensures a safe, supportive working environment that enables them to provide exceptional care,” she said in a statement. “We remain optimistic that an agreement can be reached ….”

Congestion, wasted fuel, and poor roads are costing drivers in the NYC metropolitan area an additional $3,697 annually to operate their vehicles, according to a new report. The biggest expense is linked to traffic, with metro drivers wasting 91 hours sitting in congestion and burning 37 gallons of fuel a year. Lorena Mongelli reports on Newsday.com that experts said the report underscores the need for more funding to improve the region’s infrastructure.

Though peak pothole season is still a couple of months away, across Long Island, where driving is the predominant mode of travel and the roadway network is more vulnerable to damage due to high car and truck traffic, extreme weather and aging infrastructure….all those elements strain the network and drain the pockets of motorists from Manhattan to Montauk. There are over 2 million vehicles registered on Long Island, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Marc Herbst, the executive director of the Long Island Contractors’ Association, said Suffolk and Nassau are the only two counties in the state with so many registered vehicles, making infrastructure needs more pronounced.

He recently testified at a state legislative transportation hearing calling for increased funding, pointing out that the current DOT capital plan for fiscal years 2023-27 provides less than a 1% increase in average annual spending relative to fiscal year 2022 levels for Long Island.

LTV Studios and the Eastville Community Historical Society will celebrate Black History Month by hosting two educational live multimedia lecture events this February.

LTV and Eastville will host two programs at LTV Studios, 75 Industrial Road in Wainscott, both free and open to the public. The first presentation is this coming Saturday…that’s tomorrow at 7 p.m. on Groundbreaking Black Comedians.

It will showcase Godfrey Cambridge, Redd Foxx, Dick Gregory, Flip Wilson, Nipsey Russell, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, and Eddie Murphy.

The Sidney Poitier Story is the second program - set for Sunday, February 25, at 7 p.m.

For more information, go to LTVeh.org.

Long Island’s three Republican congressmen — Reps. Andrew Garbarino, Anthony D’Esposito and Nick LaLota — each started the 2024 campaign year with more than $1 million in the bank, which is more than any of their challengers have. Tom Brune reports on Newsday.com that the race for campaign funds now will pick up as Democrats seeking to challenge D’Esposito and LaLota gear up for the June 25 Democratic primary while Republicans continue to pump contributions into their campaign committees.

“Long Island is one of the most expensive media markets in the country,” said Steve Israel, a former eight-term Democratic congressman from Long Island who once chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“If you’re an incumbent, you’ve got to start the election year with at least $1 million on hand, so the numbers in the report are pretty much where they should be for February,” said Israel, now a bookstore owner.

“But if you’re in a highly competitive race, it’s going to take at least another million by November,” he said. “So the serious fundraising is just getting started.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) has outpaced her challengers in fundraising as she seeks a third term.

In the 1st Congressional District...which includes the east end...Democrat Nancy Goroff, a former Stony Brook University chemistry department chair making her second run for Congress, reported raising $610,917, compared with LaLota, of Amityville, who reported $407,008 in contributions in the last quarter.

But LaLota’s filing shows he has $1.3 million in the bank, more than twice the $529,647 Goroff reported having on hand. And LaLota does not a face a primary in which he would have to spend money to win the party nomination, as Goroff does.

Increasing the number of homes and child care slots on Long Island — and making more of them affordable — is the top priority of the region’s most prominent business group as it lobbies government this year, officials said. James T. Madore reports on Newsday.com that the Long Island Association today unveiled its 2024 agenda for government action at the federal, state and local levels. The priorities, listed in an eight-page booklet, were approved last week by the group’s board of directors.

“Housing and child care speak to the existential crisis that’s facing our region, which is affordability,” said Matt Cohen, the LIA’s CEO and president. “For too many people on Long Island, the American dream of homeownership and quality child care is out of reach.”

Cohen said the LIA would work with governments to “think outside of the box and come up with innovative [housing] solutions,” such as streamlining the environmental and permitting process before shovels can be put into the ground. Nassau and Suffolk counties need more housing of all types and an expansion of assistance for first-time homebuyers, he said.

On child care, Cohen said pay for day care workers, at an average of $35,000 per year, is woefully inadequate. He also said there must be more options for employers to pay for the care of their employees’ kids, such as a proposal from Albany whereby parents, employers and the state would each pay one-third of the cost of day care.

Sag Harbor’s annual HarborFrost is this coming Saturday.

That’s tomorrow and the weather forecast is just right for February fun!

HarborFrost is a celebration of winter in Sag Harbor highlighting two extreme elements—fire and ice! Featuring live ice carving demonstrations, ice sculptures along Main Street, live music performances and indoor children’s activities. The festivities culminate Saturday night with the stunning Fireworks by Grucci display off the end of Long Wharf. There’s something for everyone! Spend the day shopping and dining in Sag Harbor —“We are OPEN for business!” exclaims the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce.

The action starts tonight with the Taste of Sag Harbor kickoff party at the Sag Harbor Cinema.

For further info click here.

Nurses and healthcare workers at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead, who say they are seeking wages and benefits on par with those paid at other Long Island hospitals, have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that members of the union representing the workers gathered with supporters across the street from the hospital yesterday to await the vote result. Christopher Honor, president of the union’s local bargaining unit at Peconic, announced the result: 99.5 % of the more than 700 healthcare workers at Peconic Bay Medical Center and Long Island Jewish Valley Stream authorized a strike, Honor said. Both PBMC and LIJ Valley Stream are part of the Northwell Health System. Peconic healthcare professionals are the lowest paid on Long Island, according to the New York State Nurses Association, which represents 400 nurses and other healthcare workers throughout the Riverhead hospital, including imaging, laboratory and pharmacy workers. Starting pay at PBMC is approximately $12,000 less than at South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore, another Northwell hospital, according to Marie Boyle, a member of the board of directors of the New York State Nurses Association. The top of the scale at PBMC is approximately $32,000 lower than it is at the Bay Shore hospital, 30 miles to the west, Boyle said. The low pay scale poses a significant obstacle to recruiting and retaining enough nurses and healthcare professionals to come to Riverhead, resulting in high turnover and persistent understaffing issues, according to the union. In a statement Thursday afternoon, Peconic Bay Medical Center said it will continue to bargain in good faith to reach an agreement with the union, whose contract expired Dec. 31.

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Representatives of unions, education associations, school funding advocates and government watchdog groups gathered in the State Capitol yesterday to call for the passage of legislation, pending in both chambers of the NYS Legislature, that seeks to prohibit industrial development agencies from abating school district taxes. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the Riverhead Central Faculty Association was among the participants. Their president Greg Wallace took the podium to talk about impacts of tax breaks locally.

“Between 2014 and 2021, the Riverhead IDA has awarded more than $23 million in tax breaks for proposed developments throughout the town of Riverhead,” Wallace said. “The diversion of these funds has created an extreme fiscal burden on the school district by directly impacting the services we can provide to our students. Last year alone, $2.7 million was diverted from the Riverhead Central School District by the Riverhead IDA, whose members are appointed and not elected,” he said. John Kane, executive director of Reinvent Albany, said study after study shows that tax subsidies do not work. He pointed to a report Reinvent Albany published last year, “Debunked: 25 Major Studies Showing Corporate Handouts Do Not Work.” It specifically debunks the idea that corporate subsidies drive job growth and good jobs, he said.

A proposal to develop a new Westhampton Community Center on Old Riverhead Road is under review by the newly seated Southampton Town Board. Town Supervisor Maria Moore said this week that the board, which has three new members, including herself, would be taking a hard look at “all available options and whether the current location is the most appropriate for all the services we seek.” Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the facility under review is a former auto dealership and restaurant that was purchased by the town in 2020 for $4.1 million through a bond authorization and in a process championed and led by now-former Southampton Town Councilman John Bouvier. The building already has a sign in front of it announcing it as the new home of the Westhampton Community Center while it awaits the arrival of numerous contractors who would repurpose the facility. In an e-mail response to 27east.com, Moore said, “As would be expected upon taking office, the current board is doing its due diligence in reviewing all the capital projects and evaluating them in the context of our priorities.” Supervisor Moore said the board will further discuss the project at work sessions and meetings over the next few weeks..."most likely before our next board meeting on February 13.”

Sag Harbor’s annual HarborFrost is this coming Saturday. HarborFrost is a celebration of winter in Sag Harbor highlighting two extreme elements—fire and ice! Featuring live ice carving demonstrations, ice sculptures along Main Street, live music performances and indoor children’s activities. The festivities culminate Saturday night with the stunning Fireworks by Grucci display off the end of Long Wharf. There’s something for everyone! Spend the day shopping and dining in Sag Harbor —“We are OPEN for business!” exclaims the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce. The action starts Friday night with the Taste of Sag Harbor kickoff party at the Sag Harbor Cinema. For further info click here.

A wave of dread hits Jenny Lilja whenever her landline phone rings in the middle of the night. Lilja, the general manager and executive chef of The Hedges Inn in East Hampton, said she has come to expect who's calling: Village police with news that another vehicle has barreled into the historic inn. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that it's happened eight times in the last decade, according to The Hedges Inn manager. Some were direct hits, others took out fencing and landscaping, she said. The last two incidents, on Jan. 15 and in November 2022, have sparked a renewed push among East Hampton Village officials to find a solution. Mayor Jerry Larsen and police chief Jeffrey Erickson acknowledged the problem has been going on for years. It's no secret to anyone in the village that the inn, which is on the National Register of Historic Places and features 14 rooms and a restaurant, is in a precarious spot at 74 James Lane. Drivers heading east on Route 27, the main artery for traffic, reach a traffic light in East Hampton Village where there's a T-intersection. To continue east, drivers must make a left turn onto Main Street. The inn sits about 75 yards directly beyond the intersection in the path of any vehicles that inadvertently continue straight. During the day, normal traffic conditions typically prevent drivers from speeding and missing the turn, Chief Erickson said. But at night, “the runway’s open,” he added. Mayor Larsen said the village plans to hire a traffic engineer at its next meeting to study the location and advise the board on possible solutions. Changes to Route 27, a state road, require approval from the New York State Department of Transportation. But, Stephen Canzoneri, an agency spokesman, said Tuesday that state transportation officials aren't aware of any safety issues at the location.

The Town of Islip is moving forward with a contract that will allow analysis and testing of chemical contamination at Long Island MacArthur Airport, which was declared a state Superfund site last February. Brianne Ledda reports on Newsday.com that the agreement with the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation will allow the agency, along with the state Department of Health, to proceed with a more thorough investigation of the site, a step that’s required before clean-up can begin.

As owner and operator of the airport, Islip will be responsible for covering the cost of cleaning up contamination at MacArthur — a price tag yet to be determined, according to the DEC.

Last year, the DEC confirmed it found perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, "at levels that exceed applicable standards."

The site was listed as a possible Superfund site in 2018 over concerns that past use and storage of perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, a chemical found in firefighting foams used at airports, could have contaminated drinking water supplies.

The substances, also known as "forever chemicals" because they don’t break down easily, have been linked to immune system problems, cancers and other health impacts, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Officials from town, environmental and water quality agencies repeatedly have said public water in the area is safe to drink.

Once the agreement is finalized, the Town of Islip will submit plans for the investigation and public participation to the DEC and Department of Health for review.

Residents may register for regular updates on the clean-up process on the DEC website.

LTV Studios and the Eastville Community Historical Society will celebrate Black History Month by hosting two educational live multimedia lecture events this February. LTV and Eastville will host two programs at LTV Studios, 75 Industrial Road in Wainscott, both free and open to the public. The first presentation is this coming Saturday at 7 p.m. on Groundbreaking Black Comedians. It will showcase Godfrey Cambridge, Redd Foxx, Dick Gregory, Flip Wilson, Nipsey Russell, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, and Eddie Murphy. The Sidney Poitier Story is the second program - set for Sunday, February 25, at 7 p.m. For more information, go to LTVeh.org.

The management and board of directors at SYS recently decided to serve a timeout to the group of pickleball players who routinely show up at the facility off Majors Path in North Sea for open play on weekday mornings on the indoor multi-purpose rink. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that an email sent on January 23 stated that “due to ongoing issues and behaviors by pickleball participants, the SYS Board of Directors and Management has decided to suspend open pickleball play from Wednesday, January 24, to Monday, February 5.”

The SYS-run pickleball league, which meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays, was not suspended and will continue to play.

During the suspension of open play, the email informed participants that SYS would be “reassessing the pickleball times, usage and code of conduct,” and would send updated information and policies out to members shortly.

The email warned that if the inappropriate behavior continued after the resumption of open pickleball play, the pickleball community “would be at risk of losing court time permanently.”

SYS Executive Director Scott Johnson said the main reason for the temporary suspension was “for everyone to have a chance to reset and have a chance to reassess why they come here.” (I.e. – A Time Out.)

Johnson said he had received multiple complaints from his staff members about the behavior of the pickleball players. “To have my staff verbally abused on multiple occasions is unacceptable, especially from adults,” he said. He did not elaborate on the specifics of the alleged verbal abuse.

“My first job is to protect my staff,” he said. “Without them, there is no rec center. We’re all blessed to have this 65,000-square-foot facility, and we should all be thankful.”

And play nice with each other.

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NYS Attorney General Letitia James yesterday filed a federal lawsuit against Citigroup, N.A., alleging that the global banking giant cost its New York customers “millions of dollars” by failing to adequately protect them from ID theft and illegally refusing to reimburse them. Chris Kahn reports on Newsday.com that the 71-page complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York accused Citi of providing an inadequately weak level of defense against scammers, ineffectively responding when notified of ID thefts, misleading customers who believed someone had stolen their money, and denying their claims for compensation.

“Many New Yorkers rely on online banking to pay bills or save for big milestones, and if a bank cannot secure its customers’ accounts, they are failing in their most basic duty,” James said in a statement.

The attorney general did not provide a specific estimate about how many of Citi's customers were impacted by its reimbursement policies, or how much was lost. Citi, headquartered in New York, asserted that it closely follows all laws and regulations, and that it strives to secure customer information.

“Banks are not required to make clients whole when those clients follow criminals’ instructions and banks can see no indication the clients are being deceived,” Citi spokesperson Colin Wright said in a statement.

ID theft is a growing concern in the United States as scammers become increasingly adept at weaving through security systems and tapping the personal accounts they are supposed to protect.

In New York, the FTC reported 39,500 cases of ID theft in the first three quarters of 2023, up 53% from the same period in 2019.

Weeks after Gov. Kathy Hochul declared “no harmful toxins” were detected at three lithium-battery sites that experienced fires last year, activists on Long Island who reviewed the lengthy state report say it may raise more questions than it answers. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that among their concerns is that the preliminary state analysis of a May 31 fire at an East Hampton battery facility didn’t require a groundwater study after a large amount of fire-suppression water was released. They also noted that four months passed between the fire and the collection of soil samples at the site, according to the state report, and that the ability to test for lithium was initially lacking among contractors. In the end, levels for lithium were found to be within safe standards, the report noted.

Battery storage plants have only just begun to be built on Long Island, with only two in the LIPA service territory, including the East Hampton site. Newsday has reported that dozens of the facilities, including some many times larger than the East Hampton unit, are proposed for communities from Glen Head and Island Park to the North and South Fork. The state and LIPA view the large battery facilities as important pillars of their long-term plan to transition to an all-green energy grid by 2040. Battery storage units are slated to gradually displace a fleet of small fuel-fired power plants that serve peak power needs, while allowing the utility to store energy during periods when wind farms and solar arrays are not producing energy.

Groundhog Day is almost here! STAR Foundation groundhog Sam Champion will make his 2024 prediction at the Quogue Library this Friday, Feb. 2nd from 3:30 to 5 p.m. There will be guest speakers and activities with the Quogue Wildlife Refuge, a showing of the movie “Groundhog Day” and hot chocolate and groundhog-themed treats.

That’s the Quogue Library’s Annual Groundhog Day Celebration this coming Friday at 3:30pm.

Visit QUOGUELIBRARY.org to register

Patchogue officials hope to cap the village's decades-long downtown transformation with the addition of a 116-room hotel at the site of a shuttered bowling alley, Mayor Paul Pontieri said. Carl MacGowan reports on Newsday.com that the village's first hotel, which would bear the name of the Hilton hotel chain's new upscale Tempo brand, would boost Patchogue's efforts to make itself a tourism hub — making it easier for visitors to get to Fire Island and the Hamptons, village officials said.

It also would have 16 apartments for year-round residency, a bar and restaurant, and meeting spaces, officials said.

“We’re ready for a hotel. Our downtown is successful enough. The theater is successful enough,” Pontieri said, referring to the Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts on East Main Street. The hotel would be located on West Street, walking distance from Patchogue's Long Island Rail Road station and the Davis Park-Watch Hill ferry terminal.

Pontieri said the five-story hotel's upper floors would have a "million-dollar view" of Great South Bay and Fire Island.

Village officials are crafting a new zoning code for hotels, Pontieri said, adding the Tempo proposal would be reviewed during a public meeting on Feb. 6. He said he hopes the hotel receives all approvals and permits by September.

Tempo is aimed at affluent customers and features amenities such as in-room exercise bikes, according to the chain's website.

The hotel would complete a revitalization effort in Patchogue that began about two decades ago.

At that time, Patchogue had become a virtual ghost town of vacant storefronts and struggling businesses.

The operator of Montauk’s only full-day childcare program has announced that it’s going to pull its staff from the Montauk Childcare Center no later than May 3rd because of mounting financial losses in operating the program.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that for the past 17 years, the Economic Opportunity Council of Suffolk has operated a daycare program for children from infants to 3-year-olds, providing full-day care services with educational and social programming as well as breakfast, lunch and afternoon snacks to kids with working parents.

But the EOC says that the relatively small number of children who use the center, which is based in Montauk Playhouse, does not generate enough revenue to support the staffing and costs of operating the program. The Montauk daycare has operated at a net loss for the entire time that EOC has run it, and the group covered the deficits itself from its reserve funds, Chief Executive Officer Adrian Fassett said.

Currently, 29 families rely on the Montauk Childcare Center for daycare services according to East Hampton Town Councilman Tom Flight…who said that the town is hopeful one of the daycare operators already providing programs elsewhere on the East End will respond to the town’s call for proposals and be able to step in and take over - soon.

Marina and Nicholas Di Tusa are due with their first child in June. The baby was no surprise for the Nassau County couple — but the cost of preparing for a new human life is.

The "mom-and-dad-to-be" budgeted $3,000 just to set up the nursery — to paint the room yellow, to purchase furniture, to buy a rug. “That was our anticipation, but now that we’re looking into it, that’s not going to be enough,” says Marina, 28, who, like her husband, 32, works in health care. Beth Whitehouse reports on Newsday.com that the Di Tusas spent $4,000 on their furniture set from Bambi Baby in Melville, which included a dresser with a changing table top and a crib that transitions to a toddler bed. They're now thinking they will end up spending $5,000 to outfit their baby's room alone. And then there are all the other items new babies need: the car seat, high chair, stroller, clothes. The would-love-to-have items, like books, bouncers and toys. And the paraphernalia, like baby thermometers and rattles. All of that may cost thousands more. This is aside from any medical costs incurred in childbirth.

As with any product, baby gear prices can vary depending on whether the item is entry-level, luxury or something in between. Several pregnancy, baby and parenting sites have studied the average price of setting up for baby, including outfitting the nursery with furniture as well as getting other gear that parents think babies need to start their lives.

BabyCenter compiled a report in August 2022 that showed the average costs of commonly purchased items for a baby, including $230 for an infant car seat, $210 for a crib and $168 for a crib mattress. “All of those popular one-time expenses come to about $4,000,” says Robin Hilmantel, a senior director for the BabyCenter app, a parenting and pregnancy resource.

BabyCenter offers a First-Year Baby Costs Calculator that lets parents plug in their own choices and add up the cost.

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From taxpayers who say they've been overcharged for infrastructure upgrades, to a mother who alleges the county's neglect led to her son's death, to a motorist challenging traffic ticket fees, plaintiffs are seeking more than $1 billion in legal claims filed against Suffolk County over the past 15 years. Vera Chinese reports on Newsday.com that the county estimates it will pay much less than that — a total of $615.6 million — mostly by settling the lawsuits. Municipalities often settle for less than what plaintiffs seek rather than either side risk losing a jury trial or a judge potentially tossing some cases.

Some of the larger settlements in recent years have been tied to allegations of law enforcement misconduct. In December, the county agreed to pay $12.8 million to Rodolfo Taylor, a former resident who spent nearly 26 years incarcerated for a string of gas station robberies and later had his conviction overturned. Newsday has submitted a Freedom of Information request for the amount the county paid last year in total claims.

The largest pending claims are over the county's use of sewer funds and fees that have been added to traffic violations, including a $30 administrative fee for red light camera tickets.

Some fear future payouts could erode Suffolk's $1 billion in reserves, particularly since several lawsuits have languished for years with no resolution.

The Economic Opportunity Council of Suffolk, Inc., the longstanding operator of the Montauk Child Care Center, has announced why it decided to discontinue its contract to operate the facility, effective May 3. Lisa Finn reports on PATCH.com that since its establishment in 2006, the Montauk Child Care Center has been providing essential childcare services to the community, the EOC said. Despite a strong commitment and concerted efforts to maintain the center, EOC of Suffolk has faced escalating operational costs, particularly in staffing, compounded by the recent national surge in inflation, the EOC added.

Additionally, the center has consistently operated under the required enrollment levels for sustainability, the EOC said.

"The cumulative effect of these factors has led to a financial deficit that is no longer viable," Adrian Fassett, president and CEO of EOC of Suffolk, said. "This decision was not made lightly, and we understand the impact it will have on area families and the community-at-large."

The Town of East Hampton said last week that it would be issuing a request for proposals to identify a new operator for the childcare facility. EOC of Suffolk said it was committed to a smooth and orderly transition, prioritizing the welfare of the families and children who depend on the center’s services. To that end, all supplies, toys, materials, and equipment will be left for the next center operator, ensuring continuity of care and resources for the community’s children, the EOC said.

Tenia Campbell, 29, who was arrested by East Hampton Town Police in Montauk on June 27, 2019, after murdering her twin toddlers, was sentenced yesterday to 20 years to life in state prison for the killings. T. E. McMorrow reports on 27east.com that prosecutor Frank Schroeder addressed the court before Suffolk County Justice Richard Ambro pronounced the sentence. He said that, normally, it is a murder victim’s mother who addresses the court before sentencing. “In this case, it is the victim’s mother” who did the killing, he said. “So, who speaks for the 2-year-olds, Jaida and Jasmine?” Schroeder asked. Prosecutors previously said autopsies of Jasmine and Jaida Campbell showed the twins died of “manual asphyxia” when their mother covered their mouths and noses. In the immediate aftermath of the murders, Campbell’s mother told East Hampton Town Police that her daughter was diagnosed as a teenager with bipolar disorder and has been struggling with mental illness her whole life.

Southold has embarked on a mapping project to better understand flood prone areas in town and establish detours that aren’t also underwater. Maps can also help first responders during evacuations and rescues. The 2024 budget includes $100,000 toward a coastal resiliency action plan. There are 210 miles of coastline in Southold and more than 1,100 homes and businesses in the flood zone. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that the town recently began a project to map flood prone areas to help residents better prepare for emergencies and plan longer term solutions. Dan Goodwin, the Southold Town highway superintendent is leading the project with town engineer Michael Collins and John Sepenoski, who heads the town’s geographic information systems department. The mapping project is the first step toward a larger coastal resiliency plan.

Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski said the project will pinpoint safe alternate routes drivers can use to “get to where they’re going, but not drive through standing water.”

The map can also be a useful tool for first responders if rescues are needed, officials said.

Civic leaders have pledged support, saying action is overdue. “Southold is a little behind the eight ball, but at least they’ve got it on their priority list,” said Cutchogue Civic Association vice president Dave Bergen, whose family has lived on Nassau Point for four generations.

“There’s got to be some major changes in these communities,” Bergen, 68, said. “If not, they’re one storm away from these homes being potentially destroyed.”

A draft map, expected by the end of February, will help guide decisions on roads that can be raised and related costs, Goodwin said.

Collins cautioned that raising roads isn’t a cure-all either, and could require partnerships with private landowners so the town’s efforts don’t send floodwaters rushing onto their properties. Examples could include redesigned driveways and new drainage systems.

Riverhead school officials criticized Gov. Kathy Hochul’s executive budget last week for proposing changes to foundation aid, the primary source of state funding for public schools, by changing how the aid is allocated and eliminating the “hold harmless” policy, which guarantees school districts receive as much foundation aid funding as they did the year before. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the change would give districts like Riverhead “less than what we should be getting,” according to Riverhead Central School District administrators. And that Governor Hochul’s budget would “unilaterally change the foundation aid formula that has been used for decades.”

Hochul’s 2024-2025 budget proposal would increase the Riverhead school district’s total state aid by $3.3 million to $80.4 million — a 4.3% increase over the 2023-2024 total aid —according to data published by the NYS Education Department detailing the governor’s proposal. Riverhead’s foundation aid would increase from $57.5 million to $58.9 million. Other districts on the east end would have total state aid significantly reduced under the governor’s proposal.

Legislators across the state and those representing the local region, including State Sen. Anthony Palumbo (R-New Suffolk), Assembly Member Jodi Giglio (R-Baiting Hollow) and Assembly Member Fred Thiele, have vowed to fight the governor’s state aid proposal.

LTV Studios and the Eastville Community Historical Society will celebrate Black History Month by hosting two educational live multimedia lecture events in February. LTV and Eastville will host two programs at LTV Studios, 75 Industrial Road in Wainscott, both free and open to the public. The first presentation is this coming Saturday at 7 p.m. on Groundbreaking Black Comedians. It will showcase Godfrey Cambridge, Redd Foxx, Dick Gregory, Flip Wilson, Nipsey Russell, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, and Eddie Murphy. Each, in their own distinctive voice, introduced an incomparable style of comedy to the world, breaking racially prejudiced barriers along the way. The Sidney Poitier Story is the second program, which is set for Sunday, February 25, at 7 p.m.

For more information, go to ltveh.org.

Don’t wait for the groundhog. A pair of forecasts is already saying there's a chance for an early spring.

Using very different methodology, both the Old Farmer’s Almanac and the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center have called for above-average temperatures in the months ahead. Which sounds pretty good after yesterday's highs in the 30s and chilly winds. John Asbury reports on Newsday.com that the National Weather Service’s forecast, based on scientific weather models and the influence of the El Niño global climate pattern in the Atlantic, calls for temperatures to be above normal in the next three months. But that doesn’t mean Long Island is in the clear yet, as it historically marks its average for the highest snowfall from February through March.

“Seasonal forecasting is tricky; a forecast is usually about a week in advance, but subtle differences in conditions can lead to different outcomes,” said Dominic Ramunni, a meteorologist with the weather service in Upton, Long Island “As we go into the spring, the El Niño system begins to weaken and we could see subtle effects that could bring above-normal temperatures.”

“That’s not to say we’re not going to get any snow or cold air and above-normal precipitation,” he said.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac — which says it derives forecasts “from a secret formula” combining sunspots, prevailing weather patterns and 30-year meteorological statistical averages — also predicts a warmer and early spring.

This year was one of Long Island’s wettest on record per the National Weather Service. Its long-range forecast calls for more wet weather and temperatures above normal.

The ups and downs of winter can be difficult to predict. Long Island recorded its earliest 70-degree day last year on Feb. 16. But two weeks later, the region got its first and only significant snow.

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A record surge of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally is being felt on Long Island, where the numbers are ticking up, according to advocates. The situation is nowhere near as dire as in New York City, which has processed 172,000 recently arrived migrants since April 2022… most of them from Venezuela and Ecuador…and because of an unusual legal requirement, plans to spend $10.6 billion housing and feeding them through June 2025. Bart Jones reports on Newsday.com that no one has an exact number on how many migrants have landed in Nassau and Suffolk counties, since they are not processed like they are in New York City and they often remain in the shadows. But advocates say many signs point to sharply higher numbers in some areas of Long Island and that agencies charged with assisting them have been strained.

The Central American Refugee Center, with offices in Hempstead and Brentwood, over the past 18 months has seen demand for legal services for asylum cases increase from an average of four a week to 25, said Elise de Castillo, the group’s executive director.

Because of that, CARECEN, the largest immigrant legal services agency on Long Island, more than doubled its legal staff from 12 at the end of 2022 to 28 at the end of 2023. That number should increase to 34 this year, de Castillo said.

Long Island already was home to an estimated 100,000 immigrants without legal documentation before the latest wave, according to advocates. Often, helping immigrants without legal status on Long Island falls to private agencies, church groups, charity organizations and other entities. Maria Elena Duarte, a native of Chile, and her husband, Juan Ruiz, run a group of volunteers that helps new migrants on the East End with donated food, clothing and other basics. She said the number of families they serve has jumped in the last two years from 125 to 350.

“After the pandemic, there was an explosion,” Duarte said in Spanish.

Poverty, violence, political turmoil and, in some cases, repression are driving many of the migrants here, though the journey can be life-threatening and their lives often remain a struggle for months or years.

At the same time, their growing numbers are fueling anger among some longtime Long Island residents because of the perceived strain they can put on schools, social service agencies and health care systems.

Local residents and Riverhead Town officials are hoping to convince the Long Island Power Authority and its contractor PSEG-Long Island to postpone the planned demolition of a historic building on the Peconic River where one of the first electric power plants on Long Island once operated. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that on the West Main Street site was a plant that for 34 years, from 1888 to 1922, provided electricity for street lighting, homes and businesses in Riverhead and beyond. The plant was first powered by water wheels and then by steam engines.

The property on the river where the plant operated had previously been the site of a water-powered woolen mill operated by brothers John and Henry Perkins. PSEG-Long Island has notified the town it is planning to demolish the 127-year-old building as soon as early next month. Company representatives have told Riverhead Town officials that the roof of the building is in danger of collapse and the entire structure presents a hazard. The Landmarks Preservation Commission and a group of local residents, led by former Council Member George Bartunek, are opposed to the demolition and are asking the town to get LIPA/PSEG to delay the action for nine months to a year — with the hope of raising funds through grants to rehabilitate the historic building and repurpose it for some public use.

LTV Studios and the Eastville Community Historical Society will celebrate Black History Month by hosting two educational live multimedia lecture events in February.

LTV and Eastville will host two programs at LTV Studios, 75 Industrial Road in Wainscott, both free and open to the public, the first this coming Saturday, February 3, at 7 p.m. on Groundbreaking Black Comedians.

It will showcase Godfrey Cambridge, Redd Foxx, Dick Gregory, Flip Wilson, Nipsey Russell, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, and Eddie Murphy. Each, in their own distinctive voice, introduced an incomparable style of comedy to the world, breaking racially prejudiced barriers along the way.

The Sidney Poitier Story is the second program, which is set for Sunday, February 25, at 7 p.m.

For more information, go to ltveh.org.

New Yorkers consider the Hamptons the Empire State’s biggest ripoff, a new survey says. Georgia Worrell in THE NY POST reports that over 40% of approximately 5,000 polled New Yorkers think the Hamptons is the attraction that’s least worth the price, followed by the Empire State Building (31%) and the Statue of Liberty (14%), according to a Casino.org study.

Almost half of those who consider the Hamptons the biggest rip-off blamed it on whopping lodging prices, while almost 30% complained about dining costs.

The average $577-per-night stay in the Hamptons is a startling 290% higher than the national $148-per-night norm, and a typical East End entree costs around $35 — much more than the national $23 standard, the study found.

The Hamptons “is a place specifically for rich people to galavant,” one interviewee griped.

Respondents who considered the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty the biggest swindles blamed the pricey tour tickets, which start at $44 and $24.50 per adult, respectively. New Yorkers said Times Square was also a sham, with 31% of votes, while seeing a show on Broadway was considered a swindle by 16% of voters, and 10% said paying $5 to try a Nathan’s hot dog wasn’t worth it.

Almost 100% of New Yorkers said a trip to Niagara Falls was worth the dough — but 60% thought a trip to Disney World was highway robbery, and ranked it the top national rip-off.

While some were expecting New York State to open a 30-day window for companies to bid for three downstate casino licenses this month, it won’t be that soon. Some insiders say the actual awarding of bids wouldn't come until the first quarter of 2025, if then. Gov. Kathy Hochul isn’t banking on receiving casino license fees for the upcoming fiscal year, which runs to March 31, 2025. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that the next big milestone is when the Gaming Facility Location Board — the panel created to oversee the process and a subset of the state Gaming Commission — publicly posts answers to what’s called the “second round” of preliminary questions submitted by companies that might want to bid.

Once the answers are posted, the board opens the 30-day window for bidding.

Each casino winner will be expected to fork over at least $500 million in fees — meaning at least a $1.5 billion haul for the state.

But that seems a couple years away.

At least.

East Hampton Town is requesting an amendment to the Army Corps of Engineers project slated to begin in downtown Montauk this winter to incorporate damage to its sandbagged beach there during three recent storms, as New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced last week that she is authorizing $3 million in funding to support stabilization of Suffolk County’s shoreline and a beach replenishment project on Fire Island.

East Hampton Town is also asking for a “betterment” option for the Army Corps to shore up the area around Ditch Plains, which the agency has in the past not been willing to protect. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the Town of East Hampton is also considering engaging the Ditch Plains community about the prospect of forming an Erosion Control District, a special taxing district that could be used to protect homes in the area from the ocean.

In a Jan. 25 letter to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Coastal Erosion Management Section, East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathy Burke-Gonzalez asked the DEC to amend the Army Corps’ Fire Island to Moriches Inlet (FIMI) project, which includes dredging 450,000 cubic yards of sand onto the ocean beach in front of downtown Montauk, to include repairs to the geotextile sandbags that were exposed in storms on Dec. 18, 2023 and in January 2024 and repair four pedestrian dune crossovers that were installed as part of the Army Corps’ 2015 Downtown Montauk Stabilization project, authorized in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.

Both the FIMI project and the Downtown Montauk Stabilization Project are part of the Army Corps Fire Island to Montauk Point (FIMP) project to protect the South Shore of Long Island authorized by Congress in 1960.

East Hampton Town Board members agreed at their Jan. 23 work session to put a resolution on their Feb. 1 agenda to hire a surveyor to create a current coastal profile of Ditch Plains.

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Five Long Island school systems are among 16 statewide identified as facing varying degrees of fiscal strain, according to a report issued by the state comptroller. Two of those systems face "significant stress": New Suffolk and Amityville. Three — Roosevelt, Middle Country and Springs — were classified as "susceptible" to stress, the mildest of three categories. New Suffolk residents are scheduled to vote March 5 on whether to shut down instruction in their small local school and send students to neighboring districts. John Hildebrand reports on Newsday.com that designations were based on districts' financial condition during the 2022-23 school year, which ended June 30.

In Springs, "The reality is we get very little aid, and the burden falls on our taxpayers," said Springs schools Superintendent Debra Winter.

Springs, which operates on a $35 million annual budget, receives about $2 million in financial assistance from Albany, according to state records. Winter said the district, which operates classes from prekindergarten through eighth grade, is struggling to pay tuition bills totaling about $10 million to send older students to high school in a neighboring district.

The number of districts identified statewide as fiscally stressed was higher than 14 named the prior year, but well below the 33 designated in 2019, the comptroller's office reported.

"Although federal relief packages and state aid provided much needed assistance, school officials should remain diligent and closely monitor their financial condition in the current and future budget cycles as one-time federal funds are depleted and state aid is uncertain," DiNapoli stated.

Students at Hampton Bays High School will soon be able to open their own bank account, make deposits and withdrawals, and otherwise polish their financial skills at a new banking center inside the school. Craig Schneider reports on Newsday.com that the creation of the banking center, called the Baymen Financial Literacy Center, aims to instill in students the money management skills they'll need heading into adulthood, said Superintendent Lars Clemensen. It opens Feb. 29.

"We want to make sure financial literacy is a common language for kids," Clemensen said. "We don't want our kids leaving here and signing up for their first credit card, not knowing what to do."

The initiative comes as many educators across the country push for schools to provide more real-life teaching about handling personal finances. The state Board of Regents is considering making instruction in financial planning a requirement for a New York high school diploma.

Hampton Bays' school banking center, also open to faculty and staff, was built out of an old school store using a $30,000 state grant and will be staffed by a bilingual teller employed by the Teachers Federal Credit Union for two days a week, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

School officials will communicate with parents regarding each child's account, and any checking account would have to be co-opened with a parent. The Hampton Bays district already offers a high school elective class in personal finance and is enhancing its financial literacy and money management instruction across the grades, Clemensen said.

The Sag Harbor Village Board will hold an affordable housing workshop on Saturday, January 27th…that’s tomorrow at 1 p.m. in the Brick Kiln Road firehouse. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that Mayor Tom Gardella said the goal of the event, which will be moderated by Joseph P. Shaw, the executive editor of The Express News Group, is to hear from the public to help the Village of Sag Harbor shape future policies. “I want to hear from the public,” Gardella said. “I want to hear from people who are in a situation where they need affordable housing, those who are trying to create affordable housing, and those who are trying to maintain their workforce.” The full Village Board is expected to convene for the session.

The full Village Board is expected to convene for the session. Mayor Gardella said among the topics to be discussed will be his proposal to develop workforce housing as part of a major redevelopment of the Brick Kiln firehouse site, which is also home to the ambulance headquarters and Department of Public Works. The mayor said he hoped that individuals who may have ideas for other affordable housing proposals in the village would also be willing to share them with the public. That’s tomorrow at 1pm in the Sag Harbor Brick Kiln Road firehouse.

In a 7-0 vote Tuesday afternoon, the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency approved the $2.7 million tax relief package for the $43.9 million luxury hotel proposal known as The Enclaves. Nicholas Grasso reports in THE SUFFOLK TIMES that the IDA, which provides financial incentives to promote economic development within Suffolk County, granted the developer, Enclaves LLC, $1.8 million in reductions on sales tax for building materials and equipment, $246,000 in reduced mortgage tax payments and $700,000 in savings courtesy of a 15-year PILOT program.

The IDA’s assistance and its proceedings have long stirred controversy throughout Southold. Prior to a public meeting the IDA hosted at Southold Town Hall last month, former Town Supervisor Scott Russell and current Supervisor Al Krupski decried the IDA for not seeking input from Southold residents earlier in their process. The Town Hall meeting was transcribed and presented to the IDA’s seven-member voting board along with nearly 100 written comments submitted by Jan. 16 regarding the project. Among the 67 comments opposing the tax relief package for the project is a letter signed by all six members of the Southold Town Board.

The IDA also received 29 comments from various parties, including several local business owners, supporting the incentives for the developers.

The IDA’s actions will engender 72,979 square feet of new construction, including a two-story, 40-room hotel, four detached cottages and a pair of restaurants on 6.75 acres at the former Hedges bed and breakfast on Main Road in Southold. Developers Jonathan Tibett, Edward Glackin and Andrew Giambertone said the tax breaks were “vital” to the project. They anticipate opening The Enclaves by summer 2025.

Two weeks after receiving its final site plan approval from the Southold Town Planning Board, the controversial proposal for a 40-room luxury resort hotel “The Enclaves” received unanimous approval for $2.75 million in tax breaks from the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency yesterday. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the project, on 6.75 acres on the Main Road in Southold, is slated to include renovation of an existing house for use as a restaurant that will be open to the public, a 40-room hotel, four guest cottages, another restaurant for hotel guests only, a spa, meeting rooms, lounges and 100-person-capacity event space in nearly 73,000 square feet of new buildings. The total cost is expected to be $44 million.

The agency’s move comes despite significant public comment opposing the tax breaks from Southold residents, and a scathing three-page letter from the Southold Town Board describing the abatements, which would reduce the applicants’ projected property and sales tax burden for the next 15 years, as an “unjust enrichment and burden on the town.”

The Southold Town Board and many residents who spoke at a public hearing last month raised concerns about the percentage of low wage jobs to be created by the development, the seasonal nature of the business, and the impact of the project on the town’s infrastructure.

Numerous East End businesses and tourism agencies, including the East End Tourism Alliance, Discover LI and the Long Island Aquarium, as well as the Hyatt Place hotel in Riverhead submitted letters in support of the project.

Long Island’s lack of affordable housing is hindering employers' ability to attract and retain workers, according to a poll released yesterday. James T. Madore reports on Newsday.com that nearly 8 in 10 CEOs said the dearth of affordable single-family houses and apartments is the biggest “detriment to doing business” here in a survey conducted last fall by PKF O’Connor Davies accountants and the Siena College Research Institute. A panel of experts who discussed the poll results on Thursday agreed. “Housing is key to attracting and retaining our labor force,” said NYS Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, adding that his office is examining shelter costs statewide. Kevin Law, a partner in the real estate development firm Tritec in East Setauket, said 82% of the housing stock in Nassau and Suffolk counties is single-family homes, a far higher amount than in the rest of downstate, and in New Jersey and Connecticut. “We have a significant supply imbalance here,” he told the audience. “We need to increase the supply of rental housing because that’s usually the place where younger employees will start out.” Besides having a roof over their head, many of those who are new to the workforce also want to start a family or already have young children, which means they need child care. Stacey Sikes, a vice president at the Long Island Association business group and mother of two daughters, said, “people cannot go to work unless there is affordable and available child care... Child care is a business issue."

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New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s executive budget proposal would force East End school districts to make significant cuts to balance next year’s financial plans. According to calculations unveiled last week, local districts might face a more than 20 percent decrease in state aid. Desirée Keegan reports on 27east.com that Southampton Superintendent of Schools Nicholas Dyno said he was in shock to see a forecasted 27 percent, or $485,000, decline in support for his district. The move comes after three years of large appropriations to fully fund foundation aid.

“No one discussed it for the past year or so. This wasn’t on anyone’s radar,” he said. “We received $1,770,000 in foundation aid this current year, and it’s already a tough year, where we’re still under the pressure of the 2 percent tax cap and have health care costs going up around the 15 percent mark — over $1 million from this year to next.

“In layman’s terms, it gives us this impossible task to build a budget where either we cut personnel or we cut programs, because that’s where the bulk of our resources go.” That’s Southampton Superintendent of Schools Nicholas Dyno.

Sag Harbor School Business Administrator Jennifer Buscemi said her district’s 21.5 percent, or $428,681, deficit in light of health insurance and retirement system increases would be destructive.

“We have never had to address such a large reduction in year-to-year state aid and hope our legislators can work with the governor to keep our aid in line with last year’s allocation,” Buscemi said.

The state’s foundation aid formula includes factors such as enrollment and local community wealth, but Springs Superintendent Debra Winter said her drop from 682 students in the 2013-14 school year to the current 656 in her K-8 school is not significant enough to warrant her 12.43 percent, or $200,000, slash.

“Any reduction in aid is significant for Springs — devastating — and will impact our students, who deserve so much more than we currently provide, not less,” said Ms. Winter.

East Hampton Superintendent of Schools Adam Fine, whose district could lose 20.17 percent, or $774,241, said he remains hopeful that the State Legislature will help reestablish support.

“We are hoping to speak with our local New York State leaders to plead our case,” Fine said. “We consider New York State to be our partner in the education of our students, and I am hopeful for a positive resolution.”

The East Hampton Town Board unanimously approved contracts with its two law enforcement unions that boost base salaries for police officials by 10% over the next three years. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that the agreements extend by two years the contracts between the town and Police Benevolent Association, which represents patrol officers and detectives of the East Hampton Town Police Department, and the Superior Officers Association, which represents the ranks of sergeant, detective sergeant, lieutenant and captain. The new agreements, retroactive to Jan. 1, extended the existing contracts with some amendments through the end of 2026, according to town officials. The board voted to ratify the agreements last Thursday. The police department accounts for $20.5 million of East Hampton Town’s $95 million budget for 2024. The police force currently has 65 sworn personnel, according to the department.

Sand Land, the controversial sand mining operation owned by Wainscott Sand and Gravel off Millstone Road in Noyac, has apparently ceased operations. No activity has been seen at the site since it closed on December 22, the Friday before Christmas.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that in the meantime, the company announced in a letter to its customers that it would move its operations to the site formerly occupied by Southampton Masonry at 30 Old Montauk Highway in Wainscott.

The news apparently caught many of the sand mine’s opponents by surprise and left them speculating whether it was a permanent development.

“All I can say is what I see,” said NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. “There hasn’t been any activity there in the past month, and customers have been told the retail operation is moving to Wainscott.”

“It is our sincere hope that the facility will remain closed,” said Bob DeLuca, the president for the Group for the East End, “and that the next construction activity we see at this facility is focused on reclamation and healing this important groundwater recharge area for the future needs of local residents.” DeLuca was also at a loss to explain what was happening, saying he did not know if the DEC had finally stepped up enforcement or if the shutdown was voluntary. “It’s the exact outcome that should have immediately followed the unanimous decision of the New York State Court of Appeals last winter, but the state chose to ignore the decision and allow operations to continue,” he said. “

At the end of the day,” DeLuca added, “it’s important to remember that this decade-long conflict revolves solely around the long-term protection of our underground drinking water supply, a resource recognized as critical by every level of government and broadly supported through extensive public investment for decades.”

The median home sale price on Long Island excluding the East End in the fourth quarter was $635,000, close to its all-time high, and 7.6% higher than a year ago, according to a new report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel.A record low number of listings has helped drive prices higher. An expected drop in mortgage rates this year would lower homebuyers' interest costs but might increase competition for homes. Jonathan LaMantia reports on Newsday.com that on Long Island’s South Fork - The Hamptons shattered its previous price record, with the median sale at $1.85 million — a 45% increase compared with the fourth quarter of 2022 — because deals worth more than $5 million made up a greater share of sales than usual. The median price on the North Fork fell 2.1% to $974,250. Despite the record prices, Long Island’s housing market has been in a rut with an unusually low number of houses changing hands.

About 53% of all sales in the fourth quarter sold for above asking price, a sign that there were multiple bidders making offers, said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel.

In Suffolk, excluding the East End, the median sale was a record $575,000 in the fourth quarter, an increase of 8.5% compared with the same stretch of 2022. That's an all-time high for the county, excluding the East End.

Tony Lambert, a Bridgehampton High School graduate and U.S. Marine combat veteran and a familiar face behind the counter at the Bridgehampton Post Office for the last two decades, will hand out his last parcel on Friday…that’s tomorrow…as he prepares to move on to a new job at the Cutchogue Post Office. The best thing about working in Bridgehampton, where he spent most of his life, is the people he has met over the years, said Lambert, 49, who has been working at the post office since 2002. “I’ve seen newborn babies and watched them grow up to be driving their parents to the post office,” he said. “I talk to people about sports, their kids and family, the good things and the bad things.”Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that Lambert has been living in Mastic Beach since 2021. He put in for an opening at Cutchogue in part to reduce his commute time by 20 to 30 minutes in each direction. Tony said he looks forward to the challenge in Cutchogue, where he will be joining a new postmaster and three letter carriers.

With an accumulated kitty of $5.8 million as of the end of November 2023, the Southampton Town Board voted this week to tap into its new Community Housing Fund for the first time. For its first purchase under the new program, the board voted at its regular meeting Tuesday to buy a 3.8-acre parcel of vacant land in Water Mill for $4.3 million from the Euell Family Trust.Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the parcel fronts Montauk Highway and, said Southampton Town Director of Housing and Community Development Kara Bak, affords the town with a unique opportunity to produce affordable housing east of the Shinnecock Canal.

The property is currently zoned as CR60 and will require an “increase in residential development density in order to develop affordable housing,” said Bak.

That means a change in the current zoning. The zoning issue will be taken up separately by the board and the Zoning Board of Appeals at a later date and following a public hearing before the board.

That change in zoning, said Bak, would allow the board to consider developing the property for up to 36 rental apartments or owner-occupied townhouses.

The community wants the housing, said Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni, following a recent meeting with the Water Mill Citizens Advisory Committee.

The “how” of how the parcel at 99 Montauk Highway just east of the junction of 27 and 27A will be developed is to be determined by the Southampton Town Board and the newly created Community Housing Fund Advisory Committee, which will provide guidance to the board.

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Kids who receive free or reduced-price meals in area schools will now be eligible for food assistance over the summer as part of a new state and federal partnership. Desirée Keegan reports on 27east.com that last month, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced the state will be taking part in the federal Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer program, in which families will receive $40 per month per eligible child — a total of $120 per kid for the summer — on an EBT food benefit card to ensure children’s access to healthy food while school is out.

Congress authorized the permanent program as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. Children who qualify for the free or reduced-price school meals program are eligible for the initiative, which began as a pilot project in 2011. The benefits are combined with other federal nutrition programs including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP; Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, commonly referred to as WIC; and summer meal sites. According to Governor Hochul, more than $200 million will be used to help feed 2 million low-income children in the state.

“New York State’s focus on tackling food insecurity for children addresses a legitimate problem that many families face,” Hampton Bays Superintendent of Schools Lars Clemensen said. “Having moved to breakfast and lunch being provided to all students as part of the Community Eligibility Provision at school, we have taken a big step in the right direction. Support for nonschool time will help fill in the gaps that are a real challenge for some families.”

Nearly $11 million in Long Islanders' unused gift cards has been turned over to the state Office of Unclaimed Funds, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said. DiNapoli is urging state residents to check with the Office of Unclaimed Funds {OUF} if they think they have outstanding balances on old cards — and to spend gift cards they received during the holidays so those don't meet the same fate. Chris Kahn reports on Newsday.com that after five years of inactivity, retailers are required by law to report unclaimed gift card balances owed to New York residents to the OUF. If the location of the owner is not known, New York businesses must still report those balances to the comptroller. The law, however, only helps those who have taken steps in advance to protect their gift card, either by registering it with the retailer or copying down the card number and remaining balance — a requirement that many do not complete. DiNapoli, who oversees the OUF, said that his office recovered more than $27 million last year from unclaimed gift cards statewide. The comptroller said more than $5.3 million in gift cards is owed to residents of Suffolk County.

“I’ve seen newborn babies and watched them grow up to be driving their parents to the post office,” he said. “I talk to people about sports, their kids and family, the good things and the bad things.” Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that Lambert likes to chat with his customers as he works his way through their orders, but he can also be amazingly quick. If a regular customer comes in who he knows has a parcel waiting in back, he likes to have their package ready to go when the customer swings open the door.

Lambert has been living in Mastic Beach since 2021. He put in for an opening at Cutchogue in part to reduce his commute time by 20 to 30 minutes in each direction.

He said he looks forward to the challenge in Cutchogue, where he will be joining a new postmaster and three letter carriers.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and the NYS Legislature are trying to crack down on a spike in “organized retail theft,” which hits business operators' bottom lines, drives up costs to customers and brings a new wave of crime to communities.

They propose bolstering state and local police efforts with more funding and task forces, while Hochul also is proposing a “commercial security tax credit” to help retailers protect against the wave. Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that retailers statewide lose about $4.4 billion a year from retail theft and resale on the illegal market, according to the Retail Council of New York State.

“It affects communities, it affects employees who witness these crimes, and the safety of our employees is of the utmost importance,” said Melissa O’Connor, president and CEO of the group, which represents 5,000 stores. The most frequently stolen items include backpacks, handbags, sunglasses, graphic T-shirts, cellphones, gaming consoles, computer printers and underwear, according to the National Retail Foundation.

Organized retail theft involves criminal rings or serial thievery done to resell products in illegal markets.

“This is not just New York City,” Hochul said. “It's affecting everywhere. So, to tackle retail theft for the first time ever, we're going to invest $40 million to establish dedicated teams with our State Police, help our DA's offices and local police officers, and help them drive down this spike in retail theft.”

“Governor Hochul is right to focus on this issue and provide resources to small businesses so they can protect themselves and operate in a safe environment,” said Matt Cohen, president and CEO of the Long Island Association.

During the 2022 gubernatorial campaign an inebriated 44-year-old U.S. Army veteran accosted Rep. Lee Zeldin, then running for governor. The assailant, David Jakubonis, was visibly holding a keychain with sharp points. Jakubonis pulled the then-congressman to the floor of a makeshift stage that had been set up for a Zeldin rally near Rochester, before being subdued and arrested. Dan Janison reports on Newsday.com that last month, nearly a year-and-a-half after the episode, Jakubonis was sentenced to 3 years’ probation. He had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of assaulting a federal officer.

Zeldin spokesman Daniel Gall tells Newsday, “As Jakubonis worked hard to get his life together and actively sought treatment and significant self-improvement, Lee Zeldin supported a misdemeanor plea deal for a fellow veteran instead of a felony.”

“While they have not spoken directly, Congressman Zeldin is happy to see Jakubonis successfully access the resources needed to make significant positive changes to his life,” Gall added.

Back in the mid-1990s, some feared that the fledgling Tanger Outlet Center might hurt other local businesses and, as a result, Riverhead Town officials put limits on the type of uses allowed there.

Now, with online retail so prevalent, Tanger is the one seeking help from town officials. As reported in Riverhead News-Review the mall’s operators have requested that the permitted uses at the outlet center be expanded and last week, Town Board members voiced support for Tanger, noting that it is Riverhead’s biggest tax revenue generator. Ultimately, however, board members signaled they would approve fewer than half of the additional uses requested.

The board held a public hearing last Wednesday night on a number of proposed new uses that could be permitted at Tanger, which is the only property in town that falls under the “manufacturers outlet” zoning designation.

For starters, the proposal changes the name of that zone from the “manufacturers outlet center overlay zone” to the “manufacturers outlet and retail sales center, interior design showroom and trade center and specialty grocery, food stores and markets center.”

Prohibited uses would include flea markets, gas stations, motor vehicle sales, car washes and printing plants. Medical offices are also prohibited, as are hotel lodging and overnight accommodations, beauty parlors, adult stores and sales of cannabis and electronic cigarettes.

Cindy Clifford of Riverhead said that back in 1994, Tanger was expected to revive downtown.

“That did not happen,” she said. “Tanger became another nail in the coffin for Main Street. I’m concerned about Tanger becoming bigger and better and hurting stores on Route 58.”

Several Route 58 stores in Riverhead have recently closed, including Christmas Tree Shop, Bed, Bath & Beyond and Big Lots. But officials said those stores were closed as part of nationwide downsizings, and that Tanger had nothing to do with their going out of business.

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LIPA owns the electric system on Long Island but pays PSEG Long Island millions to run the day-to-day operations. Yesterday, a NYS legislative commission discussing the future of LIPA faced a crowd decidedly polarized on the prospect of shifting to a fully public utility, with labor leaders expressing continuing concerns about the new structure’s ability to guarantee their existing pay and benefits. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that the first of four public hearings this month took place at the Suffolk Legislature in Smithtown on Tuesday, where more than 100 people gathered to express a mix of optimism and worry about the prospect of LIPA operating the grid without the helping hand of PSEG Long Island.

The prospect of up to $75 million in annual savings from a more accountable public utility was countered by what some feared would be a lone LIPA where patronage, high rates and poor service would become the norm. “We don’t trust government on Long Island,” said Luis Mendez of the business group, Empowering Young Professionals.

LIPA, a state authority, was originally envisioned as a fully municipal utility but has never operated as one, instead turning to a rarely used public-private model that relies on an outside corporation to manage the grid under long-term contracts.

“We finally have an opportunity to go back and fix it,” former LIPA trustee Shelly Sackstein, chairman of business group Action Long Island, told legislators on the commission. “It should have been a fully municipal utility in the first place.”

Most vocal among the contingent of voices in opposition to a fully public LIPA was PSEG, an entity that has the most to lose should LIPA shift models (its contract with LIPA expires at the end of 2025). The New Jersey-based company has been lobbying for more than a year to convince lawmakers to keep the system the way it is.

“Our future is at risk,” said PSEG senior director/vice president Christopher Hahn, who suggested the anticipated monthly savings of $3 per customer from the shift wasn’t worth the risk. “Mismanagement by an unaccountable, patronage-fueled [fully public LIPA] bureaucracy will not meet [state climate goals] on time and will likely raise customer rates dramatically.”

But two commission reports and testimony by LIPA chief executive Tom Falcone indicated a fully public utility without PSEG could be accomplished with quick and significant savings.

“You could replace the 19 people PSEG provides by hiring about six,” for the new utility, and save more than $70 million a year, he said, noting those top PSEG officials cost ratepayers around $4.5 million each.

One major item on the commission’s to-do list is coming up with legislation that includes the list of protections union members have been demanding since the effort began over a year ago.

Assemb. Fred Thiele, (D-Sag Harbor), co-chairman of the committee, reiterated repeated assurances to labor leaders that their concerns would be addressed.

“If we are not able to find a solution that protects labor this isn’t going to happen,” he said of the committee’s effort.

NYS Assemb. Fred Thiele, (D-Sag Harbor), co-chairman of the committee, noted that the municipalization effort was about more than a potential $2 to $3 monthly savings for local customers. Under the new structure, he said, “The public would be more involved in their utility, and that would lead to better decisions” from a more transparent, accountable LIPA.

There will be a LIPA Commission Hearing in Southampton Town Hall next Wednesday; September 20th at 11:00 AM.

The commission will complete its report by the end of November, and lawmakers are expected to use it to draft enabling legislation early next year, possibly as part of the NYS budget.

Next Monday at the...

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From Great Neck to Riverhead and points across Long Island, people took a moment yesterday to remember the nearly 3,000 victims of the nation's worst terror attack, and the toll in lives it has taken in the years since September 11, 2001.

They performed familiar, somber rituals: reading aloud the names of the dead, laying wreaths, tolling bells and observing moments of silence.

Newsday Staff reports that in Calverton, two dozen people gathered at the Riverhead World Trade Center Memorial to remember the firefighters, cops and other first responders who died in the attacks.

“They left home not knowing they would never return home to hug their loved ones or continue on with their lives,” said Riverhead Town Supervisor Yvette Aguiar, who was an NYPD sergeant on 9/11.

A row of United States flags lined the perimeter of Riley Avenue around the memorial site. Flowers were placed in front of a plaque that read: “In memory of those who perished and served at the World Trade Center, Sept. 11, 2001.”

Spearheading the project was Hal Lindstrom, 75, of Calverton. Lindstrom recalled Monday how he woke one morning not long after the attacks and told his wife he was going to build a memorial. He drew two circles on a piece of paper and brought it to Riverhead's Town Hall as an initial blueprint.

Former Riverhead Town Councilman Jim Wooten led a prayer to remember those killed.

“We also struggle even now with the lives that were lost and those who valiantly responded and willingly put themselves in harm's way and paid the ultimate cost,” he said.

Smithtown’s town board has approved a zoning change that will allow a proposal for a multi-restaurant project in Hauppauge to move forward despite neighborhood opposition. Jean-Paul Salamanca reports on Newsday.com that legislators voted 5-0 at a Sept. 5 meeting to approve the rezoning of an empty 4.18-acre parcel on Route 111 from office business to neighborhood business. The approval, following a June recommendation from the planning board, brings a project closer to fruition that calls for the construction of a Taco Bell, a Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers restaurant and two yet-to-be-determined businesses. A final site plan approval for the project will require a vote by both the planning and town boards at a yet-to-be-determined date, according to Smithtown Town officials.

The plan calls for the construction of three buildings with a combined 9,332 square feet, two of which would house the fast food restaurants. The third building would be divided for use by two other to-be-determined tenants, according to the plan.

The property was formerly the home of a Blockbuster video store, a Burger King and two small office buildings that since have been demolished.

The land has been vacant for several years, which played a role in the town board’s decision to rezone the property, according to Smithtown Supervisor Ed Wehrheim. “It’s been a blighted sight for quite some time. Just like we’ve done with a lot of other blighted sights, we try to fit the proper development in them.”

Peconic Bay Medical Center has received a $250,000 donation from the Polish Town Civic Association in Riverhead for the construction of the hospital’s new expansions, the hospital announced yesterday. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the Polish Town Civic Association executive board stated, “As an organization deeply rooted in the Riverhead community, the Polish Town Civic Association is honored to support Peconic Bay Medical Center’s expansion plans. Our mission has always been to empower the Riverhead community, and we believe that access to quality healthcare is a fundamental aspect

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More than 20 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the volume of research on responders and survivors is substantial and growing, yielding sometimes unexpected, potentially powerful revelations about the long-term physical and mental effects of exposure to disaster. Nicholas Spangler reports on Newsday.com that PubMed, an electronic database of the National Library of Medicine, lists roughly 1,300 scientific papers about the World Trade Center with close to 60 published in the last year. The latest papers examine links between exposure to what doctors have called the “toxic cocktail” of gas and dust at Ground Zero and cancer, pulmonary and cardiovascular conditions, along with trends in substance use and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Today is the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. “There are so many questions still out there,” said Dr. Benjamin Luft, director and principal investigator of the Stony Brook World Trade Center Wellness Program. “Think of the number of toxicants that were at the World Trade Center site. About 70 were identified, which is huge. Some of these are extremely potent agents that affect multiple systems … These are agents that affect both the development of cancer, autoimmune disease, neurodegenerative processes.” The tens of thousands of participants in Stony Brook’s program and four similar programs in New York City and New Jersey may not follow the minutiae of every new study. But some keep themselves broadly informed, interested in their own health and the fate of others who served with them. Carol Paukner, a retired NYPD officer from Miller Place, has visited the Stony Brook clinic and participated in its research almost since it opened, she said. A multisport athlete before the attacks, Paukner was helping civilians to safety when one of the towers collapsed. She crawled out of the rubble. After multiple surgeries, she lives with blood cancer, sinusitis, PTSD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and back issues.

If the research can “help in the future with different illnesses, if they can change something to help someone else — like medication or how to handle a particular situation — anything that’s going to help someone else, that’s why I do it,” she said.

Commemorating the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks there are several east end remembrance ceremonies this evening:

As reported by Beth Young in EAST END BEACON the Southold Town 9/11 Memorial Committee will hold their Remembrance Ceremony this evening at 6 p.m. in Jean Cochran Park on Peconic Lane in Peconic. Riverhead’s Sound Park Heights Association’s annual 9/11 Vigil will start at 6 this evening, with a memorial procession beginning at Marine Street in Reeves Park and concluding at the memorial at the intersection of Park Road and Sound Avenue. The East Hampton Town Chiefs Association will hold their annual ceremony at Hook Mill Green tonight at 6 p.m., and the Flanders Fire Department will hold their annual 9-11 Memorial Service at Fireman’s Memorial Park at 1459 Flanders Road at 7 this evening.

Commemorating those who died 22 years ago today from the terrorist attacks upon the World Trade Center and the collapse of the twin towers, the Town of Riverhead this morning will hold a prayer ceremony at 10am at its World Trade Center Memorial Park at the corner of Riley and Edwards Avenue. Nearly 1 in 5 of the dead on September 11, 2001 were Long Islanders — about two-thirds from Nassau County and a third from Suffolk.

Hundreds more died when the third plane crashed into the Pentagon, outside Washington, D.C., and Flight 93 crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, bringing the overall toll to 2,977. Two of the 44 aboard the fourth plane - Flight 93 - were Long Islanders: including a passenger originally from Sag Harbor…Linda Gronlund. (At the World Trade Center ceremony, the 9/11 victims' names, plus the names of those who were killed in the first World Trade Center attack, on Feb. 26, 1993, will be read; the 19 attackers’ names will not, according to museum spokeswoman Hallie Ortiz). Matthew Chayes reports on Newsday.com that the average age of the 9/11 victims who died in the World Trade Center was 39 years old, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 3 out of 4 of the victims were male; the rest were female.

The victims ranged in age from toddlers to adults over 85.

In the decades since 9/11, thousands of first responders, laborers, workers, volunteers and others who were at the site have died of illnesses blamed on airborne toxins inhaled at Ground Zero during the months after the attacks.

About 30% of those dead are Long Islanders, according to John Feal, a first responder from Nesconset who lost half of his left foot after working to clear the rubble.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer insists he is pressuring the White House to speed up migrant work permits and boost federal aid to combat New York City’s asylum-seeker crisis — as some fed-up New Yorkers claim the senator and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries have been “lazy” and nearly “invisible” on the issue. “The record is very clear that I have been working at the highest levels, delivering funds for New York and am still fighting for more,” Schumer, the 72-year-old Senate majority leader said in a statement to The NY Post yesterday. “I’ve publicly pushed the administration to accelerate and expand work authorization so that immigrants can support themselves and have repeatedly communicated this to the White House as recent as this past week,” the senior Democrat from New York added. Schumer insisted on Sunday he hadn’t been silent on the growing crisis, pointing to an appearance at the State Fair in Syracuse last month, when he vowed that streamlining the process to allow migrants to get jobs quicker was his top priority. As reported in THE NY POST, Senator Schumer also helped NYC secure $104.6 million in grant funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in June to cover migrant expenses. But some critics say that money is a drop in the bucket compared to the $12 billion that New York City Mayor Eric Adams predicts the crisis will cost the Big Apple over the next three years. On Saturday, while voicing appreciation for Senator Schumer’s efforts, Mayor Adams said, “This is a national crisis, and we’re going to need national leadership to address it.”

The Central Pine Barrens Commission’s Wildfire Task Force will host the 26th annual New York Wildfire and Incident Management Training Academy from Oct. 19 through Oct. 29 at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that this is a great way to get local training on nationally standardized courses in wildland firefighting. The registration deadline is Sept. 30.

“Studies of wildland fire risk in New York State have found that the Central Pine Barrens region is the most at-risk area for fires with the potential to impact communities,” said Central Pine Barrens Commission Executive Director Judy Jakobsen. “Because of this, the Academy, in coordination with its partners at the Suffolk County Fire Academy and Suffolk County Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services, offers courses that directly relate to the risks Long Island volunteer firefighters face.”

To register, view descriptions of all classes offered or learn more about the Academy, go to www.nywima.com. Class registrations must be received by the close of business on Saturday, Sept. 30. Registrations received after that date will incur a late registration fee.

E-mail the Academy at nywima@pb.state.ny.us or call directly at 631-218-1195 with any questions.

Lance Gumbs, a former Shinnecock Nation tribal trustee, is leading a coalition of Native American tribes from the East and West Coasts of the United States that are raising questions about how the federal government reviews and approves offshore wind farms — and are demanding more of a voice, and a cut of the financial benefits, in the process.

Gumbs, who is the vice president of the National Congress of American Indians said, “There is a real disconnect between what the White House is saying, what the Department of the Interior is saying, and what [the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management] is doing.”

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that earlier this year, the coalition organized by Gumbs called for a moratorium on wind farm approvals in areas that could impact Native peoples, until more can be done to flesh out the potential negative impacts of the construction on the environment, on marine mammals and on tribes that depend on the sea and marine life for their livelihoods or tribal economies. With just five turbines currently online along the entire East Coast and two wind farms under construction — including South Fork Wind, off Montauk, which will connect to land in Wainscott — the tribes are worried that there are potential impacts that are being glossed over or ignored in the haste of getting more projects through the approval process. Wind farm development dozens of miles away could have negative fallout for coastal tribes like the Shinnecock, Gumbs said. “We are not opposed to wind farms, but they are rushing these things through and we are being left out,” Gumbs said. “This has the ability to affect our livelihoods. They stole land from us, but no tribe has relinquished its water rights. We have every right to be included in these negotiations, including the funding, so we can make informed decisions.”

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School sports in Suffolk County were on hold until at least 6 p.m. last night as the full heat alert remains in effect, according to Tom Combs, the executive director for Section XI, which governs Suffolk scholastic sports. Gregg Sarra reports on Newsday.com that Nassau schools were advised to follow the state's guidelines, which say that sports should be postponed if the heat index is 96 or higher. Suffolk's procedures require sports to be called off if the heat index is 95 or higher. Long Island’s Catholic League follows Suffolk's procedures.

The heat index on Thursday was 96 at 10:53 a.m. at Republic Airport in Farmingdale, according to the National Weather Service.

“We have excessive heat again, and we’re on a full heat alert until 6 p.m.,” Combs said yesterday. “We are allowing games and practices to be rescheduled to later in the evening. There is no physical activity in any sport permitted until after 6 p.m.”

Combs said Suffolk postponed 117 contests on Wednesday. There were 198 total contests scheduled Thursday in soccer, field hockey, golf, swimming, tennis, volleyball, cross country, and football.

“Our safety committee will continue to monitor the temperatures throughout the county,” Combs said. “We’re giving the athletic directors the go-ahead for tonight, but they can postpone.” That was Thursday.

Both Nassau and Suffolk issued a full heat alert, postponing all indoor and outdoor activities on Wednesday, including games and practices for boys and girls athletics.

Combs said that safety committee chairperson Tim Mullins, the director of athletics for Bayport-Blue Point Schools, monitors the temperature every two hours throughout the day starting at 6 a.m.

“The heat index dictates the safety protocols,” Combs said. “The safety of the student-athletes, officials, coaches and our fans are the number one priority.”

If you noticed your premiums for auto and homeowner insurance jumped hundreds of dollars over the last couple years, you’re not alone. Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that in the last two years, auto insurance premiums increased in New York state at least 6% and homeowner insurance at least 10%, according to the Professional Insurance Agents of New York State.

National surveys show annual rate increases are continuing this year compared with 2022, as auto insurance costs increased 18% according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, while homeowner insurance premiums rose 7.1%, according to S & P Global Market Intelligence business service. For both insurances, Long Islanders have long paid among the highest rates in the state because of high traffic volume as well as being vulnerable to coastal storms, analysts said.

Consumer advocacy organization ValuePenguin, part of the LendingTree financial company, has some tips for consumers to deal with higher insurance rates:

•Seek other companies to get better rates. ValuePenguin found 76% of Americans who shopped for better quotes saved money.

•Seek discounts from companies by bundling auto, homeowner and life insurance coverage.

•Keep a clean driving record to reduce auto insurance premiums.

•Increase the deductible — the amount a policy holder would pay out of pocket for a claim — to reduce premiums, although that will mean paying more after a crash or home damage. A standard deductible for homeowner insurance in New York is $250.

WLIW-FM and Southampton Arts Center present a night of original music on the lawn in the heart of Southampton village. Six songwriters will present short sets of their original repertoire at this free, outdoor, family-friendly event. Find out more here.

Developer Adam Potter, who holds a long-term lease to the gas ball parking lot in Sag Harbor, is threatening to close it to the public on Saturday, September 16. That’s the first day of HarborFest, when the village is typically bustling with visitors. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that it’s also the day when a 99-year lease between KeySpan and Potter’s 11 Bridge Street LLC goes into effect. The lease was upheld by the New York State Public Service Commission on July 21 despite objections by the Village of Sag Harbor, which formerly leased the property for a token fee and lost out in the bidding for the new lease. The village has appealed the PSC’s ruling, seeking another hearing on the matter. This week, Potter told The East Hampton Star that if a deal with the village could not be worked out, he would have no choice but to close the lot, which has about 90 spaces and is used for long-term parking of up to three days. Sag Harbor Village officials have long argued that a private entity is not allowed to operate a parking lot, but an attempt to work out a deal by which the village would lease the property back from Potter has failed to materialize. Sag Harbor Mayor Tom Gardella said Potter, who recently filed an application for a mixed-use development on neighboring properties he controls, was trying to hold the village hostage. That proposal requires 235 parking spaces, and Potter has sought to use the gas ball lot to provide some of those spaces. Potter has said several times in the recent past that he would like to see the parking lot remain open to the public, but Gardella has said Potter has only been willing to give the village a short-term lease when it needs a long-term deal.

Gardella said the village prohibition against standalone parking lots applied only to those being used for profit. “If he wants to see it open to the public, then leave it open. Why chain it up?” asks the Sag Harbor mayor.

In a sharp escalation over the migrant crisis, Mayor Eric Adams claimed in stark terms this week that New York City was being destroyed by an influx of 110,000 asylum seekers from the southern border and said that he did not see a way to fix the issue. “Let me tell you something New Yorkers, never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to — I don’t see an ending to this,” the mayor said on Wednesday night in his opening remarks at a town hall-style gathering in Manhattan. “This issue will destroy New York City.” Yesterday, Gov. Kathy Hochul didn’t rule out calling a special session of the NYS legislature as pressure mounts to reconvene Albany lawmakers to address the ever-growing migrant situation.

“With respect to a special session, certainly I’m entertaining all of our options right now,” Hochul said Thursday afternoon at an unrelated press conference. “We’re working closely with the Mayor to resolve this. As reported in THE NY POST, the comments come as calls for a special session in Albany garner bipartisan support. NYS Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar, a Queens Democrat, who introduced bills yesterday to appoint a statewide coordinator for migrants and bar counties from blocking housing migrants, said she supports the emergency move. “We’re all in this together & every corner of our State must do its part,” she posted on social media. Assemblyman Michael Tannousis (R-Staten Island) also said that “a special session should be called so that both the Governor and legislature can address this crisis which appears to have no end in sight.”

A NYC-based company that was granted a provisional license to operate a retail marijuana dispensary is looking to set up shop in a vacant former bank branch on Ostrander Avenue in Riverhead. Its owners are looking for the town to change restrictive zoning requirements that would prevent their store from opening. If the license gets final approval, the dispensary would be located at 1201 Ostrander Avenue, in a long-vacant bank building built by Suffolk County National Bank and closed by People’s United Bank in 2017. Denise Civiletti and Alek Lewis report on Riverheadlocal.com that the 1.4-acre site is located 210 feet north of Route 58, in the Business Center zoning district. It is situated on the west side of Ostrander Avenue between a gas station and the former McGann-Mercy High School site, which is now owned by Peconic Bay Medical Center. Across the road are an auto dealership and a medical office building. The owners of the company granted the provisional license by the state Cannabis Control Board attended the town’s marijuana advisory committee meeting Wednesday night at Riverhead Town Hall asking the town to ease its restrictions concerning marijuana dispensary locations.

In the weeks since members of the Lake Agawam Conservancy and renowned architect and landscape designer Peter Marino unveiled plans for a grand reimagining of 11 acres of land along Pond Lane near Agawam Lake, including a Marino-designed public garden, one particular aspect of that plan has emerged as a divisive issue among residents of Southampton Village.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the proposed closure to vehicular traffic on Pond Lane has raised the ire of some residents, who say they support the plans for the gardens but do not support the closure of the road, which follows the northwest side of the lake before taking a 90-degree turn onto Ox Pasture Road, into the estate section of the village. The plans for the gardens and the 11 acres of property on Pond Lane are still in the early stages and were presented to the public for the first time at a Southampton Village Board work session on August 22 by members of the conservancy, a private group founded by homeowners surrounding the lake in summer 2019 with a mission of restoring the health of the polluted water body at the center of Southampton Village.

The $20 million plan — $10 million for construction, and $10 million for an endowment to fund maintenance, all raised via private donations — would amount to an expansion of the existing Agawam Park, and would create waterfront access for the public, but allowing for pedestrian and bicycle access ONLY on Pond Lane, although emergency vehicles would still be able to use the roadway when necessary.

The Southampton Village Board is expecting so much input on the topic from the public at its next monthly meeting — set for next Thursday, September 14 at 6 p.m. — that it is holding that meeting in the Southampton Cultural Center at 25 Pond Lane, to allow for enough room for residents who will show up to speak.

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Suffolk County will issue a request for proposals this week to solicit “innovative traffic solutions” for a notorious seven-mile stretch of County Road 39 from Hampton Bays to Water Mill. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone announced the pending request for proposal {RFP} at a press conference at the Southampton Village Long Island Rail Road station last Thursday. He described “significant issues and challenges” relating to the longstanding traffic problems that plague commuters going to and from the South Fork each day. Bellone pledged to find solutions that would “vastly improve” the traffic flow at the bottleneck. Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman and Southampton Village Mayor Bill Manger joined Bellone for the announcement, along with numerous law enforcement officials and a representative from Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming’s office. Schneiderman described a “system of roads never meant for this volume of traffic, of people,” and further noted that a growing year-round population, coupled with a workforce that has been priced out of the community, had come to a head in recent years with a congestion problem that continues to worsen. The Town of Southampton has experimented with changing over to blinking red lights along County Road 39 in Water Mill and also tried out a “cops and cones” program at the spot where Sunrise Highway ends and County Road 39 begins, a popular but temporary fix that created an extra lane for vehicles transitioning from Sunrise Highway. Once the traffic study is complete, Bellone said the county might seek to leverage federal dollars under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to help pay for whatever may come next.

Southampton Public School students started classes today as are students in NYC public schools meaning from Manhattan to Montauk the kids are now back in the building…one ideally with functioning AC.

The majority of Long Island's 124 school districts opened this week — smack in the middle of a heat wave in which temperatures have soared into the 90s, leading to sweltering classrooms in districts that are not air-conditioned. New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), an organization representing more than 600,000 working and retired educators, said on its website that it has pushed for standards for safe temperatures in buildings. Joie Tyrrell reports on Newsday.com that a bill on the issue is expected to be reintroduced in the 2024 state legislative session.

That bill would require districts to come up with plans to alleviate extreme heat conditions when temperatures hit 82 degrees and require the school to evacuate if the temperature inside hits 88 degrees, according to the teacher's union.

“When schools are too hot, students can’t learn and teachers can’t teach. Even animal shelters have maximum heat limits. Our schools do not, and it is disrespectful to both our students and educators," NYSUT president Melinda Person said.

After pushing off a long-scheduled auction of 14 acres of former U.S. Coast Guard property in Westhampton from August 21 to September 6, the auction has now been “suspended until further notice,” the General Services Administration said this week. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the auction had been rescheduled to this month to give the GSA and Town of Southampton time to hammer out a possible deal that would see the property transferred to the town via a public-private partnership with workforce housing developer Georgica Green Ventures. Southampton Town was banking on state and county support, too, to try to arrive at an agreeable price point for the property. The GSA is asking $15 million for the property, according to NYS...

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A wedding celebration in St. James Monday night turned into a slugfest when an "uninvited guest" showed up, prompting a major police response and the arrest of two men, including a relative of the bride, according to Suffolk police and one of the men's attorney. Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that police from Suffolk's Fourth Precinct were called to the Flowerfield Celebrations wedding and catering hall on Mill Pond Road in St. James at 7:45 p.m. to break up a fight. When they arrived, police found "multiple skirmishes" in progress among the roughly 130 wedding guests, police said.

At a news conference yesterday in Patchogue, Suffolk Chief of Patrol Gerard Hardy said the incident was sparked when an "uninvited guest" showed up at the wedding.

"That triggered a chain of events which … turned into a large fight," Hardy said, adding that Flowerfield staff made multiple 911 calls seeking assistance. "The fight occurred inside the hall and outside the hall."

Dozens of officers from the Second, Fifth and Sixth precincts, the police canine unit and Emergency Services officers were later called to the scene. Members of the Smithtown Park Rangers and Head of the Harbor police also responded to the melee, police said.

It took about 40 minutes for law enforcement to gain control of the situation, Hardy said.

In a statement to Newsday, Flowerfield said the melee was the first of its kind in the business's 35 years of operation.

The committee originally tasked with creating Riverhead Town’s local law regulating the location of recreational marijuana dispensaries and lounges will reconvene today, after members of the business community said the zoning laws were too restrictive. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Riverhead Town officials will review the current zoning law in place with the committee and seek opinions on whether it should be changed to allow for marijuana businesses to be sited on more properties, Council Member Ken Rothwell said yesterday. The meeting is this evening at 6 p.m. in Riverhead Town Hall and is open to the public. Rothwell said the maps created recently by the town’s Geographic Information Systems {GIS} administrator — taking in all the town’s regulations — show only six properties can site marijuana businesses. In February, the Riverhead Business Advisory Committee sent a letter to the Town Board asking for the law to be revised, calling it “overly restrictive.” A map created by the town’s GIS administrator in April showed that marijuana businesses could be sited at just 36 parcels in the entire town. A subsequent RiverheadLOCAL analysis of that map showed many of those parcels are actually ineligible under the town zoning to site marijuana businesses, or are already fully developed, or already have tenants.

Project Most, a year-round extracurricular enrichment program serving children and families on the South Fork, has announced the launch of a new Early Learning Program beginning this month. The new Early Learning Program has been added in response to a demand in the community for programming for children ages 3 and 4. As reported on 27east.com the play-based learning program, taught by certified, experienced teachers, will offer daily learning activities including inside and outside play and will have a weekly STEM class. The program will run Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to noon at the Community Learning Center at Most Holy Trinity School, 44 Meadow Way in East Hampton. The program is 37 weeks and starts Monday, September 18, and will run through June 21, 2024.

For more information and registration you may email jacqueline@projectmost.org, call the office 631-604-2777, or stop by the office at 44 Meadow Way, East Hampton.

Marie Eiffel, owner of Marie Eiffel Market and Restaurant on Bridge Street, and a nearby boutique in Shelter Island Heights, is the subject of a federal human trafficking lawsuit brought by eight former employees. As reported by Julie Lane in The Shelter Island Reporter, the suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging sexual assault, discrimination and wage theft. According to the court filing, obtained by the Reporter, Ms. Eiffel is joined in the suit against her by InterExchange, Inc., a nonprofit with an address on Wall Street in Manhattan that sponsors foreign nationals to work in the United States. The eight plaintiffs were all hired under the government’s J1 program for foreigners intended to open opportunities for cultural and educational exchanges, while providing temporary staffing for United States businesses. Many area businesses have used the program to staff their operations during the summer months, and beyond. According to the filing in federal court, Ms. Eiffel presided over “egregious working conditions” and “routinely spanked Plaintiffs on the buttocks, groped female employees’ breasts, choked employees, and made sexually harassing, demeaning, and discriminatory comments about their race and looks. In addition, Defendants engaged in wage theft by illegally failing to pay portions of Plaintiffs’ hard-earned wages and withholding Plaintiffs’ tips in violation of the N.Y. Labor Law.” Those who brought the suit had worked for Ms. Eiffel in either 2021 or 2022 and were from Malaysia, Thailand, Columbia or Ecuador, according to the lawsuit. Denying all of the allegations, Ms. Eiffel told the Reporter last night that she had not been served the suit, but after learning of the legal action against her, hired an attorney.

Marie Eiffel told the Shelter Island Reporter last night that she believes the suit could be influenced by her interaction with a disgruntled employee, a troubled young man, she said, who she had tried to counsel, but discovered he had stolen objects from her house. This led her to confront him, which angered him and he accused her of using information he had told her in confidence to hurt him. The issue about money came up, she said, when aside from wages she said averaged $5,000 a month, those she hired were given a “bonus” of tips. But when the young man refused to finish his contract with her, she withheld his tips and split them among the remaining employees that summer. Later Tuesday night Eiffel sent the Shelter Island Reporter copies of emails from three of this summer’s workers, all expressing gratefulness to her for the experiences they had and praising her. The lawsuit cites violations under federal trafficking, state and New York City human rights and labor laws. The workers are seeking “tens of millions of dollars” in actual, statutory, compensatory, punitive and liquidated damages, according to the plaintiffs' attorneys.

New York State Assembly Republicans called on Gov. Kathy Hochul yesterday to hold a special session to tackle the migrant crisis “before a bad situation gets even worse.”

“This is a crisis created and exacerbated by Democrats, and they have allowed it to spiral out of control,” said Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay (R-Fulton).

Barclay ripped the Biden administration, saying it’s “turned its back on New York.”

“It’s time the State Legislature returns to Albany and puts guidelines in place before a bad situation gets even worse,” he added. Carl Campanile in THE NY POST reports that an estimated 107,000 migrants have been processed in total by the city since spring 2022 — and more than 59,000 migrants are currently in New York’s publicly funded care.

N.Y.C. Mayor Eric Adams and his top budget officials have estimated that the cost of the migrant crisis over three years could reach $12 billion.

Suffolk County small businesses and nonprofits can now apply for up to $25 million in funding for projects that contribute to the success and vibrancy of local downtowns. The money for the JumpSMART Small Business Downtown Investment Program comes from the $286 million the county received in federal COVID-19 relief funding through the American Rescue Plan Act. Vera Chinese reports on Newsday.com that the application portal, which went live yesterday and will remain open until Sept. 29, is available at suffolkcountyny.gov/jumpsmart. Awards will be announced this fall, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said during a news conference in Hauppauge Tuesday.

"While we have witnessed substantial revitalization across the county over the last couple of years, as we emerge from the economic impacts of the pandemic, we fully understand that more work remains to be done,” Bellone said.

County officials are looking for large projects and said applicants must request a minimum of $100,000 in funding. Examples could include a capital project that supports a Main Street theater, they said.

The program will be open to small businesses and nonprofits, unlike the county’s similarly named Jumpstart program, which has provided downtown revitalization grants to local municipalities.

The applications will be reviewed by a panel that includes representatives from the county executive’s office, the legislature, the department of economic development and planning and small-business advocates, Bellone said.

Revitalizing downtowns with mixed-use buildings, public transit-oriented development and restaurant space is seen as key to keeping Long Island viable and attractive for young people.

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Long Island Rail Road schedule changes taking effect today aim to correct some of the problems created by the opening of Grand Central Madison earlier this year, railroad officials said.

But some riders said the changes — which include more direct trains to Brooklyn, more express trains on several branches, and more evening trains out of Penn Station — don’t go far enough to undo the damage caused by the alteration of the LIRR’s service that started in March. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that the newest changes come after LIRR officials gathered feedback from riders for months about its schedules, which were overhauled when the railroad began serving an additional Manhattan terminal, Grand Central Madison. Commuters railed about longer trips, inconvenient travel times, and the reduction of service at Penn Station, which is still carrying significantly more riders than Manhattans east side Grand Central. The LIRR already has made various tweaks to its schedule to address some of the complaints, but promised a major revision would come after Labor Day. “Our September schedule is based on ridership data, real-time observations and input from customers, building upon the earlier schedule adjustments and responding to many of the concerns that we have been hearing consistently from our customers,” LIRR interim president Catherine Rinaldi said in a statement. “ … We will keep monitoring the data to identify future improvements where possible.”

Among the changes: several current Grand Central trains being rerouted to Penn Station, including to serve riders leaving Madison Square Garden on event nights.

Full schedule information is available at new.mta.info/schedules, and on the MTA’s TrainTime app.

An Oakdale couple was killed Sunday night after their boat collided with another vessel and capsized in the Great South Bay, according to Suffolk police.

Louis DeRitis, 53, was operating a 27-foot 1989 OC/MA boat about 10:40 p.m. when it collided with a 44-foot 1989 Henriques Sport Fisherman, north of Ocean Bay Park, between North Channel and Range Channel, police said.

The OC/MA capsized and DeRitis was ejected into the water. His wife, Renee DeRitis, 50, was found in the boat’s cabin by rescue divers and pronounced dead at the scene. There were four passengers aboard the other boat on a fishing trip and none were injured in the collision, police said. Vera Chinese reports on Newsday.com that Louis DeRitis' body was found Monday morning near the crash scene by Suffolk County Police Marine Bureau officers and members of the United States Coast Guard, police said. Earlier, the search for DeRitis had been called off after an hour spent looking for him in the darkness, fire officials said. Both vessels were impounded for safety checks.

William Scrima, Suffolk police deputy chief of patrol, said the crash was “not a criminal incident.” The couple was leaving Kismet, Fire Island and was due back in Oakdale at the time of the crash, Scrima said during a news conference yesterday in Yaphank. “It's just a tragic accident and our condolences and sympathies go out to the family members and friends,” he said.

Scrima said police “have no reason to believe there were any drugs or alcohol involved.”

A Bay Shore man was arrested last week and charged with illegal dumping of hazardous waste and old tires at the former Pilgrim State Psychiatric Center in Brentwood, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney. Jean-Paul Salamanca reports on Newsday.com that Carleton Pulley, 48, was charged with endangering public health, safety or the environment, unlawful disposal of hazardous waste and other related charges, a news release said. A New York State Office of Mental Health police officer allegedly spotted Pulley on April 23 unloading hazardous waste — including multiple tires and other items— from the back of a tractor trailer in several large containers on the grounds of the former psychiatric center in an area closed to the public, per a press release from the D.A.'s office.

Authorities have fully remediated the site, spending more than $30,000 for cleanup.

Pulley was released on his own recognizance and is due back in court Sept. 14. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted of the top count of endangering public health, safety or the environment, a second-degree felony.

A popular lakeside park in Southampton Village would triple in size, feature a community garden and transform into a “magical oasis” under a proposal an east end nonprofit has pitched. The Lake Agawam Conservancy unveiled preliminary plans for the public-private partnership at a recent Southampton Village board meeting. An expansion to the approximately 3-acre Agawam Park would be developed on 11.3 acres, according to the nonprofit’s Aug. 22 presentation. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that the conservancy was formed in 2019 to help revive the lake from rising levels of toxic blue-green algae and has worked alongside local and state agencies on several initiatives.

Conservancy officials described the park expansion plan as a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to preserve open space and increase public access to the lake for activities like kayaking.

The plan would require Southampton Town to spend $13.25 million in community preservation funds — property tax revenue the town uses for land acquisition — to acquire a 4.8-acre lot the Paulson Family Foundation owns.

The foundation bought the lot and an adjacent 3.6-acre lot for $25 million in 2021, conservancy officials said.

Conservancy president Robert Giuffra Jr. said the foundation, founded by hedge fund billionaire John Paulson, acquired the lots to stave off development and will donate the 3.6-acre lot for the project. The two lots are adjacent to a 2.9-acre parcel the town previously purchased with community preservation funds that also would be part of the Agawam Park expansion in Southampton Village.

In Southampton Village recently, The Lake Agawam Conservancy unveiled preliminary plans for an Agawam Park expansion through a public-private partnership. The approximately 3-acre Agawam Park would be developed on an expanded 11.3 acres. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that the conservancy was formed in 2019 to help revive the lake from rising levels of toxic blue-green algae and has worked alongside local and state agencies on several initiatives. The plan would require Southampton Town to spend $13.25 million in community preservation funds — property tax revenue the town uses for land acquisition — to acquire an adjacent 4.8-acre lot the Paulson Family Foundation owns.

Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said he believes the town board supports the land acquisition. And that a public hearing on the matter, a required step, could be held in upcoming weeks.

Pond Lane, a narrow road that runs parallel to the lake for about a quarter mile, would be closed to vehicular traffic and repurposed as a bicycle path and walkway under the plan.

Project proponents acknowledged that could spark community opposition, but argued it would be beneficial for safety purposes, for access to the lake and for enhanced stormwater management.

An environmental planning firm did weekend traffic studies and found nearby First Neck Lane and surrounding roadways could handle an increase in traffic, according to a presentation made to Southampton Village officials last month. Southampton Village Mayor Bill Manger told Newsday he is still waiting to see copies of the traffic studies.

Next Monday evening in Riverhead, the Sound Park Heights Civic Association will host its annual candlelight walk and remembrance service at the 9/11 Memorial Park on Sound Avenue and Lt. Thomas Kelly Memorial Road (Park Road.) Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that there will be a procession from Marine Street in Reeves Park to the memorial park beginning at 6:00 p.m., followed by a ceremony at the four-acre park dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The Reeves Park community has been holding a memorial service on the corner of Sound Avenue and Lt. Thomas Kelly Memorial Drive since 2010, even before the park itself was established in 2013. The tiny community on the Long Island Sound lost two residents in the collapse of the twin towers 22 years ago. Both were NYC firefighters who died trying to rescue people trapped inside the towers: Thomas Kelly, 38, and Jonathan Ielpi, 29. A third Riverhead resident, Derrick Washington of Calverton, a 33-year-old Verizon technician, perished in the World Trade Center. “As you know, our Reeves Park community has strong ties to the 9-11 tragedy and we plan to continue this tradition of respect and remembrance for years to come,” Sound Park Heights Civic Association President Tom O’Haire said.

The Hospital for Special Surgery…HSS…has announced the opening of its second Long Island facility, marking its first expansion into Suffolk County and the Town of Southampton. Victor Ocasio reports on Newsday.com that the Manhattan-based medical center, which specializes in orthopedic surgery, announced last week that it has opened an outpatient location at 56 Flying Point Rd. in Water Mill.

Justin Oppenheimer, executive vice president for the hospital said the decision to open an East End location was based on the number of patients HSS serves on long Island already.

“Every year HSS doctors treat tens of thousands of patients from Long Island,” Oppenheimer said. “So, we owe it to the community to continue to be able to serve them as best as we can.”

While surgeries will not be performed at the Water Mill facility, physicians there will triage patients and X-ray for sports related injuries, provide pain management, offer spinal care and help treat orthopedic trauma.

"The Southampton location is really an access point when people either need an initial diagnosis or a follow-up," Oppenheimer said.

Surgeries will primarily be done at HSS’ Manhattan hospital, he said.

Oppenheimer said surgeons at HSS, which has just over 20 locations mostly in the New York metro area and south Florida, perform roughly 1% of all knee and hip replacements in the U.S.

Dr. Mark Drakos, medical director of HSS Long Island said in a statement, “HSS Southampton responds to a steady increase in demand for our highly specialized orthopedic care from eastern Long Island.”

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County Road 39 has been the "Gateway to the Hamptons" and the primary thoroughfare taking thousands of Long Islanders to the bucolic beaches of Southampton for decades.

But as people prepare to head out east this holiday weekend for one last excursion, Suffolk County officials are raising concerns that traffic in the area has hit a breaking point for both residents and commuters. Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone yesterday announced his office would release a request for proposals to address traffic solutions for County Rd 39 – a seven-mile corridor, which stretches from Hampton Bays to Water Mill.

"Not only is it impacting the quality of life of people here in the community, but we also understand and recognize the importance of the economy and its impact on the environment," Bellone said during a news conference at the Southampton Long Island Rail Road station. "So this is a major issue."

The traffic study, he said, would be one the largest in Suffolk County history and would seek "innovative, creative ideas."

Among the ideas under consideration, Bellone said, is adding a lane that would carry traffic east in the morning, then switch westbound for the outflow of traffic in the afternoon.

But in addition to roadway capacity, the analysis will address the "demand" side of the traffic equation, Bellone said, including additional housing options so residents can live closer to their jobs and conceiving ways to better utilize the LIRR to reduce congestion.

Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said the county should consider eliminating traffic lights and adding roundabouts in highly congested areas.

"It's the main artery, and when it's choked, it affects not only people's commute times and the local economy but it also affects a lot of the residential side streets that absorb the traffic," he said.

Long Island hospital systems have no plans to reinstitute mandatory masking for patients, staff and visitors, bucking a trend at emergency health facilities upstate as COVID-19 rates rise again across New York, including in Nassau and Suffolk counties. Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that in recent weeks, amid rising COVID cases and hospitalizations, several hospital systems have brought back mask-wearing requirements.

They include the United Health Services of New York system, which includes several hospitals all upstate. They reinstituted a mandatory masking policy for patients, visitors, employees, medical staff, volunteers, students and vendors on Aug. 23.

But Long Island hospital systems are taking a cautious approach toward reinstituting mandatory masking — a policy the state ended in February.

As of Wednesday, the seven-day COVID-positive rolling average in Nassau County was 15% — identical to the statewide average — and 16% in Suffolk County, according to State Health Department data.

Dr. Peter Silver, senior vice president, chief quality officer and associate chief medical officer at Northwell Health, said while cases continue to increase, the severity of the disease at this point does not require mandatory masking.

Staffers, however, are required to wear masks in areas of high risk, including cancer units, transplant wards and among patients with suspected or confirmed COVID, a policy that went into effect in early August, Silver said.

Shelter Island Friends of Music presents WindSync this coming Sunday, September 3 in a free concert at 7pm in the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church. The woodwinds quintet – back by popular demand — will perform the works of Beethoven, Rameau, del Aguila and Mellits.

The Labor Day Sunday holiday concert marks the...

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A blue-ribbon advisory group is scheduled in November to recommend changes to high school graduation requirements, including Regents exams. With the 2023-2024 school year starting, Newsday asked superintendents across Long Island their hopes for change. Brian Doelger, Superintendent of the Shelter Island Union Free School District responded as follows:

Changes to high school graduation requirements must take into account what is best for students. What is best may not always be what is easiest. The ultimate goal of any graduation requirement should be that each student meets his or her own unique potential.

How do you implement a system like that while maintaining standards and rigor? It is difficult because the target of achievement will always move and remain different for each student. A mix of accountability with flexibility is in order. The Regents exams should remain in place, holding all districts to a standard. The state education department can allow local districts to grant students who may not reach the Regents requirements latitude to still graduate if they meet local standards. The school and district must determine a local method to ensure the student has achieved their unique potential.

On Shelter Island, all seniors are required to pass an oral comprehensive exam as a local graduation requirement. Students work on a research paper in the first semester. In the second semester, they must defend it to a panel of administrators, teachers, and fellow students. Some graduate with distinction if they perform well on the local rubric. This demonstrates true learning and local control while adhering to state standards.

That’s Brian Doelger; Superintendent of the Shelter Island Union Free School District responding to a Newsday inquiry regarding high school graduation requirements and changes that might be implemented in New York State.

An Eastern Suffolk BOCES teacher had sex with a 16-year-old female student on multiple occasions in 2020 at the Riverhead campus and elsewhere, according to court documents filed yesterday, as he was arraigned on four counts of third-degree rape and other charges. John Asbury reports on Newsday.com that William Sperl, 60, of Deer Park, pleaded not guilty in a Central Islip courtroom to the rape charges and seven counts of a criminal sex act in the third degree.

Sperl, the student's audio production teacher, "wanted the victim to believe they were dating," prosecutors said. Court records show the alleged incidents also occurred at Sperl’s home and at Tiana Beach in Hampton Bays between June and October 2020.

Sperl was ordered held on $200,000 bail or $300,000 bond and left the courtroom in handcuffs. He was ordered to stay away from the alleged victim and to have no contact with her.

Prosecutors said he posed “a serious flight risk.”

Sperl's attorney, John LoTurco, contested that. He said Sperl is "not a flight risk whatsoever," and has been married for more than 30 years. He is the father of four grown children and a grandfather, LoTurco added.

"Right now, we're going to thoroughly investigate these allegations, receive all discovery and have a course of action accordingly based on the evidence against my client," LoTurco said outside court. "He has the cloak of the presumption of innocence over him.”

Sperl is also listed as a deacon at Saints Cyril and Methodius Roman Catholic Church in Deer Park.

Community members are invited to a back-to-school supplies giveaway hosted by LIR Clothing on Sunday, Sept. 3 from 2 to 6 p.m. at Doctors Path Community Park in Riverhead.

The giveaway includes school supplies and LIR Clothing t-shirts to children. As reported

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An East End tradition, the 77th annual Shinnecock Indian Powwow will be held on the Shinnecock territory once again this Labor Day weekend. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that the event will begin at 3 p.m. on Friday and the gates will open each day thereafter at 10 a.m. through Labor Day. As always, there will be drum and dance contests with more than $50,000 in prize money to be awarded, and a sprawling fair where Native American crafts and artwork will be available. “It’s a celebration of our culture — our ancestral culture that has been going on for centuries,” said Charles Smith II, the tribe’s sachem and a member of its tribal council. “It’s a reminder that we are still here. We invite outsiders into our reservation because we want to remind everyone that we are strong in our culture and our traditions.” The Powwow weekend serves as a reason for members of the Shinnecock Nation who do not live on the tribe’s territory, to return home, and it attracts members of other nations from across the country. Large crowds of spectators from Long Island typically turn out for each evening’s grand entry and dance contests. “The Shinnecock Indian Powwow is one of the largest Native American gatherings on the East Coast,” states the tribe’s website. “As we dance upon the earth, we are reminded that our culture and love for one another is the resounding heartbeat that transcends all that we face; wherever we face it.” The Powwow is a drug- and alcohol-free event. Pets, other than service animals, are not allowed on the grounds, and the flying of drones over the grounds is prohibited. For more information, visit shinnecock-nsn.gov/annual-powwow.

Automatic irrigation systems in Suffolk County would be required to be equipped with smart controllers and water conservation devices if a local law proposed by North Fork Legislator Al Krupski is enacted. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the law would require new automatic irrigation systems to be equipped with a weather-based irrigation controller and at least one rain sensor or soil moisture device or an on-site weather station.

Existing automatic irrigation systems would be required to comply with the law when they are activated, repaired or maintained. The law would prohibit activation of existing systems unless they are equipped with a minimum of one rain sensor device, soil moisture device, or an onsite weather station. If enacted, the law would apply to both commercial and residential irrigation systems as of Jan. 1. First violations of the law would carry a fine of $1,000 each. Second and subsequent violations would be subject to a fine of up to $2,500. Krupski said he consulted with SCWA, municipal water suppliers, and the Irrigation Association of New York when drafting the legislation, and has had broad support for the proposed law. A public hearing on the proposed legislation will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the Suffolk County Legislature in Smithtown.

This evening is a full Blue Supermoon — A Supermoon because it’s close to the Earth in its orbit, and a Blue Moon because it’s the second full moon this month. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that Mashomack Preserve at 79 South Ferry Road on Shelter Island will host a 1.5-mile blue moon hike on the Red Trail beginning at 7 p.m. as the sun sets and the moon rises. Meet at the nature center on Shelter Island. Later this evening in Bridgehampton, the Friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt will...

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Twenty-three Long Island public high schools are among the nation's 1,000 best, including 16 in Nassau County, according to U.S. News & World Report's annual list, which is scheduled for release today. At the top of the list for Long Island again is Jericho High School, which climbed five spots up to 104. Jericho, with an enrollment of nearly 1,200 students, was Long Island's top finisher in 2022 and also is ranked the 13th best high school in New York State this year. Jericho high school students often take top honors in many national academic and science competitions. In June, Jericho had 15 co-valedictorians, each sharing the same unweighted GPA of 4.0. Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that the 2023 “Best High Schools” edition evaluated nearly 18,000 public high schools at the national, state and local level.

Along with Jericho, 15 other Nassau high schools ranked in the top 1,000.

After Jericho, the next four in Nassau are: Garden City High School (199); Great Neck South High School (205); Manhasset Secondary School (251) and Herricks High School (257).

In Suffolk County, seven schools made the top 1,000 in the nation list.

The top five in Suffolk are: Cold Spring Harbor High School (268); Half Hollow Hills High School East in Dix Hills (367); Harborfields High School in Greenlawn (373); Half Hollow Hills High School West in Dix Hills (561) and Babylon High School (846).

The rankings are based on six factors: college readiness, reading and math proficiency, reading and math performance, underserved student performance, college curriculum breadth and graduation rates.

Just over 34% of the nearly 1,200 high schools in New York State were ranked in the top 25% nationally — the seventh most among states across the country, U.S. News found. Massachusetts ranked first with more than 47% of its high schools in the top 25% nationally.

A historic East Patchogue homestead will be preserved after a joint purchase by Suffolk County and Brookhaven Town, officials for the municipalities said. Nicholas Spangler reports on Newsday.com that the 11.5-acre Avery Homestead, a vestige of vast holdings that once included most of what is now Patchogue and Blue Point, had belonged to the family for roughly 270 years, according to a monograph on the site by cultural heritage group Preservation Long Island, which put the property on its list of endangered historic places in 2019. The Averys ran a plant nursery there for most of the 20th century; Barbara Avery, the last lifelong resident, raised miniature horses at the site before her 2017 death.

“It has beautiful plants, trees, the old well, the fountain, the old barn – there are so many beautiful aspects to it, so much character,” said Suffolk Legis. Dominick Thorne (R-Patchogue), who worked with County Executive Steve Bellone and Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine to close the sale.

According to a county release, the county and town partnered 70-30 on the $1.9 million purchase. The land and four historic structures – including the 1880s home where Avery and her ancestors lived and a large barn used for the nursery – will be dedicated to the Suffolk County Historic Trust.

Future uses of the site could include a museum, gift shop, or event space, uses that could generate money for upkeep, according to the release.

Avery Homestead in East Patchogue is a diamond-shaped property bordered by South Country Road and Robinson Boulevard on the south; Montauk Highway and a shopping center are to the north.

Long Island environmentalists are asking for the public's help in eradicating invasive plants, including the “dirty dozen”: porcelain berry, bamboo, phragmites, Japanese knotweed, tree of heaven, Oriental

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The eyes of the equestrian world are on Bridgehampton this week, as some of the nation's best riders and horses compete in what has become an annual rite of summer on Suffolk's East End: the Hampton Classic Horse Show. Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that the 47th annual event, which opened yesterday, has transformed in recent years into one of the largest outdoor horse shows in the United States, attracting an estimated 50,000 people for the weeklong event that features more than 200 competitions and a who's who of A-list celebrities, from Billy Joel, Brooke Shields and Jimmy Fallon to Jennifer Lopez and Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen.

"The Hampton Classic is really a fixture on the horse show calendar for the top riders in the country, if not the world," said Shanette Cohen, executive director of the event. "We attract a lot of professional competitors, but the vast majority of people who compete here are amateurs, both adults and children."

The Classic, which is held at the 60-acre Bridgehampton showgrounds, will play host this year to hunter, jumper and equitation classes in six show rings with the athletes, human and equine, vying for more than $1 million in prize money.

At least seven Olympic veterans, including five-time U.S. Olympian and seven-time Hampton Classic Grand Prix winner McLain Ward, are expected to compete in this year's event, officials said.

In addition to the riding, the Classic features more than 75 vendors, international food options, an annual Adoption Day today for rescued dogs, cats and horses, and pony rides and petting zoo animals for children.

A long-anticipated auction of 14 acres of former United States Coast Guard housing located off Stewart Avenue in Westhampton was re-scheduled again this week from August 21 to September 6 — but now, officials say the auction may not be necessary at all if a Town of Southampton-led plan to acquire the property is approved by the General Services Administration. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the town and GSA have put a pause on the public sale, said GSA spokesman Paul Hughes, “to provide an opportunity for the town to formalize their interest in acquiring the property.”

The town has assembled a multiparty group “that is trying to put together a package that would be accepted by the Coast Guard,” said Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman. Opening bids for the property were to start at $5 million.

Schneiderman said he has “asked for an assist” from New York State Governor Kathy Hochul and U.S. Representative Nick LaLota, and that there was potential for Suffolk County, the state and local government to put together a package “to make it affordable.”

More than half of New York’s registered voters believe the state is headed in the wrong direction — and 80% are demanding term limits for the governor and legislators, a new poll shows. Carl Campanile and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon report in THE NY POST that the fed-up respondents gave Gov. Kathy Hochul a dismal 40% approval rating, a big drop from her 50% figure from a survey released just three months ago, according to the independent Unite NY’s Voter Empowerment Index unveiled yesterday.

Other state lawmakers fared even worse with a 27% approval rating, down from their recent 36%.

Overall, 53% of the state’s voters said they don’t like where the state is headed politically, and 40% said they are considering leaving.

Unsuspecting New York drivers are being hit by an automatic hike in their vehicle insurance bill to pay for...

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Gov. Kathy Hochul said yesterday the state would not force counties outside of New York City to accept migrants, essentially throwing cold water on Mayor Eric Adams’ request that she order communities on Long Island and elsewhere to provide shelter. Yancey Roy and Matthew Chayes report on Newsday.com that earlier Thursday, Newsday reported the Adams administration filed a letter in relation to a court proceeding, saying Hochul should issue an executive order to “preempt attempts by certain localities to stymie the city’s efforts to place new arrivals in accommodations outside the city."

Further, the Adams administration suggested specific state-run facilities for sheltering, including Francis S. Gabreski Air National Guard Base on Moen Street in Westhampton Beach; Pilgrim Psychiatric Center on Crooked Hill Road in Brentwood; and the former Kings Park Psychiatric Center in Nissequogue River State Park.

Hochul didn’t address Adams’ request specifically, but she said a 1981 consent decree that established a right-to-shelter mandate in New York City cannot be imposed on New York’s 57 other counties. “Which is one of the reasons we cannot, and will not, force other parts of our state to shelter migrants. Nor are we going to be asking these migrants to move to other parts of the state against their will,” the governor said in a briefing at the state Capitol.

Instead, the state will seek, as it has done previously, to work with communities outside the city that are open to receive migrants.

“That said, I do believe we have a moral imperative to help these new arrivals,” the governor said. “I’m grateful to the counties that have welcomed and supported the migrants, and we’ll continue to partner with them. But…there does not appear to be a solution to this federal problem any time soon.”

The President’s Council of Suffolk County Officials voted Wednesday night to ratify a new contract between Section XI, the governing body of scholastic sports in Suffolk County, and its referees for the upcoming season. Gregg Sarra reports on Newsday.com that the three-year agreement between the officials and Section XI will call for incremental raises of $3 per game in the first year and $5 per game in the second and third years for all sports.

Tom Combs, the executive director of Section XI, said he was satisfied that there is an agreement but disappointed that it took such a long time.

“We can finally get to work on our schedules, which begin Monday,” Combs said. “It’s good that we’re going to have officials and it’s not going to affect the student-athletes. That was our main concern. We did not want to delay or jeopardize the fall season in any way."

The Suffolk high school season opens with non-league games in boys and girls volleyball, boys and girls soccer, and field hockey on Monday.

The cost for officials in 2022-23 was $3.3 million in Suffolk and that number will grow to approximately $3.6 million for the 2023-24 school year. Combs has said that more than 1,300 officials work in Suffolk through the school year.

Under the previous contract, referees and umpires for varsity baseball, softball, soccer, basketball, lacrosse and gymnastics made $131 per event last season. Varsity football officials made $134 per game, and varsity wrestling referees were paid $139 last season.

The Town of Riverhead has filed a lawsuit to recover title to the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall property. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the town’s summons and complaint was filed Aug. 2 in Suffolk County Supreme Court seeking a court order granting title to the town under a “reverter clause”

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Some of New York City’s homeless immigrants should be sheltered on Long Island at an Air National Guard base and the shuttered grounds of state-owned mental hospitals, according to a letter to the state filed this week by the Adams administration. Matthew Chayes reports on Newsday.com that the proposed sites on Long Island, according to a copy of the request obtained by Newsday, are the Francis S. Gabreski Air National Guard Base on Moen Street in Westhampton Beach; Pilgrim Psychiatric Center on Crooked Hill Road in Brentwood; and Kings Park Psychiatric Center in Nissequogue River State Park.

The city also requested nearly two dozen other state-owned sites — from Eastern Suffolk to Flushing to Buffalo — where the city hopes to place migrants. The sites include the Javits Center in Manhattan, Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, State University of New York dorms and vacant prisons upstate.

The request is made in an appendix in a letter, dated Aug. 22, that has not been made public. It was filed in a Manhattan state court by the city, which is scrambling to find room to shelter, feed and otherwise care for tens of thousands of immigrants who have arrived from abroad, mostly from Latin America and West Africa, and need a place to stay.

So far, about 60% of the 104,400 immigrants from the surge, which started last spring, are being sheltered, fed and otherwise cared for by the city, according to figures released yesterday by the Adams administration. This means that 59,300 are living in city shelters, hotels and other accommodations. In the latest week, 3,100 more migrants came to the city.

Massapequa Park resident Rex A. Heuermann, who has been charged in the deaths of three women and is a suspect in the slaying of a fourth whose remains were discovered on Gilgo Beach in 2010, submitted to a cheek swab last week for Suffolk County prosecutors looking to bolster the DNA case against him, sources familiar with the case said.

The test took place on Aug. 16 at the Suffolk County Jail in Riverhead, where Heuermann has been held since his arrest on July 13. Grant Parpan and Nicole Fuller report on Newsday.com that the development comes as police in South Carolina say they have turned over information in a missing persons case to the FBI after receiving a report that a woman may have been spotted with Heuermann shortly before disappearing in 2017, a spokesperson for the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office told Newsday.

Police in Nevada and New Jersey, where Heuermann also has owned property, have said they are looking into possible connections with Heuermann to open cases in their jurisdictions.

Heuermann, 59, has pleaded not guilty to first- and second-degree murder charges in the killings of three women whose remains were found near Gilgo Beach 13 years ago.

Authorities also have said Heuermann is the “prime suspect” in the slaying of a fourth woman.

Riverhead’s Ukrainian community held its annual flag-raising ceremony at Town Hall yesterday, in celebration of Ukraine’s Independence Day. Event officianls and town officials also spoke out in solidarity with Ukraine. Quint Nigro reports on Riverheadlocal.com that a crowd gathered near the flagpole on East Main Street in Riverhead, made up mostly of Ukrainians, young and old. Almost all the attendees were wearing the national colors or a vyshyvanka, a shirt embroidered in a traditional Ukrainian style.

“I would like to start with a moment of silence for the victims of the terrible fires in Hawaii, and for the victims of Russian aggression in Ukraine,” St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church Pastor Bodhan Hedz said.

The...

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This past Friday, Governor Kathy Hochul visited the Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center along with several other local lawmakers and distinguished members of the community, for an official opening ceremony for the center’s recently completed $3.3 million, 7,828-square-foot building. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the new building will enhance the center’s ability to provide even more of the vital services and programs it supplies. Construction of the building was made possible through fundraising and several state grants. Listening to Governor Hochul speak about the importance of what the center provides was an experience Executive Director Bonnie Cannon said she found hard to put into words. “It was unbelievable,” she said. “It was so phenomenal. We’ve been here for the past 70-plus years, doing this work, but so many people still don’t know what we do or that we exist. So now we have this new building and having the governor’s stamp of approval — it’s just a long time coming. The new building — one of several building on the 6-acre property — will vastly expand on what the center can offer. Previously, it was licensed to care for around 36 children, Cannon said. The addition of the new building moves that number to more than 100. NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who lives in neighboring Sag Harbor, was on hand at the ribbon-cutting as well. His support has been crucial in helping obtain grant money, Cannon said. He spoke about the significance of the expansion of the center and its place in the community. “It is with immense pride and gratitude that we celebrate the official ribbon-cutting of the new building at the Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center,” he said.

“The center’s educational and enrichment programs are a lifeline for working families. New York’s investment in the center is not just in bricks and mortar, but in the future of our community.

Southold Town is weighing a developer's request to build a first-of-its kind affordable housing complex in Cutchogue that would require a zoning change. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that representatives of Cruz Brothers Construction, which presented their plans at a board meeting last week, is seeking a change of zone from low-density residential to affordable housing district for the North Fork Villas project. The developer plans to build 36 rental apartments on vacant property on the north side of Main Road between Depot Lane and Pequash Avenue in Cutchogue.

The housing district would allow for more units to be built on the 3.2-acre property, which is now zoned for one single-family home per acre lot. Earlier this year, the Southold Town board repealed a measure that capped development at 24 apartments in affordable housing zones.

Board members at the meeting embraced the concept but said they must weigh the need for housing, community character and viability of the project before approving the zoning change.

The board said it will review the plan. Then, the developers can formally apply for the change, followed by a review by the town planning department and a public hearing.

Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell urged the board to consider the community housing plan the town is on the brink of adopting as they review the project. The board plans to hold a public hearing on the plan, which will serve as a road map for spending funds collected from a new 0.5% real estate transfer tax to address the housing crisis. No date has been set for the hearing.

Disgraced former Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke was arrested yesterday on multiple sexual misconduct charges during an undercover sting by county

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An overwhelming share of New York voters believe the recent influx of migrants to the state is a “serious problem” and a plurality say the state should slow down the flow, according to a poll released today. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that the Siena Research Institute survey also says a slight majority of voters (50% to 40%) supports the idea of moving migrants from temporary quarters in New York City to permanent housing in communities around the state.

But voters are giving Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York Mayor Eric Adams low marks for handling the migrant situation. Hochul received her lowest job approval rating in a Siena poll since becoming governor in August 2021.

More than 100,000 migrants over the last year and a half from various parts of the globe have arrived in New York, with some sent north on buses by Republican officials in Texas. Many have come from Venezuela, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

NYC housed some migrants in homeless shelters, tent shelters and hotels. But as the influx continued, Mayor Adams sought to bus some upstate. The mayor and Hochul, who have had a cordial relationship, traded scathing letters about government responsibilities last week.

So far, their efforts aren’t playing well in public opinion.

Siena said 82% of those surveyed said the influx of migrants was either a “serious” or “very serious” problem for the state. Just 16% said either “not very serious” or “not at all” serious.

Even in a state as liberal as New York, 77% of Democrats said it was a serious problem.

“A plurality of Democrats say that migrants resettling in New York over the last two decades has been a benefit. But a majority of independents and two-thirds of Republicans say that migrant resettlement has been a burden to the state,” according to today's Siena survey.

New York State has announced $4.3 million in construction funds for Long Island libraries, a sum local library officials said is badly needed, but far from enough to pay for necessary repairs and upgrades.

In Suffolk, the funding ranges from $7,350 for Westhampton Free Library to hook up to the sewer system, to $422,500 for upgraded wastewater and fire systems at Mastics-Moriches Shirley Library. Across both Nassau and Suffolk systems, 35 libraries received construction money. Nicholas Spangler reports on Newsday.com that according to the latest published figures on the state library website, Suffolk libraries’ needs are $98.9 million.

While school districts may rely on billions in state aid to fund a considerable portion of their budgets and saw a record funding increase on Long Island this spring, the state's 756 public libraries are funded mostly by local taxpayers, and advocates say aid has not kept up with need. Statewide this year, $34 million was awarded for 197 library construction projects; that amount has not increased since 2018-2019. Libraries also receive about $96 million in general state aid, said Kevin Verbesey, the Suffolk Cooperative Library System's director.

In Suffolk, with 56 member libraries, the construction aid “doesn’t go as far as we would like,” Verbesey said. “There are newer challenges every year and newer services that people in our communities need that we’re trying to provide.”

Riverhead’s Anti-Bias Task Force is due for an overhaul, according to Council Member Ken Rothwell, the Town Board’s liaison to the task force. The group’s membership lacks the diversity it needs to function properly, Rothwell said on Friday. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that he was responding to a request made by Anti-Bias Task Force...

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Three people were killed in separate crashes across Suffolk County this weekend, continuing what has been a deadly month on Long Island roads.

At least 21 individuals have died in crashes in Suffolk and Nassau counties in the first 20 days of August, local police departments have reported. Grant Parpan reports on Newsday.com that on Saturday night, Olivia Montgomery, 20, of Farmingville, was entering westbound Sunrise Highway in East Moriches at 10:50 p.m. when she lost control of her 2016 Dodge Ram, left the roadway and was ejected from the overturned vehicle, Suffolk police said.

Montgomery was pronounced dead at the scene by a physician assistant with the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office, according to police.

Seventh Squad detectives are asking anyone with information about the crash to call 631-852-8752.

The fatal crash was the second on a Suffolk roadway Saturday after a Bay Shore man was killed when his motorcycle collided head on with an SUV on Spur Drive North in Brentwood.

A driver also died in a single-vehicle crash overnight in Port Jefferson Station, Suffolk police said. Christopher W. McGuckin, 54, of Shoreham, was driving a 2012 Hyundai Genesis southbound on Route 112 near Washington Avenue about 12:45 a.m. Sunday when the vehicle struck a telephone pole and a fire hydrant before crashing into a tree, police said.

From 2020 through 2022, Long Island has averaged 18.2 roadway fatalities per month, according to the most recent data available from the Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research. The total number of fatalities on Long Island roads increased each year from 2019 to 2022, the agency reported.

There has been more than one auto-related fatality reported in Nassau and Suffolk counties on at least three days this month.

The Town of Riverhead is considering increasing fees on new residential developments in an effort to generate revenue for parks and recreation projects. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that the Riverhead Town Board is planning to raise the fee to $5,000 from $3,000 for each new housing unit, encompassing both single-family residences and large apartment complexes. Members of the town’s recreation advisory committee said the increase is necessary to spruce up outdated and dilapidated conditions at parks, picnic areas and beaches across town.

Riverhead has more than two dozen park facilities that include sport courts, trails, dog parks, beaches and marinas. Officials have tapped into the fund to install new amenities at existing parks or create mini "pocket" parks that often include picnic areas.

A provision in state law requires towns to consider anticipated needs for parks and recreation facilities that may arise due to development and population growth. If a park or playground can’t be located on a project site, towns can levy the fee. Monies must be used for capital improvements, not just general maintenance, according to Deputy Town Attorney Annemarie Prudenti.

Parks and Recreation Superintendent Raymond Coyne said last week the fund has dwindled to about $56,000 and hasn’t gone above $200,000 in the past decade.

Priority projects, he said, include facility upgrades at each of the town’s four bathing beaches, new bathrooms at Veterans Memorial Park in Calverton, and new multipurpose turf fields and pickleball, volleyball and basketball courts at various other parks.

After hearing again from a plethora of Hampton Bays residents opposed to a 100-megawatt Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) not far from the Shinnecock Canal earlier this month, the Southampton Town Board is slated to vote tomorrow on a six-month moratorium regarding proposals for BESS systems in the town....

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Yes, traffic really has been that bad in Sag Harbor this summer.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that northbound traffic on Route 114 is often backed up to Burke Street, and southbound traffic is frequently backed up all the way to the North Haven roundabout. That volume converges at a natural chokepoint at the north end of Main Street and west end of Bay Street, often causing tie-ups.

Meanwhile, southbound traffic on Main Street, westbound traffic on Jermain Avenue, and eastbound traffic on Brick Kiln Road is often so backed up that motorists have to wait through two stoplight cycles to get in or out of the village on its south side.

It doesn’t help that the Village of Sag Harbor is short traffic control officers, and many drivers seem to think it is okay to make a U-turn on Main Street in the business district, or to double park while waiting for that elusive parking space in front of them to become available.

“The Hamptons are just extremely popular, and coming out of this COVID era, things have just exploded,” said Sag Harbor Mayor Tom Gardella. “It’s difficult to manage. Other than putting up a roadblock at the Shinnecock Canal, how are you going to do it?”

“I’ve never seen so much traffic in my career,” added Lieutenant Rob Drake of the Sag Harbor Police Department, who said new monitors, which count the number of vehicles traveling in both directions, had produced some mind-boggling numbers.

Police have placed one of the monitors at the foot of the Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter Veterans Memorial Bridge. In July, a total of 353,791 vehicles were counted. A second monitor was placed at Brick Kiln Road, where 221,743 vehicles were counted in July.

“On every major artery coming into Sag Harbor Village or exiting the village, the volume is incredible,” Lt. Drake said.

The Suffolk County resident who died after contracting a rare bacterial infection was a man over the age of 55 from Brookhaven Township, officials said yesterday. He had underlying health conditions and a wound on his leg, they said. Lisa L. Colangelo reports on Newsday.com that it’s still unclear how he became infected with Vibrio vulnificus, which led to his death from sepsis in late July, according to the Suffolk County Department of Health. There have been 18 cases of Vibrio infections in Suffolk County so far this year, but fatalities are rare. Suffolk Health officials are investigating the cases in conjunction with the NYS Health Department. Vibrio bacteria live in coastal waters and can be found in higher concentrations during the warmer months of May to October. People can become infected after eating raw or undercooked seafood or exposing an open wound to salt water or brackish water, said Suffolk County Health Commissioner Dr. Gregson Pigott. “Brackish water is where fresh water meets salt water,” said Pigott. “We want to reassure people this is not something you're going to worry about at Smith Point Beach or Robert Moses Park or Jones Beach, the ocean beaches…maybe something calmer like in the Great South Bay or in coves in the North Shore where streams or stormwater runoff meets salt water. That's where Vibrio might be in larger numbers.” People who have compromised immune systems or cirrhosis of the liver are particularly vulnerable, experts said. The Suffolk County man had underlying health conditions and a wound on his leg, officials said.

The final Alive on 25 of the season in Downtown Riverhead, a street festival with live music on multiple stages, local craft beverages, food trucks, vendors, artisans and family activities, will be held this evening from 5 to 9:30 p.m. Admission is free....

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Members of two Long Island Indian nations have expressed concern about potential disruption of native burial and artifact sites along portions of the land-based route of the Sunrise Wind cable, and the developer says it’s working with the nations to monitor the work.

Harry Wallace, chief of the state-recognized Unkechaug tribe located on the Poospatuck reservation near Mastic, said he was made aware of the potential conflicts about a month ago and has had recent meetings with representatives of Sunrise Wind to express his concerns. A representative of the federally recognized Shinnecock Indian Nation also has concerns. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that the 17.5-mile cable will make landfall at Smith Point County Park and travel along William Floyd Parkway before making its way to a Holbrook substation along the Long Island Expressway. Newsday has reported that preliminary construction for the project, which will bring 924 megawatts of power to the Long Island grid, began last month.

An online "open house" to detail the plan is scheduled for today at 6 p.m. Questions can be submitted to the developers prior to the session. The project promises to provide power to some 600,000 homes by the time it's fully constructed in 2025. Wallace said the developers have been open to his demands. “We’re now in discussions after I screamed and yelled and hollered,” he said. “I’m getting a monitor in place as soon as possible to prevent any desecration of our sacred ground.”

A spokesman for Sunrise Wind said the developers are working with the tribes to make sure no culturally sensitive sites are disturbed.

A proposal from the Moriches Bay Project to install oyster and clam farms at three sites on Quantuck Bay was tabled last week by the Southampton Town Trustees while the town attorney’s office determines whether the plan is in sync with a recently adopted town aquaculture program. “When the town attorney says table it, we hit the brakes,” Trustee President Scott Horowitz said following the August 7 Trustees meeting. The Moriches Bay Project, founded in 2012 by Westhampton Beach resident Laura Fabrizio, has raised and seeded more than 2.5 million oysters into Moriches Bay over its 10-plus year history, according to the nonprofit’s website. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the organization, which has an office in West Hampton Dunes, also offers educational programs that this year featured oyster-farm outings at the West Hampton Dunes Overlook and at Lashley Beach, both located off of Dune Road. At issue for the town and the Trustees is that the bottomlands are a shared but limited resource with multiple stakeholders — environmentalists, baymen, homeowners, recreational anglers and the like — all vying for access.

The Heart of Riverhead Civic Association is hosting the EPCAL Watch group at the civic’s monthly meeting tomorrow evening for an update on plans at the Calverton Enterprise Park. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that this Thursday’s meeting, which is open to the public, will be held at the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall on Peconic Avenue in Riverhead from 6:30 to 8 p.m. (Doors open at 6 p.m.) Tomorrow’s presentation by members of EPCAL Watch and their invited panelists will discuss plans aired by Calverton Aviation & Technology, a Triple Five Group company, for vacant land at the former Grumman manufacturing plant. Calverton Aviation & Technology is in contract to purchase, 1,644 acres of vacant land, including the site’s two runways, from the Town of Riverhead for $40 million.

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Long Island gas prices, which have risen 25 cents since early July due to reduced oil production, may be leveling off as summer's end approaches, according to AAA. John Asbury reports on Newsday.com that the price of gas has been climbing nationwide since July 1, hitting a 10-month high yesterday after OPEC+ cut oil production by 3.6 million barrels per day, said Robert Sinclair, a spokesman for AAA Northeast.

The reduced production primarily in Russia and Saudi Arabia, caused gas prices on Long Island to spike by 25 cents since July 1, Sinclair said. The average price for a gallon of gas on Long Island is about $3.85, according to AAA. It’s been over $4.00 per gallon on the south fork from Southampton Village to Montauk for weeks.

But those prices may have plateaued, Sinclair said. The average price of a gallon in Nassau and Suffolk counties has remained the same for the past week, which could offer a glimpse of relief, he said.

“There was less crude oil to be made into gas and that factored into gas prices. Everything is a wait-and-see for gas prices,” Sinclair said. “There’s generally some relief to be had after Labor Day and the end of the summer driving season when there’s higher demand. We could see prices moderate then, but we may be stuck at this for a while.”

Further relief could come in late September when production switches from a summer gasoline solution that is more expensive to produce and designed to reduce evaporation during hot temperatures, Sinclair said.

Though Long Islanders may be paying more to commute and travel, the peak gas prices have still not reached last year's high of $4.10, Sinclair said.

The Heart of Riverhead Civic Association is hosting the EPCAL Watch group at the civic’s monthly meeting this Thursday evening for an update on plans at the Calverton Enterprise Park. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that this Thursday’s meeting, which is open to the public, will be held at the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall on Peconic Avenue in Riverhead from 6:30 to 8 p.m. (Doors open at 6 p.m.)

“With EPCAL headlining our news for much of the past seven years and EPCAL Watch keeping a close eye on developments for just as long, who better to explain the current plans and potential impact on Riverhead and our surrounding towns? It’s a hot topic and we’re grateful for the chance to be better informed,” the leaders of Heart of Riverhead said in an email inviting members to the meeting.

Thursday’s presentation by members of EPCAL Watch and their invited panelists will discuss plans aired by Calverton Aviation & Technology, a Triple Five Group company, for vacant land at the former Grumman manufacturing plant. Calverton Aviation & Technology is in contract to purchase, 1,644 acres of vacant land, including the site’s two runways, from the Town of Riverhead for $40 million.

Sunrise Wind, a 924-megawatt offshore wind farm partnership between Ørsted and Eversource adjacent to the South Fork Wind Farm, will hold a virtual open house to inform the public about the wind farm’s permitting and construction process tomorrow at 6 p.m. The wind farm will power Long Island through a transmission cable slated to come ashore at Smith Point Beach and tie into a substation off William Floyd Parkway in Mastic-Shirley.

“The Sunrise Wind team looks forward to speaking with you at our upcoming virtual open house. We would love to meet with you in person, but to accommodate more people, we invite you to our Virtual Open House on August 16, 2023.”

You may register for tomorrow’s virtual open house at

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Thirteen Long Island school districts and 16 individual schools within them are posted on a state needs-improvement list that is the first compiled since the COVID-19 pandemic prompted a suspension of such ratings more than three years ago, according to a Newsday analysis. John Hildebrand and Michael R. Ebert report on Newsday.com that the latest state classifications are part of a federal and state "accountability" system that has been revived to cover academic performance for the just-completed 2022-23 school year.

Under federal rules, ratings identify schools and districts falling in the bottom 5% statewide, based on student test scores, high school graduation rates and other criteria such as absenteeism and test participation.

School systems targeted by ratings span the region, from Hempstead in Nassau County to Riverhead and Greenport on the east end but are concentrated in Suffolk County. Overall, the great majority of systems in Long Island's educational network — 111 other districts and 624 other schools — remain in good academic standing, according to the state Department of Education. As it resumes its scrutiny of classroom performance, New York also is providing districts statewide with billions of dollars in additional money meant to help counter learning loss from the pandemic and boost scores. "Accountability is a two-way street," said Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa when she initially announced the restart of ratings in July of last year.

Some educators criticized the state's rating system, contending that it often stigmatized entire districts due to data covering relatively small numbers of students.

The Quogue Bridge on Post Lane will be closed for up to three days beginning tomorrow, while the Suffolk County Department of Public Works performs emergency repairs on the 85-year-old drawbridge that connects the mainland to Dune Road. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that the bridge crosses the Quogue Canal on Post Lane before that road terminates at Dune Road. Residents or visitors to the beach can use the Rogers Beach Bridge to the west or the Ponqougue Bridge to the east to access Dune Road, while repairs are underway. The plan for now is that Quogue Bridge will be closed this week on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, while DPW contractors do the work. In the meantime, the county will post signs announcing the temporary closure and detours. Quogue Village Mayor Robert Treuhold said he would coordinate with Westhampton Beach Village Police and fire services “to arrange for mutual assistance to ensure rapid response to any emergency that might arise.”

Turning food scraps into compost can be a messy gig. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that on Saturday mornings, volunteers with East Hampton Compost collect buckets of discarded vegetables, fruits, potato peels and corn husks from local residents as part of a new collaborative pilot program to reduce food waste, create nutrient-rich soil and educate residents on how to minimize their carbon footprints.

Before donated scraps can be hauled to a nearby recycling center, volunteers use one hand to dig through each pile looking for twist-ties, stickers, rubber bands, pits, pasta or any other contaminants. They keep the other hand gloveless to "take down the data," said program founder Gloria Frazee.

“Not only are we teaching people, the community, how to do this composting, we're also showing the town that we can deliver clean compost,” she said.

Approximately one-third of food produced in the country is never eaten, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The agency established a national goal in...

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A federal jury in Central Islip awarded $35 million — $13.5 million in compensatory damages and $21.5 million in punitive damages — yesterday to the family of a Bay Shore man who died after he was beaten by Suffolk police following a 2008 traffic stop. Michael O'Keeffe reports on Newsday.com that the family of Kenny Lazo, 24, of Bay Shore, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the county and its police department in 2009, arguing the police failed to seek medical treatment for Lazo after he was beaten. Suffolk police and county officials, it added, conducted a sham investigation into Lazo’s death to avoid accountability.

“Justice has been served. It’s been a long time coming. The police are being held accountable,” said Jennifer Gonzalez, Lazo’s former partner and the mother of his now-adult son, who along with other family members attended the three-week trial that took place 15 years after Lazo’s death.

The jurors told U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven L. Tiscione that they wanted to make a statement about the case shortly after they reached the verdict. “Upon review of the evidence, we the jury feel strongly that the policies and practices of the Suffolk County Police Department should be better enforced to protect and serve the community,” the jury forewoman told Newsday.

“The failure to properly train, retrain and/or discipline officers directly led to this unfortunate situation,” said the forewoman. “Our hope is that actual change comes from this verdict.”

An aide for Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone issued a statement last night saying, “The County will be appealing this verdict.”

A plume containing higher than allowed levels of harmful "forever chemicals" has been detected in the groundwater south of the Brookhaven Landfill but the contamination presents no "new threats" to drinking water, Department of Environmental Conservation officials said this week. Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that groundwater testing conducted by Brookhaven Town in late-2022 found a class of toxic chemicals known as PFAS, along with 1,4-dioxane — classified as a likely human carcinogen — in multiple groundwater monitoring wells near the town-run landfill that exceed the standards set by the state in February. Sampling results indicate there may also be a second contaminant plume nearby.

In the coming weeks, the state will require the Town of Brookhaven to implement a plan that notifies the public, addresses the extent and source of the intrusion, its potential impact on local residents, fish and wildlife and how to remove the "emerging contaminants." The town must also host a public meeting to discuss its plan. The contaminants are collectively known as "forever chemicals" because they build up in the body and never break down in the environment and have been linked to a broad range of health issues in humans.

The DEC did stop short of suggesting the Yaphank landfill be classified as a Superfund site.

The sinkholes that have emerged on Long Island roadways this year point to an aging infrastructure, experts say. Other factors leading to their creation could include more extreme weather events brought on by climate change. Lawmakers and advocates say more investment is needed in repairing Long Island's infrastructure as more sinkholes may appear in the future. Nicholas Spangler reports on Newsday.com that Wei Li, an assistant professor in Stony Brook University’s Civil Engineering Department, said that many of Long Island’s sinkholes are created when groundwater runs through the mix of gravel, sand and soil deposited 11,000 years ago by the Wisconsin glaciation. “Groundwater, especially if the velocity is high, moves particles with it — these particles are constantly...

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A Suffolk judge ruled yesterday that Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex A. Heuermann must submit to a cheek swab as prosecutors seek to bolster their case through stronger DNA evidence.

Grant Parpan reports on Newsday.com that NYS Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei, the presiding judge in the case of the Massapequa Park architect accused of killing three women, ruled prosecutors have enough probable cause to obtain the sample from Heuermann. Defense attorneys had sought to prevent prosecutors from obtaining the cheek swab.

“The court finds that contrary to the defendant’s contentions, there is probable cause to believe that the defendant committed the crimes charged and, therefore, a basis to compel the buccal swab,” Mazzei wrote, noting that courts have “held that a grand jury indictment alone is enough to provide requisite probable cause.”

Heuermann, 59, has pleaded not guilty to first- and second-degree murder charges in the killings of three women — Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy and Amber Lynn Costello — whose remains were found near Gilgo Beach 13 years ago.

Authorities have also said Heuermann is the “prime suspect” in the slaying of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, whose remains were found with the other three victims. All four of the women were sex workers, law enforcement officials said.

Assistant Suffolk County District Attorney Michelle Haddad wrote in last week’s motion. “Specifically, it is expected this information would provide further relevant evidence of the defendant’s identity as the perpetrator of these crimes.”

Haddad also noted that if the DNA did not match the “defense would be presented with a potential trial defense.”

Heuermann is currently being held at the Suffolk County Correctional Facility in Riverhead.

Heuermann engaged in “disturbing” activity while investigators tailed him in the months leading up to his July arrest in the slayings of three women whose remains were found near Gilgo Beach 13 years ago, Suffolk Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison told Newsday in an exclusive interview yesterday. The FBI was reluctant to join the task force investigating the killings, Harrison said. “They were concerned about, I guess, some past relationships where they weren’t necessarily part of being inside the loop of the case," he said. Harrison also offered a definitive statement on Shannan Gilbert’s connection to the case. “It’s a horrible accident and as of right now, myself and the investigators assigned to the homicide squad still believe it was just an incident where she ran into the marsh and unfortunately drowned on that horrible day."

Meanwhile, Harrison said investigators are not only continuing the investigation into the killings in the current indictment, but whether or not Heuermann could be involved in the other Gilgo killings — or other unsolved slayings in Suffolk County.

Should Long Islanders be worried that a serial killer responsible for some or all of the other six killings is still at large?

“I wish I could give you an answer,” Harrison said. “I can’t tell you at this time.

Is Rex Heuermann going to be held accountable for the other bodies on Ocean Parkway?

“Time will tell.”

Riverhead Fire Department Lt. Justin Berry has been named 2023 firefighter of the year by the Firefighters Association of the State of New York. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the honor comes to recognize Berry’s heroic rescue following a rapidly spreading house fire in Riverhead on Dec. 30. Berry climbed through a window of the burning house on Doris Avenue late that afternoon to rescue a 77-year-old resident inside.

The lieutenant, a...

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The buyers in the $40 million land deal with the Town of Riverhead continued to distance themselves this week from the plans they previously presented to build an air cargo logistics hub at the Calverton Enterprise Park, attempting to dissuade the fears of a disgruntled public. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that representatives of the buyers, Calverton Aviation & Technology, an affiliate of the Triple Five group, said the company is not building a “cargo jetport,” and the runways at the site would not be used to bring cargo to logistics centers. That was a plan for the property presented to the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency in September, when project consultants said the full buildout of the project could make the industrial park a hub for taking in packages by air and transporting them to “last-mile” distribution centers.

“In addition to any aviation use that is specifically prohibited in the agreement of sale or under the zoning, the development of the EPCAL property will specifically exclude any aviation use of the runways by shipping and or delivery companies seeking to use aviation as a principal use to transport goods to offsite consumers,” CAT attorney Chris Kent said. The town’s regulations for aviation uses on the property aren’t clear. Riverhead Town officials have both acknowledged and challenged the possibility of whether what CAT proposed for the property in September is allowed by zoning. The contract of sale with CAT stipulates that the property will be developed “consistent with the uses permitted” in the Planned Development zoning district, which allows “all uses that promote economic development” by right and by special permit.

A lawyer for suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann is opposing a prosecution request to take a cheek swab from the defendant for DNA testing, arguing in court papers filed yesterday in Riverhead that prosecutors have failed to meet the legal standard to compel her client to provide the swab. Grant Parpan and Nicole Fuller report on Newsday.com that Heuermann defense attorney Danielle Coysh, part of the legal team assigned to represent the Massapequa Park architect indicted in the killings of three women whose remains were discovered near Gilgo Beach in 2010, said in court papers that prosecutors had not demonstrated that there was probable cause to believe Heuermann had committed the killings.

“The assertions contained in the people’s moving papers might be construed as rising to the level of a reasonable suspicion, but that is a far cry from the standard of probable cause required to justify granting the order sought by the people,” wrote Coysh.

Coysh’s argument came in response to Suffolk prosecutors’ filing last week seeking a cheek swab from Heuermann for more DNA testing.

Northwell Health fired back at rival NYU Langone Hospital yesterday in the medical behemoths’ legal battle — over the use of the color purple. Carl Campanile reports in THE NY POST that, Northwell urged a federal judge in Manhattan to dismiss New York University Langone’s trademark lawsuit against it that claims Northwell has been ripping off NYU’s color scheme, including its purple hue in ads.

NYU Langone filed the suit against Northwell Health in June.

New York University is so linked to the color purple that “violets” is the...

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Northwell Health is being reimbursed more than $109 million for its COVID-19 pandemic expenses.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is sending $109,369,117.32 in emergency funds to the New Hyde Park-based health care system, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced. Maura McDermott reports on Newsday.com that the funds reimburse Northwell for the cost of supplies and services it purchased to respond to the pandemic, including $94.9 million for personal protective equipment, $8.6 million for cleaning and disinfecting agents and $5.9 million for infection control, air filtration systems and barriers, Northwell spokesman Jason Molinet said yesterday. The expenses were incurred through the end of the federal COVID-19 public health emergency on May 11.

Long Island hospitals “undertook an incredible pandemic response and the hospital system both deserves and needs to be repaid for the funds they expended,” Schumer said in a statement. Other health care systems also are receiving payments.

The reimbursements are funded by the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan stimulus package passed in 2021, as well as other COVID response bills. Schumer’s office said the senator pushed the federal government to cover the full cost of hospitals’ pandemic response.

The $109 million represents less than 1% of Northwell's $16.5 billion budget.

The Quogue Bridge on Post Lane will be closed for up to three days beginning on August 15 - that's a week from today - while the Suffolk County Department of Public Works performs emergency repairs on the 85-year-old drawbridge that connects the mainland to Dune Road. Tom Gogola reports on 27east.com that Quogue Village Mayor Robert Treuhold made the bridge closure announcement, noting that he had hoped the work would have been delayed until the fall, when there are fewer residents and less traffic. The county insisted on the mid-August repairs, given that “if they do not perform the emergency repairs now, there could be a catastrophic failure that could possibly lead to a much longer closure,” of weeks or even months, Mayor Treuhold said via an email sent to residents about the DPW plan. Some electrical components on the bridge have been upgraded in recent years, but the old bridge equipment, said Treuhold, “continues to be problematic,” given the original design of the bridge. The bridge crosses the Quogue Canal on Post Lane before that road terminates at Dune Road. Residents or visitors to the beach can use the Rogers Beach Bridge to the west or the Ponqougue Bridge to the east to access Dune Road, while repairs are underway. The plan for now is that it will be closed midweek...Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday...from August 15 to 17, while DPW contractors do the work.In the meantime, the county will post signs announcing the temporary closure and detours, and Treuhold said he would coordinate with Westhampton Beach Village Police and fire services “to arrange for mutual assistance to ensure rapid response to any emergency that might arise.”

Among the fare changes recently adopted by the MTA and set to take effect Aug. 20 is the elimination of the Long Island Rail Road's 20-Trip Ticket, which offered a discount of 20% over the cost of 20 peak trips. With the new rate hike, the cost of those same 20 trips will rise by nearly 30%. The 20-Trip Ticket was created in March 2022 to cater to customers who stopped commuting five days a week during the COVID-19 pandemic, and no longer needed a monthly pass. LIRR officials said sales data indicates that customers prefer monthly passes, which were discounted by 10% last year. Commuters and advocates say there is still very much a need for the...

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A Suffolk County Supreme Court justice has dismissed an effort by aviation interests and Montauk residents to block East Hampton Town from using the millions in fees that users of the East Hampton Airport in Wainscott pay for landings and fuel to fund its defense of lawsuits and consulting fees as it tries to find a way to reduce noise impacts from the airport.

Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that Justice Paul Baisley affirmed in a ruling on Friday that the town may use money in the dedicated airport fund to cover legal fees in defending lawsuits brought over airport related issues, and declined to order the town’s aviation attorneys to pay back fees they had billed since May 2022, as the plaintiffs in the three pending lawsuits against the town had asked.

Baisley nodded simply to a 2018 determination by the Federal Aviation Administration that “the presumptive rule is that fees related to airport legal issues may be paid with airport revenue.”

That determination had come from a previous attempt by the National Business Aviation Association to stop the town from using its airport fund to pay for legal fees.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc has called the challenges to the town’s use of airport funding for legal bills, new and old, bald-faced attempts by the aviation groups — and now some Montauk residents who are party to the lawsuits — to stifle the town’s ability to defend its efforts to tamp down aircraft noise.

The airport fund takes in revenue not from taxes but from landing fees, fuel sales and the lease payments from the industrial lots the ring the airport. The fund’s revenues may only be used for airport-related uses.

The Town of East Hampton spent more than $3 million from the airport fund in 2022 on legal fees.

Local residents raised a myriad of concerns about the proposed eight-building light industrial park on Middle Country Road in Calverton during a site plan hearing in front of the Riverhead Town Planning Board this past Thursday night.

Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that impacts to traffic and the character of the area were on the minds of the speakers, many of whom were residents of Timber Park, a subdivision of homes located just north of the proposed development near Fresh Pond Avenue. The findings statement adopted by the Riverhead Planning Board for the HK Ventures proposal states that the project will not have significant negative environmental impacts, as long as certain conditions are met. Among those conditions is the completion of the intersection reconstruction at Edwards Avenue, which has “significant congestion,” according to the findings statement.

But that didn’t stop residents from critiquing the project from HK Ventures of Great Neck, which wants to construct the buildings for warehousing and manufacturing on 30 acres of vacant land. The buildings would have a total footprint of roughly 412,000-square-feet and be able to hold a total of 60 tenants.

The next step of the planning process is for the Planning Board to vote on site plan approvals. No building permits for the project can be issued until the intersection of Edwards Avenue and Middle Country Road is reconstructed and improved, a determination made by the board as a result of the environmental review.

The anticipated rate impacts of a new generation of offshore wind turbines are getting new scrutiny, as the world’s biggest energy companies ask the state for more money for wind energy to reflect the escalating costs of building the projects. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that offshore wind farm costs, which five years ago were expected to...

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Las Vegas-style casinos in New York are "not a sure bet" for local government coffers, according to a state comptroller's report that says none of the four upstate met gross revenue projections in recent years. Candice Ferrette reports on Newsday.com that the 19-page audit, released yesterday by NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, found the casinos distributed a total $176 million to local governments between 2017 and 2022. Gaming revenue had the most impact on the finances of the three smaller host towns, which were able to reduce property taxes significantly, the report shows.

The report offers insight into the potential challenges and benefits of Las Vegas Sands' proposed $4 billion casino-resort on the site of the Nassau Coliseum.

Sands executives estimate the resort would generate $2 billion annually. Five percent of gaming revenue would go to Nassau, 5% to Suffolk County and 10% to the Town of Hempstead, they said.

At minimum, Nassau would get $50 million annually and Hempstead Town $20 million, according to the county's lease agreement with Sands.

Nassau and Sands closed last month on a 99-year lease for the 72-acre property, commonly known as the Nassau Hub. The county received a one-time payment of $54 million to be deposited in its general fund, with its use to be determined.

In addition to Sands, more than 10 entities in New York City and Westchester announced earlier this year their interest in bidding for a license.

The LIRR train derailment that injured 13 passengers yesterday continued to complicate Long Islanders' commutes this morning with trains skipping some stations and others being cancelled. Alfonso A. Castillo and Lorena Mongelli report on Newsday.com that eastbound Hempstead trains continued to bypass Hollis and Queens Village. The MTA advised customers to check the TrainTime app and www.mta.info for the latest service updates. On the Ronkonkoma branch, at least two westbound morning trains were cancelled.

All eight cars of a Hempstead-bound train came off the tracks about a half-mile east of Jamaica shortly after 11 a.m. Thursday, while traveling at 54 miles per hour with about 100 passengers on board, Long Island Rail Road officials said.

Thirteen passengers were injured, according to LIRR and FDNY officials. Nine had minor injuries while two were moderate and two others suffered more serious injuries, fire officials said at news conference near the site yesterday. All were taken to local hospitals. None had broken bones.

“All of them are stable at this time and all of them are going to be OK,” said Laura Kavanagh, fire commissioner of the New York City Fire Department.

With crews having to tackle the difficult task of getting the train back on the rails, clearing it out and then repairing extensive damage to the tracks, MTA officials in a statement Thursday said LIRR riders “should expect track changes at Jamaica and possible delays through midday” Friday.

The New York Marine Rescue Center (NYMRC ) hosted its first public release of sea turtles from the 2022/23 cold stun season at Tiana Beach in Hampton Bays on July 27. The center released five Kemps ridley and two Atlantic green sea turtles. All seven were stranded due to cold stunning, a phenomenon similar to hypothermia. The turtles have been receiving long-term rehabilitation for nearly 8 months. In the months of November through January, the center responded to 98 sea turtles that had stranded due to cold stunning. Cold stunned sea turtles stay at the center for about 242 days, typically being released in late July and early August. The average cost to rehabilitate one sea turtle is $10,000.

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The NYS Board of Elections tentatively approved certifying a controversial touch-screen voting machine, knocking down concerns from a Democratic commissioner and watchdog groups about coding and security issues. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that the board — consisting of two Democrats and two Republicans — voted 3-1 to allow the use of “ExpressVote XL,” a touch-screen machine offered by Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software, while stipulating the company address software coding issues and submit an update.

The vote was a defeat for good-government groups, which said the touch-screen system has had problems in other states and contended there is no reason for the state to potentially switch from the simple, hand-marked paper ballots used by almost all New Yorkers in recent elections.

Importantly, if the machine gains full approval, it’s use isn’t mandatory — it means it’s just one purchase option for counties. Per state law, counties make individual decisions on voting machines.

If used locally, voters would touch a computer screen to cast a ballot, as opposed to marking a paper ballot, as about 99% of New York voters do now.

Common Cause New York criticized the outcome, calling it an "exceedingly poor decision ahead of the 2024 presidential election year when election security remains a fraught topic." Further, the touch-screen machines are much more expensive than optical-scan paper ballots.

Residents will have an opportunity to speak on the site plan for a proposed industrial park on Middle Country Road in Calverton during the Riverhead Planning Board meeting this evening. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that HK Ventures of Great Neck wants to build eight warehouse buildings totaling 412,000-square feet on a 30-acre site on the south side of the state road. Buildings on the site are allowed to be up to 35 ½ feet tall. The site is located next to Tractor Supply and is currently vacant agricultural land.

The public hearing will be held during the Planning Board’s 6 p.m. meeting at Riverhead Town Hall this evening.

HK Ventures and other industrial developments seeking to build warehouses in Calverton have been scrutinized by some residents, who express worries the developments could overburden roadways, impact air quality and change the character of the Calverton hamlet.

The site plan process is going forward despite the result of the environmental review for the project being challenged by the developer in court.

East Hampton Village says it will advance plans to rebuild two basketball courts in Herrick Park this year, relocating them to the northern end of the park, near Newtown Lane. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the two former courts, which were torn up this spring as part of the $1.1 million renovation of the park’s southern ball fields and courts, will be rebuilt in a section of the park between the current playground and Newtown Lane, East Hampton Village Administrator Marcos Baladron said this week. The reason for relocating the courts from their former site at the opposite end of Herrick Park was to get them away from homes that line the southern end of the park. Plus, the old basketball courts, built in 1973, were in “complete disrepair,” Mayor Jerry Larsen said. The new courts will be rededicated in honor of Roy Mabry, a local teen who died in 1972 for whom East Hampton Village residents raised money to construct the courts...

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Suffolk County prosecutors handed over a trove of discovery material including crime scene photographs, autopsy photos and DNA evidence to the defense team representing accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann as he appeared in a Riverhead court on murder charges yesterday.

More than 2,500 documents were provided to the defense, which includes anthropological and DNA evidence, notes from the offices of the medical examiners in New York City and Suffolk County and photographs from the crime scenes where the remains of the three women Heuermann is accused of killing were found off Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach in 2010, Assistant District Attorney Nicholas Santomartino said in Suffolk County Court.

The discovery material also includes hundreds of hours of surveillance footage from around Heuermann’s Massapequa Park home, a storage facility where he kept belongings, outside Heuermann’s Manhattan office and video connected to victim Megan Waterman, said Santomartino, who was joined at the prosecution's table by Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney.

“It’s quite voluminous,” Santomartino said of the list of evidence provided in the form of a 2-terabyte hard drive and six disks to Heuermann's lead defense attorney Michael J. Brown. The 6’ 4”, 59 year old Heumermann, dressed in a dark blue blazer over a light blue shirt and tan pants, did not speak during his brief Tuesday afternoon courtroom appearance in Riverhead. Before the public proceeding began, the lawyers met for 32 minutes in the chambers of State Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei, the judge presiding over Heuermann's prosecution.

Heumermann has pleaded not guilty to first- and second-degree murder charges in the killings of three women.

A 14-month-old girl has died on Long Island after police said her grandmother had forgotten to drop her off at a daycare center — and instead left her alone inside her sweltering hot SUV for eight hours. Suffolk County police officers were called to Redwood Lane near the Long Island Rail Road station in Smithtown around 4:20 p.m. Monday for a report of an unresponsive child. The toddler was rushed to Saint Catherine of Siena Medical Center, where she died. Snejana Farberov reports in THE NY POST that an investigation has determined that the baby’s grandmother, a 54-year-old woman from Greenlawn, was supposed to take her granddaughter to a daycare Monday morning.

Instead, the woman headed straight to work, “leaving the child in a car seat in a back seat,” the Suffolk County Police Department said in a press release. About 8 hours later, the grandmother went to pick up the tot at the daycare on Redwood Lane, only to realize that she had left her grandchild inside her maroon 2018 Jeep Cherokee.

The grandmother, who has not been named, was not charged in the girl’s death as of yesterday. But police told The Post the investigation is ongoing.

Temperatures in Smithtown reached 83 degrees during the day Monday, according to AccuWeather.com.

When the outside temperature is around 80 degrees, the in-car temperature could reach a scorching 123 degrees after just one hour.

Plans for a $200 million expansion of Jake’s 58 casino in Islandia were approved last night, clearing the final hurdle for a plan to add parking, pubs and 1,000 new betting machines at the popular gaming parlor. Carl MacGowan reports on Newsday.com that the Islandia Village board voted 5-0 to approve a final site plan for the project following a nearly two-hour...

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Rex A. Heuermann could seek bail at his scheduled court conference this afternoon in Riverhead — the second time the Manhattan architect and alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer’s case will be in court since his July 13 arrest. Nicole Fuller reports on Newsday.com that Heuermann, 59, of Massapequa Park, was ordered held without bail at his July 14 arraignment, where he pleaded not guilty to first and second-degree murder charges in the killings of three women — Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello — whose remains were found in the Gilgo Beach area in 2010.

Authorities have also named Heuermann, who is being held at the Suffolk County Jail in Riverhead, as the “prime suspect” in the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, whose remains were found with the other three women — collectively known as the “Gilgo Beach four.” All of the victims were sex workers.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, in seeking to have Heuermann remanded, alleged that Heuermann was both a flight risk and a continuing danger as he allegedly continued to communicate with sex workers on burner phones, followed media accounts of the police investigation into the killings and had ties to Las Vegas and South Carolina, where he owned properties. “For all those reasons, we feel that the urge — this defendant's urge to flee the jurisdiction is proving irresistible, and that's why we're asking for remand status,” D.A. Tierney said at Heuermann’s arraignment. Heuermann’s case will appear at 2 p.m. today before Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei. known for his no-nonsense style toward defendants and both prosecutors and defense attorneys alike.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, who has taken the lead role in the high-profile arrest and prosecution of a suspect in the long-unsolved Gilgo Beach murders, has begun referring to it in campaign promotions two years before he's up for reelection. Vera Chinese reports on Newsday.com that an email sent Friday by his campaign committee “Ray Tierney for DA” thanked donors for their support and suggested the July 13 arrest of Rex A. Heuermann, the Massapequa Park resident who has pleaded not guilty, would not have happened if Tierney were not in office. Tierney, who is not registered with a political party but is backed by the GOP, defeated incumbent Democrat Tim Sini in 2021.

“Without your support, I wouldn’t be where I am today, and this significant case would likely not have been solved,” the email states.

Heuermann's arrest has received international news media coverage. Tierney, Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon, a Democrat, and Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison, an appointee of Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, also a Democrat, all have made network and cable television appearances. Tierney, a former federal prosecutor, has announced he will lead the team that will prosecute Heuermann.

Governor Kathy Hochul, NYS Attorney General Letitia James and NYC Mayor Eric Adams announced yesterday that $485 million would be spent to avert gun violence, including an ongoing program to deploy “violence interrupters” such as reformed gang members to quell street beefs.

“They may have had time in jail, they may have been part of a gang. But they also know that they’re the ones who can be the trusted voice in a community, where young people will trust them more than they’re gonna trust the governor and the mayor,” Gov. Hochul said.

The violence interruption program supplements but does not supplant policing. “It’s not just a policing issue,” Hochul added. Matthew Chayes reports on Newsday.com that the three leaders announced that the program would also fund early interventions such as mentorship, housing, help accessing public benefits, money for parks, public spaces, and playgrounds; employment, and mental illness treatment.

Representatives from Calverton

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The drumbeat of utility rate hikes that drove customer bills to record highs during the past two years shows little signs of easing, as essential services such as water, power and communications eat up more of Long Island consumers’ monthly income. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that the past two years have seen soaring numbers of gas and electric customers late in paying their bills. The state has stepped in with relief programs, but experts say arrears, while tamped down, could begin to rise again.

In May, National Grid announced it was seeking a 16% increase in customer gas bills next year, after commodity prices tied to then-tighter gas supplies and the Russian invasion of Ukraine spiked over the past two years. That comes despite a notice from the state Public Service Commission last month that energy prices could decline slightly this summer, as prices for products such as natural gas come down.

National Grid said the increases were "largely driven by a combination of inflation and cost factors beyond National Grid’s immediate control.”

Rates for Suffolk County Water Authority customers jumped 4.8% this month, while a monthly service charge jumped 4.9%.

Experts following the trends say they don’t expect prices to come down anytime soon, if ever.

“The horizon doesn’t look good,” said Bill Ferris, the New York legislative representative for AARP, which advocates on behalf of seniors. “The utilities continue to come in and ask for double-digit rate increases. It’s happening in upstate and New York City and Long Island. We don’t see that changing anytime soon.”

Brookhaven Town officials have approved a $45 million Yaphank warehouse and distribution center, over the objections of neighbors concerned about how it will affect traffic and drinking water. Carl MacGowan reports on Newsday.com that the 332,970-square-foot facility at Station and Horseblock roads is the latest such project in an industrialized area of the hamlet. The site is less than two miles from the Brookhaven Rail Terminal on Sills Road, a freight and sand mining operation on a 350-acre site that includes proposed distribution and waste-transfer facilities that have drawn local opposition.

The Brookhaven Town Planning Board voted 7-0 on July 24 to approve a site plan for the Station Road project, known as AIREF II. The vote included approval of a special permit for a trucking terminal as part of the project.

The proposal otherwise complies with the site's industrial zoning, so it does not require town board approval.

AIREF II's parent company, Ares Industrial Real Estate Fund, a global investment firm with principal offices in New York, Denver and Hong Kong, also has proposed a 523,100-square-foot warehouse in Bellport that is awaiting town approvals.

National Night Out is observed annually on the first Tuesday in August. It focuses on the community and raising awareness in the United States.

Promoting police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make our neighborhoods safer, shining a spotlight on community police programs, National Night Out increases connections between those who serve and their neighborhoods through the programs they provide.

Please join the Southampton Town and Village Police Departments, New York State Police, Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, and other local officials Tuesday, August 1st from 4:00-7:00 PM at Red Creek Park, Old Riverhead Rd. in Hampton Bays.

Come meet your local police officers and enjoy food, games, raffles, bounce house, face painting, demonstrations, giveaways, and also child seat checks.

Shelter Island Town plans to harness federal guidance to develop plans that can propel Shelter Island into a green future. The U.S. Department of Energy selected Shelter Island as one of nine areas from across the country

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Overtime at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority “surged” by $200 million last year, despite years of promises by MTA leaders to rein in the high cost of extra pay for workers, a new report shows. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that the $1.3 billion spent in 2022 was the MTA’s highest overtime bill since 2018, when the same payroll report by the Empire Center for Public Policy — a conservative think tank — exposed a record $1.38 billion in overtime spending and led to several fraud investigations, and to five current or former LIRR employees being convicted on various charges related to lying about their work hours.

Among the top 10 overtime earners at the MTA last year, six worked at the LIRR. Nearly 300 Long Island Rail Road employees made more than $100,000 in overtime last year — more workers than at any other MTA agency — according to the report.

In a statement, MTA spokesperson Aaron Donovan said overtime is a necessary to deliver service, maintain infrastructure, and recover from weather-related disruptions with "thousands of positions still unfilled."

Anthony Simon, who heads the LIRR's largest union, said the railroad's labor force "makes no apologies for working 60-70-hour workweeks" to earn wages that are less than many "high-level managers."

The highest-paid employee at the MTA last year was chairman and CEO Janno Lieber, who made $401,996. No. 3 was interim LIRR president and Metro-North president Catherine Rinaldi, who made $372,639.

Sunrise Wind this month began preliminary construction work for a 17.5-mile underground cable for its offshore wind farm through Brookhaven Town, even as its developers await word from the state on whether its contract can be adjusted upward to accommodate ballooning costs.

Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that in filings with the state Department of Public Service in June and July, Sunrise Wind requested and received approval to begin phase-one of construction for the cable, which includes “clearing and construction activities within the project boundary area,” chiefly in Holtsville.

The state gave its authorization to start construction on July 13. The $4.2 billion project, which promises to power some 600,000 homes, is expected to be operational in 2025.

Meaghan Wims, a spokeswoman for Sunrise Wind, confirmed preliminary construction work had begun, but said bigger work activities wouldn’t come until early next year.

The project includes a 6.2-mile undersea cable in state waters that will make landfall at Smith Point, before it begins its 17.5-mile run along William Floyd Parkway and Horseblock Road to the Long Island Expressway South Service Road before connecting to a LIPA substation in Holbrook. The offshore cable will run more than 100 miles in federal waters to a turbine field set to be built off the Massachusetts/Rhode Island coast.

Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann has been visited by his attorney — but not his adult kids or estranged wife — in the two weeks he’s been jailed in Riverhead, The NY Post has learned. Heuermann, 59, can watch television, including the news, and request newspapers, though he has not yet asked for a copy of the paper, Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Victoria DiStefano told The NY Post yesterday.

The jail does not offer access to the Internet. The 59-year-old remains on suicide watch and is kept in a jail cell alone, DiStefano said. He also gets regular recreation time in a yard outdoors, can receive mail and has access to a law library, all while being kept under a strict security protocol.

“We will continue to cease all movement when he is outside of his housing unit to ensure the protection of our officers, Heuermann and all of the individuals incarcerated in the Suffolk County Correctional Facility,” DiStefano wrote in an email to The Post....

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Southampton Town proposed a six-month moratorium on battery storage systems to give officials more time to review the nascent technology’s potential risks while also freezing a pending application. Joe Werkmeister reports on Newsday.com that the storage batteries complement renewable energy sources such as wind and solar by storing power generated for future use. Town officials said they viewed the facilities as essential infrastructure to expand clean energy initiatives designed to combat climate change.

Officials said a town code adopted in 2021 to regulate the facilities may be inadequate.

At a special meeting on July 20, the town board voted to schedule an Aug. 8 public hearing on the moratorium.

Southampton Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said there’s been a “learning curve” for town officials since the code was adopted. He said officials initially believed the facilities posed little risk and were a “benign” use.

“I think our base of understanding has modified over time and I understand why the public is concerned here,” he said. “We want to make sure that whatever code is on our books is adequate to fully protect them.”

The current code requires facilities with a capacity of greater than 600 kWh to obtain site plan or special exception approval from the planning board and set certain safety requirements.

Southampton Town’s Planning Board is currently reviewing an application for a battery storage facility in Hampton Bays that has generated concerns among community members for potential hazards such as a fire to the lithium-ion batteries. The applicant, Canal Southampton Battery Storage LLC, has proposed a 100-megawatt facility on a 4.9-acre site just east of the Shinnecock Canal and south of Sunrise Highway.

A recent fire at a similar facility in East Hampton heightened community concerns.

Water quality across the East End and much of Long Island cratered over the last two weeks as soaring temperatures and torrential downpours combined to spark algae blooms, bacterial loads and oxygen-starved waters in local bays. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the destructive algae blooms that have been dubbed the “rust tide,” for the color the blooms stain the water in long, tiger-like stripes, have exploded in Shinnecock Bay at densities that are deadly to any sea creatures unable to escape. Fecal coliform bacteria levels have spiked in bays where groundwater laced with human waste feeds into bays. Water in reaches of bays far from inlets and tidal flushing are a dingy brown or green, and are starved of oxygen. Marine scientists from Stony Brook University closely monitor water quality at more than 30 sites across Long Island and reported this past week that only six sites met the criteria of “good” water quality, and only one, directly adjacent to Shinnecock Inlet, met state and federal water quality standards. At locations from central Great South Bay to western Shinnecock Bay, and in the headwaters of Three Mile Harbor in East Hampton, the water failed all four of the main parameters used to measure water quality: algae densities, bacteria counts, water clarity and levels of dissolved oxygen. Water temperatures in the Peconic have already topped the 80 degree mark — a temperature that is known to kill bay scallops and has been seen as one of the driving factors of massive die-offs the last four summers.

Stop & Shop in Southampton Village is projected to re-open tomorrow.

Following a fire last Friday, Stop & Shop in Southampton has been closed. The supermarket was expected to reopen on Tuesday, but remained closed and security stationed in front of the entrance told 27east.com that the reopening is planned for Friday…tomorrow.

The Southampton Fire Department was dispatched to Stop & Shop supermarket on Jagger Lane in Southampton for a reported structure fire at 11:26...

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Investigators have seized a "massive amount" of potential evidence from suspected Gilgo Beach killer Rex A. Heuermann’s Massapequa Park home, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said yesterday, as the 12-day-long search of the house concluded.

“We have reached the end to the search of the Gilgo house,” Tierney said. Nicole Fuller reports on Newsday.com that now begins the lengthy process of analyzing the materials for any evidentiary value, said Tierney, who spoke to reporters Tuesday afternoon near the 59-year-old architect turned accused killer's home on First Avenue. While the district attorney declined to describe the items that investigators removed, he said any potential trace evidence that was found, which could include possible blood, DNA and fibers, will be analyzed by scientists in a laboratory.

“We have obtained a massive amount of material,” Tierney said. “All of this has to be cataloged and analyzed and it’s going to take quite some time. … It’s not like TV. It’s going to be a while for the analysts to do their job. Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to a six-count indictment charging him with first and second-degree murder in the killings of three women who worked as sex workers and whose remains were discovered in the Gilgo Beach area in 2010 — Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello. Heuermann is also the "prime suspect" in the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, whose body was found in proximity to the other three women, prosecutors have said.

Heuermann is being held at the Suffolk County Jail in Riverhead.

A proposal to raise the Suffolk County sales tax to fund a sweeping expansion of sewers and high-tech wastewater treatment won't be on the November ballot after the Republican-controlled Suffolk County Legislature failed to advance the measure today. Vera Chinese reports on Newsday.com that the legislature considered two measures that were key to the proposed expansion: one to consolidate the county’s 27 sewer districts and another to fund wastewater treatment in Suffolk through a .125% (1/8th of a penny) sales tax increase.

The Republican-controlled legislature on Tuesday voted 10-7 along party lines, with Legis. Jim Mazzarella (R-Moriches) absent, to recess public hearings on the countywide sewer district and the sales tax hike, preventing them from moving forward.

The proposed sales tax increase, which would require voter approval, would fund sewers and grants for septic upgrades for individual property owners.

The legislature has until Aug. 4 to approve the sales tax increase for it to be on the ballot in the November general election, but yesterday’s meeting was the last the legislature will hold until September.

Democrats, environmentalists, and union leaders have rallied behind the sales tax initiative, saying it is needed to advance Suffolk’s Subwatersheds Wastewater Plan, a 50-year, $4 billion effort to reverse nitrogen pollution in local waterways.

The agreement on a new contract between Section XI, the governing body of scholastic sports in Suffolk County, and its referees for the upcoming season was voted down by the President’s Council of Suffolk County Officials by a 44-3 vote on Monday. Gregg Sarra reports on Newsday.com that the proposed three-year agreement between the officials' negotiating committee and Section XI was initially agreed to on Friday. The deal called for incremental raises of 2% in the first year and 3% in the second and third years. The agreement also called for a pay increase for playoff officials and the rules interpreter for each sport.

The lack of an agreement will likely result in the two sides participating in a mediation process or binding arbitration, which could affect the start of the fall sports season. The previous five-year contract, which went into effect on July 1, 2018, expired on June 30....

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The police search of suspected Gilgo Beach killer Rex A. Heuermann’s Massapequa Park home “has been fruitful” for investigators, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison said yesterday, as authorities continued searching the suspect’s backyard.

Harrison declined to detail any of the potential evidence authorities have seized from the home, other than a cache of firearms from inside a vault with "a big iron door." The police commissioner said he could not say whether any of the killings occurred inside the home. Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney has said previously that investigators are looking for trace evidence, such as blood and DNA. Nicole Fuller and John Asbury report on Newsday.com that Harrison spoke as investigators on Monday were seen using ground-penetrating radar after they dug up the backyard of the home on Sunday.

“We’re just doing a total investigation around the house to see if there’s anything back there that we need to take a closer look at,” Harrison said. “It will help us be able to identify anything in that backyard that we need to take into our possession.”

Asked Monday if he thought Heuermann was responsible for other killings, Harrison said: “It’s hard to say. This person has been at large for a long period of time. But I will say this. We’re going to keep the task force together, keep it intact, and we'll see if there are any other victims on Ocean Parkway or anywhere else throughout Long Island.”

As of last night, police were taking boxes from the Massapequa Park garage and loading them into waiting vans.

Heuermann is still being held at the Suffolk County Jail in Riverhead.

The MTA is moving ahead at full speed with congestion pricing — beginning to install new tolling equipment in Manhattan, even as the plan faces growing opposition from elected leaders.

Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that workers were spotted over the weekend installing the congestion pricing hardware, which consists of cameras and sensors mounted on polls, on 61st Street on Manhattan’s West Side. Under the plan, vehicles will be charged up to $34.50 for driving below 60th Street in Manhattan, and up to $23 with E-ZPass.

MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber last week confirmed that the authority “immediately kicked into gear” after receiving final approval last month from federal regulators, and directed contractors to begin installing the tolling equipment. The system is expected to be in place by May.

The installation work went on over the weekend despite the state of New Jersey on Friday filing a federal lawsuit to block the implementation of the MTA’s “Central Business District Tolling Plan."

On Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul said New York would move forward with the plan “regardless” of the suit, insisting, “congestion pricing is going to happen.”

East End celebrity watchers are still buzzing about the really big matrimonial event in Southampton Village this weekend. Twas Saturday afternoon at The Basilica Parish of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary ...with Pastor Michael A. Vetrano their celebrant...that 7 ft. 280 lb. NBA superstar Joel Embid married Brazilian super model Anne de Paula...who is neither short in stature nor beauty. At 8am Mass on Sunday Father Mike told his congregation, "He really looks up to those people." And why not? After their wedding ceremony the new bride and groom motored off to nearby Cryder Beach, leaving the 115 year old basilica gloriously adorned by an abundance of fresh white roses, baby roses, orchids and Mums.

The New York State Public Service Commission has affirmed a long-term lease for the gas ball parking lot in Sag Harbor Village for Adam Potter’s 11 Bridge Street LLC. Sag Harbor Village had sought to block the deal, arguing that it was not in the public interest. Stephen J. Kotz reports on...

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The search for evidence in the investigation of alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann went underground Sunday afternoon as law enforcement used excavating equipment to dig in the backyard of his Massapequa Park home.

The use of the equipment signaled an intensifying search for evidence as the focus on the tenth day of the investigation appeared to have zeroed in on the rear of the First Avenue property.

Digging continued on and off for more than three hours as investigators combed for evidence to build the case against the Manhattan architect charged with killing three women.

Earlier yesterday, police dogs were spotted roaming the property. As the sun began to set, investigators emerged from the backyard to load boxes, the contents of which were not revealed, into police trucks. The excavating equipment remained at the scene, where it may be used when the investigation continues today.

Residents of the Massapequa Park neighborhood-turned-crime-scene were taking the disruptions around them in stride.

Robert Musto of Michigan Avenue, which intersects with First Avenue near the home Heuermann shared with his wife and children, praised Suffolk police and state troopers for being helpful and understanding with residents.

As police could be seen walking past the large law enforcement vehicles that mostly block the view of the house where Heuermann, 59, has lived since childhood, Must, who’s lived in the neighborhood for 40 years, marveled at just how many people have visited what's now a true-crime landmark in Massapequa Park, Long Island.

Facing a legal challenge from New York City, Riverhead Town’s most recent emergency order — originally put in place to bar asylum-seekers from being housed in hotels and motels in the town — removes all reference to asylum seekers and migrants in its language. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that this past Thursday’s emergency order, the 13th renewal since Supervisor Yvette Aguiar first issued the order May 16, now orders that transient lodging facilities “do not accept any persons for long-term/non-transient housing inconsistent with approved and/or permitted uses and/or approved site plans within the Town of Riverhead.” Prior orders demand that those facilities “do not accept said migrants and/or asylum seekers for housing.”

Under New York State Human Rights Law, it is unlawful to discriminate based on citizenship and immigration status. In its lawsuit, the city is arguing Riverhead’s emergency order violates state Humans Rights Law and other federal laws prohibiting discrimination.

The changes were made on a recommendation from the town’s outside counsel hired for the legal defense of the order, according to Riverhead Town Attorney Erik Howard.

Tomorrow is the Suffolk County Legislature’s last chance to put the Water Quality Restoration Act, which would provide funding for septic waste treatment throughout the county, on this November’s ballot for a public referendum. The legislature is slated to take public comment on this proposal at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday at its headquarters in Hauppauge. Beth Young of EAST END BEACON reports that the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act seeks to create a fund to restore clean water by connecting homes and businesses to sewers and, for areas like the East End without sewers, finance clean water septic system replacements.

The fund would be financed by an increase to the county sales tax – 1/8 of one cent.

The Southampton Town Board unanimously approved a resolution during a Thursday special meeting on July 20 to set in motion a six-month moratorium on applications for battery energy storage facilities {BESS} in town, and which include a halt to the advancement of a proposed Canal Southampton Battery Electrical Storage System in Hampton Bays. Tom Gogola reports on...

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A week after the bombshell arrest of a suspect in the Gilgo Beach killings, investigators continued their "painstaking" search for forensic evidence and so-called "trophies" that could further implicate suspect Rex A. Heuermann in the slayings of three women and possibly other victims, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said yesterday. Nicole Fuller reports on Newsday.com that Tierney's comments came hours after police said investigators are probing a possible connection between the Massapequa Park architect charged in the killings of three women whose remains were found along Ocean Parkway nearly 13 years ago and unsolved slayings around the country, including the killings of four women near Atlantic City in 2006.

"Normally people keep mementos of significant times in their life, so that’s what we’re looking for," said D.A. Tierney, who declined to discuss evidence that investigators have so far removed from Heuermann's home, Manhattan office, storage units or found in a vehicle that helped identify him as a suspect. Tierney said investigators are looking for "trace evidence, blood, DNA."

According to a newly released search warrant in the case, investigators believe the dark green 2002 Chevrolet Avalanche once owned by Heuermann, which was seized by the FBI in South Carolina after his arrest and brought to Hauppauge Wednesday, could contain evidence related to the criminal charges of murder, patronizing a person for prostitution and conspiracy, according to a copy of a search warrant filed in Chester, South Carolina.

Heuermann is currently here on the east end, remanded without bail to the maximum security section of the Riverside jail.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office is examining a slate of potential candidates for the LIPA board that could include former officials of the authority in a move that could have wider implications for LIPA's future direction. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that a spokesman for Hochul confirmed the governor’s office routinely “reviews candidates for vacancies on all state boards and agencies," but emphasized that as of yesterday it had "not finalized appointees for the LIPA board.”

Newsday earlier this month reported that a review on the governor’s appointees had advanced for the first time since Hochul took office in 2021. Hochul gets five appointees to the board. Appointees of former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo remain in place despite expired terms.

People familiar with the situation say top among those being considered for board seats are Kevin Law, a former LIPA chairman and chief executive who also served as president and CEO of the Long Island Association, a business group.

Two other potential candidates for the board, according to the sources, are former LIPA general counsel Lynda Nicolino and former board member Larry Belinsky.

Anticipated changes to the LIPA board come as a state commission has been reviewing steps needed to transition LIPA to a fully public authority, an effort that stalled during this year's legislative session. Hearings on the effort are slated for September, and a final report to the State Legislature to craft legislation is due out before year's end.

Christopher Gobler, a professor at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, stood yesterday with local environmentalists and unveiled troubling data that showed water quality hitting an “all-time low” on Long Island since he started monitoring it about a decade ago. Lisa L. Colangelo reports on Newsday.com that Gobler, whose Long Island Marine Monitoring Network samples water every week from about 30 spots across Nassau and Suffolk counties, used that designation because only six of those locations had water quality that ranked “good” for the week of July 17. Twelve were ranked "fair" and 11 were ranked "poor."

Of the six that ranked "good," only one...

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Long Island commuters will pay more to ride the LIRR, subways and buses, or to drive across an MTA bridge or tunnel, by the end of this summer, as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority yesterday approved its first fare hike in four years. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that at a meeting in Manhattan on Wednesday, the MTA board unanimously voted in favor of the plan to raise fare revenue by 4% and tolls by 6%. The new rates will take effect on or around Aug. 20.

Defending the increase, MTA chairman and CEO Janno Lieber noted it was part of a budget deal with the state that pulled the transit agency out of potential insolvency, and also was lower than the originally planned 5.5% increase. He said regularly scheduled, modest rate increases remain important, and noted that the LIRR last year reduced monthly fares by 10% to lure back lapsed riders lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The fares are still lower than they used to be, even though everything else in life has gone up,” Lieber said. “We all need to accept that the MTA raising fares 4% when surrounding inflation over the last several years is well in excess of that is responsible, and what it delivers is a balanced budget that preserves service.”

On the LIRR, weekly and monthly tickets would rise, on average, by 4.3%. One-way, off-peak tickets would rise by 4.6%.

On New York City subways and buses, the cost of a single ride would increase for the first time in eight years, from $2.75 to $2.90.

Tolls on MTA bridges and tunnels will rise by 6% for E-ZPass customers, and 10% for others.

Southampton Town’s transfer stations, most of which were closed over the weekend and early this week due to what officials have called “a perfect storm” of truck breakdowns, have begun to reopen. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that Town Engineer Tom Houghton said the Hampton Bays transfer station had reopened on Tuesday, joining North Sea, which remained open during the short crisis.

The Sag Harbor station, which is closed on Wednesdays, will reopen today, and Westhampton, which was scheduled to be closed most of this week anyway for curb repairs, should be back in business by Friday, Houghton said.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think we’d lose two trucks in one day,” Houghton said of the backup that began Friday.

One of three semi-tractors the Waste Management Department owns was already in the shop for repairs when the two remaining trucks broke down. The department was already short one semi-tractor, a 2018 Mack, the newest in its fleet, which was destroyed in a fire at the North Sea transfer station in April. A second truck, used to deliver large roll-off containers, also was destroyed in that blaze.

By Tuesday, Houghton said he had rented one semi-tractor and was looking for more, so the backup could be cleared.

The Southampton Town Board will hold a special meeting at 10:30 this morning to authorize more truck rentals.

Councilwoman Cyndi McNamara, who said she learned of the closures on Facebook on Sunday, said the town has money earmarked for new vehicles and trailers.

“We have the money to buy the trucks — it’s sourcing them that’s the issue,” she said on Monday.

Houghton agreed, but added that since the pandemic, prices have also surged. Large trailers equipped with compactors that once sold for about $90,000 now command about $175,000, he said.

A long-standing effort to bring a YMCA to Riverhead is getting a new push by town officials and the nonprofit. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that the town board on Tuesday approved a resolution that would make way for the town's first Y facility at the shuttered state armory building on Route 58 in Riverhead. The resolution also authorized the town’s Community Development Agency to begin negotiations with the YMCA of Long Island.

Plans to...

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Long Island commuters will know by the end of the day whether they’ll soon pay more for their LIRR tickets. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board is set to vote at its monthly meeting this morning on a proposal to raise fares by about 4%, including on the Long Island Rail Road.

The cost of monthly tickets would be capped at $500. LIRR officials have noted that, even with the increase, monthly passes will still cost less than they did in 2019, because the railroad cut prices by 10% last year.

Tolls at MTA bridges and tunnels would rise by an average of 5.5% and as much as 10% for those that don't have E-ZPass. On New York City subways and buses, the cost of a single trip would increase to $2.90, from the current $2.75.

The new rates would take effect around Labor Day.

The fare hike — the first since 2019 — comes after the MTA twice postponed scheduled increases in 2021 and 2022, and despite the recently passed state budget including an additional $1.1 billion in tax revenues for the transit agency. Without the boost in funding, the MTA was projecting annual deficits of up to $2 billion, largely caused by declining ridership since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The MTA originally proposed a 5.5% fare increase — the highest in a decade — but dialed it back after receiving the additional state aid.

MTA officials have said regularly-scheduled, modest fare increases are essential to address growing costs, and to avoid larger hikes in the future.

The MTA is reportedly eyeing another 4% rate increase in 2025, and again in 2027.

Democrat David Calone has $2,370,977 to spend in the race for the open Suffolk County executive seat while Republican Ed Romaine has $1,548,216 heading into the November general election, according to campaign reports filed Monday. Vera Chinese reports on Newsday.com that Calone, a former federal and state prosecutor turned entrepreneur, and Romaine, the Brookhaven Town supervisor, are running to replace County Executive Steve Bellone, a Democrat who is term-limited after 12 years in office.

While Romaine has less cash on hand than Calone, he has outraised Calone since January, with $1.3 million in contributions compared with Calone's $868,925 since then. Calone also made a $250,000 loan to his campaign, according to his spokesman Shane Wolfe.

Calone, 49, of Setauket, has spent $331,472 compared with Romaine's $111,193, the filings show.

Calone said in a statement, “There’s a clear enthusiasm across our county to elect a leader with a background in law enforcement and business to tackle the challenges we face, most crucially, keeping our families safe, making Suffolk a more affordable place to live, and protecting our environment and water.”

Romaine, 76, of Center Moriches, compared himself with Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, a Republican who was outspent nearly 4-1 in the 2021 race yet defeated incumbent Democrat Tim Sini.

“I have to rely on my friends and neighbors in Suffolk County,” Romaine said. “I'm just going to do the best I can with what I have.”

At least one of the Christmas Tree Shops’ two Long Island stores will close next month, as the bankrupt retailer works to unload merchandise at going-out-of-business sales. Tory N. Parrish reports on Newsday.com that selling seasonal and home décor year-round at approximately 70 stores in 20 states, the Middleborough, Massachusetts-based retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May. It began liquidation sales early this month, and merchandise is on sale for up to 60% off.

The chain has two stores on Long Island — in Deer Park and Riverhead.

The Riverhead store will close Aug. 22, store manager Greg Koplinka said yesterday.

A manager at Christmas Tree Shops at Tanger Outlets...

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Suffolk County authorities yesterday searched a storage facility in Amityville and the home of suspected Gilgo Beach killer Rex A. Heuermann, the architect from Massapequa Park who is on suicide watch inside a Suffolk jail, officials said. As reported on Newsday.com, Suffolk County and New York State police searched Omega Self-Storage, a facility located near where Sunrise Highway meets Route 110, and were seen removing computers, furniture and a piece of wood from two separate units rented by Heuermann. Heuermann, 59, is charged with murder in the killings of three women whose bodies were found in 2010 in the Gilgo Beach area. He has pleaded not guilty.

"There is no end in sight" for the ongoing search at Heuermann's Massapequa Park home, said Suffolk County Police Det. Lt. Kevin Beyrer, the chief of the department's Homicide Squad, who spoke at the storage facility.

Heuermann pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Friday to three counts each of first- and second-degree murder in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello — three of the four victims whose remains were found in December 2010 in a wooded area near Gilgo Beach.

Vicki DiStefano, a spokesperson for Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon, who oversees the county's jails in Yaphank and Riverhead, said Heuermann, who was arrested Thursday night in Manhattan, is on suicide watch. "Due to the high profile nature of his case, he is in heightened security," stated DiStefano, declining to say where Heuermann is being held. The special grand jury that heard evidence in the case started on June 20 and will sit through Sept. 15, according to a copy of the six-count indictment against Heuermann.

Drivers using Newtown Road through Hampton Bays should plan for delays in an already patience-trying commute this week. Kitty Merrill reports on 27east.com that a project expected to take three days — today through this coming Thursday — will be underway on the oft-used artery. Montauk Highway will not be closed, nor will Newtown Road. That’s contrary to a sign that appeared on Montauk Highway warning of closures and delays on westbound Montauk Highway and Newtown Road. Southampton Town Police sought clarification from the Suffolk County Department of Public Works and the Southampton Town engineer and reported the roads will not be closed for drivers heading west. However, there will be flagmen directing traffic as the drainage and road resurfacing project progresses…which almost certainly will result in delays. So, heads up in Hampton Bays…roadwork on Newtown Road in Hampton Bays has begun today and will continue thru this Thursday.

Self-haulers who bring their garbage and recyclables to Southampton Town’s transfer stations in Sag Harbor, Hampton Bays, and Westhampton got an unpleasant surprise Saturday when they pulled in only to learn the facilities would be closed until further notice. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that the problem is a shortage of trucks needed to haul away the trailers that are filled with green bagged garbage, commingled containers, and mixed paper and cardboard. Instead, residents have been directed to the North Sea transfer station. According to the town’s website, the Hampton Bays transfer station is still accepting leaves and brush and the Westhampton station is accepting leaves. The North Sea transfer station is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. seven days a week for green bags and recyclables. The Town of Southampton has been short equipment since a fire last April at the North Sea transfer station destroyed two semi-tractors, including a brand new one.

Service changes that came with the MTA's $11 billion investment to open Grand Central Madison resulted in a big drop in satisfaction among railroad riders, new survey results show.

Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that after holding steady at...

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Residents of the Gilgo Beach area expressed relief yesterday that an arrest was made in several of the unsolved killings that, to many, have become synonymous with their picturesque ocean front community.

Meanwhile, residents in Massapequa Park watched Sunday as police continued to pull evidence from the home of Rex A. Heuermann, the architect charged with murder in the killings of three women found in the marshes and bramble near Gilgo.

Colin Armata, a lifeguard at Gilgo Beach, said he grew up in West Gilgo, spending time wandering the trails that weave through the area.

“Little did you know that there might be a body there,” said Armata, 30, who admitted he was a “nervous wreck” when he first heard about the killings.

Any relief that came with Heuermann’s arrest was tempered by the fact that he hasn’t been connected with all victims whose remains were found buried in the wooded area, Armata said.

Ed Finnegan, 65, of West Gilgo said the arrest was “long overdue.”

He remembered thinking when the case first broke, “Holy smokes, what’s going on? We live in this quiet little community and now all these bodies are being found.”

Heuermann, 59, pleaded not guilty on Friday in the killings of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. Authorities described him as a “strong suspect” in the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.

Joe Chambers, 38, who grew up in West Babylon and sports an Ocean Parkway tattoo on his chest, stopped by for a swim near Gilgo Beach on Sunday.

"This is our family beach spot," said Chambers, who now lives in Nebraska. “When the news first broke, it was pretty scary and pretty disturbing because, I mean, it's like right here. It's our whole world."

He was happy to hear about the arrest and was struck by the fact that court papers said Heuermann’s DNA was pulled from a leftover pizza crust.

"That's the most Long Island thing that I have ever heard in my whole life," he said.

Bankruptcy proceedings by the Catholic Church on Long Island linked to clergy sexual abuse cases have gone on for nearly three years and piled up $70 million in legal fees.

Now, a federal judge says he may intervene to bring the process to an end — and effectively give clergy abuse survivors their day in court. Bart Jones reports on Newsday.com that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn said during a court hearing in Manhattan last week that he may take the highly unusual step of ending the bankruptcy proceedings because the survivors and the Diocese of Rockville Centre can’t reach an agreement.

That would send some 600 cases back to state court for civil trials.

Lawyers for survivors called it a major step forward in their fight over hundreds of cases of abuse — some of them dating back decades — in the nation’s eighth-largest Roman Catholic diocese.

The church said it still hopes to reach an agreement and avoid potentially even more costly civil trials that could hobble its ability to carry out its mission.

Judge Glenn said he was not eager to set a precedent by becoming the first judge in the nation to kick a Catholic diocese out of bankruptcy. But he suggested he was prepared to do so.

"The survivors deserve an opportunity to be heard by a jury of their peers," Glenn said. "They've been held off too long."

He indicated his decision will come no later than October.

The 2023 Suffolk County Public Libraries Summer Tour is underway. The program invites residents and visitors of all ages to embark on a journey of discovery and exploration through the public libraries and towns in Suffolk County.

“With the Summer Reading theme being All Together Now, we thought there was no better time for the libraries of Suffolk County to come together for the tour,” said Derek Ivie, the youth services coordinator of the Suffolk...

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Congressional redistricting in New York should be redone, a midlevel court ruled yesterday, siding with Democrats who could look to shift seats in their favor for the 2024 elections and impact which party wins control of Congress. Yancey Roy reports on Newsday.com that the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, in a 3-2 decision, agreed with Democrats that the state's congressional maps, drawn by a special master just one year ago, should be viewed as a short-term fix done during a time crunch and can now be discarded.

The process should begin again with a panel called the Independent Redistricting Commission and the State Legislature as mandated by the state constitution, the appellate court ruled.

“In granting this petition, we return the matter to its constitutional design. We direct the I.R.C. to commence its duties forthwith,” Elizabeth A. Garry, the presiding justice, wrote for the majority. If eventually upheld, the decision is a potentially huge victory for Democrats — who control the legislature and would have final say over new maps, which likely wouldn't finalized until early 2024, a source said. With the power, Democrats could reshape swing districts they lost in 2022 — especially on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley — making them more favorable for candidates next year.

But the fight isn't over.

Republicans say they will appeal the case to New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals.

The Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League will be staging its annual all-star game tomorrow afternoon for the first time ever at Mashashimuet Park in Sag Harbor, home of the Sag Harbor Whalers. Drew Budd reports on 27east.com that Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League President Sandi Kruel said she saw something at her hometown park at the end of last season when the Sag Harbor Whalers won the league’s championship which sparked the idea to host the game in Mash Park. Saturday’s first pitch is slated for 4 p.m. “We wanted this to be not only a celebration of players but our fans also," she said. “After the championship last year at Mash Park — the crowd, the energy — was so electric we said let's move it to Sag this year. So we are very excited to have Sag host it this year. This community supports the league so much they deserve it.” That’s the HCBL All Star Game at Mashashimuet Park in Sag Harbor tomorrow at 4pm.

Rip currents kept East Hampton Town and Village lifeguards busy throughout the Fourth of July holiday, but this week the story was fewer red flags and more “elevated marine life.” Christopher Gangemi in THE EAST HAMPTON STAR reports that some 20 sharks, mostly spinner sharks but also threshers, were spotted off Main Beach in East Hampton last Saturday. Noting the media coverage of sharks off Up Island beaches recently, Drew Smith, the head lifeguard in East Hampton Village, said he closed swimming at village beaches because of their presence that day. The only village beach that remained open was Georgica Beach.

“We’re monitoring our beaches daily with drones and with personal watercraft, if necessary,” said John Ryan Jr., the head lifeguard for East Hampton Town, adding that the sharks spotted from town beaches had been 400 to 600 yards out, feeding on bunker. “We don’t have swimmers out that far,” so he kept beaches open.

“It’s their ocean,” Mr. Ryan said of the sharks.

Mr. Smith said he starts thinking of closing the beaches to swimming if a shark gets within 100 yards of the shore, but even then, he assesses the number of swimmers, and conditions. It’s not a hard rule.

He and Lee Bertrand, East Hampton Village’s assistant beach manager, both received Federal Aviation Administration licenses to operate a drone and are employing one owned by the village this summer to help safeguard swimmers. “The drone has been extremely helpful because we can tell if [the sharks] disperse,” Mr. Smith...

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Four Long Island beaches were among those in New York where water tests most frequently showed potentially unsafe levels of fecal contamination, according to a recent report by a Colorado-based environmental organization. The report, which covers states with ocean and Great Lakes beaches, calls for more investment in sewers and wetlands restoration, among other steps. State and county officials said that beaches are safe on most days, but residents can check beach status and water quality at New York State Department of Health (healthinspections.us)

In Suffolk County, Babylon’s Tanner Park in Copiague had potentially unsafe levels on 48% of testing days; Islip’s Benjamin’s Beach and Bayport Beach reached those levels on 45% and 28% of testing days.

Nicholas Spangler reports on Newsday.com that some of Long Island’s most visited beaches were also its cleanest, including Jones Beach, where measurements never reached potentially unsafe levels, and Robert Moses, where they did just once. Those beaches sit directly on the Atlantic Ocean, unlike the four beaches named in the report, which are on South Shore bays that enjoy the protection of Long Island’s barrier beaches but have lower tidal flushing.

Two Bed Bath & Beyond locations on Long Island are among 44 stores nationwide that will close this month after off-price retailer Burlington bid $12 million for their leases in a bankruptcy auction. Tory N. Parrish reports on Newsday.com that the lease sales still require a bankruptcy judge’s approval and a hearing is scheduled for July 18. Landlords for the stores can object.

The Bed Bath & Beyond locations in Oceanside and Riverhead are among 109 Bed Bath & Beyond and Buy Buy Baby stores that are slated for closings at the end of this month after their leases were auctioned off in June to various buyers, said A&G Realty Partners, the Melville-based company overseeing the auction.

The Bed Bath & Beyond in Riverhead Shopping Center, at 1440 Old Country Rd., occupies 30,031 square feet and opened in 2010.

There are four Bed Bath & Beyond stores and one Buy Buy Baby store remaining on Long Island.

After a fire destroyed the historic First Universalist Church in Southold in 2015, Mark Sisson of Mattituck sifted through the charred rubble, finding little more than a brass plaque and pages from a burned hymnal. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that days later, at a service held at the Custer Institute and Observatory, members of the Southold Fire Department presented the congregation with a bell salvaged from the debris.

“It was pretty emotional,” Sisson, 70, a member of the church, recalled. “It showed how badly the building had been burned, but it also showed it was going to be possible to continue on as a congregation and also perhaps rebuild.”

Eight years later, the vow to rebuild will become reality as the church, which dates to 1837, prepares to break ground on a $2.8 million building around a curve on Route 25 that will honor its history and once again beckon as “the church on the bend.” A ceremony will be held on Saturday July 22 at 2 p.m. on Main Road in Southold. The bell will be displayed in the new building, which could take 18 months to complete, Sisson said.

Susan Pond, treasurer on the church’s board, said concerts, yard sales, matching capital campaigns and a GoFundMe campaign have helped fundraising efforts, which are ongoing.

Realizing it would be too costly to construct a replica, church officials worked with an architect to incorporate design elements from the old church, including Gothic-style windows and an oculus above the entrance.

The building’s facade was designed in a classic, New England style that is prevalent in the area. The design was approved by the town’s Historic Preservation Commission, since the site is located within a historic...

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Southold Town officials may stiffen penalties for homeowners who rent their properties for less than two weeks and add a provision to town code banning the separate rental of amenities like residential pools, backyards and private sports courts. Tara Smith reports on NEWSDAY.com that the legislation is under consideration as nine cases involving short-term property rental violations have landed in the town's court in recent weeks.

The current short-term rental law restricts house rentals to 14 days or more. It doesn't address separate rentals of pools and other amenities.

Under the proposal, fines for renting amenities separately would be between $3,000 and $10,000. The same penalty would be applied to short-term home rental violations — with one exception. If a home's 14-day lease rate is higher than $10,000, then Southold Town officials would penalize any homeowner who rented a home for a shorter term with a fine that matches the lease rate.

For second offenses, town officials would revoke permits and issue fines of up to $20,000. Violators also could face up to 15 days in jail. The current penalty for violating the short-term rental law is a $500 fine. The town set a hearing on the proposal for Aug. 29.

A search of Swimply.com, a site that connects pool owners with renters, shows pools for rent in Southold at hourly rates ranging from $40 to $100. Supervisor Scott Russell said that under the proposed code, such a use "would be considered a commercial use in a residential zone" and "not permitted." The Town of Southold set a hearing on the proposal for Aug. 29.

An air quality health advisory is in effect for the New York City Metro regions today…including Nassau and Suffolk counties… due to ozone pollution, state environment and health officials announced yesterday.

The advisory will be in effect 11 a.m. through 11 p.m. today. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the Air Quality Index on Long Island is forecast to be 115, a level considered unhealthy for sensitive groups. Children and teens, older adults and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should consider limiting strenuous outdoor physical activity when ozone levels are the highest — generally afternoon to early evening, health officials said. Individuals experiencing symptoms such as shortness of breath, chest pain or coughing should consider consulting their doctor.

A health advisory is issued when New York State Department of Environmental Conservation meteorologists predict levels of pollution, either ozone or fine particulate matter (PM2.5) are expected to exceed an Air Quality Index value of 100.

After a temporary closure that lasted for the better part of a year, a Southampton Village landmark is back in business. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that Shippy’s, the Windmill Lane bar and restaurant that has been an institution in Southampton Village for nearly 7 decades, celebrated its grand re-opening on July 3, welcoming longtime devotees of the traditional German restaurant back inside after a renovation and revamping under new owner John Betts. Betts, who grew up in North Sea, purchased Shippy’s last June from former owner Nick Nielsen, who ran the restaurant for years after taking the helm from his father, Adolf “Ed” Nielsen. The elder Nielsen purchased the restaurant from its namesake, William “Shippy” Casgrain, who first opened the doors for business in 1954.

Suffolk OTB's $200 million Jake's 58 expansion plan took a key step forward yesterday when Islandia officials said yes to a preliminary site plan, the first of two votes on the project. Carl MacGowan reports on Newsday.com that the Islandia Village board voted 4-0 to approve the plan, following a brief discussion of how OTB officials will manage parking while the casino-hotel remains in operation during construction.

The board

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A female Long Island Rail Road conductor who was sexually assaulted by a passenger on a Ronkonkoma line train last summer has filed notice she intends to sue the MTA, contending the nation's largest transportation network failed to protect her while on the job, according to court records filed in state Supreme Court in Nassau. Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that the train conductor, who lives in Suffolk County, was five months pregnant when passenger Michael Harewood groped her breasts while apparently intoxicated on a Penn Station-bound LIRR train on Aug. 20, records state.

Harewood, of Huntington, later became the first person to be banned from riding the LIRR. The conductor has yet to return to work, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression, said Philip Dinhofer, her Rockville Centre-based attorney.

"She has apprehensions about dealing with the public," Dinhofer said. "Her faith and trust in people has been shattered. She didn't feel like the railroad offered her any protection on the job and just threw her out there.

"The railroad has been having a problem with the assaults on uniformed train crew for the past three years. It's been increasing exponentially and they've done nothing to provide a safer workplace for these conductors," he said. Newsday is declining to identify the conductor because she was a victim of sexual assault.

Her lawyer’s notice of claim contends the MTA was "negligent" for failing to put a police officer on every LIRR train and failing to keep Harewood off the rails, despite multiple prior criminal incidents.

"The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way Americans use their homes for daily living, relaxation and entertainment," Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist and vice president of research for the National Association of Realtors (NAR), noted in a recent report. "Homeowners have embraced their outdoor spaces -- transforming them into oases with pools, patios, plants and greenery."

On Long Island, COVID created a stay-at-home situation with a lot of people putting time and money into their backyard according to local realtors. Jim Merritt reports on Newsday.com that backyard redesigns across Long Island run the gamut, from modest projects in the $10,000 range to luxurious million dollar-plus East End makeovers spurred by COVID-era migration from New York City, according to industry experts.

Landscape architect Brian J. Mahoney's Westhampton Beach firm designs backyards for homes in "old sections of beautiful villages with history and a demand for really exquisite and simplified designs."

Nationwide, the most popular backyard entertainment installations include fire features, at an average cost of $9,000, new patios ($10,500), and outdoor kitchens ($15,000), according to the NAR.

After 50 years performing in front of the American Legion Hall on Bay Street in Sag Harbor, the Sag Harbor Community Band has announced a new location for its summer concert series: Marine Park in Sag Harbor Village.

The band, led by music director David M. Brandenburg, will open its 65th summer season this evening, with a concert from 8 to 9 p.m. Admission is free but donations are accepted. Audience members are encouraged to bring a blanket or chair. Weekly concerts will continue every Tuesday through August 29.

The Sag Harbor Community Band’s repertoire includes show tunes, classical, jazz, marches, ragtime, and more. "We’ve been rehearsing all spring and will have some old favorites as well as a great new repertoire ready to perform,” said Maestro Brandenburg.

After several close encounters with sharks off Long Island in early July, Suffolk County and East Hampton are both deploying drones and personal watercraft along ocean beaches this summer to alert swimmers of potential threats. Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that after five...

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The value of New York State’s pension fund shrank in the year ended March 31 because of stock market losses — and that will likely result in higher taxes as state and local governments replenish the fund. James T. Madore reports on Newsday.com that NYS Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, the Common Retirement Fund’s sole trustee, said the investment return was -4.14% and the fund is now valued at $248.5 billion. It was valued at $272.1 billion in the year ended March 31, 2022.

Still, DiNapoli (D-Great Neck Plaza) said the negative investment return doesn’t endanger the benefits owed to 1.2 million government employees, retirees and their beneficiaries. He said they “can rest assured their pensions are secure.” The investment loss was the largest since 2009’s loss of 26.4% in the Great Recession, records show. The fund has a long-term target for returns of 5.9%.

In 2022, the return was 9.51%; in 2021, 33.55%, and in 2020, -2.68%. Last year, the pension fund provided checks totaling $15.4 billion to nearly 515,000 retirees and their beneficiaries in New York State and elsewhere. On Long Island, more than 64,800 people received a total of $2.5 billion. The Common Retirement Fund is one of the largest of its kind, along with funds in California and New York City.

Fire departments from across Suffolk County marched up Route 58 in Riverhead Saturday morning in the 150th Suffolk County Volunteer Firemen’s Association Parade. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that parade judges said 25 departments participated, with firefighters marching in formation, some accompanied by department marching bands, followed by fire trucks and rescue vehicles.

Riverhead Police Chief David Hegermiller drove the lead vehicle in the parade, followed by a black Ford Mustang convertible carrying the parade’s grand marshals, Riverhead Fire Department Ex-Captain Robert Kujawski (58-year member) and Riverhead Firefighter Conrad Dabrowski (56-year member.)

The Riverhead Fire Department, as parade and drill host, was the first department in the long lineup of fire companies. The parade route took marchers from the Route 58 traffic circle at Roanoke Avenue to the Riverhead Fire Department drill track’s Route 58 entrance, next to the former N.Y. State Armory.

Soldier Ride - The Hamptons, a 24-mile Wounded Warrior Project community event, returns to East Hampton, Sag Harbor, and Amagansett this coming Saturday, July 15, starting at 8:45 a.m. As reported on 27east.com, in 2004, local volunteer and resident Chris Carney first bicycled 5,000 miles across the country to help raise awareness for the needs of injured service members.

Registered cyclists ride alongside injured veterans and raise critical funds as the veterans build confidence and strength through shared bonds of physical activity, connection, camaraderie, and military service. The ride empowers warriors to find solace and healing to help them reach their potential.

Wounded Warrior Project is a national nonprofit organization to support post-9/11 service members whose 18 programs also include benefits services, family support, financial education, mental health and wellness, peer support, physical health and wellness, and Warriors to Work. All programs are provided at no cost to wounded warriors and their families.

For more information and to register, go to soldierride.org/hamptons.

When Mary Woodhouse spurred the community of East Hampton to build Guild Hall, which opened in 1931, she envisioned that it would serve as an arts town hall, a central hub that would invite the community...

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A surge in shark bites and sightings off Suffolk South Shore beaches, so far in 2023 and in summers of the recent past, has spurred the county this week to add two drones and a pair of personal watercraft. The goal, county officials said, is keeping swimmers safe and shark-bite free, with the idea that more sharks off South Shore beaches are for the most part here to stay. John Asbury reports on Newsday.com that Suffolk spent more than $130,000 on the drones and personal watercraft to add to its existing fleet for patrol of Smith Point County Park in Shirley and Cupsogue Beach in Westhampton Beach, said County Executive Steve Bellone yesterday.

Officials hope to have the two new drones available by the end of the summer, Bellone said. In the meantime, the county fire rescue has made drones available at beaches if needed. The county previously had a fleet of two watercraft and two drones operated by Suffolk Fire Rescue and Emergency Services.

The new drones, each costing $47,000, can be flown over the beach and ocean with high-definition cameras to zoom in on the water in pursuit of dangerous marine life or large schools of fish where sharks may feed close to shore.

Unofficial shark season in the waters off Long Island typically lasts until October, according to marine experts. Eight confirmed shark bites off Long Island were recorded last year. So far in 2023, five people have been the victims of apparent shark bites. Of the five reported bites off Long Island since Monday, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation has so far confirmed only one. That was Tuesday off Quogue. Officials said the man's puncture wounds appeared to be from a sand tiger shark.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare and the Southampton Arts Center have partnered to present an evening about the history of whaling on eastern Long Island and the current efforts being taken to save the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale from extinction. The event is free and open to the public and scheduled for this coming Sunday evening, July 9th, from 7:30 PM - 09:30 PM at the Southampton Arts Center on Jobs Lane. Prior to a screening of NOVA’s “Saving the Right Whale,” a panel of experts will discuss the history of whaling, the state of the North Atlantic right whale today, and what is being done to save these whales. The panel discussion will feature Carl Safina, founding president of the Safina Center; Rob Martin, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Shane Weeks of the Shinnecock Nation; and Dr. Sarah Sharp, an animal rescue veterinarian with IFAW. Sunday evening’s event is free and open to the public. For more information, go to southamptonartscenter.org.

Within minutes of the Wainscott School District budget being voted down by voters for a second time last month, ensuring that the district would face a multimillion-dollar budget deficit going into the 2023-24 school year, talk turned to whether the district could appeal to New York State for a financial “bailout.” Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that by the next evening, district officials made it clear that such a thing was highly unlikely — and, even if it were possible, would likely come with conditions that board members said were untenable.

District officials have been speaking with NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. about possible options the district may have in the event it cannot close the budget gap with steep cuts in programming and drastic changes to the arrangement of grades at the tiny Wainscott School.

Any substantial help the state might offer would only be used as leverage to force the district to dissolve itself and consolidate with one of its neighboring districts, board members worried last week.

Consolidating school districts, especially small ones, to reduce the number of high-level, highly compensated administrators that...

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The historic windmill, long a centerpiece of the former Southampton College campus in Shinnecock Hills, has joined a growing roster of other buildings there that are sporting large red X’s, indicating that they have been condemned.

Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said this week he had been informed by an official at Stony Brook University, which has owned the campus since 2006, that state fire marshals, who were there for routine inspections, had declared the windmill unsafe for occupancy. The reason? Damage from termites, Thiele said.

The windmill joins a number of dormitories and other buildings, including Southampton Hall, that have been either condemned or had access to them curtailed.

Long Island will receive $73.5 million for bridge, culvert and infrastructure rehabilitation and replacement as part of $516 million in statewide funding awarded to more than 140 local governments, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday.

For Long Island, the five projects include $15.8 million to the town of Brookhaven for the superstructure replacement of the Sheep Pasture Road bridge over the Long Island Rail Road. Robert Brodsky and John Valenti report on Newsday.com that Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine said the bridge, which is owned by the MTA, was built in 1909 and has degraded over the years, in part because of heavy trucks and buses which utilize it, violating the stated weight limit. Supervisor Romaine noted that, "The bridge was in such a decrepit condition that we thought that we may have to shut it down," said Romaine, unless the funding came through to replace it. " … It was a disaster waiting to happen."

Suffolk OTB has agreed to build a 10-foot-high sound wall to address noise concerns from residents who live near Jake's 58 before a vote next week by Islandia officials on preliminary site plan approval for a $200 million expansion of the casino. Brianne Ledda and Carl MacGowan report on Newsday.com that Suffolk OTB, the casino's owner and operator, is in the process of bidding for contractors and financing, with a goal of starting construction by early November and finishing in early 2025, officials said.

In October, OTB officials unveiled the plan to transform Jake's 58 that includes adding a second building and a parking garage, opening new taverns, lounges and conference rooms, restoring a swimming pool and upgrading the hotel's 210 guest rooms.

In January, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation that will double the casino’s video lottery terminals from 1,000 to 2,000, a plan that got bipartisan backing in the state legislature. Jake’s 58 is near L.I.E. Exit 58 in Islandia

The Islandia Village Board is expected to vote July 11 on preliminary site approval for the proposed casino expansion, before a potential vote on final approval on July 27, according to OTB managing director Phil Boyle. He said the sound wall Suffolk OTB officials will build as a buffer is "very high tech" and will be constructed of sound-absorbing material and include vegetation on both sides.

The sale of lithium ion battery products — including e-bikes and electric scooters — would be limited in Riverhead Town under a proposed local law that aims to reduce the chance of fires caused by faulty batteries. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the proposed town code amendment would require that lithium ion batteries, chargers and adapters sold in the Town of Riverhead be certified by Underwriters Laboratories, a longstanding private science safety company whose testing and safety standards for lithium batteries are recommended by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Battery brands tested to Underwriters Laboratories standards display a ‘UL’ mark on their packaging.

Lithium batteries are found in virtually every rechargeable electronic device, from...

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Two more swimmers reported being bitten by sharks off Long Island beaches yesterday, bringing the number of possible attacks since Monday to four and conjuring up memories of last summer's record number. Lisa L. Colangelo, Grant Parpan and Matthew Chayes report on Newsday.com that both reported shark bites occurred shortly before 2 p.m. on Tuesday — the first off Quogue Village Beach and the second off Fire Island Pines, not far from the Kismet beach where a biting was confirmed a day earlier. They also came after parks officials announced stepped-up monitoring efforts for the summer to prevent a repeat of last year, when numerous sightings and a record number of bites forced bathers from the water at South Shore beaches.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and the NYS legislature set aside an estimated $145,000 in the state budget for Long Island's 2023 shark monitoring efforts that included 10 more drones, two additional wave runners and training for drone operators at Jones Beach, Robert Moses State Park and at Hither Hills State Park in Montauk.

The panel discussion will feature Carl Safina, founding president of the Safina Center; Rob Martin, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Shane Weeks of the Shinnecock Nation; and Dr. Sarah Sharp, an animal rescue veterinarian with IFAW. Sunday evening’s event is free and open to the public. For more information, go to southamptonartscenter.org.

Although local water systems across New York are required to submit emergency response plans, about one in 10 failed to meet the latest deadline, and the state has been slow to follow up, according to a new audit from the NYS comptroller's office. In response, the state Department of Health says it now has a policy to speed enforcement if plans are submitted late. As reported on Newsday.com, community water systems that serve more than 3,300 people must prepare the plans at least every five years and submit them to the Department of Health’s Bureau of Water Supply Protection. The plans have two components: a vulnerability assessment identifying possible risks such as heavy storms and cyberattacks, and a plan to mitigate the damage.

In an audit released last week, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said 33 of 317 water systems surveyed had neglected to submit updated vulnerability assessments, and 32 systems submitted emergency response plans late. Thirty had never submitted a cybersecurity vulnerability assessment, required since 2018. The audit does not name the water agencies surveyed, and DiNapoli’s office declined to say which systems had outdated plans.

This summer, Andrew McMorris would have been 17 years old. But the bright-eyed child from Wading River was killed when he was 12 in 2018 after a drunk driver in an SUV plowed into his Boy Scout troop, which was hiking the Greenbelt Trail in Manorville. “We don’t want what happened to us to happen to anyone else,” his father John McMorris said last Thursday, at a press conference with Suffolk County Sheriff Errol D. Toulon, Jr. and Mothers Against Drunk Driving to spotlight significantly increased, countywide DWI enforcement this summer. Chris Francescani in THE SUFFOLK TIMES reports that Sheriff Toulon said his department’s DWI team

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Air quality is expected to remain unhealthy through midnight tonight for the most vulnerable people as a plume of smoke from Canadian wildfires drifts to Long Island and the region, bringing tiny particles of ash, according to a state advisory in place all day. As reported on Newsday.com, those at risk include those with heart or lung conditions, children, and pregnant women, said the state’s top environmental official, Basil Seggos, at a news conference yesterday.

Meteorologist John Cristantello of the National Weather Service said satellite imagery shows conditions over Pennsylvania as of early this morning that could drift towards the New York region and lower visibility to five or six miles from the typical 10 miles.

"It won't be like what you saw a couple weeks ago," he said, but "you might see some hazy skies." He explained that it's forecast to be worse and more concentrated as you go west.

State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald warned that air that looks clear may not be safe to breathe. "New Yorkers should remain aware of their local air quality and take necessary precautions like staying inside, reducing exposure, minimizing exertion when outdoors, and consider using an N95 mask while these unhealthy conditions persist," he said.

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Key state lawmakers and Native Americans yesterday called on Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign legislation to enable marijuana farmers to deal with an oversupply by selling the crop to tribes, including the Shinnecock Indian Nation, so they can sell it in their stores.

If programming like this matters to you, please consider donating to WLIW-FM. During our June pledge drive, all donations will be doubled up to $50,000. Click here to make a tax-deductible donation and keep our programming going.

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The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has received final federal approval for its congestion pricing plan that would charge tolls to motorists driving below 60th Street in Manhattan.

Marc Dern, the former East Hampton Maidstone Club golf caddy who killed his close friend and supervisor, Kevin Somers, in February of last year, was sentenced yesterday to five years in state prison under the terms of a plea deal.

A former financial adviser from Sagaponack was sentenced to prison yesterday for stealing nearly $7 million from longtime clients, many either retired or close to it, and using the money to buy a Bridgehampton mansion, pay tax debts and fund his investment firm, NYS Attorney General Letitia James announced.

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The majority of New York State’s motor-vehicle inspection stations are beginning to use on-demand stickers, or QR code prints, that certify a passed safety and emissions check but now also list the license plate and vehicle identification numbers as well as mileage, the DMV announced yesterday.

The MTA’s plan to raise fares by around 4% — including on the Long Island Rail Road — could be the breaking point for some riders already stretched to their limits by the cost of a train or bus trip.

Construction for New York's first offshore wind power array has begun in the waters off New England, as LIPA prepares to accept energy from a 12-turbine project by year’s end.

The developer, Denmark-based Orsted, yesterday said an offshore vessel has begun pounding the first steel foundations into the seabed, with work expected to continue through the summer and fall.

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More than 63% of New York adults — about 8.4 million people — were overweight or obese in 2021, according to a survey released this week by the NYS Department of Health.

A massive rebuilding of Montauk’s ocean beaches has been included in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project plans for this coming winter. The project calls for more than 600,000 tons of sand to be pumped ashore along an approximately 6,000-foot stretch of Montauk oceanfront.

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A Westhampton-based New York National Guard aircrew yesterday joined the search for a submersible vessel carrying five people that disappeared while documenting the wreckage of the Titanic, the iconic ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean more than a century ago.

Long Island commuters can sound off this week on MTA proposals to hike fares by around 4% and tolls by as much as 10%, including at a series of public hearings beginning Thursday.

Aligned with its mission to preserve and protect the history and cultural character of Wainscott, the Wainscott Heritage Project will host the first in a series of history talks at Wainscott Chapel, 65 Wainscott Main Street, this coming Saturday, June 24, at 10 a.m.

The long-aborning plan to construct a swimming pool facility on a 7-acre parcel on Magee Street in Southampton has been buoyed by the news of an up to $500,000 state grant award.

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NYU Langone Health System is suing Northwell Health over a shade of purple used in similar advertising. The New York City-based hospital group filed a lawsuit yesterday in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York alleging that New Hyde Park-based Northwell Health has turned to nearly identical advertising that confuses the two competitors.

A Triple Five-affiliate company is suing a Luminati Aerospace-owned company over the right to a 16-acre parcel of land along the 10,000-foot runway in Calverton where Luminati Aerospace once operated.

A Juneteenth & Gospel Celebration will be held at Agawam Park in Southampton on Saturday and Sunday, June 17 and 18. Festivities start tomorrow at 10 a.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Two local organizations, Long Island Loud Majority and Long Island Mutual Assistance Group, have again been listed by Southern Poverty Law Center researchers as antigovernment extremist groups.

Greenport Village is filled right now with optimism for the future, and with ideas that the new government here hopes will make the village a more sustainable community for years to come.

The number of Long Island residents diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives stood at between 10% and nearly 20% in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new CDC study analyzing 2020 data.

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A Long Island judge has ordered one of Suffolk’s largest school districts to disclose decades-old reports of sexual abuse and misconduct by its employees as evidence in a lawsuit filed by a 2001 graduate who alleges she was abused by her science teacher as a 17-year-old high school senior and that the district did nothing after someone reported the alleged abuse to the principal.

Robert Chaloner, a fixture on the East End as Stony Brook Southampton Hospital’s chief administrative officer, first said in March that he would step down from his role to fundraise, full time, for the construction of a new hospital facility on the Stony Brook Southampton college campus in Shinnecock Hills. Chaloner has now announced he’s leaving the region altogether.

Voters in the Wainscott School District will be asked to approve a $6,144,331 budget — one that is just $17,000 less than a budget that failed by only three votes last month — in a revote next Tuesday, June 20. Voting takes place at the Wainscott schoolhouse between 2 and 8 p.m. this coming Tuesday.

Almost a third of Long Island homeowners with mortgages are considered "cost-burdened," experts say, meaning they spend 35% or more of their income on monthly housing costs, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Last year, Shinnecock Bay achieved a global distinction shared with such internationally recognized locations as the Galapagos Islands, the Sargasso Sea, and the Ross Sea in Antarctica.

Southampton Village voters will head to the polls tomorrow at the Southampton Cultural Center on Pond Lane to cast their ballots for mayor and a couple of trustee candidates. Polls will open at the Southampton Cultural Center at 9 a.m. tomorrow and will remain open until 9 p.m.

The federal government will spend $160 million to beat back tick-borne diseases and has a battle plan for this summer on Long Island.

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Parents in the Riverhead school district are asking for extra security measures after recent incidents led to the arrest of three middle school students on weapons charges.

A bucket filled with chlorine tablets exploded Monday morning at a North Sea home where officials had already cited the homeowner for illegally operating a pool business, according to Southampton Town officials.

Noyac Road was closed for almost two and a half hours yesterday tying up Tuesday morning trade parade traffic for miles. Southampton Town Police were alerted to an accident and announced the road closure of the eastbound side of Noyac Road at 8:46 a.m. yesterday.

As more flyers take to the skies this summer, finding a parking spot at one of the region’s three major airports is getting harder and pricier. Starting tomorrow, motorists will have to pay significantly more for parking at LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark airports — up to $89 a day for those who don't reserve a spot in advance.

Stony Brook Southampton Hospital’s annual Summer Party, presented by the Southampton Hospital Foundation, is set for Saturday, August 5, under the tents on Wickapogue Road in Southampton.

Parishioners of St. Andrew Catholic Church in Sag Harbor will kick off a half-year of celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of the completion of the church building with a special Mass at 5:15 p.m. this coming Saturday.

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The NYS Department of Education yesterday laid out new guidelines for educators to help transgender and gender expansive students transition in school, including recommending schools address students by their chosen names and pronouns without requiring parental consent.

A 13-year-old Riverhead Middle School student from Flanders was arrested Monday morning after school officials searched the student, his locker and belongings, found a knife and called the police, the district superintendent wrote in a public letter.

The first in a two-part series of community meetings dubbed “Vision for Greenport” will be held this evening at 6:30 p.m. in the North Fork Arts Center (The Greenport Theater at 211 Front Street), where the public will have a chance to weigh in on the village’s plans to guide downtown development in the years ahead.

The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles is set to unveil a new Long Island-specific license plate.

Firefighters spent the entire day this past Sunday battling a brush fire in the Manorville woods.

The 68th annual Mattituck Lions Club Strawberry Festival returns tomorrow thru Fathers Day Sunday.

Last week, Elise Prado presented a proposal to the town board to open a new plot with three sections for burials. The plan, which the East Hampton Town board would have to approve, also would include construction of a columbarium niche wall where ashes of people who have been cremated can be stored.

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Long Island educators say they’re seeing more and more students who can’t keep their hands off their cellphones during class. The problem, they add, worsened after students returned from the COVID pandemic, when kids learned at home remotely and relied on their cellphone to connect to the outside world.

New York State’s 212 hospitals must assign at least one nurse for every two patients in critical care units under a new rule drafted by the state Health Department.

New York state has expanded its Professional Pathways for High-Skilled Immigrants program. The program is designed to help immigrants with professional, specialized backgrounds land jobs in their fields.

The Town of Southold may change its housing code to help first responders who are priced out of the housing market find a place to live — a measure designed to try to boost the ranks of local volunteers.

What was supposed to be a celebration welcoming a group of paddlers, who are canoeing across the Northeast, to the Shinnecock Territory just after 6 p.m. on Friday nearly turned into a tragedy when a passing powerboat appeared to deliberately kick up a high and choppy wake that swamped their canoe in the Shinnecock Canal, scattering its six-member crew and their possessions into the strong current.

383 years ago today Englishmen from Lynn, Massachusetts arrived at Conscience Point in North Sea and soon thereafter founded the first English settlement in New York State – the Town of Southampton.

The North Fork remains divided this month over Strong’s Yacht Center’s proposal to build two large yacht storage buildings into a hillside adjacent to the Mattituck Inlet.

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Smoke blanketing Long Island eased slightly yesterday and is forecast to further improve today, but air quality remained at "unhealthy levels" canceling activities and continuing to irritate noses and throats.

After a surge of anti-Asian incidents during the pandemic, advocates on Long Island are calling for schools to include more Asian American history in classrooms.

The Sag Harbor Board of Education approved a one-year agreement with the Park and Recreation Association of Sag Harbor — which runs Mashashimuet Park — to keep the park as the primary home of Pierson athletics for another year.

State Police have released further details of Thursday morning’s crash on Sunrise Highway between Hampton Bays and East Quogue that killed one man, put another in handcuffs and snarled trade parade traffic for hours.

The New York State Citizen Preparedness Corps will host a Citizen Preparedness Training at the Southampton Fire Department Headquarters at 470 Hampton Road tomorrow at 9 a.m.

A year ago, Democrats were taken to task by New York’s highest court for attempting to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts, and saw their tilted map replaced by more neutral lines that helped Republicans flip four U.S. House seats. Now, with a 2024 rematch approaching, Democratic leaders in Washington and Albany are reviving a legal battle to reopen the mapmaking process and potentially pull the lines back in their direction.

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A thick haze of smoke from Canadian wildfires settled over Long Island yesterday, delaying flights, canceling outdoor events and casting an ugly — and unhealthy — burnt-orange pall over the region.

Eastbound Sunrise Highway is closed between Exit 64 and Exit 65 due to a fatal accident.

The Town of Riverhead will now have to defend its controversial state of emergency in court. New York City is suing Riverhead and 30 counties across the state, including Suffolk, asking a court to invalidate executive orders that “wall off their borders” to block the city from arranging housing for asylum-seekers in their jurisdictions.

The Southold Peconic Civic Association Environmental Advocacy Committee and the new North Fork Pollinator Pathway are working together to beautify Custer Preserve, the meadow next to the Custer Observatory on Main Bayview Road in Southold, this Saturday morning , June 10th from 10 a.m. to 12 noon.

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New Yorkers are being urged to limit their outdoor activities again today, due to the smoky and particulate-filled air moving south from wildfires in Canada.

A homeless man, 20, has been charged with murder in the stabbing death of another man near the Riverside traffic circle Tuesday afternoon.

In preparation for its new Community Housing Fund that will funnel a .5 percent real estate transfer tax into affordable housing options, Southold Town is hosting five community meetings in June about its Community Housing Plan beginning with one this evening at 6 p.m. at the Peconic Lane Community Center.

The future of Long Islanders’ commutes and the “World’s Most Famous Arena” are intersecting in a growing debate over what role Madison Square Garden should play in the planned $8 billion reconstruction of Penn Station.

The Board of Trustees of the Bridgehampton Museum has announced that the Nathaniel Rogers House has opened its doors to the public as The Bridgehampton Museum for the very first time.

So far, 23 dead whales have been found from Maine to Florida in 2023, four more than in all of 2022. Twelve of them apparently died off New York and New Jersey, twice as many as in 2022.

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Adina Azarian, her toddler, their nanny, and their pilot were killed Sunday when a Cessna Citation jet, bound for MacArthur Airport, lost communication with air traffic control during its initial ascent and crashed hours later in a remote, mountainous area of rural Virginia.

Senior citizens can learn how to avoid falling victim to cyber crimes during training sessions tomorrow at the Riverhead and Southold senior centers. Presentations will be held June 7 at the Riverhead Senior Center on Shade Tree Lane in Aquebogue starting at 10 a.m. and at the Southold Senior Center on Pacific Street in Mattituck starting at 1 p.m.

An air quality health advisory is in effect all day today throughout most of New York State, including Long Island, due to smoke from the wildfires currently raging in the province of Quebec in eastern Canada.

A humpback whale found floating dead last week in Shinnecock Inlet likely died of blunt force trauma, officials said yesterday.

Veterans and veteran families are invited to learn more about Veterans Administration health care this Thursday, June 8, from 6pm to 8 p.m. at the American Legion, 26 Bay Street in Sag Harbor.

The Long Island Rail Road’s Penn Station waiting area, including a remodeled bathroom, has reopened following a nearly eight-month renovation, but some riders are underwhelmed by the improvements, which they say don’t go far enough to address insufficient seating in the busy Manhattan train terminal.

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A wayward and unresponsive business plane that flew over the nation's capital Sunday afternoon caused the military to scramble two fighter jets before the plane crashed in Virginia, officials said.

A former campus for special needs adults in Port Jefferson is at the center of a dispute between residents and village officials over development plans for the property.

Veterans and veteran families are invited to learn more about Veterans Administration health care on Thursday, June 8, from 6pm to 8 p.m. at the American Legion, 26 Bay Street in Sag Harbor.

As plans for more “mega” mansions pop up on Shelter Island, town officials have opted to call a "timeout."

Suffolk County is contracting with government software provider Granicus to try to enforce short-term rental owners to pay the county's hotel-motel tax.

Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead has unveiled plans for the next phase of an expansion it says will lay the foundation for bringing advanced specialized care to the region.

Artificial intelligence experts on Long Island and elsewhere in New York are urging regulation of the rapidly emerging technology, days after a statement by industry leaders warned it could pose a “risk of extinction” for the human race.

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Suffolk County legislators voted yesterday to hire an attorney to advise them on blocking asylum-seeking migrants, joining other counties across New York that have sought to close their doors.

A public hearing on the proposal to convert the movie theater in Hampton Bays to a CVS drug store was adjourned last week — the Southampton Town Planning Board will take the matter back up, and hear comments from community members, on July 13.

Veterans and veteran families are invited to learn more about Veterans Administration health care on Thursday, June 8, from 6pm to 8 p.m. at the American Legion, 26 Bay Street in Sag Harbor.

LIRR track employees worked shifts of 24 consecutive hours, or longer, on more than 4,000 occasions over an 18 month span — a practice that “can lead to fatigue and increase the risks of accidents” on the railroad, according to a new audit released yesterday.

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced yesterday that New York will be offering spots at SUNY and CUNY colleges for all of the state’s graduating high school seniors.

The Southampton Town Recreation Center — or “SYS” as it is commonly referred to — will officially mark its 20th anniversary with a celebration event tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The day will include soccer and squash clinics, a fitness demonstration, and other fun performances and activities for kids and families. There will be an entrance fee of $10 for adults, and kids get in for free.

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Three of Long Island’s four Republican congressmembers voted last night to pass the debt limit bill negotiated by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden.

Local government officials have joined captains of charter fishing boats from the East End and across Long Island in voicing their objections to a decision by federal fisheries managers to impose strict new limits on the harvesting of striped bass — a move that charter fishermen say will hamstring their businesses and they claim will be counterproductive to stated conservation goals.

Senior citizens can learn how to avoid falling victim to cyber crimes during a training next week at the Riverhead and Southold senior centers.

Since a proposal to purchase properties on Marsden Street in Sag Harbor next to Pierson Middle-High School was rejected by district voters on May 16, many residents in the community have been wondering what’s next for the 4.13 acres of land on the short residential street, which have been vacant for decades.

The Simons Foundation, a philanthropy with a long history of donations to Stony Brook University, is announcing today it will give $500 million to the SUNY flagship in what will be the nation’s largest ever no-strings-attached endowment gift to an institution of higher learning.

New York State Senator Anthony Palumbo announced this week that the State Legislature has passed a bill to reinstate state recognition and acknowledgement of the Montaukett Indian Nation.

Former U.S. Congressman Lee Zeldin, the Republican from Shirley, Long Island, who narrowly lost last year’s gubernatorial race, yesterday ripped Gov. Kathy Hochul for not forcefully condemning a CUNY law graduate’s recent “hate-filled” commencement speech — calling the state’s chief executive a “disgrace for hiding in silence.”

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The Shinnecock Indian Nation in Southampton, Long Island's only federally recognized Indian nation is taking advantage of a traditional base of retail shops on Montauk Highway, and a head start in recreational cannabis sales that began in 2022, to establish the retail row as a destination for marijuana for the Hamptons and beyond.

While opposition to a Suffolk County plan to craft sidewalks along North Sea Road has continued in recent weeks, Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming said this week that it is not universally true that the community opposes sidewalks.

Senior citizens can learn how to avoid falling victim to cyber crimes during a training next week at the Riverhead and Southold senior centers. The event will be held at the Riverhead Senior Center on Shade Tree Lane in Aquebogue starting at 10 a.m. and at the Southold Senior Center on Pacific Street in Mattituck starting at 1 p.m., Wednesday June 7th.

The Board of Trustees of the Bridgehampton Museum has announced that the Nathaniel Rogers House has opened its doors to the public as The Bridgehampton Museum for the very first time.

Rabbi Aizik Baumgarten typically tends to the spiritual needs of his flock on the East End. But now he has gone a step beyond: He donated one of his kidneys to a member of his congregation.

Social studies groups statewide are pushing back against a plan out of Albany they say would downgrade the importance of coursework in history and civics.

Spring swimmers were aghast last month when they arrived at Emma Rose Elliston Park in North Sea to find it cordoned off. By May 24, multiple signs of work underway were evident.

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Southold will use a portion of funds the town received under the American Rescue Plan Act to provide $450,000 in relief to fire departments and nonprofit organizations that combat hunger and address the shortage of housing in the area.

The Sag Harbor School District will likely sign another one-year contract to keep Mashashimuet Park as the home of Pierson athletics, at its next Board of Education meeting, set for June 5.

Security guard Sarah Atkins and substitute nurse Judy Marcus were honored by the Riverhead Central School district Board of Education at its meeting this week for saving the life of a choking student at Riley Avenue Elementary School.

Debra Kamin of THE NY TIMES spent three days on the North Fork recently speaking to residents, business owners and environmentalists. She writes that like the tongue of a snake, Long Island’s eastern edge splits into two distinct tines.

The Southampton Cultural Center commences its free Concerts in the Park series this evening with a performance by Nancy Atlas. The concert starts at 6:30 p.m. at Agawam Park in Southampton.

Sag Harbor Village and Southampton Town officials yesterday unveiled John Steinbeck Waterfront Park.

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World War II veterans, Korean War veterans, Vietnam War veterans and active duty military personnel received places of honor this week, as “Hometown Hero” banners were unveiled in Good Ground Park in Hampton Bays before a crowd of honorees, onlookers and Southampton Town officials.

Three months after declaring “Suffolk County is back online," Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone has issued a ninth emergency declaration tied to the September ransomware attack, prompting legislative action to end the practice.

Sag Harbor’s John Jermain Library hosts “Among Whales in the Wild,” a discussion with photographer Gaelin Rosenwaks and ecologist Carl Safina about their work studying sperm whales in their natural environment this evening at 6 p.m.

Jet planes carrying cargo for delivery across Long Island may be landing on the East End for the first time, if an application now pending in Riverhead Town gains approval.

Long Island's population has grown older, its median age in 2020 almost two years higher than it was a decade before — surpassing the state and national median age while the ranks of those 65 and older also continued to increase.

The Southampton Cultural Center commences its free Concerts in the Park series on Friday, May 26, with a performance by Nancy Atlas. The concert starts at 6:30 p.m. at Agawam Park in Southampton.

Last spring, Liar’s Saloon, one of the last no-frills watering holes left in Montauk, looked like it was gone for good. The family-owned business had just closed, its longtime owners ready for a change.

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Immigration advocates yesterday denounced plans to block asylum-seeking migrants from being sent to Suffolk County, as county legislators held off on a vote on the effort and state officials said no final decisions had been made about where to shelter them.

Social media creates “a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents,” a newly released U.S. surgeon general’s advisory finds, but it also can offer important social support, findings that echo what Long Island experts, parents and teenagers believe.

Sag Harbor Village has announced it will hold a grand opening and dedication celebration for the John Steinbeck Memorial Park at the foot of the Sag Harbor Bridge this Thursday, May 25th at 11 a.m. The community is invited to attend.

A judge has levied a $250,000 fine against East Hampton Town for putting new restrictions on flights at the municipal airport in Wainscott as litigation over the facility's future continues.

A century-old Montauk tavern is leading the charge against the East Hampton “Footloose” police who are again threatening to shut restaurants that clear the floor for patrons to dance as the summer season begins.

The East End Food Institute hosts “Sea to Soil: Restorative Aquaculture with the Shinnecock Kelp Farmers Thursday evening at 5:30 p.m. at their headquarters in Riverhead.

May 24, 1883 marked the dawn of a new era — the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, at the time the world’s longest suspension bridge, one with overhead cables supporting the roadway over the East River; the joining of two of the nation’s biggest then-independent cities, Brooklyn and Manhattan; and the connection of Long Island to the rest of the country.

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Morning commute east along County Road 39 in Southampton remains at a snail’s pace movement from the beginning of County Road 39 to Bridgehampton despite an ambitious concept conceived by Southampton Town Highway Superintendent Charles McArdle last year.

Local police are participating in the statewide “Click It or Ticket” campaign which began yesterday and runs through June 4.

Nassau County legislators, in a near unanimous vote last night, approved a 99-year lease agreement that would allow Las Vegas Sands to develop a $4 billion casino resort on the Nassau Coliseum site.

Long Island Rail Road fares will rise later this year for the first time since 2019, but not as high as originally considered.

Long Island has multiple species of turtles, including the eastern box turtle, which is considered a species of special concern in the state of New York. Turtle injuries are common as they cross busy roads across the East End.

Fish from parts of Peconic Lake and the Peconic River are "at risk" of being contaminated and are potentially hazardous if eaten, state health officials said.

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Suffolk County Republican legislators, during a news conference in Hauppauge yesterday, said they will hire a lawyer to explore what can be done to block migrants from being placed in Suffolk.

Long Island lifeguards and state park officials are doubling up on shark monitoring for the coming beach season — an attempt to avoid a repeat of last summer when numerous sightings and a record number of bites forced bathers from the water.

Development plans at the Calverton Enterprise Park continue to draw unprecedented crowds to community and civic meetings in Riverhead.

A Suffolk County Supreme Court judge this past Friday ruled that East Hampton Town is in contempt of court for failing to comply with a temporary restraining order barring it from privatizing East Hampton Airport and implementing restrictions on flights at the town-owned air field in Wainscott.

A marina's proposal to build two large boat storage buildings in Mattituck that some residents say will bolster the local economy is facing scrutiny over its potential environmental impacts.

The Mattituck-Laurel Civic Association hosts a presentation on “Who is Protecting Our Fragile Water Resources?” with Suffolk County Legislator Al Krupski and representatives of the Suffolk County Water Authority this evening, May 22, at 6:30 p.m. at the clubhouse at Veteran’s Beach on Peconic Bay Boulevard. All are welcome to attend.

The Hampton Bays Civic Association will discuss “Continuing on the Pathway to the Future of Hampton Bays” this evening, May 22, at 7 p.m. at the Hampton Bays Senior Center at 25 Ponquogue Avenue. Westhampton Beach Mayor Maria Moore will discuss how to bring successful revitalization projects to the hamlet. All are welcome to attend.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will officially kick off its operations at its new National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Kansas with a ribbon-cutting ceremony this Wednesday. Thus, signaling the start of what comes next: a slow and careful decommissioning process at Plum Island, which for the last 69 years has been devising ways to identify and treat “transboundary animal diseases,” preventing foreign viruses like foot-and-mouth disease and African swine fever from impacting American livestock, meat, and dairy industries.

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The NYS Department of Education yesterday released anticipated guidance on the implementation of a ban on Native American mascots, team names and logos in public schools.

New York City’s population is continuing to flounder in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Town of Riverhead this week became the first Long Island municipality to declare a state of emergency regarding asylum-seekers, blocking motels and other facilities from accepting New York City migrants, joining nearly a dozen counties statewide. Residents criticized Supervisor Yvette Aguiar’s declaration of a state of emergency.

Southampton's Coopers Beach ranked #3 of best beaches in US.

South Fork Wind marked completion of the project’s onshore export cable system this week, after 15 months of work trenching and laying cable down 4.1 miles of back roads and Long Island Rail Road rights of way from Wainscott to a substation in East Hampton Village.

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Long Island school board elections on Tuesday represented a return to a sense of normalcy, local election observers say: where the majority of wins went to incumbents and candidates endorsed by local teacher unions after quiet campaigns.

Across Long Island, 124 districts held votes Tuesday on spending plans totaling a combined $15.2 billion, with property tax levies totaling $9.5 billion. All but two budgets passed: West Hempstead in Nassau County and Wainscott on the East End.

Sag Harbor voters this week rejected a proposition to purchase property adjacent to Pierson Middle/High School. The district initially sought to acquire the Marsden Street property in a partnership with Southampton Town to build an athletic field, but those plans fell through.

The Town of Riverhead has become the first Long Island municipality to declare a state of emergency regarding asylum-seekers, blocking motels and other facilities from accepting New York City migrants, joining nearly a dozen counties statewide.

Populations in Long Island's towns and cities shrank, with the exception of three East End towns, according to 2022 U.S. Census Bureau estimates released today, and experts say the trend may be linked to Long Island's housing options.

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A total of 121 Long Island school districts reported budgets approved by voters as of 12:40 this morning, with defeats only in West Hempstead and in the tiny Wainscott district, the latter which narrowly failed to override its tax cap.

In the Sag Harbor School District yesterday, the vote on a $6 million bond and withdrawal of $3.425 million from capital reserves to purchase 4.13 acres on Marsden Street next to Pierson Middle-High School failed by 75 votes, with 1,081 yes votes and 1,156 no votes. The budget passed, 1,619-570.

Hamptons Observatory and the Southampton Arts Center host a virtual lecture on Thursday, May 18th at 7 p.m. titled “Space Craze: Exploring Space History & Science Fiction Through Artifacts.”

Reacting to reports of an impending “high influx” of undocumented migrants being sent to Riverhead from New York City, Riverhead Town Supervisor Yvette Aguiar declared a state of emergency last night.

The warning period for New York’s first speed camera program at work zones ends today.

Several hundred or more asylum-seeking migrants are known to be living on Long Island, having recently moved to Nassau and Suffolk counties after crossing into U.S. southern border states and being bused to New York City.

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"Super Tuesday" school voting takes place today in 124 Long Island school districts, where ballots include combined spending plans of more than $15 billion, along with dozens of contested board seats. Proposed budgets are for the 2023-24 school year, which begins July 1. Most polls in Nassau County and western Suffolk open at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. and close at 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. On the east end, some polls open in the early afternoon and close around 8 p.m.

The non-profit East End Food Market in Riverhead will be operated outdoors during the summer months this year, beginning Saturday, May 27, while market operator East End Food Institute begins the first phase of construction on its new East End Food Hub campus.

Riverhead Town is getting ready to bring a lawsuit in the hope of getting back title to the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall in downtown Riverhead.

Hamptons Observatory and the Southampton Arts Center host a virtual lecture on Thursday, May 18th.

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School spending across Long Island would climb nearly 6% in 2023-24 over the current year, the highest growth rate in 16 years, Newsday found in a survey of districts' proposed budgets.

Lee Zeldin says Rep. George Santos is an embarassment who should resign.

Scientists and medical experts say warm winters have kept ticks active year-round and urge precautions.

Right-wing political figures and groups embrace Long Island man Daniel Penny for murdering Jordan Neely.

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An alleged Bloods gang member suspected of committing a recent robbery opened fire on a Suffolk County police officer in Coram yesterday, striking him in the upper thigh.

Barnes & Noble’s turnaround will include a Long Island expansion for the second time in about a year as the book seller heads to The Hamptons.

The Long Pond Greenbelt Nature Center in Bridgehampton hosts Sundays at Two: The Long Island Mammal Survey with Mike Bottini this Sunday, May 14 at 2 p.m.Meet at the Long Pond Greenbelt Nature Center, 1061 Bridgehampton/Sag Harbor Tpk., Bridgehampton, N.Y. It’s free and open to the public.

Sag Harbor residents came out one final time this past Monday to ask questions and share their thoughts on the Sag Harbor School District’s desire to purchase 4.13 acres of vacant land on Marsden Street, adjacent to Pierson Middle – High School, a divisive issue that has gripped the community and its residents for months.

The Heart of Riverhead Civic Association meets tomorrow (May 13) morning in the Riverhead Free Library at 11am.

NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has released an analysis that raised no serious obstacles to the future of LIPA as a fully public power utility, but uncertainty remains about whether lawmakers can pass legislation required for the transition in the current legislative session.

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The Shinnecock Indian Nation said yesterday that it is open to allowing the Wyandanch School District to keep its Warriors team name if it removes its Native American imagery, but officials at the state Education Department said it’s too late for the district to procure an exemption.

Around 35 workers in the Riverhead Central School District’s transportation department came out in force at Tuesday’s school board meeting to publicly ask for pay raises to deal with the rising cost of living.

Ridership on the South Fork Commuter Connection trains-to-buses system has continued its gradual expansion in 2023, operators of Hampton Hopper buses told the East Hampton Town Board this week.

Next Tuesday, May 16, Sag Harbor School District voters will be asked to approve a budget of $48,063,027 for the 2023-2024 school year that will increase the tax levy by 1.88 percent, which is among the lowest proposed levy increases on the East End, and is significantly below the district’s allowable tax cap.

Several Southampton Town residents came out to speak at a Town Board meeting this week, to express their opposition to an area in their neighborhood being considered as the site for a sewage treatment plant for Southampton Village’s proposed sewer district.

The Long Pond Greenbelt Nature Center in Bridgehampton hosts Sundays at Two: The Long Island Mammal Survey with Mike Bottini this Sunday, May 14 at 2 p.m. Launched in November 2022, the goals of this new conservation campaign led by Seatuck Environmental Association are to update the last mammal survey done here in the 1960s, educate Long Islanders about our native mammals, and lobby for changes in the NYS DEC’s hunting and trapping regulations.

If the Suffolk County Legislature acts expeditiously, voters this November will see a ballot proposal asking their approval on a sales tax increase of one-eighth of a penny, with the proceeds earmarked to fund clean water projects.

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Water Quality Panel Discussion

Join the New York League of Conservation Voters and the Village of Southampton for an evening focused on water quality work in Southampton.

Wednesday, May 10th

Southampton Arts Center

Discussion scheduled 5pm - 6pm, reception to follow

Free admission, open to the public

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Water Quality Panel Discussion

Join the New York League of Conservation Voters and the Village of Southampton for an evening focused on water quality work in Southampton.

Wednesday, May 10th

Southampton Arts Center

Discussion scheduled 5pm - 6pm, reception to follow

Free admission, open to the public

View Details

Water Quality Panel Discussion

Join the New York League of Conservation Voters and the Village of Southampton for an evening focused on water quality work in Southampton.

Wednesday, May 10th

Southampton Arts Center

Discussion scheduled 5pm - 6pm, reception to follow

Free admission, open to the public

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• Suffolk DA expanding on initiative regarding quality-of-life issues

• Speed cameras to begin operating in construction zones through New York State

• Crowd turned out for East End police recruitment event

• New LIPA rates approved

• Governor Hochul's new judge nominee approved by key panel

• US Navy to hold meeting of Restoration Advisory Board for former Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant tomorrow, April 19, at 6:15pm at Manorville Fire Department

• State lawmakers set to give judges more discretion over bail

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• Brookhaven National Laboratory name JoAnne Hewett, a theoretical physicist, as next director

• Governor Hochul nominates leading progressive judge Rowan D. Wilson for new chief judge

• Heart of Riverhead Civic Association to have Riverhead Central School superintendent as guest speaker

• North Fork parents campaign for Spanish language immersion class

• NYS Legislature approves Governor Hochul's budget "extender" legislation

• Next Riverhead litter cleanup to be held on Saturday, April 22 starting at 9am at Riverhead Town Hall

• Oyster restoration programs reveal shorter lifespan

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Many thanks to all who contributed during the Spring Fund Drive! We look forward to continue to serve you with important local news.

• Hampton Bays residents argue against redevelopment of blighted motel property

• Rain stops just in time for Jamesport St. Patrick's Day Parade

• Public invited to workshop on Riverhead comprehensive plan Saturday, April 22, at Suffolk Theater beginning at 10am

• New York State budget now overdue over public safety spending

• Hampton Bays legendary Boardy Barn to be reopened as Bays Beer Garden

• May will be first turkey hunting season in Suffolk County

• April 5th marks 90th anniversary of Civilian Conservation Corps

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Today is the last day of our Spring Fund Drive! Thank you to all the listeners who have supported so far, and it's not too late to have your donation go three times further! No donation is too large or too small, and all contributions fund our award-winning local programming like Long Island Morning Edition. Donate at wliwfm.org.

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Two more days of our Spring Fund Drive!

All donations to WLIW-FM will be TRIPLED, dollar for dollar, until we reach our goal of $50,000 during our Chairman's Challenge. No donation is too large or too small, and all contributions fund our award-winning local programming like Long Island Morning Edition. Donate at wliwfm.org.

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All donations to WLIW-FM will be doubled, dollar for dollar, until we reach our goal of $50,000 during our Chairman's Challenge. No donation is too large or too small, and all contributions fund our award-winning local programming like Long Island Morning Edition. Donate at wliwfm.org.

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• Shares of banks on Long Island fell sharply following run on Silicon Valley Bank and NY-based Signature Bank

• Seizure of two banks intensifies fears of broader financial crisis

• LI banks seek to put distance between themselves and those that failed

• New York City ranked worst city for traffic congestion

• Riverhead Central School District hires Transpar to oversee routing management

• Roanoke Avenue Elementary School Principal makes fun deal with students to encourage reading

• Legislative Democrats set to offer major rewrites to Governor Hochul's budget proposals

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• East Marion Tesla fire exhibits unique challenges of battling lithium-ion batteries

• Signature Bank has been taken over by regulators

• Southampton High School Varsity Boys basketball to travel upstate fpr state finals

• MTA largely ignored many opinions on service changes

• Suffolk County Department of Social Services operating out of temporary location

• New SUNY rule requires all students to pass a diversity, equity, and inclusion course

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• LIRR to reroute 4 rush-hour trains back to Penn Station amid complaints about crowding and timing

• MTA provides update about LIRR trains to the North Fork

• Games that will determine potential state champions for East End High School Boys Basketball being played today

• Southampton Town officials explore using Community Preservation Fund to buy development rights for Mashashimuet Park

• New Riverhead Town committee being discussed to address quality of life

• Sag Harbor Village Board to hold hearings on three new measures

• LI job market recovery stronger than predicted

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• Riverhead High School revives mock trial team

• Schedule adjustments on LIRR may not provide enough relief for commuters

• East Patchogue farm bought by Post-Morrow foundation

• NYA Supreme Court judge determines candidates shut out of Greenport Village election can remain on ballot

• Greenport Village Election being held 6am - 9pm on March 21 at the Greenport Firehouse, 236 Third St.

• Group of East End organizations collaborate to launch Narcan rescue stations across North Fork to prevent opioid overdoses

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• Southampton Town Board votes to delay decision regarding purchase of Marsden Street lot

• MTA responds to rider complaints with additional train cars

• Suffolk County Human Rights Commission taking oversight role of police department internal affairs

• Many unhappy with frequent turnover of Springs School District staff

• Virtual community meeting to be held regarding pedestrian safety on County Road 39. Monday March 6th at 7pm, use this link and passcode 1234

• New York Blood Center blood drive held today, March 2nd, at American Legion Roller Rink in Greenport. 102 Third Street, 1pm to 7pm

• East Hampton Town Board holding public hearings today at 2pm, can be viewed live here.

• State ends food stamp benefits for many, placing more strain on local food pantries

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• LIRR Grand Central Madison station opens full service

• First Legislative District race to be between Democrat Catherine Kent and Republican Catherine Stark

• Electricity in East Hampton shut off due to water pipe break

• Two top NYPD members sign up to take chief's exam to work in Suffolk County

• Suffolk County Legislature to return to Riverhead for first time since ransomware attack

• Long Island Democrats fear severe push-back from Hochul proposals

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• Suffolk County Parks Board of Trustees votes against recommending land swap with East Hampton Town for construction of wastewater treatment facility

• Suffolk County Republican Committe nominates Ed Romaine for Suffolk County Executive

• Bridget Fleming announces she will not seek reelection

• Group of residents next to proposed athletic field sue Sag Harbor School District

• Greenport Village board votes to put candidates back on ballot after paperwork issues

• High School basketball champion to be determined in Saturday's game at East Hampton High School at noon

• One year since first invasion of Ukraine, 100 Ukrainian refugees live with host families throughout Long Island

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• Golf community developer clears another major hurdle

• Town of Islip to hold public meeting on new status of MacArthur Airport

• Riverhead resident Catherine Stark presumptive Republican nominee for Al Krupski's seat

• MTA seeks $1.3 billion rescue from Albany

• Proposal for large hotel on Main Road in Mattituck pending before Southold Town

• Dam Panico expects to receive nomination for Town Supervisor seat

• North Haven Village Board continues public hearing for legislation aimed at protecting mature trees

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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• Farmingdale-based vaccine maker Codagenix commercializing biotechnology originated at Stony Brook University

• Suffolk police investigating anti-LGBTQ graffiti at Connetquot High School

• East End Arts presents mosaic murals made by high school students at annual Martin Luther King Jr. portrait project

• Movement to remove bulkhead at Round Pond to restore natural shoreline gains momentum

• Greenport Fire Department holds 178th Washington's Day Parade

• Deadline to apply for property tax savings through Enhanced STAR exemption is March 1

• Southampton Board of Education approves school calendar naming holidays the district is closed

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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• Holtsville man released from jail five months ago carjacks vehicle in Greenport with toddler in it

• Southampton Town Board votes unanimously to preserve Steinbeck home

• NYS to allow spring hunting season for wild turkeys

• Report by investment banking makes suggestion regarding new structure for LIPA and PSEG Long Island

• New Cornell Cooperative Extension project launches for Peconic Bay Scallop

• State Senate rejection of Hochul supreme court nominee places leaders in uncharted territory

• Business owners see opportunity in offshore wind-farm contracts

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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• ChatGPT prompts debates over use of AI in the classroom

•NYS Supreme Court decision will affect outcome of Riverhead Town's lawsuit against State DEC and sand mine operator

• Suffolk County Civil Service Department to administer open competitive police chief exam for Southampton Village Saturday, March 25

• Commuter lunch spending could affect NYC with fewer in-person workers

• LI medical leaders urge caution in lifting mask mandate

• Public colleges to be allowed to establish tax-free zones to encourage small business development

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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• NYS Assemb. Fred W. Thiele criticizes Stony Brook University's handling of Southampton campus

• New York State lifts mask requirements for health care facilities

• LIRR maintains record for running on time while steadily increasing ridership

• Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez to be East Hampton Democrats' Town Supervisor nominee

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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• Large swastika found in Southampton High School bathroom

• Assemblyman Thiele against proposed MTA payroll tax

• New episode of WLIW-FM In Conversation airing Thursday at 7pm. Listen here or wherever you get podcasts. Also available on smart speakers by asking for WLIW-FM In Conversation.

• Proposed water conservation law in Riverhead to be revised

• Westhampton Beach Lidl store closing temporarily for roof repairs

• LIRR South Fork Communter Connection to have two schedule changes

• Colonial-ear mill dam replaced with fish ladder on Carmans River in Yaphank

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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• Graduation rate for Class of 2022 on Long Island trends upward

• HarborFrost returns this weekend

• Cornell biologists experiment with change to spawning season for scallops

• New clearing restrictions would require developers to obtain a permit for clearing land

• Senator Palumbo to participate in Coffee with a Cop program at Riverhead Free Library

• Confusion for employers arises due to changes in cannabis testing laws

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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• Governor Hochul's budget aims to address electric bills, flavored vapes and tobacco, "forever chemical" contamination, and give more aid to schools

• Construction of new East Hampton emergency room to begin this month

• Newsday report shows high growth rate of median home sale prices on Long Island

• Forbes names Riverhead one of best places to travel in 2023

• Riverhead hoping to make downtown area more "family friendly" with new overlay district

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• SUNY system to require students to pass DEI course to graduate

• Governor Hochul to propose state budget amid fiscal and political dilemma

• Riverhead named on Forbes' list of top 50 travel destinations

• Hochul vetoes Grieving Families Act

• Progressive lawmakers and activists renew effort to tax the super-rich

• Riverhead Free Library honors Black History Month with exhibit on the Harlem Renaissance

• Assemblyman Thiele and Senator Palumbo give overview of Peconic Community Housing Fund to Long Island Association

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• Lack of Amtrak cooperation threatens to delay next major MTA infrastructure effort

• Senator Schumer calls on federal government to help deal with high number of catalytic converter thefts on Long Island

• Two parents sue Riverhead Central School District over mask requirement for children

• State Democrats claim lack of sufficient data prevents reasonable changes to criminal justice reforms

• President Biden visiting NYC as Mayor Eric Adams is promoting the city to host the 2023 Democratic National Convention

• Representative Nick LaLota has been appointed to two committees related to the defense industry

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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• New study from Newsday analysis shows high teacher salaries in one of the most expensive places to live in the United States

• Hochul administration struggling to deliver on promise to overhaul policies on ethics and sexual harassment

• $5 million grant given to Town of Southampton to revitalize Riverside

• Gas prices on Long Island lower than national average but expected to rise in coming months

• Reducing air traffic in East Hampton could lead to increased air traffic in surrounding communities

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• Sag Harbor School District community forum focuses on final pitch to consider natural grass athletic fields

• Armed guards to be stationed in a number of Long Island schools

• Hochul under scrutiny with state budget after losing to left-leaning legislators over justice pick

• Suffolk County lockdown may have ended up costing more than proposed ransom

• Interest rates affect otherwise routine aspect of public school finance, causing some districts to have to borrow money.

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• NYS Comptroller lists 3 LI school districts in fiscal stress

• Shelter Island School District apologizes for distressing lesson

• Formation of jets seen over Southampton on Tuesday as part of training procedure

• Southampton Village Board meetings go awry as trustees gang up against Mayor Warren

• Retails see surge in "aggressive" shoplifting beyond normal

• Long Island real estate market cooled at end of 2022 compared to end of 2021

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• Long Island Rail Road opens Grand Central Madison

• Sag Harbor School District to host second community forum regarding Marsden Street plans tonight at 6:30pm at Pierson School Library

• Southampton Village adminstrator's makes claims against Southampton Village Mayor

• Hochul says she opposes idea of making it easier to sue individual police officers for misconduct

• Osprey population has made massive comeback over last four decades

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LIRR set to run its first passenger trains to Grand Central Madison
Mother of boy who died from non-Hodgkins lymphoma takes first step toward suing South Country Central School District and Brookhaven Town
Riverhead Civil Service Employees Union and supporters gathered to demand resolution for contract with town
Many support idea of transforming LIPA into a fully public power authority
NYS will no longer object to federal agency's decision allowing dredged materials to be deposited near Fishers Island
Hochul proposes revamping of program to encourage tech startups near colleges
With passing of Community Housing Fund, work really begins for East End municipalities

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Hochul sets goal for housing, focusing on options within walking distance of train stations; Long Island STEM Hub Career Conversations event gives teens insight into future career options; Sag Harbor Mayor Jim Larocca says the village had a small victory over gas ball parking lot; warming waters tied to climate change pose risk to shellfish according to new Stony Brook paper; Southold Town Board is likely to put up a proposal for a moratorium on battery energy storage facilities; Suffolk County Democrats support David Calone, Republican candidate to be determined.

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Long Island hospitals struggle with nurse staffing shortage; a substitute teacher at a Sachem middle school was terminated; Southampton movie theater declared local landmark; retail hiring at brick-and-mortar stores reaches lowest level in more than three decades; lawyers propose $450 million settlement in case between Long Island Catholic Church and survivors of sexual abuse; Kirsten Gillibrand announces run for third term.

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Montauk residents express concerns over East Hampton airport; LIRR says it does not have the equipment it would need to tow a disabled train out of the tunnels leading into Grand Central Madison station in the event of a power outage; NYS gun restrictions can remain in place temporarily amid court challenge from firearms dealers; wildlife regulators concerned over rise in whale strandings; activists demand major reforms to the MTA; NYS Department of Labor received $9.1 million to improve access to state unemployment insurance; NYS Senate Democrats vote down Hochul nominee for chief judge.

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Bay Street Theater abandons plans for construction; Greenport movie theater listed for sale or long-term lease; OLA of Eastern Long Island to hold free, bilingual workshop "Helping Your Teenager to Thrive"; advocates for undocumented immigrants push for unemployment benefits for the excluded workers; hundreds of locations across New York State shortlisted for recreational marijuana sales; NYS Legislature LIPA commission to hold public hearing; Hochul choice of top judge causes disagreement among state Democrats.

Helping Your Teenager to Thrive: Wednesday, January 18, 6pm-8pm at Bridgehampton Community House

LIPA Commission public hearing: Friday, Jan 20, 11am at Southampton Town Hall

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Southampton Village set back significantly after Anthony Carter declines position of police chief; odd-even day restrictions on lawn watering would be mandatory under proposed Riverhead law; Long Island nonprofits guard against giving fatigue to donors; Shinnecock Indian Nation members express frustration in the wake of Nassau Coliseum casino proposal.

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Long Island Morning Edition is back after a break for the holiday season.

Forum is held to discuss how to best spend money made from Community Housing Fund; Peter Van Scoyoc will not be seeking reelection; Mayor Jesse Warren at odds with many fellow Southampton Village board members; fears over Covid boosters causing strokes not founded on scientific research; NYS Legislature's LIPA commission to hold public hearing on Friday, January 20th at 11am; Hochul puts bail reform law improvement at top of agenda.

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Sag Harbor School Board to host community forum regarding proposed purchase of land on Marsden Street; New York State announced projects to be funded under Downtown Riverhead Revitalization Grant.

Donate to Long Island's only NPR station at wliwfm.org during our end-of-year fund drive. Your gift will be match dollar for dollar up to $100,000 now through December 31st, thanks to our board of trustees.

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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State standardized testing undergoing changes; new legislation replaces the word "alien with "noncitizen"; porta-potty to remain in Sagaponack for tradespeople and laborers; Manhattan couple hopes to launch cannabis delivery service in January; Housing organizer faces extreme push-back; man convicted in murder of romantic rival; high number of sea turtles turn up cold-stunned due to climate changes.

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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18 people indicted for gang-related incidents; new report finds that New York Metro commutes take longer than in any other city; Anthony Carter named as next chief of police on provisional basis; Marine Corps veteran to move to new home built by Habitat for Humanity; two public hearings to be held by Riverhead Town officials regarding land use for facilities that convert materials to renewable energy sources; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers begin second phase of dredging as part of Fire Island to Montauk Point project.

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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NHL-sized hockey rink hits development snag; MTA announce large step forward in opening new East Side Access terminal; stray bullet from Maidstone Gun Club hits house and misses two contractors in East Hampton; Mattituck farm receives grant for economic development; James Kiernan appointed as chief of town police department; New York cannabis regulators scrap rule in an effort to get sales started.

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Members of jury that convicted Michael Valva attend sentancing in hopes of closure after difficult case; organic grass playing field at Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreation Center is complete; MTA cracking down on alcohol on LIRR trains and in stations during SantaCon; New York's poverty rate higher than national average; Riverhead Town officials schedule two public hearings regarding proposed land use for renewable energy sources; new proposal to create Historically Black Beachfront Communities Overlay District in Sag Harbor Village will be topic of hearing on December 13th.

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Number of applications to SUNY schools rises sharply with fee waived; fee on red-light camera violations repealed; East Hampton Town holding public presentation on shifting to private homes to electric power from 4pm to 5:30pm tonight (Dec 7) at LTV Studios at 75 Industrial Road, Wainscott; couple who broke into Sag Harbor home arrested and charged in multiple burglaries; NYS commissioners of education and health recommend communities and schools take precautions against the flu, RSV, and Covid-19; Breeze Airways announces two new flights from MacArthur; new efforts to defend the coast against increasingly violent storms receives funding, with 3 projects slated for Long Island.

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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End to fuel tax cap to have minimal effect; developer pulls out of sublet at last minute in Sag Harbor Village; Town officials took too long to approve Sonic drive-in on Route 58; prominent Republicans want Lee Zeldin to become next Republican National Committee chairman; social security numbers of Suffolk County employees may have been exposed during cyber attack; windmill lighting to take place tonight at 5pm at Stony Brook Southampton College campus; annual Wooden Wonderland at Suffolk County Historical Society to take place tomorrow (Dec 3) from 10am to 4pm; LI arts groups receive nearly $3 million in state grants.

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Town of Southampton purchase land next to Water Mill; most expensive home listed for sale on Long Island is on the market for $43 million; Windmill lighting at Stony Brook Southampton College campus to be held tomorrow evening from 5pm to 7pm; MTA considers many drastic measures to address $3 billion annual deficit; LI holds highest weekly COVID-19 reinfection rate; annual Big Duck lighting rescheduled for tonight at 7pm.

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Airflow system creates obstacle to finishing Grand Central Madison station and completing East Side Access; Riverhead is close to purchasing property for new Town Hall location; The Yellow Barn at Riverhead Free Library to receive state funding; rescued sea turtles arrive at Atlantic Marine Conservation Society in Westhampton; federal government says it will back mortgages of more than $1 million in high-cost areas including Long Island; federal infrastructure funding to target outdated septic systems on Long Island; New York State Cannabis Control Board approves first round of retail licenses.

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Need for food banks rising on Long Island; Governor Hochul allows college athletes to make money; Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade back at full scale; several theories for cause of deadly private plane crash arise; Southampton Town Board to hold public hearings on zoning code provisions; two turkey trots happening on Thanksgiving in Mattituck and Montauk; further election result breakdowns emerge from NYS governor's race.

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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MTA needs waiver to complete East Side Access project; NYS Education Department orders school districts to stop using mascots and imagery that depict Native Americans; East Hampton girls swimming team has state champion; NYS takes significant step toward launching legal market for recreational cannabis; Aquebogue man arrested in Penn Station after making anti-Semitic online threats; parking vehicles on "non-driveway areas" of front lawns is now a violation of Riverhead Town Code; and a $70 million real estate sale breaks a record.

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Suffolk County to increase number of campsites with electric hookups; judge halts reconstruction of Schiavoni family commercial building; Long Island tourism industry poised for banner year in 2023; 25-mile cable approved to connect wind-energy array to Holbrook electric grid; Zeldin eyes chair of Republican National Committee; food donation season starts early to help the needy for thanksgiving; blame put on Mayor Eric Adams for poor midterm performance by New York State Democrats.

Donate to the Island Harvest Food Bank online at www.islandharvest.org/. Island Harvest Food Bank has sites in Uniondale, Melville, Brentwood, and Calverton.

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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East Hampton Airport legal saga continues; charter school network receives $7 million gift; East Hampton School Board authorizes use of $994,993 for maintenance; construction to begin on underground power cable in Wainscott; PSEG Long Island ranked last among large eastern utility companies; panel on water quality will take place tonight starting at 5pm at Southampton Arts Center; and a complex system are needed to protect Long Island's South Shore communities amid climate change-driven storm surges and rising sea levels.

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Catholic charities receives grant to aid Ukrainian refugees; $11 billion in taxpayer money given out during loosened criteria for unemployment during the pandemic; LIPA projects savings for customers; Maryhaven Center of Hope receives $5 million state grant; 7 Long Island hospitals receive "A" rating for safety; Heart of Riverhead Civic Association will present "An Introduction to Neighborhood Watch"; and the Hamptons reported to be home to 9 of the 100 most expensive zip codes in the country.

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New report may lead to NYS Regents Exams overhaul; Peconic Bay Medical Center emarking on $20 million expansion of emergency department; home heating oil prices rise; panel to take place on water quality in Southampton; and Long Islaners are urged to use public transit on the follow gridlock alert days:

Nov 16

Nov 17

Nov 22

Nov 23

Nov 30

Dec 1

Dec 2

Dec 6-9

Dec 13-15

Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Job opportunities arising from wind turbine industry; Schumer calls on moderate Republicans to denounce far-right; groundwater remediation efforts at Gabreski Airport to begin within the year; red flags appeared in chain of command prior to cyber attack on Suffolk County's computer systems; analysis shows Governor Hochul won over most Black voters; and a minke whale was found by a group of paddleboarders in Goose Creek.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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GOP controls four of the U.S. House seats on Long Island for the first time since 1994; Zeldin expresses "zero regret" over running for governor; Veterans Day Service will take place at Agawam Park; local housing markets hurt by rising mortgage rates but not so much on the East End; homeowners in beach-rights case asked to have a judge held in contempt of court; Zeldin concedes to Governor Hochul; GOP runs strongest campaign for New York governor in decades.

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Midterm election results have mostly been reported. Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has defeated Republican Lee Zeldin, making the incumbent the first woman to be elected governor in New York, and all three ballot measures proposed for East End voters have passed.

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Today is Election Day. Look up your voter registration at voterlookup.elections.ny.gov. Polls will remain open until 9pm tonight.

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Tomorrow is Election Day. Early voting has ended, and all registered voters must go to their polling place tomorrow between 6am and 9pm to cast their votes.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Early voting begins tomorrow; Sag Harbor residents to vote on school district's purchase of land; Lee Zeldin tells NYC parents he wants armed guards in schools; Zeldin campaign under investigation for coordinating with super PACs; new company seeks to build indoor sports facilities and multipurpose outdoor fields in Calverton. The WLIW-FM remembers the legacy of Dr. Wallace "Wally" Smith. Wally was a renowned public media leader, with a distinguished career from managing the largest classical music station in LA, founding American Public Media, to becoming General Manager of WPPB, and most recently General Manager Emerita of WLIW-FM. He was beloved East End community member and will be missed by all who knew him. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Covid pandemic leaves significant impact on state test scores for New York students; Southampton launches pilot programs to address traffic at busy intersections; Eastport-South Manor school district discipline students over racist TikTok video; Governor Hochul and Lee Zeldin set to debate tonight (October 25th) at 7pm; site plan for firearms facility passes preliminary approval; Southold Police Chief Martin Flatley returns after suspension. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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School districts struggling with staffing shortages across many departments; Zeldin attacker set to be released; land in Brentwood to be converted in offshore wind training center; businesses charging potentially illegal amount in credit card surcharges; Riverhead Town Board meeting sees support of proposed code to regular marijuana sales; New York State in historic moment in politics; LaLota and Fleming clash in debate hosted by Newsday for open seat in the 1st Congressional District. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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New York State Supreme Court judge blocks Town of East Hampton from closing Wainscott airport; Michael Valva and Angela Pollina plead not guilty to second-degree murder and child abuse; Hamptons Observatory presents free virtual lecutre; seaplane crash that resulted in death of Kent Feuerring may have been caused by single missing bolt; Riverhead Town extends moratorium on commercial solar energy systems; attorney representing victims of fatal Noyac fire criticizes Suffolk County district attorney and Suffolk County Police Department homicide squad. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Suffolk County seize nearly 300 neglected pets in Miller Place; fishermen win in final decision over Truck Beach; Hamptons Observatory presents free, virtual lecture by Nobel-Prize recipient; Zeldin gains on Hochul in latest major poll; Westhampton Beach School District residents to vote on $33 million bond for wide-ranging upgrades; Sag Harbor residents organize against school district buying land for athletic complex. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Zeldin downplays Trump endorsement; Hochul lead shrinks some; Georgia woman rescued by US Coast Guard following kayak death in Northampton; house where trafic fire took place has been demolished; Riverhead Town to award funds from American Rescue Plan; summer heat causes record number of fish kills, die-offs, and toxic tides. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Voter Information: What is the voter registration deadline? In-person: Oct. 14, 2022 By mail: postmarked by Oct. 14, 2022 Online: Oct. 14, 2022

Is absentee/mail-in voting available to all voters? No What is the absentee/mail-in ballot request deadline? In-person: Nov. 7, 2022 By mail: Received by Oct. 24, 2022 Online: Oct. 24, 2022

What is the absentee/mail-in ballot return deadline? In-person: Nov. 8, 2022 By mail: Postmarked by Nov. 8, 2022

Is early voting available to all voters? Yes What are the early voting start and end dates? Oct. 29, 2022 to Nov. 6, 2022 Are all voters required to present ID at the polls? No When are polls open on Election Day? 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday, November 8, 2022. Voter registration forms are available online by going to the New York State Board of Elections website at https://www.elections.ny.gov/ (elections.ny.gov). Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Voter Information: What is the voter registration deadline? In-person: Oct. 14, 2022 By mail: postmarked by Oct. 14, 2022 Online: Oct. 14, 2022

Is absentee/mail-in voting available to all voters? No What is the absentee/mail-in ballot request deadline? In-person: Nov. 7, 2022 By mail: Received by Oct. 24, 2022 Online: Oct. 24, 2022

What is the absentee/mail-in ballot return deadline? In-person: Nov. 8, 2022 By mail: Postmarked by Nov. 8, 2022

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Hochul directs State Division of Human Rights to investigate Connetquot Schools for banning LGBTQ+ pride flags; many theories are tested to address traffic issues on the South Fork; abortion becomes significant issue for Long Island voters; local officials answer questions regarding affordable housing; Calverton Aviation & Technology has no plans for air freight cargo terminal; Nassau and Suffolk voters split in poll about governor; Zeldin uses shooting outside his home to amplify his messaging. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Voter information: What is the voter registration deadline? • In-person: Oct. 14, 2022 • By mail: Postmarked by Oct. 14, 2022 • Online: Oct. 14, 2022 Is absentee/mail-in voting available to all voters? No What is the absentee/mail-in ballot request deadline? • In-person: Nov. 7, 2022 • By mail: Received by Oct. 24, 2022 • Online: Oct. 24, 2022 What is the absentee/mail-in ballot return deadline? • In-person: Nov. 8, 2022 • By mail: Postmarked by Nov. 8, 2022 Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Single-engine plane pilot killed in crash near East Hampton; Police Chief Steven Skrynecki dies at his home in Hicksville; WLIW-FM presents Indigenous Youth Nation on Indigenous Peoples' Day; federal judge blocks portions of proposed NYS gun law; work begins to revamp Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center; and vacant warehouses may dot Long Island soon. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Advocates pushing for faster release of students' standardized test results; Suffolk's largest police union suing Suffolk County; The Riverhead Planning Board holding public on site plan application where a firearm training facility and gun range are proposed; Schmidt’s Market & Produce shutting down in two weeks due to rent hike; report proposed safety measures for limousine industry; Coffee with a Cop held in Riverhead successfully; Surf Lodge faces yet another fine. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Voter Information: What is the voter registration deadline? • In-person: Oct. 14, 2022 • By mail: Postmarked by Oct. 14, 2022 • Online: Oct. 14, 2022 Is absentee/mail-in voting available to all voters? No What is the absentee/mail-in ballot request deadline? • In-person: Nov. 7, 2022 • By mail: Received by Oct. 24, 2022 • Online: Oct. 24, 2022 What is the absentee/mail-in ballot return deadline? • In-person: Nov. 8, 2022 • By mail: Postmarked by Nov. 8, 2022 Is early voting available to all voters? Yes What are the early voting start and end dates? Oct. 29, 2022 to Nov. 6, 2022 Are all voters required to present ID at the polls? No When are polls open on Election Day? 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday, November 8, 2022. Voter registration forms are available online by going to the New York State Board of Elections website at https://www.elections.ny.gov/ (elections.ny.gov). Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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NY Post reports that New York State spends twice the national average on school aid per child; many against a new underground cable turned out at LIPA meeting; developer will be required to analyze impacts of proposed warehouse in Riverhead; South Fork Wind Farm faces pushback from fishermen; Coffee with a Cop Day returns; New York State begins reviewing applications for licenses. Riverhead police officers will be at the following locations from 8:30am to 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday: Bean and Bagel Café, 4426 Middle Country Road, Calverton El Deli Chapin & Grocery, 303 Osborn Avenue, Riverhead Goldberg’s Bagels, 138 E. Main Street, Riverhead Duffy’s Deli, 1566 Main Road, Jamesport

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Long Island schools earmark over half a billion dollars in initiatives for pandemic recovery; Coffee with a Cop Day is back in Riverhead; LIRR crew train for first new stretch of territory in over a century; more Long Islanders died from Covid in the past summer than 2020 or 2021; farmworkers now entitled to overtime after 40 hours of work beginning in January 2023; and none of the hundreds of clergy sex abuse cases filed against the Roman Catholic Church have been settled. Riverhead police officers will be at the following locations from 8:30am to 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday: Bean and Bagel Café, 4426 Middle Country Road, Calverton El Deli Chapin & Grocery, 303 Osborn Avenue, Riverhead Goldberg’s Bagels, 138 E. Main Street, Riverhead Duffy’s Deli, 1566 Main Road, Jamesport

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Brookhaven Town Board approves new district map despite opposition from crowd; Long Island Cares send food, clothing, and supplies to Ukraine, Riverhead CAP seeks volunteers to help teach "Drug and Alcohol Prevention Program"; Southampton Town Councilwoman Cynthia McNamara expresses concern over proposed affordable housing; Oktoberfest events taking place around the East End; and Long Island's business community called on to be more inclusive of smaller businesses, especially those owned by people of color. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Education leaders say New York State Regents exams should be reviewed; development plan presented for Riverhead LIRR station; Springs school district seeks parents, guardians, and community members to join committees; East End Food Institute seeks to bring locally grown food to more people; Polio declared "imminent threat to public health"; Hochul opposes renaming Colombus Day to Indigenous Peoples' Day despite Colombus bloody, exploitative legacy; and East Hampton Town Trustees and East Hampton Town Police Department Marine Patrol call for steeper fines and penalties for illegal shellfish harvesting. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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New York Civil Liberties Union sues Suffolk County Police Department; Hochul maintains strong lead over Zeldin; Mattituck-Cutchogue Junior-Senior High School sustains "extensive damage"; program offers introduction to careers in off-shore wind; SouthamptonFest returns; Hochul highlights endorsement from prominent police union; Democrats hope to win back Long Island suburbs. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Suffolk County civil services exams postponed; i-tri seeks to help underserved middle school-aged girls; Riverhead town board to hold hearing regarding redevelopment; Republicans and Democrats compete for independent voters in New York State; proposed bill in NYS senate seeks to protect kids online; and cannabis entrepreneurs frustrated to be restricted to industrial areas. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Bow-hunting lottery to be held in Riverhead; gas prices swing back down; two water main projects are under way in Southold; team of cybercriminals take responsibility for attack on Suffolk County systems; how will Trump's presence impact the GOP in New York? Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Suffolk County working to send out paper checks to those most in need after shutdown of county systems; rise in number of jobs on Long Island partly offset by rising interest rates; Hamptons Marathon to take place this weekend in Village of Southampton; office workers slowly beginning return to working in offices; Zeldin claims Hochul has not yet committed to debate; lottery for bow-hunting season to be held at Riverhead Town Hall. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Long Islanders pay tribute to those lost on 9/11; snow days will remain on LI; South Fork Wind to hold virtual open house tonight; cannabis sales already taking place discretely on Long Island Indian reservations; and a large mulch fire is under investigation. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Local response to the death of Queen Elizabeth II; Harborfest to take place this weekend; residents express dismay over improper ambulance billing; some Suffolk County websites and emails were taken down due to potential "cyber intrusion"; South Fork Wind to hold virutal open house; consumers are spending money in more places putting strain on traditional supermarkets. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Natural gas prices to increase dramatically; consulting firm working on Hampton Bays redevelopment voluntarily leaves contract; "Hope and Recovery" event taking place Thursday, September 8th at 5:15pm in Hampton Bays; commuters see brand-new Penn Station; Farm Laborers Wage Board vote to reduce number of hours needed to receive overtime; American Airlines flies last flight out of MacArthur Airport; Zeldin chooses to stick by Trump despite risks. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Long Island based immigration advocates prepare to help anyone who arrives on LI; new species of stinging jellyfish seen off of the South Shore; new booster shot released to better combat new Covid strains; coastal erosion and real estate prices at odds with old-school Montauk culture; race between Hochul and Zeldin to intensify over the coming weeks; South Fork Wind developers to hold virtual open house; and Riverhead town to present proposed marijuana regulations. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Long Island now at Severe Drought status; flashing light program at Canoe Place Road reinstated; Sag Harbor BOE to hold forum on $13.5 million capital improvement project; illegal dumping found in Yaphank pine barrens; Russion oligarch mansion raided by FBI; LI home prices overvalued, according to new report. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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New York State bans concealed firearms from "sensitive zones"; cones at Canoe Place Road in Hampton Bays abruptly removed due to permitting; confusion cleared over requiring ID to buy canned whipped cream; efforts underway to restore Lake Agawam; South Fork Wind developers to hold virtual open house; many respond positively to Westhampton Beach revitalization; and many on Long Island begin to unionize. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Gov. Hochul accepts donations from appointees of the governor; Zeldin thinks his race could benefit from federal raid on Trump's home; Labor Day weekend will see large amounts of travel; People's United Bank set to finish merging with M&T during holiday weekend; New York State United Teachers issues new report with recommendations; return to school will be mostly "normal" this year; state court denies appeal by East Hampton Town over ongoing airport saga. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Owners of illegal vacation rental facing 29 violations after fatal fire; schools reopening with few to no Covid precautions; Gov. Ron DeSantis pulls out of Zeldin fundraiser due to "tragedy"; historic Southampton movie theater in contract for new ownership; Sen. Schumer calls on student loan providers to step up staffing; "automatic expungement" of low-level marijuana possession convictions creates confusion. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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State test results to be released sooner after test is administered; Riverhead school students get new sidewalk; Riverhead Town officials and Ukrainian residents celebrate Ukrainian Independence Day; Flanders to see large land acquisitions by Southampton Town; results of unprecedented set of primaries come back; NYS began accepting applications for retail marijuana licenses; and a couple of medical experts dispute new study on Paxlovid. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Tuckahoe School BOE approves hiring armed school guard; application for NYS license to sell recreational marijuana opens today; colleges and universities return with few Covid protocols; Mayor Jesse Warren acknowledges "unbearable" traffic; and a shady contract with a consulting firm uses the word "neutralize" in reference to opponents of zoning plan. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Results of last night's unprecedented set primary elections; crab poachers become aggressive; Hochul ahead of Zeldin by 24 points in recent poll; Tuckahoe School Board of Education hires retired Southampton Town Police Officer as an armed school guard. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Primaries held today for congressional race; back-to-school season expected to be more "normal" than past years; LIPA shows positive financial improvements; Westhampton Beach School District seeks $33 million bond for infrastructure upgrades; Inflation Reduction Act gives strong incentives for customers to switch to green energy. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Long Island sees longest sustained stretch of high number of Covid-19 cases; academic ratings return across NYS; predicted low voter turnout for both parties' primaries create unique situation; MTA to hold virtual public hearings; Purple Heart veteran and labrador mix puppy become first pair in new adoption program; Riverhead Anti-Bias Task Force to hold bullying prevention workshop; and many Manhattan voters will likely not return from the Hamptons to vote. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Officials plead for residents to stop watering lawns overnight as the South Shore reaches severe drought status; outside money floods New York congressional races; Hamptons Cannabis Expo taking place this weekend; continued bay scallop die-offs reported in Peconic Estuary; East Hampton town to give employees bonus to offset expensive living costs. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Brookhaven Town approves condemnation of bus depot for Ronkonkoma Hub project; Flanders, Riverside, and Northampton Community Association receives grant to train citizen scientists; Hochul and Zeldin want to hold a debate; outdoor kitchen may be cause of tragic Noyack house fire; Manhattan plans to increase tolls to discourage use of cars; study shows mostly voters over 50 participating in primaries; and East Hampton starts affordable rental development. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Suffolk County Water Authority plea to reduce water usage goes largely ignored; former Governor Andrew Cuomo will not need to pay back proceeds from book deal; four defendants plead guilty in theft from East Hampton Balenciaga; and proposed ice hockey rink is shifted to Veterans Memorial Park in Calverton. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Shinnecock Indian Nation receives federal funding for transportation; Nunley's Carousel set to reopen after pandemic; Suffolk OTB may sell Medford property and be replaced with warehouse; controversial golf course proposal set to go before public; electric scooter company abandons plans for Riverhead; and Bridgehampton may receive community center and affordable apartments. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Suffolk County to revive gunshot detection program; U.S. Department of Transportation turns down Town of Riverhead application; Spotted Lanternfly poses big risk for Long Island; MTA struggling; Primary elections to be held on Tuesday August 23rd; and record high water temperatures lead to fish die-offs. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Five individuals face charges stemming from large retirement party held during early stages of the pandemic; plan for NHL-size ice rink in Riverhead falls through; East Hampton Town beaches reopen after shark sighting closures; dozens of citizens voice opinion on development that was not on Sag Harbor Village board agenda; Captain James Ginas appointed as acting chief of Southold Police Department; Riverhead Town Board considering extending moratorium on commercial solar energy project applications; and New York Times article explores new generation of business owners in Montauk. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Recently passed federal bill could reimburse homeowners who need to elevate their homes; judge claims that East Hampton town must pay back over $500,00 in legal fees over "truck beach" case; Suffolk County legislature postpones fundraiser after expose in Newsday; East End lawmakers support deer-reduction program; redistricting affects voters with little information; Emil Norsic & Son sold; and a farm seeks clearance to use land for animal husbandry. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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A majority of last year's high school graduates were exempt from NYS Regents exams; Port Jefferson judge rules in favor of ice cream shop-owner's right to hang pro-Trump flags on mainstreet; Long Island is on a drought watch; Nick Caracappa accused of blending charity work and political fundraising; Suffolk County receives over 4,000 monkeypox vaccines; and Sag Harbor School District gets new athletic director. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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East Quogue School District hosts emergency Board of Education meeting interim superintendent and principal; Police attempting to identify dead man found in Sag Harbor Cove; $5,000 rewards offered for information about those destroying shorebird nests and eggs; Hochul asserts that bail reform laws do not need further changes and seeks to replace the word "inmate" with "incarcerated person" in state law; Schumer touts benefits of Inflation Reduction Act for Long Islanders. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Rip currents on Long Island; Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) joins elected officials and veterans advocates to call for passage of bill to nationalize the New York State veteran peer-to-peer program; pediatricians worry not enough kids will be vaccinated in time for school year; man arrested for threatening mass harm; and a deer management program proposed to control lyme's disease. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Southampton Village weighing options for new police chief; Southampton Village Mayor Jesse Warren attempts to give Shinnecock members beach access; NYS police report 104% increase in firearm seizures; tragic Noyack fire may serve to prevent future fatal fires; Riverhead town board authorizes purchase of Peconic Bay Medical Center Campus for use as new Town Hall; PSEG Long Island and Stop & Shop collectong food for Island Harvest Food Bank at the Riverhead Stop & Shop today, August 5th, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; and Sagaponack and Wainscott work together to address dangerous traffic conditions. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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A tragic house fire kills two sisters vacationing from Maryland; Long Island man sentanced to 30 years in prison after making repeated threats to terrorize LGBTQ+ community; Riverhead decides not to create affordable housing fund; and 24 warehouse projects proposed on Long Island. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Suffolk County Water Authority officials expand water emergency conditions; LIPA employees to receive new pay perks under programs expected to be rolled out throughout the next year; PSEG Long Island and Stop & Shop collecting food for Island Harvest Food Bank at the Riverhead Stop & Shop Friday August 5th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; and Riverhead Town Supervisor Yvette Aguiar stops firearms store hearing from going forward. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Long Island officials address drought watch; Governor Hochul in lead over Lee Zeldin; Long Islanders urged to get vaccinate and vaccinate children against polio; and record number of residents turn to food pantries amid inflation. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Suffolk County on state drought watch; Republicans vote to delay aid for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits; 24-hour speed cameras activated throughout New York City; Federal Aviation Administration extends deadline for North Shore helicopter route; fishermen ask for catch limits; cost of water in Riverhead may go up again; and LI officials step up efforts to spot sharks. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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LIPA staff raising concerns over PSEG computer system; Riverhead Town seeks help from Navy to address public drinking water; Suffolk County's $2.6 million public campaign finance program dies; LIRR will not be using battery-powered trains; East End retailers face difficulties; "Paxmobile" begins operating; attack on Lee Zeldin becomes new flash point in NYS gubernatorial campaign. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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LIRR projects struggle to regain ridership after pandemic changes; Suffolk County accepting grant applications to combat opioid crisis; Lee Zeldin supports same-sex marriage bill but not a right to contraception; state marine officials respond to recent shark bites; and Brookhaven Town Local Development Corp fails to properly monitor job creation. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Peconic Land Trust buys historic farmland; Riverhead Town receives further Covid relief funding; federally funded program to help NYers cool their homes will stop taking new applications; animal rights groups launch campaign amid proposed bill for Hochul to decide on; Southold Historical Museum applying for grant to build "untold stories" exhibit; Suffolk County Police chief among highest-paid county works; and father of late singer Selena is suing a Patchogue music promoter. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Another shark bite on Fire Island; Southampton Town approves sending the creation of a Community Housing fund to voters; East Hampton Town reaches settlement with family of man killed in bicycle accident; consumer prices in NYC metro area rose 6.7% in June; Keep Kids Fed Act only funded through the summer; search underway for man who jumped into Shinnecock Canal; and LI commuters frustrated with MTA. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and wliw.org/radio.

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Long Islanders encouraged to wear masks in crowded situations; Riverhead Industrial Development Agency approves assistance for new building at 205 Osborn Avenue; food pantries struggling with rising grocery prices; Lee Zeldin says man who fatally stabbed someone should not be charged with murder; and New York State is taking applications for grants for building projects on Long Island. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Shinnecock Nation breaks ground on region's first indigenous-owned cannabis company; protestors block East Hampton Airport; Governor Hochul continues fight for gun control in New York State; Ronkonkoma-area residents have mixed views on redevelopment plan; and NYS health officials launch free Covid hotline 888-TREAT-NY. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Shinnecock hold rally for beach access; 6 people arrested after rally against income inequality; Schumer tests positive for Covid; Ronkonkoma redevelopment plan open houses; Southold Town vote on rezoning; "How to Speak with Your Kids About Suicide and Other Difficult Subjects" at Riverhead Free Library; and many laborers forced to live in squalid conditions in The Hamptons. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Hochul announces money available for water infrastructure; the tragic death of a young boy in Sagaponack is the second fatal bicycle accident this week; state regulators identify unlicensed marijuana sellers; two Long Islanders receive Presidential Medal of Freedom; and corruption in Albany. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Suffolk Supreme Court pits the Town of East Hampton against waterfront homeowners in Napeague; Peconic Jitney won't bring ferry service back to Sag Harbor and Greenport until next year at the earliest; federal civil lawsuit alleges Suffolk County police assaulted woman who tried to assist a gunshot victim because she is African American; Southold Town officials may announce disciplinary charges for police officer that violated state Covid-19 regulations; Suffolk County Department of Health Services conducting private water well surveys in Calverton; Riverhead Town Board approved the final application for proposed five-story mixed-use building at 205 Osborn Avenue; and Southampton Town Board will hear the public’s opinions about a varied slate of issues. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Further shark sightings on ocean beaches; proposed Riverhead warehouse to be reviewed; Art Market Hamptons moving after dismay from neighbors; Riverhead Town Board to vote on mixed-use building; Shinnecock tribal leader Kelly Dennis selected to be part of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Secretary’s Tribal Advisory Committee; and an art exhibit about the iconic Big Duck. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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A shark attack at Smith Point on July 3rd; Ronkonkoma redevelopment proposal; renovating the Smithtown Theatre; Hochul scraps leftover Cuomo executive order; warehouse proposal to have online hearing; and July 4th on Long Island. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Please consider donating to WLIW-FM during our $50,000 Community Matching Gift Challenge. Now through June 30th, your contribution will go twice as far as our board will match every donation up to $50,000. Primary voting for New York governor begins today, and a rally will be held Wednesday, June 29th at 5:30pm in Riverhead in response to the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Please consider donating to WLIW-FM during our $50,000 Community Matching Gift Challenge. Now through June 30th, your contribution will go twice as far as our board will match every donation up to $50,000. Tomorrow is the last chance for New York voters to vote in primaries for governor, lieutenant governor, and local offices; and two Supreme Court rulings will have monumental effects on the race for governor of New York. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Please consider donating to WLIW-FM during our $50,000 Community Matching Gift Challenge. Now through June 30th, your contribution will go twice as far as our board will match every donation up to $50,000. Smithtown Library restores Pride month displays; New York State responds to US Supreme Court decision on concealed carrying of weapons; and Montauk Airport is sold to unidentified buyer. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Please consider donating to WLIW-FM during our $50,000 Community Matching Gift Challenge. Now through June 30th, your contribution will go twice as far as our board will match every donation up to $50,000. Long Island unemployment at a historic low, and East Hampton Town to purchase two large pieces of land in Montauk. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Please consider donating to WLIW-FM during our $50,000 Community Matching Gift Challenge. Now through June 30th, your contribution will go twice as far as our board will match every donation up to $50,000. Proposed gun retail legislation brings heated debate in Riverhead; and GOP gubernatorial candidates argue over who is more conservative. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Please consider donating to WLIW-FM during our $50,000 Community Matching Gift Challenge. Now through June 30th, your contribution will go twice as far as our board will match every donation up to $50,000. American Airlines to end service to MacArthur Airport; Republican gubernatorial candidates argue over Trump loyalty. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Please consider donating to WLIW-FM during our $50,000 Community Matching Gift Challenge. Now through June 30th, your contribution will go twice as far as our board will match every donation up to $50,000. Mecox Bay to be opened using hand tools only; and Juneteenth is observed both locally and nationally. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Hochul targeted by challengers in Democratic gubernatorial debate; Towns of Riverhead, Southampton, and Southold recognize Juneteenth with closings and events; environmental and health agencies update allowable levels of PFOS and PFOA in drinking water; Sag Harbor to see new potential affordable housing units; and the Federal Reserve interest rate increase leads to 30-year fixed mortgage rate of 5.78%. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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LIPA at odds with Town of Riverhead; Southampton Town closing certain facilities in observance of Juneteenth; East Hampton Village to hold Juneteenth celebration; Federal Reserve decision on inflation to creat short-term challenges; Riverhead Town will begin negotiations for ice rink at Stotzky Park; early voting begins June 28th; and a public hearing was held on Community Housing Fund at Southampton Town Board meeting. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Governor Kathy Hochul secures backing from most major New York Democrats including Mayor Eric Adams; Riverhead civic association considers solutions to issue of litter and trash; PSEG to hold hearing regarding underground power cable; Riverhead requires increased safety measures for certain rental units; Preservation Long Island announced Awards for Preservation Excellence; and South Shore commuters disappointed by LIRR decision. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Advanced sixth-graders may take algebra; Greenport High School freshman arrested on terroristic charges; World Trade Center responders with chronic health issues may experience more serious illness from Covid-19; GOP debate for NY governor becomes emotional; Governor Hochul and Rep. Zeldin hold hefty leads in gubernatorial race; assembly map invalidated by State Appellate Division panel; and a flag owned by the Suffolk Historical Society may have been among the first versions of the US flag. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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North Fork Strawberry festival; large fire in Bridgehampton; Andrew Giuliani plans to debate GOP opponents; principal in firearms business hoping to open in Riverhead found to be deeply racist and antisemitic; former train corridor now open to cyclists and hikers; and an update on consumer price indexes. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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New York State to pick contractor to lead Penn Station renovation; Riverhead Town Board amended code to ban marijuana around town facilities; Long Island Science Center received another large grant for rooftop planetarium; Hochul reluctant to lift public transit mask mandate; many NYS homeowners set to begin receiving tax rebate check; and Shinnecock Bay recognized as "hope spot" by international environmental group. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Local restaurant to be bought and updated; an update on the rising price of gas; GOP hopeful to win New York Governorship; sea plane service advertising again after public outcry; Southampton woman pleads guilty to fraud; Suffolk legislator term limit update; and massive growth to medical services on the East End. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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An update on the ongoing issues with East Hampton Airport; a law to limit "puppy mills"; the MTA to drop Covid-19 vaccine employee requirement; Riverhead police have charged three men with burglary; changes to Shelter Island public water; and limits on where guns can be sold in the Town of Riverhead. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Updates on threats made at Riverhead schools; Riverhead Town unveils park renovations; New York State passes new laws to curb access to weapons like those used in recent mass shooting; Supreme Court ruling could strike down long-standing NYS law on handguns; debate for Democratic Party nomination for governor; and a Montauk business arrested for theft. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am, on air at 88.3fm, 96.9fm, radio streaming apps, smart speakers, and https://www.wliw.org/radio/programs/long-island-morning-edition/ (wliw.org/radio.)

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Riverhead considering prohibiting gun stores downtown as well as integrating the Long Island Workforce Housing Act into the town's zoning code; hunting to be prohibited on grounds next to wildlife center in Hampton Bays; Suffolk "Red Flag" law could inform national debate; Juneteenth celebration to take place at Southampton African American Museum; controversial bill failed in NYS legislature; and LI community colleges consider strategies to attract more students.

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NYS legislature gives approval to biggest series of gun-control measures; another Riverhead student arrested for violent threats; Westhampton Beach Union Free School District heightens security after student makes threatening comments; County fuel tax rollbacks in effect; two men indicted in connection to overdose deaths; a Pride parade will take place in East Hampton Village on Saturday June 4th; and a seaplane service has been forced to hit the brakes after public outcry. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am.

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Gas prices predicted to reach over $5 a gallon, Suffolk County Police to add body cameras to officers, Riverhead student under arrest for terrorist threat, ongoing saga of the East Hampton airport, NYS protections for those seeking abortions, Riverhead Planning Board public hearing tonight, and Long Island's public companies being effected by inflation. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am.

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Changes to Regents exams, NYS gun violence laws, Governor Hochul campaign spending, beach vehicle access restrictions for piping plover protections, Riverhead Planning Board public hearing on changes to the former Truetech building, and MTA megaproject impacts to LIRR service. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am.

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Memorial Day events, Covid-19, Long Island children facing cuts to school food program, NYS legislature facing deadline, and a proposal to upgrade Riverhead Town Hall. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am.

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Lee Zeldin silent on gun violence; Southampton Town police officer suspended after DWI; Remsenburg-Speonk Elementary School and Raynor Country Day School reopened after lockout; LIRR denies South Fork request for additional service; ripple effect of tragic Texas mass shooting; and East Hampton Airport operating normally amid continuing legal saga. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am.

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An abrupt disruption to Regents exams, many New Yorkers relocating to Florida, LIPA expecting to save millions of dollars, drive-thru windows in Wading River, peer pressure regarding mask-wearing in workplaces, and discussions on solving the housing crisis in Southampton. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am.

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ERASE Racism's study on the impacts of segregated public schools, passage of the Adult Survivors Act, insight into the dynamics of the midterm elections, a bike-riding misadventure, the national "Click It or Ticket" campaign, and ad spending ahead of the NYS gubernatorial race. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am.

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A Newsday analysis of the shifting face of Long Island, Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn has suspending her campaign for Congress, Riverhead Town's first heritage area, New York's new congressional map, and turtles. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am.

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An update on booster shots for children, Lee Zeldin on gun ownership rights, a rejected Latin Music Festival in Riverhead, complications with the East Hampton Airport, and continually climbing gas prices. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am.

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An update on school budget outcomes, the closure of the East Hampton Town airport, the East End's housing crisis, county officials' term limits, and New York State congressional redistricting. Listen live during Morning Edition Monday through Friday, 7am to 9am.

Long Island Morning Edition: Recent Episodes

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