Longtime Southampton Town Trustee Jon Semlear said last week that he will not seek reelection to the board he has sat on since 1993 when his current term is up... more
Social media was abuzz last week with a report: An unmarked bus was dropping off adult men in the parking lot of the Macy’s shopping plaza in Hampton Bays. Speculation was rampant, and it largely followed a national narrative about an “invasion” of immigrants ending up in American communities. In fact, there’s little information on what the bus (or buses — there likely were others) was doing. It might have been seasonal workers arriving for the season, but it could have been something innocuous, like a private bus trip returning home. Police were called, but as one town official pointed ...
1 May 2024 by Editorial Board
Westhampton Beach Village officials and Police Chief Steven McManus need a lesson in optics. The revelation last week that a body camera video recorded during the investigation of an off-duty Village Police officer who rolled his truck during a single-car accident in November 2021 was not released to the public for close to a year, despite numerous requests from The Press that went unanswered for seven months, sends the wrong signal about the village’s commitment to keeping the public informed. It was only after a request from an attorney on behalf of The Press that a copy of the video ...
by Editorial Board
Permitting public employees to collect a six-figure pension while simultaneously collecting a six-figure salary is one of the reasons why New York is such a high-tax state. Though the Village of Southampton took it a step further: It wasn’t enough for the new village administrator to receive a $165,000 salary on top of a $120,000 New York Police Department pension — the Village Board just gave Administrator Anthony Carter a $50,000 pay bump, retroactive to when he started in November, in lieu of receiving village health insurance and other benefits. When a retiree already receiving taxpayer-funded health care goes back ...
by Staff Writer
The State Legislature on April 22 approved Governor Kathy Hochul’s request for $600 million in funding for several affordable housing programs, including one that would permit the construction of such units on the Stony Brook Southampton campus. But the celebration has to be put on hold for now, according to Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., because a related bill that would authorize the actual expenditure of the allocated funds has yet to pass. Thiele said he was optimistic that authorization bill could be passed before the end of the session on June 6. “The legislature had a lot of questions,” ...
by Stephen J. Kotz