This week, May 15 to 21, is National Emergency Medical Services Week, and this year’s theme is “EMS: Rising to the Challenge.” It’s a moment to recognize the selfless contributions of so many men and women in our community, and to offer some well-earned thanks...
May 17, 2022, By Editorial Board
One of the biggest hang-ups homeowners have with the existing affordable accessory apartments law in Southampton Town is that only live-in homeowners can qualify for an accessory apartment. This disqualifies many homeowners — and explains why the program is so underused. As both Southampton and...
May 17, 2022, By Editorial Board
It won’t be on the ballot next week, as the various school districts on the South Fork seek approval for 2022-23 budgets and to fill school board seats. Nevertheless, those budgets all speak volumes about the issue. School consolidation. It’s time — long past time,...
May 11, 2022, By Editorial Board
Newspaper conventions are not for readers, by design, but they can do wonders for news organizations. Over the weekend, the New York Press Association, the nation’s largest such organization, representing more than 800 newspapers published in the state, held its annual gathering in person for...
May 4, 2022, By Editorial Board
There is a map included in the draft version of East Hampton Town’s recently unveiled Coastal Assessment and Resiliency Plan that should be placed on a banner and towed behind a plane flying over the South Fork’s beaches this summer — it’s that important. It...
May 4, 2022, By Editorial Board
A search of the archives of The Southampton Press doesn’t turn up many results for Rose Walton, a former Remsenburg resident and an LGBTQ pioneer who died earlier this month at her home in Sunset Beach, Florida, with her wife, Marjorie Sherwin, and niece Robin...
Apr 28, 2022, By Editorial Board
An obstacle facing officials in the five East End towns as they begin a campaign to encourage support for a new Community Housing Fund, which would use a transfer tax to pay for affordable housing measures, is the perception that towns will try to simply...
Apr 27, 2022, By Editorial Board
As Southampton and East Hampton towns, and Sag Harbor Village, embark on efforts to finally address the growing affordable housing crisis, it’s important to take note of the story of Steve Thorsen, told at a recent Express Sessions discussion of the topic in East Hampton,...
Apr 19, 2022, By Editorial Board
There are times when success can be harder to observe than failure. Think of your car. When something is wrong, alarm bells go off, sometimes literally, and there is plenty of drama to let you know there’s a problem, whether it’s billows of smoke or...
Apr 19, 2022, By Editorial Board
A pilot program being run by Suffolk County Transit that provides on-demand bus service shows a promising future for the county bus system on the East End. It’s an innovative approach to meet the needs of area residents by recognizing that the eastern half of...
Apr 13, 2022, By Editorial Board
Two years ago, the world came to a literal and screeching halt with the arrival of COVID-19. In spring 2020, businesses and organizations both large and small shut down as people around the world rethought their strategies, adjusting to remote and online methods of working....
Apr 13, 2022, By Editorial Board
Climate change is devastating, and its worst impacts are looming, as this newspaper’s “Rising Tide” series of articles in the Residence section is dutifully documenting. But it’s not the only crisis on the horizon: There’s another, and, similarly, we’re creating it ourselves. Over the decades,...
Apr 12, 2022, By Editorial Board
Last month, plans were unveiled for much needed improvements at Mashashimuet Park in Sag Harbor. Designed by landscape architect Ed Hollander and drafted by the school district’s architectural firm, H2M, the plans recently were unveiled at a meeting of the Sag Harbor School Board after...
Apr 12, 2022, By Editorial Board
From the start, the debate over the future of East Hampton Airport is full of doomsday scenarios and calls for extreme measures from both sides. Yet the correct path for the East Hampton Town Board was always the middle of the road — certainly not...
Mar 22, 2022, By Editorial Board
Springs School officials announced last week that the district will offer a full-day prekindergarten program for students, thanks in part to a state grant for $420,000. This will accommodate a class of over 40 children in its early childhood education program, which will be run...
Feb 8, 2022, By Editorial Board
People sometimes obsess about “legacies” when they near the end of a long career, usually fruitlessly, because a person’s legacy is actually written every day, over years, in how well they did their job. Still, take a moment to appreciate the victory that East Hampton...
Feb 1, 2022, By Editorial Board
Last week’s vote by the East Hampton Town Board, approving a plan to temporarily close East Hampton Airport at the end of February, then open it three days later as a town-owned private facility, offers the rarest of things in municipal government: a chance to...
Jan 25, 2022, By Editorial Board
On Tuesday, the East Hampton Town Board announced that it would formally add the Sag Harbor Community Housing Trust property on Route 114, adjacent to 8.5 acres of land the town has already earmarked for affordable housing, to a proposed zoning overlay district allowing for...
Jan 19, 2022, By Editorial Board
A dunce cap to the East Hampton Town Board, for dumping $4.2 million of Community Preservation Fund revenues into a dubious purchase. Just three building lots, totaling less than 2 acres, will be preserved — at an ultimate cost of $6.8 million, with Buckskill neighbors...
Dec 1, 2021, By Editorial Board
One in five Americans will experience a mental illness in a given year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Trauma and stress can cause fleeting mental health issues — or an ongoing disorder. The best thing to do to prevent a manageable...
Nov 10, 2021, By Editorial Board
We Mark Our Ballot East Hampton Town residents will weigh in this week on who should lead the town through momentous change and continued challenges. The supervisor’s seat is up at the same time as two council seats. This comes as the town continues to...
Oct 29, 2021, By Editorial Board
The year was 1920. World War I had ended, Prohibition had started (no doubt with bootleggers hard at work in these parts), the country was struggling to control a deadly flu pandemic — and on September 25, 1920, East Hampton Village was incorporated. Given that...
Sep 28, 2021, By Editorial Board
Starting this week, East Hampton Town officials will begin one of the most important conversations in the town’s recent history: the future of East Hampton Airport. It’s an opportunity — in fact, the opportunity — for all sides to be heard, and just as importantly...
Sep 9, 2021, By Editorial Board
There’s a line between “getting things done” and needless haste, and it sometimes can be very difficult to identify, and usually only much, much later. East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen should keep that in mind and understand that calls for caution and careful contemplation...
Aug 31, 2021, By Editorial Board
Nobody disagrees that a new tower to improve cellular service, and emergency radio communications, in Springs and parts of Northwest Woods is not just a necessity, it’s long overdue. With that in mind, East Hampton Town officials have the right idea with a plan for...
Jul 20, 2021, By Editorial Board
Every summer, the villages and hamlets of the East End become inundated as our main streets transform into hotbeds of high-end activity: fancy cars, expensive dining options and premium shopping experiences. As a result, those of us who live and work here on a year-round...
Jul 7, 2021, By Editorial Board
It is a controversial strategy that deserves vigorous debate, beach nourishment, but the East Hampton Town Board deserves credit for opting to dump 4,000 tons of sand at Ditch Plains this week, hoping to make it more accommodating for the heart of the summer season,...
Jun 22, 2021, By Editorial Board
A Joyful Noise Let’s be honest: The pandemic has been hard on everyone, but for the young people in our midst, maneuvering through the past year of isolation has been, in many respects, downright brutal. No high school sports, no proms and graduations to look...
Jun 15, 2021, By Editorial Board
If the recent fight over access to Truck Beach seems somehow a legal battle uniquely of this place and time, consider a case exactly 200 years old, and more than 3,000 miles away. Blundell v. Catterall, to be specific, in which Mr. Catterall was sued,...
Jun 15, 2021, By Editorial Board
When a village used to very few changes gets a new administration with energy, friction is inevitable. That’s the nature of inertia: After years of remaining at rest, and getting used to it, East Hampton Village is now solidly in motion. That can be a...
Jun 1, 2021, By Editorial Board
Springs School has long been the heart of an East Hampton hamlet where families and residents rally around the school district. Springs is a community that has maintained a year-round population, with grandparents and parents in the district who once were students on School Street...
May 18, 2021, By Editorial Board
Dunce cap — To the Sag Harbor Village Board for over the past two administrations failing to seize the opportunity to aggressively pursue a long-term lease from National Grid to continue to use what is commonly referred to as the Gas Ball property as a...
Apr 13, 2021, By Editorial Board
King Solomon makes a cameo as East Hampton Town, and so many residents in the region, debate the future of East Hampton Airport. His legendary skills at settling a seemingly intractable dispute would come in handy as the Town Board considers, this fall, a new...
Apr 1, 2021, By Editorial Board
Sometimes it’s easier to tell a huge story with a small one. Scott Bluedorn is just another 34-year-old lifelong resident of East Hampton who is, quite possibly, going to lose the game of musical chairs so many working families are facing on the South Fork....
Mar 23, 2021, By Editorial Board
The Republican Party in East Hampton Town, generally, is in trouble. Its issues echo in the national party’s obsession with harebrained conspiracy theories and overtly divisive rhetoric, a populism that has new life after it helped win the White House in 2016 for a lone,...
Mar 16, 2021, By Editorial Board
Periodically, we hand out “Gold Stars and Dunce Caps” in this space. This time of year, it seems more appropriate to make them “Candy Canes and Lumps of Coal”: CANDY CANE: To Heart of the Hamptons, the Southampton Village-based charity, for diving ahead with the...
Dec 10, 2020, By Editorial Board
Aristotle once said politics and teaching were “noble professions.” That might still be true for teachers, but he wouldn’t recognize the most basic political campaign these days, and he’d struggle to find nobility in it. That’s true at the national level, but it’s sadly trickling...
Sep 22, 2020, By Editorial Board
It must be noted: In both Southampton and East Hampton villages this year, the voters (and local newspapers) have a wealth of candidates to choose from — and the quality of those candidates is truly exceptional. Rare is the local election when it can be...
Sep 10, 2020, By Editorial Board
Confirmation, if it was necessary, came last week at a Virtual Sessions event sponsored by the Express News Group: The South Fork is in the midst of a transformation. It might have been coming regardless, but the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the natural pace of...
Aug 11, 2020, By Editorial Board
There is no sugar-coating it: The Class of 2020 got ripped off. There was no prom, no senior skip day, none of the anticipation and celebration of a traditional graduation ceremony. But something splendid happened. In every school district, teachers, administrators and support staff came...
Jun 30, 2020, By Editorial Board
The fluid nature of the state’s response to the COVID-19 epidemic and, in particular, to school districts being allowed to host graduation ceremonies for departing seniors has left many district officials reeling this week, as they try to determine whether they can change course quickly...
Jun 9, 2020, By Editorial Board
This week, the Express News Group will take a step long discussed but never implemented until now: Anonymous commenting — in fact, commenting of all types — is being eliminated from 27east.com. A small portion of our readership will scream, “Censorship!” (people really do need...
Jun 9, 2020, By Editorial Board
Last week’s Zoom-driven Press Sessions conversation, which focused on the changing nature of small-town business districts in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, offered a great deal of insight, from both business owners and local officials. But perhaps the most important note came toward the...
May 26, 2020, By Editorial Board
Residents across New York State will vote on school budgets and in school board elections over the next two weeks, with mail-in ballots due in district clerk offices by June 9. While we have generally advocated for strong support of public education — which involves...
May 26, 2020, By Editorial Board
Memorial Day weekend is a line of demarcation for the South Fork, a moment to stop and take stock before diving headfirst into the summer. Needless to say, this is a holiday weekend like no other, and we wanted to take a moment to share...
May 21, 2020, By Editorial Board
We need to get back to work. It’s a phrase that’s been on everyone’s lips lately. With each passing day, and each lost dollar, people’s resolve is tested. When will this long, lonely nightmare be over? When will things get back to normal? When will...
May 12, 2020, By Editorial Board
The voyage down from the peak of the novel coronavirus pandemic’s impact locally is not an end in itself. Even with the height of optimism, we have months to worry about a flare-up should social distancing and other aggressive measure be relaxed too swiftly. Impatience...
May 2, 2020, By Editorial Board
The narrative from the city tabloids and some national, and even international, publications has been clear: The Hamptons is ablaze with class warfare, and COVID-19 has fanned the flames. Without question, there have been a few instances, and some grousing. Most of it was based...
Apr 30, 2020, By Editorial Board
For our own safety, and as an essential strategy in defeating the COVID-19 outbreak, the American economy has been locked down tight. After so many weeks of self-quarantine and social distancing, unemployment checks and shuttered businesses, the grumbling has begun. Just how long are we...
Apr 23, 2020, By Editorial Board
This week, the Express News Group features a guest editorial by Judy Patrick, vice president for editorial development for the New York Press Association, which includes more than 800 community newspapers and news sources in New York State. From afar, the COVID-19 pandemic is generating...
Apr 16, 2020, By Editorial Board
By now, you’ve heard your fill about social distancing, symptoms to watch out for, using videoconferencing to stay in touch with friends and family, how to keep your kids busy, the best cleaning products to use, 20 seconds of hand washing … Here’s a message...
Apr 1, 2020, By Editorial Board
Who would have thought the whole world could turn upside down in just a few weeks? The rate of change has been staggering, leaving people on the East End, on Long Island, across the country and around the world staggering to keep up with a...
Mar 24, 2020, By Editorial Board
The use of the definite article in at least one local context ground to a halt late last month when East Hampton Town highway workers removed two “Welcome to the Springs” signs on Springs-Fireplace Road that had greeted drivers for almost three decades. After a...
Mar 3, 2020, By Editorial Board
Success Story As Black History Month comes to a close, February delivered a devastating blow with the death of B. Smith, whose pioneering role as an African American entrepreneur cannot be overstated. Barbara Elaine Smith’s business empire came from modest roots, fed by a passion...
Feb 25, 2020, By Editorial Board
“Parasite” runs two hours and 12 minutes. If you wanted to see the Oscar-winning film, if a matinée happened to be playing at the East Hampton Cinema this weekend, and if you happened to secure a parking spot in the Reutershan lot, you’d still be...
Feb 11, 2020, By Editorial Board
Last week’s Press Sessions discussion focusing on the East Hampton Airport and its future was a start of a conversation that needs to dig much, much deeper. The fact that the debate wasn’t altogether acrimonious was a good start. The fact that it was a...
Feb 4, 2020, By Editorial Board
Let’s start with a basic point: Medicine is a science. Certainly, there are disagreements within the medical community over its practice from time to time. But it’s generally a good rule of thumb to give credence to doctors and medical researchers when it comes to...
Jan 21, 2020, By Editorial Board
“Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country” was the message of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address in 1961, less than three years before his assassination in November 1963. And, although they are probably much...
Jan 21, 2020, By Editorial Board
When it comes to child care and providing safe — and, ideally, enriching — activities for their children, working parents on the East End often hit a wall. School districts are far more generous with vacation time than most private employers, which leaves many parents...
Jan 21, 2020, By Editorial Board
This Friday, January 17, the East Hampton Village Board will appoint a mayor to serve until a regularly scheduled election can be held in June — the previous mayor, Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., having decided to step down at the end of last year, before...
Jan 9, 2020, By Editorial Board
Back in October, President Donald Trump retweeted a quote from Robert Jeffress Jr., an American Southern Baptist pastor and a frequent contributor to Fox News Channel, from one of his regular appearances there: “If the Democrats are successful in removing the president from office, I’m...
Dec 19, 2019, By Editorial Board
It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to consider marine animal strandings, like that of a minke whale at Northwest Creek on November 21, as a form of communication. After all, whales and dolphins speak to one another in their own respective languages, and...
Dec 2, 2019, By Editorial Board
Once upon a time, shopkeepers in East Hampton Village all knew your name and your shirt size, the way you liked your hair cut, and who your family members were — and asked after them. The stores were open year-round, and most wares and services...
Nov 22, 2019, By Editorial Board
It’s just a little too easy to pile on to local government for what many consider to be over-regulation. What better sport than to poke fun at official sourpusses who get their kicks from throwing a wet blanket over live music and outdoor store displays?...
Nov 18, 2019, By Editorial Board
This has been an odd and, sadly, uneven race for East Hampton Town supervisor and the two council seats now held by Peter Van Scoyoc, Sylvia Overby and David Lys, three Democrats on an entirely Democratic Town Board. For several reasons, there will be not...
Oct 25, 2019, By Editorial Board
Old FriendsIt’s a shame when noble, established trees come crashing down in storms like the recent nor’easters. In East Hampton Village, a small handful of trees recently blew over or were damaged to the point of being structurally unsound, and they had to be cut...
Oct 22, 2019, By Editorial Board
Rally For IndependentsAs if we needed another reason to take the profit motive out of health care: Allow us to introduce pharmacy benefits managers.As noted in a story last week, PBMs, as they are called, actually were introduced decades ago as a way to negotiate...
Oct 21, 2019, By Editorial Board
Festive Times You wouldn’t know the season was supposed to be over in Montauk last weekend, when thousands of visitors and locals swarmed the green to check out pumpkin painting and bounce castles, bratwurst and mugs of chowder, live music and local brews, plus a...
Oct 14, 2019, By Editorial Board
Sail On, Sail On, SailorAt a certain level you really have to hand it to him. Here’s a 21-year-old pining for a new life. So, naturally, he travels 2,500 miles to Montauk, hops on a sailboat he purchased one day earlier on eBay, and rounds...
Oct 7, 2019, By Editorial Board
In The Same RoomClimate change was on just about everyone’s radar last week, especially with the news that the oceans are warming so much, and so quickly, that seafood supplies are threatened, extreme weather patterns are intensifying, and coastal communities are in serious danger.Not surprisingly,...
Sep 30, 2019, By Editorial Board
As Greta Thunberg and David Hogg would testify, the degree of adult hostility leveled at teenagers who care about the world they inhabit can sometimes be astonishing. Even while adopting a condescending “Don’t worry your pretty little head” attitude, a very significant number of powerful...
Sep 23, 2019, By Editorial Board
Pull The PlugThey’ve had their shining moment since Memorial Day. Now it’s time to shut them down.Those statuesque yellow signs lining Montauk’s Main Street — the 10-foot ones depicting a downward-pointing arrow, and a stick figure perambulating purposefully — were intended to serve a purpose...
Sep 13, 2019, By Editorial Board
And some have insisted that the Gann Road shellfish hatchery project will be vetted by the Planning Board, and Planning Department, in that their review and comments will be solicited by the town. That’s not the same thing, though, as filing a formal application, and...
Aug 26, 2019, By Editorial Board
A tip of the sun bonnet to East Hampton Village, the Chamber of Commerce and the organizers of the Artists vs. Writers Game for injecting so much life into Herrick Park on Saturday.The chamber has pronounced its first Summer Festival, which was held at the...
Aug 19, 2019, By Editorial Board
Rose, orange, blue, gray, black, red and purple. Cumulus, uncinus, cirrus, mares’ tails. Swirls, curls, puffs and wisps.Every fair evening in Montauk in summer, sunset-watchers line up along the now-wide beach next to the west jetty at Montauk Harbor. Their silhouettes might vary in height...
Aug 12, 2019, By Editorial Board
A school bus was parked in front of Kirk Park last Thursday morning at about 7 as parents dropped off children bound for a field trip to Citi Field. As is usual on a pleasant day in Montauk, there would have been walkers circling Fort...
Jun 10, 2019, By Editorial Board
This is the time of year when retail stores and restaurants throw open the doors of “Hamptons outposts”—seasonal replications of what’s already on tap in New York City—on the South Fork. They join the tiny handful that are already here, year-round.These merchants and restaurateurs—or, more...
May 31, 2019, By Editorial Board
East Hampton Town East Hampton Town residents will weigh in this week on who should lead the town through momentous change and continued challenges. The supervisor’s seat is up at the same time as two council seats. This comes as the town continues to debate...
Apr 23, 2013, By Editorial Board
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