Sag Harbor Village Mayor Tom Gardella and the Village Board will hold a hearing next month on a plan to eliminate the trustees’ role in reviewing site plan applications for... more
Sag Harbor is a great American small town, so it’s no surprise that tourists flock to the village in the summer — or that American Cruise Lines, a Connecticut-based small ship travel provider, has identified it as a great stop for a “Yankee Seaports” cruise between Boston and New York, set to begin next year. The negative impact of cruise ships on so many port cities around the world might well give pause. But it’s important to keep the proposal in perspective: The ships contain about 100 passengers, and while there are a few summer dates included, most of the ...
19 Sep 2023 by Editorial Board
While it may feel to a majority of the population that the long nightmare that was the COVID-19 pandemic is over, the disease continued to rear its head this summer with a spike in infection rates and increased hospitalization numbers that could worsen this fall. It’s a reminder that, as a society, we’ll most likely never be done with the deadly SARS-CoV-2 virus, in some form or another. Just like with its cousins, the influenza viruses that cause the annual seasonal flu outbreaks, care to prevent infection always will be necessary. That most likely translates into an annual COVID vaccination, ...
by Editorial Board
It has been a long three years in the Village of Sag Harbor. As residents and their elected officials tried to balance a growing interest in the village as a world class summer tourist destination and the need to preserve its nationally recognized historic character, the village was stuck in neutral. Major zoning changes proposed in 2019 to the village’s essential waterfront district were rolled back substantially in the face of stiff community opposition; that led to a divisive mayoral election, a change in leadership and a new direction. As that was playing out, in late 2020, as the world ...
12 Sep 2023 by Editorial Board
GOLD STAR To the Southampton School District, for recognizing its demographic make-up and creating a world language program that helps mirror it. Students who are not native English speakers are typically treated as a problem to be dealt with in many school districts. In Southampton, they’ve turned that notion on its head, embracing the diversity and making it a strength. The district was an early adopter of a dual language program and recently celebrated a recent graduate, Bilma Pedro, becoming the first student to earn the New York State Seal of Biliteracy in her native language, Q’anjob’al, spoken in Guatemala. ...
6 Sep 2023 by Editorial Board
Governor Kathy Hochul recently spent some quality time on the South Fork. She was in Montauk on August 16 to celebrate the completion of a three-year renovation of the historic Montauk Point Lighthouse, built in 1797, and an extensive effort to bolster the threatened bluff on which it stands. Ultimately, more than $40 million was invested to give the landmark a new lease on life, even as rising seas and intense weather patterns ramp up the threat level. New York State played an essential role in funding the project via grant, but Hochul was generous in giving the Montauk Historical ...
29 Aug 2023 by Editorial Board
When it comes to the East End arts scene, by all appearances it would seem that we are largely out of the woods and over the hump in terms of the COVID-19 shutdowns that wreaked havoc among our local nonprofit organizations beginning in 2020. Honestly, it was a harrowing few years, and we are happy to say that our arts organizations hunkered down, got inventive and in many cases figured out new models designed to keep their heads above water during difficult times. Mercifully, it seems that the worst is past us, given the amount of traffic and unsavory visitor ...
23 Aug 2023 by Editorial Board
“It’s a small world after all” — any person who has visited Disney and its eponymous ride (apologies for the “earworm”) knows the phrase well. But sometimes the week’s headlines drive the point home. Almost 5,000 miles away from the East End, terrible wildfires are destroying swaths of the Hawaiian island of Maui, which has a population of about 165,000 people — fewer people than are currently on the South Fork, midsummer. But the connections are many: At 27east.com, you can read about a direct link via Tiana Beach in Hampton Bays, which is the summer destination of Keenan and ...
21 Aug 2023 by Editorial Board
Citizens have a right to know who they’re dealing with, whether it be in government or private enterprise. But that’s not the case when it comes to limited liability companies, or LLCs. LLCs, for example, can own property, apply for grants, operate as landlords and donate to political campaigns. On the East End, many properties are held under LLCs, often aiming to protect the privacy of buyers of real estate. Holding government accountable for its action demands a well-informed public. We need to know who is benefiting in order to do our jobs as citizens. Discovering who’s behind the curtain ...
15 Aug 2023 by Editorial Board
Suffolk County scholastic sports officials are at odds with their governing body, Section XI, over stalled contract negotiations, which could have a ripple effect felt through the fall season and across the county’s student-athletes. The President’s Council of Suffolk County Officials voted down a potential new contract, 44-3, on July 25. Their current contract expired at the end of June. And although the proposed new contract was ratified by the union’s negotiating committee, it was rejected by the council. The union is at odds over salary increases and the safety of the officials. The officials had asked for a whopping ...
7 Aug 2023 by Editorial Board
Partisanship is an infectious disease, and it can be difficult to keep the noxious elements of national politics from spreading like a virus into local legislatures. But they’re not immune, and the Suffolk County Legislature has all the symptoms of putting politics before policy — and the citizens of the county paying the price. There is no more bipartisan issue than water quality. Republican and Democrat alike will campaign on the issue this fall, when all 17 seats on the County Legislature are up — put a pin in that for a paragraph or two — and it will be ...
1 Aug 2023 by Editorial Board
