On Thursday, May 25 — just in time for Memorial Day weekend, and thus the start of “the season” — the ribbon will be cut on John Steinbeck Waterfront Park,... more
The two biggest obstacles to providing affordable housing on the South Fork are cost and public opposition. But there are some affordable housing opportunities that don’t require taxpayer money and meet only mild resistance. The Village of North Haven has identified one such opportunity and is poised to pick this low-hanging fruit. The Village Board is considering “family” accessory housing, a plan that would enable homeowners to build accessory dwelling units specifically for relatives and live-in nurses and home health aides. The units could be either attached to a main house or located in a garage, pool house or other ...
31 May 2023 by Editorial Board
Gold Star: Several of them, in fact, after an agreement in Albany finally will put in place long-overdue protection for historic burial sites. It’s hard to imagine that unmarked graves — whether they hold the remains of early settlers, war casualties or Native Americans — had no such protection until the moment Governor Kathy Hochul earned her star by adding her signature to the legislation. State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. gets a star, too, for doggedly pursuing a measure he has said is about “justice and healing,” particularly among Indigenous people. And big stars for the Shinnecock Graves Protection ...
24 May 2023 by Editorial Board
Money won’t fix everything. But when you’re looking at a multigenerational problem — decades of leaky septic systems and other polluting sources flooding our groundwater and threatening our drinking water supply — the more money put to the task, the more effective the solutions. So the Suffolk County Legislature shouldn’t hesitate to add one-eighth of a cent to the county’s sales tax, with all of the proceeds earmarked for clean water projects. The legislature has to act first, and then it’s up to the county’s voters to endorse the idea in November. And both should act with haste. As noted ...
16 May 2023 by Editorial Board
Sag Harbor School District is in fine financial shape. On Tuesday, district residents will vote on a $48.06 million budget for the 2023-24 school year — a spending plan that has one of the lowest tax levy increases in the district in over a decade. That success has been obscured by the debate over Proposition 2, which asks voters to approve the purchase of five lots on Marsden Street for $9.425 million — $6 million in a bond, with the remaining $3.425 million already available to use in a facilities capital reserve account. Traditionally, this kind of proposition would be ...
10 May 2023 by Editorial Board
While there are many things to argue about on the op-ed pages of this newspaper these days, it is easy to forget that we have much to celebrate on the South Fork — in particular, the number of residents who have dedicated their time and energy toward making meaningful and profound changes in the lives of our friends and neighbors. Founded in 2016, the South Fork Bakery has offered meaningful employment opportunities to those with special needs on the East End — the bakery’s cookies and bars are baked, packaged, marketed, and sold by over a dozen neurodiverse adults with ...
2 May 2023 by Staff Writer
This editorial may sound familiar. It seems like every spring, these pages contain a dire warning about the harmful effects that synthetic fertilizers and toxic pesticides sprayed on lawns in an effort to achieve the greenest lawn on the block pose to groundwater, surface water, insects and birds. Insecticides and fertilizers can wreak havoc on a yard’s local ecosystems, but, collectively, also become part of the stormwater runoff that ends up in our waterways, creating toxic algae blooms that jeopardize fish and wildlife — and can also be toxic to humans and their pets. But as the recent days began ...
by Editorial Board
There are salient arguments to be made both for and against the proposed Marsden Street land acquisition by the Sag Harbor School District. But that debate is turning quarrelsome — and nobody benefits. It has to stop. Focus on the facts. Numbers, especially, can be manipulated. In a news article this week, we parse the numbers carefully — it’s meant to provide a road map for the conversation moving forward to the May 16 vote on the proposed bond issue to purchase the land. Any defensible position will be rooted in the facts. It also has been disappointing to see ...
25 Apr 2023 by Editorial Board
It appears that Governor Kathy Hochul’s ambitious New York Housing Compact is being sent back to the sidelines while state budget negotiations try to wrap up several weeks late. Her plan, to create hundreds of thousands of new homes statewide by setting local development goals and, as needed, overriding local zoning to get it done, got a great deal of kickback from many communities — including on the East End. What seemed to ring hollow was the criticism, painted with the same broad brush as the original plan, that “suburban” communities were balking because of an outdated desire to keep ...
by Editorial Board
It’s time to ask the question directly: What is going on with the State Department of Environmental Conservation and its steadfast refusal to get out of bed with sand mines on the South Fork? It’s gone from confusing to baffling to aggravating, watching the DEC fiddle while state court orders are treated as inconsequential, and Southampton Town officials are left to try to clean up a mess they didn’t create and do not have the power to address. Wainscott Sand and Gravel Corporation’s Sand Land mine in Noyac lost its permit to operate in February, when the state’s highest court ...
19 Apr 2023 by Editorial Board
Sag Harbor has long prided itself on its commitment to maintaining its historic character, which has helped the village hold on to its small-town feel despite intense development pressure. While preserving architectural aesthetics has been an important tool, preserving and celebrating the village’s history is just as important and cannot be lost. It’s a cause the Sag Harbor Historical Society — now the Sag Harbor Historical Museum — has championed for years, alongside the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum. On May 16, Sag Harbor School District voters will turn out for a budget vote and School Board election that ...
18 Apr 2023 by Editorial Board
