The fate of an abandoned mansion in Shinnecock Hills is mired in two versions of history — from two different cultures, and conflicting versions of preservation. The home, in the Atterbury Hills section of the hamlet — if one refers to the area by its...
Jun 12, 2024, By Editorial Board
It’s an old adage that when voters — or newspaper editorial boards — are evaluating incumbents and challengers for elected positions, the real decision amounts to a simple question: Should the incumbents be fired? Certainly, there are times when an elected official is doing such...
Jun 12, 2024, By Editorial Board
The verdict in the Hunter Biden gun possession case came less than two weeks after former President Donald Trump was convicted on all 34 charges in his New York hush money trial, where the jury determined he broke the law, many times over, by falsifying...
Jun 12, 2024, By Editorial Board
Candidates in the upcoming Southampton Village election would be forgiven for having a touch of post-traumatic stress disorder: In recent years, the village races have been no-holds-barred melees, with money from outside groups funding broadside attacks, and a battle royal atmosphere. This year, it’s been...
Jun 12, 2024, By Editorial Board
A few months ago, The Express News Group tackled a project to discuss the past, present and future of the college campus in Shinnecock Hills, now Stony Brook Southampton. One big conclusion: The college there has had its struggles ever since the first Southampton College...
Jun 5, 2024, By Editorial Board
A good event gains steam quickly from year to year. But few events have the trajectory of the Hamptons Pride Parade, which began strong with more than 1,000 participants and spectators in 2022 and has only gotten bigger in the two years since, including Saturday’s...
Jun 5, 2024, By Editorial Board
There is something of a pact between residents and their school boards, and the annual budget vote — one of the few times when voters have a direct say in the day-to-day budgeting of their tax dollars — is where that pact is consummated. Credit...
May 29, 2024, By Editorial Board
Imagine the want ad: “Unpaid position. Unpredictable hours. Extensive training required. Your life may be endangered at a moment’s notice. Must be on call 24/7. Your physical condition will be tested.” Most people wouldn’t get past the first two words. At a time when the...
May 29, 2024, By Editorial Board
GOLD STAR To Carolyn Munaco and a group of volunteers who went out early in the morning on a cold, rainy, blustery day to save horseshoe crabs that had been trapped while spawning at a beach in Hampton Bays. High water allowed the crabs safely...
May 21, 2024, By Editorial Board
Last week was the final Express Sessions event of the season; a dozen live events brought together panelists and community members to discuss a variety of topics of importance to the community. As the break for a busy summer arrives, the question arises: Does it...
May 15, 2024, By Editorial Board
When it comes to changing the world, some things are easier to do than others. The region has done some sweeping things with an eye toward the environment. After a few false starts, Southampton Town and East Hampton Town helped lead the way with a...
May 8, 2024, By Editorial Board
The eight stations on the Montauk Branch between Speonk and Montauk generally, on a weekday, will see 10 trains stop throughout a 24-hour period. The problem: Only half are between the hours of 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., presumably when most people might actually use...
May 8, 2024, By Editorial Board
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...
May 1, 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...
May 1, 2024, 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...
May 1, 2024, By Editorial Board
State lawmakers and Governor Kathy Hochul delivered for residents of the South Fork and Stony Brook University in the state budget formulated last week. As part of the massive spending plan, the governor agreed to a measure that would allow the state and the Town...
Apr 24, 2024, By Editorial Board
The 2025 New York State budget approved on Saturday includes elements of the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, providing a payroll tax credit for local news outlets — a lifeline for a vital but struggling industry that benefits every state resident. Over the past quarter century,...
Apr 24, 2024, By Editorial Board
The bumper stickers used to be ubiquitous on the roads: “No Farms No Food.” The slogan is a registered trademark of the American Farmland Trust, which mails out those bumper stickers for free to anyone in the United States who requests one. It’s a simple,...
Apr 17, 2024, By Editorial Board
It’s the title of Tarō Gomi’s beloved children’s book, which has, for nearly 50 years, been delivering a simple but universal reminder: “Since we all eat, we all must poop. All of us! Everyone!” It doesn’t seem like fodder for this space — but, increasingly,...
Apr 17, 2024, By Editorial Board
1994. It’s hard to imagine, but despite being a matriarchal society, that was the first year Shinnecock Nation women were permitted to vote on tribal matters. And it wasn’t until 2013 that the nation had its first female on the Council of Trustees. So it...
Apr 17, 2024, By Editorial Board
Montauk was closest to mind at last week’s Express Sessions event focusing on beach nourishment: The results of a recent federal effort to bolster the sandy beaches and protect the hamlet’s business district were visible through the windows of oceanfront Gurney’s, which is safely up...
Apr 9, 2024, By Editorial Board
Monday’s eclipse was stunning, but it also reminded us how perfectly in sync the universe can be: The local peak of the event could be predicted to the minute, and the moon arrived right on time. The New York State budget, on the other hand...
Apr 8, 2024, By Editorial Board
Not ones to rest on their laurels, Westhampton Beach Village officials, still fresh off the very successful Main Street revitalization project and the equally beneficial sewer district project, have their sights set on the next phase of the village’s meteoric transformation: improvements to the village’s...
Apr 3, 2024, By Editorial Board
There are 14 school districts spread along the 40-mile stretch from Montauk to Westhampton Beach. There may have been a time when enrollment data, and the finances of operating a school district, made that number inconsequential, or at least appropriate. But that time assuredly has...
Apr 3, 2024, By Editorial Board
Thomas Falcone announced last week that he would be leaving his post as chief executive officer of the Long Island Power Authority in May. It was “unexpected,” said State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who has been working hard in Albany to move LIPA away...
Mar 27, 2024, By Editorial Board
All eyes are on Albany this week, as state government is hammering out the budget for fiscal year 2025, a monumental task that is arguably the most important activity of the year for lawmakers in every corner of New York, with impacts for communities big...
Mar 20, 2024, By Editorial Board
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority says its Central Business District Tolling Program, known as congestion pricing, “will improve quality of life for millions of people by reducing traffic in Manhattan’s most congested areas and funding improvements to New York’s transit system. Fewer cars means cleaner air,...
Mar 13, 2024, By Editorial Board
Dating back to when they began in Sag Harbor, and continuing and expanding when the Express News Group was formed in 2019, a mission statement for Express Sessions might have read, simply, “To get people in a room for a respectful, frank conversation, and find...
Mar 13, 2024, By Editorial Board
Twenty days and $11 million later, the dredger Ellis Island has departed the easternmost point of Long Island, leaving Montauk’s downtown with a wide new beach and a new temporary lease on life in its continuing battle with time, tides and global warming. It leaves...
Mar 6, 2024, By Editorial Board
It’s a staggering number: According to the Love Is Respect Action Guide, published by the National Domestic Violence Hotline, one in 10 U.S. high school students experienced physical violence from a dating partner in the last year. That would mean more than 1.5 million victims....
Feb 28, 2024, By Editorial Board
If a community wants to truly lead, wants to set an example for the nation and show that embracing innovation is a noble, American thing to do, it has to accept the complications that come with the territory. A healthy community stays on top of...
Feb 28, 2024, By Editorial Board
At last week’s Express Sessions conversation in Sag Harbor, “Taking the Pulse of the Hamptons Real Estate Market,” real estate broker Enzo Morabito said he is trying not to take high-end property listings anymore, because they typically take more than two years to sell and...
Feb 21, 2024, By Editorial Board
Is it possible to turn back the clock, to a time before technology forever changed the world we live in? It turns out that it is possible, at least in schools, and at least for the hours of a school day. The Sag Harbor School...
Feb 21, 2024, By Editorial Board
Tax season is underway, turning all of us, to some degree or another, into accountants for at least a day or two, maybe more. The truth is, being an American adult means having some degree of financial literacy, just to manage bank accounts and bills,...
Feb 14, 2024, By Editorial Board
This November, voters in Suffolk County will have the opportunity to vote on perhaps the most consequential referendum ever put on the ballot here. The measure, if approved by voters, will increase sales tax in the county from 8.625 percent to 8.75 percent, and the...
Feb 14, 2024, By Editorial Board
The year 2024 was always going to be a challenging one, with a high-stakes presidential election seemingly destined to feature the same two candidates as 2020, with the political banquet this time being warmed-up leftovers spiced with recriminations and contempt. We can’t even look forward...
Feb 7, 2024, By Editorial Board
The awkward dance between Albany and local school districts over funding led to a major tumble on the dance floor last week, as Governor Kathy Hochul threw in a clumsy two-step that nobody expected. The governor is trying to close a state budget gap. In...
Jan 31, 2024, By Editorial Board
A first step is important, signaling, as it does, a sense of direction, and of priority. So the Southampton Town Board’s initial proposal to spend significant revenue from the newly minted Community Housing Fund shows how this money will best be used. Town officials will...
Jan 31, 2024, By Editorial Board
The work that Dr. Georgette Grier-Key and Brenda Simmons do to keep a strong spotlight on the region’s African American community, past and present, is valuable beyond measure. A new project they’ve undertaken, as powerful as it is, should not be left to do its...
Jan 24, 2024, By Editorial Board
The backlash against beach nourishment has begun, it being a particularly opportune time to note that dumping sand is a costly and seemingly futile endeavor — since tons and tons of sand have been swept away from local beaches in storms this winter. At the...
Jan 24, 2024, By Editorial Board
The deep dive by The Express News Group into the history, status and future of the Stony Brook Southampton campus over the past several weeks, culminating with a standing room only Express Sessions panel discussion on January 11, resulted in a lot of takeaways. Most...
Jan 17, 2024, By Editorial Board
It’s important to be clear about two things. First, when it comes to the proposal for new world-class public gardens at Agawam Park in Southampton Village — an idea pitched by John Paulson, Peter Marino and the Lake Agawam Conservancy, which now appears in danger...
Jan 10, 2024, By Editorial Board
The historic windmill on the campus of Southampton College, and then Stony Brook Southampton, in Shinnecock Hills has long been the symbol of the plucky institution, a college campus that, in the constant face of adversity, somehow managed to stay afloat. The windmill — constructed...
Jan 10, 2024, By Editorial Board
In an age when a growing percentage of the motor vehicles on the road have safety features that were once only in the realm of science fiction, including automatic braking systems and lane assist, it is shocking that pedestrian traffic deaths in the United States...
Jan 10, 2024, By Editorial Board
Beyond the ball drop, the celebratory kisses and the Champagne toasts, January 1 is a clear line of demarcation that allows something of a fresh start every 12 months. As 2024 arrives on the South Fork, it brings change: Both Southampton and East Hampton towns...
Jan 3, 2024, By Editorial Board
CANDY CANE: To the East Hampton Town Police Department, investigators from the Suffolk County Police and District Attorney Ray Tierney’s office, and to the Montauk home and business owners who shared the footage from their security cameras that proved crucial to the capture of the...
Dec 13, 2023, By Editorial Board
Life as teenager can be stressful and difficult, filled with angst, uncertainty and anxiety. For many teens today on the East End, those fears and concerns can be amplified. Most teens stress about grades, romantic relationships, disagreements with their parents. But some also worry about...
Dec 6, 2023, By Editorial Board
Surprising no one, at the conclusion of its review of the Long Island Power Authority, the state legislative commission on the future of LIPA last month recommended that LIPA be transformed into a public power utility. LIPA owns Long Island’s electrical grid. But instead of...
Dec 6, 2023, By Editorial Board
In context, it doesn’t seem all that surprising that the Montaukett Nation, earlier this month, was once again disappointed when its bid for state recognition as a Native American nation was scuttled by a veto by Governor Kathy Hochul. After all, it was the fifth...
Nov 28, 2023, By Editorial Board
Some of the many, many things we are thankful for as this Thanksgiving arrives: We are thankful for a community that, in the face of hate — swastikas painted by vandals in public places, along with violent antisemitic messages — responds with interfaith rallies, conversations...
Nov 21, 2023, By Editorial Board
There are limits to “If you see something, say something” — and we might have mapped out one outer edge on November 2 in Southampton Village. Village Police reported last week that someone had called them because they spotted a “suspicious person making odd hand...
Nov 14, 2023, By Editorial Board
The economics of green energy are in flux, both in the United States and globally, and proposed wind farms have suddenly become more expensive, which has prompted some industry leaders, including the Danish energy company Ørsted, to rethink aggressive strategies. But, viewed in context, it’s...
Nov 14, 2023, By Editorial Board
In the midst of his failed reelection campaign, then-Mayor Jesse Warren attempted to publicly shame his Southampton Village Board colleagues into agreeing to end benefits for life for board members who serve five years or more. In response, and in consideration of a desire to...
Nov 7, 2023, By Editorial Board
Term limits will end Jay Schneiderman’s eight-year tenure as Southampton Town supervisor. The transition to a new administration is always a stressful moment for the town, but this year offers one soothing thought: The race for the town’s top post features two exceptional women who...
Nov 1, 2023, By Editorial Board
The 2021 elections gave the Republican Party a majority on the Suffolk County Legislature for the first time in 16 years. Eleven of the county’s 18 districts are held by a Republican or Conservative legislator; only six have a Democrat. (Another, District 5, was represented...
Oct 25, 2023, By Editorial Board
In the race for Suffolk County executive, voters this year are given a choice between ineradicable experience and calls for new ideas. Seeking to replace Democrat Steve Bellone, who was prevented from running for reelection due to term limits, are Republican Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed...
Oct 25, 2023, By Editorial Board
If there was one lesson learned from the most recent Express Sessions panel discussion on affordable housing last week, it’s that there are no easy solutions to the crisis plaguing the East End. However, if there was one positive note coming from the conversation, it...
Oct 17, 2023, By Editorial Board
In May 2008, Hampton Bays American Legion Hand Aldrich Post 924 dedicated a memorial to the hamlet’s veterans, engraving the curved, black granite wall with the names of those who served in wars from the Revolutionary War to World War II. The entire community passes...
Oct 17, 2023, By Editorial Board
There is vigorously fighting government regulation and oversight and then there is complete lawlessness. Sand Land Corporation’s behavior tipped the scales toward lawlessness some time ago, and the mine operator’s continued refusal to comply with court orders should alarm everyone on the South Fork. It’s...
Oct 10, 2023, By Editorial Board
It’s the kind of thing that many people just can’t imagine happening. Especially on the East End. But the horrific practice of human trafficking is a crime that knows no geographic boundaries — and the trendy Hamptons, with its transient summer population, plethora of Airbnbs...
Oct 10, 2023, By Editorial Board
Welcome to Banned Books Week, which runs October 1 to 7. You’ll forgive us if we don’t feel like celebrating — but this is a concept that should have been relegated to the trash heap of history decades ago. Yet book banning (and, in some...
Oct 3, 2023, By Editorial Board
Even before the pandemic, movie theaters on the South Fork were having a rough go of it, but there have been bright spots. As things stand, the Hampton Bays movie theater site is still being considered for a CVS, but the cinema is operating in...
Oct 3, 2023, By Editorial Board
“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born,” the Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero said, “is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of...
Sep 27, 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....
Sep 19, 2023, By Editorial Board
Given the region’s continuing affordable housing crisis — home prices are still reasonable for wealthy Manhattan part-timers who are in the market but are well beyond the reach of most working families looking for their one and only residence, and year-round rental properties are overpriced...
Sep 12, 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,...
Sep 6, 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...
Aug 29, 2023, By Editorial Board
In making his presentation to the Southampton Village Board last week, outlining an ambitious plan to add grand public gardens as an expansion of Agawam Park in exchange for closing Pond Lane to vehicular traffic, Robert Giuffra, who heads the Lake Agawam Conservancy, acknowledged opposition...
Aug 28, 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,...
Aug 23, 2023, By Editorial Board
Patrons and passersby of the Regal UA Theater in Hampton Bays in recent weeks may have seen a glimmer of hope: a liquor license application pasted in the window of the theater. It means the theater has no intention of closing, at least anytime soon....
Aug 22, 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...
Aug 21, 2023, By Editorial Board
Sometimes, a trip and fall requires a few moments to gather your wits about you, dust off and try to move forward at a slower, steadier pace. The debate over battery energy storage systems, or BESS, in Southampton Town Hall hasn’t been pleasant, but in...
Aug 15, 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...
Aug 15, 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...
Aug 7, 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 —...
Aug 1, 2023, By Editorial Board
Last week, in our Residence section, The Express News Group continued a decade-long summer tradition, identifying the “water hogs” on the South Fork over the past 12 months — the individual properties that draw the most treated water from the Suffolk County Water Authority’s system....
Aug 1, 2023, By Editorial Board
Suffolk County prides itself on being an environmentally progressive place, with a strong emphasis on water quality. But it must take ownership of a pretty sizable environmental mess it is being forced to clean up after a federal lawsuit by the Environmental Protection Agency —...
Jul 25, 2023, By Editorial Board
To some, it may seem quixotic to still be seeking justice from an uncaring and unflinching government on the other side of the world for the brutal murders of three Hampton Bays brothers in Serbia nearly a quarter of a century ago. But the family...
Jul 18, 2023, By Editorial Board
As the new administration settles in at Southampton Village Hall, one of new Mayor Bill Manger’s first acts is to seek to amend the village code to reduce the size of the Planning Commission from eight members to five. It’s an odd thing to prioritize,...
Jul 18, 2023, By Editorial Board
Over the years, Suffolk County residents have been wise enough to understand the economics of levying taxes designed to raise revenue for worthwhile causes. When given the chance, voters have approved a variety of measures like the Community Preservation Fund, which preserves land, and now...
Jul 17, 2023, By Editorial Board
Every once in a while, Mother Nature reminds us that the majesty surrounding us is not completely benign. A day at the beach isn’t just, you know, a day at the beach — dangers abound, and a wise beachgoer approaches the beautiful stretch of sea...
Jul 11, 2023, By Editorial Board
For years, the historic windmill on what is now the Southampton campus of Stony Brook University has been its iconic image. It has graced promotional materials, and the piece of history on its hilltop perch is an indelible image of the entire campus itself. Today,...
Jul 10, 2023, By Editorial Board
It was only a few years ago when we had the luxury of debating whether or not global warming was reality. There were conversations about whether the Earth’s warming temperatures were just a localized trend or a sign of something worse. Today, the picture is...
Jul 4, 2023, By Editorial Board
As memorials go, the Edith Windsor Heart Project at Southampton Town Hall is imbued with emotion, and it will forever be a locus where love is celebrated both passively, in its lovely design, and actively, as the spot where couples will pledge their devotion in...
Jul 4, 2023, By Editorial Board
It was hard to miss the utter frustration in East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc’s response to recent prodding letters from the supervisors of Southampton and Southold towns, urging the town to “take action” to address the new onslaught of noisy air traffic headed...
Jun 27, 2023, By Editorial Board
For a quarter century, the two hospitals providing care to South Fork residents, in Southampton and Riverhead, have been on parallel paths that sometimes, in their winding, briefly intersected, though more often raced each other to get to higher ground. That race is far from...
Jun 20, 2023, By Editorial Board
Southampton Village Campaign season in Southampton Village has grown so disagreeable in recent years that some members of the community are pushing for longer terms on the Village Board, just to be spared the indignity of the frequent contentious political battles. Perhaps not the most...
Jun 14, 2023, By Editorial Board
There is an enormous difference between caution and hysteria. Locally, the conversation about battery energy storage systems, also known as BESS, is rapidly moving in the wrong direction. Southampton Town is absolutely correct to consider a moratorium on approving such projects to allow town officials...
Jun 13, 2023, By Editorial Board
A rash of fires over the past couple of weeks should serve as a profound reminder to those preparing both residential and commercial spaces for the upcoming summer season to take precautions while gearing up for the busy months ahead. There’s no indication of any...
Jun 6, 2023, By Editorial Board
“A good coach can change a game. Great coaches can change a life.” Juni Wingfield is nothing if not quotable, and this typical pearl of wisdom from him last week speaks volumes about the impact a special group of coaches, Wingfield among them, has had...
Jun 6, 2023, By Editorial Board
The word “community” can mean different things to different people. But there is perhaps no institution in Southampton Town that embodies the spirit of community better than Southampton Youth Services. The SYS is marking its 20th anniversary this month, and for the past two decades...
Jun 6, 2023, By Editorial Board
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...
May 31, 2023, By Editorial Board
Four decades ago, as John v.H. Halsey noted in an article last week, the idea of preserving land on the East End wasn’t new: Suffolk County and the towns had started to look at doing piecemeal projects where the municipalities would ask voters to borrow...
May 30, 2023, By Editorial Board
While a massive air cargo facility being proposed in Calverton may seem too many miles away for concern for most residents of the South Fork, the mammoth size of the project and its potential impact should send shock waves across the entire East End. The...
May 29, 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 —...
May 24, 2023, By Editorial Board
Last week, the Southampton Town Board abandoned plans to float a trial beach driving program in East Quogue, following opposition from some community members at a public hearing in April. The pilot program was intended to allow a time-honored tradition of allowing vehicles to drive...
May 16, 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...
May 16, 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....
May 10, 2023, By Editorial Board
As the nation and the state turn more toward sustainable energy solutions, there’s bound to be some growing pains. Such is the case with a rash of applications for battery energy storage systems (BESS) across the East End. The facilities employ a fairly new technology...
May 10, 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...
May 2, 2023, By Editorial Board
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,...
May 2, 2023, By Editorial Board
In recent weeks, The Southampton Press, in articles, editorials and on the 27Speaks podcast, has hammered away on the importance of transparency in government and how the Southampton Village Board of Trustees needs to be less opaque. The principal problem is the board members’ tendency...
May 1, 2023, By Editorial Board
In all its sloppy glory, last week’s Express Sessions event in Hampton Bays gave attendees a chance to hear directly from Alfred Caiola about his vision for an expansion of the hamlet’s business district. Other panelists, including a Town Board member and the town supervisor,...
May 1, 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...
Apr 25, 2023, 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...
Apr 19, 2023, By Editorial Board
This weekend, April 22 and 23, many firehouses in New York State will open their doors for an event, “RecruitNY,” sponsored by the Firefighters Association of New York. For the 14th year, the two-day open house will encourage more men and women to join the...
Apr 18, 2023, By Editorial Board
A huge hurdle to enforcing the New York State Open Meetings Law is that when a governing body, land-use board or committee unlawfully meets in private, how would anyone know they broke the law? There are violations of Open Meetings Law that are easy to...
Apr 12, 2023, By Editorial Board
South Fork winters blend gently into spring, so much so that it can be hard to tell the two seasons apart as they transition. Despite the sunny days and moderate afternoon temperatures in the early days of April, on four days this month, the lows...
Apr 11, 2023, By Editorial Board
Living in a time when the ongoing effect of humankind on the Planet Earth is part of the international conversation, nearly on a daily basis, it’s hard to imagine a time when it seemed necessary to set aside an entire day for Americans to make...
Apr 4, 2023, By Editorial Board
It was, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. readily acknowledges, mostly a symbolic gesture — his trio of bills seeking to update New York State’s school funding formula and to boost the amount of foundation aid for some school districts face a nearly impossible path forward...
Apr 4, 2023, By Editorial Board
Over lunch in Southampton Village, a cordial but pointed conversation took place last week — and there is reason to be optimistic that an important message was delivered straight to Governor Kathy Hochul in Albany. To the governor’s credit, her office sent not one but...
Mar 27, 2023, By Editorial Board
It’s a long shot at this point, but there’s a proposal stuck in the gears of state government that offers a glimmer of hope for an industry facing enormous, and in some cases existential, pressures — journalism. New York’s Local Journalism Sustainability Act would provide...
Mar 27, 2023, By Editorial Board
Sunshine Week, an initiative sponsored by the News Leaders Association and the Society of Professional Journalists, took place last week. Created in 2005, it promotes government transparency and educates the public about the tools and methods they can use to shine a light in the...
Mar 22, 2023, By Editorial Board
Every couple of years, like clockwork, members of the Shinnecock Nation are forced to take over a Southampton Board of Education meeting to demand better treatment for Shinnecock kids attending the district, angry that the district doesn’t do a better job of educating their kids....
Mar 21, 2023, By Editorial Board
He’s not really going anywhere — in fact, in his new role, leading the effort to conjure up the necessary donations to fund a new state-of-the-art hospital on the Stony Brook Southampton campus, Robert Chaloner is arguably going to be working even harder to cement...
Mar 21, 2023, By Editorial Board
Three years is an arbitrary marker, for sure, but it seems important to note just how long COVID-19 has been part of our everyday lives — for an alarming time, the dominant feature. It’s also important to remember that marking the third year since the...
Mar 14, 2023, By Editorial Board
Being near the water and among nature has long been a huge draw for living on the East End, whether full-time or seasonally. But, all too often, homeowners here push back wildlife and apply chemicals that pollute the bays and estuaries. Thirsty, fertilizer-addicted and pesticide-laden...
Mar 14, 2023, By Editorial Board
Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman is, in civilian life, involved in the hospitality industry on the South Fork. This is merely a statement of fact, not a criticism or indictment. It’s merely to note that it could influence what he sees when he looks at...
Mar 7, 2023, By Editorial Board
Last week, Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said something that is not controversial. Speaking about the fact that town zoning, like most of the zoning on the South Fork, is rooted in a desire to protect the environment, he pointed out that all that land...
Feb 28, 2023, By Editorial Board
Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. doesn’t mince words when he has a message to deliver that he feels isn’t landing as it should. Stony Brook University officials might have gotten their first taste of that last week, when Thiele blasted the university as “the biggest...
Feb 21, 2023, By Editorial Board
Buried in the information technology policy that the Southampton Village Board adopted this month is a “media contacts” section that prohibits village employees from speaking to the media on the village’s behalf without first contacting the village administrator. It also states that all media inquiries...
Feb 21, 2023, By Editorial Board
The ongoing, baffling and seemingly eternal legal fight over Sand Land Corporation’s bid to continue mining sand at a 50-acre site in Noyac is about a lot of things. But, with the State Department of Environmental Conservation’s inexplicable decisions along the way, it’s really about...
Feb 14, 2023, By Editorial Board
Governor Kathy Hochul is pitching ambitious but necessary proposals to phase out fossil fuel-powered heating and cooking appliances in new homes, and to eventually prohibit the replacement of oil and natural gas furnaces and boilers with anything but “green” heating equipment. These are ideas that...
Feb 8, 2023, By Editorial Board
Don’t look now, but all five East End towns are poised to have new leadership in their top posts next year. Jay Schneiderman will be term-limited out in Southampton Town in 2023, and the town supervisors in the four other towns — Yvette Aguiar in...
Feb 7, 2023, By Editorial Board
It’s rare to see a large group of people in Sag Harbor agree on most anything, but last Tuesday, at Southampton Town Hall, more than two dozen speakers came out to support the town’s involvement in preserving the Sag Harbor home of author John Steinbeck,...
Jan 31, 2023, By Editorial Board
The latest Express Sessions panel discussion in Westhampton Beach, “Three Years in Westhampton Beach — How To Remake a Main Street,” on January 26 allowed village officials and business owners the well-earned opportunity to take a bow for their roles in the village business district’s...
Jan 31, 2023, By Editorial Board
It has been astonishing to witness the acrimony between the four Southampton Village trustees and Mayor Jesse Warren spill over into public view like dirty laundry tumbling from a dumped basket. Roles have reversed. The mayor has, in the past, been willing to aggressively go...
Jan 31, 2023, By Editorial Board
Remember the hole in the ozone layer? Some smug anti-environmentalists have been known to cite the concern in the 1980s as an example of how science creates terrifying scenarios from time to time that get lots of media attention, only to forget about them when...
Jan 26, 2023, By Editorial Board
When what is now referred to as Liberty Gardens was first introduced in 2019, it was hailed as a well-timed workforce housing project that would begin to make a dent in the lack of affordable housing in Southampton, providing a large number of dwellings to...
Jan 17, 2023, By Editorial Board
There are very few places in America that can boast of having been home to a Nobel Prize winner — but here on the East End, we have just such a place. Sag Harbor was where author John Steinbeck opted to live out his final...
Jan 10, 2023, By Editorial Board
Kelp farming has exponential benefits, both environmental and economic — which is why so many heads were shaking in disbelief last month when Governor Kathy Hochul vetoed legislation that would have permitted seaweed growers to lease state-owned underwater lands. Cultivating seaweed removes carbon dioxide and...
Jan 10, 2023, By Editorial Board
Silence is powerful. In some instances, it can be more pointed, more evocative, than the most eloquent verse, or the loudest shouts. But there’s one instance when silence is devastating for one side, necessary for the other: instances of sexual abuse of children. Breaking that...
Jan 10, 2023, By Editorial Board
The new year is typically seen as a time of renewal. A time when we, individually or collectively, take stock of where we are and look to the coming months as an opportunity to commit — or recommit — to change, to making things, or...
Jan 4, 2023, By Editorial Board
LUMP OF COAL To the Southampton Village Board, for rushing an important decision and leaving a lot of questions in the air. The hiring on Monday of Anthony Carter as the next chief of police is provisional — he still has to pass the necessary...
Dec 14, 2022, By Editorial Board
Bureaucracy isn’t typically so responsive, and it usually takes a bit longer to correct a mistake. So it’s notable that the Internal Revenue Service late last week resolved, finally, an ongoing dispute that has hamstrung efforts to protect groundwater on the East End — and...
Dec 6, 2022, By Editorial Board
“Stargazer” will head into winter with a new lease on life, thanks to a six-figure reconstruction that will keep the iconic roadside sculpture by Linda Scott a bit safer from the elements. In the years since its installation along Route 111 in Eastport in 1991,...
Dec 6, 2022, By Editorial Board
In 2012, a pair of Manhattan-based nonprofit organizations, the 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation, decided to try out a new idea: With “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” already in place on the post-Thanksgiving calendar, they snagged the next day and dubbed it...
Nov 30, 2022, By Editorial Board
GOLD STAR To Stony Brook Southampton Hospital’s Phillips Family Cancer Center and Ellen Hermanson Breast Center, for partnering with Cancer Hope Network, which helps current cancer patients feel less alone by matching them with survivors, who also heal through the process of supporting others. Nobody...
Nov 22, 2022, By Editorial Board
In the last of three virtual conversations sponsored by The Express News Group, on Thursday, November 10, the top officials from the three East End hospitals were among the panelists looking into the future of health care in the region — and seeing bright skies....
Nov 15, 2022, By Editorial Board
On Election Night last week, hours after incumbent Governor Kathy Hochul declared victory in her reelection bid, her challenger, 1st District Congressman Lee Zeldin, took to a Manhattan stage and refused to concede, making a number of statements that were highly ironic coming from an...
Nov 15, 2022, By Editorial Board
To say that this year’s collapse and die-off of the Peconic bay scallop population is a disappointment is an understatement. Though this outcome was anticipated, it’s also devastating. So much progress has been made in the past decade on improving water quality and restocking filter-feeding...
Nov 9, 2022, By Editorial Board
Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman missed a golden opportunity to reassure residents of Hampton Bays that he was serious when he recently spoke of a “fresh start” in the effort to revitalize the hamlet. The effort has been mired in controversy. Legislation to create a...
Nov 8, 2022, By Editorial Board
For Congress Both of the candidates for the 1st Congressional District seat, seeking to succeed Republican U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin, who is not seeking reelection due to his gubernatorial bid, are seasoned public servants with years of experience under their belts. Republican Nick LaLota, a...
Nov 1, 2022, By Editorial Board
November 8 is a red-letter day for the South Fork in particular, a day that will help decide the future. It’s a rare “before and after” moment where the simple act of casting a ballot can bring real change in the world around us, not...
Nov 1, 2022, By Editorial Board
There is perhaps no sitting lawmaker who has done more to safeguard the traditional way of life and community character of the East End while making every effort to improve the lives of its residents than incumbent New York State 1st District Assemblyman Fred W....
Oct 26, 2022, By Editorial Board
The race for New York State’s 1st Senate District, which includes the five East End towns plus parts of Brookhaven, is between an Republican incumbent seeking his second term in Albany and a young Democrat who hopes to be elected for the first time. The...
Oct 26, 2022, By Editorial Board
Since he took over the 1st District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives at the beginning of 2015, we have gotten to know Lee Zeldin very well indeed — and it makes an endorsement for Kathy Hochul for governor that much easier. Hochul was...
Oct 25, 2022, By Editorial Board
Neighbors joining forces to try to block a planned development in their neighborhood has been a fairly common occurrence on the South Fork for years. Once the development is abandoned — or approved, in an unfortunately high number of cases — the members of those...
Oct 19, 2022, By Editorial Board
It’s sobering to hear the results of the inaugural LGBTQ+ Health Needs Assessment Survey conducted by Stony Brook Medicine: More than 60 percent of respondents who identify as LGBTQ+ show signs of chronic depression, nearly half have anxiety or mental health issues, and a third...
Oct 18, 2022, By Editorial Board
Tackling the South Fork’s housing crisis calls for bold, immediate action before the problem spirals out of control. Unfortunately, government response is, more often than not, lackluster. When building projects come along to provide affordable housing, governing bodies and land use boards demand fewer units...
Oct 12, 2022, By Editorial Board
In 20 years, the health care infrastructure on the East End has moved beyond a potential crisis point, with individual hospitals struggling to survive, to finding strength in both numbers and relationships with larger systems. The latest evolution, though, is the most exciting: Technology is...
Oct 11, 2022, By Editorial Board
One of the greatest pleasures of living on the East End is access to the abundance of fresh produce and locally sourced food available to the masses in the summer months and harvest season. But the season always feels short, and as the days get...
Oct 5, 2022, By Editorial Board
Along County Road 39, the rubber is hitting the road. The regular talk about adding affordable housing to the South Fork is running directly up against the usual arguments against actual proposals, and how that conversation unfolds will help set the stage for such debates...
Oct 4, 2022, By Editorial Board
In 2006, an innovative approach was implemented to alleviate the repugnant traffic that commuters faced while heading east in the morning to Southampton and beyond. It became known as “Cops and Cones,” an apt description for a program that used traffic cones and police officers...
Sep 28, 2022, By Editorial Board
And Say, ‘Ahhh!’ Geography, it seems, makes the East End grand, but it also makes it isolated. In an interconnected world, that means heading more and more in the direction of virtual contact for services. That includes health care. Instead of being a pure negative,...
Sep 27, 2022, By Editorial Board
A conversation involving a group of four community members and the Southampton Town Board last week, about building a skateboard park on land under consideration for athletic fields in Speonk, only goes to underscore the massive need for recreational facilities for kids on the west...
Sep 27, 2022, By Editorial Board
Dunce Cap -- To Southampton Town officials for their on again/off again cone and flashing light program in Hampton Bays and other areas. The so-called traffic calming measures can’t possibly calm motorists who make good time one day, only to find the blinking lights programs...
Sep 21, 2022, By Editorial Board
For 50 years, Roe v. Wade was the law of the land and it assured women in the United States the right to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term. But that precedent was overturned in June with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s...
Sep 14, 2022, By Editorial Board
Once environmental damage is done, it is exceedingly difficult to undo — but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try, or that our efforts won’t succeed beyond expectations. Case in point, the rebound of the hard clam population in Shinnecock Bay. It is amazing what’s...
Sep 12, 2022, By Editorial Board
It was 100 years ago when the hamlet of Good Ground saw a name change to Hampton Bays, hoping to join the growing caché of neighborhoods to the east, a milestone celebrated over the weekend. (A century later, it seems an error not to have...
Sep 12, 2022, By Editorial Board
There’s more at play than a simple change in demographics when it comes to the latest struggling East End football program, this time at Hampton Bays High School, which, for the first time in 47 years, will not field a varsity football team this fall....
Sep 6, 2022, By Editorial Board
It was a longtime South Fork resident, the late Joseph Heller, who said it best in his novel “Catch-22”: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” In Hampton Bays, as red-faced town officials scrambled to stamp out the brush fire, a lot...
Aug 30, 2022, By Editorial Board
Discovery Land, the developers of the proposed 118-unit housing development and private golf course on Lewis Road in East Quogue, appears to have successfully played the long game, dumping money into the project and quietly waiting out the loud throngs of public opposition. After nearly...
Aug 23, 2022, By Editorial Board
Every death in a community impacts someone. Many bring grief from dozens, even hundreds of people whose lives overlapped with the deceased. And then there are the rare few who cause an entire community’s knees to buckle. Robert J. Long Jr., who died far too...
Aug 16, 2022, By Editorial Board
A story from East Hampton Village last week highlighted an issue that could well be percolating beneath the service in many communities, as local volunteer ambulance corps seek a delicate balance of morale and necessary moves to provide reliable emergency care. A member of the...
Aug 16, 2022, By Editorial Board
Electronic bicycles, or e-bikes, seem to be everywhere all of a sudden. The bikes, with electric motors that can propel them at speeds up to 30 mph, have taken off, so to speak, this summer on the East End, with adults hoping to avoid the...
Aug 9, 2022, By Editorial Board
At least for the moment, we’re not going to run out of water in the aquifers below our feet: According to the Suffolk County Water Authority, there is an estimated 65 trillion to 120 trillion gallons of water in Long Island’s natural underground reservoirs. In...
Aug 9, 2022, By Editorial Board
Often, great things come from modest beginnings. What started out 20 years ago as a small advisory board to the East Hampton Town Board blossomed over the decades to become the preeminent voice for the East End’s Latino community. The Organización Latino Americana, or OLA,...
Aug 2, 2022, By Editorial Board
On July 14, the Southampton Village Board adopted a resolution to affirm that its meeting schedule would include a public session on the second Thursday of each month, and a work session on the second Tuesday following the public session, both with a 6 p.m....
Aug 2, 2022, By Editorial Board
There are, of course, so many things to be concerned about these days — a pair of viruses, war in Ukraine, an uneven U.S. economy, democracy under threat, climate change — but a steadily burning brush fire is quietly wiping out community journalism, and attention...
Aug 2, 2022, By Editorial Board
Sharks have been all over the news lately, and for good reason: “Shark Bites Human” stories grab attention, and the headlines make for good summer fodder on the evening news. But let’s stop to reflect and remember that sharks aren’t out to get us. In...
Jul 27, 2022, By Editorial Board
The rural nature of life on the South Fork is under siege, and has been for a long time, but there is one place where you can still see the benefit of living atop some of the best agricultural soils on the planet: in local...
Jul 26, 2022, By Editorial Board
The Southampton Town Board, like all town and village boards in New York State, had a limited window of opportunity to opt out of the state law that legalizes the sale of recreational marijuana. After a conscious board decision to take no action, that window...
Jul 20, 2022, By Editorial Board
Residents, lawmakers, business owners and the leaders of a multitude of nonprofits on the South Fork have been talking for years about ways to solve the housing crisis. While it’s been on the forefront of everyone’s minds and agendas, sadly, it seems, very little has...
Jul 20, 2022, By Editorial Board
Like the proverbial tree falling in a forest and the question of whether it makes a sound if nothing is around to hear it, a philosophical question arises regarding the Long Pond Greenbelt: Is a hearing still a hearing if nobody is listening? PSEG Long...
Jul 19, 2022, By Editorial Board
DUNCE CAP: To Sag Harbor Mayor Jim Larocca, for reshuffling the regulatory boards in the village — and leaving out two key voices in the mix. Larocca may have had the best intentions, ensuring that board seat vacancies are staggered and bringing some veterans, like...
Jul 13, 2022, By Editorial Board
South Fork communities have a tendency toward parochialism, worrying mostly about matters within their own borders, but this is a moment for every town and village official, and even every hamlet resident, to pay close attention to a proposal in Sag Harbor Village. It should...
Jul 5, 2022, By Editorial Board
The overturning of Roe v. Wade, which has established federal protection of basic abortion rights for women for a half century, was no less a bombshell even though everyone saw it coming. For anti-abortion activists, it’s a moment many of them prayed and protested for,...
Jun 28, 2022, By Editorial Board
On June 19, 1865, federal troops arrived in the port city of Galveston, Texas, to share news of the Emancipation Proclamation, announcing that all enslaved people were free. While the news was welcomed by many, it arrived a bit late — a full two and...
Jun 22, 2022, By Editorial Board
The struggles of environmentalists — both professionals and those citizens who are propelled into action out of an internal desire to save the planet — must seem daunting at times, given the ever-growing crises surrounding climate change, new species of algae clogging up local bays...
Jun 21, 2022, By Editorial Board
Within moments of the news breaking that a developer had filed plans with the Village of Sag Harbor for a 79-unit affordable housing development, with retail on the ground floor, spread over a cluster of residential and commercial properties behind Main Street, social media was...
Jun 21, 2022, By Editorial Board
Making progress is better than getting nothing done, and it’s important to keep that in mind, but the conclusion is inescapable: Our lawmakers’ response to gun violence — massacres — is woefully inadequate. The National Rifle Association learned after the 1999 Columbine High School shooting...
Jun 15, 2022, By Editorial Board
Elections bring surprises, and perhaps this season’s biggest shocker was that the most hotly contested race among the South Fork’s villages would be in tiny North Haven Village, with fewer than 900 residents and less than 3 square miles. Mayor Jeff Sander decided not to...
Jun 14, 2022, By Editorial Board
Southampton Village has two seats on the Village Board up for grabs, and the campaign this time around, despite the fact that four candidates are involved, hasn’t had the level of acrimony seen in recent elections, nor has there been what is tantamount to “dark...
Jun 14, 2022, By Editorial Board
Sag Harbor Village has found itself at a literal crossroads — in three dimensions. As Blade, and other seaplane services, eye the village as an alternative to East Hampton Airport should the town succeed in restricting helicopter flights from Manhattan, and with the Hampton Jitney...
Jun 8, 2022, By Editorial Board
The Shinnecock Graves Protection Warrior Society has made tremendous strides in the past few years in protecting ancient burial sites in Shinnecock Hills and repatriating the remains of Shinnecock ancestors from museums, universities and the private collections of archaeologists. But the group’s work is far...
Jun 7, 2022, By Editorial Board
Just as proving a negative is a philosophical challenge, it’s very hard to say what the world would be like had a key player never made an entrance. George Bailey got a taste of it in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” thanks to angels, but the...
Jun 7, 2022, By Editorial Board
In the face of another senseless, tragic act of gun violence in America, we’ll share the only words that truly matter, the words that speak volumes and cry for action. Nevaeh Bravo, 10 Jackie Cazares, 10 Makenna Lee Elrod, 10 Jose Flores Jr., 10 Eliahna...
Jun 2, 2022, By Editorial Board
It’s almost quaint to remember, a decade ago, the standing complaint within the Republican Party that the Democrats were relying too much on “judicial activism” to enact policy. Complaints about so-called activist judges became part of the standard rhetoric, and it continues to this day:...
May 26, 2022, By Editorial Board
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
On February 10, the Southampton Village Board voted, 5-0, to increase many of the fees that the Building Department charges builders and property owners. Two members of that same Village Board, Roy Stevenson and Robin Brown, then proceeded to have work done on their properties...
Apr 13, 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
Memorial Day weekend is less than two months away, and Southampton Village still doesn’t have a permanent police chief — or a police captain, for that matter. The department has been without a top cop since September 2021, when Chief Tom Cummings retired, something he...
Apr 5, 2022, By Editorial Board
It’s a dilemma, with very high stakes. Affordable housing is a crisis on the East End, and there is a proposal to designate millions of dollars a year to help fix it. Every year is money that doesn’t go toward the problem — revenue from...
Apr 5, 2022, By Editorial Board
Last week’s Express Sessions event had a focus on Southampton Village, with the topic being preparations for the upcoming summer season and the annual onslaught of visitors. Questions arose that will be asked in every community on the South Fork: Will the pandemic’s impact in...
Mar 30, 2022, By Editorial Board
It’s not the first time the Rechlers have engineered a pivot when it comes to the “Hampton Boathouses,” a 37-unit development on the east side of the Shinnecock Canal in Hampton Bays. The concept behind the units has changed a couple of times. At first,...
Mar 22, 2022, By Editorial Board
Winning a state championship has often been compared to climbing a mountain, a triumph so rare and difficult to achieve that it’s reserved for a select few teams with the benefit of a tremendous amount of hard work, dedication and even a bit of good...
Mar 22, 2022, By Editorial Board
In case you missed it, the most memorable line at a recent Express Sessions event in Sag Harbor, focusing on the future of the region’s volunteer fire and ambulance services, came from Matt Zukosky. He trains emergency service responders all over the island, and he...
Mar 22, 2022, By Editorial Board
Corruption festers in the dark. It is only by shining the brightest of lights on our elected leaders and public officials — from the smallest library and school boards, to the massive institutions that make up the federal government — that the temptation is checked...
Mar 15, 2022, By Editorial Board
Living on the East End, a car is an unfortunate necessity, except for short jaunts for those who live near hamlet and village centers, where precious few bike lanes and pedestrian-friendly walkways have popped up over the years, though they are still woefully lacking in...
Mar 8, 2022, By Editorial Board
Now that the statewide mask mandate is lifted — in fact, every state, other than Hawaii, has adopted relaxed policies for wearing masks in most places — some people might wonder: Why am I still seeing people wearing a mask in public? Given the sad...
Mar 8, 2022, By Editorial Board
It’s fascinating that federal courts have taken the stance that police “chalking tires” to keep track of how long people are taking up parking spaces is unconstitutional — something about it being a violation of Fourth Amendment rights against the government “trespassing” on private property,...
Mar 1, 2022, By Editorial Board
The lovely waterfront property on Bluff Point Lane in Sag Harbor, less than 2 acres with a modest cottage and a small outbuilding, carries a price tag that seems a bit lofty even in these overheated times: $17.9 million. In part, that’s because it’s not...
Mar 1, 2022, By Editorial Board
Waking up to historical events has been a surprisingly common occurrence in the last few years. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine last week — an unprovoked assault across international borders, targeting a fledgling democracy using a twisted rewrite of the region’s history as cover...
Mar 1, 2022, By Editorial Board
One thing was made painfully clear this week in the serious gaffes by the Suffolk County Historical Society and Southampton History Museum in misguided attempts to mark Black History Month: Malice is not required to offend — and good intentions alone can’t undo the damage....
Feb 23, 2022, By Editorial Board
Like those proverbial frogs in a pan of water, slowly warming to a boil, we sometimes forget just how long we’ve been feeling the heat of the pandemic. A full two years after those first alarming reports out of Wuhan, China, nerves are frayed and...
Feb 15, 2022, By Editorial Board
The South Fork endured its first major blizzard in a handful of years last month, and the weekend storm delighted many — Pierson Hill was crowded with sledders, and the blanket of snow turned Main Street, already a picturesque tableau, into a Norman Rockwell winter...
Feb 8, 2022, By Editorial Board
A few weeks ago, on its website, The Washington Post had a little fun with a most serious matter, converting gerrymandered new congressional districts all over the country, resulting from the 2020 Census, into digitally playable holes of miniature golf. Actually, “playable” is probably the...
Feb 8, 2022, By Editorial Board
By mere feet, a worker at the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Refuge escaped tragedy when shotgun slugs fired by a deer hunter whizzed by, striking animal enclosures at the center. But the events on that day early last month still were tragic for workers at the...
Feb 8, 2022, By Editorial Board
For people who live in tick-infested areas — that’s most of the East End — the illnesses they carry are a constant, serious threat: not just Lyme disease but babesiosis, ehrlichiosis and others. Every year, new arrivals are introduced to the danger, sometimes the hardest...
Feb 1, 2022, By Editorial Board
The COVID-19 pandemic has had few bright spots, but one surely has been the surprising way more people were able to watch government in action in the places they call home on the South Fork — checking into town, village and school boards through virtual...
Jan 25, 2022, By Editorial Board
Inaction is rarely something to applaud in municipal government, but the Southampton Town Board was exactly right in letting the clock run out last month on the decision to “opt out” of allowing the recreational sale and on-site consumption of marijuana within its borders. Because...
Jan 18, 2022, By Editorial Board
Remember plastic bags? Certainly, they still exist and can be found in many places. But on the South Fork, in just a few years, they’ve largely disappeared. What seemed an impossible task is now just another fact of life in an environmentally sensitive area: you...
Jan 18, 2022, By Editorial Board
The pending introduction of body-worn cameras by police officers in four of the larger East End departments — with the notable exceptions of East Hampton Town and East Hampton Village — is a good, first effort, at holding departments and officers more accountable to the...
Jan 10, 2022, By Editorial Board
Exactly one year ago, it became real. It’s important to think of it that way: January 6, 2021, was a moment in time, but it was not isolated. There was a lead-up, and there was follow-up, and there is an unwritten future. But January 6...
Jan 4, 2022, By Editorial Board
On January 1 — this year not only the New Year’s Day holiday but also a Saturday — Springs School Superintendent Deb Winter and Principal Christine Clearly spent their morning with a handful of staff passing out rapid COVID-19 tests to parents in anticipation of...
Jan 4, 2022, By Editorial Board
Nobody in their right mind wishes ill on another person. That’s even more true at a moment when our nation is mourning the 800,000 U.S. lives lost to a virulent disease, a grim benchmark we will reach this month, potentially this week. The toll is...
Dec 14, 2021, By Editorial Board
It’s as simple as a one-letter change, NIMBY to YIMBY, a one-word change, from “not” to “yes.” But it’s so much more complicated, and it’s a conversation that is long overdue on the South Fork. East End YIMBY’s rally on Saturday in Sag Harbor was...
Dec 7, 2021, 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
As the holiday shopping season kicks off with a bang on Black Friday, most people will rush to their computer screens to get started. Which is … sad. For many reasons. E-commerce has dominated American society for years, and the pandemic only hastened that trend....
Nov 19, 2021, By Editorial Board
If, by chance, you need a reminder of the genius of the Father of Our Country, note that George Washington essentially predicted the mess we find ourselves in 225 years later. In his farewell address on September 19, 1796, the first president ended with a...
Nov 16, 2021, By Editorial Board
On Tuesday, the Sag Harbor Village Board of Trustees held a public hearing on proposed changes to its zoning code on waterfront properties. This process has evolved over the last year and, if adopted, the new code is meant to protect Sag Harbor’s waterfront from...
Nov 9, 2021, By Editorial Board
As President Joe Biden noted from the White House on the afternoon of August 31, as the final troops were pulling out of Afghanistan, ending a 20-year war, U.S. “veterans and their families have gone through hell — deployment after deployment, months and years away...
Nov 9, 2021, By Editorial Board
Every Veterans Day the nation pays tribute to the men and women who served in the armed forces, and the day chosen to honor them, November 11, was the day World War I ended in 1918. That same war is commemorated in Southampton Village’s Agawam...
Nov 9, 2021, By Editorial Board
Battles are often fought on beachfronts. In most places, that’s because they’re the first bit of land to come under siege from invaders. That narrative is turned on its head on the East End, where the sandy shore is the setting for the culmination of...
Nov 2, 2021, By Editorial Board
County Legislator “I’ll be on the ballot.” That was the closing statement by Robert Carpenter, who is the Republican challenger for Suffolk County legislator, at the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island and the North Fork debate on October 18 — and...
Oct 26, 2021, By Editorial Board
State Propositions Listen carefully: Be sure to flip your ballot over. There are five state propositions this year, and you don’t want to miss the chance to register your opinions. Here are ours. Proposition 1 makes changes to the redistricting process for Congress and the...
Oct 26, 2021, By Editorial Board
Southampton Town Several readers eloquently make the same point in the Letters section this week, but it bears repeating: While the turnout for local elections is often a fraction of national races, that makes no sense — next week’s town elections have the most direct...
Oct 26, 2021, By Editorial Board
High school student-athletes hear a lot about the principles of sportsmanship. The Educational Framework for Athletics, which is promoted by Section XI, the governing body of high school sports in Suffolk County, provides a set of guidelines to “help schools develop, enhance and implement quality...
Oct 20, 2021, By Editorial Board
As promised, Sag Harbor Village Mayor Jim Larocca this week shared a new draft plan for proposed changes in zoning along the village’s waterfront. For those who have anxiously been watching as real estate in downtown Sag Harbor has changed hands — with most of...
Oct 13, 2021, By Editorial Board
As East End towns and villages seek to preserve their character by protecting 18th and 19th century houses from demolition and deterioration, many other contributing homes, especially those that lie outside of a designated historic district, often go overlooked. Early 20th century homes by famous...
Oct 13, 2021, By Editorial Board
Persistence is a virtue, and it’s impossible to foresee the way political tumblers will fall into place and suddenly unlock. That’s an oversimplification — it’s possible that Andrew Cuomo might have been swayed by the changes State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. baked into the...
Oct 12, 2021, By Editorial Board
All politics is local, the adage goes, but the same can’t be said for news. There are layers, from international all the way to school boards. And never has there been so much access, so many outlets, a veritable fire hose of information flowing out...
Oct 5, 2021, By Editorial Board
When Catherine Creedon was hired as the director of the John Jermain Memorial Library almost 15 years ago, the library was at a crossroads. The historic Greek Revival building, designed by Augustus N. Allen and built in 1910 with funding provided by philanthropist Margaret Olivia...
Sep 28, 2021, By Editorial Board
There’s a word for what’s driving the desire to relocate a historic windmill from the campus of Stony Brook Southampton back to its original home in Southampton Village: “covet.” It really is that simple: A group of good-hearted residents regrets a decision made 141 years...
Sep 28, 2021, By Editorial Board
Climate change denial still exists, but only on the fringes, especially after a couple of years of wildfires, melting glaciers and powerful storm events have driven home the message that not only are its effects coming, they’re already here. Still, that’s progress, if only incremental:...
Sep 28, 2021, By Editorial Board
The southern pine beetle is so named because this insect, the size of a grain of rice, was long found exclusively in southern regions. But as climate change has taken its toll, this pest has continued a northward march, including infesting the Long Island Pine...
Sep 22, 2021, By Editorial Board
Much credit should go to Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman and Police Chief Steven Skrynecki for doggedly attempting to untangle a Gordian knot: the intractable issue of South Fork traffic congestion. It affects everyone, in both East Hampton and Southampton towns, plus a whole lot...
Sep 21, 2021, By Editorial Board
“It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear,” said President Donald Trump in February 2020, speaking of the COVID-19 pandemic that was just beginning to gain horrific momentum. On paper, the quote can be read to sound hopeful;...
Sep 14, 2021, By Editorial Board
Like the age-old story of the phoenix rising from the ashes, “Stargazer,” the recently dilapidated bright red sculpture on County Road 111 in Eastport, will see new life. Thanks to a $100,000 grant from the Manes American Peace Prize Foundation and its founder, Dr. Harvey...
Sep 7, 2021, By Editorial Board
There’s a small group of people who know why John Czartosieski wasn’t brought back to be the Westhampton Beach head tennis coach this year. He’s not among them. And the rest of the community is left to wonder as well. In what seems to be...
Sep 1, 2021, By Editorial Board
With North Haven Village poised to adopt the South Fork’s most decisive leaf blower ban, banning the use of all gasoline-powered leaf blowers by landscapers and homeowners alike, it’s time for other municipalities to begin thinking regionally, take a firm step forward to combat both...
Aug 31, 2021, By Editorial Board
It’s becoming more and more clear that the devastation of the region’s bay scallop population is a complex matter that won’t be easily solved, if it can be solved at all. But it seems likely that one looming factor is most to blame: climate change....
Aug 31, 2021, By Editorial Board
We’ve all seen it: the “I survived Hurricane Henri” meme, with a photo of a single flimsy plastic chair blown over. It was scattered all over social media on Sunday as the East End slowly began to realize that a direct hit wasn’t coming. Henri’s...
Aug 23, 2021, By Editorial Board
In the heat of the moment, people say things they later regret. Here’s hoping that’s the case for a handful of people who spoke at the August 12 Southampton Village Board meeting, objecting to a code change that would allow the Heart of the Hamptons,...
Aug 23, 2021, By Editorial Board
This past week, The Boston Globe published a series of articles focusing on vaccinations in an effort to urge the hesitant to a point of comfort with getting the shot. The Express News Group participated in “The Last, Best Shot” by sharing those articles online;...
Aug 20, 2021, By Editorial Board
In a 1996 opening sketch on “Saturday Night Live,” U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole, played by Norm MacDonald, dreams that he’s debating Thomas J. Whitmore, the fictitious president from “Independence Day,” played by Bill Pullman. The debate takes place after an alien attack...
Aug 18, 2021, By Editorial Board
Picture a field, an open meadow, the kind that dogs love to roam. Picture a puppy wandering the field, chasing insects — full of adorable life. An adoptive family watches joyfully from the edge of the field. Now picture another puppy, and another family. And...
Aug 17, 2021, By Editorial Board
At a time when half of the country is always pointing a finger at the other half, for one reason or another, let’s acknowledge that we’re all guilty of one thing: All of us — Republicans and Democrats, young and old, vaccinated and unvaccinated, and...
Aug 9, 2021, By Editorial Board
All of us — constituents, colleagues from both parties in Albany, newspaper editorial boards — waited. We heard the allegations, from so many women, against Andrew Cuomo, of inappropriate conduct. The sheer number, the consistent stories, the lack of motivation for the women to come...
Aug 4, 2021, By Editorial Board
Let’s be clear: Nobody wants to be here, in this moment in time, so tantalizingly close to being out of a deadly pandemic, yet bogged down and even slipping backward. We’re all frustrated, and nobody wants to wear a mask anymore. It’s summer. And, beyond...
Aug 4, 2021, By Editorial Board
Last week, Sag Harbor Village Mayor Jim Larocca doubled down on a campaign promise to make affordable housing a priority under his administration, tapping Trustees Bob Plumb and Ed Haye to co-chair a new Sag Harbor Affordable Housing Initiative. And, frankly, it is about time...
Aug 4, 2021, By Editorial Board
Hampton Bays resident Gayle Lombardi deserves credit for her “pandemic project” this past year: She taught herself the mechanics of writing an Article 78 lawsuit, then filed one challenging the Southampton Town Board’s decision last year to approve a new zoning code for the Hampton...
Aug 4, 2021, By Editorial Board
It’s a refrain often repeated every summer: Traffic is worse this year than it’s ever been. Perhaps this year it’s actually true. At almost any time, on any day of the week, drivers may find themselves in the middle of gridlock, unable to get anywhere...
Jul 27, 2021, By Editorial Board
It’s been far from a lonely fight — she’s had many allies over the past 20 years — but Rebecca Genia deserves to be the face of a hard-won victory this month with the preservation of Sugar Loaf, a parcel on the sacred crest of...
Jul 27, 2021, By Editorial Board
Full Disclosure Early this year, New York State debuted its all-new, all-electronic filing system for campaign finance disclosures. Candidates and their fundraising committees use it to report the campaign donations they have received and to identify the donors. Along with the new filing system came...
Jul 21, 2021, By Editorial Board
Infighting among government bodies over differences of opinion when it comes to legislation or even a general path forward for a community is to be expected — it’s a sign that there is a healthy diversity of views on a village or town board. In...
Jul 20, 2021, By Editorial Board
Nobody should ever leave a parade feeling worse than they did when they arrived. That said, a Fourth of July parade is a celebration of patriotism, and a big part of what makes Americans so proud is a long history of freedom of expression. That...
Jul 20, 2021, By Editorial Board
The pandemic taught us many things, including that being adaptive during unprecedented times is critical to meet the needs of family, businesses and the community at large. That need to be responsive to changing community priorities has not waned as the number of cases has...
Jul 13, 2021, By Editorial Board
Everybody talks about the weather, a wise man once quipped, but nobody does anything about it. (It wasn’t Mark Twain, incidentally, though he often gets credit: It was his good friend Charles Dudley Warner, in an editorial in the Hartford Courant in 1897.) The same...
Jul 13, 2021, By Editorial Board
Southampton Village, Southampton Town and the Southampton African American Museum are seeking permission to build a visitors center at the Pyrrhus Concer homestead on Lake Agawam. The town purchased the land, which is located within the village, using the Community Preservation Fund, and the museum...
Jul 7, 2021, By Editorial Board
There was no mistaking the division in Sag Harbor Village during this year’s village campaign. Much of the acrimony was not stoked by the candidates themselves but by their supporters, who lobbed unfounded innuendos — largely on social media — about both Jim Larocca and...
Jul 7, 2021, By Editorial Board
Hampton Bays residents who have been vocal privately, and on social media, in opposition to a plan to create the Good Ground Road Bypass missed an opportunity on June 22 to let town officials know how they feel. They’ll get another chance next week to...
Jul 7, 2021, By Editorial Board
Graduation photos are often full of emotion. The best ones capture that moment when a graduate’s face reflects joy, relief, excitement about the future, satisfaction, sadness about a chapter ending, gratitude to all those who helped clear a path for that walk to the stage...
Jul 6, 2021, By Editorial Board
The Fourth of July this year will be a celebratory one, being the first major holiday when the region, and much of the country, can truly begin to think about the pandemic as a lingering concern but, with state and regional vaccination rates at a...
Jun 29, 2021, By Editorial Board
One joy of small-town life is when a local effort bears fruit. This month, 35 teenagers completed a term in the Westhampton War Memorial Junior Ambulance, and many of the high school students will parlay that experience into college studies in medicine or related fields,...
Jun 22, 2021, By Editorial Board
It happened in the midst of a busy election, but Southampton Village residents shouldn’t miss the significance of the recent story about machinations by members of the village’s Zoning Board of Appeals. Last week, ZBA member Kevin Guidera, a 36-year member of the board, called...
Jun 22, 2021, By Editorial Board
As more and more of us become vaccinated and feel the world reopening after more than a year under the weight of the pandemic, there is a sense of freedom and a desire to see life return to the way it was. However, the reality...
Jun 22, 2021, By Editorial Board
Both Southampton and Sag Harbor villages have just completed difficult political campaigns for mayor that have drawn criticism for their intensity. This is not how the founding fathers pictured politics, some might say. Well, as Rick Ungar, a senior political contributor at Forbes, has noted,...
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
The response of neighbors living near the Atlantic Golf Club on Scuttle Hole Road in Bridgehampton to plans to build a residential staff housing building on the golf course for as many as 16 workers said it all: Affordable workforce housing is never going to...
Jun 15, 2021, By Editorial Board
There are few small-town traditions more important in Sag Harbor than the Tuesday night performances of the Sag Harbor Community Band in front of the American Legion on Bay Street. For almost 60 years, the band has played on, its fans lined up in beach...
Jun 15, 2021, By Editorial Board
The Westhampton Beach School District took its first tentative steps toward addressing a serious problem, and in doing so finally appeared to stop backpedaling. That alone is reason for optimism, even as students, parents and residents might grumble about what it took to get to...
Jun 15, 2021, By Editorial Board
Last week, Democrat Kara Hahn, the deputy presiding officer of the Suffolk County Legislature, tossed her hat into the ring to run in 2022 for the 1st District congressional seat, held by Republican Lee Zeldin since 2014. Noyac Democrat Bridget Fleming, also a county legislator...
Jun 9, 2021, By Editorial Board
A village election should be a celebration of democracy at the most local level, where candidates essentially share a backyard and all want the best for their neighbors, and engage in friendly debates about how to do that. It never should be an ordeal that...
Jun 8, 2021, By Editorial Board
Sag Harbor has never been a community of apathy; its residents — both old and new — are fiercely protective of the village and have, for decades, routinely packed the second-floor meeting room at the Municipal Building when controversial issues arise. And there have always...
Jun 8, 2021, By Editorial Board
When four out of five members of a village board have a clear conflict of interest on a matter before them, that board should go to great lengths to stay out of it — it’s only common sense. The Quogue Village Board found itself in...
Jun 1, 2021, By Editorial Board
Sag Harbor Village Mayor Kathleen Mulcahy last week announced that a committee charged with protecting the village waterfront from rampant development wisely had decided to reconsider a planned office district on the periphery of Main Street from a Waterfront Overlay District that is expected to...
Jun 1, 2021, By Editorial Board
The Working Families Party, being a liberal party, usually, but not always, cross-endorses the Democratic candidates for town and county offices. This minor party line does not pull a huge number of votes, but in tight races it can be a deciding factor in an...
Jun 1, 2021, By Editorial Board
A new debate has erupted in Sag Harbor and, as is often the case in a community first settled more than 300 years ago, the discussion is wrapped in historical significance, with conflicting goals that come with trying to marry the past and the future...
Jun 1, 2021, By Editorial Board
Make no mistake, this is a dire moment for the environment, with decades of development taking a toll on what were once healthy ecosystems, and climate change bringing a new potential for devastation. Calls to action are urgent for a reason. But in the midst...
Jun 1, 2021, By Editorial Board
With the arrival of Memorial Day weekend, and the beginning of the end of the pandemic, the South Fork is about to enter a moment where the significant changes of the past year will become impossible to ignore. The summer of 2021 will provide clear...
May 24, 2021, By Editorial Board
In Southampton Village’s $32.5 million budget for 2021-22, more than a third of the spending, a total of $11.5 million, goes to fund the Village Police Department. It’s an expensive part of village government, and thus is ripe for close examination year to year, and...
May 19, 2021, By Editorial Board
Members of the Westhampton Beach School Board are facing one of the most significant issues in the district, and in society as a whole: charges of systemic racism by not only students in the district but teachers and school leaders as well. But you wouldn’t...
May 18, 2021, By Editorial Board
Now comes the tricky part: The end of the pandemic. Knock on wood, it seems to be in sight. With warmer weather coming and infection numbers all declining, at the local, state and national levels, and with vaccines reaching more than half of the population,...
May 18, 2021, By Editorial Board
It’s the latest but probably not the last: Word came down last week that yet another wind farm proposal, this one by the company Equinor targeting a stretch of water near Nantucket, will potentially impact fishing waters off Montauk with the installation of an electrical...
May 11, 2021, By Editorial Board
In normal times, this would be a simple conversation about the importance of vigilance as school district budgets come up for the annual May vote, stressing the notion that taxpayers have the ultimate responsibility to know what they’re supporting with their votes, and their tax...
May 11, 2021, By Editorial Board
When Sag Harbor Village began taking a hard look at its waterfront, through consideration of a zoning revision, much of the discussion revolved around wanting to protect the historic waterfront community’s aesthetic. The village is envied for how it has evolved over the years yet...
May 11, 2021, By Editorial Board
Southampton Town officials need to get on the ball and clean up — and clean out — a blighted parcel of land it owns in Riverside that has become a home to drug dealers and prostitutes. The Flanders, Riverside and Northampton communities have for decades...
May 11, 2021, By Editorial Board
On Saturday, Sag Harbor residents, activists and government officials, including members of the Village Board, sat inside Bay Street Theater — the first live audience the theater had hosted in 410 days as a result of the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Many more stakeholders and interested...
May 5, 2021, By Editorial Board
As the East End slowly pokes its head out of the confines of the pandemic — with infection rates down, a growing number of people being vaccinated and the state easing restrictions on businesses — things are beginning to feel a little more like they...
May 5, 2021, By Editorial Board
The septic improvement programs run by Suffolk County and the towns of East Hampton and Southampton were never supposed to lead to tax liabilities for the recipients of grants and reimbursements. Nonetheless, homeowners who were trying to do right by the environment were stuck with...
May 5, 2021, By Editorial Board
A historic moment isn’t experienced in the same way by everyone — its impact differs by community, by gender and race, by economics, by geography. But the power, the significance, reaches us all in some way — it’s felt by everyone. That should lead to...
Apr 27, 2021, By Editorial Board
Southampton Town officials have dropped the ball when it comes to Iron Point Park in Flanders. The park is nearly inaccessible due to poor road conditions and a constantly flooding entrance. Residents feel unsafe going to the park because of its poor reputation as a...
Apr 21, 2021, By Editorial Board
Not only is New York State a high-tax state — something that is felt acutely on Long Island — it is also the biggest donor state in the nation. New York gets back just 91 cents in federal spending for every dollar that New Yorkers...
Apr 21, 2021, By Editorial Board
Rarely does a single meeting — in fact, a single exchange at a single meeting — require as much unpacking as does the April 8 Southampton Village Board meeting, where a vote related to Police Chief Thomas Cummings’s new contract sparked a conflagration and raised...
Apr 20, 2021, By Editorial Board
Cilli Farm in Sag Harbor has remained untouched since it was preserved in 2000 in a joint effort by the Village of Sag Harbor, Southampton Town and Suffolk County. At the time, the effort to preserve the 9-acre parcel had a singular goal: to protect...
Apr 20, 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
Street trees provide both comfort and beauty: As they protect pedestrians from light rain and beating sun, they add aesthetic value to the streetscape. The most idyllic villages would be nothing without them. But, along the way, the majesty of mature native trees was set...
Apr 7, 2021, By Editorial Board
Strong’s Marine has been a vital part of the East End business community for 75 years, providing boats, large and small, to those hoping to enjoy one of the area’s biggest draws — its wide-open waterways and fishing grounds. So when the company’s owners approached...
Apr 6, 2021, By Editorial Board
A lot of time and energy has gone into proposed changes to parts of Sag Harbor Village’s zoning code, specifically along the waterfront and behind the primary arteries of the village, Main, Bay and West Water streets. When Village Board members set out to consider...
Apr 6, 2021, By Editorial Board
Concepts are always prettier in the abstract. Who can object to “green energy,” for instance, beyond those employed by fossil fuel industries? Using wind and sunlight to create all of the electricity that drives our modern world would be a miraculous achievement with universal support....
Apr 6, 2021, By Editorial Board
U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin has made no secret of the fact that he wants to replace Andrew Cuomo as governor. In an attempt to get there, he’s taken the tack of calling for the immediate and full reopening of all schools and all businesses in...
Apr 1, 2021, By Editorial Board
When COVID-19 surfaced last spring, live entertainment was the first thing to shut down — and you can bet it will be the last thing to fully reopen when the worst of the pandemic is behind us. But this week marks a milestone in what...
Apr 1, 2021, By Editorial Board
Last week, the Sag Harbor Cinema raised the curtain on its new MovieVan, a Ford Transit cargo van fully equipped to take the show on the road, literally. The van was gifted to the cinema by Robert and Suzanne Harwood, and in the coming months...
Mar 23, 2021, By Editorial Board
The Southampton Village Board last week hosted an unusual and uncomfortable meeting. In the midst of negotiating a new employment contract with Police Chief Thomas M. Cummings, the board decided to update the public on the status of the talks. Mayor Jesse Warren cited a...
Mar 23, 2021, By Editorial Board
What was striking about the recent Express Sessions event that brought together Shinnecock Nation leaders and key local government officials was the tone and tenor of the conversation: Gone was the heated rhetoric of the past, the unmistakable “us versus them” dynamic that was for...
Mar 23, 2021, By Editorial Board
A Year Of Lessons It was March 11, 2020, when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, and nine days later when Governor Andrew Cuomo banned all nonessential gatherings in New York State. Some responded to the shutdown with abject fear and hoarded...
Mar 17, 2021, By Editorial Board
Residents and business owners in Sag Harbor would be wise to attend a virtual work session of the Village Board on Wednesday, March 24. At that gathering, the board will review in detail proposed changes to the zoning rules along the village’s waterfront, aimed at...
Mar 16, 2021, By Editorial Board
Community journalism only works when talented people step forward to be a part of it. Phil Keith, an accomplished author, was one of those people who felt he had something to contribute: a traditional conservative voice on the OpEd pages of his local newspapers, which...
Mar 16, 2021, By Editorial Board
Southampton Town officials recently breathed new life into a decades-old plan to extend Good Ground Road in Hampton Bays westward, with a turn north to meet the Montauk Highway-State Route 24 intersection at the traffic signal, in what is being billed as a bypass to...
Mar 9, 2021, By Editorial Board
The towns and villages this month will wrap up the process of discussing police reform, as dictated by Governor Andrew Cuomo in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis last summer. The result, at least locally, was underwhelming. That’s to...
Mar 9, 2021, By Editorial Board
Businesses and residents have been in conversation with local leaders for decades — actual decades — about parking shortages and general traffic issues in downtown Sag Harbor. That is one of a handful of reasons the village needs to push forward with plans for the...
Mar 9, 2021, By Editorial Board
A pop-up vaccination clinic run by East Hampton Town officials, in conjunction with Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, was meant to operate from 8:15 a.m. to 7:45 p.m. on Friday. Yet, there were East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc and Town Councilman David Lys standing...
Mar 9, 2021, By Editorial Board
One day in the early 1950s, Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck and his wife, Elaine, were driving through Bridgehampton when they saw a sign pointing north to the village of Sag Harbor, and they thought they’d take a chance. That largely happenstance left-hand turn delivered...
Mar 2, 2021, By Editorial Board
In Plain Sight For many months, lawmakers and journalists alike have pressed Governor Andrew Cuomo and his administration for more transparency on the number of COVID-related nursing homes deaths. He’s dodged. He’s lashed out. He waited for everyone to drop it and move on —...
Feb 23, 2021, By Editorial Board
When the Shinnecock Nation first floated the idea of operating a gaming facility two decades ago, the surrounding community exploded in dissent. Hateful rhetoric surrounded claims that such a facility would lead to a “nuclear explosion” of development, welcome “the devil” to town, and result...
Feb 23, 2021, By Editorial Board
Kudos to State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. for taking on a long-overdue weakness in New York State’s laws requiring open government — a fight that benefits not just journalists but every single New Yorker, and not just those in Assembly District 1. In a...
Feb 16, 2021, By Editorial Board
One of the missions of education is not just to teach young minds what to know, it’s to teach them how to think. The pandemic has thrown a monkey wrench into the classroom experience, but the region’s schools have done a laudable job of adapting...
Feb 16, 2021, By Editorial Board
In 2020, two different groups named U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin, the Shirley Republican who represents the 1st District, one of the most bipartisan members of Congress. It was a designation he touted throughout his campaign. But to anyone who has watched Mr. Zeldin since he...
Feb 9, 2021, By Editorial Board
The pandemic presents an unending series of dilemmas, one difficult choice after another, often with only bad options available. That’s true at many levels, but it’s never more true than at the school level. The choices made by school officials are fundamental, in that every...
Feb 2, 2021, By Editorial Board
Many officials in Sag Harbor and East Hampton are portraying app-based paid parking programs proposed in their villages as an experiment of sorts, one that will allow them to take stock next fall and adjust accordingly — or get rid of them altogether — depending...
Jan 28, 2021, By Editorial Board
Only 79 percent of the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine that federal agencies have allocated to New York State have gotten into people’s arms. Many hospitals, pharmacies and local governments in receipt of doses have been painstakingly slow in administering their supplies, despite Governor...
Jan 19, 2021, By Editorial Board
This week, unless something truly unexpected occurs, Discovery Land will see a 3-1 vote by the Central Pine Barrens Commission on Wednesday that will, for all intents and purposes, remove the final obstacle to a 118-unit luxury golf course resort on land encroaching on the...
Jan 19, 2021, By Editorial Board
On the campaign trail in 2016, Donald Trump frequently resorted to verse to make his xenophobic case against immigrants and the supposed threat they bring. The poem “The Snake” is based on an old fable: An old woman takes a dying snake into her house...
Jan 11, 2021, By Editorial Board
It was the last of a series of stunning images from 2020: Times Square deserted, except for small groups of first responders, as the ball dropped to ring in 2021. One final reminder: We have endured a year like no other — and now have...
Jan 5, 2021, By Editorial Board
Let’s start, as we should, with three statements of pure, unadulterated fact, a cold splash of unfiltered reality in a time enshrouded by the lazy fog of obfuscation. Joe Biden won the 2020 election, comfortably. Both his 81 million votes and incumbent President Donald Trump’s...
Dec 15, 2020, 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
Most people are good people. If a neighbor needs a hand — with a heavy package, or up from the sidewalk after a minor fall — rare is the person who wouldn’t happily be there to help. It’s only neighborly. This is a time of...
Dec 1, 2020, By Editorial Board
When Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, installed the Park-O-Meter No. 1, invented by Carl Magee (a former newspaper reporter, ahem), on First Street and Robinson Avenue in July 1935, it was a marvel. You stuck in a nickel and got an hour of parking time, no attendant...
Dec 1, 2020, By Editorial Board
Soon, the Shinnecock Nation’s “occupation” of its own land along Sunrise Highway, a campground designed to be a protest site, will break ground and return to their normal lives. But the Warriors of the Sunrise deserve a victory to celebrate. The camp is near the...
Nov 23, 2020, By Editorial Board
As we enter the worst of a devastating new wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative that as many students as possible are able to safely remain in school, for myriad reasons — educational, social, economic, psychological. Achieving that goal will require community commitment...
Nov 23, 2020, By Editorial Board
Eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic, it is easy to understand a desire to embrace the holiday season with fervor, gather with friends and family who have remained largely at a distance, and even battle the crushing cabin fever by traveling to finally hug those...
Nov 17, 2020, By Editorial Board
Even as Suffolk County begins the process of counting absentee ballots, which are expected to be weighted toward the growing Democratic enrollment in the 1st Congressional District, Republican Lee Zeldin appears to have locked down a fourth term in office. He will return to a...
Nov 10, 2020, By Editorial Board
Necessity is the mother of invention, and the move to make voting easier and safer as a presidential election is being held in the midst of a pandemic has been a revelation. Across New York State, at least 2.2 million people took advantage of the...
Nov 3, 2020, By Editorial Board
For well over a decade, one of the biggest lingering questions about the future of Sag Harbor, its Main Street businesses and its successful economy in general has been whether Bay Street Theater, the innovative company housed in a black box theater off Long Wharf...
Nov 3, 2020, By Editorial Board
Yet again this year, a “straw woman” candidate is on the Republican line on Tuesday’s ballot for the seat in the State Assembly from the 1st District, which includes the South Fork — there’s been no active campaign, no serious effort to mount a challenge....
Oct 30, 2020, By Editorial Board
Nancy Goroff is our enthusiastic choice for the 1st District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Democratic newcomer is not just an acceptable alternative to the incumbent, Republican Lee Zeldin, she is, in nearly every way, the better choice to represent the region...
Oct 27, 2020, By Editorial Board
For the first time since 1977, the 1st District will not be represented in the State Senate by Kenneth LaValle, who is retiring after a legendary career. That puts a lot of pressure on his successor, and on the voters who have to choose him...
Oct 27, 2020, By Editorial Board
There are two questions on the November 3 ballot from Suffolk County. Our position is that “no” is the proper way to mark the ballot in both instances. Proposition 1 would change the term of office for Suffolk County legislators from two to four years,...
Oct 27, 2020, By Editorial Board
Dr. Edna Kapenhas, a breast surgeon at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, a newly minted fellow of the American College of Surgeons, took an opportunity in the spotlight this week to deliver a crucial message: October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the 2020 edition of...
Oct 20, 2020, By Editorial Board
Monday was the start of Free Speech Week, an annual event meant to raise the importance of the First Amendment in Americans’ daily lives. Organizers sounded both naive and hopeful in their pitch: “As freedom of speech and of the press are rights all Americans...
Oct 20, 2020, By Editorial Board
How is affordable housing on the South Fork like bad weather? Because everyone complains about it but nobody ever does anything about it. That’s unfair: The problem persists, but, clearly, there are many people working feverishly to try to improve the options for working families...
Oct 13, 2020, By Editorial Board
This week is celebrated as National Newspaper Week, and it’s sobering to look around at this moment in time and see the challenges newspapers face in so many ways. But spotlighting one: Delivering crucial information in the midst of a pandemic that is nowhere near...
Oct 6, 2020, By Editorial Board
The best art provokes questions. “Stargazer,” the large work of public art along County Road 111 in Eastport, certainly qualifies as great art, since its cryptic image has generated questions for decades: Is that a rooster? It’s a deer? What’s in its mouth? A branch?...
Oct 6, 2020, By Editorial Board
“E pluribus unum” has been a guiding principle since America’s earliest days, and the Latin phrase translating as “out of many, one” appears on the Great Seal of the United States. It’s a statement that began with the unification of 13 colonies, but it has...
Sep 29, 2020, By Editorial Board
Some residents of East Hampton and Hampton Bays are rightfully up in arms over the U.S. Postal Service’s recent move to eliminate drive-up mail receptacles, making it more difficult for elderly and mobility-limited people to drop off monthly bills and other correspondence. The post office...
Sep 29, 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
As part of a statewide mandate for local police departments to undergo a self-evaluation, with hopes of improving law enforcement policies, Southampton Town’s Community Law Enforcement Review Committee is set to meet on September 23. A focus of that meeting, according to Supervisor Jay Schneiderman,...
Sep 15, 2020, By Editorial Board
The latest wave of disappointment to wash over our communities came on Friday, when officials from Section XI, the governing body of high school athletics in Suffolk County, announced that interscholastic sports would be postponed until January due to the coronavirus pandemic. The unanimous vote...
Sep 15, 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
A majority of the seats up for election in North Haven Village are uncontested. Much like Sag Harbor Village, where Trustees Jim Larocca and Thomas Gardella are running unopposed to retain their seats on the Village Board, in North Haven longtime Mayor Jeff Sander is...
Sep 10, 2020, By Editorial Board
Who pays to bring more water to the thirstiest estates with the greenest lawns on the South Fork? The answer: (nearly) everybody. A story last week outlined the top water users on the Suffolk County Water Authority system in the one-year period ending in June...
Sep 8, 2020, By Editorial Board
In a press release sent out late last week in response to the perplexing new guidance from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention — stating that it was unnecessary for someone to get tested for COVID-19 simply because they came in contact with someone...
Sep 1, 2020, By Editorial Board
Like wave after wave battering a shoreline during a storm, 2020 just keeps sending new challenges, one after the other. This weekend could bring a new one crashing ashore in Southampton Village, where a “Back the Blue” rally in the morning will give way to...
Sep 1, 2020, By Editorial Board
Approaching an election in which absentee voting will be more prevalent than ever, it’s a disturbing thought that the U.S. Postal Service could struggle to keep up with the volume of mail-in ballots. Americans’ online shopping habit already had been growing every year before the...
Aug 25, 2020, By Editorial Board
It was a moment in time that everyone will remember: The Pine Barrens were on fire, threatening to burn the Village of Westhampton Beach to the ground. The village was spared, as was most of the residential property in the path of the devastating blaze,...
Aug 25, 2020, By Editorial Board
There are very few bright spots when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic, but one clear silver lining has been a new ability for stakeholders to tune into government meetings with more regularity — and not just because most of us have found ourselves largely...
Aug 17, 2020, By Editorial Board
In June, with fanfare, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law a package of police reforms. One piece of legislation in the package, called “historic” by many observers, completed the repeal of Section 50-a of New York State’s Civil Rights Law. Section 50-a had provided an...
Aug 17, 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
Get out the popcorn: There is no municipal government in the region quite like what you’ll find in Southampton Village these days. Since Mayor Jesse Warren arrived in Village Hall, there’s been tension that occasionally flares up in spectacular ways. There has been grousing over...
Aug 4, 2020, By Editorial Board
COVID-19 is an economic crisis every bit as much as it is a health crisis, and it’s alarming that the country appears to be largely winging the plan to recover. Currently, there is no long-term plan for helping states, counties and local governments, not to...
Aug 4, 2020, By Editorial Board
Amid so much grief and stress, there are occasional moments of relief, and they are so much sweeter when life is so sour in general. That’s true of a milestone accomplishment on Friday for Stony Brook Southampton Hospital: The first facility in Suffolk County to...
Aug 4, 2020, By Editorial Board
As Congress debates a new measure designed to help the millions of Americans left unemployed by the COVID-19 pandemic, another measure is on the table that would provide a life line for an industry that is facing an existential crisis — an industry that is...
Jul 28, 2020, By Editorial Board
The ironies pile up quickly, starting with the name of the event, “Safe & Sound,” which had plenty of the latter and not nearly enough of the former. There’s the headlining act, the Chainsmokers, whose name feels oddly out of sync in a time when...
Jul 28, 2020, By Editorial Board
It’s a scary time. It’s even scarier for members of the workforce — currently employed or not. The pandemic has robbed scores of people on the East End of their jobs, leaving them scrambling to figure out how to pay for housing, utilities, transportation and...
Jul 21, 2020, By Editorial Board
At a time full of strife and conflict, it’s nice to look around in the near distance and see comforting signs that disagreement doesn’t necessarily require disrespect. Conversations are taking place all over America on the need for police reform. It’s a discussion that’s also...
Jul 14, 2020, By Editorial Board
In abnormal times, it’s understandable to long for the normal. But it’s probably more sensible to recognize the immediate challenges and accept that they will take you into uncharted waters. Every school district — and, as we all know, there are a lot of them...
Jul 14, 2020, By Editorial Board
There have been numerous Black Lives Matter protests held in Suffolk County in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis in May. Here in the five towns of the East End, there have been nearly a...
Jul 7, 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
Over the course of the last week, families with children in prekindergarten, kindergarten, fifth, eighth and 12th grades all celebrated graduation, and students began preparing to embark on new journeys that remain largely out of focus, as most colleges and local school districts are not...
Jun 30, 2020, By Editorial Board
For U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin, it had to be a big night: President Donald Trump invited him to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the first big political rally of his reelection campaign to be held after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. Mr. Zeldin had the rare...
Jun 23, 2020, By Editorial Board
After months of stress-filled days due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, some cracks are beginning to show. We see it in our daily lives, in our work lives, in our family lives — and even among our elected leaders. There’s much to celebrate. New York...
Jun 16, 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
With elegant understatement, The Washington Post headlined its Monday afternoon email update: “This moment is not normal.” That truly does sum up the current state of the union: abnormal. On this — and perhaps only this — we all can agree. A confluence of crises...
Jun 2, 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
It was less than three months ago when the World Health Organization announced the first case outside of China of a new virus that had originated in Wuhan. A woman traveled from that city to Thailand, and a worldwide pandemic officially got underway. In that...
Apr 8, 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
Keeping kids safe during the pandemic, even as in-school instruction steadily returns and spring brings sports back to life, is a difficult line to walk for any school district. In general, the region’s districts have done a remarkable job of it, and erring on the...
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
An ounce of prevention, the old saying goes, is worth a pound of cure. But what about when there is no cure? What’s it worth then? And is an ounce enough? As the novel coronavirus spreads nationally — and, as an official pandemic, internationally —...
Mar 12, 2020, By Editorial Board
Bringing in a new pet carries with it an awesome responsibility for the family opening up its home and hearth. It can be, in many cases, a 10-to-20-year commitment. But even before a new furry friend is brought into the household, potential adopters have an...
Mar 10, 2020, By Editorial Board
So often lately, New York taxpayers seem to be pawns in a game of chess: They pay the price so that some larger political score can be settled or advantage gained. New York residents get a cap on SALT deductions, and have their Global Entry...
Mar 10, 2020, By Editorial Board
If there’s a lesson to learn this past week, as the novel coronavirus landed in Suffolk County, it’s that a lot of important organizations need to learn to better communicate in a crisis. Aeschylus said that “In war, truth is the first casualty”; that could...
Mar 10, 2020, By Editorial Board
“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen,” said celebrated author John Steinbeck — and it appears that the committee advising Sag Harbor Village on the future of its newest waterfront park...
Mar 3, 2020, By Editorial Board
As Robert Weis, a Hampton Bays resident and former Suffolk County Correction officer, was sentenced to serve only five years in prison last week for the horrific years-long pattern of rape and sexual abuse of two teenage boys — at least the two who have...
Mar 3, 2020, By Editorial Board
Momentum is an intriguing thing, as sports fans can attest. When you have it, remarkable things — good things — can happen. And the only way to get it is hard work, and patience. The Shinnecock Nation has invested both, for nearly two decades, and...
Mar 3, 2020, By Editorial Board
The Reverend Karen Campbell of Christ Episcopal Church in Sag Harbor is the latest East End resident to return from the southern border with eyewitness testimony of what’s happening there, despite the politically charged rhetoric that has made conversations about immigration so difficult. But they...
Feb 25, 2020, By Editorial Board
Neither side in the battle over a proposed golf course resort development in East Quogue is likely to find ultimate satisfaction any time soon. The Long Island Pine Barrens Commission is weighing the project, but whichever way it rules this spring, the courts will be...
Feb 25, 2020, By Editorial Board
Rare is applause at a Sag Harbor Village regulatory board hearing — they are typically dry affairs focused on setbacks and variances, bogged down in code and blueprints. But something truly important happened recently that prompted an acknowledgment at the time, and it deserves to...
Feb 25, 2020, By Editorial Board
The most obvious takeaway from last week’s Press Sessions event in East Hampton, “The Evolving South Fork Rental Market,” is that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to local real estate. Two topics were foremost on the minds of everyone, from panelists to...
Feb 18, 2020, By Editorial Board
Speaking of his stunning Best Picture-winning film “Parasite,” writer and director Bong Joon Ho has called it “a tragedy without villains.” It’s a shorthand way to describe the disastrous situation involving the Southampton girls basketball team, which will miss the Class B postseason despite a...
Feb 18, 2020, By Editorial Board
Race remains a third rail topic in America, and Black History Month in February presents an opportunity to stride forward purposefully, or to misstep. Sometimes the line between the two isn’t very wide. Witness an exchange between two prominent local historians: Dr. Georgette L. Grier-Key,...
Feb 11, 2020, By Editorial Board
It was a quick shift — the moment when smartphones went from a device most commonly found in the hands of working adults, to one that some children expect to receive while still in elementary school. The impact of early access to smartphone technology and...
Feb 4, 2020, By Editorial Board
Members of the Southampton Town Board should be congratulated for their efforts in recent weeks to preserve a piece of the town’s history. The Topping-Raynor House on South Road in Westhampton was built in 1890 for Charles Topping, who sold it to William Clark Raynor...
Feb 4, 2020, By Editorial Board
If ever there was a project that best demonstrated the vision of Westhampton Beach Village Board members in all the work they’ve accomplished — redesigning the village’s Main Street, and setting up a planned $17 million sewer project ready to be completed next year —...
Feb 4, 2020, By Editorial Board
There has been much clamoring recently about changes enacted last month to the state’s criminal justice system, most notably the elimination of cash bail for many defendants charged with nonviolent offenses. Those opposed to the reforms are quick to point to high-profile cases — Montauk...
Jan 28, 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
It would be almost farcical if it weren’t so serious, but the latest news out of the saga that has become the reconstruction of the former Stella Maris Regional School building into the Sag Harbor Learning Center once more proves a point: It is incumbent...
Jan 21, 2020, By Editorial Board
Whatever your opinion of the “monument” erected by the Shinnecock Nation along Sunrise Highway — in this space, back in May 2019, it was labeled “ghastly”; today, having lived with it for a time, it largely blends into the background like all other roadside beacons...
Jan 13, 2020, By Editorial Board
Friday felt like a moment out of time: In a partisan world, there were no political divides large enough that they could not be bridged in service of paying tribute to Kenneth P. LaValle, who will end his 44-year career representing the 1st District in...
Jan 13, 2020, By Editorial Board
As Sag Harbor Village continues to be a regional epicenter for redevelopment, perhaps now, more than ever, understanding the history of the village — a history that has defined its architectural aesthetic and helped preserve its quaint Main Street, as well as the traditions that...
Jan 13, 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
And Lumps Of Coal 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”: Lump of Coal: To Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, and other facilities that...
Dec 16, 2019, By Editorial Board
“And so castles made of sand/fall in the sea/eventually.” So wrote Jimi Hendrix, speaking metaphorically — but it’s true of castles built on sand as well. The colossal, imposing structures along the beach might seem impervious, but the sea eventually will take them. It’s only...
Dec 6, 2019, By Editorial Board
It’s to be expected that an omnibus bill, encompassing years’ worth of proposals into one piece of sweeping legislation, would require some tweaking even after it’s passed and been signed into law. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 is certainly no exception....
Dec 3, 2019, By Editorial Board
In October 2015, when 81-year-old Anna Pump of Sag Harbor, a well-known chef and cookbook author who co-owned the Loaves & Fishes Foodstore in Bridgehampton, was run down by a car in a crosswalk not far from the shop, it was a tragic wakeup call...
Dec 2, 2019, By Editorial Board
Visiting with the Hampton Bays Civic Association last week, Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman was asked about the status of the public water system in the hamlet, and a discussion about whether its woes are enough to justify a takeover by the Suffolk County Water...
Dec 2, 2019, By Editorial Board
It’s lovely that Americans set aside a holiday each fall for the simple purpose of taking time to reflect on the things we are thankful for. In this space, we often take the time to appreciate the abundance surrounding us on the South Fork —...
Nov 22, 2019, By Editorial Board
Organized religion has faced an uphill battle over the last two decades: As the United States has become an increasingly secular society, many houses of worship nationwide ultimately shuttered their doors in the face of dwindling numbers of congregants. As it likes to do, Sag...
Nov 19, 2019, By Editorial Board
Carl Johnson is Bridgehampton basketball. It’s quite a statement, considering the school’s long, storied history, which includes nine state championships, second-most in New York history — all the more remarkable, considering the school’s tiny enrollment. But no single man has embodied that history in the...
Nov 19, 2019, By Editorial Board
When the dust settles, the Southampton Town Board of Trustees likely will see its four incumbents who sought reelection all returned to office, and a fifth seat filled by a former longtime Trustee who returns after taking two years away from elected office. But there...
Nov 19, 2019, By Editorial Board
Thanksgiving is steeped in tradition. It’s a day when most people gather with family and friends, eat to excess, watch football and fall asleep on the couch. It’s also a day when, traditionally, people reflect on, and express gratitude for, the list of gifts they...
Nov 18, 2019, By Editorial Board
A Press Sessions conversation in Westhampton Beach last Thursday, November 7, revealed a few interesting things about the upheaval going on in the village business district, as Main Street remains closed to traffic through Christmas, and merchants struggle to hang on till then. It was...
Nov 8, 2019, By Editorial Board
Last week, The New York Times kicked off a special series on the future of high school football with some startling statistics: Nationally, participation in traditional 11-man football in public schools has dropped 10 percent in the last decade, and it’s down, mostly significantly, in...
Nov 8, 2019, By Editorial Board
There has been a lot of talk over the course of the last five years about how Sag Harbor Village has changed. And it has — from its demographics to some of the shops and restaurants that line its Rockwellian Main Street, and certainly the...
Nov 5, 2019, By Editorial Board
It’s tempting to cast aspersions at the Southampton Town Planning Board for its 4-3 vote in October approving the preliminary subdivision and site plan applications for a major golf resort in East Quogue. But the truth is that, with a tip of the hat to...
Nov 4, 2019, By Editorial Board
It’s more than encouraging that the efforts of the East Hampton Town Trustees, activists and resident volunteers are paying big dividends in Accabonac Harbor, and potentially setting a precedent for an even bigger impact throughout Suffolk County once its successes become unmistakable. The issue is...
Nov 4, 2019, By Editorial Board
There is a fine line between “maverick” and “arrogant,” between “decisive” and “imperious,” between “confident” and “cocky” — you get the picture. Each is a perfectly minted coin, with the only thing separating its two sides being restraint and maturity. It doesn’t take much to...
Nov 4, 2019, By Editorial Board
There’s an irony in the fact that the Southampton Town Board of Trustees used to pride itself in being “above politics,” something it stressed every campaign season. (It was a time, it must be said, when the Republican Party reliably held every board seat, which...
Oct 28, 2019, By Editorial Board
One voice, one vote. It’s the cornerstone of democracy. Every citizen has a voice and participates fully in choices that set the course for who runs things, and how — from local villages all the way up to the White House.But, for years, the number...
Oct 21, 2019, By Editorial Board
A Guiding Star Any project of note or significance almost invariably starts with a single vision. And to turn that concept into reality is usually a team effort, but it almost always requires a solitary figure with the grit and determination to actually make sure...
Oct 14, 2019, By Editorial Board
In This TogetherThere is probably no subject talked about more on the East End — or one as divisive — as affordable housing.We all know the familiar refrain: Young people are moving south because they can’t afford to live here; the workforce moves farther and...
Oct 7, 2019, By Editorial Board
Shape Shifting The tobacco industry faced a sea change in the last decade or so, as efforts to change attitudes toward smoking, especially among young people, had a powerful effect. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that in 2013, 17.7 percent of middle...
Oct 3, 2019, By Editorial Board
A Big MomentIt’s an old canard about newspapers and political endorsements: “Who are they to tell me how to vote?” That’s the opposite of what an endorsement is: A newspaper’s opinion page — the label is a tip-off — is where a newspaper draws conclusions...
Oct 2, 2019, By Editorial Board
A Choice To MakeIt’s appropriate that the presidential election will take place in 2020, because the decision to be made is very clearly coming into focus — you’d need less than perfect vision not to see it.The impeachment inquiry is just getting underway this week,...
Sep 27, 2019, By Editorial Board
In 2018, an average of 13 of the 18 beds available at the Stephanie House Residential Shelter — the emergency shelter of The Retreat, located in a secret, and therefore safe, place somewhere on the East End — were occupied every night, with children tucked...
Sep 20, 2019, By Editorial Board
There’s no argument: Westhampton Beach has courageously taken a step into the future that other villages have contemplated, coveted, debated. But, in the end, it’s just too big to actually begin. The benefits of a new septic system, providing capacity for more commercial growth (and...
Sep 20, 2019, By Editorial Board
It is not guaranteed to keep you from getting seasonal influenza. That is true. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the flu vaccine is generally 40 to 60 percent effective — so, in a typical flu season, it prevents an estimated 5.3 million...
Sep 17, 2019, By Editorial Board
It felt like a bridge being built merely by getting the two men in the same room, and talking.For all the topics discussed — the scourge of “triple net leases” (where merchants are forced to pay taxes and insurance in addition to rent), the promise...
Sep 17, 2019, By Editorial Board
However, the monarchs we spot at this time of year — around the Pine Barrens, and in Montauk, at spots on the Hampton Bays oceanfront and along Long Beach in Noyac, and on Napeague — they are actually local natives, having been born and grown...
Sep 16, 2019, By Editorial Board
Building a new elementary school? Of course you’ll want an au courant architectural feature like a wall that creates a “shadow zone” to block the sight lines of an active shooter. And don’t forget cement block “wings” that both hide and shield students in the...
Sep 9, 2019, By Editorial Board
But what happens, over time, as the echoes of those tragedies and horrors begin repeating in their minds, wearing them down, making them question the choices they’ve made, their commitment to the job, and, in some truly unfortunate cases, their very existence? So far in...
Sep 9, 2019, By Editorial Board
Interestingly enough, HarborFest came on the heels of a renewed debate in the Municipal Building about how to engage local, working families, many who are being forced out of Sag Harbor by the high cost of living, in long-range planning for the village’s future. Despite...
Sep 9, 2019, By Editorial Board
But those flamingos. It shows that the owners of 38-42 Jobs Lane are thumbing their noses at the community, trashing a much-loved spot that was a very public gathering place for 30 years, and taunting those who might be upset by it — all over...
Sep 2, 2019, By Editorial Board
The recent announcement that the service, starting this week, is adding an evening stop in Westhampton, arriving at 6:01 p.m., was welcome news. So the teacher who stays late sometimes to lead after-school activities can now take the train every day. The hospital worker whose...
Sep 2, 2019, By Editorial Board
The action came shortly after a brouhaha in Southampton Village, in which surfers protested the selective enforcement of a village code restricting when and where surfers could practice their sport. That hullabaloo resulted in members of that Village Board altering their decades-old law to make...
Sep 2, 2019, By Editorial Board
There are a couple of key points. One is that the visit by Mr. Trump on August 9 was purely a campaign fundraising visit — two events were held, in Tuckahoe and Bridgehampton, and they were the only scheduled events. Even the landing at Gabreski...
Aug 30, 2019, By Editorial Board
And Dunce CapsGold Star - To Bridgehampton School officials, for letting the Bees buzz one last time in their hive. Look, it’s understandable that there was some concern about fielding a varsity basketball team made up largely of young, inexperienced players who just barely fill...
Aug 27, 2019, By Editorial Board
LLCs On The DLHow does a regulatory board know if the homeowner with business before the board, or a member of the board itself, has a conflict of interest?It would certainly help if the municipality — and the public, and the media charged with holding...
Aug 19, 2019, By Editorial Board
Hats off to former Mayor Sandra Schroeder and Trustee Jim Larocca for their efforts over at least four years to secure, for the Village of Sag Harbor, an open parcel of downtown waterfront land that is set to open next week as a public park....
Aug 6, 2019, By Editorial Board
Chalk it up as another first for the great State of New York: Governor Andrew M. Cuomo last month signed a law making the state the first in the nation to outlaw the declawing of cats, a practice that many veterinarians and animal rights advocates...
Aug 5, 2019, By Editorial Board
So far this year, the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society has responded to the strandings of four kinds of sea turtles: the Atlantic green turtle, which is an endangered species; the loggerhead, considered vulnerable; the leatherback, also vulnerable; and the Kemp’s ridley, which is critically endangered....
Aug 5, 2019, By Editorial Board
This is the time of year when politicians of all stripes descend upon the South Fork with hands open and palms prepared to be greased. There are dollars to be gathered, and golf rounds to be played, and cocktails to be hoisted, and shoulders to...
Aug 2, 2019, By Editorial Board
What is it in any culture that would allow an adult—from a billionaire jet-setter like Jeffrey Epstein to a predatory Catholic priest, to a creepy relative or acquaintance living locally on the East End, the antagonist in far too many stories in the weekly police...
Jul 29, 2019, By Editorial Board
Even in the numbing parade of seemingly daily outrages since November 8, 2016, there is the occasional outlier—something so spectacularly outrageous, so mortifying, that it still has the capacity to stun.Charlottesville was one. The event was bad enough, but President Donald Trump’s remarks afterward, about...
Jul 19, 2019, By Editorial Board
To the Maurice Amado Foundation and the Southampton School District, for continued efforts to make sure children in the school district don’t start off the day distracted by hunger. The district announced plans this spring to institute a new “Breakfast in the Classroom” program this...
Jul 15, 2019, By Editorial Board
How many news organizations last a decade? A quarter century? It’s a fickle industry full of uncertainty, and increasingly so in the days of the internet and social media offering—nay, demanding—instant gratification, and news consumers who have so many outlets to find out what’s going...
Jun 23, 2019, By Editorial Board
Something needed to be done at the Bel-Aire Cove Motel in Hampton Bays—that much was clear. So in many ways it was a positive step forward when the Town of Southampton agreed to buy the blighted property last month for a little more than $1...
Jun 10, 2019, By Editorial Board
East End commuters can only hope that the Long Island Rail Road derailment in Speonk on the Saturday before Memorial Day, shutting down rail service on one of the busiest weekends of the year, was not indicative of how the agency will operate in the...
Jun 3, 2019, By Editorial Board
To the State Department of Transportation, for an indefensible example of bureaucracy in action—or inaction. Whatever your opinion of the Shinnecock Indian Nation’s proposed electronic billboards on Sunrise Highway, it’s clear that the tribe’s leaders acted in good faith and attempted to alert state officials...
May 17, 2019, By Editorial Board
Everyone knows the value of real estate on Eastern Long Island—especially as the season starts to simmer.Ospreys—those magnificent birds of prey that were nearly wiped out but have recently been rebounding—are among those seeking a roost here when each winter ends, building nests in lofty...
May 13, 2019, By Editorial Board
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