Southampton Village Bans Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers

Long Island Morning Edition

A federal judge yesterday denied a motion by the Diocese of Rockville Centre to dismiss its bankruptcy case and appointed two high-powered mediators in an effort to break a 3½-year logjam of negotiations involving clergy sex abuse survivors. Bart Jones reports on Newsday.com that U.S. Bankruptcy Court Chief Judge Martin Glenn, expressing his irritation at the case remaining unresolved, issued the ruling after some survivors spoke in court of the pain they have endured and their frustration after more than $100 million in legal fees have been paid to attorneys but nothing to them.

Glenn said he was appointing retired U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Shelley Chapman and Paul Finn, a lawyer with deep experience in resolving sexual abuse claims, to try to get the diocese and lawyers for the survivors to reach an agreement. As a judge, Chapman oversaw the 2008 Lehman Brothers Holdings bankruptcy case — the largest bankruptcy case in U.S. history — and other Chapter 11 mega-cases.

After a 90-minute hearing in Manhattan, Judge Glenn pulled lawyers for both sides into his chambers where he privately gave them the news. “I think that a fresh look and a fresh push can be helpful.”

Glenn indicated he was reluctant to grant the church’s motion to dismiss the bankruptcy proceedings in part because it would mean hundreds of cases being returned to state civil court. He theorized the diocese could be hit with several mega-awards by state court juries in the first cases, leaving little or no money for hundreds of other survivors.

Nationwide, some 38 Catholic dioceses or religious orders have declared bankruptcy amid the sex abuse scandal that broke in 2002. Rockville Centre, one of the largest dioceses in the nation…1.2 million baptized Long Island Catholics… would be the first to have its bankruptcy proceedings dismissed.

***

Riverhead changing its laws to help the Riverhead Charter School site a new high school is the “biggest threat” facing Riverhead schools, the school district’s teacher’s union president said Tuesday night, as town officials consider allowing private schools to be developed in more areas around town. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard and Town Board members are “moving full steam ahead” to allow private schools on industrial zoned lands, which will enable the charter school’s expansion plans and “defund” the school district, Riverhead Central Faculty Association President Gregory Wallace said during the Riverhead Board of Education meeting Tuesday evening. “If the town adopts the proposed changes in the comprehensive plan, the impact on our school will be two-fold,” Wallace said. “Any special permit granted to this charter school for construction on industrial zoned land will remove that parcel from the tax rolls permanently; the school district would forgo tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue annually. Furthermore, the school would be on the hook for millions in increased tuition costs,” he said. “The effects on Riverhead schools public education system would be devastating.”

Colin Palmer, president of the Riverhead Board of Education, said in response to Wallace’s comments that the board is “opposed to any sort of expansion of the charter school.” “It’s just a result of privatization of public education” he added.

The draft of Riverhead Town’s comprehensive plan update, is a policy document currently being considered for adoption. The draft plan is the subject of a public hearing on Monday May 20th at 6 p.m. at Riverhead Town Hall.

***

The Riverhead Town Police Department has been awarded a state technology grant of more than $1.47 million to cover the cost of body-worn cameras for officers. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Riverhead’s grant funding was part of $127 million to Long Island police departments and sheriffs’ offices announced this morning by Gov. Kathy Hochul. Police Chief David Hegermiller said the grant funding will cover the purchase of body-worn cameras for every officer on the police force. Deploying body-worn cameras was part of the Riverhead Town Police Department’s “Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative Plan,” developed in response to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s June 12, 2020 executive order mandating the adoption of a police reform plan by all law enforcement jurisdictions in the state by April 1, 2021. The Riverhead Town Board unanimously adopted the plan on March 29, 2021. The chief said the grant will cover the purchase of cameras for 100 officers, as well as the equipment necessary to receive and store video.

***

While a Southampton Town moratorium on the licensing and construction of battery energy storage systems enacted last year and extended earlier this year will not expire until mid-August, the Southampton Town Board voted this week to schedule a public hearing for Tuesday; May 28 at 6 p.m. for an applicant seeking an exemption from the moratorium. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the applicant seeking an exemption hearing is Canal Southampton Battery Storage, a project of Rhynland Energy. It is the same company that proposed such a facility, known as a BESS, at 24 North Road and 27 Larboard Road in Hampton Bays — the very proposal that spurred the moratorium after widespread community opposition.

The exemption hearing is sure to elicit a marked response from the community.

“The site they have for the location for their facility is inappropriate, because it’s in a residential area,” Ray D’Angelo, president of the Hampton Bays Civic Association, said yesterday. The town board “went through the process, but subsequent research the residents and other people have done show that these are problematic facilities and shouldn’t be near private residences.”

The legislation passed last year that enacted the moratorium included a subsection called “applications that may be exempted,” according to the resolution scheduling the May 28 hearing, which will be held at Southampton Town Hall and available for viewing remotely via video conference.

A draft report issued by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority following three BESS fires in the state last year included 15 recommendations focusing on fire safety, plant security, inspections and establishment of new training protocols for first responders who could be called to extinguish a fire at a BESS facility.

***

Engineers for Suffolk County asked East Hampton residents to voice their ideas for the remaking of Three Mile Harbor Road, where the county plans to begin work in 2027. They heard an earful, but the main message sent by residents at East Hampton Town Hall last week was that the thing most needed is something that is not in the county’s playbook. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that for all the desperately needed improvements to drainage, to sidewalks and crosswalks and intersections and paving that the county and Springs residents agreed upon, a roundabout at the merge of Three Mile Harbor Road and Springs-Fireplace Road was the most important, the standing-room-only audience told the team of engineers.

“We need a roundabout,” said J.B. DosSantos. “You just did Springs-Fireplace Road, and there is a line of 50 cars...A traffic light is not going to solve the problem. Do it once. If you have to delay the project, do it. But we must have a roundabout.”

The county engineers said that they are still only in the preliminary stages of the planning for the road work, which is not slated to begin until the spring of 2027 and wouldn’t be completed until spring of 2028. The $14.5 million project will repave all of the 2.5 miles of roadway from the intersection of North Main Street and Collins Avenue to Copeces Lane, with bike lanes heading in both directions.

The engineers said that the overall roadwork along Three Mile Harbor Road, when completed, will look very much like the remake of Springs-Fireplace Road that was completed last year, with narrow travel lanes for cars, paved and marked bike lanes and sidewalks, and brick-faced retaining walls in some places — in the Head of the Harbor region, primarily — where grade rises steeply from the roadway.

***

A regulation two years in the making is finally taking effect in Southampton Village…today.

Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that effective today the use of gas-powered leaf blowers will be prohibited, making Southampton Village the first municipality on the East End to fully ban the use of gas-powered blowers because of noise complaints, health and safety concerns, and concern for the well-being of the environment.

As of today, both private homeowners and landscape contractors operating in the Village of Southampton will be required to use electric or battery-operated blowers to maintain properties.

The village is putting the word out on social media and will be distributing flyers with every resident’s tax bill informing them of the ban.

Residents can report any violations they see on Southampton Village’s “See Click Fix” app.

Code enforcement officers will be out and about as well during the busy spring season and will let landscapers know about the ban. They also will be armed with flyers to hand out to any contractors who are not yet aware of the ban.

***

Long Island communities are using various methods to get ahead of rising sea levels. On the east end for instance, after Sandy barreled through the Shinnecock Nation’s peninsula, causing significant erosion and flood damage, the Nation began to take a hard look at how the climate crisis would alter its 800-acre territory. Tracy Tullis reports on Newsday.com that a climate vulnerability assessment, prepared in 2019 in collaboration with the Peconic Bay Estuary, notes the coastal edges of the Nation’s territory, already a fraction of the lands that once were theirs, will be lost as the ocean moves inland. Parts of the peninsula, including a historic cemetery, already experience routine flooding, and the bluffs along the Great Peconic Bay and beaches on Shinnecock Bay have eroded. In considering solutions, the question has always been, “What’s the best way to protect the Shinnecock shoreline using the natural elements around us?” said Shavonne Smith, environment director for the Shinnecock Nation. After Sandy, in 2012, the Shinnecock and the Cornell Cooperative Extension restored 3,000 feet of beachfront along Shinnecock Bay, strengthening dunes, planting sea grass and building an oyster reef to soften the force of incoming waves. The reefs also would improve water quality and provide habitat for marine species.

The project was completed in 2016, with the help of a grant from the National Wildlife Federation, but last winter’s storms washed much of their work away. “It’s disheartening but not unexpected,” Smith said. “We are dealing with the tremendous force and power of nature.”

Now, the Nation is working with the U.S. Geological Survey to determine if the reef should be extended or angled differently to offer greater protection. And a Nature Conservancy project is studying the salt marsh that borders some of the Shinnecock’s land — nature’s best defense against floodwater — to determine if it will be able to migrate as the seas creep closer.

The Shinnecock’s approach is “working with rather than working against nature,” Smith said. “There has to be a point where you acknowledge that you can’t control it.”