It’s hard to mistake the great egret: lengthy yellow bill, long black legs, large white body in between. They have sinewy necks, sometimes stretched straight, other times tucked into a squat S, as when they’re flying.
In a situation that has been brewing since 2016, this year is the first time the Montauk School District is putting an over-the-tax-cap budget proposal on the ballot: a $22.73 million spending plan that maintains all current programs and services but asks the taxpayers to support a tax-levy increase of 18.56 percent for the 2023-24 school year.
The Sag Harbor School Board voted on April 19 to adopt a $48.06 million budget plan for the 2023-24 school year, though the plan — with a tax-cap-compliant 1.88-percent increase built in — is not expected to be the hottest item on the May 16 ballot.
The Bridgehampton School District’s proposed budget ensures “the best possible program for our students while being mindful of our responsibility to the taxpayers to be fiscally accountable,” said Mary T. Kelly, the superintendent, in discussing the $21.74 million spending plan that voters will see on the May 16 ballot for the next school year.
The Sand Land mine in Noyac has been an ongoing source of conflict between its owner and the community. In the last three weeks as the State Department of Environmental Conservation issued new violations, even as it allows the mine to operate under the terms of its 2013 permit, leading to confusion.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has temporarily closed multiple waterways on the East End to the harvesting of shellfish and carnivorous gastropods because shellfish there have tested positive for saxitoxin, a neurotoxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning, or PSP, high levels of which can cause severe illness and death. To date, East Hampton Town waterways have not been affected by the neurotoxin.
On Wednesday, when the East Hampton Town Planning Board holds a public hearing concerning site plan approval for Rita Cantina, a restaurant near Maidstone Park in Springs, the public may be a bit frustrated, because the hearing concerns only parking and the legalization of an existing fence.
John Owen Habib, who spent summers in Amagansett and had many close friends here, died on April 11 following a catastrophic fall while hiking in Morocco. He was 21.
Suzann Briand of Montauk, an auditor and fisherwoman, died of liver failure on April 14 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. She was 52 and had been ill with Graves’ disease for a few years.
Cheryl Lee Behringer, who grew up in East Hampton and was an assistant teacher in Southampton for many years, died on March 19 in Charleston, S.C. The cause was an aortic aneurysm. She was 60.
