Around the Island

Dougherty on the issues on the air

BEVERLEA WALZ PHOTO | Town Supervisor Jim Dougherty weighed in on issues local, national and global during a radio interview.
When it comes to gun control, it’s time to “move the line a little bit toward more supervision,” Shelter Island Town Supervisor Jim Dougherty commented at the start of an hour-long “Ask the Supervisor” call-in show on WLNG radio Monday afternoon.

There were no callers so the supervisor responded only to comments and questions from host Dan Duprey and covered a range of familiar topics, from the 2013 budget and Sylvester Manor to ferry rates and shared docks.

At the start of the program, he said that 240,000 guns had been “legitimately sold in the U.S.” on Black Friday, the big retailing day after Thanksgiving. Since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School last week, there’s “a general consensus to do something” to further limit access to automatic and semi-automatic weapons.

Shelter Island is “our own little paradise out here,” he said, “which provokes the sick mind a little bit so we have to be prepared,” the supervisor said.

Also during the program, the supervisor said the town had been been “very fortunate” because Hurricane Sandy turned inland into New Jersey, sparing the East End the worst of it. Aside from “serious flooding,” the town had “a few trees down but nothing serious.”

He disclosed that the town’s emergency preparedness coordinator, Police Chief Jim Read, had called for a meeting of local officials in Town Hall at 3 p.m. on  January 7 “to audit our Hurricane Sandy performance.” It won’t be about giving pats on the back but instead “how we can improve” the town’s level of emergency preparedness and coordination, he said.

Because of global warming, he commented, “In my humble opinion, as an island we’ll see more and more of these events. Shelter Island has an obligation to be fully prepared.”