Senator Ken LaValle

The state Senate passed legislation Wednesday aimed to decrease hazing, underage drinking and drug use at colleges and universities.

Senator Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson), the bill’s sponsor, said in a press release that colleges would be required to adopt rules prohibiting those activities and to establish penalties that strengthen existing laws. In addition, colleges would be required to educate its campus communities and inform its incoming students and residence hall staff about the dangers of three issues.

Last month, SUNY Binghamton halted all pledging activity on its campus after receiving several hazing complaints, officials said, and in November, a member of the Florida A&M’s marching band was beaten to death as part of a hazing ritual.

“Hazing can create physical as well as emotional scars that may last a lifetime,” Mr. LaValle said. “There is nothing good-natured about hazing and it cannot be tolerated on our college and university campuses.”

The bill will be sent to the state Assembly for approval.

jennifer@timesreview.com

Marilynn Pysher won the most votes for three open seats on the board with 228. Incumbents Stephen Gessner, the board president, garnered 212 and Mark Kanarvogel 200. Ms. Pysher is new to school district elections.

Mr. Kanarvogel as the lowest vote-getter in the three-way race won the remaining year in the term of Kim Reilly, who resigned last fall, and will have to seek reelection next year to continue on the board. The others won three-year terms.

The board’s proposed budget is expected to raise the tax levy by 1.9 percent, staying within the state-mandated 2 percent cap.The current tax rate of $5.7278 per $1,000 of assessed valuation is expected rise to $5.8366.

Further details will be reported in this week’s Shelter Island Reporter.

COURTESY PHOTO | 1st Lt. Joe Theinert in Afghanistan.

Two East End war heros, Army  1st Lieutenant Joseph J. Theinert of Shelter Island and Marine Lance Corporal Jordan C. Haerter of Sag Harbor,  will be posthumously inducted into the New York State Senate’s Veterans Hall of Fame on May 22 in Albany, state Senator Kenneth P. LaValle announced Tuesday. Mr. LaValle nominated the pair for the state honor.

“Joe Theinert and Jordan Haerter are true heroes who gave their lives protecting the freedoms we treasure. They should be recognized and commended by our state and community,” said Senator LaValle.  “Induction into The New York State Veterans Hall of Fame is a tribute to these two fine young men that demonstrates our respect and gratitude for their patriotism and sacrifice.”

Joe Theinert deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom as a green 1st Lieutenant and was excited to be going to defend our country. He was also very concerned about his men, his “guys.” Before he left, Joe told his mom, Chris Kestler of Shelter Island, he wouldn’t know what he would do if he had to write home to a parent or wife if one of his men died under his command.

Joey was 24 years old. Approximately six weeks into his deployment, he was killed in action on June 4, 2010 while on a dismounted patrol in Kandahar, Afghanistan.  Joe’s platoon had to regroup after undergoing hostile fire from rocket propelled grenades.

After their patrol had regrouped and resumed its patrol, Joe noticed something suspicious and went to investigate.  It was at that point an improvised explosive device detonated and killed him.  No other men of Joe’s platoon were physically injured or killed.

COURTESY PHOTO | Lance Corporal Jordon Haerter

Jordan Haerter entered the Marine Corps directly after high school and attended three grueling months of recruit training at the Marine Corp. Recruit Depot. Parris Island in Beaufort, South Carolina. During this stage of his training, he earned a distinction that would serve him well in Iraq, Platoon High Shooter (Weapons Qualification Badge – Expert) in his Alpha Company platoon.

On April 22, 2008, LCPL Haerter was killed in action in Ramadi, Iraq. He had been deployed to Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia district of Ramadi, which at one point was the center of insurgency in that city. The 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines were in the process of turning over this Joint Security Station to the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines.

Jordan, a member of the proud and storied 1st Battalion, 9th Marines also known as ‘The Walking Dead,’ and fellow marine CPL Jonathan T. Yale, a rifleman with 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, were standing guard at an Entry Control Point. At 07:45, a large truck accelerated toward the Entry Control Point, careening off the protective serpentine, ignoring all signals and flares warning the driver to stop. When the truck failed to stop, Jordan and Cpl. Yale opened fire and continued firing until  a 2,000-pound blast claimed their lives.

The New York State Senate Veterans Hall of Fame was created to honor and recognize outstanding veterans from the Empire State who have distinguished themselves both in military and civilian life.

LCPL Jordan Haerter’s military awards include the Navy Cross Medal, Purple Heart Medal, Combat Action Ribbon, Iraqi Campaign Medal, Iraqi Service Medal, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Medal, and the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon.

COURTESY MAP | This map shows the proposed county redistricting lines, which includes moving Shelter Island into the 2nd legislative district.

Shelter Island and the Brookhaven Town side of Calverton and Wading River will no longer be in Suffolk County Legislator Ed Romaine’s district in 2014 if a new redistricting plan announced this week is approved.

Mr. Romaine (R-Center Moriches), who represents the 1st Legislative District, said county Democrats have proposed new district lines after a nonpartisan redistricting commission failed to meet its February deadline.

Under the new proposal, Shelter Island will move into the 2nd Legislative District, which is represented by Jay Schneiderman (I-Montauk).

Redistricting occurs every 10 years to reflect population statistics gathered during the U.S. Census.

The plan aims to a create a population of about 83,000 in each district, Mr. Romaine said.

“I’m sad to lose Shelter Island as part of my district,” Mr. Romaine said. “I will rigorously represent them for the next 19 months, until the end of the term.”

Mr. Romaine said the Legislature, which has a 12-6 Democratic majority, could vote on the redistricting plan next month. If approved, the new lines will go into effect Jan. 1, 2014.

The county’s announcement comes on the heels of the New York State Assembly’s redistricting plan, which was approved in March and also lumps Shelter Island with the South Fork.

Shelter Island Town Supervisor Jim Dougherty, who is also chairman of the East End Supervisors and Mayors Association, said although both East End county legislators have been active in helping preserve the island’s quality of life, he’d prefer maintaining the status quo.

“I have a personal preference to continue with Ed, but I greatly respect Jay,” Mr. Dougherty said. “I really hope [Mr. Romaine] continues to represents us. We have a large senior population here and he has helped us with our senior citizen programs.”

In addition to lumping Shelter Island with the South Fork, the proposed redistricting plan aims to move the Brookhaven Town side of Calverton into Mr. Schneiderman’s district and the Brookhaven Town portion of Wading River into the 6th Legislative District, which is represented by Sarah Anker (D-Mount Sinai).

Mr. Romaine, who described the look of the new lines as a “jigsaw puzzle,” said he believes those areas should remain in his district.

“I don’t want to see communities split,” Mr. Romaine said. “You should draw the lines to be as compact as possible.”

jennifer@timesreview.com

The Shelter Island school budget is being voted on until 9 p.m. We want to know how you voted, how you plan to vote or if you voted at all, today.

No members of the public attended the board’s public hearing on the proposal, which appears not to have aroused opposition or criticism.

Also on  the ballot will be three candidates for School Board seats: incumbents Dr. Stephen Gessner and Mark Kanarvogel and newcomer Marilynn Pysher. The one with the fewest votes will complete the unexpired term of Kim Reilly, who resigned from the board last October. That term will expire in May 2013. The higher vote-getters will win three-year terms.

The board’s proposed budget would raise the tax levy by 1.9 percent, staying within the state-mandated 2 percent cap. If the budget passes, the current tax rate of $5.7278 per $1,000 of assessed valuation would rise to $5.8366.

PETE BETHGE FILE PHOTO Former town councilman Jim Messer (left) and bay constable Butch Labrozzi tagged illegal moorings off Simpson Road 10 years ago. If owners failed to claim them, they were set to be removed by the town to make way for a mooring grid system in West Neck Creek.

10 YEARS AGO
Clearing the way for mooring grid system

Continuing its effort to establish a satellite-based grid system for moorings in West Neck Creek, the town solicited bids from eight contractors to remove unlicensed moorings that remained in the Simpson Road and Silver Beach anchorages. It was estimated that six to eight unlicensed moorings remained. There were also “delinquent” moorings where owners were known to the town, but those owners hadn’t renewed their permits, according to then councilman Jim Messer. Many other moorings had already been removed by owners who were warned that the anchors and tackle would be pulled out to make way for the new grid system.

POSTSCRIPT: While grid systems have been in place for years elsewhere on the Island, the Waterways Management Advisory Committee decided last week not to create a grid in the West Neck Bay area in response to advice from Planning Board member Emory Breiner. He argued that the result would unnecessarily tighten the number of available mooring spaces, prompting people to request them even if they didn’t yet have boats.

20 YEARS AGO
Garbage bag blues for Town Board

The Town Board wrestled with distribution problems of town-mandated garbage bags as it attempted to head off a budding revolt by town merchants who had been selling the bags for the same price they paid. Then-Supervisor Hoot Sherman said that while the merchants didn’t want to mark up the prices, they were losing money in the process of handling them. Town code allowed up to a 10-cent markup, but merchants hadn’t done that. The board was debating three options: sell the bags to the merchants at a 10-percent discount; increasing the number of distribution points; or some combination of both solutions.

POSTSCRIPT: Today the bags are available at the IGA, Fedi’s, Town Hall and the Recycling Center. Most carters require their use but at least one on the Island maintains its regular customers don’t have to use the town bags for their garbage.

30 YEARS AGO
County agency opposes North Ferry rate plan

The Suffolk County Budget Review Office opposed a request for a rate hike from North Ferry maintaining after a review of financials that they don’t “fairly represent” the company’s financial position. The BRO said North Ferry overstated depreciation by using an accelerated schedule to speed recapture of capital to provide for replacement of vessels. North Ferry was seeking to raise fares for one-way car and driver by 25 cents to $3.50 and then the following January to hike it to $5.50. Just last year, the ferry service received a rate hike.

POSTSCRIPT: North Ferry last year won approval for a rate hike request and South Ferry is in the process of a rate review now by the BRO. The BRO report is expected by early June, enabling the Suffolk County Legislature to schedule public hearings on suggested rate increases.

50 YEARS AGO
Governor sets Teacher Recognition Day

Then governor Nelson Rockefeller designated May 15 as Teacher Recognition Day to encourage public groups to recognize and commend the teachers and identify teaching as an honorable professional community service.

POSTSCRIPT: At the May 7 Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Michael Hynes noted the annual celebration and praised the staff for all their efforts in making the educational experience on Shelter Island so positive.

COURTESY PHOTO | Photo of Julia Dyd Havens Johnson taken at Sylvester Manor about 1885.

Author Mac Griswold, who is writing a history of slavery at Sylvester Manor called “Slaves in the Attic,” addressed a group of students and scholars in a talk at New York University last week that included some details about Julia Dyd — the woman after whom Dyd’s Creek is named. It is better known in recent years as Dodd’s Creek, a corruption of the original name.

The talk was one in a series given by NYU’s “Sylvester Manor Working Group,” which is studying the thousands of documents donated to NYU’s Fales Library by Eben Ostby, who inherited the manor from its last owner, Andrew Fiske, and is trying to preserve it with his nephew, Bennett Konesni, as a working farm. The manor was founded in the 17th century. In 1680, records show there were 23 slaves there, making it the largest slaveholding property in the New York colony.

Ms. Griswold said Julia Dyd was called “the last of the slaves at Sylvester Manor” by the Eben Horsford family, mid-19th century descendants of plantation founder Nathanial Sylvester. “She had no existence” for them “outside of the manor story,” Ms. Griswold argued. Julia was, in fact, born free and owned acreage on the creek she had inherited from her stepfather Jack Comus Fanning, a free black. He was the only black to own land on Shelter Island in those days, despite the abolition of slavery in New York.

Julia, the housekeeper at the manor house — relying on the advice of the Horsford family, Ms. Griswold believes — sold off her land from 1830 to 1860 until she was “landless and homeless,” Ms. Griswold said. She died in 1907 in Sag Harbor.

Cornelia Horsford wrote in a letter at the time that she would “put up a stone for Julia,” Ms. Griswold said, but none has ever been found in Sag Harbor or at the black cemetery at Sylvester Manor.

Also speaking at the event, which was held on Thursday, May 3, was Ben Davidson, an NYU American history student, who reviewed census records and documents from the manor archives to study the progress of manumission after the gradual abolition of slavery in New York State, beginning in the late 18th century and continuing into the early 19th century.  He found that only two slaves remained on Shelter Island by December 1821.

After emancipation, he argued, many freed slaves “remained tied to the land and in debt” to their former owners.

pboody@timesreview.com

COURTESY PHOTO | Unicorn claims to be the only tall ship in the world crewed solely by women. It's the setting for Sisters Under Sail, a nonprofit organization that teaches teenage girls how to sail.

This week’s featured tall ship claims to be the only such vessel in the world that sails with an all-female crew.

Unicorn was built in Holland out of recycled metals captured from German U-boats in 1947. Originally a fishing vessel, it was christened Deo Volente I, which means, “God Willing.”

COURTESY PHOTO | Unicorn is among the tall ships that will visit Greenport over Memorial Day Weekend.

The 110-foot ship was next converted to sail power during the’70s and renamed Eenhorn — meaning “one horn” — the Dutch word for unicorn.

The tall ship changed hands and names a few times throughout the years. In 1995, it sustained hull damage in a collision with an ocean-going chemical tanker. With the cost of repairs exceeding its insured value, the ship was put on the market again.

A Canadian couple then bought the ship and operated it as sail training vessel.

Current owners Dawn and Jonathan Santamaria of New Jersey acquired it in 1999. The couple sailed the schooner, then named True North, with their four daughters.

In 2003, after receiving a complete refitting that took it down to its steel ribs, the ship was re-christened under its original sail name, Unicorn. Two years later, it became a United States-registered vessel and Dawn Santamaria founded “Sisters Under Sail” for teenage girls and women. The group said it has “put over 250 women at the helm” since the program was founded in 2005.

“Since inception, we’ve put aboard over 450 girls from all over the country and Canada,” Ms. Santamaria wrote in her biography.

“We enroll girls much like my daughters as well as serve under-represented teens who are making those good choices, but need and deserve leadership opportunities and our support,” she added. “By design to walk the talk, we are the only tall ship in the world that sails with an all-female crew. We want to be good role models, foster empowerment and give young women the chance to see what we women can do together when focused on a common goal.”

gvolpe@timesreview.com

Seven alumni from the program —  Miki-Sophia Cloud, Sean Lee, Yoonhee Lee, Nicole Leon, Eric Silberger, Elly Suh and Areta Zhulla — have been selected to participate in the prestigious Walter W. Naumburg Foundation International Violin competition, which will be held in Manhattan in June. They will be preparing for this event on the PMP campus on the Island this month.

The two concerts here will include solo works, sonatas and concerti that will be performed at the Naumburg competition. RSVP by calling the church office at 749-0805 or the Ram’s Head at 749-0811.

Additional engagements are scheduled at Peconic Landing in Greenport on Friday, May 18 at 2 p.m. and the Jewish Center of the Hamptons in East Hampton on Sunday, May 20 at 7 p.m. All four concerts are free and open to the public.