From our files: This week in Shelter Island history

10 Years Ago

HPOC unveils sewer upgrade plan
The Heights Property Owners Corporation unveiled a plan to upgrade its aging and sometimes overloaded sewage treatment plant and expected to implement its plans within a few months.

HPOC, a private homeowners group that built the plant almost 15 years earlier, had been cited by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in 2002 for having allowed pollution levels in the plant’s effluent to exceed allowable limits.

The organization submitted plans for improvements to take effect by the end of the year. The plan called for installing new chlorine contact tanks and a new automatic aeration system. A new odor control system was also to be installed.

Postscript: The upgrades were made and no problems have been reported over many years. In December 2011, the Reporter learned that HPOC is engaged in talks with Greenport Village about tapping into its upgraded sewer system. Those talks are said by village sources to be ongoing.

20 Years Ago

Redistricting becomes hot button issue
The fate of the East End’s representation in the New York State Assembly will be argued during a public hearing February 7, 1992,  in the Stony Brook Union Hall on the SUNY campus, we reported.

Tomorrow will be an attempt by entrenched politicians to use the faulted results of the 1990 census to increase their own party’s majority in the bicameral state legislator, then-Reporter editor Art Burnett wrote in a news commentary.
“This naked play for increased political power will take place under the crusader’s banner of minority community involvement, but the new district boundaries will have been drawn by the majority party presently seated in each of the legislature’s two houses,” he wrote.

The plan was to consolidate the 1st and 2nd Assembly districts into one district and create a second new district further west. The 1st Assembly District seat then belonged to Republican Joe Sawicki and covered Shelter Island, the North Fork and part of Brookhaven Town. The 2nd Assembly District seat was held by Republican John Behan and covered the South Fork and eastern Brookhaven.

Postscript: Twenty years later, there’s a new move afoot to redraw state Assembly lines that would result in Republican Assemblyman Dan Losquadro of Shoreham losing Shelter Island and Southold to Assemblyman Fred Thiele (I-Sag Harbor). There are no complaints about political motives this time although the statewide redistricting plan has been criticized for it by both parties.

30 Years ago

Supervisor calls for master plan for Island development
Supervisor Mel Nevel called a joint meeting of the Town Board and Planning Board to discuss  long-range planning for town development. He called for a focus on updating the town zoning ordinance and creating a master plan.

Noting that condominiums and co-op complexes were being suggested in other East End towns, he advised the two boards, “This type of development may be presented to the town and we’ve got to be ready for it. Most residents feel that the Planning Board has the Island’s future in its hands,” Mr. Nevel said.

Postscript: Shelter Island adopted a comprehensive plan about 10 years ago and it has continued to be tweaked through the ensuing years.

40 Years Ago

Town adopts wetlands law
The Town Board passed an ordinance for control of the Island’s wetlands that Supervisor Thomas Jernick called “one of the most important things to happen on Shelter Island, second only to the zoning ordinance.”

At a hearing before the vote, there was little comment and Mr. Jernick described it as “a happy hearing. This one came after 25 years of fighting,” he said.

A hearing on the wetlands law two months earlier had drawn a large crowd of people who demanded that the proposal be strengthened. It was sent back to committee for reworking. A law passed in February 1972 still lacked some of the provisions the public sought and there was “pressure,” including a petition signed by 1,529 residents, to pass the ordinance and continue to add provisions to strengthen it.

Postscript: The town today has a wetlands code and other regulations, as well as a Conservation Advisory Council, a Water Advisory Committee and a Waterways Management Advisory Council that weigh in on the environmental impacts of land use proposals.