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This week in Shelter Island history

REPORTER FILE PHOTO Long-delayed work at the Silver Beach Lagoon, needed to provide improved access for emergency vehicles, finally neared completion 10 years ago.
REPORTER FILE PHOTO
Long-delayed work at the Silver Beach Lagoon, needed to provide improved access for emergency vehicles, finally neared completion 10 years ago.

50 YEARS AGO IN HISTORY

Joan Rivers was performing at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village.The United States Senate voted to extend Social Security pensions to all people at age 60.

Two-time Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson died near the American Embassy in London.

Kodak, then famed for its Instamatic camera, released its movie camera promising pictures that would be “more than ever the nearest thing to life itself.”

John Lindsay appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to announce he would be spending $500,000 of an anticipated $1.5 million for television advertising in his campaign for New York City mayor and called for free television time to be given to candidates for major offices.

And on Shelter Island …

50 YEARS AGO
Griffing would choose jail

Supervisor Evans Griffing told Shelter Islanders he would refuse to turn over taxes collected here to Suffolk County if a recent court order declaring the form of county government illegal were changed.

He said he thought his action would arouse an apathetic electorate to the plight of East Enders who would be in the position of being taxed, but not represented in county government. He called then for a separate county for the five East End towns.

POSTSCRIPT: Today, there are still loud voices calling for a separate Peconic County as many believe the Suffolk County Legislature pays too little heed to the interests of East Enders.

30 YEARS AGO
Issues aired at ‘Olde’ meeting

Billed as an old fashioned town meeting, Democratic Chairman Hoot Sherman called a meeting at an Island  restaurant to give residents a chance to voice concerns that may not always make it onto Town Board agendas.

The aim, he said, was to bring the people closer to their government by ensuring their concerns were heard. And what the issues of the day raised at that meeting? Protection of the town’s groundwater, affordable housing for the young and elderly, the town budget, summer traffic and littering were discussed.

POSTSCRIPT: While the issues haven’t changed much through the years, ways of addressing them have with ordinances on the books for some, a few affordable houses built in town and ongoing concerns about new budget issues.

Such is the nature of municipal government that works to craft new solutions as old problems crop up with, perhaps, different focuses. Some come up again because they were never addressed adequately and others because the needs 30 years ago were addressed but new needs have now surfaced.

20 YEARS AGO
West Neck brown tide tops a million

There were massive brown tide blooms in the Peconic Bay system that were affecting Shelter Island waters in 1995. The blooms appeared to be occurring simultaneously with the spawning cycle of valuable Peconic Bay scallops, threatening the future of Bay scallops and the livelihoods of East End baymen.

The Suffolk County Department of Health Services determined that West Neck Bay had cell counts of more than a million per milliliter of water. Scallops in the Bay as well as at the mouth of West Neck Harbor and Coecles Harbor were being threatened.

POSTSCRIPT: This summer’s concerns, so far, have been west of Shelter Island starting around Riverhead where dead bunker fish have been washing up on shores and that has extended as far east as Nassau Point in Cutchogue.

Experts linked the fish kill to nearby algal blooms called “mahogany tide.” The algae and other bacteria removed much of the oxygen from the water, creating so-called dead zones.

10 YEARS AGO
Highway workers attend to work at several major projects

The MS4 program designed to prevent storm water runoff from roadways into surrounding waters was in full swing. Highway Superintendent Mark Ketcham had crews deployed around the Island, particularly at town landings.

The aim was to upgrade them to deal with stormwater issues, but also, to ensure access for emergency vehicles, particularly fire trucks,  to reach water to fight blazes.

A year earlier, a firefighters had difficulty in Silver Beach accessing water to fight a house fire because of inadequate access at a Peconic Avenue landing.

POSTSCRIPT: Both MS4 and improvements to roadways needed to access water for fire fighting remain active programs on the radar of town officials and firefighters.

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