This week in Shelter Island history
50 YEARS AGO IN HISTORY
President Lyndon Johnson signed the Highway Beautification Act limiting billboards along roadways, encouraging scenic enhancements and funding local road cleanup efforts.The Pentagon issued a draft call for December of 45,224 men to support the Vietnam War. It represented the largest monthly quota since the Korean War.
NASA announced it had identified 10 potential moon sites to place Lunar Orbiter cameras aimed at selecting landing areas for the Surveyor and Apollo space crafts.
The town house that had belonged to the late Winston Churchill since 1945 was sold at auction to Dr. Samuel Leonard Simpson, chairman of a clothing company at Piccadilly, for more than $287,000.
Former Beatles drummer Peter Best filed an $8 million lawsuit against Playboy magazine, the Beatles and particularly Ringo Starr for statements in a story run the previous February that the drummer said hindered his future employment.
And on Shelter Island …
50 YEARS AGO
Hogwash
Fifty years ago, County Executive H. Lee Dennison labeled as “pure political hogwash” any suggestion that the five East End towns would succeed from Suffolk County and form their own Peconic County.
“It simply can’t be done,” he said, insisting that the population wasn’t large enough to meet the proper ratio for apportionment of members of the state Assembly.
He also argued that only the state legislature has the authority to create a new county.
POSTSCRIPT: Despite ongoing complaints from East Enders that they send more money to Suffolk County than they get back in services and grants and are largely ignored by the rest of the county legislature, the five East End Towns remain linked to the rest of Suffolk County.
30 YEARS AGO
Area baymen gather on scallop funding
Representatives of the five East End towns serving on the Bay Scallop Committee of the Long Island Green Seal Program met in October 1985 to discuss how to use $130,000 granted by the New York State Urban Development Corporation and Suffolk County to implement a reseeding program in the Peconic bays.
The area had been devastated by brown algae the year before and the first step was to wipe the waters of starfish that are predators to scallops.
POSTSCRIPT: In cooperation with the Cornell Cooperative Extension SPAT program, major reseeding has restored scallops to local waters. The Shelter Island Town Board is currently looking at how much money it can allocate in the year ahead to support reseeding.
20 YEARS AGO
Changing of the guard at Highway Department
After 16 years on the job as town highway superintendent, Frank Klenawicus was retiring in 1995, leaving it to voters to choose between political newcomer Tom Avona, running on the Democratic ticket, and former Town Councilman Al Kilb Jr.
Mr. Klenawicus had won successive elections and was running both the Highway Department and Department of Public Works, administering the largest budgets on the Island at an estimated $1.36 million.
Supervisor Hoot Sherman racked up a third term by a runaway margin, but he wasn’t able to bring along Mr. Avona, who bowed to Mr. Kilb for the Highway/Public Works job.
POSTSCRIPT: Incumbent Highway Superintendent and Public Works Commissioner Jay Card Jr. has cross endorsements and no opposition as he seeks a third term this year.
10 YEARS AGO
Clearing the way for 5k
The story of the Sixth Annual 5k Run/Walk wasn’t who won in 2005, but the weather.
After eight straight days of rain, skies finally cleared on race day, but it took the Shelter Island Fire Department to bail out the race by pumping water from roadways where it had accumulated in puddles.
What started as a slow drizzle on October 8 and 9 that year turned into days when torrents of rain fell and reports of as much as 19 inches being measured by the time race day arrived.
POSTSCRIPT: Runners in last Saturday’s 16th Annual Run/Walk saw cool dry weather and the winners, of course, were the North Fork Breast Health Coalition and the Coalition for Women’s Cancers that received proceeds and Lucia’s Angels at Southampton Hospital that received profits from the raffle.
