This week in Shelter Island history

50 YEARS AGO IN HISTORY

Mayor Richard Daley called out National Guard troops with orders to shoot to kill during riots on Chicago’s west side. Mr. Daley blamed the riots on Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, whom he said were teaching youths to demonstrate violently.

Gemini 10 parachuted to safety in the western Atlantic Ocean returning astronauts John Young and Michael Collins back to earth after a three-day expedition in space.

North Vietnam President Ho Chi Minh rejected any suggestion of peace talks, maintaining he was determined to continue to fight to liberate the south no matter how long it might take.

The Soviet Union performed a nuclear test at Semipalitinski, Eastern Kazakhstan.

Frank Sinatra, then 50, married 21-year-old Mia Farrow in Las Vegas.

And on Shelter Island …

50 YEARS AGO
House sizing an issue for Town Board

Fifty years ago, the Town Board was contemplating changes in minimum sizes for houses on the Island. In Zone A, the proposal was to increase house sizes from 800 to 1,000 square feet and in Zone C, the minimum of 480 square feet was proposed to increase to 780 square feet.

A Reporter editorial suggested that the Zone A change be increased to 1,200 square feet while it sneered at the Zone C sizing, suggesting it represented “a crackerbox.”

The town never should have allowed a 480 square foot house in the first place, the editorial said. Raising it to 780 square feet only compounds the error, according to the editorial.

POSTSCRIPT: What a difference 50 years can make. Today’s concerns are with houses deemed too large to fit with the Island’s ambiance.

The Town Board has been struggling with various proposals, but has yet to settle on what it might accept. Among the concerns are what large houses might mean to the water supply on the Island and the need recognized today for updated septic systems.

30 YEARS AGO
LILCO sets cable deadline

Thirty years ago, the Long Island Lighting Company, then the provider of electricity to Shelter Islanders, was working on a cable meant to carry 69,000 volts of power between East Hampton and Southold, providing Shelter Island and the North and South forks with reliable service.

It was a $26 million project being undertaken and the utility company projected it would be completed by June 1989.

POSTSCRIPT: Today, Islanders and Greenporters are awaiting word from PSEG on a proposal to run cables between the two towns and village in a project that was anticipated to begin this fall and be completed before winter arrives.

Earlier this month, a PSEG-LI spokeswoman said there was no word yet on whether the project would be started this fall. Both the Heights Property Owners Corporation and the Greenport Village Board would have to approve the project before work could be done.

Both allowed testing early this year to determine if the plans might work, but neither has been asked to vote on a resolution approving the cable project.

20 YEARS AGO
Voters to decide on 31 percent increase in library budget

It was July 1996 when the Shelter Island Library Board proposed a 31 percent increase in its budget. The proposed tax line for the library was up from $65,000 to $85,000. Taxes represented only 58 percent of the library’s spending with the rest of the money coming from contributions, fund-raising events, grants, fines and other small amounts.

The voting at the time took place in August.

POSTSCRIPT: It’s too early to estimate the budget voters will act on in October, but last year, Library Director Terry Lucas described the request as “the smallest increase in several years.” It sought an increase of $19,693 in tax money to support the current budget of $679,720.

10 YEARS AGO
Deer cost the Island $1.35 million

A group of residents seeking to spur action to reduce the deer population on Shelter Island took it upon themselves to calculate what the proliferation of the animals were costing 10 years ago. They estimated the deer population at 1,000 while the town had put forth the figure of 570.

But either was beyond the approximately 200 that the state Department of Environmental Conservation had estimated were manageable on an Island of this size.

The group estimated costs that included collisions, medical treatment for those who were bitten by ticks, spraying, pet protection and damage to plants, trees and fencing.

They hoped their statistics would lead to a decision to cull the herd.

POSTSCRIPT: Ten years later, there is a stepped-up effort to cull the Island’s deer herd, but no one has an estimate based on anything but anecdotal evidence of how many deer are on Shelter Island.