27Speaks

The Southampton Town Board recently unanimously approved a sweeping rezoning of a swath of Montauk Highway on the edge of downtown Hampton Bays. The move came barely a month after the legislation proposing the change was first introduced, and over the vociferous objections of a businessman who had planned to open a cannabis dispensary that will now be forestalled by the new zoning rules. Reporter...

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on May 1 instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cease federal funding for NPR and PBS. Then in June, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a rescission package that revokes $1.1 billion that had been budgeted for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on that package as soon as this week...

The tenants of Quail Ridge — the two dozen studio and one-bedroom apartments spread over two buildings of a former motel along County Road 39 in Shinnecock Hills — typically pay less than $1,500 a month in rent, some considerably less. The apartments are not luxurious, and as former summer resort “efficiencies” they are not large. But they are fine, residents say, and they are affordable for emplo...

Back in the 1970s, things weren’t looking great for osprey populations. There were just 75 known pairs living on Long Island at the time. The widespread use of the insecticide DDT had taken its toll on the birds, who ingested it through the fish they ate, resulting in thinning eggshells that were often crushed during the incubation period. But after the banning of DDT and changes in environmental...

Lifeguarding was once a male-dominated summer job on the East End, but those days are over. Ann Naughton, the chief lifeguard for Southampton Town beaches, and reporter Cailin Riley join the editors to discuss how lifeguarding has changed since Naughton began lifeguarding in the 1980s.

For the first time since before the pandemic, Guild Hall, which underwent a major renovation in recent years, is fully up and running this season. That includes on the stage where Anthony Madonna is now the theater director and curator of performing arts at Guild Hall.

Roundabouts, traffic lights, stop signs, road work, service upgrades and turn lanes. Spring is the time of year for instituting changes in traffic patterns on the East End. It’s also the time when we most often see the installation of upgraded power cables and other services. The year 2025 has been no exception. This week, the editors talk about what’s been happening (and often been disrupting) on...

Nada Barry, owner of The Wharf Shop, is a Sag Harbor fixture. A native of England and a permanent resident of Sag Harbor since 1962, for decades she has been a regular at village meetings, has played a major role in the business community and has advocated for the East End’s youth. Now 94, Barry recently wowed an audience at The Church in Sag Harbor with a talk recounting the many milestones in he...

With renewable energy sources like solar farms and windmills gaining traction on the East End, building facilities to store all that energy becomes vital. But battery energy storage systems (or BESS as they are called) are not without critics — especially given that some facilities around the country have experienced fires in the past. The Southampton Town Board recently introduced the fourth vers...

Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, the executive director of the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill and, until recently, a member of the Institute of Museum and Library Services board, joins the editors to discuss the federal cuts that downsized IMLS. Due to the gutting of the IMLS budget, the Parrish has lost over $140,000 in federal funding that supported its education and Access Parrish programs, an initia...

The latest in the Express Sessions panel discussion series,“ The South Fork’s Bounty, on Land and at Sea,” was held on May 8 at Inlet Seafood in Montauk. Suffolk County has the fourth-largest agricultural sales in New York State, and it is first in aquaculture. In both cases, the farms and waters of the South Fork play an important role in providing food for the region, state and nation. In March,...

In the spring of 2008, Amanda Merrow and Katie Baldwin met for the first time as apprentices at the Peconic Land Trust’s Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett. Under the guidance of mentor Scott Chaskey, during their yearlong apprenticeship, they learned all the ins and outs of farming. A year later, Merrow and Baldwin leased a nearby plot of land from East Hampton Town and created their own farm — Amber...

East Hampton Town recently found itself in a bidding war with East Hampton Village over an employee — and lost. The incident was indicative of the town's staffing problems, ranging from entry-level positions to leadership. Reporter Jack Motz joins the editors on the podcast this week to discuss the staffing hurdles that the town is struggling to overcome.

In February, The Sag Harbor Express talked to Main Street business owners in the village and made a startling discovery. While the summer of 2024, post-COVID, was generally considered the busiest in Sag Harbor’s history, with crowds of people flocking to the business district daily — the businesses did not experience a similar boost. Sales were largely flat, or even slightly down from historical l...

On Saturday, April 26, the South Fork Natural History Museum (SOFO) and its Young Environmentalist Society will host a screening at Sag Harbor Cinema of “Ivohiboro: The Lost Forest.” The documentary follows Stony Brook University primatologist, anthropologist and biologist Dr. Patricia Wright as she leads a team of scientists to a previously unknown rainforest in southeastern Madagascar where they...

Starting April 21, traffic signals on County Road 39 west of North Sea Road will be switched from a red-green cycle to either steady green or blinking yellow between 4 and 7 p.m. on weekdays. The two-week pilot program is designed to alleviate traffic during the afternoon westbound commute and to assess whether it could be a practicable solution to summer traffic. Southampton Town Highway Superint...

When a series of wildfires swept across the region between Manorville and Westhampton on March 8, among the areas that burned was the Dwarf Pine Plains, a 5,000-acre portion of the Pine Barrens core marked by the prevalence of much smaller pine trees than in the rest of the Pine Barrens. This week the editors are joined by reporters Michael Wright and Jack Motz, and Polly Weigand, the Northeast fi...

At the recent New York Press Association newspaper conference in Saratoga Springs, where the Express News Group won multiple awards, Publisher Gavin Menu, Executive Editor Joe Shaw, Deputy Managing Editor Brendan O'Reilly and Arts and Living Editor Annette Hinkle took time out to discuss the current state of print media.

On March 8, a series of small brush fires hopscotched their way from Manorville east, culminating in an explosive wildfire near Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton. A massive response led by some 600 volunteers from 80 Long Island fire departments, augmented by another 10 ambulance companies, held the fire at bay, limiting damage to about 420 acres to the west and north of the airport. This...

Registered nurse Melody Butler, the director of infection prevention and control at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital and founder of Nurses Who Vaccinate, joins the editors to discuss what people can do to protect themselves and their families from various communicable diseases that are of growing concern.

Journalist Steve Wick recently published his debut novel, "The Ruins," a gripping tale of murder, espionage and Nazis on Long Island inspired by a trial he covered in 1980 as a young reporter at Newsday. Wick joins the editors on the podcast this week to discuss the true crime story and the process of creational a fictional work.

Cracking Down on County Road 39 Speeders by The Express News Group

After the Southampton History Museum notified the nonprofit Conscience Point Shellfish Hatchery that it has to vacate its home at the Conscience Point Historic Site in North Sea, there was an outcry from supporters of the hatchery, and a number of museum board resignations. The museum defended the move, asserting that the hatchery was conducting commercial sales and subletting boat slips, which co...

Sag Harbor's Joe Lauro, whose interests tend toward jazz, blues, jug and country, is a keen collector of music that was marketed by record companies from the 1920s to early 1940s to an emerging Black audience as “race records.” Recently, he acquired an important piece for his collection: a copy of the Reverend W.M. Mosley singing “Oh Death Spare Me Over Till Another Year.” The shellac record was o...

Jonathan Miller, the president and CEO of real estate appraisal and consulting firm Miller Samuel Inc., joins the editors to discuss the state of the Hamptons market and offers his outlook for 2025.