Gold Stars and Dunce Caps

GOLD STAR: To the Group for the East End, for continuing efforts to bolster the osprey population on the East End, one of the greatest conservation success stories. The Group has worked for more than 30 years to help the raptor’s recovery and has been assisted by The Nature Conservancy, Eastern Long Island Audubon, North Fork Audubon, and Seatuck Environmental Association, among other groups. Likewise, credit to PSEG Long Island for a proactive effort to protect utility poles while providing nesting opportunities and relocating nests when necessary. The fish hawk was an endangered species in New York State in the 1970s, but in 2025, it’s hard to go by a body of water on the East End and not see an osprey. The Group for the East End’s counsel and advocacy has been invaluable to ospreys, and many other species that have been victims of human activity. The rebound from the 1970s, when the population had fallen by estimates of 90 percent, is stunning and should be seen as a reminder that humans have the ability to affect nature for the better, too.

GOLD STAR: To Stony Brook Medicine and the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center in Hampton Bays, for making life just a little safer for all species on the South Fork. This spring, Stony Brook Southampton Hospital opened its emergency facility in East Hampton, a long-awaited oasis of care for the region’s easternmost residents. Instead of a long ambulance ride to the nearest hospital in Southampton Village, patients now will get care more quickly — it will save lives this summer and for years to come. Then, on June 13, the Wildlife Rescue Center opened a Triage Center in East Hampton, offering similar quick care for injured animals. The traffic snarl is probably beyond repair at this point, but these are two sensible responses that will provide medical attention promptly at a time of crisis. That’s something to celebrate.

DUNCE CAP: To local governments who are wasting taxpayer money by insisting on not just being the newsmakers but the messengers, too. East Hampton Town became the latest municipality to plan a “newsletter” to inform the public, or have public relations staffers on the payroll. “I’ve heard in the 12 years that I’ve been in office that the town is doing such great things but nobody knows about it,” Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said. Hmm. Considering the number of news outlets who report on South Fork municipalities, that seems … unlikely. What’s likely to happen: Taxpayers will now be paying for the privilege of drafting and sending out promotional materials that primarily benefit incumbent elected officials, much like the “franked” campaign — err, newsletters — that come from Albany. Taxpayers should suggest that politicians stay in their lane instead of seeking to control the narrative, on the public’s dime.

GOLD STAR: To the Organización Latino Americana of Eastern Long Island, for their help in bringing long-overdue upgrades to the living conditions at Oakview, the East Hampton Village Manufactured Home Community. A year ago, it felt like a distant dream that even electricity service would stabilize. Now, residents are getting a playground, too. OLA stepped in, made promises and delivered. Issues with living conditions have been addressed, for the most part, and one of East Hampton’s primary working class neighborhoods can rest easy with summer coming.

GOLD STAR: To East Hampton Town Councilman Tom Flight, for leading East Hampton Town government into the future with OpenGov. Like any software, OpenGov has bugs that will be ironed out over time, but Flight’s efforts in modernizing government and prioritizing analytical decision-making, despite the hurdles, are admirable. The program makes government more customer-friendly by allowing digital access by residents, and it offers an opportunity for more data-driven decision-making. These types of technical improvements, though, need a human guide to get them in place and make sure they’re working properly. Thank you to Flight for taking on that role.

DUNCE CAP: To the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, for failing to clarify whether it referred to East Hampton Town or East Hampton Village on its recent list of “sanctuary jurisdictions.” Neither town nor village reported receiving any communication from the federal government on what needed to change. Town leadership didn’t even know about the federal government designation until a member of the press asked about it. And then, just as quickly as it arose, it was dropped. Nothing came of it but confusion, and further evidence that the folks in Washington, D.C., seem to be making up a lot of policy as they go along.

DUNCE CAP: To officials in both East Hampton Town and Village, for the communications breakdown on call-forwarding responsibilities for police-related dispatch calls. The change itself seems as though it could end up being a positive one for both sides. But somewhere down the line, the town and the village seemingly lost the plot, and there must have been an easier, fairer way to get there. Who did what and when, though, remains a bit of a mystery.

GOLD STAR: To the Rogers Memorial Library, for its grand reopening after a $2.2 million renovation to upgrade the facilities and services — and the addition of The Bookmark Cafe. Libraries have become so much more than a place to borrow books; they are irreplaceable community resources for education, work and general enrichment for all ages, and keeping local libraries on the cutting edge will ensure it stays that way. Adding a cafe is just another way to bring libraries into everyday life, where the many services they provide can be easily accessed. Rogers Memorial Library is a great example of how essential a role a library can play in a community.

GOLD STAR: To New York State, for finally requiring all operators of motorized boats and watercraft to take a boating safety course and pass a test on the rules and basic safe boating standards. There is no road test equivalent for boating yet — there should be, someday — but the state’s requirements are a first step to making sure that more boat owners understand the foundational requirements of operating a boat responsibly. That’s the definition of “the very least they can do” — and it hadn’t been the case until very recently.

GOLD STAR: To Cantor Debra Stein at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons, one of the first generation of female cantors. She will be honored next week in Washington, D.C., by the American Conference of Cantors as part of that first wave for her more than four decades at the East Hampton temple. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done in my life, other than having a child,” she said in a profile last week. She has been a constant at the Jewish Center, and she is a community treasure.

GOLD STAR: To the Children’s Museum of the East End, for continuing to reinvent and improve itself. It’s a terrific cultural resource to begin with, but by adding a terrific new play area, it’s even more of a destination for the region’s kids and their exhausted parents and caregivers. Keeping things fresh is a great way of making sure families continue to take advantage of this great summer destination.

DUNCE CAP: To anyone who gets behind the wheel this holiday weekend after imbibing. These days, the odds are you won’t get home without interaction with police if you’re above the legal limit. But anyone who climbs behind the wheel when they’re even slightly tipsy should think about recent headlines, and the lives that have been forever changed (and ended), and think again. Turn the keys over to someone sober.

DUNCE CAP: It’s hard to decide who should wear the cap, but someone deserves one in the wake of the death of Sara Burack late at night on a Hampton Bays street recently. Certainly, the driver in the hit-and-run fatality carries the biggest burden. But Burack’s decline, as discussed in an article in the New York Post this week, demonstrates that the dozens of interactions with local police in the past year or two show a serious failure of the mental health services in the region. How did she end up walking in traffic at 2:45 a.m., pulling a suitcase? There’s enough tragedy to go around in this instance, but that’s certainly part of it.

DUNCE CAP: To President Donald Trump, for creeping authoritarianism that’s rapidly encroaching on the First Amendment. In a Fox News interview, which aired Sunday but was taped on Friday, President Trump said that whoever leaked the preliminary U.S. intelligence report about the effect of strikes on Iran’s nuclear program should be prosecuted. He also suggested he would force reporters to reveal their sources: “You go up and tell the reporter, ‘National security — who gave it?’ You have to do that. I suspect we’ll be doing things like that.” These tossed-off unconstitutional threats are growing tiresome. Perhaps we could press some billionaire into service as a “constitutional czar”? Because someone the president is willing to listen to needs to speak up. Jeff Bezos? Ehhh, never mind.

GOLD STAR: To the many, many businesses and organizations on the East End who give out hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships to graduating seniors. Big and small, these dollars are an investment in our collective future, and a real gesture of support to a generation that faces historic fiscal challenges to getting a college degree. Every little bit helps.

DUNCE CAP: To all those involved in machinations in local party politics. The recent Working Families Party primary was just another example of “game theory” being used to fill ballot lines, regardless of the candidates’ actual political leanings. So much of this zero-sum game being played by the major parties (and the willing participation by the third parties) is muddying the waters to the point where many voters rightfully might ask what party lines even mean anymore? Perhaps the answer at the local level is: they don’t. So pick the best candidates, who actually stand for something, and factor in the string-pulling by their party supporters as a detrimental consideration.

DUNCE CAP: To the silliness at the polls in North Haven Village, where poll watchers appear to have overstepped. There’s no place for such unneighborly behavior at a village polling place. It’s also not hard to picture it backfiring, hard, on any candidate who thought it necessary to hover over the process.

GOLD STAR: To the South Fork Bakery for hiring Bridget Fleming, and to Fleming for taking the reins of one of the great local charity/business hybrids. The Amagansett nonprofit has been ably led by Stephen Hamilton as interim director since founder Shirley Ruch retired in 2023, and it’s hard to imagine a better caretaker than the former Suffolk County legislator and Southampton Town Board member. The bakery provides employment for developmentally disabled people — and turns out some genuinely delicious products. Fleming can build on a history of success, and it will be exciting to see what’s cooking.

DUNCE CAP: To the Ethics Board in Southampton Village, for failing to follow its own advice. After the Robin Brown controversy, the board made two recommendations for better transparency: an official log be kept of trustees’ attendance at events in their capacity as trustees, and for the village attorney to remind the Village Board when recusal from voting or disclosure of a personal relationship is required. Both are excellent suggestions. Here’s a third: The Ethics Board should adhere to the state’s Open Meetings Law. In response to a Freedom of Information request for its minutes for 2023 and 2024, the village’s response was that there “are no minutes of Ethics Board meetings.” The State of New York Committee on Open Government determined in a 2003 advisory opinion that an ethics board “clearly conducts public business and performs a governmental function” and has the same obligations regarding openness and public notice of meetings. The village code empowers the board to issue subpoenas, administer oaths and make criminal referrals to the village prosecutor. It’s time for the Ethics Board and the Village Board that oversees it to take the Open Meetings Law as seriously as the codes that the Ethics Board expects others to follow.

GOLD STAR: To the hundred of concerned East End residents who took to the streets throughout the area, sometimes in pouring rain, to let their voices be heard as they sent a defiant message to President Donald Trump about actions by his administration to cut funding to critical programs and taking a heavy-handed approach to immigration. This country was made great by the ability of everyday citizens to confront the government and call for changes, and the protesters in recent weeks have proudly carried on that tradition with the optimism that if they’re loud enough, change can come.

GOLD STAR: To the voters in the villages of Southampton, Sag Harbor, North Haven, Westhampton Beach and West Hampton Dunes who turned out last month to cast ballots in the local village elections. While the number of voters in the hyper-local elections aren’t huge, those who did turn out recognized the importance of picking like-minded local lawmakers who have their best interests at heart. And, while we’re at it, gold stars to those local lawmakers for participating in local government in what for many may seem like an underpaid and thankless job. Their dedication to making their local community a better place is inspiring.