This Morning’s Bulletin — 1.29.14

Good Morning!

• We’re expecting up to five inches of snow this morning. The Southampton, Tuckahoe, Bridgehampton, Montauk and Hampton Bays schools have a two-hour delayed start. Keep calm and carry on.

• Riverhead is the place to be this week, with all sorts of interesting happenings on Main Street throughout the week. Tonight, a consortium of parents who are opposed to the new Common Core education standards are holding a public forum at the Long Island Aquarium and Exhibition Center on East Main Street titled “Our Children Are Not Common: Their Education Shouldn’t Be Either.” The flyer for the seminar is available here.

• The Riverhead Farmers Market has unveiled its opening day lineup of vendors for this Saturday’s market, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the former Swezey’s Department Store building on East Main Street. Their full list is available online here.

• The Riverhead Foundation for Marine Preservation and Research is holding a lecture this Saturday at 3 p.m. on the cause of the unusually high number of dolphin deaths on the Eastern Seaboard last summer. For more information or to reserve your seat at the lecture, call 631.369.9840.

• Southold Town Historic Preservation Commission members told the town board Tuesday morning that they unanimously oppose the town’s plan to put a cell phone tower on the vacant lawn in the historic district behind town hall. Parents of students in the nearby Southold Schools are concerned about the health risks associated with the tower. Landmarks Commission Chairman Jim Grathwohl told the town board that his commission’s opposition is based on the precedent the cell tower would set in allowing cell towers in historic districts, not on the health risk, even though, he said, members of the commission may share parents’ concerns.

• Former Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy was in Albany this week lobbying on behalf of his think tank, the Center for Cost-Effective Government, which wants to get rid of what’s known as the Triborough Amendment, a 1982 amendment to the state’s Taylor Law that allows municipal union workers to keep receiving some benefits, including STEP increases, after their contracts expire. Southold Town workers, who are at impasse with Town Hall over a contract that expired at the end of 2012 and are awaiting a hearing before the state Public Employees Relations Board, are currently working under the provisions of the Triborough Amendment and are not expecting a new contract for at least several months. The bill to eliminate the amendment is sponsored by St. James Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick, but currently has no sponsor in the State Senate.