This Morning’s Bulletin — 5.27.15

Good Morning!

• Today will be partly sunny, with a high near 74 degrees and a south wind 10 to 18 miles per hour, with gusts as high as 28 mph. Tonight is expected to be mostly cloudy, with a low around 63. Tomorrow we’re expecting a chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly between 3 and 4 p.m., but otherwise partly sunny, with a high near 79 degrees and a south wind 10 to 16 miles per hour. Friday and Saturday are expected to be sunny, with highs in the mid-70s, and Sunday there’s a 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, but otherwise it’s expected to be cloudy, with a high near 75 degrees.

• The Suffolk County Legislature’s budget working group voted 5-3 yesterday to restore funding in the county’s 2016 budget to revamp the traffic circle in Riverside. The money for the $4 million project had been moved from the 2016 to the 2018 budget in County Executive Steve Bellone’s initial capital budget. The capital budget will be up for a vote before the full county legislature June 2, after which Riverside Rediscovered, which circulated a petition last week asking to restore the funding, plans to hold a party at their office just steps from the traffic circle. The party begins at 6:30 p.m. The Beacon’s full story is online here.

•  As of sunrise on Friday, May 22, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation reopened 3,600 acres of shellfish lands in the western half of Shinnecock Bay. These areas were closed on May 7, after DEC’s Bureau of Marine Resources found saxitoxin, which causes paralytic shellfish poisoning, in shellfish in the bay. The DEC says the decision to reopen this area was based on the results of extensive testing of shellfish samples from western Shinnecock Bay. While bivalve shellfish such as clams and mussels can now be harvested there, the DEC is still prohibiting taking of carnivorous gastropods (conch, whelk and other marine snails) in all of western Shinnecock Bay west of the southbound lanes of the Ponquogue Bridge and east of the Post Lane Bridge in Quogue.

• State Assemblyman Fred Thiele’s gas price survey conducted last week showed that South Fork gasoline prices were lower than the Long Island average for the first time in three years, owing in part to the new, low priced Speedway stations that replaced Hess stations all over the East End in mid-May. Mr. Thiele’s May 24 survey showed that gasoline prices on the South Fork averaged $2.85 per gallon, while the Long Island average is $2.93 per gallon and the state average is $2.86. Mr. Thiele has been pushing to end gasoline retailers’ practice of “zone pricing,” which has caused higher than normal gasoline prices on the South Fork.

• In Riverhead last night, incumbent Republican Town Supervisor Sean Walter failed to garner the support for reelection by his own party, which chose Councilwoman Jodi Giglio to run for supervisor this year.  The Republicans also declined to endorse incumbent Councilman Jim Wooten, opting instead to back newcomers Tim Hubbard and Robert Peeker, both retired town police officers, for town board. Meanwhile, Riverhead Democrats also decided last night to back Anthony Coates for supervisor and Neil Krupnick and Laura Jens Smith for town board.

• Southold Town Democrats announced last night that they plan to back Damon Rallis, a plans examiner in the town’s building department, for town supervisor. He will run against incumbent supervisor Scot Russell. The Democrats also nominated Plum Island fireman Albie de Kerillis and North Fork Audubon Society President Debra O’Kane for the two town board seats currently held by Councilman Bill Ruland and Councilwoman Jill Doherty, who are both seeking reelection.

• As part of the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Library’s Centennial Celebration, The Friends of the Library are asking the community to sponsor one or more bricks to be added to the Friendship Walk in front of the Library. The cost of each brick is $100 and is tax deductible and all proceeds will support library programs. Applications are available at the library, and you can get more information by calling 631.734.6360.

And that’s the way things look at dawn’s light here today.