This Morning’s Bulletin — 7.8.14
Good Morning!
• Congressman Tim Bishop and members of the Bytyqi family of Hampton Bays marked the 15th anniversary of the murders of Ylli, Agron and Mehmet Bytyqi in Serbia on the steps of Southampton Town Hall on Monday, calling attention to Mr. Bishop’s legislation calling on the Serbian government to bring those responsible for the deaths to justice. The Bytyqi brothers, born in the United States, travelled to Kosovo near the end of the military conflict there in 1999. During their visit, the brothers escorted an ethnic Romani family from Kosovo to Serbian-controlled territory, where they mistakenly entered Serbian-controlled territory rather than stopping at the border. They were detained and imprisoned for illegal entry and later taken to another location in Serbia and executed.
• Zubair Khan, 41, of Greenwich Village lost his life in the waters just off of Mattituck Inlet Monday morning, after he crashed while piloting an experimental airplane he’d built himself and been flying since March. Below is his video of his first test flight.
“The air is an extremely dangerous, jealous and exacting mistress. Once under the spell most lovers are faithful to the end, which is not always old age.” — Sir Winston Churchill
• The owners of the historic Sylvester Manor on Shelter Island have donated the manor house and 141 acres to the non-profit Sylvester Manor Educational Farm. The Peconic Trust helped facilitate the transition, working with owner Eben Fiske Ostby and his nephew, Bennett Konesni, on a conservation plan for the manor since 2008. This gift follows Mr. Ostby’s 2012 donation of 83 acres of historic fields and pastures, and a donation of a 22-acre conservation easement to the Peconic Land Trust in 2009.
• Suffolk County Vector Control will be spraying creeks throughout the East End with the larvicides Vectobac and methoprene from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. today in an attempt to control mosquitoes. The county health department says the arial spraying will take place at very low altitudes to control the drift of the chemicals into inhabited areas.
• The East Hampton Town Board will discuss its lease of the Phoenix House rehabilitation center and renovations to the sanitation department building at their 10 a.m. work session this morning at the Montauk Firehouse, and are also slated to approve the acquisition of 18 acres in the Northwest Woods owned by the Whelan Family through the Community Preservation Fund. Their full agenda is online here.
• Southampton Town holds its regular board meeting at 1 p.m. today, and is expected to approve resolutions allowing buses to pick up and drop off train passengers at train stations if a Long Island Rail Road strike occurs, and to schedule public hearings for August 12 at 1 p.m. on clean-up of a dangerous, fire and hurricane damaged property at 42 Dune Road in Hampton Bays, and on a parkland swap with Suffolk County in order to make changes to the Riverside traffic circle. The Southampton Town Board’s full agenda is online here.
And that’s the way things look at dawn’s light here today.
