Community Corner

Eye to the East: 20 Rescued in Bay After Tide Sinks Sandbar Party

Also this week, a Suffolk legislator representing the North Fork is gunning for Brookhaven's supervisor position, and Coast Guard and fire department officials are eyeing a new training agreement.

Throughout the week, we do our best to offer you local news that hits close to home. With a wide network of Patch sites across Long Island, we thought we'd also make available a round-up of news from our East End sites.

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

So said some residents turned out in force on Tuesday night, quoting Joni Mitchell to weigh in on both sides of a proposal to rezone five parcels in Wading River.

Find out what's happening in Port Jeffersonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Others slammed the town board for even considering the plan, telling them, "You people have no idea how hard small business people work."

After two hours at the public hearing, members of the public were still filing up to the podium to discuss aplan that would rezone the land on Route 25A.

Find out what's happening in Port Jeffersonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The proposal, prepared by New York-based BFJ Planning, states that recently proposed commercial development applications have expanded outside of the existing hamlet commercial district, with the potential of threatening the character of Route 25A and surrounding open space, farmland and residential communities.

Less than a week after Brookhaven , North Fork County Legislator Ed Romaine threw his hat into the ring to seek the GOP nomination for the vacant seat.

Romaine, who hails from Center Moriches, is serving his fourth consecutive term in the Suffolk County Legislature after serving as county clerk for 16 straight years.

Next time you think you see a party foul, consider this: over 20 people left in the Shinnecock Bay, partying on a sandbar, required the aid of the United States Coast Guard, Southampton Town Bay Constables, a Suffolk County Police helicopter, and several area fire departments on Friday night after a rising tide ended the party.

According to reports on the ground, some of the partiers - who reportedly numbered close to 65 during the day - started swimming ashore and were swept out from the shore by an outgoing tide.

Everyone was accounted for, according Southampton Police.

Considering Friday night's events it may have seemed like a foreshadowing, but a few fire departments further east are breaking ground in a training that no other in the area has signed on to.

Three East End fire departments joined the Coast Guard for training for fires at sea and in search and rescue operations, as part of a new agreement to standardize efforts between the agencies, which was signed in a ceremony at the Montauk Fire Department on Wednesday evening. 

The agreement aligns firefighter at-sea training standards with those of the Coast Guard and is the first of its kind to be completed on the East End, according to the Coast Guard. During the ceremony, 12 volunteer firefighters from the , , and Shelter Island fire departments were recognized for completing the Coast Guard training.


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