Letters to the Editor: Excellent Earth Day celebration

Southold

Excellent Earth Day celebration

We from the Kenney’s Beach area and beyond owe thanks to the newest addition to our community, Little Fish. For the third year, Arden and his growing family plus darling staff threw a beach cleanup party for everyone willing to pick up the trash that litters our beaches over the winter. And what a party! 

Thanks to the contributions of his sponsors — Greenport Harbor Brewing Co., Macari Vineyards, The Treatery and even Mattituck Environmental (we contributed quite a load to their dumpster) — a fun feast finale was had by all. And how wonderful to include the Southold Mothers’ Club in the cleanup! Talk about educating our children on community service and not littering!

Honorable mention also goes to Relic, the ocean advocacy company that supplies yellow baskets to many of our beaches. They brought picker-sticks to make our cleanup easier and showed off their cuddly sea-animal themed clothing. 

We are proud to be partners in Arden’s continued effort to help us keep our beaches and waters clean.

Lynne Normandia 

For members of the Kenneys/McCabe’s Beach and Southold-Peconic civics 

Orient

Protect, conserve

I’m a resident of Orient. I moved here from the South Fork in 2005, absolutely enchanted by this hamlet, this peace. I fell in love with Narrow River Road, with Village Lane, with roads you could drive on, even on weekends, rather than be stuck in the bumper-to-bumper South Fork traffic. Now I see the proposed plans for the Latham Farm Tuthill Subdivision, and I am horrified by what seems to lead inevitably to spoiling what has so far been unspoiled. 

Let’s begin with what happens to traffic on a two-lane road — how it’s already hard to enter traffic when the ferries arrive. Imagine what chaos awaits when agritainment is allowed. Remember what happened to traffic when even the little lavender farm became a huge tourist attraction? Chaos. Add soundtrack: Joni Mitchell singing, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” 

I call on the Southold Town Planning Board to keep in mind its stated mission: “We recognize that the Town’s unique character, shaped by its rich history and rural beauty, is something worth preserving — while also paving the way for thoughtful growth that meets the evolving needs of our community.

“This update is more than policy; it’s a promise. A promise to preserve farmland and the natural environment, and support local families with diverse housing. It’s about ensuring our residents can afford to stay, our businesses can grow, and our natural spaces endure. Most of all, it’s about honoring our past while building a future where the Town of Southold remains vibrant, sustainable, and true to its roots.”

We have something so precious here. I’m hoping that, together, we can protect it, conserve it.

Amy Gross 

Sea Cliff, N.Y.

Fresh voices needed?

My writing today is two-fold. First, in reference to President Trump’s sanctions on Harvard University and others: I agree that admissions and staffing should be based on merit and not on diverse status, gender, race, ethnicity or quotas. 

Second, I have read your paper weekly for many years as a former 25-year resident of Southold. In reading the opinion columns, I have noticed that there are people who repeatedly are published. I feel you need to approve and print a fresh “flock” of others.  

Carolyn George 

Greenport

Our new police captain

Standing ovation to veteran Scott Latham of the Southold Police Department on his well deserved promotion to the rank of captain as he carries forward his illustrious career.

Chief Steven Grattan highly praised his departmental role in general and his creation of policy and procedure manuals in particular — which certainly will go a long way for the betterment of department and community at large.

Capt. Latham described working with Chief Grattan as a “one brain” relationship in which they share the same frequency and wavelength for the department’s future, vision and mission.

He loves to attend town halls, public forums and anywhere he can answer questions from community members about the department and the role it plays in Southold. Even when having a cup of hot coffee at Aldo’s in Greenport, he never misses [a chance] to interact with the community. That’s makes an incredible difference in creating community- police liaising at a grassroots level.

A boatload of thanks to Southold Town Police Department and all those who matter in making our community safe and sound, whether its high tides or low tides.

All the best to our dedicated law enforcement — and be safe.

Muneer Haleem 

Laurel

The children

My young grandson wore an “FTK” hat, matching signs we saw at a For the Kids fundraiser bursting with activity for childhood cancer research. University of Delaware students organized and hosted a UDance marathon, For The Kids.

My 12-year-old granddaughter, one of those kids, participated — as did other cancer survivors. With a huge audience of supportive students, she sat alone on a big stage playing “A Million Dreams” on her viola. The students raised over $1.8 million for pediatric cancer research.

“Let them eat cake” were historic words for the starving French peasants pleading for bread. I fear this administration’s cancer research message is: “Let them dance marathons.”

Eighteenth-century Methodist John Wesley said: “We need not think alike to love alike.” Perhaps we love alike enough to want cancer research funded, saving children’s lives and finding less harmful or less painful treatments. And enough alike to care about the 4-year-old boy with Stage 4 cancer who was flown out of our country on his mother’s deportation flight. No chance to speak with attorneys, no chance to access his medication. 

When President Kennedy founded USAID, apparently there was enough American love for children to provide food and medical supplies for those in desperate need.

Congressman Nick LaLota’s website proclaims his “deep reverence for our Constitutional right to bear arms.” Deep reverence: “usually reserved for the sacred or divine; devoted veneration.” Could be powerful stuff for eliminating gun violence from our children’s lives.

Grants for cafeteria food, child welfare, foster care, adoption systems — canceled. Head Start programs gutted. Working-class parents left without preschool or childcare. PBS programs cut.

The fundraiser my granddaughter took part in was “built on a foundation of hope, unity, perseverance, and passion.” So contrary to our government with its cruel, immoral disregard for children and their parents.

Mary Ellen Tomaszewski 

Southold

Upheaval

“The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot has a familiar line: “This is how the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.” He wrote the poem to explore the spiritual emptiness and disillusionment of modern humanity in the aftermath of World War I and the societal upheavals of the 20th century. Everything old is new again. The list of government departments being dismantled that provide essential services brings this poem to my mind. 

In a little more than 100 days, this country is undergoing a transformation of epic proportions. Today, the president wants to end funding for NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. My children and grandchildren grew up on “Sesame Street.” My eldest grandchild said “rectangle” at 18 months. (My husband and I were ready to sign her up for Harvard.) So many people in this country have no access to Broadway other than PBS. Ken Burns’ documentaries are legendary, as is the Nova series. I could go on and on, but you get the point. I grew up in the ’60s thinking that the nuclear bomb was the biggest threat to us. Never did I see that the oligarchs and Project 2025 would want to destroy our democracy — not with nuclear fallout, but moral fallout. I don’t know that outcome, bit I pray that decency and freedom prevail.

Rosellen Storm 

Wading River

Republican vision

Our 1st District Congressman, Nick LaLota, in assessing President Trump’s first 100 days, is reported as saying that the president is a leader who has been “focused, unapologetic and committed to securing America’s future.” Really? Or is the good congressman viewing Trump’s first 100 days through Republican red-colored glasses?

Perhaps Mr. LaLota has not noticed that the White House is ignoring both a federal appeals court and a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia from a notorious El Salvador prison. Trump’s own Department of Justice acknowledges that deporting Mr. Garcia to El Salvador was a mistake. This is the stuff of a Constitutional crisis.

Perhaps Mr. LaLota has not noticed that the Trump administration has terminated grant funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. This thoughtless action will hurt not only the many wonderful libraries on Long Island, but also repositories of U.S., and local history such as the Whaling Museum in Cold Spring Harbor, the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook and the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington. The White House is openly attacking the nation’s cultural funding process.

Perhaps Mr. LaLota has not noticed Trump’s Department of Defense has banned some 381 books from the shelves of the library at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. The books — about race, racism, gender and sexuality — were considered part of “radical indoctrination” in education by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. A book by award-winning Black author Maya Angelou was among those banned, while Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” remains on the bookshelves. Curious.

The list of problematic and injurious actions by the Trump administration against government, educational and cultural institutions is long — and Mr. LaLota has apparently noticed none of it. But the voters of the 1st Congressional District should take notice of this dysfunction and remember it come the 2026 midterm elections.

Martin Skrocki