___________ SEA CLIFF/GLEN HEAD __________
HERALD VE SECTION 2024 SPECIAL COMMEMORATI
Environmentally friendly fun
St. Pat’s new grand marshal
Page 4
Page 10
VOL. 33 NO. 10
FEBRUARY 28, 2024
FEBRUARY 29 - MARCH 6, 2024
$1.00
A look at elections past How civility changes, remains the same, in politics By WILL SHEELINE wsheeline@liherald.com
This is the second in a series delving into the complexities of elections to provide a better understanding of one of Americans’ most precious privileges, the right to vote.
Will Sheeline/Herald
A new town project seeks to revitalize the entrance of the Mill River Outfall at Beekman Beach.
Town receives environmental grant Work to begin on green infrastructure project By WILL SHEELINE wsheeline@liherald.com
In the coming months, Oyster Bay residents and visitors to the hamlet looking out over the harbor can expect to see floating barges of plants as part of a new project by the town to mitigate stormwater runoff and work in tandem with the town’s ongoing oyster rehabilitation projects. The Town of Oyster Bay was recently awarded a $435,000 grant from the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation to spearhead a transformative project aimed at enhancing water quality, implementing green infrastructure, and mitigating storm-
water runoff in Oyster Bay Harbor. Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino said the grant was just the most recent part of Oyster Bay’s ongoing efforts to protect the local environment. “We applied for this knowing that restoring the pristine waters of Oyster Bay Harbor is extremely important, and it’s one of the many steps that we have taken and will be taking going forward to make sure that we get our harbor to the best it’s ever been,” Saladino said. “This project is specifically about ensuring that runoff that contains some contaminants from the roadway is filtered before it reaches Oyster Bay Harbor.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
While most people are taught in schools across the country that American politics have always been conducted with respect and dignity, in the annals of American political history, the campaign trail has often been fraught with mudslinging, deception, and outright falsehoods. From the early days of the republic to the digital age of today, candidates have engaged in tactics aimed at discrediting their opponents and swaying public opinion, often at the expense of truth and integrity. As the recent special election for New York’s 3rd Congressional District between Democrat Tom Suozzi and Republican Mazi Melesa Pilip showed, the electoral tradition of name-calling and truth-twisting are alive and well. Both candidates took umbrage with ads ran by their opponent or their opponent’s supporters, with Suozzi bristling at the nickname “the Godfather of the border crisis” and
Pilip repudiating claims that she was anti-abortion and antienvironment. Chuck Lavine, a New York state assemblyman, noted that these sorts of political attacks were nothing new to American politics, and added that they dated back to the earliest days of American democracy. A particularly provocative example occurred during the election of 1800 between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, when a newspaper editor and political ally of Adams accused the thenPresident of being a hermaphrodite. “ T h e r e h av e always been instances of dirty campaigns,” Lavine said. “I thought it was a good sign that many people in that Suozzi-Pilip race utterly disregarded inflammatory commercials that were on television, on radio and on the internet.” Not everyone agrees with Lavine, however. Joseph Saladino, supervisor for the Town of Oyster Bay, claimed that civility had always been a key aspect in elections, and pointed to his election wins as a key example. “Civility is important in politics as residents want representatives that will enact positive solutions to enhance our community,” Saladino wrote in CONTINUED ON PAGE 8