Sag Harbor Express - 6/27/19

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Since 1859

Making Magic John Sebastian has a homecoming of sorts. pg B1

Slugged

Plein Air

Whalers drop in standings after weekend losses. pg 19

Capturing the outdoors pg B1 on canvas. $1.50

THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 2019 VOLUME 160 NO. 52

sagharborexpress.com

Sag Harbor

Another Roundabout? Town is entertaining one at Stephen Hands Path and Long Lane. > Page 6

Food Trucks At Farm Stands Some local farmers are hoping town will approve the idea. > Page 3

OK CPF for Housing

BRIDGE ST. PROJECT TOO INTENSE BY KATHRYN G. MENU

A PROPOSAL BY UPTOWN PILATES LLC to expand and connect three buildings at 23 Bridge Street in Sag Harbor is too intense a development for the low-lying property, members of both the Sag Harbor Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals said during separate meetings this month. Concerns over a lack of parking, the intensity of use and the need to raise the grade of the land four-feet to accommodate an on-site septic system were issues raised by both boards, who have forwarded their comments to attorney Brian DeSesa and voted

Boards cite lack of parking and flooding as key problems separately to take the application off their agenda for the time being. The 23 Bridge Street property currently hosts three separate buildings with a gross floor area of 2,772 square feet — and two small sheds — on a property just shy of 0.3 acres. The proposal before the Planning Board and ZBA is to renovate, expand and connect the three buildings, and would

increase the gross floor area of the structures to 4,427 square feet, a 59.7 percent increase. Unless the Sag Harbor Village Board of Trustees agreed to extend its wastewater treatment service to the property, an on-site septic system would be required to support the development. To install an on-site septic system — in a part of the village dangerously close to groundwater and prone to flooding — would require erecting a fourfoot concrete retaining wall around the property and raising the grade to meet the top of the retaining wall.

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Montauk

CHARGED IN MURDER CASE

State legislature votes for .5 percent tax for affordable efforts. > Page 7

On the Screen

Police: man was lured to his death in park

East Hampton Cinema Phone (631) 324-0448 Yesterday (PG-13) Toy Story 4 (G) Late Night (R) Pavarotti (NR) Rocketman (R)

BY ELIZABETH VESPE

JOSEPH GRIPPO USED A PICKAX to kill Robert Casado after luring him into Kirk Park, Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy D. Sini said shortly after Mr. Grippo’s arraignment on a second-degree murder charge in East Hampton Town Justice Court on Friday. “The victim allegedly had a romantic relationship with the defendant’s significant other,” the district attorney said. “He stabbed and beat the victim in the face and the head. The victim succumbed to his injuries. The cause of death was blunt force trauma

Southampton Cinema Phone (631) 287-2774 Annabelle Comes Home (R) Anna (R) Toy Story 4 (G) Men in Black: International (PG-13)

Weekend Weather

b b b b

Thursday, June 27 Partly Sunny

Temps in the high 70s

Friday, June 28 Sunny Temps in the low 80s

Saturday, June 29 Nighttime T-Storms Temps in the high 70s

Sunday, June 30 Partly Cloudy

Temps in the high 70s

INSIDE Obituaries 18 Opinion 10 Arts & Leisure B1 Calendar B2 Classifieds 12 Sports 19 The Hometown Newspaper of HAYLEY THORPE

peter boody photo

The building at 23 Bridge Street in Sag Harbor.

1-800-BUH BYE

michael heller photo

STEVEN MEZYNIESKI, OPERATING AN EXCAVATOR, readies to take down the cylindrical cupola atop the building at 2 West Water Street in Sag Harbor, which was demolished on Monday morning to make way for Jay Bialsky’s town house project. Located on a property that once housed a motel owned by the Remkus family, prior to being purchased

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kyril bromley photo

Joseph Grippo being led to arraignment.

by Greystone Development for $4.94 million in 2016 it was home to Bruce Davis, the face and owner of the ubiquitous 1-800-LAWYERS brand. In March, Mr. Bialsky received his final approval from the Village of Sag Harbor to develop three luxury townhouses on the site, one of which the developer says he intends to live in with his family.

South Fork

Push Is On for More Wind Farms Proposals include 100-turbine installation 18 miles off ocean beach BY MICHAEL WRIGHT

THREE WIND ENERGY development companies have asked the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to make the federally controlled sea floor off the South Fork available for wind farm leases. The BOEM is currently considering whether to create new lease areas for wind farm development on the sea floor in several large sectors off the shores of Long Island and New Jersey available to would-be wind farm developers. Last year, the agency put out a “call” to developers for nominations of possible new wind farm locations—effectively asking development companies to point to areas where they would be interested in putting wind farms. The call areas are regions of sea floor where conditions are suitable for the placement of turbines — bounded by

depth contours, shipping lanes and legal boundaries that cleaved the space into four sectors. One of the four sectors that BOEM is considering lies directly south of the entire South Fork. Called “Fairways North” in BOEM documents, the sector starts about 18 miles south of the South Fork and extends out to more than 30 miles from shore in some portions. It stretches from approximately south of Moriches Inlet east to approximately south of Montauk Point. The New York State Energy Research and Development Agency, or NYSERDA, had considered the same four areas for possible wind farm lease areas in 2017 and 2018 and ended up recommending that Fairways North and another area off Eastern Long Island not be used for wind farm development. Instead, they chose to favor the two much larger, westernmost areas in the New York Bight,

where hundreds of turbines could be built closer to the New York City metro area. But BOEM did not drop the eastern areas from consideration when it held its call, and three companies submitted rough proposals for developments of wind farms—ranging from 30 turbines to dozens. Avangrid Renewables, an Oregonbased wind developer that already owns a lease area southeast of Block Island and has an 80-turbine wind farm called Vineyard Wind in the works, submitted the broadest proposal, calling for filling nearly the entirety of the Fairways North sector with more than 100 turbines. The company also submitted nominations for large swaths of the other three call areas. East Wind LLC, a subsidiary of a

Joseph P. Louchheim, Kathryn G. Menu and Gavin Menu.

michael heller photo

Express, Press Merge The Menus will lead newspaper group BY MICHELLE TRAURING

WITH MORE THAN 280 YEARS of history between them, two awardwinning news organizations — The Sag Harbor Express and the Press News Group — have merged to

form the largest media group on the South Fork, combating challenging journalistic times by pooling their resources to better serve their communities on the East End.

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