Southold passes new restrictions on irrigation

A Newsday headline this morning reads:

Long Island-Area Public Broadcasting Feeling Pinch From Trump Budget Cuts.

Tiffany Cusaac-Smith reports in Newsday that public radio and television stations with a vast Long Island audience say they are facing significant funding gaps and assessing ways to move forward after the Republican-led Congress' approval of more than $1 billion in cuts targeting NPR and PBS.

Neal Shapiro, president and CEO at The WNET Group, part of the Public Broadcasting System and the parent company to Long Island-based WLIW, said the cuts will have a “devastating impact on all public media stations.”

Last week, Congress approved a rescission package that pulls back funding for 2026 and 2027 from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a nonprofit that funnels upward of 70% of its resources to more than 1,000 community-owned public media organizations, according to its website. The package also claws back roughly $8 billion in funding for foreign assistance.

About 10% of The WNET Group’s operating budget comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting grants, Shapiro said in a statement sent to Newsday on Monday, noting “we will not be able to make up the loss of all those funds.”

“We are currently assessing how we move forward in this new reality,” said Shapiro – president of The WNET Group…the parent organization of this listener supported public radio station.

Experts fear the funding cuts to public media could be disastrous, leading to the closure of news outlets in places where there are few local options and less emergency alerts. Funding from the federal government averages roughly 1% of NPR’s budget, about 8% to 10% of public radio stations’ and nearly 15% of PBS' along with its member stations, NPR reported.

Congress’ approval of the funding cuts comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in May saying NPR and PBS were unfair and biased and calling for the CPB to stop funding them.

***

An event held by Long Island Head Start yesterday to announce its plan to build a new facility on property it owns in Riverside, ended with a $2.25 million surprise for the organization. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that when Head Start’s presentation was concluded, New York State Assemblyman Tommy John Schiavoni, who was accompanied at the event by his invited guest, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, took the podium. “On behalf of Speaker Heastie and the New York State Assembly, we will be committing $2.25 million to this project,” Schiavoni said to whoops of joy, applause, cheers and tears. Long Island Head Start CEO Debrah Everett-Garcia was overcome with emotion, as were members of her staff and board of directors in attendance. Some were visibly shaken. “Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts— and from our children and community and from Suffolk County. Thank you” Everett-Garcia said, wiping away the tears that were streaming down her cheeks. After being coaxed to the podium to say a few words, the speaker said he worked in daycare as a college student at Stony Brook. When he returned home during school breaks, he worked for the Williamsbridge NAACP Early Childhood Center, Heastie told the audience gathered for the presentation event. “Young people and children— I have such a soft spot. So anything that is beneficial to them is important to me,” Heastie said. The state funding announced Tuesday will cover a little more than half the projected cost of the new building planned for the site at 77 Goodridge Avenue in Riverside, adjacent to Phillips Avenue Elementary School.

***

After hearing just over an hour of testimony from the public last night, the Riverhead Town Board has closed a public hearing on whether its chosen master developer for its Town Square project, J. Petrocelli’s family of companies, is qualified and eligible to build the town square...