Protests over the recent detention of at least a dozen people by federal immigration agents in Hampton Bays and Westhampton continued to ripple across the South Fork last week — with dozens of angry residents flooding into the Southampton Town Board meeting on Wednesday and staging a demonstration in Westhampton on Friday. As reported on 27east.com, more than three dozen residents filled the Town Board meeting room on November 12, one week after ICE agents conducted sweeps in Hampton Bays and Westhampton, arresting 12 people on charges of entering the United States illegally. Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore said she empathized with those angered by the deportation wave and the way ICE conducts its work and sought to assure residents that no town officials — including the Southampton Town Police Department — were notified that the federal agents on their way.

“I understand there is concern and anxiety because of the ICE activities we saw in Hampton Bays and Westhampton last week, and the most difficult part is that there is no clear accurate information coming our way,” she said. The supervisor added, “While immigration enforcement is a federal matter outside the jurisdiction of this town government that does not mean that we are indifferent or powerless.”

Moore said she would send a letter to Senator Chuck Schumer and U.S. Representative Nick LaLota asking that the town be better informed of ICE activity within its borders.

Meanwhile, this past Friday morning, more than 50 protesters lined the streets of Westhampton calling for ICE to stay away from the region.

“I’m very upset at the constant news about the way immigrants are being treated, even though they’re such an integral part of our community on Long Island,” David Saunders said at the protest. “It’s a thrill for me to be able to stand out here and tell my neighbors that I support due process in America.”

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Suffolk County will face a worsening housing crisis unless it can eliminate barriers such as overly restrictive zoning and high costs that slow development and push up prices for houses and rental apartments, affordable housing advocates and builders said on Friday.

Carl MacGowan reports in NEWSDAY that about a dozen speakers at a hearing convened by the county's Welfare to Work Commission said efforts to bring down housing costs had been routinely stymied by bureaucratic hurdles and poor infrastructure, as well as community opposition that tied up housing proposals for years, leaving homeownership out of reach for many middle-class Suffolk residents.

"Suffolk County is facing one of the most severe housing crises in its history," Pilar Moya-Mancera, executive director of the Greenlawn nonprofit Housing Help, said at a news conference before the hearing in the county office complex in Hauppauge. "We cannot wait 10 more years for housing solutions."

The Welfare to Work Commission, an advisory board for the Suffolk County Legislature, called the hearing as it prepares a report looking at systemic impediments to developing affordable housing.

Commission chairman Richard Koubek said before the hearing the average Suffolk resident must make about $218,000 to afford a typical single-family home, or $90,000 to pay $2,000 monthly rent.

But many residents make far less, he said, citing licensed practical nurses who earn an average $57,670 annually and supermarket cashiers who make $39,520 a year.

"This has been a struggle for Long Islanders for years and years," Koubek said.

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Local entrepreneurs share their stories at the “The Business of Mattituck,” a presentation organized by the Mattituck-Laurel Civic Association this evening at 6:30 p.m. in the Mattituck Park District headquarters at Veterans Beach. Tonight’s event is free to attend. All are welcome.

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A federal jury has ordered Suffolk County to...

Most of the states’ inflation reduction checks have been sent to mailboxes, but the payout of up to $400 won't be going to every state resident. Tiffany Cusaac-Smith reports in NEWSDAY that the checks — aimed at compensating New Yorkers for overpaying sales tax during heightened inflation — might not go to certain Social Security recipients who opted not to file state taxes because doing so wasn’t required, state officials confirmed on Wednesday. The inflation refund check program has several requirements, including that residents file their 2023 state tax returns, officials said. There is also an income threshold and the person can't be named as a dependent on someone else's tax returns.

Because of that stipulation, inflation refund checks might not go out to some recipients of both Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), benefits that help people who are low-income, disabled, and 65 and older, according to officials.

Those beneficiaries who receive all their income from either program generally do not have to file state or federal taxes, experts say. Therefore, the nonfilers don’t meet the tax-filing requirement for the state inflation refund check, experts say.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration instituted the $2 billion check program to repay taxpayers after the state saw a surge in sales tax revenue amid heightened inflation, tax officials said. In New York, 6.5 million of the roughly 8 million inflation reduction checks have been sent out as of Wednesday, state officials said. The state's population is almost 20 million.

The payout on the checks can be as high as $400 for a couple who files together or a qualifying surviving spouse who earns a maximum of $150,000, officials said. It can be as low as $150 for a person who files by themselves or as the head of a household and makes "more than $75,000, but not more than $150,000."

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Turning Point USA, a conservative organization founded by Charlie Kirk, has been thrust into the national spotlight since Kirk's assassination in September. New Turning Point USA chapters have been proposed at Stony Brook University and Farmingdale State College. At least two academic institutions on Long Island have affiliations with Turning Point's K-12 educational arm, known as Turning Point Education.

Lorena Mongelli reports in NEWSDAY that Turning Point — whose founder had been criticized for espousing viewpoints like opposing same-sex marriage and advocating for traditional gender roles — has seen a surge in interest in opening new chapters across the country.

As an example of Turning Point's influence, the U.S. Department of Education announced shortly after Kirk's death that it had partnered with the organization and several other conservative groups to help launch civics programming in schools ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary next year.

Turning Point has also started making forays into elementary and middle schools, where it has sought to advance a "Christian, conservative values education."

But even while the organization gains new ground, experts said it is unclear whether it will have lasting power, particularly with young people.

"Whether or not a group like that can really shift a generation's politics, it remains to be seen," said Melissa Deckman, author of "The Politics of Generation Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape our Democracy."

Erasing the line between church and state is concerning, according to Michael O. Emerson, director of and chavanne fellow in religion and public policy at Rice University in Houston.

"The founders worked pretty hard at this idea of separation of church and state. Their ideal was we will not limit the practice of religion, nor will we as federal government, state governments, support any particular religion, because if we do, we limit the practice of other religions. So that is the concern," Emerson...

The bay scallop harvest on the South Fork opened in Southampton and East Hampton waters this month to expectedly dark prospects in the wake of a seventh straight summer in which the vast majority of adult scallops died in most local bays. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that East Hampton Town baymen say that they have found only the barest few scallops, and many said they have not bothered to even go in search after Monday’s opening day in East Hampton waters. Southampton Town baymen, who started fishing town waters on November 3, have found only marginally more uplifting results, in a stash of the famously delicious but notoriously unstable bivalves that survived the summer on the edge of a navigation channel in eastern Shinnecock Bay off the shoreline of Hampton Bays.

Hampton Bays bayman Edward Warner Jr., who is a Southampton Town Trustee, said that the area of the bay south of Cormorant Point has seen the return of dense eelgrass, the aquatic grass that once carpeted most of the region’s bay bottoms and was seen as critical habitat for scallops and many other marine species, and that has helped support the collection of scallops in the area this year.

The brightest ray of hope for the scallop fishery, and perhaps the stock as a whole itself, has been the waters of western Moriches Bay, which have again produced a relative bounty of bay scallops for Brookhaven Town baymen — who have been keeping many of the seafood cases at East End shops stocked with the glistening beige morsels.

Even with that resource, however, local seafood shops reported only taking in a few bushels every couple of days and they’re charging over-the-counter prices of $55 per pound, or higher.

Harrison Tobi, an aquaculture specialist for the Cornell Cooperative Extension, said his surveys last month of more than two dozen scallop survival test sites revealed only a handful of live adult scallops. “We only had three live adults — so we thought it was going to be another really bad year,” Tobi said. “So it’s encouraging to hear that some are being caught.”

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The South Country school district which includes Bellport High School, has suspended all discretionary spending for the remainder of the fiscal year, just weeks after officials acknowledged that the district overspent last school year's approved budget by $3.49 million. Darwin Yanes reports in NEWSDAY that in a Nov. 6 letter sent to South Country staff members, John Belmonte, the district’s newly-appointed acting assistant superintendent for finance and management services, said that due to "significant fiscal challenges," the district must prioritize "available resources" to pay for operational costs. He said the spending freeze will apply to all "nonessential purchases, travel, conferences and new initiatives."

He added, "Moving forward, only essential items absolutely necessary to operate your programs and buildings through the end of this fiscal year will be considered for approval. All purchase orders and expense requests must clearly demonstrate how they meet this critical need."

The spending freeze went into effect yesterday. School officials said programming, including fields trips, related to the core curriculum of a class will not be impacted, but other elective field trips will be approved on a case to case to basis.

Belmonte previously said that last school year's overspending was in part caused by treasurer's reports submitted to the school board two to three months late, which lead the board having to cover "unanticipated expenses." The acting assistant superintendent said he did not believe "that there was any fraud or there was any theft."

Belmonte was hired by the district last month.

The South Country Central School District is located on the south shore of Long Island, within the Town of Brookhaven in Suffolk County. The district includes the Village of Bellport and...