Eastbound traffic on 27A eastbound this morning from Shinnecock into Southampton Village is considerably more congested than last week or even the previous several months. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the Southampton Village Board unanimously approved a two-week pilot program for September — which began yesterday afternoon - that bans left hand turns onto and off both Lee Avenue and Captains Neck Lane at their intersections with Hill Street. The plan included the installation yesterday afternoon of a temporary traffic light at the intersection of Halsey Neck Lane and Hill Street. Consequently, eastbound traffic approaching that new light is noticeably heavier during the trade parade this morning than since the spring.

The pilot program resolution included the caveat that the program or aspects of it can be halted at anytime if the village deems it is creating a safety issue. It is certainly creating a new off-season traffic issue this morning. The pilot program is scheduled to conclude Friday night, September 19.

An important feature of the temporary program is that the no-left-turn restrictions on Lee Avenue and Captains Neck Lane will be in effect around the clock, instead of only during rush hour. That was a recommendation made by the VHB engineers for the purpose of avoiding any kind of confusion for motorists, and making it less cumbersome and difficult to enforce for Southampton Village Police.

Traffic engineer Ryan Winter said his firm would be collecting data on the traffic patterns on those streets during the two-week program to analyze the effects.

Southampton Village Police Chief Suzanne Hurteau said the two week pilot project would cost in terms of extra labor from the police force during that time, an estimated total of anywhere from $35,000 to $38,000.

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East End school board members, PTA leaders, parents, residents, and high school students who are newly serving this school year as ex-officio school board trustees are all invited to the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island and North Fork’s free forum titled “School Boards, the Training Wheels of Democracy: What You Should Know and How to Get Involved.”

Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that this in person-live event is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 18 at 6:30 p.m., at East Hampton Town’s LTV Studios, 75 Industrial Rd. in Wainscott. The panel discussion will be moderated by the League’s Government Committee Chair Andrea Gabor, the Bloomberg Chair of Business Journalism at Baruch College/CUNY.

Panelists include Robert Vecchio, the executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association overseeing the school boards on Long Island; Germain Smith, a current Southampton School Board trustee and member of the Shinnecock Nation; and Kate Rossi-Snook, a recent six-year Shelter Island School Board Trustee.

A Q&A session will follow the forum.

LTV is asking all to register for this free program on their website at www.ltveh.org. For those not able to attend in person, the forum will also be up for viewing within five business days afterward on LTV’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/LTVEastHampton

Information on the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island & North Fork is available on its website at: lwvhsinf.org

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The 37,000-square-foot commercial development on Route 25A in Wading River known as Venezia Square received preliminary site plan approval last Thursday from the Riverhead Town Planning Board. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the site plan proposes a campus-style shopping center, which would include:

• Two 1,500-square-foot, 16-seat take out restaurants
• One 3,000-square-foot, 76-seat restaurant.
• One 4,000-square-foot bank building.
• Two 10,000-square-foot retail stores.
• One 7,000-square-foot retail store.
• 171 parking stalls

The site plan proposes roughly 36% of the property to remain vegetated and undisturbed. The development would require a new traffic light at the intersection of Route 25A and Dogwood Drive, allowing plaza visitors to exit west on Route 25A and north on Dogwood Drive. Potential traffic impacts from the development and the addition of a traffic light on a stretch of Route 25A that already suffers traffic backups has been a prime concern of area residents. The Planning Board retained Louis K. McLean Associates to conduct a traffic impact analysis for the proposed development. Approval was granted without comment by the Riverhead Town Board or public in a 4-1 vote, with Planning Board member John Hogan voting no.

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With reports of antisemitism and other forms of bigotry on the rise, New York State's top education officials yesterday unveiled a new curriculum aimed at teaching students about the Holocaust and other mass murders.

The educational materials, called, "Teaching the Holocaust and Other Genocides," were introduced at a meeting in Albany of the state Board of Regents, which oversees New York’s educational institutions. The new resources will be optional for educators.

Maura McDermott reports in NEWSDAY that New York public schools are already required by law to teach about the Holocaust, but lesson plans vary from district to district, ranging from reading excerpts of the play "The Diary of Anne Frank" to visiting the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., according to a 2022 survey. The survey also found dramatic variations in how much time districts devote to Holocaust education, with some spending “minutes” and others devoting months, Regent at-large Roger Tilles said at Monday's meeting.

Members of the NYS Board of Regents praised the new resources — available online at bit.ly/45UzobX — as powerful, while also raising questions about whether they adequately address Holocaust misinformation, including outright denials. One regent, Susan Mittler, said as the daughter of Holocaust survivors, she worried about whether teachers have enough guidance about responding to inaccurate or biased statements.

“What kind of support do we provide to these educators?” she asked.

The resources include “red flags” to watch out for when students and teachers assess information about the Holocaust, said Diane Wynne, executive director of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the state Education Department. The lessons, Wynne said, include “teaching students how to really be cognizant of historically accurate information.”

Tilles said the state should repeat its Holocaust education survey in about a year to see if the new materials make a difference.

“There needs to be some kind of monitoring, if not enforcement,” he said.

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A group of roughly 10 demonstrators entered a Sag Harbor restaurant Labor Day weekend and, as patrons ate their meals, began yelling its message about wealth inequality on Long Island and the country.

"Tax the rich!" they yelled while being physically escorted out of The American Hotel, according to a social media video posted by an organization called Planet Over Profit, which describes itself as a youth-led, direct action group that confronts systemic inequality.

Tiffany Cusaac-Smith reports in NEWSDAY that the coalition of protest groups was airing its grievances through direct protests in some of Long Island’s affluent destinations as part of the Workers Over Billionaires National Day of Action at the end of peak summer season in “The Hamptons.” But demonstrators said they will show up at many other places frequented by Long Island's rich to express their discontent in several places, including around opulent estates and an exclusive country club.

"With these actions, we hope to shine a light on how billionaires are very real people who live in our communities, who make decisions that harm our communities," said Eren Ileri, core organizer with Planet Over Profit, one of the groups involved in the protests.

Ileri, who took part in the protest in Sag Harbor, said the demonstrators stood in front of the restaurant’s patrons and talked about the injustice of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations and "how the money flowing from the Hamptons to political decision makers is enabling this."

The demonstrators were not charged by police after they were removed, according to the Sag Harbor Express.

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Stop & Shop is scheduled to close two of its small-footprint grocery delivery facilities next month while the company and the union representing delivery drivers approach the end of contract negotiations that have lasted more than a year, union officials said. Victor Ocasio reports in NEWSDAY that Stop & Shop’s "warerooms" in East Northport and Riverhead will be closed sometime in October, the company confirmed yesterday, adding that the supermarket will continue to operate other delivery facilities in Farmingdale and Medford. The grocery stores in East Northport and Riverhead will remain open.

Warerooms are smaller warehouses connected to stores that facilitate grocery deliveries to online customers.

The closure of the two Long Island warerooms follows a larger plan to close seven similar facilities throughout the Northeast, a spokeswoman for the Quincy, Massachusetts-based retailer said yesterday.

"We anticipate that the Long Island warerooms will close by October 2025, however Stop & Shop will continue to offer online pickup and delivery to all local customers after the facility closures," the company said.

The closure of the local facilities coincides with contract negotiations between the supermarket chain and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 342, which represents the delivery drivers.

Delivery drivers at the closing warerooms will remain employed by the company, according to the union representing the drivers.

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For many local business owners, it has taken years for them to get back on their feet in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The same is true for the Southampton Business Alliance. Now, with its resurgence, there also comes a change in leadership. Michelle Trauring reports on 27east.com that earlier this summer, Heather Schmalz took the helm as the not-for-profit’s new executive director, launching the organization into its 32nd year with a renewed sense of purpose, she said. “We’re pretty much the voice of the businesses,” said Ms. Schmalz. “We know what’s going on, and then we pretty much fill everybody in. So I think the vision is just always to grow. We want everyone to grow and have successful businesses, and we just want to be a united front. I think that’s important.” With a background in interior design, Schmalz moved to eastern Suffolk during the early days of the pandemic, planting roots in Sound Beach — right next to her hometown of Rocky Point. She found her professional home with Southampton’s Rogers Memorial Library Foundation as the assistant to the foundation trustees, she said, and helped usher them through a $2.2 million renovation project. The revitalization of the SBA will be an undertaking, too, featuring a fall business mixer on September 25 at Dockers Waterside in East Quogue, a holiday party and a rebuilt golf outing in late next spring. But in its day-to-day operations, the organization will continue what it does best, Schmalz said: advocate for responsible growth, business-friendly policies and sustainable solutions to strengthen Southampton’s economy, in collaboration with the board of directors and local government. For more information about the Southampton Business Alliance, visit southamptonalliance.org.