2023 in Review: Top 10 East End News Stories of the Year
By Staff
The past year of top headlines reveal a mix of community resilience, sad losses, historic triumphs and the enduring spirit of the Hamptons and North Fork coming together, creating a tapestry of stories that defined the region’s shared experience in 2023.
Here is a look at the top 10 local news stories from the East End across the past 12 months.
Top East End News Stories of 2023
Stony Brook Southampton Hospital opened in August the new Regional Tick-Borne Disease Center — the first and only dedicated tick clinic in the Northeast — in the Hampton Bays Atrium. In addition to tick removal and disease diagnosis, the clinic provides counseling on tick bite prevention, tick identification, free tick removal kits and reference handbooks. Patients have the potential to participate in Stony Brook Medicine’s research studies, and the clinic is located steps away from the hospital’s lab services and blood drawing. The center helps fight the mounting cases of Lyme, alpha-gal (red meat allergy), ehrlichiosis, babesiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and Powassan virus, among others.
MAYOR OF MARGARITAVILLE PASSES AWAY
Jimmy Buffett, the “Margaritaville” singer-songwriter and longtime North Haven resident who drew legions of colorful fans who called themselves Parrotheads, and who parlayed his success into business ventures, died in August. He was 76. He was one of the biggest celebrities living in the Hamptons and ranked among the richest celebs in the nation. The tropical rocker’s death came two months after he debuted a new song, “My Gummy Just Kicked In,” during an in-person interview on WLNG 92.1 FM Radio in Sag Harbor. He had previously canceled his annual tour after an unspecified illness.
MONTAUK POINT LIGHTHOUSE RENOVATIONS
Thirty-six years after the antique Fresnel lens that once lit the Montauk Point Lighthouse was relocated to the landmark’s museum, the optic returned in November to the perch where it stood for nearly a century. That news came three months after the completion of a two-year, $44 million project to fortify 1,000 linear feet of stone revetment at the landmark’s shoreline. The lighthouse itself also received a nip and tuck, having completed $2 million in renovations, which included work on both the main building and the keeper’s residence, fixing damage to the stone façade and helping to secure the long-term structural integrity of the historic site.
Before bomb threats forced the evacuation of three schools in Southampton and a fourth in Amagansett two days apart this fall, some very different drama was already unfolding in two other East End school districts. Voters twice rejected the Wainscott Common School District budget, forcing the institution educating children in one of Long Island’s wealthiest communities, to adopt a contingency budget. That came after the Riverhead School District repeatedly made headlines this year, including a member of the school board resigning after sparking outrage by saying the community was “becoming Brentwood,” a teacher filing a harassment complaint against an assistant superintendent who was put on leave and the superintendent abruptly resigning amid the turmoil.
The Shinneock Indian Nation celebrated the long-awaited grand opening of Little Beach Harvest, its newly constructed $18 million recreational cannabis dispensary and lounge, on the tribe’s territory in Southampton in November. The two-story, 5,000-square-foot facility located at 56 Montauk Highway is touted as the first tribally owned and operated cannabis dispensary in Suffolk County — and because it’s located on sovereign Shinnecock land, its sales are tax free. The development comes more than two years after New York State legalized recreational cannabis use for adults older than 21. Little Beach Harvest, first proposed in 2021, did not require a state license since it’s on tribal territory.
The spate of swimmers being bitten by sharks at Long Island’s ocean beaches — mostly on Fire Island — last summer returned with a pair of bites on the Fourth of July, one of which occurred in the Hamptons. A 47-year-old man was bitten by a shark while swimming in the Atlantic Ocean at Quogue Village Beach on Dune Road. That incident came the same day as another person was bitten by a shark in the water off Fire Island Pines and a day after a shark hit a 15-year-old surfer on the foot off the Kismet section of Fire Island and a second shark bite was reported at nearby Robert Moses State Park.
Photo by Dean Moses
MIGRANT CRISIS
Town of Riverhead officials cheered New York City’s decision in September to drop a lawsuit seeking to overturn the town’s effort to keep the Big Apple from sending an influx of migrants to the East End. The city had filed the lawsuit after Riverhead Town Supervisor Yvette Aguiar signed an executive order on May 16 that prohibited local hotels’ lodging facilities to be used to house asylum seekers for whom city officials had been struggling to find shelter. Riverhead was one of dozens of local governments — including Suffolk County — across the downstate region that NYC sued to overturn similar migrant-blocking efforts as the city eyed the suburbs to ease the overflow.
Dean Moses/amNY
East End residents have been rallying, holding vigils and organizing donation drives for those impacted by the Israel-Hamas conflict that broke out following a deadly rampage in which terrorists kidnapped about 200 Israelis and killed nearly 1,200 on October 7. In the months that followed, rabbis and residents from the Hamptons and the North Fork have also been making mission trips to Israel to help those impacted by the conflict. And with no end to the fighting in sight, the region is sure to continue to step up to show support for Israel and condemn acts of anti-Semitism that have been reported locally since the outbreak of the war.
For the first time in decades — perhaps ever — all five Twin Forks town supervisors races had no incumbents on ballots during November’s elections at the same time that voters also replaced the Suffolk County executive and the county legislators for the Hamptons and the North Fork. The historic political sea change on tap means the entire region will have new town and county representation when the winners are sworn in upon the New Year. The historic political turnover came after challengers ousted the mayors of Greenport and Southampton villages earlier this year.
After years of planning, Danish wind energy developer Ørsted and the utility Eversource announced in December that the first electricity started flowing from the 12-turbine South Fork Wind farm 35 miles east of Montauk Point. It is New York’s first offshore wind farm and is on pace to be the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm. So far, two of the 11-megawatt turbines are up. The second is undergoing testing, then it can begin producing power too. When the other 10 are spinning and South Fork opens by early next year, it will be able to generate 132 megawatts of offshore wind energy to power more than 70,000 homes.
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