Every week, Andrew Visconti assigns his students — English-learning adults from mostly Spanish-speaking countries, but with a Polish immigrant in the mix — to find an article that they’re interested in and take notes on what they’ve read. Then they come to class and tell one another about the article and why it stood out for them. The Star’s nationally-renowned crime pages are a big and repeat hit for the students.
Off-premises catering companies on the South Fork are welcoming Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signing, on Dec. 20, of legislation to close a loophole that previously restricted them from obtaining liquor licenses. Now, they will be able to apply for permanent catering permits that will ultimately enable them to add liquor, and sales of alcohol in general, to the “approved” list.
A mixed retail and affordable housing development proposed by Adam Potter, the founder of the Friends of Bay Street, for the office district in Sag Harbor Village hit a speedbump recently, as news got out that the developer he was working with, Conifer, had dropped out of the project. The Smith & Henzy Advisory Group, a real estate development firm brought in by Conifer and specializing in funding large-scale housing developments through tax credits, also departed.
East Hampton Town Councilwoman Cate Rogers has a legislative “bucket list” item for 2023 that would see the creation of a pilot program to ramp up composting efforts in the town. Her vision would flip the script on the well-worn “farm-to-table” concept to a so-called table-to-farm program where residents — and eventually, restaurants — would collect food scraps that would then be composted instead of being sent off to landfills, where some 40 percent of all waste is residential food waste.
