With the passage of the three-year mark since the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in New York State and changed life on the East End forever, the editors reflect on what the early days were like, how individuals coped and how institutions adapted.

New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. joins the editors on the podcast this week to respond to a previous "27Speaks" episode on which the editors discussed the Community Preservation Fund's impact over the past 24 years and the present deficit of attainable housing. Thiele defends the CPF and also explains Governor Kathy Hochul's New York Housing Compact, a plan that includes growing the number of housing units on Long Island by 3 percent every three years,

This week, the editors talk with East Hampton resident Susan Stout, a certified end-of-life doula who helps terminally ill people and their families find peace with dying. Death doulas are not medical personnel and don’t replace hospice care. Instead, doulas like Stout step in close to the end of life or after someone receives a terminal diagnosis to offer nonmedical, holistic support and comfort in a patient’s final days. As Stout herself says, “We only die once, so it should be as beautiful as we can make it.”

As Southampton Town officials and Sag Harbor School District consider a way forward for the acquisition of properties on Marsden Street near Pierson Middle-High School for the development of athletic fields, reporter Cailin Riley joins the editors on the podcast this week to discuss all of the considerations: the use of Community Preservation Fund money, how the ownership might be structured, public access to the fields, grass versus artificial turf, and more.

Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, discussing the town's zoning laws and the dearth of affordable housing, observed during a recent interview: “We did a great job protecting the environment, but we can’t really function if there’s no one to pick you up in an ambulance when you have a heart attack.” In this week's podcast, the editors and senior reporter Stephen J. Kotz discuss how preservation and zoning designed to limit density has butted heads with a need for attainable housing that lifelong residents and local workers can afford.

State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. recently put Stony Brook University on blast for the sorry state of the Stony Brook Southampton campus, charging that by failing to meet its stewardship commitment to the 80-acre site, the state university had become “the biggest slumlord on the East End” and was squandering an opportunity to use the campus as an economic engine for the region. Thiele joins the editors on the podcast this week to elaborate on his concerns, including about several dormitories that have been condemned and the condition of Southampton Hall, which once served as the center of campus life dating back to the days when Southampton College, a satellite of Long Island University, occupied the site.

Real Estate Leaders Assess The State of the East End Market by The Express News Group

Convincing more East Hampton homeowners to invest in creating affordable rental accessory apartments on their properties has proven daunting for East Hampton Town officials. This week’s discussion focuses on the Town Board’s latest tweaks to boost financial incentives.

The number of South Fork home sales plummeted by around 50 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022, when compared to the same quarter a year earlier, but that data point hardly tells the whole story of what's happening in Hamptons real estate. Chronically low inventory of homes for sale is restricting the number of closed homes sales while also bolstering prices even as mortgage rates have doubled. And sales were bound to look low when compared to the peaks reached during the height of the pandemic-driven buying frenzy. To help interpret the data, Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants joins the editors on the podcast this week.

Ospreys, the large, fish-eating birds of prey once listed as endangered in New York State, have had a miraculous rebound since DDT was banned and initiatives were put in place to provide nesting sites where development has encroached on their habitat. On the East End in particular, the osprey population has grown from around 100 individual birds in the 1980s to more than 350 nesting pairs, according to the Group for the East End, which monitors osprey nests. To discuss the species's reversal of fortune, Group for the East End President Bob DeLuca joins the editors on the podcast this week.