27Speaks

At the age of 4, Water Mill's Rowland Egerton-Warburton became one of just 54 people in the world diagnosed with a rare neurodevelopmental genetic disorder. ADNP (Activity-Dependent Neuroprotective Protein) syndrome is a form of autism that can cause problems with neurological, cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, musculoskeletal and gastrointestinal systems. Rowland, now 10, is nonverbal and receives interventional services while his mother, Genie Egerton-Warburton, has become her son’s biggest champion. April is Autism Awareness Month and as vice president of ADNP Kids Research Foundation, Genie joins the editors on 27Speaks this week to talk about her son’s condition and the importance of education and honest communication when it comes to addressing all forms of autism.

This week on the podcast, the editors discuss New York State's Open Meetings Law, a sunshine law designed to ensure that all levels of government, from the State Senate down to local village boards, land-use boards and school boards, conduct the public's business out in the open, where citizens can observe the deliberations behind the decisions that affect their wallets and quality of life. The editors explain the narrow instances in which boards may meet privately, and they raise concerns about when the Open Meetings Law is subverted.

This week on 27Speaks, the editors are joined by senior reporter Stephen J. Kotz and Frank Quevedo, executive director of the South Fork Natural History Museum and Jake Kushner, the reptile/amphibian specialist at the museum, to talk about a $30,000 grant the museum received from the Hollomon Price Foundation, which will be used to track the movements of endangered eastern tiger salamanders around confirmed breeding pools in the Long Pond Greenbelt Preserve.

Carl Johnson was a point guard for the Bridgehampton boys basketball team when it won three state championships in a row from 1978 to 1980. He went on to lead the Killer Bees to four more state championships as head coach, and last month was inducted into the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame during a ceremony in Glens Falls, inside the same arena where his teams won all seven of their state titles. This week, Johnson joins the editors along with former player Nick Thomas to discuss their careers, what it was like to play basketball in Bridgehampton and which players make up the all-time Killer Bees starting five.

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.