Northport Village Trustee Arlene Handel, who has served on the board for five years, has decided the time is right for her to move on and will not seek re-election in March. “I really decided over the holidays,” Handel said in an article by Arlene Gross in The Times of Northport. “With George [Mayor George Doll] in the captain seat, it’s a good time.”
New York State has awarded a $1.5 million grant to the Town of Huntington for its Take Back the Blocks program, which aims to rehabilitate and transform absentee landlord-owned properties into owner-occupied homes with legal accessory apartments. "This year is going to really be the stimulus in terms of moving this project forward," Supervisor Frank Petrone said in a Luann Dallojacono story in The Long Islander.
The marine launch service out of Gold Star Battalion Beach is expected to be awarded to a new company after Town of Huntington council members said a Northport company submitted a higher bid for the contract. If awarded the contract, Seymour's Boatyard will pay the town for use of the dock under a two-year contract. Huntington must accept the highest bid, and Coneys Marine, which ran the service for 14 years, came in under Seymour's bid price. In a story by Mike Koehler in the Record, Fran Evans, spokeswoman for Supervisor Frank Petrone, said Coneys is a “respectable company” and the town had no problems with them during their run.
Huntington’s school board will discuss expanding the town’s dual-language program at a board meeting Monday. The program was launched in 2002 but is offered in only half of the district's six elementary schools. Trustee John Paci, whose children attend Flower Hill, said he wants to extend the program to the entire district. “If it’s a cost issue that we can’t roll it out to other schools, maybe they should be allowed to go to a different school,” he told Arlene Gross in an article in The Times of Huntington.