New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. addresses the Concerned Citizens of Montauk on Sunday as state Senator Kenneth P. LaValle looks on. Michael Heller photo

By Stephen J. Kotz

New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and state Senator Kenneth P. LaValle made rare appearances in this year’s campaign when the Concerned Citizens of Montauk held their annual candidates forum at the Montauk Firehouse on Sunday.

Neither Brian DeSesa, a member of the Southampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals and a Sag Harbor attorney who is challenging Mr. Thiele on the Conservative ticket, nor Heather Collins, a Suffolk County Board of Elections official, who is running on the Republican line, attended the forum. Mr. LaValle’s opponent, Michael Conroy, a member of both the Suffolk County and Brookhaven Town Democratic committees, was also a no-show.

U.S. Representative Tim Bishop and his Republican challenger, Lee Zeldin, also spoke at the forum, with their debate largely mirroring one that took place in Westhampton Beach last week.

In asking for voters’ continued support, Mr. Thiele told the audience he was the only independent assemblyman in the legislature, and touted his work on behalf of the East End.

He cited his roles in helping East Hampton Town dig its way out of a $30 million budget deficit left by former Supervisor Bill McGintee in 2009 as well as in passing special legislation that waived fines when due to a computer glitch the town failed to send out a third of its property tax bills in a timely fashion.

Mr. Thiele said the state had submitted on-time budgets for the past four years, lowered income taxes and turned a $10 billion deficit into a $4.5 billion surplus.

“That’s not to say all our work is done, but we’ve made progress,” Mr. Thiele said.

Mr. Thiele said he was most proud of his sponsorship of the Community Preservation Fund, which, he said, has raised nearly $1 billion during its lifetime, including some $265 million this year.

Mr. LaValle said both he and Mr. Thiele are highly rated by New York Public Interest Research Group. “We are creative and aggressive in our action,” he said. “We go to Albany for you and we try do the best possible job.”

Mr. LaValle said the state’s 2-percent tax cap was helping to hold down property taxes and that the state was increasing school aid. He also pointed to his work on behalf of the Stony Brook Southampton campus, which he said would help create jobs, as well as his efforts to help shepherd through the affiliation of Southampton Hospital with Stony Brook University Hospital.

The candidates’ discussion was largely cordial, although Amos Goodman provoked the ire of Mr. Thiele when he accused him of taking part in “a sleazy bait and switch” by being a member of the Independence Party while caucusing with the Democrats, led by Assemblyman Sheldon Silver.

“I don’t want to carry the baggage of one major party or another,” replied Mr. Thiele. “I get support from Democrats, Republicans and Independents because I represent the people in my district.”

CCOM executive director Jeremy Samuelson asked the candidates what they thought about a proposal that would allow CPF money to be used to help protect water quality.

Mr. Thiele stressed that discussions were at the early stages and would require voter approval to extend the CPF for another 20 years before the fund’s focus could be expanded to include water protection. But he added that protecting water quality would fit the CPF’s mandate of protecting the East End’s character.

“We are seeing water quality problems everywhere,” he said. “We can’t buy enough land to solve this problem.”

“Many of you know I have been an open space hawk,” Mr. LaValle said of his support of efforts to protect land, which he said helps protect the quality of life and the environment. He said he would support efforts to make water protection a higher priority.

Steps are already afoot to do so, he said, including the formation of a water institute at Stony Brook University to work on new technologies for dealing with nitrates and septic systems.

Audience members also asked about the elected officials’ efforts to intercede on behalf of East Hampton in its dispute with PSEG Long Island, which installed hundreds of 60-foot-tall poles from East Hampton Village to Amagansett earlier this year.

Mr. Thiele complained that the utility was as bad as the former Long Island Lighting Company in ignoring local concerns. “That’s because they have no oversight from the Public Service Commission,” he said. Mr. LaValle agreed that PSEG talked a good game when it took over the maintenance of the electricity from National Grid last year but soon showed another face.

Another audience member asked about Mr. Thiele’s long-term effort to eliminate zone pricing of petroleum products, which results in higher gas prices on the East End. Mr. Thiele said he hoped that with Mr. LaValle’s help, a measure that has passed in the Assembly outlawing the practice, could be passed in the Senate.

Both officials also said they were happy that the state is approaching the end of a long-needed Route 27 paving project, with Mr. Thiele adding that it now needs to turn its attention to Route 114, where there is a need for repaving in some places as well as an effort to address safety issues.

New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. this week announced the New York State Board for Historic Preservation recommended adding Sylvester Manor on Shelter Island and 21 other properties, resources and districts to the state and National Registers of Historic Places.

Sylvester Manor is a 225-acre site which houses a 1737 Georgian manor house as well as nationally significant archaeology that has provided tremendous insights into the early interaction between European Americans, Native Americans and enslaved African Americans engaged in barrel-making and other activities to supply provisions to plantations in Barbados.

There are more than 90,000 historic buildings, structures and sites throughout the state listed on the National Register of Historic Places, individually or as components of historic districts. Property owners, municipalities and organizations from communities throughout the state sponsored the nominations.

The Noyac Civic Council has chosen a slightly larger venue than the Old Noyac Schoolhouse for its monthly meeting on Tuesday, August 12, when it welcomes U.S. Representative Tim Bishop and New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. to discuss helicopter noise.

Tuesday’s meeting will take place at the Bridgehampton Senior Nutrition Center on the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike at 7:30 p.m.

The elected officials, along with a representative from Senator Charles Schumer’s office, will talk about the status of the changes to the northern route, which directs helicopters north over Long Island Sound, as well as discuss what additional restrictions the East Hampton Town Board can impose on the airport.

The civic council also invited Federal Aviation Administration administrator Michael Huerta to answer questions, but he did not respond to the organization’s invitation.

Elected officials and local farmers celebrated the protection of 33 acres of farmland in Water Mill on Tuesday. Photo by Mara Certic.

By Mara Certic

In one afternoon on the East End, you can visit rolling estates, beachfront shacks, or thousands of acres of working farms.  Preserving that farmland has been no small feat, but thanks to the work of the Peconic Land Trust, Southampton Town has established a precedent that might make farming easier throughout the state.

The Southampton Town Board voted unanimously in May to impose additional developmental restrictions onto agricultural land that would ensure that it remained productive and affordable, and on Tuesday, local and state elected officials, farmers and conservationists gathered to celebrate this latest success.

“This is farmland preservation 2.0.,” said New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., at a Tuesday morning press conference in Water Mill, where officials gathered to celebrate the purchase of 33 acres from the estate of Charlotte Danilevsky.  “And more than farmland preservation, this is farming preservation,” he said.

For the past few decades, as real estate prices have continued to rise, local farmers and conservationists have struggled to find ways to keep the farms working and in the hands of farmers.

In the 1970s, the town started buying the developmental rights on farmland, which prohibited future owners from building on the land. It did not, however, stop developers from turning the acreage into vast lawns or horse paddocks.

“We were preserving land, but that land was ending up being the front yard or the rear yard of an estate. Or ending up as a horse farm, or for horticulture,” Mr. Thiele continued.

The Peconic Land Trust purchased the Water Mill farmland, on Head of Pond Road, earlier this year for just over $12 million. According to John v.H. Halsey, president of the land trust, if the town had purchased the standard development rights for the parcel of land, it still would have cost a potential buyer approximately $120,000 an acre.

“It is abundantly clear, especially on the South Fork, where we have an overheated real estate market, that this farmland that has been protected can trade for between $100,000 to $200,000 an acre and that really puts it out of reach, particularly of our food production farmers,” Mr. Halsey said.

With the help of the Southampton Town Agricultural Advisory Committee, chaired by Southampton farmer John L. Halsey, the land trust was able to propose some additional restrictions on the land that were unanimously approved by the town board on May 27. The sale went through on July 10.

“This project represents a milestone in the evolution of the purchase of development rights program,” Mr. Halsey said on Tuesday. “And that is that the Town of Southampton has not only purchased standard development rights that have been in place for nearly 40 years, but has enhanced restrictions that will ensure that this farm, this 33 acres, will be available to farmers at its agricultural value—its true agricultural value.”

Mr. Halsey said the land trust would now solicit proposals from qualified farmers who are interested in purchasing the land. According to Mr. Halsey, the land will now be available at approximately $26,000 an acre. Restrictions will ensure that 80 percent of it be used for food production, that it cannot be used for equestrian use, and certain resale restrictions allow the land trust to lease the land out to farmers if it remains fallow for more than two years.

Tim Davis of Corcoran real estate agreed to reduce his commission by 50 percent on the sale, which allowed the land trust to compete in the sealed bid process to purchase the land, according to Mr. Halsey. “I am honored to have played a critical role in the process of the Peconic Land Trust acquiring the Danilevsky parcels,” Mr. Davis said in a press release issued on Tuesday.

“Our goal is to make sure each farm is producing food for the people of our state and our country,” said Senator Kenneth P. LaValle on Tuesday morning. Mr. Thiele announced during Tuesday’s press conference that he and the senator had been working on legislation that would provide additional property tax benefits to landowners with similar restrictions on their farms. Mr. Thiele also announced that they have been working to increase the exemption on estate taxes, which can often force farm owners to sell their land.

“One of the things I’ve learned as county executive is that there are so many Halseys around here, I run into them all the time,” Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone joked on Tuesday morning.

Tom Halsey, John L. Halsey’s brother, was also at the event on Tuesday with his son Adam and grandson, Eben. Tom Halsey was instrumental in the introduction of the purchase of development rights in the 1970s.

“Please, I urge everybody here to stand here and look there,” he said, pointing toward acres of open fields adjacent to the property. “And then imagine what it would be if we had not had 40 years of preservation.”

New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and Senator Kenneth P. LaValle this week announced that Governor Andrew Cuomo had signed legislation allowing Suffolk County to extend the real estate tax payment deadline for the residents of the East Hampton this year, protecting residents from any penalties.

A computer system error in East Hampton Town’s Tax Receiver’s office resulted in more than 5,000 property tax bills being sent out too late to make the January 10, 2014 payment deadline. Because many residents did not receive their tax bills on time, the town approached Assemblyman Thiele to seek an extension of the deadline.

The law signed by the governor allows the county to waive any interest and penalties that town taxpayers would have incurred if they missed the deadline. Before that can happen, though, the Suffolk County Legislature must pass a resolution adopting the provisions within 30 days.

President of the Noyac Civic Council Elena Loreta, left, and New York State Senator Ken LaValle in a meeting on Tuesday, July 8. Photo by Mara Certic

By Mara Certic

New York State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. were special guests at the monthly meeting of the Noyac Civic Council on Tuesday, July 8, where they spoke to their East End constituents about local concerns.

“I have a slogan,” began the senator, who arrived wearing his trademark baseball cap. “First district first,” he said. “If you look at the legislation that Fred and I have introduced, easily 50 percent of it deals with local issues and local problems.”

Both the senator and the assemblyman said they were pleased to see so many other elected officials at the Old Noyac Schoolhouse that night; Southampton Town Board members Bridget Fleming, Christine Scalera and Brad Bender were present, as well as newly elected North Haven Village Trustee Thomas J. Schiavoni.

“We spend a lot of time talking to people and listening to people,” the senator said as he mentioned one of his mother’s favorite sayings: God gave you two ears and one mouth and he did that for a reason: so listen!”

Senator LaValle and Assemblyman Thiele answered questions about topics ranging from gas prices to speed cameras, but most of the meeting was spent discussing taxes, education and water quality.

“One of the things I felt is that taxes are too high, property taxes in particular,” said Senator LaValle. “So we passed a multi-year plan,” he said in reference to the state-mandated two-percent tax levy cap that went into effect three years ago.

“You’re all familiar with the property tax cap and quite frankly it’s not perfect,” Assemblyman Thiele said. “But I think it’s worked very well.”

The tax cap was coupled with a tax freeze for the next two years, he explained, and residents of Sag Harbor will receive a tax rebate check this year. In future years, he explained, a tax credit will be given to those who live in a school district that does not pierce the tax cap.

Next year not only will the town, the school district and the county all have to meet the cap, but they will also have to submit a government efficiency plan to reduce the tax levy by 1 percent over the following two years. These plans will have to be approved by the state, the assemblyman said.

“Southampton and Tuckahoe are exploring the idea of consolidation,” he said of the neighboring school districts. “That might qualify for a government efficiency plan.”

“All of us agree that our schools should seek to have higher standards, we have to compete in a global economy now,” he said. That being said, Mr. Thiele quoted a colleague of his in the Assembly who said that “the Titanic had a better roll-out than Common Core.”

Mr. Thiele went on to say that he believed that the implementation of the Common Core this year was “a failure.”

“It was implemented from an ivory tower in a top-down fashion that didn’t take into account parents or teachers,” he said, adding that it should have been put in place “from the ground up.”

“The last thing that both Fred and I were very, very busy with,” Mr. LaValle said, “is the protection of our groundwater and surface water.”

The two men have spent the past year working on legislation called the “Long Island Water Quality Control Act.”

“In spite of all our best efforts we’re still seeing a decline in water quality,” said the assemblyman, who is in part responsible for the creation of the Peconic Estuary Program.

Previous legislation, he said, had focused on regulations for “future land use” when town land was split evenly in three: vacant, occupied and protected.

Today, he said, less than 10 percent of the land in Southampton and East Hampton is unspoken for. “If we’re going to change the issue, we need to change how we treat existing land uses. That’s how we’re going to make a difference and that’s what this legislation seeks to do.”

The two men lauded Southampton Town for the leadership role it has taken regarding research into new technology and alternative septic systems. The two state officials had a meeting organized for the following day at Stony Brook University about creating such new technology.

“We all want to see clean drinking water, but if you tell people they’re going to have to pay $25,000 to $30,000, people can’t afford that expenditure. The technology has to be evolved,” Mr. Thiele said. “Clean water is not just an issue on Long Island, it’s an issue globally.” He said he hopes that Suffolk County can become an incubator for water-quality technology, which would also create high-paying jobs, he said.

Mr. Thiele heard from the DEC, he said, that Governor Cuomo plans to release his own report on water quality in the next two to three weeks. “When he wants to do something, he’s going to take center stage. Nobody preempts the governor.”

Mr. Thiele encouraged Noyackers to write to the DEC about wells that monitor water quality near sand mines, such as Sand Land off Millstone Road in Noyac. In light of a recent ruling that instilled home-rule powers in upstate New York over hydrofracking, Mr. Thiele suggested that local officials might have an existing authority to mandate the monitoring by local law.

The Noyac Civic Council meets next on Tuesday, August 12, at the Bridgehampton Nutrition Center when Congressman Tim Bishop will attend to answer questions about the Federal Aviation Administration. Elena Loreto, president of the council, reminded residents to report disruptive aircraft noise and to send letters to the FAA in the next week to ensure that helicopters continue to follow the North Shore over-the-water route. Senator LaValle and Assemblyman Thiele said that they, too, would contact the FAA.

“We wrote to them before and we’ll be happy to do it again,” said Mr. Thiele. “We have supported this for quite a while.”

Both houses of the New York State Legislature passed a bill last week that would require the New York State Department of Conservation to try non-lethal management techniques in any management plan aimed at controlling the population of mute swans.

The legislation, co-sponsored by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. would require the DEC to hold public hearings in areas with mute swan populations with a minimum 45-day comment period before adopting any management plan for the estimated 2,200 mute swans in the state.

The DEC stirred controversy last year, when it declared plans to rid the state of non-native mute swans, which were introduced into New York State in the 1800s.

“Many wildlife experts, rehabilitators and environmentalists do not agree that exterminating the mute swan population is justified,” said Mr. Thiele in a press release. “In addition, there is debate amongst such experts about whether the planned eradication of the mute swan population is even minimally beneficial to the ecosystem or to our environment.”

“On the East End of Long Island, the mute swan is often visible in local ponds and waterways,” he continued. “My office has not received one report in all my years in office that the mute swan is a nuisance or an environmental problem. This legislation will require all concerned to take a step back and take a hard look before any irrevocable action is taken by the DEC.”

The bill is awaiting Governor Cuomo’s review.

Pierson students Emma Romeo, Arlena Burns, Joseph Carlozzi and Alex Toscano and their health teacher Sue Denis met with Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. in his Albany office June 3. Also pictured are Barbara and John Schmidt, who attended the event in memory of their 14-year-old grandson, Ronan Guyer, who tragically passed away after suffering a heart attack during a practice for a state cross country championship in November, 2012. Photo courtesy Assemblyman Thiele’s office.

By Tessa Raebeck

Madison McCarthy was just 5 years old when she went into sudden cardiac arrest in her kindergarten classroom in upstate New York. The principal of her school held Madison in his arms for 18 minutes waiting for help No one checked her breathing, no one performed CPR and Madison died waiting for help.

Pierson Middle-High School Health teacher Sue Denis and her student CPR instructors, backed by the American Heart Association and supporters like Madison’s mother, Suzy McCarthy, are now lobbying state politicians to ensure tragedies like Madison’s don’t happen again.

Having taught CPR at Pierson for 20 years this spring, Ms. Denis has instructed  hundreds of students—who have saved  16 to 18 lives—to be instructors, but at schools across the state, CPR programs are neither mandated nor funded.

Sue Denis’s first CPR class at Pierson in the spring of 1994. Photo courtesy Sue Denis.

That could change very soon. After years of teachers, survivors and mourning relatives asking legislators to back a bill to require kids in New York to learn CPR before graduating high school, a bill passed the state Senate last week and the state Assembly on Tuesday, June 17. It is now waiting Governor Andrew Cuomo’s signature. If the governor signs the bill, it will then go for final approval to Commissioner John King and the Board of Regents, who will be responsible for whether CPR training is actually implemented into educational curriculums statewide.

“One step at a time,” Ms. Denis said Wednesday, June 18.

The American Heart Association says the requirement could help to save thousands of lives across the state each year. Nationwide, according to the AHA, approximately 424,000 people have cardiac arrest outside of a hospital every year—and only about 10 percent survive.

The survival rate fluctuates between 2 and 10 percent across New York State, Ms. Denis said, adding that in the 16 states where CPR certification is mandated for high school students, that survival rate can be as high as 50 percent.

A cardiac arrest can be brought on by 14 different causes, including drowning, getting hit in the heart, smoke inhalation, loss of blood and heart attacks, the latter which occur about every 30 seconds in the United States.

“There’s just so much in our diet and the way Americans live these days is just so unhealthy, that it’s a common occurrence to have a heart attack,” Pierson senior Caleb Atkinson-Barnes  said while in Ms. Denis’s CPR instructor class Friday, June 13. “You could be anywhere and a person could go down—and knowing CPR will save that person’s life.”

Sue Denis and her elective class of 10th, 11th and 12th grade CPR instructors at Pierson Friday, June 13. Photo by Tessa Raebeck.

Ms. Denis and four of her Pierson students—Arlena Burns, Joe Carlozzi, Emma Romeo and Alex Toscano—traveled to Albany Tuesday, June 3, to ask for the bill’s passage. They heard from Ms. McCarthy, Madison’s mom, and other families who lost loved ones who could have been saved had someone started CPR earlier.

Alex Toscano, a senior at Pierson and a CPR instructor, told state lawmakers that Ms. Denis has been teaching CPR since before she was born and that she cannot understand why every school doesn’t teach the life-saving skill.

Teaching students to save lives seems like a political no-brainer, but legislators have stalled bills in the past because they are hesitant to put another unfunded state mandate on New York’s already fiscally tight school districts.

“You would rather not support the bill then—God forbid, you’re ever in that situation where you need someone’s help—there’s less people around that know what to do?” Pierson senior and CPR instructor Emma Romeo said of the politicians in class Friday, prior to the bill’s passage. “Because I know if I was in that situation, I would want as many people around to help as possible.”

“You’re going to feel safer in any situation,” added classmate Sheila Mackey. “The fact that most of the teachers in our school don’t know CPR or in other schools don’t know CPR—I’m just surprised the bill hasn’t been passed, it’s a chance to save lives, why wouldn’t they go for it?”

Ms. Denis started at Pierson in the fall of 1993 and had convinced the administration to let her teach CPR by the spring of that school year. Her first graduates in 1994 are now among hundreds of students she has taught, “thousands probably,” she said.

“I’ve been so lucky here at Pierson and fortunate that I’ve always had the support of the whole administration—the principals, the superintendent and the board,” said Ms. Denis.

To her knowledge, about 30 of her students have performed CPR and 16 to 18 lives have been saved.

While working at the Bridgehampton Club, Ms. Romeo saved a little boy who was choking on a Goldfish cracker by performing the Heimlich maneuver.

Ms. Denis’s former student, Rich Simmons, now a fireman in the village, years ago performed CPR on a 65-year-old man whose boat capsized in Sag Harbor. He saved his life.

In September, Erick Saldivar, another former student of Ms. Denis, saved his aunt’s life when she went into respiratory arrest.

“She started seizing and I thought back to Ms. Denis’s class about what to do,” Mr. Saldivar told the Sag Harbor Express last October.

“You obviously are going to feel more confident in that situation knowing that you’ve been taught by someone who knows it so well like Ms. Denis, so you know exactly what to do,” Ms. Toscano said.

“What we always tell the kids,” said Ms. Denis, “is you’re never going to do CPR when it’s a nice, comfortable, relaxed environment. You’re going to do it in a really stressful, critical situation.”

“It’s a scary thing,” added student-instructor Zach Depetris. “It’s not something that you’re going to be able to do no matter what; it’s a life or death situation.”

Speaking of those who have died from cardiac arrests who were not aided by CPR, Ms. Mackey said, “They were just normal kids. They just went into cardiac arrest, just no one knew how to help them or what to do.”

“Our kids,” Ms. Denis said, “have shown again and again that they’re willing to step up to the plate and do it.”

New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle have sponsored legislation that would permit New York State towns to create “underground utility improvement districts” by which they could enter into agreements with public utility companies to bury electric transmission and distribution lines, cable television lines, and telephone lines. Towns would also be able to negotiate with utilities to have as much as 50 percent of the additional cost of burying the lines absorbed by the utility.

“The current dispute in East Hampton over electric transmission lines is only the tip of the iceberg in a nationwide debate that relates to climate change and public utility infrastructure,” said Mr. Thiele in a release. “On Long Island, which is particularly susceptible to nor’easters, tropical storms, and hurricanes, the selective undergrounding of utility infrastructure must be part of that debate. Other states … have been at the forefront of new policies to underground utility infrastructure. In New York, the only thing we are burying is our heads in the sand.”

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said the legislation was welcome. ”The Town of East Hampton and its residents have invested millions of dollars to preserve open space and residential neighborhoods,” he said. “The economic future of our community depends on its natural and manmade beauty. Large overhead transmission line projects threaten this balance and private utility companies and New York State must support burying as the first alternative, not the last.”

“It is important that not just for the current situation we are going through with the utility, but that a comprehensive approach is developed and adhered to concerning any future projects,” said East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach, Jr.

Under the new legislation, any town in New York State would have the authority to create an “underground utility improvement district,” using the same process and procedures that currently exist for the creation of other special districts such as water or sewer districts. The creation of a district would be subject to a permissive referendum.

An anonymous online petition drive begun late last year with the goal of obtaining the Congressional Medal of Honor for Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter and his fellow marine, Corporal Jonathan Yale, who were killed in Iraq 2008 as they defended their position from a suicide truck bomber, is gaining traction.

On Sunday, U.S. Representative Tim Bishop was in town to announce at the Sag Harbor American Legion that he and Representative Robert Hurt of Virginia, who represents Corporal Yale’s family, had introduced legislation seeking a presidential review to determine whether the two marines, who have been credited with savings the lives of 50 other marines, as well as a number of Iraqi police officers, should be posthumously awarded the nation’s highest military honor.

Despite the fanfare that came with Mr. Bishop’s visit, both he and Jordan’s dad, Christian Haerter, made it clear they were not holding out a great deal of hope that the process, which must wind its way from the House Armed Services Committee to the Pentagon and finally the White House, will ultimately result in the medal being awarded.

But Mr. Haerter made it very clear that the effort has already been a success because it has helped keep the memory of his son alive. That was evident at the turnout on Sunday, just as it has been evident every July when the Wounded Warrior’s Soldier Ride passes through the village, and just as it was evident on a sad April day when Jordan’s funeral procession passed through the village.

Sag Harbor has always remembered those who have served this country in time of war, with monuments commemorating conflicts from the Revolutionary War to Vietnam scattered from Otter Pond to Marine Park, and on Windmill Beach where a memorial was erected for Jordan. And just off Jermain Avenue, in Oakland Cemetery, Jordan’s neatly tended grave, with its flags, photo and mementoes, has become something of an unofficial monument to the bloodshed in Iraq. Anyone wanting to honor his memory would do well to pay it a visit.