LIRR to Start Second Line Work in July

Some of the news from around Long Island you may have missed this week.

Work to Start on Second LIRR Track

Design work is expected to start in July for a second track on the Ronkonkoma line of the Long Island Rail Road.

State officials and the LIRR said environmental and other work will begin on the $138-million extension of the line between Farmingdale and Ronkonkoma.

Wine Industry Speaks Out Against New Code

To many working in the North Fork Wine industry, the text in proposed changes to a law regarding special events regulations in are simply flawed.

About 25 people spoke out against the proposed change at a Southold Town Board public hearing Tuesday afternoon. According to Town Attorney Martin Finnegan the changes the code committee had worked on over the last few weeks are not “meant to police or regulate every event ever contemplated,” he told board members during a work session earlier that day.

District Attorney Throws Out Two Drug Cases

Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota said Friday that two convicted drug dealers are being released from prison as a result of an ongoing review of more than 100 arrests by an officer who belonged to the 's now-defunct street crimes unit.

While Spota said his office has gathered information that affects the credibility of the unnamed officer, two published reports and a source familiar with the matter claim a member of the street crimes unit was addicted to drugs

Oyster Bay Supervisor: Lets Build Plainview Field

Oyster Bay keeping a promise he made to the community, is moving forward with town efforts to build a new artificial turf field complex in Plainview.

Venditto's surprise announcement came Friday in direct response to a series of stories and a resulting wave of in Patch this week about the propects of a

Shinnecock Bay Shellfishing Reopens

After nearly two months, the state Department of Environmental Conservation has lifted its temporary ban on taking carnivorous gastropods from Shinnecock Bay. Approximately 3,900 acres were closed on April 10. 

Also re-opened was approximately 490 acres of underwater in Sag Harbor Cove that was  after the DEC’s Bureau of Marine Resources reported that shellfish collected tested positive for saxitoxin, a marine biotoxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning.