Inflation in the United States cooled in June for a third straight month, a sign that the worst price spike in four decades is steadily fading and may soon usher in interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. However, the opposite took place in the 25-county metropolitan area that includes Long Island: the Consumer Price Index here climbed 4.2% last month, compared with June 2023. That rate of year-over-year growth was slightly higher than May's 3.9%, the U.S. Labor Department said on Thursday. As reported by The Associated Press on NEWSDAY.com, nationwide, consumer prices were up 3% in June, compared with a year earlier — and cooler than May's 3.3% annual rate.

"Inflation may be more resistant on Long Island relative to other areas of the United States due in part to the acute shortage of apartment space," said John A. Rizzo, an economist and a Stony Brook University professor. "This will bid up the prices for homes as affordable apartment space is challenging to find" in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

He also noted the spike in electricity prices in recent months but said "this is probably an anomaly that will not affect inflation on Long Island over the longer term."

Other spending categories where prices climbed in June, compared with a year earlier, included groceries and recreation, which rose 1.2% and 7.4%, respectively. The latter increase "reflects strong demand for leisure activity on Long Island during the summer tourist season," Rizzo told Newsday.

The price rises were partially offset by declines in the cost of gasoline and medical care, which fell 1% and 1.3%, year over year, respectively.

***

A proposal to extend the Calverton industrial moratorium for three months could be voted on by the Riverhead Town Board at its next meeting, scheduled for this coming Tuesday at 2pm, after its approval by the Suffolk County Planning Commission Wednesday and the conclusion of a Town Board public hearing last week. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the six-month moratorium, adopted in January, is set to expire on July 12…today…which is six months from the date of its filing with the New York Secretary of State. The proposed three-month extension drew few comments at a Town Board public hearing last week, though the town received “a lot of correspondence from people who couldn’t make it” to the Tuesday afternoon hearing and they were all in favor of extending it, Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard said during the hearing. Jen Hartnagel of Group for the East End said the organization supports the extension and asked the Town Board “to further scrutinize the recommendations of the DGEIS [draft generic environmental impact statement] and the comp plan as it directly relates to … warehouse and industrial development issues in Calverton.” The approval requires Riverhead to report back to the county planning commission at the expiration of the three-month extension in October, should the town want to extend it again.

***

The Town of Southampton’s solar array atop the former North Sea Landfill is expected to be completed in early 2025, and the town is now seeking 500 residents to participate in its Community Solar program, which will use a portion of the power generated there to provide residents of modest means with PSEG-Long Island electric bill statement credits of up to 10 percent of their bill over the next 20 years.

Beth Young in EAST END BEACON reports that the project, being built by Kearsarge Energy, is expected to provide 4.5 megawatts of renewable energy to the electric grid when it is completed next year. It will provide power to Southampton Town’s buildings, to 500 customers through the Community Solar program, which is the first municipally-led community solar project on Long Island, and on the open market.

Southampton Town is giving priority in its lottery to enter the program to “Low-Moderate Income” households, with maximum incomes of $82,000 per year for a family of one up to $154,600 for a family of eight.

Bill credits will begin in 2024. However, enrollment in this program is limited, early registration is strongly recommended.

The application can be found online at southamptontownny.gov

***

Christopher Winkler, a Montauk fisherman who was convicted last year of falsifying records in order to sell fluke and black sea bass in quantities that vastly exceed legal limits, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison.

The sentence was delivered by Judge Joan M. Azrack in federal court in Central Islip yesterday. Christopher Walsh reports on 27east.com that the government had sought a sentence of four to five years in federal prison as well as three years of supervised release — during which Winkler would be prohibited from fluke fishing — forfeiture of $750,000, restitution of $750,000, a fine of up to $200,000, and surrender of his fishing licenses.

Richard Levitt, an attorney representing Winkler, said in an email on Thursday that “issues of forfeiture and restitution are still outstanding and a judgment will not be entered until those issues are resolved.”

Winkler has a surrender date of December 10, and will not be designated to a particular correctional facility until shortly before that date, Levitt said. Winkler’s lawyers had asked for six months of home confinement and three years’ probation.

In October 2023, Winkler, captain of a trawler, the New Age, was found guilty on five counts of conspiracy, mail fraud and obstruction of justice for filing false reports to federal regulators. According to the Environmental Crimes Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, he filed more than 220 false reports with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The federal government tried and convicted him for what it called an almost three-year scheme to overharvest at least 220,000 pounds of fluke and black sea bass, wrote Christopher Hale, a trial attorney in the Environmental Crimes Section. The fish he harvested illegally “was worth between $750,000 and $900,000," according to the government.

***

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is not saying goodbye to President Joe Biden — unlike her lieutenant governor.

Hochul doubled down yesterday on her support for Biden and downplayed the apparent rift with Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who a day earlier sent political shockwaves across New York and beyond by calling for the 81-year-old president to drop his re-election bid.

“It’s not a surprise that there are various voices that emerge with different opinions within the Democratic Party,” Hochul said during an unrelated news conference on Thursday. “I stand firmly with the President.”

Vaughn Golden, Khristina Narizhnaya and Matt Troutman report in THE NY POST that Delgado is one of an increasing number of Democrats who’ve taken their private anxieties over Biden’s electability public after his doddering debate performance June 27 against former President Donald Trump.

Hochul said that Delgado gave her a heads up on his move. She also brushed off a report by City & State New York that she was “furious” with her lieutenant governor.

“Do I look furious?” she rhetorically said to a staffer during the news conference. “Well, there is your answer.”

Hochul argued that focusing on Biden’s age distracted from the “existential threat of Donald Trump” becoming president again.

Private meetings with Biden, including right after the debate, leave no doubt he’s fit to serve, Hochul said.

“I’ve seen him have these conversations, they’re engaged, they’re thoughtful, they show that he is in command,” said Hochul, who last saw Biden in Washington DC on July 3.

“I saw nothing to be concerned about in terms of his ability to make sure that we are victorious against Donald Trump in November.”

***

Free sunscreen dispensers are available at beaches and parks in the Town of Southampton this summer. Officials announced the plan at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Ponquogue Beach this past Wednesday. Dan Stark on 27east.com reports that dispensers with SPF 30 sunscreen have been placed in 13 parks and beaches operated by the Southampton Town Parks and Recreation Department. The locations include the East Quogue Village Green, Good Ground Park, the Old Ponquogue Bridge Pier, the Tiana Bayside Recreation Facility, the North Sea Community Park, Pikes Beach, Tiana Beach, Ponquogue Beach, Flying Point Beach, W. Scott Cameron Beach, Mecox Beach, Sagg Main Beach and Foster Memorial Long Beach. The dispensers will be available until Labor Day. The dispensers are a collaboration between the town and Creative Advertising Concepts, an agency which first brought the idea to the town in 2019. For the past few years, the dispensers were sponsored by Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. This year, the dispensers are being sponsored by UnionDerm, a dermatology clinic based in New York City that has an office in Water Mill, as a way to connect with the local community.

***

The East Hampton battery storage unit that was disabled for a year after a devastating fire last year is back online, according to LIPA and the contractor, NextEra Energy.

The 5-megawatt unit, which first went into operation in 2018, was returned to service July 3, said Bill Orlove, a spokesman for NextEra, which owns the unit with National Grid Ventures. The fire took place May 31, 2023.

Orlove, in written responses to Newsday, confirmed NextEra “will not charge” LIPA and its ratepayers for the cost of repairing the facility, but he declined to disclose the cost or say what caused the blaze. Nor would he say whether the unit conforms to 15 new fire-safety standards proposed for new battery storage systems by the state in February following a joint task force on battery fires across New York. Mark Harrington reports on Newsday.com that the East Hampton unit, at Cove Hollow Road in a residential and business area of East Hampton Village, was built under a $55-million contract to LIPA as part of a plan to shore up the power-hungry South Fork with new green energy sources and bigger transmission lines. The battery is capable of handling excess power from the South Fork Wind Farm which recently began transmitting energy from a wind array off the coast of New England.

Orlove said the project came back online July 3 “after the project was rebuilt according to all applicable regulatory requirements, and pursuant to our contract” with LIPA.

He said the battery’s water-based fire suppression systems “operated as designed and quickly contained the May 31” fire, and “no further emergency response was required.”

Orlove said all the company’s energy storage facilities are “managed, monitored, and cooled in a controlled manner to keep project equipment functioning safely.”

Newsday reported that it took 30 hours of continual dousing by the internal water systems at the East Hampton facility to extinguish the fire, and that fire officials had been planning a 1-mile evacuation zone while it burned, but ultimately didn’t enact it.