Suffolk Closeup

Like the legislation sought by County Executive Steve Bellone last year, State Assemblyman Fred Thiele's proposal would create a fund with a $1-per-thousand water surcharge for public water customers. The fund would help homeowners install costly advanced septic systems.

It's time to purge New York's roads and highways of the billboards and signs that litter and mar the landscape — starting with the state's own roadside ad campaign.

The history of the civil rights of blacks, Jews and Catholics on Long Island was examined in a talk by Prof. Christopher Verga at the Suffolk County Historical Society Jan. 21.

The agreement to close the Indian Point nuclear power plants less than 50 miles from western Suffolk and between 60 and 100 miles from the East End — as the crow flies and radioactivity spreads — “is a huge step forward in protecting the health and safety of all New Yorkers.”

Free tuition at New York's public colleges has a history going back nearly two centuries and has played a pivotal role in the upward mobility of middle and working class youth.

Legislator Rob Trotta of Fort Salonga, enraged by increases of more than 100 percent in fees charged by the county for various services, says he will introduce a bill that will cap increases in county fees at 2 percent per year.

It’s good news that Stony Brook Southampton, after years of looking like a ghost campus and a waste of state resources, has increased activity.

A proposal to shrink the number of legislative districts from 18 to 13 would make the districts larger, make running for office harder and more impersonal and make legislators less accessible to constituents.

A court ruling preventing "structures" on preserved farmland threatens the very existence of the county's successful farmland preservation program.

Horseshoe crabs are facing possible extinction after 455 million years of life on Earth — largely because it's become an Asian delicacy.