After All Things
Building up resiliency
"You're listening to After All Things WSHU's Daily News and Culture Update from the Long Island Sound region. Governor Holkel announces a new project to bolster Montauk beaches. Governor Lamont says he wants to see a viable proposal before calling a special session on electric bills, and one Westport attic is home two decades worth of tech. Their stories more are ahead, I'm Sabrina Garon." New York Governor Kathy Holkel was on Easter in Long Island today to announce a $2.5 million project to protect beaches from coastal erosion due to storms. WSHU's Desiree Diorio has more. East Hampton Town plans to use the money to restore ditch Plains Beach in Montauk, which was severely eroded after a spate of storms this winter. They plan to build up damaged dunes and add sand for new dunes. Holkel says Long Island neighborhoods need protection from flooding, especially during this hurricane season. "When there's storms and heavy rains and buildings damage, it affects tourism, it hurts the residents, hurts our small businesses, and to all those people, the creative people who call this their home, it's a real struggle." Dune Restoration is scheduled to begin this fall. The town completed a separate project in June that extended the length of the beach with almost 6,000 cubic yards of new sand. Desiree Diorio, WSHU News. Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont says he wants to see a viable proposal before he agrees to a Republican request for a special legislative session. WSHU's Yebang Udama reports Republicans want to address the hike in electric bills. Lamont says he's willing to discuss a possible special session with legislative leaders, but he has concerns with the proposals made by the House and Senate Republicans. "I have to hear if they have real recommendations that would make an immediate difference for ratepayers. They all feel the pain of high electric prices." The recent increase in electric bills is from the public benefits part of the bill. About 77 percent of that goes to pay for the state's agreement to buy electricity from the Milstone nuclear power plant. And some of the rest pays for the moratorium that kept the lights on for people who couldn't afford their electric bills during the pandemic. Republicans have suggested using money from the state surplus and general fund to pay for that. When legislators say paid for by the general fund, that's a language for me, paid for by the taxpayers. There's no such thing as a free subsidy there. "The cost of the moratorium is about $200 million, Aband Udama, WSHU's." New York state comptroller Tom D'Nappoli is urging residents to check if they have unclaimed funds with the state. Jenna Flanagan reports. According to D'Nappoli, the office of the state controller safeguards unclaimed funds totaling more than $19 billion. The lost money can come from utility deposits, trust funds, old bank accounts, uncashed checks, investment accounts, insurance claims, and other inactive accounts that date is far back as the 1940s. Every day, the controller's office returns over $1.5 million. So to help New Yorkers get the recovery process started, staff members from the controller's office will attend community events, like the state fair, to provide information and assistance with the search process. Otherwise, New Yorkers are encouraged to search for and claim money on the state controller's website, and look up unclaimed funds and the search for lost money. Or they can call the controller's office. In Albany, I'm Jenna Flanagan for the New York Public News Network. Local support comes from Hartford HealthCare, the only health system in the Northeast, with all its hospitals receiving aid grades for safety from the LeapFrog Group, the nation's leading independent safety watchdog group. And healthcare.org. The worst of Tropical Storm Debbie is expected to miss our region, but meteorologists predict isolated thunderstorms, gusty winds, and high surf this evening. A wind advisory is in effect for Coastal Connecticut. The National Weather Service says the remnants should move east and north by Saturday morning. A new Britain teen led state troopers on a chase through several eastern Connecticut towns yesterday after allegedly flashing a gun at another driver on I-395. He was arrested after breaking away on foot. Police are still looking for a passenger that was in his car, who they say is a child. The Long Island principal was arrested for aggravated assault in connection to phone calls he made to an ex. He'd been recently reinstated at Milton Olive Middle School in Windanch. He and two other administrators were accused of inflating grades last school year. Five members of the U.S. Coast Guard shared testimony in New London yesterday about sexual assaults they say they've experienced while enlisted and at the academy. It was part of a field hearing held by the permanent U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Investigations. U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal is the chair. He says more than 80 whistleblowers have come forward since the investigation into the academy began. "The experiences relayed in this report underscore what this investigation has already made abundantly clear. The problem of sexual assault and harassment in the Coast Guard is still far too pervasive. It is persistent and ongoing and it affects officers and enlisted in as an observer." The hearing is part of a string of federal investigations into the U.S. Coast Guard and it's academy based in New London. Young people and technology go hand and hand, but one Connecticut teenager takes it further. He's collecting tech from decades before he was even born. WSA choose Ada Uzemar visited his private Museum of Technology in Westport. J. Babina spends hours every week in his attic. "My shook blew up." But he's not using that time just to play video games. Like that one, Asteroids from 1979. That arcade game is one of more than 400 pieces of technology that he researches, collects, and labels to make up what he calls the Westport Tech Museum. "This is the first Mac and I can make it talk." "Hello WSA June listeners from Westport Tech Museum." "Old like I was in your grandbell style telephone, so when you crank them they ring a bell." J says Tech has been a part of his family for generations. His grandparents started a radio station in Monroe, Connecticut and some of this memorabilia is theirs. "This is the exact radio that my ancestors listened to FDR's Pearlboro Tech speech on." J started this collection at 14 with a second-generation iPod from 2002 that he found in his parents' glove box. "I have that iPod right here. When I went down to the basement I found there was a Ziploc bag with a couple old phones that my parents had. I had a little box that I would carry around and I had like seven or eight old phones in that box and I would bring it to school." J's dad John says it means a lot to him that his son has so much passion for the past. "Oh definitely. It's great to be able to pass it on down to him. Sometimes I wish I kept even more things from the past, you know, if I had known that he was going to have this interest level I would have kept a lot more things." J says that it's given him a sense of purpose. "I feel like I'm preserving history, I feel like I'm keeping it safe, showing people the evolution of tech and the evolution of history and that's important." J doesn't draw any hard lines for how old a piece of technology has to be for museum consideration. In his words, it just has to be iconic. And a lot of new tech simply doesn't do that. "After 2010 a lot of things are just the same. Phones, they're just all the same, they all look the exact same." J says the older devices have more character. He thinks of himself as an old soul. He knows the same 70s references as his visitors who tend to be older. "This is a Sony real-to-real player. It's the same model that Nixon used during Watergate to record the conversations. And I have a joke, Mona was asking what's on the tape I say, that's the missing 18 and a half minutes from Watergate. Everyone's always that age that they know what I'm talking about, so they always find it hilarious." And that's just his crowd. But he doesn't mind, no matter the age, he's excited when others are excited about old tech. "I guess it's harder for me to make connections with kids my age that way, because my interest is more older. I can still make friends. I have a lot of friends, but it's just harder for me to, you know, talk with them." J leaves for college at the end of the summer. He wants to make parts of his collection public, and he's looking for somewhere in town to host it. But even if he's not in the attic, he wants to keep collecting. For the memories. Even if they're not his own. Ada Usenlar, WSHU News. For the latest news from Long Island and Connecticut, you can listen on the radio, stream online at WSHU.org or download the WSHU app, after all things, is supported by Hartford Health Care. And whether it's news, classical music, or podcasts, it's like this one, they're all made possible with support from our listeners. So if you like what you hear, you've been with us for a while now, please consider making a donation to WSHU. All the info on how to do that is there for you on our website, which again is WSHU.org. I'm Sabrina Garone, enjoy the rest of your day, have a great weekend, I'll talk to you on Monday. [Music] [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]