Thursday, October 1, 2026
Tensions rose at the Sea Cliff Board of Trustees meeting Monday night as residents requested answers to questions about recycling and further consideration of village-led composting.
Mayor Elena Villafane and trustees presented logistical challenges to a composting program and expressed a need for more information.
Roughly 40 residents remained for the duration of discussions surrounding composting, with several speaking in support of a village-wide composting initiative.
Resident Amy Marion expressed a concern that residents’ recycling is not actually being recycled because the Town of Brookhaven Landfill no longer has a single-stream recycling program.
“I’m not just saying this is a village problem, but this is a national problem, right?” Marion said. “I think everybody is finding out that it’s a scam and it’s a sham.”
Sea Cliff uses a single-stream system, meaning residents may place paper, cardboard, glass, plastic and metal cans in the same bin for collection. Recycling is then transported to the Winter Bros. Transfer Station in Glen Cove to be sorted. Villafane said that Winter Bros. has told the village recycling is being recycled. The village has been unable for several years to get more than 18% of residents to recycle.
Marion argued that composting would be fiscally beneficial for the village because it would reduce the overall municipal solid waste, or all garbage in Sea Cliff, and therefore reduce tipping fees. A tipping fee is an amount charged by a waste processing facility for a quantity of waste.
Ten Sea Cliff families have been participating in a community composting program run by Laura Russo, former co-chair of the village’s Environmental Conservation Committee, and current Chair Fred Black. Participating families collect compostable materials each week to be combined in a three-bin system at a drop site outside of Sea Cliff.
Russo said at the meeting that there are roughly 50 families on the program’s waitlist. There are 351 resident signatures on a petition for community composting in Sea Cliff centered at the Department of Public Works. Sea Cliff’s population is roughly 5,000.
Villafane stated that she and the trustees are not against composting. She outlined logistical challenges for the village in creating a program, requested data from the pilot program and said that the board needs a business plan to determine if a village-wide program would be feasible.
“I am unaware of any of the details of the composting pilot program,” she said, “which is what we would really need to be able to assess the viability of it for the village.”
Among the listed challenges were space for equipment, the sanitation workers’ union contract and whether there is enough interest among residents.
The union contract is not up for at least a year and is task-based, meaning additional tasks cannot be assigned to workers without increasing salaries and funding.
Marion said that knowing tipping fees and whether recycling is being recycled are necessary for putting together a business plan.
“We believe,” she said, “that the budget can actually provide for the composting once we are able to offset it with the numbers that are already being paid.”
Black also acknowledged that there were both ECC members and community composters in the room.
“We know that there’s logistical problems, labor, equipment, space, perhaps regulations,” Black said. “So (I) appreciate that (the board is) looking at it, and I do apologize to you because you didn’t have the information.”
One participant in the community composting program, Dan Herman, argued that organization of composting should not be left to a resident long-term. Villafane agreed but reiterated that the village does not currently have the ability to run a program.
She then read a letter to attendees from resident Camille Sinatra, who composts at home. In the letter, Sinatra expressed confidence in Sea Cliff residents to compost. Villafane used the letter as “a backdrop” to ask attendees why composting should be an objective of the village government.
In response to Villafane’s question, Marion said that residents may not be able to do the physical work required to rotate and aerate compost and may not have the space in their yards. Russo said that environmental conditions may make it difficult for residents to compost on their own with tumblers.
“I couldn’t get in my bin because we had such a cold winter,” she said, “and it was literally frozen shut.”
Villafane reassured attendees multiple times throughout the meeting that the board is not against composting but has many factors to consider.
“We need to do our due diligence as your government and your representatives,” she said, “to make sure that this goes through in a manner that is contractually sound, that is fiscally responsible, and physically possible.”
Trustee James Versocki gave a final response, discussing his positive personal experience with composting and acknowledging Sea Cliff’s environmental accomplishments, like being named a Bronze Certified Climate Smart Community by New York State. He echoed Villafane’s explanation of the challenges the village would need to overcome to implement a composting program.
The ECC exists under Article Eight of the village code to protect the environment and encourage sustainable practices. Versocki said that in this case, the committee has been tasked with investigating how a composting program would function and reporting back to the board so trustees can make informed decisions.
“Let’s work on it together and figure out the next steps,” he said, “and also (the) ECC, the village created to help educate the community and us, so we have to do it all together.”
