___________ SEA CLIFF/GLEN HEAD __________
Rocking out at Porchfest 2025
Spring breaks in Sea Cliff
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VOL. 34 NO. 21
MAY 22 - 28, 2025
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HERALD $1.00
North Shore budget passes overwhelmingly By LUKE FEENEY lfeeney@liherald.com
Luke Feeney/Herald
North Shore School District residents, who cast their ballots in the North Shore High School gym on Tuesday, overwhelmingly favored the proposed 2025-26 budget.
North Shore School District residents who cast their ballots in the North Shore High School gym on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved the proposed 2025-26 budget. Voters also decided on four uncontested seats on the district’s Board of Education. The $125 million spending plan passed with over 70 percent of the vote, by a count of 1,657 to 697. It is 2.4 percent larger than the current budget — which, board President Andrea Macari noted last month, is the 11th smallest yearto-year increase in 59 years. “I’m thrilled that I’m part of a community with a long tradition of supporting their schools,” Macari said after the vote. “I want to thank everybody who came out and voted, and we hope that you will continue to support us.” The budget includes a tax levy increase of roughly 2.9 percent, which is below the district’s cap. Increasing costs in the upcoming year mostly comprise employee benefits, rising salaries and the implementation of a new curricuCONTINUED ON PAGE 7
Getting to know the Stroppels, the musical Sea Cliff family By LUKE FEENEY lfeeney@liherald.com
When thinking of musical families, there can be many options to choose from including The Bees Gees, The Osmond Family, the Beach Boys, Reggae artist Bob Marley and his children and countless other examples. The Village of Sea Cliff has its own musical family, right next door in Glen Cove. Whether at the Sea Cliff Arts Council, Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church, or the village library; Fred, Liz and Joe Stroppel have spent years singing, performing and educating in Sea Cliff.
Liz has been teaching early childhood music for over a decade and advocating for the wide array of benefits that children enjoy from music. The 62-year-old, who was raised in Brooklyn, said that her mother, Betty Cash, loved to sing. “We were always singing.” she said. “She was always involved in something.” The fifth of six children, Liz added that she would often go with her mother to rehearsals at the community theater production. After retiring from stage performances, Liz said that her mother became a director. It was on the set of her mother’s production of “A Good Man” in Manhattan in
the early 1990s where she met a playwright named Fred Stroppel. “I was working at the box office,” she said. “He was the playwright and we would talk before the show, at intermission, at different times during the production, and then as soon as it closed, we went on our first date.” That was just the beginning. Following their marriage, the Stroppels stayed in Brooklyn for a few years before moving to Glen Cove in 1999. They welcomed their son, Joe in 2002. Liz recalled taking him in the stroller and walking towards the neighboring Sea Cliff, a block from her house.
“We went to the library there, and we went to the music classes there, and we went to the playgrounds there,” she said. “That’s kind of where we met all of our friends.” Fred, who grew up in Glen Cove for most of his life, viewed Sea Cliff as the artsy town off to the south. However, their new house was only a block from the village after
moving back to Glen Cove and his perspective changed. “I sort of knew Glen Cove very well already, I was there all my life,” he said. “So, Sea Cliff was a different place to start hanging out and connect. I also had some plays done there years before and it is a very welcoming town, so it’s easy to fit in there.” The 68-year-old playwright CONTINUED ON PAGE 17