SUFFOLK CLOSEUP : 1st CD Voters Have A Record Of Swinging Politically

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Primaries on June 25^th will set who will run for the House of Representatives in Suffolk’s lst Congressional District. The district includes Smithtown, the northern half of Brookhaven, much of Huntington and the five East End towns. 

 It’s a “swing” district, one that could go Democrat or Republican, unusual these days for a House district most of which are dominated by voters of one party due to politically manipulated reapportionment.

I’ve covered races in the lst C.D. since becoming a journalist in Suffolk in 1962 when Otis G. Pike held the seat. He typified the independence of district voters. When I started, my editor at the Babylon Town Leader explained that on the East End, town Democratic committees considered themselves “Wilsonian Democrats.” They “reject the New Deal” of Franklin D. Roosevelt, John A. Maher said, and were still on the political path of President Woodrow Wilson.

But Pike, from the East End, from Riverhead, saw himself as a “Stevensonian Democrat”—an admirer of liberal Adlai Stevenson. Yet, for nearly two decades he won over and over again in the lst C.D. before retiring from the House in 1979.

Pike was followed by William Carney, a Conservative Party member, a Suffolk County legislator from Hauppauge who got the Republican nod in the lst C.D. in a deal in 1978 by which the Conservative Party endorsed GOPer Perry Duryea of Montauk for governor that year. 

Carney was defeated for re-election in 1986 largely because of his ardent support of the then under-construction Shoreham nuclear power plant. He then took a job as a lobbyist for the nuclear power industry. Still, although a staunch conservative, Carney had previously been re-elected three times in the lst C.D. 

Yes, voters in the lst C.D. have a record of swinging politically.

The incumbent now in the lst C.D., in his first term, is Republican Nick LaLota of Amityville, a former chief of staff of the Suffolk County Legislature and an ex-commissioner of the Suffolk County Board of Elections. 

George Santos has announced he will take on LaLota in the June GOP primary. He came to the presidential “State of the Union” address this month and at the same time proclaimed on X that he was running against LaLota to be the Republican candidate in the lst C.D. The preposterous Santos was expelled from the House by an overwhelming vote of its members last year following an investigation by its Ethics Committee which found he broke federal laws, stole from his campaign and delivered a “constant series of lies” to voters and donors. He faces trial in U.S. District Court in Central Islip in September on a 23 felony count indictment. He said he will run against LaLota because LaLota was among the “empty suits” in the House kicking him out.

LaLota responded saying that “to hold a pathological liar who stole an election accountable, I led the charge to expel George Santos. If finishing the job requires beating him in a primary, count me in.”

However, to be eligible to run in the primary to be the GOP candidate in the lst C.D., some 1,250 signatures of enrolled Republicans in it are required. It’s very doubtful that Santos, who had represented the 3^rd C.D. then made up of Nassau County and part of Queens, and with his last known address in Queens, can collect that number of signatures.

Santos has just announced, again on X, that he won’t seek the GOP line to run in the primary but will run in the general election for the lst C.D. position as an independent. However, to get on the general election ballot as an independent would, according to the Suffolk County Board of Elections, require the signatures of 3,500 voters in the lst C.D. — yet another Santos fantasy.

On the Democratic side, primary rivals this year for the lst C.D. position are John Avlon of Sag Harbor, an author and CNN analyst and anchor who left CNN to run for it, and Nancy Goroff, a retired Stony Brook University chemistry professor who lives in Stony Brook.

Avlon has been endorsed by Democratic figures including State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor; Southampton Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni; Suffolk Legislator Ann Welker; and former Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, who all addressed well over 100 people at a recent kick-off in Sag Harbor of his campaign. Southampton Town Democratic Chair Gordon Herr and East Hampton Town Democratic Chair Anna Skrenton, whose town committees have endorsed Avlon, spoke as well.

Thiele declared that this is “the most important election in our lifetime.” Avlon, he said, “listens, he communicates, he understands how politics works and he can win.”

Avlon said this year’s election is “about freedom and democracy in a fundamental way like we’ve never faced.” He described former President Donald Trump who “praises dictators at every stop” as a threat to democracy. Earlier, Avlon and Goroff debated in East Hampton with both scoring LaLota and Trump. 

Goroff has experience running in the lst C.D. having been the Democratic candidate in 2020 against then incumbent Representative Lee Zeldin, a Shirley Republican, but losing by 10 percent.
LaLota has affirmed his wanting Trump to regain the presidency saying on X that “as a Navy veteran…I understand America needs a Commander-in-Chief who will keep us safe.”

Will LaLota’s advocacy of Trump help or hurt him? Voters in the lst C.D. in 2016 balloted 54 percent for Republican Trump and 42 percent for Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, and in 2020 some 51 percent went for Trump and 47 percent for Democrat Joe Biden. Yet in 2012 they went 50 percent for Democrat Barack Obama and 49 percent for Republican Mitt Romney, and in 2008 52 percent for Obama and 48 percent for Republican John McCain. In 2004 both Republican George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry received 49 percent. And in 2000 some 52 percent of voters balloted for Democrat Al Gore and 44 percent for Bush in the independent-minded lst C.D. 

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.  

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP : NYS's Bail Reform

By Karl Grossman

My first beat as a reporter at the daily Long Island Press was covering cops-and-courts in Suffolk County. Back then, the bail issue was a vexing one in Suffolk—as it is today here and elsewhere in New York State, notably in the wake of what is known as “reform” of the bail system in the state.

It was obvious back in the middle 1960s that if a person had the money, or property to put up as security, he or she was released on bail. If not, the person was sent to jail—to wait, sometimes for months, to be tried. More than a few defendants who ended up being judged innocent thus served jail time anyway. 

There has been great controversy in recent weeks over the release in Suffolk—without bail—of four suspects arrested in connection with human body parts found strewn in parks on Long Island including in Babylon. The charges were: concealment of a human corpse, tampering with physical evidence and hindering prosecution, all felonies.

Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney issued a press release on March 6th declaring: “It is our understanding that the Suffolk County Police Department is still investigating these murders. Unfortunately, due to ‘Bail Reform’ passed by the New York State Legislature in 2019, charges relating to the mutilation and disposal of murdered corpses is no longer bail-eligible, meaning my prosecutors cannot ask for bail. This is yet another absurd result thanks to ‘Bail Reform’ and a system where the Legislature in Albany substitutes their judgment for the judgment of our judges and the litigants in court,”

The DA, a Republican, went on: “We will work with the SCPD to resolve this investigation as soon as possible and implore our [State] Legislature to make common sense fixes to this law.”

His statement was followed by one from Kevin McCaffrey of Lindenhurst, presiding officer of the Suffolk County Legislature, also a Republican, scoring “the focus of progressive liberal controlled Albany.”

The Democratic majorities in the State Legislature “through the adoption of misguided and irresponsible legislation” moved “to take the handcuffs off of criminals and put them on law enforcement by making it harder, if not impossible in certain instances, for them to do their job,” he said. “The state’s adoption of irresponsible so-called ‘Bail Reform’ legislation has created a revolving door justice system where numerous violent criminals are released almost immediately after arrest, free to walk our streets.” 

McCaffrey, also a Teamsters Union leader, continued that the “release of four people charged with the mutilation and disposal of murdered corpses which was mandated by this ‘reform’ legislation may be the most egregious example of how these ‘reforms’ have tied the hands of our law enforcement and our district attorney, putting the public’s safety at risks. The law must be changed now. We are once again calling upon Albany to repeal these laws to protect the welfare of our citizens.”

Meanwhile, Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said in a TV interview: “Maybe the DA should have done a more thorough investigation and brought murder charges—or conspiracy to commit murder—even assault charges because all of them are bail-eligible.” Hochul, a lawyer, said, “Maybe they brought [the case] a little early.” She said: “I encourage the DA’s office to glo back and build your case.” 

Tierney responded by saying Hochul is “either absolutely clueless or being deceitful about how the criminal justice system works.” He said: “Prosecutors have a duty to bring only charges that are supported by evidence. Anything else would be unethical. When law enforcement had enough evidence to arrest those defendants for serious felonies, they did the right thing and made those arrests.” 

And in the State Legislature, measures are now being introduced to add “concealing a human corpse” to bail-eligible crimes. Senator Monica Martinez and Assemblyman Steve Stern of Huntington, both Democrats, are moving on a bill. Senator Anthony Palumbo of New Suffolk is among a group of Republican sponsoring another bill. Palumbo, a former Suffolk assistant DA, says: “I don’t think anyone would argue that a world where people charged with the crime of body dismemberment can walk back out onto the streets is a good place, yet here in New York that is the world in which we are living thanks to Democrat’s failed criminal justice policies.”

As for bail for the other felonies and the host of misdemeanors eliminated in the 2019 changes, Hochul is saying it is “very clear that changes need to be made” and “judges should have more authority to set bail and detain dangerous defendants.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union in a web posting titled “The Facts on Bail Reform” says: “In 2019, New York lawmakers passed legislation that eliminated the use of cash bail for most misdemeanors and some nonviolent felony charges in an overdue recognition that a person’s wealth should not determine liberty.” However, “in 2020 prosecutors and police departments led a misinformation campaign that resulted in roll backs of the 2019 reforms. Now opponents of the bail law are determined to spread more misinformation and fear, threatening due process and push New York even further backward.” 

Has the State Legislature gone too far in altering bail laws? My view: Yes.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.  

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP : Robert Vasiluth Crusading To Save A Miracle Plant

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The inventive Robert (Rob) Vasiluth is moving ahead in his crusade to restore eelgrass in area waters. 

Eelgrass (Photo National Parks)“Eelgrass is the miracle plant,” says Vasiluth. “It’s vital as fish habitat. It’s a nursery ground for juvenile fish. Where it grows, scallops thrive. It slows down erosion. It neutralizes acidification. It produces oxygen. It sequesters carbon 35 times faster than a terrestrial rain forest. It is the foundation of the shallow sea.”

But the amount of eelgrass in New York waters is now “two or three percent” of what it was in the 1930s, he says. “Pollution, dredging, algae blooms, disease, commercial fishing practices and in the last decade the rising heat in bodies of water from climate change are among the causes.”

The 9/11 attack was a turning point for Vasiluth. An operating engineer from Commack, he was in Manhattan hoisting a section of a sign high up on the Renaissance Times Square Hotel, when he saw the World Trade Center a few miles to the south being struck. 

As a result, he committed himself to “saving life.”

There have been efforts to restore eelgrass by “broadcasting” eelgrass seeds on water, but that has failed, says Vasiluth. He came up with a new way. 

His idea: using a glue to affix eelgrass seeds to clams. The clams would bury themselves in the sea bottom and the seeds could far better germinate, he thought. The concept has worked well.

The glue is cyanoacrylate—the ingredient that is the basis for Super Glue and Krazy Glue. It’s strong but “it’s biodegradable,” he emphasizes.

In using clams affixed with eelgrass seeds in Smithtown Bay, Great South Bay, Shinnecock Bay and Sterling Harbor off Greenport, Vasiluth has been involved with Cornell Cooperative Extension, Save the Sound, The Nature Conservancy, Seatuck Environmental Association and Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences.

Last year, he worked with the East Hampton Town Trustees applying his method in Napeague Harbor, considered a prime area for eelgrass restoration. He joined with John Dunne, director of East Hampton’s shellfish hatchery, and youngsters in East Hampton High School’s Environmental Awareness Club. The students glued eel grass seeds onto 1,907 clams, relates Vasiluth.

This year, he is seeking to expand the project in Napeague Harbor working with the town shellfish hatchery and Cornell Cooperative Extension, Peconic Baykeeper and Save the Sound.

Being used to spread the clams is a “machine I built” able to distribute large numbers of eelgrass seed-affixed clams from a boat.

To help in gathering eelgrass seeds, Vasiluth recently spoke about his work before the The Divers Club, and members of the West Islip-based diving group volunteered to assist.

Vasiluth says that in his eelgrass work an especially fertile site for collecting eelgrass seed has been off Fishers Island, the little island just off Connecticut that’s part of Suffolk County. He describes it as “the home of the last best eelgrass habitat in the Long Island Sound due to the work of the Fishers Island Conservancy Eelgrass Management Program.”

As to financing, Vasiluth says he has funded much of the work through the years “out of my own pocket” through an organization he has set up, SAVE Environmental.

Vasiluth has been meeting with New York State Senators Monica Martinez of Brentwood and Alexis Weik of Sayville about getting what is called a “blue carbon” credit program, such as one now in Virginia, created in New York.

About the Virginia program, the website USNature4Climate refers to it as “an exciting partnership between The Nature Conservancy, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and the University of Virginia” that “has restored nearly 9,000 acres of eelgrass on the Virginia Coast Reserve. This partnership is part of TNC’s broader efforts to advance ‘blue carbon’ programs in the U.S. and worldwide. Blue carbon is the carbon sequestered in coastal wetlands like seagrass meadows, tidal grasslands and mangrove forests. In addition to restoring marine habitat, UVA research has shown that blue carbon projects like this present a significant opportunity to mitigate climate change.”

Vasiluth told me last week: “The public doesn’t realize how devastating the loss of eelgrass has been. It’s a crisis. It’s an emergency.”

Doing something about this is his life’s crusade that, he says, “we all should be focused upon because it is the habitat that saves us in so many ways.” Rob can be reached at rvasiluth@gmail.com

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.  

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP : "13 Magic Words" In Water Quality Restoration Act

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Environmentalist John Turner calls them “13 magic words.”

They are 13 words that have been added to a measure likely to be voted on in a countywide referendum in November that would amend the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act. The words are in a section of state legislation on what the fund for the act would finance. 

The 13 words are: “and projects for the reuse of treated effluent from such wastewater treatment facilities.”

Turner has long worked to have wastewater purified and returned to Long Island’s underground water table rather than being discharged into surrounding bays, the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound.

Long Island is dependent on its underground water table, what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1978 designated as the “sole source aquifer” for potable water for people here.

In Nassau County, the water table has lowered because 85 percent of the county is sewered and all its sewage treatment plants send wastewater into surrounding waterways. In Nassau, lakes, ponds, and streams that are the “uppermost expression of the aquifer system, have dropped considerably,” says Turner, former legislative director of the New York Legislative Commission on Water Resource Needs of New York State and Long Island and director of Brookhaven Town’s Division of Environmental Protection. He is senior conservation policy advocate at Seatuck Environmental Association based in Islip. 

Hempstead Lake now “is Hempstead Pond,” says Turner.

Suffolk is 25 percent sewered with—until recent years—all its larger sewage treatment plants sending wastewater into surrounding waterways. The biggest, the Southwest Sewer District’s Bergen Point Sewage Treatment Plant in West Babylon, was built to send up to 30 million gallons a day of wastewater through an outfall pipe into the Atlantic.

However, in 2016, providing a model for change, the Riverhead Sewage Treatment Plant began sending treated effluent to the county’s adjoining Indian Island Golf Course. This has provided irrigation and fertilization for the golf course and an alternative to the discharging of wastewater into Flanders Bay.

A revised Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act was first advanced last year with a referendum proposed for Election Day 2023. But the Republican majority on the Suffolk Legislature voted against it because the enabling state legislation then earmarked 25 percent of the funding for sewers and 75 percent for high-tech nitrogen-reducing “innovative/advanced” septic systems. The GOP majority sought a larger percentage for sewers.

In the new revision the split is 50 percent for sewers and 50 percent for “innovative/advanced” septic systems. It now will go before the Suffolk Legislature and State Legislature, where its sponsor in the Assembly is Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor and sponsor in the Senate Monica Martinez of Brentwood, and, if approved, be subject to a referendum in Suffolk on Election Day 2024.

Other than for the change to a 50-50 division and those “13 magic words,” the measure remains otherwise as it had been last year. The funding for the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act would, as proposed last year, increase the current 8.625 percent sales tax in the county to 8.75 percent, or l/8^th of a penny on each dollar spent on purchases.

If the new revised act gets legislative and voter approval, funds for projects for reuse of treated effluent could be used to implement the “Long Island Water Reuse Road Map & Action Plan” issued last year. The plan was created by Seatuck, the Greentree Foundation, Cameron Engineering & Associates and a Water Reuse Technical Working Group of 28 members. It proposes that treated wastewater to be utilized for a variety of purposes, notably on golf courses, but also on sod farms, lawns and fields at educational and commercial sites. It lists treatment facilities and sites that could be used including in Smithtown. 

It declares: “The benefits of water reuse have long been recognized and embraced in other parts of the world,” and currently in the U.S. “approximately 2.6 billion gallons of water is reused daily.” But, it says, in New York “large-scale water reuse projects have been limited. There are a few projects in upstate New York and one on Long Island,” the “Riverhead reuse project.”

At a press conference last month announcing the new revision, Suffolk’s new county executive, Ed Romaine, repeated what he had emphasized as Brookhaven Town supervisor and a county legislator, that in building sewers in Suffolk “let’s not pump the effluent out to the ocean or the Sound.” Romaine, like Turner and other environmentalists, stresses a need for not only water quality but quantity. 

The sales tax increase is expected to raise in its first year $26.5 million for sewers and $26.5 million for “innovative/advanced” septic systems, said the legislature’s presiding officer, Kevin McCaffrey, at the press conference. The I/A systems have an average cost of $22,000 and, as of 2021, have been required by Suffolk County for new construction of a house in a non-sewered area or major expansion of an existing house. 

SUFFFOLK CLOSEUP: NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

 Allow me to add my voice to the chorus in high praise of State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. upon his decision not to run for re-election to the Assembly after nearly 30 years. Thiele, as a village, town, county, and state official over a 45-year span, has been, in a word, superlative. 

In covering thousands of government officials in Suffolk County as a journalist here for more than 60 years, Thiele has been at the top.

He began as a Republican, then as Southampton Town supervisor ran at the head of the environmental Southampton Party ticket, then joined the Independence Party and finally was a Democrat.

As another highly independent figure, to our west, New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, would often say, “I could run on a laundry ticket”—and win. 

So could Fred Thiele.

“It’s been a great honor and I’ve loved every day of it,” commented Thiele. But the commute to and from Albany and “living out of a suitcase six months a year doesn’t have the same appeal when you’re 70 years old.”

As he related in his poignant statement announcing his leaving the State Assembly: “Government service was my dream from my days as a student in elementary school in Sag Harbor when I heard the call of President John F. Kennedy to ‘ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’ Being chosen by my neighbors to be their representative has truly been the greatest honor in my professional life,”

“I have successfully run for public office 19 times and have served the East End in the State Assembly longer than any other person in the history of New York State. I now look forward to other opportunities to serve the community that has been home to my family for almost 200 years.”

“I will always be indebted to my predecessor, the late John Behan who gave me the chance to come home and begin my professional life,” continued Thiele, who first entered government as an aide to the Assemblyman Behan. “A true American hero, John’s life was an example to all on what it means to be a leader.”

“I had a chance to serve with former State Senator Ken LaValle in Albany for 25 years. He is the definition of a ‘statesman.’ I cherish the special bond we developed through the years that transcended government and politics.”

“There are many victories and achievements that come from a lengthy career in public office, most notably the Community Preservation Fund,” said Thiele. “There have been many successes that have kept eastern Long Island a special place. It has been a privilege to have the opportunity to shape the future of our community and to work with others to achieve goals that are larger than ourselves. That has been one of the rewards of public service.”

“At the end of this year, I will close this chapter of my life,” he said. “I look forward to new beginnings. There will be new challenges and new ways of serving. Endings and beginnings are bittersweet. I am guided by the advice of Dr. Seuss: ‘Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.’”

The Community Preservation Fund, begun in 1999, was an especially outstanding achievement of Thiele. Through a 2% transfer tax paid by purchasers on higher priced real estate transactions, it has generated about $2 billion so far, for open space acquisitions, historic preservation and water quality initiatives in the five eastern Suffolk towns.

It has been a key in keeping much of Suffolk County green.

There’s been so, so much more done by the enormously active Thiele.

Most recently, as co-chair of the Legislative Commission on the Future of the Long Island Power Authority, he has been central in the effort to have LIPA itself operate the electric grid on Long Island, not having it done by a third-party. As the commission’s final report concluded, having LIPA run the grid rather than contracting it out “to a private, for-profit utility will save ratepayers at least a half billion dollars over ten years, improve efficiency and accountability, and increase local control and community output.” 

It would be another big victory of Thiele’s—and of great benefit to ratepayers here—if the State Legislature and Governor Kathy Hochul this year support the change.

Said Bob DeLuca, president of the Group for the East End, of Thiele: “Without question, he was a once-in-a-generation leader. He has been a consistent, rational and strategic voice for change. He was able to bring people together when it was not always easy. I don’t know anyone who works harder.”

Suffolk Democratic Chairman Rich Schaffer, with whom Thiele worked closely with as members of the Suffolk Legislature, and is a good friend, describes his departure from the State Assembly as “a big loss to us all.” Schaffer, now Babylon Town supervisor, speaks of how Thiele “will be remembered as one of the most significant public officials on his environmental record that will help generations to come.”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.