SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: LI's Victor Yannacone Creator Of Environmental Law

SUFFOLK CLOSE-UP

By Karl Grossman

“So now we’re stuck here in paradise,” Victor J. Yannacone, Jr., the colorful, feisty attorney from Suffolk County, was saying from the Hawaii island of Maui the other day.

Mr. Yannacone and his wife, Carol, had gone to visit their son, Victor J. Yannacone III, for Thanksgiving 2019 “and then we were going to stay to April or May.”

And then “the epidemic hit” of COVID-19 “and we were quarantined.”

“We never got home.”

And, at 85 with serious arthritis, “I don’t want to get on an airplane” with this underlying condition, and fly back. So, they remain in paradise.

Mr. Yannacone, with a long career in the law in Suffolk, remains involved in legal matters. “I’ve been doing civil rights law” from Hawaii, including working with attorney Cory H. Morris whose practice is in Melville. 

It was here, notes his website, https://yannalaw.com/, that he “coined the phrase and created the field of Environmental Law during the litigation over DDT during the 1960s.”

Pioneered by Mr. Yannacone, it is now a legal specialty globally.

Some five decades ago, Mr. Yannacone brought a lawsuit in the name of his wife, Carol, joined in by a group of prominent Suffolk environmentalists including Art Cooley, Dennis Puleston, Dr. George Woodwell, Dr. Charles Wurster, Dr. Robert Smolker and Anthony Taormina to stop the then Suffolk County Mosquito Control Commission from spraying DDT.

The result was an end to DDT use in Suffolk and later it was banned across the United States. The Suffolk group behind the lawsuit became a national organization, the Environmental Defense Fund.

“It was June 1966 in the New York State Supreme Court, Suffolk County, in Riverhead, when the first round of what later would be called the DDT wars began,” Mr. Yannacone has recounted to me. “The suit was aimed at prohibiting the county commission—and the words years later still spilled off his tongue—“from any further use of DDT, an action brought individually and on behalf of all those entitled to the full benefit and use of the unique natural resource treasures of Suffolk County, without degradation from the impact of broad spectrum persistent chemical biocides like DDT.”

The judge in the case, the late Justice D. Ormonde Ritchie of Brightwaters, “was asked by the attorney for the county, ‘What’s the basis for this lawsuit?’” Mr. Yannacone said.

Then “the judge turned to me and asked, ‘Where should your adversary look this up?’” Mr. Yannacone recalled. “I said, ‘Try environmental law.’”

In their accounts of the case, The New York Times and other newspapers described it as involving a new concept of law.

Mr. Yannacone was to go on and write the two-volume treatise Environmental Rights & Remedies, to establish the Environmental Law Section of the American Trial Association, and to give presentations through the years on environmental law around the U.S. and the world.  

Among his presentations was what became known as his “Sue The Bastards Speech” delivered in 1968 at a convention of the National Audubon Society. “I called on National Audubon to follow in the footsteps of the civil rights movement and knock on courthouses across the land and seek justice for the environment: the air we breathe and the water we drink, and diverse populations of plants and animals on which human life and society depend,” said Mr. Yannacone.

Also, in 1994. Mr. Yannacone, from Patchogue where his law practice was based, was elected Patchogue village justice. He remained on the bench through 2002 and “adjudicated more than 8,000 cases,” says his website. 

Moreover, he was an attorney in litigation involving the Long Island Lighting Company’s Shoreham nuclear power plant—a failed project he challenged—and was an attorney in the lawsuit brought by veterans who were victims of Agent Orange, the toxic defoliant used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.  The class action suit was settled in 1974 for $180 million, the highest settlement in the history of U.S. jurisprudence at the time. 

He established the Brookhaven Town Council on the Arts and also the Brookhaven Town Symphony Orchestra. And on top of everything else here, Mr. Yannacone was an active baritone saxophone musician performing with it and other musical groups among them The Symphonic Band of Suffolk and Big Band East. Indeed, the “only thing I miss getting old,” commented Mr. Yannacone from Hawaii, is that “my arthritis has gotten so bad I can’t play any longer.” As for his baritone saxophone, “I’ve passed it on to my grandson.” 

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 - "Gorilla In The Room" Enormous Power Of Police Unions

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“This is a red wave!” said Suffolk District Attorney Tim Sini of Babylon as he conceded Election Night in his run for re-election against Ray Tierney of Holtsville, the Republican challenger who ran a fierce race against him. Indeed, the 2021 election was marked by a Republican wave (with some exceptions) in Suffolk County. 

The campaign signs are almost all gone now but there are some important political lessons in Suffolk still to be absorbed. One involves what has become the proverbial “gorilla in the room” in Suffolk politics and elections—the enormous power of police unions.

A big and seemingly unlikely challenger to that has been Rob Trotta.

Farah Stockman, an editorial board member of The New York Times, wrote a piece in The Times earlier this year headlined: “The County Where Cops Call the Shots.” The subhead: “Fiscal conservatives and liberal activists both want to curb the power of police unions in Suffolk County. Can they do it?”

It began: “Rob Trotta, a cranky Republican county legislator on Long Island who worked as a cop for 25 years, might be the unlikeliest voice for police reform in America. He’s full of praise for the rank and file….Yet Mr. Trotta has railed for years about the political influence of police unions in Suffolk County, Long Island, a place where the cops are known to wield exceptional clout. He’s a potent messenger, since he can’t be smeared as anti-cop. He wore a badge and walked a beat.”

Since taking office as a Suffolk County legislator in 2014, Mr. Trotta has repeatedly taken aim at the clout here of the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association.

And the Suffolk PBA has gone after him. As Newsday, in an editorial endorsing him declared, the PBA “goes to extraordinary lengths to get him out of office.” This year, it noted, a “PBA-supported candidate” sought to seize the GOP candidacy from Mr. Trotta in a primary but lost out because of invalid signatures on nominating petitions. “Then, the PBA sent [its] executive board member Michael J. Simonelli…to run on the Conservative line” against Mr. Trotta. This didn’t work either. Newsday described Mr. Trotta as “the only active candidate looking to represent the interests of taxpayers, not police unions.”

Thanking voters for re-electing him, Mr. Trotta wrote: “As a retired Suffolk County detective, I will continue my efforts to fight corruption in this county and the power and control of certain unions, as well as to support our dedicated men and women in blue. I worked my way up through the ranks of the Suffolk County Police Department, have the utmost respect for my fellow officers, and I am grateful that you did not pay attention to the outright lies made by the police unions in the recent election campaign.”

Then there was the “last hurrah” possibly of former Suffolk Legislator Kate Browning of Shirley, a Democrat. She served 12 years as a county legislator—and that should have been it based on the county’s term limit law restricting county legislators to six two-year terms.

But because she left the legislature due to the term limits law (and became director of code enforcement in the Town of Babylon), she claimed that this interruption allowed her to run again for the legislature. A state Supreme Court justice decided against Ms. Browning in a lawsuit brought by the Suffolk Republican Party and two GOP voters in the legislative district. However, she won on appeal. She ran against Republican Jim Mazzarella of Moriches, secretary/treasurer of Public Service Employees Local 342, first in a special election, which she lost. Then she faced him on November 2 and was trounced by a margin of nearly three-to-one.

There indeed was a “red wave” in Suffolk this year—but not everywhere.

Consider the Town of East Hampton which long was a Republican bastion where former New York State Assembly Speaker Perry Duryea, Jr. topped the GOP pyramid. The GOP had a more than three-to-one enrollment edge in the town back in the 1970s when Democrat Judith Hope took on its then well-oiled GOP political machine. In a huge upset in 1973, Ms. Hope was elected East Hampton town supervisor and became the first woman to be elected a town supervisor in the history of Long Island.

This year, the Democratic incumbent town supervisor, Peter Van Scoyoc, swept to re-election victory despite a split that had Councilman Jeff Bragman, a Democrat, running on the Independence Party line against him for supervisor. Some thought this might have allowed GOP nominee Ken Walles to squeak through. Also, incumbent Democratic Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez easily won a third term, and former East Hampton Democratic chair Cate Rogers won a town council seat.

Ms. Hope emailed me: “Amazing how much things have changed!”

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 -Suffolk Voters Said Yes To "Clean Air And Water" Initiative

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

For Suffolk County (and New York State) among the most important things that happened on Election Day last week was passage of the Green Amendment.

That was Proposal Two on the ballot. “The proposed amendment to Article 1 of the New York State Constitution would establish the right of each person to clean air and water and a healthful environment,” it said. “Shall the proposed amendment be approved?”

In Suffolk, the “yes” votes constituted 60% of votes. It received a similar percentage statewide. Thus, after as required by the State Constitution—being passed twice by the State Assembly and the State Senate and approved in a statewide vote—the Green Amendment has become law in New York.

It makes “clean air and water and a healthful environment” Constitutional rights in the state—enabling litigation on Constitutional grounds if they are negatively impacted or threatened.

Assemblyman Steven Englebright of Setauket, chair of the Assembly’s Environmental Conservation Committee and long involved in environmental issues in Suffolk, was the prime sponsor of the Green Amendment in the Assembly. He emphasized that when the state’s Constitution “was first written, the environment was not an issue. In our modern time, the environment is under siege.” 

The key nationally for a Green Amendment in all state constitutions and ultimately in the U.S. Constitution is Maya K. van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper for 27 years and author of the important 2017 book, “The Green Amendment, Securing Our Right to a Healthy Environment.”

She is thrilled with the passage of the Green Amendment in New York. 

“This victory has been over five years in the making with New York being ground zero for the national Green Amendment movement,” Ms. van Rossum told us from Pennsylvania following the vote. “The people of New York have made their voices heard at the ballot and secured this crucial amendment in the name of environmental justice, protection, and longevity.”

“With the passage of the New York Green Amendment, generations to come will know that they have an irrefutable right to clean air, clean water, and a healthful environment, that they can lean on whenever these inalienable human rights are threatened,” she said. “This victory will serve as a litmus test as we look to the future and head full force towards passing Green Amendments in remaining states, 13 of which are already moving forward with formal proposals.”

“New York is on the cutting edge of the new national movement that seeks to secure highest Constitutional recognition and protection of environmental rights in every state and at the federal level. Communities and states across the nation who are part of the national Green Amendment movement have been watching New York closely,” said Ms. van Rossum.

“I am delighted that this success will provide them all the inspiration they need to seek and secure their own meaningful rights to a clean and healthy environment like New Yorkers now have,” she said.

What’s to follow in New York with passage of the Green Amendment here? Ms. van Rossum said “training” is being planned with a title “something like ‘New York Has A Green Amendment—What Next?’”

“We will talk about how New Yorkers can and should be thinking about and starting to use this most powerful Constitutional tool,” she said. “All the details will be on the calendar page of www.NYGreenAmendment.org and/or folks can sign up to join Green Amendments For The Generations and learn about this event and other upcoming opportunities. You don’t have to pay to be a member. You can sign up at: https://forthegenerations.org/join-us/”

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor was a leading sponsor of the Green Amendment saying that providing “a Constitutional right to clean air and clean water and a healthful environment…elevates environmental policy and initiatives.” 

In the Senate the prime sponsor was Robert Jackson of Washington Heights. He commented that the Green Amendment in New York “will finally put in place safeguards to require the government to consider the environment and our relationship to the Earth in decision making. If the government fails in that responsibility, New Yorkers will finally have the right to take legal action for a clean environment because it will be in the State Constitution.”

Opponents complained that lawsuits under the Green Amendment would affect court calendars. But what issues are more important than clean air and water and a healthful environment—and lawsuits for what now will be our Constitutional rights?

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 - U.S. Postal Service Slows Delivery Times And Raises Rates

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who has roots in Suffolk County—in Melville—is under intense fire as he directs the U.S. Postal Service to slow delivery times and at the same time raise its prices.

“U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Under Pressure to Resign,” began the headline of an Associated Press article in June. “As he approaches his first anniversary at the U.S. Postal Service’s helm, DeJoy is under mounting pressure to resign,” it said. “He’s been criticized by lawmakers from both parties for changes to the agency that have resulted in service slowdowns. Democrats are particularly worried that he’s purposely undermining the post office…”

The piece continued that “the scrutiny” of Mr. DeJoy “has intensified as the Justice Department investigates him over political fundraising at the North Carolina-based company he ran prior to his work at the post office.”

Before moving to North Carolina, Mr. DeJoy had run a trucking business based in Suffolk County, New Breed Logistics, which he took over from his father, Dominick DeJoy, also of Melville, who died in 2001. 

The attack on Louis DeJoy has been going on for some time.

As the Boston Globe in an editorial last August headed, “Louis DeJoy Must Resign. Now,” stated: “The postmaster general has proved himself unfit to serve as the Postal Service chief and has undermined American democracy in the process….Since DeJoy has taken over the post office, the agency has curtailed overtime pay, removed over 600 mail sorting machines, and either locked up or taken out letter collection boxes. These supposedly cost-saving measures have resulted in slowing down mail delivery, potentially disenfranchising voters at a massive scale come November if their mail-in ballots are not processed or delivered on time.”

 “The Postal Service,” said the Boston Globe,” is an agency that should remain nonpartisan — a standard that is difficult to uphold under DeJoy, a major donor to Donald Trump and the GOP. Before joining the post office, DeJoy was a finance chairman for the Republican National Committee…He has also been riddled with conflicts of interest, having to divest his stocks in UPS and Amazon upon his appointment, and he still owns a major equity stake in XPO, a USPS contractor, totaling somewhere between $30 million and $75 million.”

Mr. DeJoy has defended his tenure and his new 10-year plan for the Postal Service, “Delivering for America.” In an interview in The New York Times earlier this year, Mr. DeJoy said: “We have to start the conversation and we’re losing $10 billion a year, and that’s going to continue to go up unless we do something.”

Jim Hightower, editor of of The Hightower Lowdown, declared earlier this year: “Once Trump megadonor Louis DeJoy—who has no postal experience whatsoever—was sworn in as Postmaster General last June, he abruptly set about slashing overtime, taking crucial equipment out of service, and rewriting work rules—moves he admitted would result in delays and worse service. You don’t have to be in Who’s Who to know what’s what….DeJoy’s monkeywrenching was just one more step…by corporate interests to destroy our public post office.”

Nevertheless, Mr. DeJoy told critics in Congress in June: “Get used to me.” Appearing before the House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committees at a hearing on “Legislative Proposals to Put the Postal Service on Sustainable Financial Footing,” Mr. DeJoy testified: “I’m not a political appointee. I was selected by a bipartisan board of governors and I’d really appreciate if you’d get that straight.”

The Postmaster General can only be removed by the Postal Service governing board which has nine voting members. President Biden has appointed three new members of the board but, by law, no more than five can be from the same party. Two existing Democratic members have publicly supported Mr. DeJoy and his “Delivering for America” plan.

Meanwhile, as Newsday in an article in October, headlined “What to know about slow mail, higher prices,” related, “starting” last month what the Postal Service labels “new service standards…are going into effect. That means it will take longer for certain kinds of mail—about 40% of first class and 7% of periodicals” to get delivered. The  piece by Matthew Chayes noted that “as of August 29^th, the cost of a first-class stamp increased “to 59 cents from 55 cents” and posed the question: “What has service been like on Long Island in advance of the change?” The answer: “Slower. Newsday reported in June that nearly every category of mail—first class, packages, periodicals—is taking longer to reach Long Island’s 215 or so zip codes…”

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 - That Call From PSEG May Be A Telemarketing Scam

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The caller ID read as the phone rang: PSEG, LONG ISLA. Yes, the ND was missing—and that was not all that was missing earlier this month. There was no truth to the call. It was a scam. 

Our PSEG electric service, the caller advised, would be cut off in a half-hour to 45 minutes because of non-payment. I asked, clearly regarding this as a scam, how I was to know this was really PSEG Long Island. I was told I would be switched to the “manager.” 

The “manager” got on the phone, identified herself as with PSEG Long Island. I identified myself as a journalist highly suspicious about the call believing it a scam. The “manager” immediately slammed down her phone.

I am not alone in getting such a scam call. Earlier this year, PSEG—out of its headquarters in Newark, New Jersey—issued a press release saying it “encourages customers to learn how to spot the signs of fraud and scams, and report them.”

The press release quoted Fred Daum, PSEG executive director of customer operations, saying: “Protecting our customers is a top priority. It is critically important we continue to raise awareness and educate customers about how to spot potential scams. Scammers continue to adapt and develop increasingly sophisticated tactics to take advantage of our customers.” 

The PSEG release went on: “Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, scammers have increased calls, texts, emails and in-person tactics, and they continue to contact utility customers asking for immediate payment to avoid service disconnection.” It added that PSEG “doesn’t send a single notification to a customer within one hour of a service disconnection. The company will also never ask customers to make payments with a prepaid debit card, gift card, any form of cryptocurrency or third-party digital payment via fund transfer applications.”

Under “Signs of potential scam activity,” PSEG listed first: “Threat to disconnect: Scammers may aggressively tell the customer their utility bill is past due and service will be disconnected if a payment is not made—usually within an hour.’

The release said: “If a customer has doubts about the legitimacy of a call or an email—especially one in which payment is requested—call the company directly at 1-800-436-PSEG.” I did just that. The automated voice on the other end, after announcing “Thank you for calling PSEG New Jersey” asked: “What would you like help with today.” 

I said, “Scam.” 

“Sorry I missed that,” the voice went on. “Please tell me what you are calling about today….an emergency, making a payment, account balance, repairs, moving, energy efficiency program, or it’s something else.”

I repeated “Scam.” And remained lost in this circular call. PSEG is not so good in dealing with electric outrages—as its terrible performance in Tropical Storm Isaias demonstrated, a reason the Long Island Power Authority is considering dismissing it as manager of the Long Island electric grid. It apparently is not so swift in handling reports on a PSEG scam either.

It was abundantly clear to me that a scam was involved as we have 38 solar photovoltaic panels on the roof of our house and excess electricity they generate is sent back to the grid for credit. Our electric meter thus has regularly run backwards. A common PSEG monthly bill is $8.60 for the meter reader to come.

But what about folks who do get fooled? How much money is lost?

The American Association of Retired Persons is very much on the case. It has said that that the “estimated loss” from “telemarketing fraud” in the U.S. is “more than $40 billion” a year. It has set up an AARP Fraud Watch Network. And the AARP “has been inundated with calls this year about scams,” it reported this month. These include “someone impersonating an IRS agent, Medicare official, Social Security Administration officer,” and so on.

On a government level, the Federal Trade Commission is the main agency with a responsibility for dealing with phone scams. On its website, it says part of its “mission” is to protect consumers from “fraudulent practices in the marketplace.” It says it investigates scam calls and asks that folks alert it through its website ReportFraud.ftc.gov

At least no calling to an automated circular call system in Washington is recommended.

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.