SUFFOLK CLOSEUP : Legislature Approves Housing Advisory Board

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The Suffolk County Legislature last week approved the creation of a Permanent Housing Advisory Board to focus on housing discrimination here. The formation of a 15-person board follows a three-year investigation by Newsday which, as the measure establishing the board noted, “uncovered extensive evidence of impermissible steering of consumers seeking to purchase a home” and this “on the basis of race” and “throughout Long Island.”

“This practice,” it went on, “has reinforced racial divides throughout communities, despite fair housing laws which prohibit such pernicious discrimination.”

Among members of the board: the presiding officer of the Suffolk Legislature who would be its chair; the executive director and also chair of the Suffolk County Human Rights Commission; representatives of organizations including: the NAACP; Latino Justice; Long Island Board of Realtors; Erase Racism; Long Island Builders Institute; Long Island Hispanic Bar Association; and Long Island Housing Services.

Formation of the board was recommended in a report of a Fair Housing Task Force, formed in the wake of the Newsday series, which recommended such a “standing” panel. It was was submitted to the legislature in June.

The Newsday series was titled “Long Island Divided.” As Newsday investigative reporter Keith Herbert wrote in a piece on “How We Did It”—“Two testers of the same gender and age bracket—but of different races or ethnicities—are given matching personas. The profiles typically include the same family status, education level, type of job, level of income and credit score. After being matched in a pair, the testers tell a real estate agent that they are searching for houses with identical qualities, prices and locations.”

What was documented: the “steering” of testers to houses for sale based on their race or ethnicity. This is a key to how through the years minority people have ended up in ghettos on Long Island.

As declares the Fair Housing Task Force report in an opening “Background” section, “Suffolk County has a long history of redlining and other housing policies that have led to segregation. A 2010 study conducted by Brown University Professor John Logan showed that Suffolk County was the 10^th most segregated county in the nation among similarly sized counties.”

What’s to be done?

Among the many recommendations of the Fair Housing Task Force is “increased support for the Suffolk County Human Rights Commission.” It says: “In particular, increased funding and support for the Suffolk County Human Rights Commission was identified as an area where the county could take immediate steps to further the goals of ensuring fair and equitable access to housing. Support for the Human Rights Commission is critical, not only to ensure they may continue their work well into the future” but “without having to rely on grant funding.”

It urged “fair housing testing” by the Human Rights Commission.

And, it recommended “increased funding for administrative law judges” of the commission to “strengthen its enforcement ability.”

The Suffolk County Human Rights Commission, created in 1963, is now down to an executive director, attorney Dawn Lott, and three investigators. As a reporter, I covered the commission in the 1960s. Its staff years ago was larger than it is today.

There have been attacks on the commission through the decades. Suffolk County’s first county executive, H. Lee Dennison, fired the commission’s dedicated executive director, George Pettingill. Anthony Noto, presiding officer of the Suffolk Legislature, was later to call for abolition of the commission after it pressed against discrimination by police. There have been other political assaults. Meanwhile, the population of Suffolk has increased and racism continues as the Newsday investigation showed. 

In my Investigative Reporting class which I’ve taught for 43 years as a journalism professor at SUNY/College at Old Westbury, as part of students actually doing investigative reporting, every semester some students seek to go out in Suffolk and Nassau Counties in mixed pairs racially or ethnically to look for apartments or jobs. I tell students that I wish by now they wouldn’t find discrimination. But they always do. 

To read the report of the Fair Housing Task Force, chaired by Legislator Sam Gonzalez, go to https://www.scnylegislature.us/DocumentCenter/View/78262/2021-Suffolk-County-Fair-Housing-Task-Force-Report-PDF

One of its conclusions: “Suffolk County communities clearly have been afflicted by steering and other unlawful discriminatory housing practices.”

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. 

Golf News: MGA/MET Two-Man Better Ball

By Jerry Gentile

On the very pleasant weekend of July 31-August 1, The MGA/MET Two-Man Better Ball was played.

Golfers Guy Allen (16) and Tom Elliot (9) took honors with a (-9) from Ryan Hillen (11) and Andy Kovacs (5) in a match of cards. Ryan shot a very fine (79).

Other competition news: The SLMGA Two-Man Better Ball tournament was contended.

Tom McCrave (27) and Ray Winslow (18) shot an amazing -13 under for a (59) and the win.

“Tip of the Cap” goes out to Ed Haliasz and David Capo who both shot (75) for their respective partners. This could be a preview of the Club Championship Final!!

Congratulations to all participants and good luck to Guy and Tom, as they move to the next round of the MGA/MET tournament. See you 

Theater Review - 'Songs For A New World'

By Cindi Sansone-Braff

You would be hard-pressed to find a more talented group of performers or a more polished production than Gateway’s opening show of the season, Songs for a New World.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this show, it is a well-composed collection of songs that deliver some powerful messages. Jason Robert Brown, a 25-year-old composer/lyricist, pieced together 16 of his songs written for other creative projects, added a few new songs, linked them together thematically, and created Songs for a New World.  Originally produced off-Broadway at the WPA Theatre in 1995, this theatrical song cycle was directed by Daisy Prince, the daughter of Broadway legend Hal Prince. With this in mind, don’t come expecting the traditional musical show with recurring characters and a plot structure that has a beginning, middle, and end. It’s similar in format to Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, the 1968 musical revue that eschewed conventional narrative storytelling and just allowed each song to tell its tale. However, in Songs for a New World, the musical numbers in this show are loosely thematically connected, thus creating an overarching narrative for the show. 

I have seen other productions of this show that have left the audience baffled as to what they just saw because it has no script, a bare set, and nameless characters. Kudos to Gateway’s directors, Michael Baker and Danny Loftus George, for their creative decision to use the first act as a testament to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a salute to essential workers, a nod to the isolation of quarantine, and a musical memorial to those souls lost along the way. From the moment the talented Mary Kate Moore entered all masked up, took center stage, and then ever so slowly lifted off her mask, this highly emotionally charged, theatrical sojourn began. The second act traveled back in time to 1979, when the AIDS crisis first hit.  

The poignant lyrics in the opening number, “The New World,” let the audience know from the get-go what this song cycle is all about: “It’s about one moment … when you’re on the verge of success, the sky starts to change, and the wind starts to blow.” In this show, as in life, some people survive the life-changing jolt. Sadly, some succumb; nonetheless, faith, hope, and a belief in the wisdom, mercy, and goodness of God give many of these characters the strength to get through the dark night of the soul.

Each of the songs, in this two-act musical collection of stories, features a character who is in the midst of a life-changing event. These diverse characters are all struggling to survive these life-altering moments and must make choices as to how they want to live the rest of their lives in the context of this new world. This is a very timely sentiment as we all struggle to adjust to the new normal created from the COVID-19 pandemic. The takeaway message of hope for the audience is to simply remember the adage: When one door closes, another opens.

Caleb Mitchell, dressed like a minister, gave a powerful performance as he belted out the song, “On the Deck of a Sailing Ship, 1492,” begging God for mercy and the strength to go on. Mr. Mitchell has an incredible voice and a commanding stage presence. The audience was visibly moved during his soulful rendition of the spiritually uplifting song, “Flying Home.”

Alyssa Wray, fresh off of her recent appearance on American Idol as one of the top ten finalists, is a natural on stage, with the most captivating of voices. Dressed in scrubs, wearing PPE, she left the audience in tears with her soulful delivery of “I’m Not Afraid of Anything.”  

Christian Douglas is an energetic, versatile performer, who can sing, dance, and act, and his acrobatic skills thrilled the audience. He stole the show with his drag queen rendition of “Surabaya-Santa,” which is a parody of Kurt Weill’s torch song, “Surabaya Johnny.” 

Jordan Goodsell gave a standout performance in one of my favorite musical numbers of the evening, “The River Won’t Flow.”  

Mary Kate Moore has an angelic voice and moved around the stage with lightness and grace as she delivered the breathtakingly beautiful song, “Christmas Lullaby.”

Morgan Billings Smith displayed her comedic talents and her strong vocals with the song, “Just One Step,” where a wealthy, neurotic woman threatens to jump off of a building in a futile attempt to get her husband’s attention.

The knockout performances from this talented cast, the expert staging, the live orchestra, and the riveting songs all came together to make this an unforgettable night of theatre. At times, you will feel like you’re in the middle of a gospel revival meeting, and other times you will feel like you’re sitting in an intimate jazz club or hanging out at a comedy club. These thought-provoking, heartrending, and often funny songs remind us that even in the midst of life’s tragedies and disasters, there are always moments of humor that lighten our load. With all that said, the bottom line is this: You will be thoroughly entertained.

Without powerful, charismatic singers, great direction, and a professional orchestra, this show would be a hard one to pull off, but Gateway’s performers did not disappoint, and the show was a smashing success. Tickets start at $49. Teen and youth prices are available for select shows. For more information, contact the Box Office at (631) 286-1133, or visit the website at TheGateway.org. 

Cindi Sansone-Braff is an award-winning playwright. She has a BFA in Theatre from UCONN and is a member of the Dramatist Guilds. She is the author of two self-help books, Grant Me a Higher Love and Why Good People Can’t Leave Bad Relationships.

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP : Suffolk County First In NYS For Shipments Of Opioids

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“Suffolk County was the first in the state to bring litigation,” noted Rob Calarco, presiding officer of the Suffolk County Legislature, about the lawsuit the county brought in 2016 against multiple defendants it charged in connection with the plague of opioids that has caused many deaths in Suffolk and elsewhere. 

Nassau County and the New York State attorney general joined in the lawsuit. Thereafter, other governments in New York State got involved in it. 

And Suffolk’s legal initiative “precipitated other municipalities across the country to bring their own lawsuits in their own jurisdictions or in federal court,” said Mr. Calarco. 

What national media described as a “landmark trial” began on the lawsuit on June 29th in Central Islip.  It was “the first opioid case in the country where a jury rather than a judge will decide the outcome,” pointed out The New York Times. There were so many defendants that the auditorium of Touro College’s Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center became a Supreme Court trial court.

The lawsuit, as The Times put it, “targeted all links in the opioid supply chain.” Then, in recent weeks, “one by one, major companies named in suit have settled.”

Last week, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a $1.1 billion settlement with defendants AmericsourceBergen, Cardinal Health and the McKesson Corp., three of the nation’s top opioid distributors. Suffolk County is to receive between $87 million and $106 million from this. This followed settlements with defendants including Johnson & Johnson from which Suffolk will receive $19.8 and Purdue/Sackler family, $10.4 million to $19.6 million.

The funds will be used, said Mr. Calarco, for “educational programming, treatment, and other related efforts to remedy the impacts of this crisis” of opioid addiction. So tragically, “we can’t bring back the people lost.” 

Meanwhile, the trial will continue for a few companies not settling.

It opened with the attorney for Suffolk County, Jayne Conroy, speaking about the natural beauty of Suffolk, but she said: “There is terrible darkness here. The evidence is going to show that more prescription opioids were shipped to Suffolk County than any other county in New York.” 

The companies were charged with a “public nuisance.” More accurately: it has been a terrible crime. This was civil litigation not involving criminal charges. Asked last week at a press conference whether she was considering bringing criminal charges against any opioid makers or distributors, Attorney General James said the settlements are “silent on that.” Criminal charges could be brought. They should be. Giving up even huge amounts of their companies’ money isn’t comparable to executives and officers being jailed for causing the deaths of 500,000 people in the United States in the past two decades. 

“Defendants caused this disaster together,” declared a state filing (available online).  They were involved in a “scheme to expand the opioids market through a predatory campaign of lies, payoffs, and high-pressure sales tactics.”

They “collectively spent billions of dollars on this fraudulent marketing campaign over the last two decades,” it said. They were involved in numerous misrepresentations, it declares, itemizing many. They “spent hundreds of millions of dollars on unbranded advertising in order to create the appearance that unbiased and impartial medical information supported the widespread prescription of opioids.” They paid doctors—who are identified—to “lend their names to books and articles, and give speeches” and be “on committees that developed treatment guidelines that strongly encouraged the use of opioids.” They “used, funded, and directed numerous Front Groups.” And they “specifically targeted their marketing at two vulnerable population—the elderly and veterans,” it continues.

Meanwhile, also last week a $26 billion national opioid settlement was announced. The Suffolk-initiated lawsuit was a catalyst, said Mr. Calarco. “We started the ball rolling,” And “fearing the facts of the case coming out at the trial,” the companies settled. 

Suffolk’s action on opioids parallels it being a governmental pioneer decades ago challenging the tobacco industry with first-in-the-nation legislation on smoking. Delegations from the Tobacco Institute came before the Suffolk Legislature and with straight faces denied any link between smoking and cancer. This industry-funded outfit was dissolved in 1998 as part of a national “Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.” We know about governmental corruption. The tobacco and opioid industries—prime examples of corporate corruption.

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. 

Theater Review - 'The Fantasticks'

Theatre Three’s Production of ‘The Fantasticks’ Hits All the Right Notes

By Cindi Sansone-Braff

When it comes to ‘The Fantasticks’, the 1960s musical fable with the book and lyrics by Tom Jones and music by Harvey Schmidt, just try to remember a time when this show wasn’t mesmerizing audiences; I bet you can’t!  The original off-Broadway production of this tale of two matchmaking fathers faking a feud and using reverse psychology to trick their children into falling in love, ran a whopping total of 42 years, making it the world’s longest-running musical. 

This highly theatrical parable about love has touches of allegory and many allusions to Shakespeare and other literary works.  Based on the 1894 play “Les Romanesques” by Edmond Rostand, this musical is theatre at its best because it forces the audience to use their imagination to fill in the blanks. An almost bare stage with a platform and a few set pieces, props pulled out of a box, archetypal characters, music, dance, mime, handfuls of confetti, and poetic dialogue all come together to create an illusionary world, where the audience can momentarily lose themselves in the magic of theatrical storytelling.

From the moment Theatre Three regular Steve McCoy, as The Narrator, gave his beautiful rendition of the hit song, Try to Remember, imploring the audience to follow … follow … follow him to an illusory world of moonlight and magic, the wonder begins.  Mr. McCoy also gave a standout performance as El Gallo.  He is charismatic, sexy, and mysterious; everything a good stage villain should be!

Under the skillful direction of Jeffrey Sanzel and the exacting precision of Jeffrey Hoffman, the Musical Director, this strong ensemble cast brought this timeless tale of young love to life.

The onstage chemistry between Matt/The Boy played by Matthew Joseph Hoffman, and Luisa/The Girl played by Meg Bush was electrifying.  Both of these romantic leads gave outstanding performances. 

Michelle LaBozzetta proved to be an adept mime artist in her role as The Mute.  Her facial expressions and graceful movements spoke volumes.

The comically feuding fathers, Huckabee portrayed by Jeffrey Hoffman, and Bellamy played by Kyle Imperatore, had the audience roaring with laughter. Jeffrey Hoffman’s piano playing added a touch of excitement to the production, and when Steve McCoy and Kyle Imperatore jumped in to play the piano the transitions were seamless.  By the way, the actors playing all the instruments on stage, including Meg Bush playing the flute and guitar, and Matthew Joseph Hoffman playing the saxophone, added to the overall success of this production.   

Steven Uihlein as Mortimer/The Man Who Dies and Jeffrey Sanzel as Henry/The Old Actor both gave powerful performances in their many hilarious roles. The battle scene, where El Gallo, Mortimer, Henry, and Matt got to display their stylized combat skills, was riveting; and Mr. Sanzel, Mr. Hoffman, and Mr. McCoy all got to display their comedic acting talents as they feigned their deaths at the hands of Matt, acting like a knight in shining armor saving the damsel in distress, Luisa.

Over the years, many of the songs in this show have become romantic musical standards, and I could hear the audience happily humming and singing along. Sari Feldman’s breathtaking choreography held the audience spellbound. My personal favorite dance numbers were Round and Round and The Abduction.  

It Depends on What You Pay, a song about a staged kidnapping, has inspired some controversary, and over the years, Mr. Jones, the lyricist, has almost completely rewritten the lyrics.  The original lyrics to the song used the word “rape”, which in the traditional literary sense of the word meant abduction or to take by force.  In this incarnation of the song, and the version Theatre Three used, the word “rape” was replaced by the more appropriate word “raid”.

The fun costumes were designed by Chakira Doherty, sound design was by Tim Haggerty, lighting design by the talented Robert W. Henderson, Jr, and the scenic design was by Randall Parsons.

Theatre Three’s mesmerizing, magical, and memorable performance of the musical theater classic “The Fantasticks” is a must-see!  The show runs through August 15, 2021. For tickets, call the box office: (631) 928-1130, Monday-Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm or visit their websites at www.TheatreThree.com.

Cindi Sansone-Braff is an award-winning playwright.  She has a BFA from UCONN and is a member of the Dramatist Guilds.  She is the author of two self-help books, Grant Me a Higher Love and Why Good People Can’t Leave Bad Relationships.