SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Governor Hochul And Housing

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“Gov. Hochul’s ambitious housing plan meets suburban blockade” was the headline last week in the Gothamist. “Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to build 800,000 new homes over the next 10 years statewide is running into a familiar obstacle: suburbanites,” began the article.

It continued: “Already, local officials in Westchester County, the Hudson Valley and on Long Island are organizing against the central plank of the Democrat’s newly unveiled plan that would set housing production targets for every city, town or village in the state. If a municipality misses the mark, the state could step in and approve new housing development, Hochul said.”

“Suburban leaders,” it went on, “have proved themselves formidable foes; last year they led an organized, sustained public pressure campaign to force Hochul to retreat on a prior proposal that would have allowed single-family homeowners to legally rent out apartments in their attic, basement or garage, regardless of local zoning. Now, the same political forces say Hochul is again overstepping, even though hardly anyone is willing to criticize the plan’s intent of providing housing in areas of the state that desperately need it.”

State Senator Anthony Palumbo from New Suffolk was quoted as saying: “Look, do we need additional housing? Of course we do, but local control is critical.”

Earlier, after Hochul announced her “New York Housing Compact” in her “State of the State” address last month, State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor issued a statement saying that “as the chair of the State Assembly Committee on Local Governments, it is important to offer constructive suggestions now to implement the governor’s vision.” He said “the governor’s proposal alludes to the creation of a state board to overrule local zoning decisions and possible rollbacks to the State Environmental Quality Review Act. Both of these actions are ill-considered. The best way to create affordable housing is with carrots and not sticks and with incentives and not mandates.”

Also, the Gossamist said “speaking to reporters in Rochester…Hochul said she anticipated the opposition from suburban leaders protective of home rule” but declared “I also know that we all have to play our part in solving a crisis, because people want to live in those communities. They want to live in Westchester and Nassau and Suffolk in particular. There’s a lot of jobs down there, and a lot of employers are saying, ‘I can’t get the workers I need.’ We have to have affordable housing to bring them out.”

I first wrote about housing in Suffolk in 1962. It was my first job as a reporter, at the Babylon Town Leader, and garden apartments were coming to the town and there was resistance and fear of Babylon becoming “another Queens.” I was assigned to visit several of the garden apartments and was told by residents that living in a garden apartment was what they could afford and, yes, different than the post-World War II Long Island standard: a house on a plot of land. A general view from neighbors was that the garden apartments fit in their communities.

These days, the affordability issue is far more intense. In 1964, we bought our first house, in Sayville, for $19,000. Even adjusting for inflation, that’s a small fraction of the cost of a house in Suffolk these days. Newsday last week reported the median price of a house in Suffolk in 2022 was $530,000. How can average people and the young afford the skyrocketed price of a house in Suffolk today? 

Our affordable housing situation is not unique. Consider what’s happening on Nantucket, the island east of Suffolk, part of Massachusetts, where an affordable housing battle has been going on. An article in the Daily Mail last month began: “Plans to build an affordable housing complex in Nantucket remain in limbo after locals objected to the scheme, insisting the affluent island does not have the infrastructure or resources for the development.“ What’s been named Surfside Crossing would be condos and homes on 13.5 acres with, it said, “70 percent designated for people who live on the island year-round.”

“The governor proposes a 3 percent new homes target for Long Island over the next three years,” said Thiele. He authored the Peconic Bay Region Community Housing Fund Act approved by voters in the last election that is to be financed with a .5 percent real estate transfer tax to help first-time homebuyers and has advanced a State Accessory Dwelling Unit Incentive Act. “Our region has seen the greatest growth in population in New York State” and “has seen successive development booms, all while still protecting critical natural resources….Local communities do not need to be bludgeoned into action with mandates and state overrides of local decision making. A much more collaborative approach is necessary.”

Long Island Association president and CEO Matt Cohen said last month: “Affordability is the existential crisis facing Long Island and it’s causing young professionals and others to leave because they cannot afford to live here. We must develop creative solutions now.” 

Indeed.

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: LIPA

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

Karl Grossman

The New York State Commission on the Future of the Long Island Power Authority held a series of public hearings in recent months through the LIPA service area—in its far west in the Rockaways, Queens, and in Nassau County then in western Suffolk County and Suffolk’s East End. 

With a few exceptions, people speaking at the five hearings strongly supported LIPA becoming what the vision of it was to be when it was established more than three decades ago: a public power utility running the energy grid here and with an elected board of trustees that would be deciding this region’s energy future.

As State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor, commission co-chair, declared in an “overview” at the opening of its fifth hearing two weeks ago in Southampton: “When LIPA was created by the State Legislature back in the 1980s it had two purposes. One purpose was to close the Shoreham nuclear power plant which it did. The second purpose was to replace LILCO with a full public authority. That never happened.” LIPA “did replace” the Long Island Lighting Company, but instead of itself operating the energy system, a “third party-manager” was contracted to do that—KeySpan, National Grid and currently PSEG. 

“It’s the only third-party manager [utility] system in the country,” said Thiele. And “based on our experience there must be a reason for that.” LIPA was “never given” a chance to be what it was envisioned. He went on: “You know the failures that we’ve seen with the third-party manager system.”

After tropical storm Isaias struck in 2020, not only did many LIPA customers lose power, some for more than a week, but PSEG’s communications systems failed—LIPA customers were unable to find out what was going on—and the commission was subsequently set up.

Its task, as the commission says on its website, is to “develop and present to the legislature an action plan for implementing a true public power model for residents of Long Island and the Rockaways. This means LIPA would directly provide electric service to the more than three million residents and thousands of businesses in its service area without contracting out that responsibility to an investor-owned, for-profit utility.”

It continues: “The goal is to avoid the tens of millions of dollars in annual management fees paid for an outside utility; establish greater transparency and clearer lines of accountability for the safe, reliable, and affordable delivery of electricity to ratepayers; and give LIPA’s customers a greater say in how this essential service is provided. The commission is charged with conducting public hearings, forming and collaborating with an advisory committee of resident stakeholders, and ultimately reporting to the legislature on the specific actions, legislation, and timeline necessary to restructure LIPA into a true publicly owned public authority.” It notes that the “commission is bipartisan” and “comprising four senators and four assembly members” from the LIPA service area.

The fault for not allowing elections of LIPA board trustees involves a Democratic governor of New York—Mario Cuomo, and a Republican one—George Pataki. Cuomo put off elections of LIPA trustees and Pataki formalized that with appointment of the nine trustees. The trustees are named by the governor, State Senate majority leader and State Assembly speaker, none of whom are from the LIPA service area, Thiele noted.  

As to third-party managers brought in to operate the LIPA grid, there was London, England-based National Grid after it acquired KeySpan in 2006. Its LIPA contract was not renewed after 90% of LIPA customers lost electricity when Superstorm Sandy hit in 2012. Mario Cuomo’s son, Andrew, as governor, then brought in PSEG (Public Service Enterprise Group) based in Newark, New Jersey. 

Testimony of speakers at the five hearings included, in December in Smithtown, that of Billy Roberti, a member of the Huntington Town Advisory Committee on Energy Efficiency, Renewables and Sustainability, who said the present system with PSEG as “a middleman between the customer and LIPA does not work.” Monique Fitzgerald of North Bellport, climate justice organizer for the Long Island Progressive Coalition, said “PSEG and their shareholders are only here for profits.” At the hearing in Rockaway, also in December, Joan Flynn, representing Rockaway Women for Progress, said with establishment of LIPA “the idea was to create a democratic entity to manage and plan for power on the island and champion safe, clean, renewable energy….It saddens me and makes me angry to think that corporate greed won out over the well-being of the citizens of Long Island and Rockaway. However, this commission gives us the chance to return to the vision of energy democracy.” One speaker at the hearing in Southampton, Kevin Schrage, an East Moriches electrical contractor, spoke out against election of LIPA trustees and advocated a return to a private model saying “look at the MTA” (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) as an example of government inadequacy. 

Can the dream of a true and democratic public utility here now be reached? PSEG will be lobbying hard in coming months against this, but it’s more possible now than it has been for years.  

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. 

Protesters Say "NO" To Town Employing LI Loud Majority Leader

How do you get elected officials to pay attention to what you have to say? You make noise, you bring together a group of like minded people, make yourself visable, carry signs and make your voices heard. This is what a group of people did Saturday, January 28th.

Protesters began gathering at Town Hall on Main Street in Smithtown around 1:30 and by 2p.m. a crowd of more than  80 people stood ready to call out Supervisor Ed Wehrheim, council members Lisa Inzarillo, Thomas Lohmann, Thomas McCarthy and Lynne Nowick on their decision to hire Kevin Smith, a leader of LI Loud Majority, to a part time position in Smithtown’s Department of Public Safety as an audio-visual tech. 

LI Loud Majority has been designated an extreme anti-government group by Southern Poverty Law Center an organization that tracks hate and anti-government groups. Protesters questioned why Smithtown would give a Smithtown residents calling on Town Supervisor to terminate Kevin Smith’s employment.person so closely aligned with this group, a position (part-time) funded by taxpayer dollars. They are angry that Smith, who they claim has made appearances at Smithtown School Board meetings and Library Board meetings, intimidating people is now an employee. Some expressed fear that Smith might be in a position to video or manipulate video to hurt them. Several people said they have been called out on LI Loud Majority podcasts and at least two people say they have been mentioned on the podcast in a derogatory manner and several expressed fear that they would be doxed by the organization. Smith, on his podcast earlier today, denied that he has ever doxed and stated emphatically that he is not homophobic.  Statements from a speaker at the protest that he was at the January 6th insurrection was also denied on his podcast. Smith claims to have documents showing he was in Maryland at the time.

Smith is unabasdedly vocal in support of certain issues icluding his beliefs in what is appropriate for kids to see in the library, and what is taught in school, vaccine mandates and election results. He is a Zeldin, Trump fan, he supported candidates in the Smithtown Library Board election.

Smithtown Democratic leader Patty Stoddard questioned Smith’s hiring. She recalled Supervisor Wehrheim’s concern for Smithtown’s economic future  ”… with Smithtown in financial disarray, this Town Board has the audacity to keep finding the money to hire their connected cronies like Kevin Smith, of the Long Island Loud Mouths. Here’s a guy who doesn’t even live in Smithtown, who lobs insults about our school children, who insinuates that our teachers are pedophiles, who spews ugly garbage throughout our town, getting a plum job that comes with a pension. Was he hired because he raised money for Supervisor Wehrheim? Or is it because he has an apparent relationship with a top town official? 

News 12 has attributed a statement to Supervisor Wherheim stating that Kevin Smith’s employment applcation is still under review. 

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: George Santos Scandal Is Not Going Away

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Congressman SantosOn CNN last week, in a discussion about serial liar and now U.S. Representative George Santos, Heather Caygle, managing editor of the Punchbowl News, said: “More revelations are coming out.” Francesca Chambers, Washington correspondent for USA Today, followed up by saying: “It’s not going away.”

Indeed, the Santos scandal is not going away.

Never, since I started as a journalist based on Long Island in 1962, has there been so much strongly critical national coverage of a member of the U.S. Congress from this area. Not even close.  

And deservedly.

On the local level, as Suffolk County Republican Chairman Jesse Garcia said in a statement he issued last week: “George Santos’ lies and deceit have caught up to him, and the public has had enough of Mr. Santos. He is not welcome in our Republican Party and it is time for him to resign from the House of Representatives.” 

Suffolk County would have been, and long was, part of the 3^rd Congressional District which Santos was elected to represent. But six months before Election Day, a court order led to the district being reconfigured for a second time. Huntington Town and a chunk of Smithtown were cut out and its portions in Nassau County and Queens expanded.

A day before the Suffolk GOP chairman’s statement, a large grouping of Nassau Republican leaders and officials held a press conference at Nassau GOP headquarters calling for Santos to resign.

Said Nassau Republican Chairman Joseph Cairo: “He deceived the voters of the 3^rd Congressional District, he deceived the members of the Nassau County Republican Committee, elected officials, his colleagues, candidates, his opponents, and even some of the media. His lies were not mere fibs….His fabrications went too far. Many groups were hurt. He has no place in the Nassau County Republican Committee, nor should he serve in public service as an elected official. He’s not welcome here at Republican headquarters for meetings or at any of our events. He’s disgraced the House of Representatives, and we do not consider him one of our congresspeople.”

Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin called Santos a “joke.” Said Clavin: “On behalf of all the board members, and, frankly, the 750,000 residents living in the Town of Hempstead, it’s time to go. You see a unified voice here. He’s unified the country in their opposition to him. He’s a national joke. He’s an international joke. But this joke’s got to go.”

Indeed, Santos has become a joke.

On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS-TV last week, Colbert commented: “Santos has a long history of stretching the truth by never telling it. That’s so disappointing. I would expect more from the man who invented the automobile.”

Colbert said the “walls appear to be closing in” on Santos after the Republican press conference earlier in the day. He said: “In response to this stunning rebuke from his own party, Santos told reporters on Capitol Hill that he ‘will not’ resign.” But considering that what Santos says is repeatedly untrue, this, said Colbert, “means that he is going to resign.”

At this writing, it doesn’t seem likely.

It’s not just his thoroughly make-believe resume now at issue. As the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center said in a complaint it filed with the Federal Election Committee last week: “Particularly in light of Santos’ mountain of lies about his life and qualifications for office, the commission should thoroughly investigate what appears to be equally brazen lies about how his campaign raised and spent money.” The complaint raised the issue of “unknown individuals” having “illegally funneled money” into Santos’ campaign. It accused Santos of using campaign funds for personal expenses including rent on an apartment in Huntington.

Investigations into Santos now include those by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York, the New York State attorney general, and the district attorneys of Nassau County and Queens, and authorities. Also, authorities in Brazil are seeking to revive a fraud case against Santos.

The House of Representatives has the power to expel a member, but a major factor here is its new speaker, Kevin McCarthy of California, whom Santos voted for. McCarthy declared about Santos last week: “The voters elected him to serve.” Key to this, said chief CNN political correspondent Dana Bash, on the panel on the “Inside Politics” CNN segment with Caygle and Chambers, is what a Santos departure would mean to McCarthy. If Santos is expelled and a special election held in the Democratic-leaning 3^rd C.D. and a Democrat wins, without Santos McCarthy would be down a vote in the four-vote margin, she noted, that got him elected speaker. And, with a new House rule just approved, a single member can call for a new election for speaker—thus that vote could be repeated. The vote on the 15^th ballot was 218 for McCarthy, 214 for Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn.

Jefferies last week called Santos “a complete and total fraud” who “lied to the voters” of the 3^rd C.D. and “deceived and connived his way to Congress.”

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: George Santos

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Congressman George Santos (R) CD 3There have been many excellent representatives in New York’s 3^rd Congressional Districts which for many years included Suffolk County—taking in Huntington Town and a chunk of Smithtown. But just months before last year’s election, in May, as a result of a court-ordered second redistricting of the 3^rd C.D., Suffolk was removed and the district’s segments in Nassau and Queens expanded.

Fine representatives through the years included, on the Republican side, Peter King, a former straight-shooting Nassau County comptroller, and on the Democratic side, Robert Mrazek, a former Suffolk legislator; Jerome Ambro, who’d been supervisor of Huntington Town; Steve Israel, a former deputy to the Suffolk County executive; and until the start of this year, Tom Suozzi, a former Nassau County executive. 

And now has come George Santos!

Integrity is something we look for in government leaders—especially when it comes to high federal positions as members of the U.S. Congress. These are tremendously important posts with the power to take our money through taxes and our lives—by declaring war.

Santos fabricated a thoroughly phony history of himself in running in the 3^rd C.D and has continued to lie through last week. As a column in The Washington Post began: “Even by the lower standards for truth-telling in politics, the scope of the falsehoods from the newly elected House Republican has been breathtaking.”

Newsday in an editorial two weeks ago got it right. “Disgraced Santos should step aside,” was its title. “The blathering and evasive non-explanations now uttered by George Devolder-Santos for his invented back story convince us more than ever that he’s uniquely unfit to serve in Congress….Santos has been caught lying to a bizarre degree—about success in finance, about having degrees from college and grad school, about owning real estate. He’s even gratuitously dissembled for years about such personal matters as his religion and his domestic involvement. Now Santos admits to some astonishing fakery but is still defensively dodging.” 

“Anyone who lies so blithely about who he is or what he does cannot be trusted with public power,” declared Newsday.

Newsday described him as a “serial fabulist.”

Last week, as the House of Representatives wrestled for days about who would be its new speaker and thus was unable to do any other work—including having new members sworn in, Santos issued public statements saying he had been sworn in and also that he voted as a House member on five bills as early as December 22, before he was to take a seat. Reporting on this, the news site Alternet pointed to how Santos “has a long list of lies attached to his name, and that list continues to grow by the day.” 

As the person he is supposed to replace in the House, Tom Suozzi, in a piece last week in The New York Times, wrote: “I’m being succeeded by a con man.” Just out in The Atlantic magazine is a piece by Steve Israel titled: “How a Perfectly Normal New York Suburb Elected a Con Man.”

As another former 3^rd C.D. representative, Peter King, said last week in Newsday, security issues are involved.  “No one will be able to trust him or believe him. It would be risky to share any information with him,” said King, particularly about “national security or homeland security.”

            “Do you have no shame?” asked Tulsi Gabbard, a former House member from Hawaii, declared in a TV interview with Santos last month.

But Santos has no shame. His brazenness is matched only by his complete lack of sensitivity to his situation. A story in Newsday on his first days as an “outcast” at the Capitol. When Santos balloted a vote for speaker, there was a cry from a member: “Mentiroso!” (Liar in both Portugese and Spanish.) 

To be given credit for first exposing Santos is a small Nassau County newspaper, the North Shore Leader. “The Leader Told You So,” is the headline of an article by Niall Fitzgerald now on its website. It begins: “In a story first broken by the North Shore Leader over four months ago, the national media has suddenly discovered that U.S. Congressman-elect George Santos…is a deepfake liar.”

The journalism of the North Shore Leader demonstrates the importance of investigative reporting on the local level. It was only after the election that The New York Times ran a front-page expose on Santos which has set off enormous media attention. 

Santos is being investigated by the Nassau and Queens district attorneys and faces state and federal inquiries. As Linda Lacewell, a former federal prosecutor, wrote in the New York Daily News last week: “Santos may face a dilemma if federal investigators ultimately ask to interview him. Will he take the Fifth Amendment? If not, is he capable of telling the truth? If he lies over the course of a federal investigation about a material matter and it’s deliberate, that could be a separate federal offense…”

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.