SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Global Warming "We Are In The Fight Of Our Lives"

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The title is long but what’s being considered are projects that have financial costs with a very long series of dollar numbers. “Coastal Defense Megaprojects in an Era of Sea-Level Rise: Politically Feasible Strategies or Army Corps Fantasies?” is its title.

It is a detailed analysis just out about proposed “megaprojects” involving the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the Corps sees as protecting coastal areas from storms made extremely intense due to global warming or climate change. 

Consider $119,000,000,000. That $119 billion would be used for a plan featuring a series of retractable gates built in a six mile stretch out in the Atlantic Ocean from New Jersey to the Rockaways. Writing in The New York Times in 2021, Ann Barnard reported: “The giant barrier is the largest of five options the Army Corps of Engineers is studying to protect the New York area as storms become more frequent, and destructive, on a warming Earth.” Her article was headlined: “The $119 Billion Sea Wall That Could Defend New York…or Not.”

It continued: “The proposals have sparked fierce debate as New York, like other coastal cities, grapples with the broader question of how and to what degree it must transform its landscape and lifestyle to survive rising seas.”

This scheme was succeeded—after its cost, environmental impacts and practicality were questioned—by what Barnard in The Times described in an article last year as the Army Corps’ “latest vision of how to protect the region from future storms: a $52 billion proposal to build moveable sea barriers across the mouths of major bays and inlets along New York Harbor.” 

“If Congress approved the proposal,” she went on, “the federal government would pay 65 percent” of the $52 billion cost.” The plan, she added, would also include “31 miles of land-based levees, elevated shorelines and sea walls. It would require approval from the state and local governments that would foot the rest of the bill.” 

Whether $119 billion or $52 billion—taxpayers will be deeply affected. 

And also last year, for Long Island Dr. Malcolm Bowman, an oceanography professor at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, presented a study he did that proposed “sea gates” to serve as storm surge barriers at south shore inlets from East Rockaway Inlet on to five other inlets including Fire Island, Moriches and Shinnecock Inlets.

It is titled “Protecting Long Island from Future Sandy Flood Events: A South Shore Sea Gate Study.” The gates would be mostly left open but when a big storm approached, they’d close to prevent storm surges from entering the bays into which the inlets lead.

In presenting his study, funded by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Bowman told the Long Island Regional Planning Board about the “sea gates—“Think of them like a saloon door.” As for cost, he set no figure but acknowledged that the plan would be in the multi-billion dollar range.

That “Coastal Defense Megaprojects in an Era of Sea Level Rise” report in the current issue of the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management of the American Society of Civil Engineers was written by a professor from Rutgers University and two professors from Princeton University—including Dr. Michael Oppenheimer. They conclude: “We are pessimistic that storm surge barriers will be politically feasible climate adaptation options” for reasons including “modern environmental laws that provide avenues for expression of oppositional views within the decision process” and “the allure of alternative options that are more aesthetically pleasing and cheaper and faster to implement even when they do not offer equivalent levels of protection—e.g. green/nature-based solutions.”  Before joining the Princeton faculty, Oppenheimer was for 20 years the chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, launched and long headquartered in Suffolk County.  

In medicine, there’s a focus on the cause, not just the effect, of a disease. These “megaprojects” focus on an effect of global warming, of climate change. Would it not be a wiser—and economically far more practical—to focus on the cause? Instead of the billions upon billions of dollars being proposed to try to deal with an effect, we need to get at the main cause of global warming: the burning of fossil fuels: coal, gas and oil. 

Efforts to combat global warming/climate change—notably a rapid transition to clean, green fuels—have for years not been strong enough. There’s been talk and talk, and some action. But time and again necessary steps have been blocked by vested interests—the coal, gas and oil industries—and politicians in denial of climate change often in the pockets of these industries.

As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared at last year’s COP 27 Climate 

Change Summit: “We are in the fight of our lives, and we are losing. Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing, global temperatures keep rising, and our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible. We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.”

We must, indeed, fully challenge and counter the cause of an existential global illness.

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. 

LI Loud Majority Leader Withdraws Application Leaves Many Questioning How It Happened

By Pat Biancaniello

LI Loud Majority Co-Founder Kevin Smith will not be working for the Town of Smithtown. According to the town Mr. Smith withdrew his application for employment shortly after the January 31st Town Board meeting.

Smith was hired for a part-time position as an AV technician in the Department of Public Safety by the Town Board at its January 3, 2023 board meeting.

The Town Board to approve the following Personnel matters:

1. #21271 Part time appointment of Kevin W. Smith to the position of Audio Visual Production Specialist in the Department of Public Safety, at a rate of pay of $19.91 per hour, not to exceed 1/2 the normal work week, effective January 9, 2023.

The vote to hire was unanimous.

Supervisor Wehrheim at the Jan. 31 st board meeting stated that the position Smith was to fill would require him to film town events at town hall, parks, beaches, conduct interviews, possibly working behind the scenes at board meetings etc. He offered that Smith was not yet hired because a “comprehensive background check” by public safety had not yet been completed.

The January 3rd hiring of Kevin Smith triggered a reaction that no one saw coming. A very public and vocal January 28th protest on the front steps of Town Hall. Approximately 80 protestors carrying American flags and signs called on the Town Board to rescind Kevin Smith’s job offer.

Attendees were apalled that the board would hire a founding member of LI Loud Majority, a group that has been designated an anti-Government extremist group by Southern Poverty Law Center. Attendees spoke about interactions they experienced and witnessed including doxing incidents (releasing personal information over the web), mean spirited and hurtful comments made about Smithtown residents and intimidating and negative comments made about the LGBTQ communities on Smith’s podcast.

Smith addressed the concerns brought up by protesters on his podcast denying being involved in doxing. 

In a follow up to the rally, about 15 people attended the January 31st Town Board Meeting; five people spoke up and urged the board to rescind the job offer. The first speaker Lisa Sevimli is from Patchogue. Ms. Sevimli presented documents she had collected and offered videos she had taken as proof that Smith did not deserve a position working for the Town of Smithtown. Upon learning that the application was withdrawn Sevimli expressed relief she emphasized Kevin Smith’s application withdrawal happened due to the efforts of decent people working together. “We are in a time where democracy matters and must be fought for.”

The job description is worrisome for Barbara Cogniglio, a Smithtown resident,  who spoke out at the meeting about having her personal information posted on the web by members of, and fans of LI Loud Majority, as a response to a letter she wrote printed in Newsday. Ms. Coniglio made this comment about Smith withdrawing his application, “Although I am very glad and relieved that Mr. Smith withdrew his application to be the AV Specialist for the Town of Smithtown’s Public Safety Department, I am still disappointed in the unanimous approval vote by the Town Council in the first place. If Mr. Smith was properly vetted and interviewed, I am having difficulty believing that all Town Council members were unaware that he uses his Loud Majority podcast and social media to intimidate town residents who speak up against him, and to harass the LGBTQ community. “Kindness, empathy, and decency do matter and this is a victory for our community.” Barbara Coniglio, Smithtown resident.

Smithtown’s Democratic Chairperson Patricia Stoddard has been very vocal about the unanimous decision the board made hiring Kevin Smith, “Even though we had a victory in getting Kevin Smith off the payroll we still have a Smithtown Town Board who voted yes unanimously to give him a job in the first place! They should have had the backbone to do the right thing by changing their decision to NO instead of conveniently having Smith ‘decide not to take the position’.” 

Mr. Smith did not respond to a request for a comment.

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.