SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Nikola Tesla Genius Inventor A Part Of LI History

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

In coming days, structures which were added to Nikola Tesla’s laboratory in Shoreham will be taken down in what is to be a return of the historic laboratory to “its original state when Tesla worked there,” says Jane Alcorn. “Within the next two years,” Alcorn said, her hope is that the laboratory is restored to what it was when Tesla was there.

Alcorn, founder of the project to create a Tesla science center and museum at what was his laboratory, said there are to be exhibits including “replicas of Tesla’s equipment” in the elegant red brick building designed by Tesla’s friend, famed architect Stanford White.

And in Suffolk County, the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe will become a reality.

Nikola Tesla was a genius inventor. 

These days most people when they hear the word Tesla, probably think of the Tesla car—which, indeed, Elon Musk named after him.

But, as Princeton University Press, which published Tesla, Inventor of the Electrical Age, states: “Nikola Tesla was a major contributor to the electrical revolution that transformed daily life at the turn of the twentieth century. His inventions, patents, and theoretical work formed the basis of modern AC electricity, and contributed to radio and television.” It is authored by Dr. W. Bernard Carlson, professor of science, technology, and society at the University of Virginia.

The world would adopt alternating current or AC, although Thomas Edison, whom Tesla, of Serbian background, worked for after he came to the U.S., pushed for direct current or DC. There were conflicts between the two over this. 

And Tesla was responsible for far more inventions including hydroelectric power, forms of remote control and the bladeless turbine. As for radio. Guglielmo Marconi is generally credited with originating radio, but the U.S. Supreme Court, after Tesla’s death in 1943, determined that much of Marconi’s work was based on 17 Tesla patents.

Tesla went to Shoreham to pursue his vision of providing wireless electricity—for free—to people around the world. “Tesla was convinced that he could set up stationary waves in the Earth and transmit power and messages,” relates Carlson. Tesla received a $150,000 loan from “the most powerful man on Wall Street, J.P. Morgan…to support his wireless work.”

Why Shoreham?  Tesla “was approached by James S. Warden, a lawyer and banker from Ohio who had relocated to Suffolk County,” bought farmland and “christened his property Wardenclyffe.” He offered Tesla land which is just to the north of Route 25A in Shoreham. 

In addition to the laboratory, a giant tower—187 feet tall—visible from Connecticut, was built. Below the tower a deep “ground connection” was dug. “In many ways, Wardenclyffe was the fulfillment of Tesla’s dreams. For nearly a decade he had been planning in his imagination a system for broadcasting power around the world, and now that system was taking shape in the real world,” writes Swanson. But then Morgan pulled out of the undertaking and Tesla faced huge financial problems. The tower was demolished in 1917. 

“Tesla’s long-held dream was to create a source of inexhaustible, clean energy that was free for everyone. He strongly opposed centralized coal-fired power stations that spewed carbon dioxide into the air that humans breathed,” wrote Stephen Dark in 2020 on the Australia-based website The Fifth Estate. “Tesla was so far ahead of his time.”

There are pieces online about research in modern times based on Tesla’s work at Wardenclyffe. His idea of wireless electricity lives on. 

A decade ago, I presented a TV program from Wardenclyffe for Long Island’s WVVH-TV. You can view it on YouTube by inputting “Saving Nikola Tesla’s Laboratory” and my name. 

Late this summer, the plan is to open a visitor’s center on the 16-acre site, said Alcorn. Nearly $10 million, she said, has been raised since the campaign began in 2012 to save Tesla’s laboratory. This includes $1 million from Musk. The funds have come from all over the world. For further information, visit https://teslasciencecenter.org/

Former New York State Assemblyman Marc Alessi is executive director of the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe. He notes the challenge “amid the crisis” of COVID-19 to turn “the site of Nikola Tesla’s last remaining laboratory into a transformative global science center that embraces his bold spirit of invention, provides learning experiences, fosters the advancement of new technologies, and preserves his legacy…” But, says Alessi, support has come from the project’s “global community…now over 150,000 strong.”

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. 

Smithtown Is Horse Country And The Horsewomen Of Smithtown LOVE IT!!!

Linda Henninger’s horse JoeyBy Stacey Altherr

For some women, an enjoyable day might mean some shopping and lunch with friends. For horse lovers, it’s a day of mucking the stall, filling water and grain buckets, and laying down hay. Although, admittedly, both involve shoe purchases.

All over Smithtown, women are owning, leasing, and caring for horses, both in their own yards as well as in borrowed barns.

There is no real tally, but the bucolic parklands and the larger lot sizes, as well as the town’s lenient codes for keeping horses on private property, makes Smithtown an easier place to own and ride horses. And there are places to ride as well. Blydenburgh Park, a county park on Veteran’s Highway in Smithtown, allows for extensive bridle paths and practice ring (with permit) as does Sunken Meadow State Park, and it is not unusual to see horseback riders clopping along the streets.

Linda Henninger and JoeyFor Linda Henninger, a Fort Salonga resident, her love of horses started at nine years old, and as a teen, she worked in barns for riding time. But as an adult, raising a family and obligations meant she took a 30-year break from riding.

“I was dating, and about three years ago, I went horseback riding on a date,” three years ago, she said. “I forgot how much I loved it.”

The date may not have been a great success, but she had a new love. She started riding at a nearby barn, and met Joey, who is now a 9-year-old gelding.*

“I fell in love with him,” she says. “And I bought him.”

Keeping a horse is expensive, but many of the women who keep them, either on their property or at a nearby barn, find ways to make it work.  

“You can go to one that has indoor arena, or show barns,” she says. “There are lots of options. Some lease out the horse for a day or two a week to hep pay the bills.”

Costs for leasing a barn for a horse can be expensive; anywhere from $600 to more than $2,000 a month, although Henninger says the average is about $1,000.

Caring for a horse can be expensive; feeding, housing, and the vet bills. For those who compete, the cost can be even higher.

Kristen Latuga, 39, a special education math teacher in Brentwood, moved to Smithtown ten years ago, spurred Kristen Latuga’s horses Miracolo, meaning Miracle, and Presiosa, meaning precious.by her desire to keep her horses, Miracolo and Preziosa, on her property. Sometimes, she will trailer them to Blydenburgh County Park for a ride. She has other horses and a pony she keeps at a friend’s property. Latuga rides either in her backyard or with her neighbor, who also has a horse.

“It’s expensive, it’s time consuming, but at the same time, it’s the most rewarding experience,” she says. “Smithtown is quite amazing. Nobody knows how many barns there are, but there’s a ton. It’s a real horse community.”

Smithtown’s town codes are quite horse-friendly, allowing for one horse per half-acre, two horses per three-quarters acre and three horses per acre.

Sally Lynch, who lives in and owns a small tack shop in St. James, and who is also the President of Old Field Farm, a not-for-profit in nearby Brookhaven Town where many residents of Smithtown ride, says she is always Joey in the snowsurprised by the residents who come in and say they have horses. Lynch says a survey done around 1997 showed horse owning as a billion-dollar business. Old Field Farm holds horse shows with less entry fees than some of the larger ones- think Bridgehampton Horse Show – and doesn’t charge spectators. Many horse people who ride there come from Smithtown, she says.

“You drive down streets in Smithtown and you see the cozy little barns in people’s backyards, and it’s wonderful.”

But the one problem is where to ride.

“What is sorely needed is new equestrian centers,” Lynch says. “How can the open space benefit the public?”

Many are hoping the town includes some of the old Gyrodyne property for equestrian purposes. Lynch believes, with the popularity at the Old Field Farm, it could bring a lot of money from both riders and spectators to the recreational spot. 

Horsewoman Nettie LiburtNettie Liburt, 46, was just about born to be a horsewoman. She was two years old when she would ride a horse of a neighbor in Orient. She says she learned to ride in her friend’s backyard in Orient as well, and in college, she rode for the equestrian team. After working in broadcasting, she decided to follow her heart, and studied animal science focusing on equine exercise psychology. She now works for Buckeye Nutrition, a feed company for horses.

Liburt’s current horse is at a private barn in Nissequogue on the waterfront.

“My horse has a much fancier address than I do,” she says with a laugh.

While riding can be a solitary activity, social circles emerge. 

“You put a couple of horse people in the room, and they will talk about horses non-stop,” she says. Nettie Liburt rides one of her horses she keeps in her property

  While horse care can be expensive, there are ways to ease the burden. Many lease their horses a few days a week for other riders who don’t want to own a horse but want to ride. Others take on second jobs. But it’s clear that the love of horses in Smithtown is here to stay.

“You need to do things you love, right?” says Henninger. “It’s a real passion for people who love their horses.”

*Edited to gelding from stallion

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Redistricting To Benefit Political Parties A Sorry U.S. Tradition

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Back 15 years ago Suffolk County became the first county in New York State to enact a law to have reapportionment—the word redistricting is now favored—done in a non-partisan manner. “A Local Law to Ensure a Non-Partisan, Fair and Objective Process by Which Legislative Districts are Reapportioned,” was the title of the 2007 measure.

It was authored by then Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy who in his prior positions as county legislator and State Assembly member was familiar with—and long-bothered by—redistricting being a highly partisan undertaking. 

Congressional districts and state and county legislative districts are redrawn every 10 years following the decennial national census which produces new population figures.

Redistricting done to favor a political party is a sorry U.S. tradition first given the name gerrymandering in 1812. The word was coined by the Boston-Gazette to describe reapportionment under a Massachusetts governor named Elbridge Gerry. The “mandering” part came from a State Senate district that looked like a salamander.

In gerrymandering, a district gets packed with voters of one party—even if geographic contortions make it look like a salamander. 

Under the Suffolk law, following the national census a Reapportionment Commission is to be established. The majority and minority leaders of the Suffolk Legislature are to evenly divide filling it with four retired judges, two representatives from groups “committed to the principles of voters’ rights” and two from “publicly recognized minority organizations.” (A component historically of gerrymandering has been racial and ethnic minorities being spread among districts to preclude election of a minority person.)

Levy tried while a county legislator a decade earlier to get a similar measure passed but it got nowhere. With clout as Suffolk County executive, he was able to resurrect it and seek a bipartisan coalition on the legislature to pass it.

He held a press conference in 2011, the year the Suffolk law took effect, along with then New York City Mayor Ed Koch who had been crusading for non-partisan redistricting statewide. Both emphasized a need for redistricting reform statewide. Levy commented that the 150 districts of the State Assembly had been “so gerrymandered over the years to be so Republican or so Democrat [that] only 11 percent are considered competitive.” With “wink-with-nods,” he said, politicians had “rigged” the system to make it extremely difficult for newcomers to challenge incumbents. That’s another component of gerrymandering—continuing throughout the U.S. 

Indeed, a lead story on Page 1 of The New York Times last week was headlined: “New Voting Maps Erase Competitive House Seats.” The February 7^th article began: “The number of competitive congressional districts is on track to dive near—and possibly below—the lowest level in at least three decades, as Republicans and Democrats draw new political maps designed to ensure that the vast majority of House races are over before the general election starts.” It said “mapmakers are on pace to draw fewer than 40 seats—out of 435—that are considered competitive.” This is a reason cited in the push for term limits. 

In 2014, voters in New York passed a constitutional amendment creating a 10-member New York State Independent Redistricting Commission. But the commission failed to achieve a consensus in 2021 on new districts. So, the Democratic majorities in the State Assembly and Senate moved ahead with their own plan.  

In Suffolk last year, the deadline for the appointment of a full complement of members of its Reapportionment Commission was missed, said the legislature’s presiding officer, Democrat Rob Calarco. So, its Democratic majority passed its own redistricting plan.

Thus, in Suffolk and the state, both redistricting commission initiatives failed last year. 

This year, following a Republican majority taking control of the Suffolk Legislature, a deal was struck between Democratic County Executive Steve Bellone and the legislature’s new presiding officer, GOPer Kevin McCaffrey, to revive Suffolk’s Reapportionment Commission and have it come up with a plan for the 18 county legislative districts in coming months.

Meanwhile, the new state redistricting map is moving forward although there’s a Republican lawsuit challenging it. 

And for Suffolk County, it’s salamander time for House seats. 

Details on that next week.

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- Will Governor Hochul "Engage" On Public Power

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“We are not giving up on public power,” declared State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. last week in a presentation before Long Island Metro Business Action titled “Should LIPA be a Municipal Power Company?”

Thiele spoke how “the goal of replacing LILCO with a real municipal power company” envisioned by the act passed in 1986 by the State Legislature creating the Long Island Power Authority was never achieved. Instead, a “third-party management model” was adopted in which LIPA has “contracted with a private entity” to operate Long Island’s electrical system.

The set-up is “the only one of its kind in the United States of America,” said Thiele.

The original vision for LIPA was further “hijacked” in 2013 when then Governor Andrew Cuomo pushed “the so-called LIPA Reform Act.”

“I voted no,” he said of the measure, “and it was one of the best ‘no’ votes I ever cast.”

Under the scheme promoted by Cuomo, LIPA was “stripped down” and PSEG, the private company which in recent years has run the Long Island electric grid for LIPA, received more clout and became the “least-regulated, with the least oversight, of any utility across the nation.”

Thiele detailed failures in performance by PSEG during Tropical Storm Isaias in 2020 and the failure of its predecessor private firm running LIPA’s grid, National Grid, in Super-Storm Sandy in 2012.  The third-party management model “has proven time and again it has not worked,” he said. 

The National Grid Sandy debacle was the ostensible reason for Cuomo to engineer “behind closed doors” bringing in Newark, New Jersey-based PSEG and for putting together the LIPA Reform Act which not only continued but expanded the LIPA structure of depending on a private company.

It’s high time, said Thiele of Sag Harbor, for a return to the original vision of LIPA being a public power entity. He detailed how he and State Senator James Gaughran of Northport, joined by other state lawmakers, are seeking to have LIPA operate the electric grid itself.

Reinforcing Thiele’s critical comments about the big problems of LIPA contracting out to a private company running the electric grid was Dr. Peter Gollon, a former member of the LIPA board of trustees. Gollon, at the teleconference Friday, said “I agree” with the assemblyman’s points. He said the private contractors “not only have a difference in interest, they don’t have competence.” He said “LIPA staff has the competence to run the utility.” Dr. Gollon, who lives in Huntington Station and is also former energy chair of the Long Island Sierra Club, said he wanted to “give a perspective from the inside.”

Thiele and Gaughran are sponsoring a measure creating a Legislative Commission on the Future of the Long Island Power Authority to lead to a “restructuring” of LIPA.

It would be composed of members of the Assembly and the Senate, and there would be an advisory board with wide-ranging representation to assist the commission. It would hold numerous public hearings. “Our goal is to try to get this all done by April 2023,” he said.

He said the move to bring LIPA back to its initial concept would be “modeled on the process we used to put together” the Long Island Pine Barrens Protection Act in 1993, which has succeeded in preserving more than 100,000 acres of pine barrens. This process brought together environmentalists, business people and governmental representatives. Likewise, on electricity on Long Island we must “have a solution that comes from the bottom up rather than the top down.”

Last year, LIPA conducted its own study on “options” that concluded that there would be “potential savings” of “$65 to $75 million a year” and higher “reliability” if it operated the grid itself. But Cuomo, he said, “short-circuited” further consideration, and LIPA, with the majority of its board appointed by the governor, voted for an extension of its contract with PSEG. Thiele said the contract has “an opt-out clause.”

Asked by several attendees at his presentation about the position of Cuomo’s successor as New York governor, Kathy Hochul. Thiele, a member of the State Assembly for 13 terms, said Hochul becoming governor has “been a breath of fresh air.” She has shown to be “cooperative and collaborative.” He said: “We certainly want to engage with the governor’s office.”

After years of Cuomo’s heavy-handed manipulations of LIPA, long needed is a governor sensitive to the peoples’ will and the intentions of the legislation that created LIPA.

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 - Zeldin And Suozzi Want To Be NYS's Next Governor

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Two of the three members of the House of Representatives who represent Suffolk County are intending to leave their House seats for runs to be the governor of New York State.

Will either Lee Zeldin or Tom Suozzi make it to Albany? 

Republican Zeldin will certainly get the GOP designation. 

Having announced back in April of last year that he was running for governor, he’s been actively criss-crossing the state ever since. And as early as June, the New York Post reported: “New York State Republican Party leaders anointed Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin as their ‘presumptive nominee’ for governor following a straw poll” in which “an overwhelming 85 percent of county leaders said they backed Zeldin while only five percent preferred former Westchester County Executive and 2014 [Republican] gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino.”

In reaction, Zeldin said: “Since announcing our candidacy for governor, together we’ve built a groundswell of support inside and outside of politics from every corner of our state.”

But what about the general election in a state in which Democratic voters outnumber Republican voters two-to-one and Zeldin being a big cheerleader for Donald Trump? 

The heading of an editorial in the Oneonta Star: “GOP can offer more than just Trump acolytes.” It described Zeldin as a “hardcore Trump loyalist” and declared: “As one of those who voted to steal the 2020 election from President Joe Biden based on Trump’s Big Lie, Zeldin would be a non-starter for most New York voters and would face a withering barrage of attacks from Democrats for his role in the deadly insurrection—as well he should.”

Downstate, Katie Glueck in The New York Times wrote that “any Republican, especially one closely tied to Mr. Trump, would face an extraordinarily uphill battle running statewide n New York. And there is no doubt about how deeply Mr. Zeldin has embraced Mr. Trump and his politics, including by voting to overturn the results of the November election, a stance that would instantly disqualify him in the eyes of many voters should he make it to a general election.”

“As a radical right-wing member of the Republican Party, he just has no broad-based appeal in a state like New York,” state Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs has said.

Zeldin, an attorney from Shirley, was a New York state senator between 2011 and 2014 when he was elected to the House of Representatives. He represents the lst Congressional District which includes all of the Town of Brookhaven, most of Smithtown, a slice of Islip and all five East End towns. Elections to all House seats and the one for New York governor happen this year, so Zeldin needs to forget about a House re-election bid if he is the candidate for governor.

So would Democrat Tom Suozzi. 

Mr. Suozzi is a two-term House member who was Nassau County executive from 2002 to 2009. An attorney and CPA from Glen Cove, he has a reputation as a reformer—he created in 2004, for example, FixAlbany.com. He represents the 3^rd C.D. which includes northwestern Suffolk including Huntington, Northport and Commack, and to their west a broad swath of northern Nassau and Queens counties.

In November he announced he’s running for governor as a “common-sense Democrat,” but, as Chris Sommerfeldt noted in the New York Daily News, Governor Kathy Hochul has a “similarly centrist campaign platform.” 

She replaced Andrew Cuomo after his resignation becoming the first woman governor in  New York State history. Also, she is the first Upstater who has been the state’s governor, according to the Democrat & Chronicle of Rochester, since Nathan Miller of Cortland County, governor between 1921 and 1922—100 years ago! Hochul, an attorney, is from Hamburg, 14 miles south of Buffalo. She was on the Hamburg Town Board, was Erie County clerk, served in the House of Representatives from 2011 to 2013 and was lieutenant governor from 2015 until becoming governor in 2021.

She has been highly active as governor—getting around and speaking out and receiving major press coverage. She’s done well in Democratic polls and fundraising. Democrats Letitia James, the New York attorney general, and former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, have dropped out of running for governor. Jay Jacobs has endorsed Hochul and is concerned about primaries drawing from “precious resources” and “making us weaker in a year where we need to be strongest.”

Also, there is concern among Democrats that without incumbent Suozzi, the 3^rd C.D. will be vulnerable to the GOP and a loss might lead to Democrats losing their House majority in elections this year. Still, Suozzi has stayed in the gubernatorial contest and just released his first TV ad.

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.