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.

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP : Cost Of Building Sand Castles On Water $3 Billion

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

This is where I came in. It was 1962 and I had started as a reporter and writing about a new plan of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—its Fire Island to Montauk Point project. The scheme: to dump mammoth amounts of sand and construct up to 50 rock jetties called groins along 83 miles of Suffolk County’s south shore. 

New York public works czar Robert Moses was pushing, as an addition to the plan, building a four-lane highway the length of roadless Fire Island. The highway, he claimed, would “anchor” the beach. Moses was stopped by creation in 1964 of the Fire Island National Seashore.

The would-be Moses highway is long dead but 59 years later surviving is the planned Army project, with the acronym FIMP—and it’s now scheduled to fully begin next year.

It’s no longer estimated to cost in the millions of dollars. The price has now gone up to “more than $3 billion.” As U.S. Representatives Lee Zeldin and Andrew Garbarino from Suffolk stated in a press release last month, the “initial” cost will be “more than $1.5 billion, paid for entirely through federal funding. The renourishment cost for the project separately totals approximately $1.5 billion, 50% of which will be federally funded. From start to finish, the FIMP project will total more than $3 billion.” 

As to the other 50% of the “approximately $1.5 billion” of the “renourishment cost”—where’s that money to come from? That would be a “local” obligation to come from the state, Suffolk County and the towns where the “renourishment” take place.

“Renourishment” and “nourishment” are words developed to describe dumping of sand on beaches. The FIMP project now, says Kevin McAllister, founder and president of the Sag Harbor-based organization Defend H20, is mainly a “sand plan” focused on sand-dumping.

Mr. McAllister is critical of this because the “average life span” for sand dumped on a beach, he says, “is three to four years” for it to remain. So after dumped sand washes away, there needs to be regular “renourishment.” The FIMP project narrative says there would be “periodic renourishment every 4 years for a 30-year period.”

An illuminating report on sand-dumping on beaches was issued by the U.S. Senate in 2009 and titled: “Washed Out to Sea: How Congress Prioritizes Beach Pork Over National Needs.” It begins: “Many Americans are unaware that their government has spent billions of dollars on beach projects knowing they will simply wash out to sea. Known as ‘beach nourishment,’ this misplaced ‘priority’ is an effort at various beach locations that pumps offshore sand-type sediment onto beaches.” It says: “This investigative report examines why federal funding” of this “is a short-sighted and inefficient use of taxpayer dollars.”  It’s online at https://www.restoreaccountability.com/sites/restoreacc/uploads/documents/library_docs/200905SenCoburnReportWashedouttosea00.pdf

The FIMP project no longer involves placement of groins. That turned out to be disastrous. In early work between 1965 and 1970 some 15 groins were placed along the Westhampton Beach shoreline. They disrupted the “littoral drift” of sand moving east to west in the ocean and left the coast to the west sand-starved. Beach houses were lost. There was a lawsuit and a $80 million settlement. Indeed, part of the new FIMP scheme involves removal of two groins at Ocean Beach on Fire Island to “allow sand to follow” the littoral drift. 

Also, it provides for the “elevation” of 3,675 structures, “floodproofing” of 650 and “acquisition” of 14.” And it offers “sand bypassing” at Fire Island, Moriches and Shinnecock inlets to maintain “littoral transport of sediment” of sand otherwise sucked into the inlets.

Marine scientist McAllister was featured last month in what he called a “Beach Science 101” presentation sponsored by the North Fork Environmental Council. It’s on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9OZqhBV5fI&t=4s  In it he presents photos from all over Suffolk of bulkheads, blocks of sandbags, rock revetments and other “hard structures” that have been going up “right and left” along bays and oceanfront and which, he emphasizes, are disrupting natural systems and causing adjacent beaches to shrink. They included photos of bulkheads on the Nissequoque shore. 

Mr. McAllister says it is “inevitable” that the FIMP project “will unravel both physically and financially. Demand will outpace the Army Corps’ ability to deliver sand when every coastal community up and down the East Coast is in line and back in line….Perpetual sand replenishment is both economically and environmentally unsustainable.” And, he predicts a public “awakening” when that so-called “renourishment” phase is to happen and the “local financial obligation kicks in and hits home with taxpayers. Long Island politicians need to stop kicking the can and give some tough love—and develop and execute withdrawal/rollback plans for vulnerable areas without further delay.”

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: President's Cup 2021

By Jerry Gentile

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This past weekend’s weather was full of surprises. Saturday morning was a very hot, sticky, humid, uncomfortable one. Sunday morning was overcast, a little cooler and more manageable. Neither day bothered the eventual winners of the prestigious President’s Cup for 2021. 

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Ed Haliasz and Richard Glasheen In a stunning comeback victory the team of Ed Haliasz and Richard Glasheen (see photo) defeated Bob Pogoloff and Mel Vizzini,  1 Up.

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Down by three (3) after nine holes, and down by (2) after fourteen, Haliasz and Glasheen fought back to tie the match on hole 17. Richard Glasheen scored three 4s on holes 16, 17 and 18 (with shots) to secure a 1 Up victory. Ed Haliasz (0 hdcp.) who was giving away several strokes, shot a 37 on the back nine and a total excellent score 77 in the victory. It was truly a two man effort and a great win.

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Congratulations to them and Mel and Pogie in a gutsy losing effort.  

St James-Smithtown LL 10 Year-Old Softball Division Heading To State Championship

Well they did it again!  This time the 10-year-olds are heading to Rochester to play in the State Championship!  

St James-Smithtown Little League 10 year old softball division has been participating in the Williamsport Little League Tournament since June.  They have gone undefeated winning every game and outscoring opponents 67-8 over 6 games. 

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In the first round of the tournament the team defeated Saville and ISLIP to capture the District 35 Little league Championship. 

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In the second round of the tournament they defeated East Hampton, Huntington Tri - Village and East Meadow to win the Section 4E NY State Championship. 

The team now has the opportunity to represent Long Island at the State Championship for the 10 year old division.

Isabella Russo, pitched all 6 games of the tournament going 6 - 0.

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The girls on the team are: Isabella Russo, Brooke Hanson, Anna Marie Ingoglia, Casey Connelly, Riley Connelly, Sydney Wetstein, Jiselle Singh, Gabrielle Krayeweski, Emily Coffey, Jayden Melville, Nadia Tomitz, Vanessa Borowski, Margaret Heller, Azra Sciortino.

Kudos to all of the players and Manager Peter Russo, Coach Sean Singh, Coach Rich Tomitz, Coach Eric Hanson.

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Section 4E is made up of Eastern Suffolk County, Mid Suffolk County, Western Suffolk County, and Central Nassau County.

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* The team will be traveling to Rochester on Monday to compete in a week long championship tournament.