Suffolk Closeup - Surgeon, Professor, SC Legislator And African American

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Dr. William R. Spencer is among the most distinguished public officials in Suffolk County history. He is a pediatric surgeon, the first doctor to be a member of the Suffolk County Legislature in its 50 years, and also an ordained minister. First elected to the legislature in 2011, he is especially known for leading the panel in taking action on smoking including getting the legal age for buying cigarettes and other tobacco products in Suffolk to 21. 

Dr. Spencer is chief of otolaryngology at Huntington Hospital, a clinical professor at Stony Brook University Hospital and past president of the Suffolk County Medical Society.

He is an African-American. With a prayer he opened a meeting earlier this month of the legislature’s Public Safety Committee, held in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota and amid protests through the nation and Suffolk. 

And 12 minutes into the meeting Dr. Spencer, of Centerport, shared with his fellow members of the committee some experiences he has had with police as a black man. He began by saying he has the “utmost respect and admiration” for police but “at the end of the day there are still individuals” among police who are highly problematic.

“I can share my personal experience as someone who has always been law-abiding,” said Dr. Spencer. “I can honestly say as a 52-year-old man that I have been pulled over at least 50 times over the course of my life. I’ve been called ‘boy.’ I’ve had guns drawn. I’ve had a gun held to me and it’s from law enforcement.” 

“So, when I get pulled over even in Suffolk County until the point when that officer recognizes who I am, I’m terrified. I am terrified. I was with my son. I got pulled over. And, again, the officer was absolutely professional, but still, I’m faced with that.”

If you would like to listen to Dr. Spencer’s words yourself, the video of the meeting is online at https://livestream.com/scnylegislature/events/8960413/videos/207010190

At the session was Stuart Cameron, the highest uniformed officer in the Suffolk County Police Department. Dr. Spencer went on to ask him about “your thoughts about measures that we can take to go further… so whoever has interface with police—black, white, Hispanic, whatever—they are acknowledged…and treated equally.” 

“First of all, sir, let me tell you it breaks my heart to hear you relate those encounters,” said Chief Cameron. “I know that you are an honorable person. You are a good human being, and you definitely should not be treated with anything but the utmost respect.” He said “I hope” the incidents didn’t happen in Suffolk but “somewhere else,” and Dr. Spencer said “they did.”

Mr. Cameron continued that “what I always like to say is that the police department is not something in the community, it’s part of the community, it’s our community, and that’s the attitude that every officer should take.” But, he said, “changes take time.” With the department for 35 years, he spoke of how it is “incredibly selective” in who it accepts. He cited advances in training and other areas as part of an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division entered into to improve relations with, as the agreement states, “all” people in Suffolk and do “bias-free” policing.

Mr. Cameron took the top Suffolk cop position in 2015 and thereafter began learning Spanish to have better relations with Latinos here. Speaking at a mass last year at St. Anne’s Roman Catholic Church in Brentwood, he asserted “our department truly is here to help people.” 

If only that was the position of police throughout the United States.

The protests against racism by police since the murder of Mr. Floyd have been intense—and there are many moves to reform police departments. “How Police Unions Became Such Powerful Opponents to Reform Efforts,” was the headline of a recent article in The New York Times explaining why this has not happened.

Police unions—including in Suffolk—make large campaign contributions to politicians and are highly effective in getting out the vote.

But arrogance has also come from the other direction—from some politicians to police.

I was in Manhattan two decades ago to give a lecture. A squad car with flashing lights was suddenly behind me. I pulled to the curb and got out of my car. My attire included a classic Brooks Brothers blue blazer and my auto had an NYP plate signifying my being a working journalist. Nevertheless, the two officers leaped from their squad car and pointed guns at me. I asked what the problem was. I was told one of my brake lights was out. Later, I saw a group of police nearby, a sergeant among them, and discussed what had transpired and whether the use of guns was necessary. The sergeant explained: “It’s Giuliani time!” referring to then Mayor Rudy Giuliani. I’ve long wondered what would have happened if I were black.

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 - Protests Have Swept The Nation

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The protests that have swept the nation in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis—one of so many killings of black people by police through the years—included demonstrations in many communities in Suffolk County among them Commack, Port Jefferson Station, Central Islip, Bay Shore, Sag Harbor, Shirley, Mastic, West Babylon, Huntington, East Hampton, Bridgehampton, Lake Grove, Greenport, Peconic, Brentwood, West Islip, Lindenhurst, the county seat of Riverhead and Smithtown where there was a counter-demonstration.

The protests here have been peaceful, heartfelt and intense.

Racism remains deep-set on Long Island and nation. Newsday last year published a series of articles entitled “Long Island Divided,” the result of a three-year investigation. The newspaper sent out testers carrying hidden cameras and microphones to meet with real estate agents. The findings, as Newsday stated, provided “evidence” that “potential homebuyers were steered to neighborhoods based on race.”

Because of the series, New York State has instituted changes to try to combat the institutional racism which, in fact, has long shaped residential patterns on Long Island. It’s why there are “ghettoes”—Wyandanch, North Amityville, among others, a result of “racial steering,” still happening, although illegal. Long Island has been rated among the “most segregated” areas in the U.S.

And it’s not just bias in real estate. For 42 years I’ve taught Investigative Reporting at SUNY/College at Old Westbury, a remarkably diverse institution. Experiencing diversity is a major element of the college’s educational program. Part of the course involves students doing investigations. Every semester, some of them investigate prejudice with white and black students teaming up and looking for jobs, apartments and used cars at dealerships—and being treated differently. Last year, one pair added to their investigation by the white student repeatedly screwing up in a job test involving folding and hanging garments, the black student doing excellent work. The white student was offered a job, the black student rejected. 

Suffolk County Community College-based Center for Social Justice and Human Understanding featuring the Holocaust Collection issued a call last week that “we must take action to stop the intentional or unintentional killing of unarmed black Americans.”

“All Americans must take ownership of the pervasive racial discrimination that exists in our nation and move forward collectively to ensure that justice prevails,” said a statement signed by the center’s chairperson, Rabbi Steven Moss, and Jill Santiago, executive director. “No one can be silent. Rather, every one of us needs to be courageous, confront bigotry where it exists, and work to build a world where healing can begin.”

Other entities on Long Island committed to challenging the racism here include the aptly named organization Erase Racism. And there have been and are un-biased government leaders such as State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor.

Mr. Thiele said last week: “In the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the unrest that has erupted across the nation, no one can afford to be silent if you care about our country. Justice for all is the foundation of our democracy. The words of Martin Luther King, Jr. can help illuminate the path forward for our nation as we seek to get closer to that ideal of justice. King stated, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.’ In the spirit of those words, I condemn the murder of George Floyd as an egregious criminal act. All of those who participated in that act must be brought to justice.”

“I also support the constitutional right of American citizens to protest,” said Mr. Thiele. “To protest against injustice is the foundation of our American democracy. Change never comes easy. Protest has been at the core of needed change throughout our history. It is clear that this is not an isolated incident. It has been repeated too many times across our land. Yet, nothing has changed. I support those who petition their government to change the circumstances that continue to lead to these injustices.”

SUNY/Old Westbury has for 50 years purposely mixed groups of people—white, African-American, Latino, Asian-American, Native-American and foreign. I marvel watching the students coming together, communicating, developing understandings and friendships. The college’s president, Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III, says “Old Westbury is rightfully celebrated as a college community that brings people of all races, creeds, and socio-economic backgrounds together. Being designated among the top diverse campuses in the country…reinforces that Old Westbury is at the forefront of cultivating intercultural understanding and global citizenship in its students.”

Teaching at SUNY/Old Westbury has shown me that, yes, integration can work well.

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. 

BLM Protest - Words Make A Difference

By Pat Biancaniello

It began with an online flyer inviting people outside of Smithtown to participate in a Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest that would take place on Sunday, June 7 in Smithtown. The flyer, according to people who know the person who posted it online, was an attempt to raise awareness of the issues and injustices people of color deal with on a daily basis.    

The flyer was meant to connect with the anger minorities feel and to capitalize on the outrage expressed by protests around the nation since the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. To many Smithtown residents who saw the  flyer and the message attached to its social media posting it was a call to repeat the worst of the BLM protests. They envisioned a protest that would include looting and the destruction of anything within reach of the protesters.

The stage was set.

Rumors about the intent of the protesters were rampant on social media and it seems that everyone had a reliable source confirming the BLM plans for the destruction of Smithtown.  23-year-old Dylan Rice, a Smithtown resident and a Democrat running for NYS Assembly, saw the social media posting and worked to locate its source and to better understand what was happening. He reached out to Caitlin, the event coordinator, and worked to bring a peaceful rally/march to Smithtown. Dylon believed a peaceful rally would reflect his and other residents’ support for the BLM movement which promotes equality and respect for life.

photo by Dylan RiceThe protest, scheduled for 2 pm was changed to 4pm but crowds started gathering at 2pm. It began with a rally at Stop And Shop located on W. Main Street. When asked by a speaker, “Who here is from Smithtown?” around half of the attendees raised their hands. The crowd grew from 150 people at 2 pm to approximately 750 at 4:30. Amazingly, almost every attendee wore a face mask although social distancing was not practiced. The rally at Stop And Shop included protest chants “Say their names”, “I can’t breathe”* etc.  and ended with the protesters kneeling for eight minutes and 46 seconds, the time the Minneapolis police officer held his knee on George Floyd’s neck causing him to die.   Protesters then began their march down towards Town Hall.

At this point the road was closed as marchers filled the streets.  Marchers chanted, “I can’t breathe”* and other chants, they were loud. When they reached the area near Katie’s on Main Street they encountered a small but also loud group of people with flags, a huge military style truck and at least one large Trump banner. The anti- BLM protesters (without masks) had positioned themselves to be visible, vocal and disruptive. The anti-BLM appears to have been comprised of mostly non-Smithtown people.

The scene became somewhat disruptive as disgusting insults, some racial some sexual were exchanged.

The march continued down Main Street turned around at Terry Road some participants continued to march to the statue of Whisper the Bull at the intersection of 25A and Rte. 25. SCPD officers were successful in keeping the marchers on the designated path and Smithtown’s Public Safety officers were effective in ensuring that there were no incidents involving damage to public property.

Smithtown’s Chief of Public Safety, Thomas Lohmann, in a phone interview expressed his satisfaction in a matter of fact manner, saying he was extremely pleased with the event and the way the SCPD, Fire Department and the Department of Public Safety coordinated their actions ensuring that people expressing their constitutional right to freedom of speech was protected. 

Many Smithtown residents have reached out to Smithtown Matters expressing support for the event. Some showed support by attending and marching others expressed frustration that the flyer made them fearful of participating. Many people are still isolated in their homes due to COVID-19 and could not participate. There seems to be unanimity in the belief that George Floyd’s death by police is unacceptable and must not be tolerated.  

At Monday’s press conference County Executive Bellone announced an investigation into an incident involving a protestor and an anti-BLM protestor. The incident is being investigated by Fourth Precinct Crime Section, Fourth Squad and Hate Crimes.

*Spell check correction.

WE ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING COMMENTS FOR THIS ARTICLE

Suffolk Closeup - Covid-19 And Nuclear Power Plant Employees

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Suffolk County, indeed all of Long Island, is nuclear-free after the Shoreham nuclear power plant was stopped by strong public and local and state government opposition from going into operation, and the two nuclear reactors at Brookhaven National Laboratory that had been leaking radioactive tritium were closed. 

The proposed Shoreham plant, what was to be the first of from seven to 11 nuclear power plants the Long Island Lighting Company wanted to build in Suffolk, its nuclear innards removed, sits as a concrete hulk, and the BNL reactors have been abandoned, too. 

But this doesn’t mean that Suffolk is immune from a nuclear plant accident because just across the Long Island Sound in Connecticut are the two Millstone nuclear power plants, west of New London in Waterford. And the COVID-19 pandemic has cast further questions about them.

The daily newspaper in New London, The Day, has just run an article beginning; “Workers at Connecticut’s only nuclear power plant worry that managers are not taking enough precautions against the coronavirus after 750 temporary employees were brought in to help refuel one of the two active reactors. Ten employees of the Millstone Power Station in Waterford have tested positive for the virus, and the arrival of the temporary workers alarms some of the permanent employees.”

The piece says Jim Foley, vice president of the local chapter of the United Government Security Officers of America, “said security personnel have had to fight for personal protective equipment and for partisans at access points to separate staff from security.” It quoted Mr. Foley declaring” “Speaking specifically for the guard force, there’s a lot of frustration, there’s a lot of concern, and I would say there’s anger.”

The Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone on its www.mothballmillstone.org website has a post titled: “Pandemic Strikes Millstone.” It cites the report in The Day of the Millstone employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 and says it has asked the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission “whether the corona-virus employees include control room operators. The NRC spokesman refused to answer the question.”

The organization declared: “Only a limited number of individuals are technically qualified as nuclear operators and their certifications are plant-specific. Should COVID-19 strike control room operators, the safety of the nuclear plant would be greatly jeopardized.”

The COVID-19 pandemic is, of course, having enormous impacts in the United States and around the world—but nuclear power plants are of special concern. 

“Workers at nuclear power plants, just like everywhere else, are falling ill with the highly contagious COVID-19,” begins an op-ed just published in The Philadelphia Inquirer. “Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna and Limerick power plants are among those that have so far identified infections among their staff, with incidences soaring at some plants. One might hope that, at a time of such crisis, the nuclear power industry and its regulators would take every possible step to ensure the health and safety of nuclear workers and their families, as well as the surrounding communities where they live.”

“Unfortunately, the opposite is happening,” says the piece by Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project at Beyond Nuclear, an organization based in Takoma Park, Maryland, and Linda Pentz Gunter, its international specialist.

“Instead,” they say, “the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is relaxing nuclear power plant safety inspections and maintenance while allowing essential staff, including security forces and fire brigades, to work longer and exhausting shifts.” The “extended permitted hours,” they relate, are “up to 86-hour work weeks for two weeks straight.”

They state: “The prospect of a serious nuclear power accident under the current pandemic conditions would set up an impossible choice for entire communities surrounding the affected reactors…whether to evacuate with potentially tens of thousands of others, or stay, instead risking radiation exposure.”

The Millstone nuclear power plants have highly problematic histories. Scores of whistle-blowers charging safety issues have emerged from the plants since Millstone 2 started up in 1975 and Millstone 3 in 1986. There have been mishaps. (Millstone 1 was closed in 1998 after equipment failures.)

Environmentalists and officials from Suffolk have been involved in challenging the Millstone plants, including opposing a 20-year extension of the 40-year licenses for Millstone 2 and 3 granted by the NRC in 2005. Suffolk County’s Fishers Island is within the 10-mile federal “emergency preparedness” zone of the plants. Greenport is 20 miles away, East Hampton 25 and Smithtown 60. Likewise, in the early years of the fight against the Shoreham plant, environmentalists from Connecticut joined with those in Suffolk opposing Shoreham, 17 miles from Connecticut.

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 - Suffolk County Has A History And Some of It Is Scandalous

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“Suffolk County Scandals Investigations: A Reminiscence” is the title of a recent book written by Warren Liburt, a 90-year former lawyer from Suffolk now retired in Maine who lived through the series of scandals that rocked this county through the 1950s in what was widely known as the “Suffolk Scandals”

When I started as a journalist in Suffolk in 1962 I heard many stories about the “Suffolk Scandals” of the prior decade. Many people in politics and the legal system whom I would meet, and county government itself, were affected by it. Reading Mr. Liburt’s eyewitness account was fascinating because many of the people he writes about I knew personally and many others I knew by name.

The “Suffolk Scandals” rocked the Suffolk Republican Party and led in 1960 to Democrats taking over the then county governing body, the Suffolk County Board of Supervisors, with reform-minded H. Lee Dennison, although an enrolled Republican, running on the Democratic ticket and becoming Suffolk’s first county executive. 

Mr. Liburt approaches the “Suffolk Scandals” from the perspective of the steadfast Suffolk Republican he was. He was president of the Young Republican Club in Huntington. He was law assistant in the Suffolk County Surrogate’s Court from 1956 to 1959. And he ran for the Huntington Town Board on the GOP line, but lost, in 1959. 

Indeed, by 1959, GOP politicians in Suffolk were in the opposite position of where they had been in the early 1950s. “As for the Republican Party in Suffolk County,” Mr. Liburt writes, in 1950 “we held all the county-wide elected offices, the Congressional seat for the county and all the county’s seats in the state legislature. Of equal if not greater importance for the organization, we held seven out of the ten town supervisorships following the 1953 election.”

If you were a Republican, “if you were nominated, you would get elected.” 

“But then,” in the election of 1959, “we lost control of the Board of Supervisors for the first time since 1933, winning only four of the ten town supervisorships, and losing other town elective offices across the county. By the time the polls closed that Tuesday, we had lost control over a massive amount of patronage. A number of party stalwarts of long standing in elective and appointive offices would be out of jobs coming the first of January, 1960.”

The “genesis of the debacle,” he says, occurred when W. Averell Harriman, a Democrat, was elected New York’s governor in 1954. The problem for Democrats in the state was that “they could not increase their vote in New York City,” it being solidly Democratic. 

“The only way for them to survive and prosper was to reduce the Republican pluralities in upstate New York…and in the strongly Republican counties surrounding New York City”—among them Suffolk. The Democrats got the idea of how to do it, writes Mr. Liburt, “from the person who was totally in charge of the Republican Party of New York from 1943 to 1955”—Governor Thomas E. Dewey. 

Mr. Dewey, formerly Manhattan DA, “in his first term as governor, would furnish a notable example of the use of the criminal process as a weapon in political warfare,” says Mr. Liburt. He had a special state investigation launched into the Albany County “Democratic machine” of Daniel O’Connell. When Mr. Harriman became governor (which he believed, writes Mr. Liburt, to be a stepping stone to run for U.S. president) he appointed J. Irwin Shapiro, a former assistant DA from Queens who had become a New York City magistrate, to head the state Commission of Investigation. A special focus, says Mr. Liburt, was Suffolk County.

An early target was William S. Hart who had been assistant director of Suffolk’s Office of Civil Defense and sold the county through “intermediaries” thousands of dollars worth of furniture “for county offices.” Then came a state assemblyman from Suffolk, John A. Britting, former deputy county treasurer, charged by Mr. Shapiro’s office with having “participated in ‘fraudulent land deals’…which had cheated Suffolk County taxpayers out of millions of dollars in county-owned property.” The list of investigations and charges, month after month, year after year, is recounted in Mr. Liburt’s book. 

The New York Times would run an editorial the day after the election in 1959—Mr. Liburt quotes from it—that declared:  “The sordid history of corruption and malfeasance that has been undergoing a long process of exposure in Suffolk County, ancient stronghold of Republicanism, was sufficient reason for the voters of eastern Long Island to give control to the Democrats for the first time in more than a quarter of a century.”

I spoke to Mr. Liburt from his home in Augusta, Maine. He wrote the book, published by Outskirts Press, under the pen-name William Young. He said he enjoyed putting down on paper his reminiscences of a politically turbulent time in Suffolk. An earlier book he wrote was about Mr. Dewey.

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.