Editorial - Elected Office Should Not Be A Get Out Of Jail Free Card

The guilty verdict has been cast. Another elected official, Congressman Christopher Collins (NY 27th CD), has violated his oath of office and added a nail in the coffin of integrity and the public’s trust in elected officials. 

Collins has been convicted of insider trading and lying to the FBI.

Prosecutors have asked for a five year jail sentence for Collins. Letters of support from elected officials are going into the court record asking for leniency for the man who served alongside them in the U.S. Congress. State of Politics reporter Nick Reisman reported on January 8th that  Long Island Congressman Peter King, 2nd CD, wrote  to Judge Broderick “While I am in no way attempting to minimize the serious error in judgment to which Chris Collins has admitted, I would respectfully request that when imposing sentence Your Honor take into account his many positive contributions in public life and the genuine respect he has earned and the high regard in which he is held by those who have worked with him and know him well”. 

It is an honor to serve as an elected official. The public has every right to expect its elected officials behavior to be in accordance with laws.  Collins was elected to office in 2013 and served until he resigned September 30, 2019. He was charged in August of 2018 and continued his run for congress calling the charges that he has pleaded guilty to “meritless”.  As a congressman his responsibility was to legislate, make laws for Americans. Instead he violated the laws and lied to the FBI when questioned about his activity, lied to the public about his actions and ran for office again while knowing he was guilty of charges. Collins’ son Cameron Collins and the father of Cameron’s fiance Steven Zarsky pleaded guilty to charges. According to Buffalo News Mr. Zarsky stated “I’m truly sorry for my action,” Zarsky said. “It is a moment of weakness that will haunt me for the rest of my days.” as he pleaded guilty to charges. Collins’ corrupt act tarnished his reputation and dragged his whole family down.

This corrupt behavior by an elected official is not the first and will not be the last but it should be treated as a significant abuse of office that incurs a significant penalty.

Being elected to office is an honor not a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Pat Biancaniello

Theater Review – 'Driving Miss Daisy' Theatre Three

Theater Review – ‘Driving Miss Daisy”  Produced by: Theatre Three – Port Jefferson

Reviewed by: Jeb Ladouceur 

Patrons of Long Island’s Theatre Three are being offered a rare treat thru February 1st; that’s when playwright Alfred Uhry’s bittersweet drama, based on the relationship between his elderly Jewish grandmother and herdevoted chauffeur, will ring down the show’s final curtain.  Those local theatergoers who have taken advantage of this delightful Linda  May-directed production will have experienced in DRIVING MISS DAISY legitimate theater at its very best. 

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With the supremely talented Phyllis March in the title role of DAISY WERTHAN, and veteran Antoine Jones playing her African-American driver, HOKE COLEBURN, the mainstage of Port Jefferson’s Theatre Three transports us to mid-twentieth century Atlanta. There the widowed septuagenarian, Daisy, finds it necessary to forfeit her driving license and rely on sixty-year-old Hoke to fulfill that mundane, if necessary, function. 

At first,  the formerly self-sufficient Daisy, and long-suffering Hoke are mutually standoffish, giving both actors ample opportunity to display their considerable thespian skills as the story progresses. It is the development of this unlikely relationship that moves the play, and won Uhry the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1988.

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Thereafter, many of the entertainment industry’s stage and film elite were cast in the production’s choice roles. They included, over time, such acting luminaries as Julie Harris, Morgan Freeman, Jessica Tandy, Dan Ackroyd  Vanessa Redgrave, James Earl Jones, and Angela Lansbury. It is perhaps significant that while the show opened off-Broadway (at the intimate ‘Playwright’s Horizons’ studio theatre on 42nd Street) it nonetheless won the Academy Award for Best Picture when filmed. Tandy and  Freeman were also honored with Oscars by the Academy, as was Ackroyd in the supporting role of grandson BOOLIE WERTHAN. No other motion picture adaptation of an off-Broadway-pedigreed play had ever garnered such success. 

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The production made its Broadway stage debut in the fall of 2010 at the Golden Theatre where, to the surprise of no one, it promptly recouped its $2.6 million investment in record time. 

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I first met Phyllis March at the  funeral of our mutual friend, the actress Madeline Porter. I was immediately struck by the charm and sincerity of Ms. March and, convinced that she would one day land a blockbuster starring role at Theatre Three, vowed to keep a close eye opened for her. My  patient anticipation was rewarded last weekend when I discovered that not only was Phyllis quick to embrace the refined self-control that the audience expects from the widowed Daisy Werthan, March masterfully effected the smooth, lilting, Georgia accent that one hardly presumes the 72-year-old Jewish matron will possess. Whether that achievement is the result of Director Linda May’s insight, or March’s singular talent (or both), readers may be assured that the Atlanta drawl is certainly not New Yorker Phyllis’s normal off-stage inflection. 

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Not since watching Marci Bing’s wonderful interpretation of Maria Callas in MASTER CLASS has this reviewer been so spellbound by a stage performance. Ms. March owns the mainstage at Theatre Three as if born to it. Her timing is effortlessly exquisite, and she delivers her numerous lines with a combination of grace and elan. Indeed, March is the sort of actor whose command of the action and dialogue assigned to her, wins our hearts as surely as it ultimately captivates that of co-star Antoine Jones (chauffeur Hoke Coleburn).

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DRIVING MISS DAISY must have been a joy for the multi-talented Linda May to direct. Indeed, she (along with March, Jones, and Steve Ayle - a convincing ‘Boolie Werthan’), deserves all the stars in my kit. 

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It’s just too bad this theater gem isn’t scheduled for a couple of months’ run … instead of a few weeks. 

Award-winning writer, Jeb Ladouceur is the author of a dozen novels, and his theater and book reviews appear in several major L.I. publications. His recent hit, THE GHOSTWRITERS, explores the bizarre relationship between the late Harper Lee and Truman Capote. Ladouceur’s topical thriller, THE SOUTHWICK INCIDENT, was introduced at the Smithtown Library on May 21st. The book involves a radicalized Yale student and his CIA pursuers. Mr. Ladouceur’s revealing website is www.JebsBooks.com

Suffolk Closeup - "Give light and the people will find their own way"

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

This new year marks my 60^th in journalism. It started with an Antioch College internship at the Cleveland Press, a newspaper known for investigative reporting. Above its entrance was the motto: “Give light and the people will find their own way.” Inspired by the what I saw, I returned east aiming to do this kind of work. 

Thinking of these years, what comes readily to mind are the people I’ve been fortunate enough to interview or otherwise get to know. I once considered writing a book I thought to title “Front Row at the Circus.” When the Cole Bros. Circus came to Long Island, we at the Long Island Press, where I did investigative reporting and in 1969 began writing this column, were sent tickets—for front row seats. I considered this a metaphor for being a journalist. However, much of what we see is not like simply watching acrobats and aerialists, and although some of those you encounter are clowns, you often connect with great people.

A prime example was baseball star Jackie Robinson, a stirring historical figure, who I interviewed when he spoke on Long Island. Or George McGovern when he ran for president—the interview with this brilliant guy was the front-page lead story of The Press.

There was New York City Mayor Ed Koch who I interviewed as anchor at WSNL, the island’s commercial TV station, when he was running for governor. I began by noting “you’re in Republican territory.” He quipped instantly: “I’ve come to save you.” Later I interviewed the eloquent Mario Cuomo who beat him in a primary and was elected governor. 

As a journalist on Long Island, my first big story was investigating the scheme of Robert Moses to build a four-lane highway the length of Fire Island. My interactions with him were not nice. Yes, some people can be crusty. Congresswoman Bella Abzug was at a gathering at a New York State Democratic Convention I was covering. I walked over to her, pen and pad in hand, and introduced myself as a reporter for the Long Island Press. “So what!” she scowled. 

I interviewed former President George H. W. Bush when the Watergate scandal was raging and he chair of the Republican National Committee. I asked whether it was possible that because of the scandal the GOP might end up “extinct.” Daggers flew from his eyes.

I met Hillary Clinton when she was senator from New York and I was deep—still am—in investigating the use of nuclear power in space. It started when I broke the story in 1986 in The Nation about how the ill-fated Challenger’s next mission was to loft a plutonium-fueled space probe. I wrote a book on the use of nuclear power in space: “The Wrong Stuff.” 

The nukes-in-space issue got me involved with an extraordinary Russian scientist, Dr. Alexey Yablokov, environmental advisor to Presidents Yeltsin and Gorbachev. He was long concerned about use by the Soviet Union and then Russia of nuclear power in space—and accidents with radioactive poisons released, as the U.S. has had, too. Dr. Yablokov, a biologist and author of numerous books, knew of my journalism on this and invited me to Russia. I went seven times and spoke—from Moscow to Siberia—at conferences, forums and the Russian Academy of Sciences. 

In pursuing nuclear power in space, I investigated President Reagan’s “Star Wars” plan and how it was based on orbiting battle platforms with on-board nuclear reactors providing power for hypervelocity guns, particle beams and laser weapons. This was despite the Outer Space Treaty designating space for peaceful purposes. I authored “Weapons in Space” and wrote and narrated a TV documentary, “Nukes in Space: the Nuclearization and Weaponization of the Heavens.” I gave presentations at the UN and twice before members of the British Parliament. With President Trump’s “Space Force” push, I’m doing much journalism on this issue again. 

There was the interview I did on my U.S. national TV program “Enviro Close-Up” (which I’m in my 29^th year hosting) with Dr. Vladimir Chernousenko, the physicist in charge of the clean-up of the Chernobyl nuclear plant. He told of many thousands dying as a result of the disaster. And he was dying himself of cancer from the radioactivity he received working at the Chernobyl site. The camera people were crying. 

There have been many other significant people. Some: physicist Dr. Michio Kaku; anthropologist Margaret Mead; Dr. Helen Caldicott, a founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility; Russell Means, leader of the American Indian Movement; physicist Vandana Shiva; actor Alec Baldwin; Dr. Victor Sidel, co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; environmentalist David Brower; epidemiologist Dr. Alice Stewart; scientist and physician Dr. John Gofman; Noam Chomsky—together we opened and closed a weekend conference on media; Prof. Robert Bullard, leader in battling environmental racism; Barney Rosset whose Grove Press published my book “Power Crazy” about LILCO’s scheme to build seven to eleven nuclear power plants on Long Island. The list goes on and on.

It’s been a good and interesting 60 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.    

Suffolk Closeup - Edward Romaine The "Didn't Intend To Run" Supervisor

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

 Since Edward P. Romaine was elected supervisor of Brookhaven Town in a special election in 2012, he has been re-elected and re-elected by large margins and is now in his eighth year as town supervisor. 

A Republican, he is very popular in Suffolk County’s largest town (bigger than all of Nassau County), not only winning by substantial margins but with him at the top of the town slate, Republicans have been elected to all six town council positions.

Mr. Romaine, a former Suffolk County legislator and Suffolk County clerk, has brought a focus on environmental issues and financial solidity to the town.

Mr. Romaine “didn’t intend” to run for town supervisor. He was happy and highly constructive as a county legislator. In observing the Suffolk Legislature since it was created in 1970, I’d say he was among the finest county legislators in that panel’s now 50-year history.

But tragedy struck. His beloved son, Keith Romaine, a two-term Brookhaven Town councilman, seen as moving up and becoming town supervisor, died at but 36 years of age. The young Romaine, of Moriches, suddenly contracted pneumonia and passed away from complications caused by a virus which attacked his heart. 

A few years later, the incumbent supervisor, Democrat Mark Lesko, decided to step down to become executive director of the Accelerate Long Island high tech project.

And Ed Romaine, when the vacancy occurred, decided to run for supervisor with a mission of doing what his son “might have done.”

“If my son had lived, he would be supervisor,” Mr. Romaine told me last week. 

“Usually, a son will follow in his father’s legacy—but in this situation it is the opposite: the father is following in his son’s legacy.”

There have been many accomplishments in the administration of Mr. Romaine, who just turned 73. He considers “most important saving the Carman’s River” through legislation he introduced during his first year as supervisor. Then comes “getting the town to a triple-bond rating” by his third year. There’s been the large amount of land put in the Pine Barrens preservation program. And there has been “setting a course” for now 50 percent of the power used by town government coming from renewable energy. “We have put up solar panels everywhere. They’re at the town hall, the airport, the composting property in Manorville” and so on. “And vehicles are all-electric or hybrid.” There are his efforts on climate change “and rising sea level. We are in a battle. We are island people and we must deal with climate change.” He has been spearheading the purchase of land threatened by rising waters “to convert it back to wetlands” to soften the impact of storms hitting. The list goes on. 

Ed Romaine has deep background in Suffolk. When he was six months old, his folks moved from Queens to Suffolk. He’s lived in Sayville, Central Islip, Hauppauge and Bayport—and for the past 41 years in Center Moriches. For 10 years he was a history teacher at Hauppauge High School. (Among his students was the current supervisor of Southampton Town, Jay Schneiderman.)

He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history from Adelphi University, received a master’s in history and political science from Long Island University and did post-graduate work in political science at Stony Brook University. He first began working for Brookhaven Town as its first commissioner of housing and community development. 

Then he ran for the Suffolk Legislature and initially was a member for three years. He was a major legislative force in battling and stopping the operation of the Long Island Lighting Company’s Shoreham nuclear power plant. It was a hard and successful fight. Mr. Romaine, however, remains very much annoyed that “when LILCO stock dropped to under $5” it was not bought up and LILCO “seized.” That, which he and fellow county legislators and others advocated, would have been instead of what finally happened. This was the state buying LILCO’s assets, such as its poles and lines, at a far, far higher price than if it would have been  by acquiring the undervalued (because of LILCO’s nuclear undertaking) stock. That big mistake is costing Long Island ratepayers many additional billions of dollars in cost, he declares.

Then Mr. Romaine was elected Suffolk County clerk and served in that post for 16 years. He subsequently returned to the Suffolk Legislature and was a member for six more years—“I loved the legislature,” he comments. Keith died in 2009 and he decided to run for Brookhaven Town supervisor in 2012.

Also, in 2003 he ran for Suffolk County executive. He should have won.

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 In Review 2019

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The conviction for obstruction of justice, witness tampering and other counts of ex-Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota and his former anti-corruption unit chief, Christopher McPartland, was the biggest event in governmental affairs in Suffolk County in 2019.  

They were charged with covering up a beating delivered by James Burke of Smithtown, then chief of the Suffolk County Police Department, its highest uniformed officer and previously head of the investigative unit in Mr. Spota’s DA’s office. In the Fourth Precinct police station in Hauppauge, Mr. Burke assaulted a handcuffed heroin addict who had broken into his police vehicle and stole a duffel bag, its contents including a gun belt, ammunition and sex toys.

Mr. Spota of Mt. Sinai was long a figure in the Suffolk DA’s office—a workhorse assistant DA in the 1970s and early 1980s trying numerous cases. Running for DA on the Democratic line in 2001, he defeated Republican incumbent James M. Catterson, Jr. of Belle Terre. He was re-elected DA in 2005, 2009 and 2013 without any major party opposition. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Justina Geraci told the jurors that Messrs. Spota and McParland orchestrated a cover-up, breaking the law, “to protect” Mr. Burke. Lawyers for the two said Mr. Burke never told them he was involved in the beating before he pleaded guilty to it in federal court—so there was no cover-up, an argument not accepted by the jury. Mr. Burke was sentenced for the beating to 46 months in prison. Now Messrs. Spota and McPartland, of Northport, face up to 20 years. 

The leading political race in Suffolk in 2019 resulted in the re-election of Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone. He ran against County Comptroller John M. Kennedy, Jr., a Suffolk legislator for 10 years and earlier, starting in 1986, held positions in the offices of county executive and county clerk. Mr. Bellone, of North Babylon, before becoming county executive in 2012 was Babylon Town supervisor. Mr. Kennedy of Nesconset was elected comptroller, the county government’s fiscal watchdog, in 2014 and re-elected in 2018. Mr. Bellone’s handling of county finances was the overriding issue in the race with Mr. Kennedy charging Mr. Bellone “has been a fiscal disaster for Suffolk County.” Mr. Bellone defended his financial management.

There was a financial imbalance involving the campaign itself with Mr. Bellone spending nearly $3.5 million and Mr. Kennedy $720,000. Mr. Kennedy said he “took great pride in the $30 and $50 checks I got,” while Mr. Bellone had big donors. 

Because of term limits, this will be the last of three four-years terms for Mr. Bellone as county executive.

Another major 2019 Suffolk governmental development: this month the person holding what is considered the Number 2 job in county government, DuWayne Gregory, announced he was stepping down from being presiding officer of the Suffolk Legislature. Term limits were the key factor in is decision as this has been his sixth—and final—two-year term as a legislator. 

Mr. Gregory of Copiague will take a seat on the Babylon Town Board held by Jackie Gordon, also a Democrat. She is resigning to run for the Congressional seat held by Republican Peter King, who is retiring. The change will mean quite a salary reduction for Mr. Gregory: a cut from $123,270 to $58,443. 

Mr. Gregory, an African-American in one of the highest positions held by a black in Suffolk history, said that with no state or countywide positions possibly open for more than two years, he was “looking for a spot to land….This was an opportunity, and if this door closes I’m not sure when the next opportunity will be.”

In environmental happenings in 2019, the crash of the scallop fishery in recent times has cast a pall over what has been a major marine resource on Suffolk’s East End. The scallop fishery has been under pressure since 1985 when brown tide hit the Peconic Bay system. That was followed by major efforts by the state and county and Cornell Cooperative Extension to restore the fishery. Although it was far from as bountiful as it was for many decades—with Peconic Bay scallops a prized national delicacy—a partial rebound was happening. In 2017 and 2018, bay scallop landings from the Peconic and adjoining bays exceeded 108,000 pounds.

But with what now has been determined to be a loss of more than 90 percent of adult bay scallops, a major setback has occurred. Why it has happened is unclear. At a symposium this month organized by the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, explanations included high water temperature caused by climate change and predation from cownose rays, a species newly found in Long Island waters.

If the scallop fishery is permanently crippled, it would follow the earlier loss in western Suffolk of the hard clam fishery. For decades, half of the hard shell clams consumed in the United States came from the Great South Bay in western Suffolk. That collapse has been blamed on overfishing and also brown tide. 

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.