Suffolk Closeup - Jerry Nadler Great Intellect And Presidential Nemesis

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman 

Having been a journalist for 57 years now, I’ve gotten to know many public officials. The smartest person in politics I’ve ever known—and I’ve told this to folks for years—is U.S. Representative Jerry Nadler. In Jerry Nadler, chairman of the key panel now investigating President Donald Trump and his administration, Mr. Trump has a quite an adversary. 

“Jerry Nadler Was Born to Battle Trump,” was the headline of an article this month in The New Republic. It concluded speaking about his “mandate to counter the momentum toward autocracy and to shore up democratic institutions and practices under siege.”

“We’re now in a Constitutional crisis,” Mr. Nadler declared last week, accusing Mr. Trump with his claims of executive privilege of an attack on the “essence of our democracy.”

Mr. Nadler has been in Congress since 1992. He represents much of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. From 1977 to 1992 he was a member of the New York State Assembly. 

I got to know Congressman Nadler in the 1990s when I authored books, wrote articles and presented TV documentaries on the use of nuclear power in space by the U.S. and also the Soviet Union and then Russia. A decade earlier, in 1986, I broke the story in The Nation after Challenger space shuttle disaster about how its next mission was to loft a space probe containing plutonium fuel. If the Challenger exploded on that launch, in May 1986, and the plutonium was dispersed, far more people than the seven brave astronauts who died in the January 1986 catastrophe would have perished.

This was not a “sky-is-falling” issue, I found. There had been accidents and dispersal of radioactive material in accidents in both the U.S. and the Soviet/Russian space nuclear programs. 

(In addition to investigating the issue in the U.S., I received an invitation from Dr. Alexey Yablokov, environmental advisor to Russian presidents and leading opponent of Soviet/Russian space nuclear missions, to go to Russia to speak at conferences and at the Russian Academy of Sciences. I made repeated visits.)

The biggest nuclear shot ever—NASA’s Cassini’s mission to Saturn—was scheduled for 1997. Some 72.3 pounds of deadly plutonium, more than ever used on a space mission, was involved. 

There was the threat of a launch pad explosion—one in 100 rockets blow up or otherwise malfunction disastrously on launch. And also, there was the threat of a repeat of an earlier space nuclear disaster—the spacecraft not achieving orbit and falling back to Earth, disintegrating in the atmosphere and spreading plutonium. Further, on the Cassini shot, a “slingshot maneuver” involving the Earth was planned. The rocket was to be sent hurtling back at the Earth, coming in at 42,300 miles an hour just a few hundred miles overhead, to use the Earth’s gravity to increase its velocity so it could reach its final destination of Saturn.

If there was what NASA called an “inadvertent reentry” into the Earth’s atmosphere on the “slingshot maneuver” causing disintegration and release of the plutonium, the NASA Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Cassini Mission estimated that “5 billion…of the world population…could receive 99 percent or more of the radiation exposure.”

Also, a solar power alternative—eliminating the use of plutonium to generate a modest 745 watts for onboard electricity for instruments—was available.

It was then that I got to know Jerry Nadler. His brother, Eric, is a good friend. Eric is an investigative reporter who has written and appeared on TV programs for Frontline on PBS, Globalvision, and written articles in Rolling Stone, Mother Jones and other investigative media.

I sent Congressman Nadler a book I had just written on the space nuclear issue focusing on Cassini, The Wrong Stuff, along with one of my TV documentaries, Nukes In Space: The Nuclearization and Weaponization of the Heavens. 

We met and discussed the situation. Mr. Nadler has a brilliant mind. He fully understood the enormous perils of using nuclear power overhead. Further, when the subjects turned to politics and government, his knowledge was encyclopedic. He organized a group of members of Congress calling for a cancellation of the Cassini mission. He and the other members held a press conference on the steps of the Capital in Washington detailing the lethal dangers of the mission. NASA, however, refused to cancel it. Fortunately, this time there was no disaster in this game of nuclear Russian Roulette in space. Subsequently, underlining how plutonium power on the Cassini mission was unnecessary, in 2016 NASA’s Juno space probe arrived at Jupiter—with solar power substituting for plutonium. (Still, NASA is now planning more space nuclear shots.)

Stated the New Republic piece: “Nadler might seem like an unusual political leader to take on the role of presidential nemesis; he is thoughtful, thorough, and cerebral, a man of ideas—the opposite of Trump.”

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. 

Hydrangea Home – A Smithtown Mother’s Dream Comes True

Hydrangea Home – A Mother’s Dream Comes True

By Nancy Vallarella

Mohrmann familyDawn Mohrmann’s desire to be a stay-at-home mom turned into reality with an “aha” moment 24 years ago. While admiring the rich bounty of hydrangeas blooming throughout the property of her Smithtown home, she said good-bye to a career in insurance and hello to her home-based business aptly named, Hydrangea Home.

Long before Joanna Gaines (DIY media goddess and the queen of the Magnolia dynasty), Dawn began creating and curating home décor and lifestyle goods in 1995.  Husband Fred’s woodworking and carpentry talents led to Hydrangea Home’s first workshop/showroom. “Our garage had big barn doors. Fred converted the space giving me an area to create and showcase floral arrangements, painted furniture, artwork, and his wood creations.  Through word of mouth, customers would stop by and enjoy browsing while their children played on our playground surrounded by the blue, pink, and purple hydrangeas. It was wonderful.” recalls Mohrmann. 

Those fairytale moments were accompanied by road travel weekends. From the tines of Long Island’s twin forks to western Nassau County the Mohrmann’s participated in craft events toting babies and toddlers along.  By 2006, Hydrangea Home had an online presence with its website www.HydrangeaHome.com and Etsy. Soon packages had to be shipped throughout the U.S. 

The family grew along with the business.  A second, larger home in Smithtown was purchased. With four children to attend to Dawn had Hydrangea Home’s handcrafted items selling in lifestyle stores in Cape Cod, Mass., Port Jefferson and Greenport, NY.  In 2010, Fred Mohrmann’s wood planting boxes and trays became Hydrangea Home’s best sellers.

Inspiration StationHydrangea Home and the Mohrmann family thrive on nurtured creativity.  March 11, 2017, Hydrangea Home became its own brick and mortar actuality complete with its most important feature – the creativity corner. This corner of the store is a vibing “Inspiration Station.”  Six days a week you can find owner Dawn Mohrmann painting, arranging, creating among various seasonal flora, paint pallets, and inspirational books.   Often joining her are her children Sophia (illustrator), Jake (jewelry designer - Mohr Beads), Max (photography artist), Taylor (macramé designs). The families’ creations are for sale along with 32 other small business lifestyle product providers from the United States.  Monthly macramé classes are offered and instructed by Smithtown High School East graduate Meagan Dowling.

Hydrangea Home’s door (side entrance, 146 Main Street, Suite 3, Northport, NY) is open on Sunday & Monday 11am – 5pm. Tuesdays – Closed, Wednesday through Saturday 10am – 5pm.  Browse the carefully curated gift items, have a cup coffee and celebrate the store’s 2^nd Anniversary!

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Libraries "Palaces For The People"

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“In Praise of Public Libraries” was the headline of an extensive piece in the New York Review of Books last month. Reviewed were two new books, The Library Book and Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life. Also reviewed was a just-released documentary by master filmmaker Fred Wiseman that was described as “inspirational,” Ex Libris. It is about “the grandest people’s palace of all time: the New York Public Library system, a collection of ninety-two branches.” 

I have a great affection for libraries and great respect for librarians.

We have a wonderful collection of libraries in Suffolk County. But there are difficulties in that although there is a program of New York State grants for the state’s 7,000 libraries (significantly cut in the new state budget), libraries depend on local funding.  

This can be a big problem. For example, last month a proposed budget for the Wyandanch Public Library was voted down, reportedly the first defeat for a library budget in Suffolk in the past five years. A significant tax increase—of nearly 39 percent—came with the $2.8 million budget proposal. There would have been a $272 annual increase for the “average” homeowner in Wyandanch, pushing the library tax to $974 a year.

That’s a lot of money especially to homeowners in Wyandanch, a working-class community, largely African-American. As a result of the defeat of the budget, there was a reversion to the library’s budget of last year and the library’s board decided it needed to eliminate Sunday hours. That’s so sad, a loss of a needed service.

Likewise, a major expansion for the Mastic-Moriches-Shirley Community Library was voted down in February. The plan was exciting. Proponents said it would have turned the library into the finest on Long Island. Kerri Rosalia, the library’s director, told me how the expansion would have allowed it to embrace the dramatic changes in libraries that have been happening across the nation—turning them into community hubs.

Features would have included a small outdoor amphitheater to seat 200 to 300 people and provide outdoor concerts, literature readings, theatrical performances and screening of films. There would be more meeting places for community groups. Other innovations would have included a “Nature Explore Classroom” for children. 

Some people might think that “with Google and eBooks” libraries aren’t important any longer, said Ms. Rosalia, but “we’re certainly not seeing the end of libraries. Recent statistics show library use staying strong and steady.” The Mastic-Moriches-Shirley Community Library has a whopping 46,000 cardholders. But the 30-year bond for the $38.5 million expansion plan was apparently considered too much for a majority of library district voters. The library is now exploring future options. 

All through high school, I worked every weekday afternoon, 20 hours a week, at what was the leading library in Queens, the central branch of the Queensborough Public Library in Jamaica. I held the modest job of shelving books. Working in the library environment, getting to know dedicated librarians, was a terrific experience 

Suffolk libraries include The Smithtown Library. With a main building in Smithtown and branches in Commack, Kings Park and Nesconset, it describes itself as the largest library system on Long Island, the tenth largest in the state. Beyond a wealth of books, like all libraries in Suffolk it is a center for a programs and exhibits. Currently, it’s featuring the “2019 Long Island Room Program Series” with a “focus on some of the ways in which Long Island’s past was driven and shaped by the innovative and inventive ideas of those who lived and worked here.”

When my own family lived in Sayville, the Sayville Library was great. And, having since lived in Noyac for 45 years, we’ve found John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor a treasure, too.  It was built in 1910, its original structure beautiful and historic, but there was no room for expansion. With architectural ingenuity, a tall glass-paneled, light-filled addition—doubling the library’s space—was built and opened in 2016.

The East Hampton Library serves as an important regional history museum. Its Long Island Collection “dedicated to the history and people of Long Island” includes a five-room study area and more than 100,000 items. These include whaling logs, diaries, photographs, postcards, deeds, wills, genealogies, maps, oral histories and early Native American documents and artifacts. I’m thrilled that my articles and the documents I’ve gathered as a Suffolk-based journalist since 1962 have been digitized by the library and now constitute an accessible online “Karl Grossman Research Archive” helping it couple its extraordinary collection of the old with additional material from modern times.

Linking Suffolk’s libraries is the Suffolk County Library System with its Live-brary.com feature allowing patrons to order books for free from any of the system’s 56 libraries and download thousands of eBooks, audiobooks, CDs and DVDs. 

Libraries are indeed “palaces for the people” and should be prized.

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 -Joe Quinn And Otis Pike A Lesson In Successful Campaigning

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Perry Gershon, in running a second time against incumbent U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin, will take a similar approach to that of Otis Pike decades ago. Democrat Pike initially lost to a lst Congressional District Republican incumbent and then spent two years moving around the district meeting with voters person-to-person.

Two years later, in 1960, Mr. Pike of Riverhead defeated three-term Representative Stuyvesant Wainwright of Wainscott. Ultimately, Mr. Pike was elected to nine two-year terms—holding office until 1978—the longest tenure ever for any lst C.D. representative. 

Joseph Quinn of Smithtown worked should-to-shoulder with Mr. Pike. Mr. Quinn, a teacher, was a key Pike campaign aide and was a staff assistant to him through his Congressional years. Mr. Quinn also would become, for 23 years, the Democratic leader of Smithtown—a town which might be critical to Mr. Gershon’s chances. 

Mr. Gershon of East Hampton was defeated last year by 11,000 votes, a narrow 4 percent of votes cast. He won Southampton, East Hampton, Shelter Island and Southold towns. But Mr. Zeldin won in Brookhaven, Riverhead and Smithtown—where Mr. Gershon lost by 7,000 votes. “He lost the race in Smithtown,” commented Mr. Quinn last week.

Back in 1958, in his first race for Congress, Mr. Pike did worse. “He lost by 40,000 votes to Wainwright,” Mr. Quinn recounted. The strategy of Mr. Pike, a Riverhead town justice, for his re-run was to move around the district, connecting with voters, speaking at every venue possible. If there were “three people he could go and talk with, Otis would be there,” said Mr. Quinn. 

Mr. Pike used humor. “He made fun of himself. He would tell people in 1960 that in the 1958 election” Democrats he’d name in various states “got elected—but Otis Pike got murdered!”

Mr. Gershon, with $5 million spent (including in a primary) in his campaign last year, would not be emulating Mr. Pike on campaign spending. Mr. Pike spent but $12,000 on the 1960 campaign, said Mr. Quinn, extremely low even then. But Mr. Pike was famously frugal—including as a congressman. There was but one piece of campaign literature in 1960, a four-page flier. Emphasizing that this was a shoestring campaign, shoestrings were sold at Pike campaign appearances for $1 a pair.

Mr. Wainwright, meanwhile, came from money. Financer Jay Gould, a railroad magnate considered one of the robber barons of the Gilded Age, was his grandfather.

Both men had solid World War II military records. Mr. Pike was a Marine fighter pilot in the Pacific. Mr. Wainwright was an Army officer overseas with the Office of Strategic Services. 

It was very helpful to Mr. Pike that John F. Kennedy was running for president and heading the Democratic ticket in 1960, said Mr. Quinn. Will Mr. Zeldin’s chances in 2020 with incumbent President Donald Trump expected to head the GOP ticket help or hurt him? Mr. Zeldin of Shirley and President Trump are politically and personally close. In Smithtown, said Mr. Quinn, since Mr. Trump’s election two years ago activity in Democratic politics has increased greatly. Democratic meetings that used to bring out few people now bring out many, he said. Whether this will translate to votes remains to be seen. And Mr. Trump won in 2016 in Smithtown by 28 points, the largest margin of any Suffolk town. 

A big break for Mr. Pike came in 1960 when “Wainwright was out sailing on his yacht off Nantucket and missed an important vote.” Mr. Zeldin, however, has actively worked the district in his three terms. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Gershon’s emphasis will be traveling the district to “convince the district at large that I represent a better future for its people.” It will be maximum exposure, Pike-like.

Another example being cited of a Democratic challenger in the lst C.D. running twice and then winning is George Hochbrueckner, then of Coram (now of Laurel). He ran and narrowly lost to incumbent Representative William Carney of Hauppauge in 1984. But unlike Mr. Pike, he didn’t face an incumbent the second time—Mr. Carney dropped out. With the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster happening in 1986, opposition in Suffolk to the Shoreham nuclear power plant and Mr. Carney’s zealous advocacy of it had become yet more intense. So after four terms, Mr. Carney, who began as a Conservative with GOP endorsement, didn’t run again. Mr. Hochbrueckner faced Republican Gregory Blass of South Jamesport, presiding officer of the Suffolk Legislature, and won.  The Shoreham plant was stopped from going into operation. And Mr. Carney became a lobbyist in Washington for the nuclear power industry. 

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 "National Leader In Environmental Initiatives"

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

With Earth Day celebrated this week, three cheers to the Suffolk County Legislature for having just passed a set of measures aimed at restricting the use plastic—that substance that has polluted the planet.

Sponsoring the bills was Kara Hahn who before becoming a legislator held positions with the legislature including as its director of communications. That involved presenting the words and accomplishments of members of the panel. As a legislator herself, first elected in 2011, Ms. Hahn’s own words—and accomplishments—have been very noteworthy.

“The scale of the worldwide single-use plastics problem has become an ever-increasing threat to our environment and everything that relies on it, including human health,” said Legislator Hahn after the passage of a sweeping package of Suffolk environmental regulations on plastic. “The plastics crisis is more urgent than people realize, and today we as a county have taken action to address the challenges posed by these dangerous pollutants. It is my hope that our action will spur other leaders to take a bold stand against expediency in favor of sustainability.”

The measures, passed April 9, include: prohibiting eateries from providing cups, containers, trays and other disposable items made of polystyrene—commonly referred to as Styrofoam; outlawing plastic straws and stirrers in favor of biodegradable alternatives; barring the sale in Suffolk of polystyrene packing materials (including those commonly used Styrofoam “peanuts”; and prohibiting county park concessionaires from distributing single-use cups, utensils or straws made from non-biodegradable substances.

The bills now go to the county executive who is expected to sign them into law.

The measures of Ms. Hahn, of Setauket, codify recommendations of the county’s Single-Use Plastic Reduction Task Force which she leads. She is also chairwoman of the legislature’s Environment, Planning and Agriculture Committee. And she is the legislature’s Democratic majority leader.

The Earth Day Network says online about Earth Day 2019, observed on Monday, that human beings have “upset the balance of nature.” 

The plastics deluge is a prime example. Ms. Hahn cites research of the Ocean Conservancy finding that “every year 8 million metric tons of plastics enter our ocean on top of the estimated 150 million metric tons that currently circulate in our marine environments. As a result, ingested plastic has been found in more than 60% of all seabirds and in 100% of sea turtles species. While this has been devastating to marine life and ocean ecosystems, the impacts of plastic and, in particular, polystyrene are also a tangible threat to human health. The World Health Organization classifies styrene as a probable human carcinogen and the Environmental Protection Agency says the polystyrene manufacturing process is the fifth largest creator of hazardous waste in the United States.”

Furthermore, says Ms. Hahn, “in recent years, minute micro-plastics and fibers, measuring the width of a human hair or far less, have been found in an extraordinary range of products, such as honey and sugar, shellfish, bottled and tap water, beer, processed foods, table salt and soft drinks, which means that just like the sea turtles and birds, we humans are ingesting plastic virtually every day.”

The Suffolk Legislature has a long history of environmental initiatives. 

 In 1988 it enacted a ban on Styrofoam by supermarkets and fast-food restaurants to protect air quality and groundwater from the “hazards and toxicity” associated with its disposal. I watched as executives from the fast-food and plastics industries paraded before the legislature denying any harm from plastic. Indeed, it was two decades before—in the 1967 movie The Graduate—that a family friend advises young Benjamin Braddock: “There is a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?”

The 1988 Suffolk ban was overturned on a technical issue. “It’s been 30 years since Suffolk first sounded the alarm on the dangers of single-use plastic,” comments Ms. Hahn. “During those three decades not a single piece of plastic has biodegraded. We must…reduce use or now suffer the consequences for generations to come.”

As the years have passed, Suffolk, the nation and world have “thought about” plastics and there’s a growing conclusion that there’s no “great future” for this substance that litters the Earth and is a serious threat to people’s health and other forms of life.

Suffolk has been in the forefront of environmental action from programs to preserve farmland to the fight against plastics to the successful battle to stop the placement here of nuclear power plants. The Long Island History Journal in 2011 ran an extensive article which in its title described Suffolk as a “National Leader in Environmental Initiatives.” It cited among other accomplishments the enactment in 1970 of a “groundbreaking” Suffolk County Environmental Bill of Rights that “made environmental conservation an objective for the county.”

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.