SUFFOLK CLOSEUP- Women Underrepresented In Elected Offices

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

There has never been a woman representing Suffolk County in the U.S. House of Representatives and there has never been a woman representing Suffolk in the New York State Senate—but that will end in the new year when Monica R. Martinez becomes a state senator.

The story of Ms. Martinez, born in El Salvador, an educator who had to sacrifice what was higher pay in her position as a middle school assistant principal after becoming a Suffolk County legislator, is a very American story especially in regard to the changing demographics of the United States.

“I came to this country at the age of three,” related Ms. Martinez of Brentwood in her literature during her run for the State Senate. “My parents sacrificed so much and fought so hard to give me the opportunity to succeed that I have dedicated my life to the belief we must make the opportunity to fulfill the American dream available to everyone. That is the reason I attended college and became a teacher, it is the reason I stepped up to serve the community in the Suffolk County Legislature, and it is the reason I am running today for the New York State Senate.”

Well, that’s the good news.

The bad news: there are but two females among the 10 town supervisors in Suffolk and there will be only men representing Suffolk in the U.S. House of Representatives—the case for more than two centuries. Although Ms. Martinez broke through a political glass ceiling, the other four senators from Suffolk will be men. And further, of the 12 members of the State Assembly representing Suffolk, only one in the new year will be a woman. 

One out of 12! That’s not fair or equitable considering that women comprise more than 50 percent of Suffolk County’s 1.5 million population. 

There have been two women in the Suffolk Assembly delegation this year and last. But incumbent Assemblywoman Christine Pellegrino lost in last month’s election. 

The one woman in Suffolk’s Assembly delegation will be Assemblywoman Kimberly Jean-Pierre of Wheatley Heights who was re-elected to a third two-year term. She is the daughter of immigrants to the U.S. from Haiti. Like Ms. Martinez, who received a bachelor’s degree from Binghamton University, a master’s degree in secondary education from NYU and an administrative degree in school leadership from Stony Brook University, Ms. Jean-Pierre is also well-educated. She received a bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College and a master’s in public policy from Stony Brook University.

Both have extensive community experience, Ms. Martinez as a high school social studies teacher and school administrator and Ms. Jean-Pierre as director of the Wyandanch Resource Center and before that a vice president of the Babylon Town Industrial Agency. And before that Ms. Jean-Pierre worked as community outreach director for former U.S. Representative Steve Israel and was an aide to Suffolk Legislator DuWayne Gregory, presiding officer of the Suffolk Legislature. Speaking of glass ceilings, he is the first African-American to attain what is considered the Number 2 position in Suffolk after county executive, 

“On the stumps and on the march, women broke down barriers in 2018,” was the post-election headline in The Christian Science Monitor. The headline was moderated with a sub-head in the middle of the page noting: “Women’s representation in federal government jumped in 2018, but they still make up less than a quarter of Congress.”

The U.S and Suffolk County still have far to go in terms of females in elected office.

Suffolk has already come far on this, relatively. When I first started covering Suffolk County in the 1960s, the county’s governing board, the centuries-old Suffolk County Board of Supervisors, made up of the supervisors of each of the county’s 10 towns, consisted of ten men. Its members throughout its history were only guys, white guys, incidentally.

The big breakthrough in terms of females in government in Suffolk County came in 1973 with the election of Judith Hope as East Hampton Town supervisor, the first woman town supervisor in Suffolk. Ms. Hope, however, was too late to be a member of the Suffolk Board of Supervisors, it having been phased out in 1970 for a Suffolk Legislature based on districts of equal population, a result of one-person-one-vote court decisions. The Suffolk Legislature has had an OK, but not great, female membership—currently five of the 18 legislative seats are held by women. Among them is Leslie Kennedy of Nesconset whose district includes Smithtown  And women have been presiding officers of the legislature. 

Ms. Hope went on to become chairwoman of the New York State Democratic Party—the first woman to head a major political party in New York State. And she subsequently launched the Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee committed to the important mission of bringing more women into elected office in the state.

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 - Solar A Great Thing To Do Something We Have To Do

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“Vibrant” is the word used by Dean Hapshe last week about the state of the solar power industry. A major reason for this—“the price of the panels has come down,” he noted. And although the LIPA rebates for installing solar are now gone, the cost of panels “has dropped to a half of what they were 10 years ago,” said Mr. Hapshe. Thus, solar is still a very economical investment. Also, federal and state incentives are still in place

Dean is project manager of Suffolk County-based Harvest Power. He’s a pioneer in solar energy, starting off in the field in 1980. He teaches solar power installation and design. Dean is, indeed, a dean of solar power.

He installed the system at our house in what as of the new year will be a decade ago. Our house is a classic “saltbox” more than 100 years old.  Solar for my wife and me has been well worth it. 

Even on cloudy days, the LIPA/PSEG meter on the house regularly goes backward—signifying that we’re producing more electricity than we’re using. The excess goes back to the grid. If over a year’s period, the excess is more than what one consumes over the year, you get a check for that extra amount. No longer is it the $200-plus a month we used to spend for electricity. 

In addition to the 38 photovoltaic panels on our roof, there are two thermal panels—which heat up water and send it into the house. Even if it’s cool outside, at play is a dynamic comparable to the heat which builds up inside a car from the sun when you leave a car parked. It might be 50 degrees outside but the thermometer on the hot water tank in our basement shows water coming down at 100 degrees and more. 

Although the LIPA rebate no longer exists, the federal incentive of a 30 percent tax credit for the cost of a solar installation is still here. It will reduce to 26 percent in 2020 and move further downward after that. But, noted Mr. Hapshe, through the years, when this incentive was in trouble, Congress got involved. Meanwhile, New York State still provides a $5,000 incentive towards the price of a system.           

And at the same time the cost of solar panels has substantially reduced, their efficiency—how much electricity they generate—has gone up. The efficiency rate of solar photovoltaic panels to produce electricity on homes, businesses and other terrestrial settings is now comparable to the efficiency of panels pioneered for use in space. 

The cost for an average residential installation today is $30,000 to $35,000, Mr. Hapshe said. Thus the “payback”—the time when the price of installation has met what had been one’s electricity cost—is about seven years, he said. For thermal the “payback” in terms of savings on oil or gas to heat water is half that.    

Mr. Hapshe of Patchogue got into solar because “solar energy is the right thing to do. God has given us this wonderful Earth and we must be stewards. I’m so glad I’ve done this.”

After graduating from Boston University, Mr. Hapshe went directly into the solar field. “I was sitting in the third-floor library at Boston U.,” he recalled, “thinking of what I would do when I got out of college Only two things came to mind, one was recycling and the other solar energy. When I got out of college, a friend of mine said her husband worked for a solar energy company and would I be interested? I jumped on that and got hired right away.” 

His commitment, “comes from years of realizing how beautiful this planet is,” witnessing the damage being done to the Earth and wanting to make things better. Because of climate change, for example, “I’ll never get to see the glaciers at Glacier National Park.”

“I feel I have to do my little part,” he said. “It’s all anybody can do. If we all do something together, we can have something for our children and our grandchildren.”

Harvest Power, headquartered in Islip Terrace, installs solar systems all over Long Island and elsewhere in New York State and now also in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Massachusetts. It has 60 employees. It does both residential and commercial installations. It has done 30,000 installations so far.

            “Solar is a great thing to do,” said Mr. Hapshe, “and it’s something we have to do.”

And a year ago to bring solar-generated electricity to those who might not be able to have panels on their roofs because of their direction or configuration or they live in apartments, the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency and PSEG Long Island began a program in which solar panels are installed on large structures and the “green” electricity from them sold, he advised. Harvest Power is involved in installations and sale of electricity in this undertaking with structures now being utilized in areas in Suffolk including Center Moriches and Shelter Island.

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. 

Op-Ed School Safety Should Not Be A Partisan Issue

Suffolk County Legislator Rob Trotta 13th LD

Last week, Democrats in the Suffolk County Legislature tabled my proposal to help make our schools less prone to shootings. The proposal doesn’t degrade any other county services, it doesn’t cost taxpayers anything more, nor does it infringe on anyone’s constitutional rights, it does, however, come from a Republican. Majority Democrats like Senator-elect Monica Martinez and Legislator Rob Calarco blocked my proposal, yet previously spent 2 million dollars of taxpayer money on an app that could be used by some school personnel to speed-dial 9-1-1 in the event of an emergency, an app, whose own terms of use state that it should not be used as a substitute for dialing 9-1-1. The steps that we take as elected officials must be responsible ones, driven by public safety, not public relations, and there is no place for playing politics when it comes to the safety of our children and teachers.

You don’t need to have been a police officer or a detective, like I was for 25 years, to know that bad guys like soft targets. No, my bill doesn’t require that we arm teachers or principals; it would simply require shift changes for Suffolk County Police Officers to occur at schools rather than at fire departments where practical. As a police officer, I participated in thousands of shift changes and each of them could have been conducted at a school. A greater police presence at schools, even if it’s just for 30 additional minutes three additional times per day can only help in preventing further tragedies.

While the national debate on this issue can be a contentious and unproductive one, often pitting those who want to abolish the Second Amendment against powerful and righteous Constitutionalists, my initiative is one that both Democrats and Republicans can support, or at least, they should.

In the United States, since 2005, there have been 10 school shootings where at least five people were killed. Suffolk’s lawmakers have a duty to ensure we are implementing common- sense and constitutional solutions to combat this epidemic. Sadly, my initiative, which neither comes at any additional cost to taxpayers, nor infringes on any American’s constitutional rights is being blocked by Suffolk County Democrats.

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Suffolk County Is Something To Be Thankful For

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Although from New York City, I’ve lived in Suffolk County all my adult life. And, I was thinking the other day, that’s something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

My family, after living in Brooklyn and Queens, ended up in a lovely part of Manhattan—on Gramercy Park for 50 years until my mom and dad passed away. The apartment had two terraces on its east and west sides the glitter and excitement of Manhattan. My parents had the key to Gramercy Park itself, their favorite green sanctuary. 

Two weeks back, just after the scallop season opened, my wife and I were at the Southold Fish Market. If Norman Rockwell lived not in Massachusetts and Vermont but in Suffolk, he would have painted pictures of it. There was a handmade sign out front: “Wanted Scallop Openers.” Also outside was a huge bin filled with empty shells. Inside, folks in rubber waders were shucking scallops, a picturesque scene.

Moreover, Peconic Bay scallops are, hands-down, the finest scallops in the world—and I’ve tried many including those on Nantucket, said to be the nearest competition.

At Charlie Manwaring’s Southold Fish Market, not only are shellfish and finfish sold,  but there’s a café. At it, scallops are perfectly cooked. “Dredged in flour and cooked in butter with some garlic in a hot pan,” I was told. You’d never find scallops so fresh, so good, so sensationally cooked in the Big City. On the menu is a tale beginning with: “ONCE UPON A TIME…a young boy learned to clam and fish from his father and grandfather….That young man….Charlie…still works his heart out at the job he loves. He and his crew look forward to showing you what our surrounding waters and the hard work of our local baymen can offer.”

We were on the North Fork so I could get an epidural injection from a fantastic doctor to deal with pain in a hip. That’s a thing about Suffolk, there’s quality all over the place.

Dr. Frank Adipietro presides at the Dr. Frank J. Adipietro Interventional Pain Center, an entire wing of Eastern Long Island Hospital. The hospital is right on the water in Greenport. It’s quite a contrast, besides its setting, to hospitals in New York City. Here medical care is remarkably friendly, personal and on a small-scale—yet still of the highest-quality. (That shot by the next morning had virtually eliminated the pain.)

I’ve always gotten a kick out of quaint Greenport. 

We took the North Ferry going back and I thought of the other place where there are small white ferries like this: the San Juan Islands off the state of Washington. A big difference is that waters there are frigid. Indeed, on those ferries are signs warning of hypothermia in an instant if one falls into the water. Happily, Suffolk waters are swimmable much of the year.

Driving across bucolic Shelter Island, past the sign warning motorists that there may be turtles on the road, I thought of the contrast between this sweet island and much of the area where I’m a journalism professor in now mostly heavily built-up Nassau County. 

We were on the South Ferry, named the Lt. Joe Theinart, going to North Haven. Lt. Theinart of Shelter Island was killed in 2010 at age 24 by the explosion of an improvised bomb in Afghanistan. On entering Shelter Island from the ferry, you see, nearly a decade later, a hand-written sign declaring: “We Love You Joey” and a depiction of a heart.

Service to the nation has long been revered in Suffolk, as the host of monuments to Civil War and World War I (many extended to World War II) service attest. There’s also a monument in Huntington to a patriot of the Revolutionary War—Nathan Hale who at 21 answered General George Washington’s request and volunteered to be a spy behind enemy lines on Long Island. He began his mission on the shores of Huntington Bay. He was later captured and hung by the British. He famously declared as his last words: “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”

My wife, Janet, was from nearby Huntington Beach when we met in 1959 on the first week for us at Antioch College in Ohio. (As of the new year, we’ll have been together for 60 years.) A half-year Antioch internship at the Cleveland Press inspired me to get into journalism as quickly as I could. Janet and I went to Suffolk. Thinking I needed some more college to get a job in journalism, for a year and a half I attended then Adelphi Suffolk College in Sayville and started and was editor there of the first newspaper at a four-year college in Suffolk which I named The New Voice. 

We first lived in Islip, then Brentwood, then Sayville and now, going on 45 years, Noyac.

From the South Ferry we drove through beautiful Sag Harbor and then adjacent Noyac. It was to Sag Harbor that my paternal grandparents came from Hungary, met, married and settled more than a century ago, later moving to the city. I became a reporter in Suffolk in 1961. Janet,  now retired as a teacher, and I raised two sons, Adam and Kurt, in Suffolk. It’s been a good life here.

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 - 'A Christmas Carol'

Theater Review – ‘A Christmas Carol’

Produced by: Theatre Three – Port Jefferson

Reviewed by: Jeb Ladouceur 

Jeffrey Sanzel as ‘Ebenezer Scrooge’ (foreground) and his Clerk, ‘Bob Crachit’ - Douglas J. Quattrock

On Long Island, Christmas wouldn’t be the happy, traditional time we all look forward to, were it not for the inclusion of Theatre Three’s perennial staging of Charles Dickens’ classic ‘A Christmas Carol.’ 

Every year at about this time, the itch to kick back in Port Jefferson’s 160-year-old playhouse and wonder at the genius of its guiding light, Director Jeffrey Sanzel (who wrote the prize-winning adaptation) wafts over us like the millions of falling leaves that herald the arrival of the holiday season along with the great Sanzel’s masterpiece.

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If that smacks of hyperbole, you must ask yourself how many staged dramatic versions of world-renowned stories you know of that have kept audiences returning annually to the same venue for nearly thirty-five years!

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It wouldn’t be the least bit surprising to learn that some of the roles being played by newcomers to this familiar production were interpreted a few years back by their mothers or fathers. That’s how much staying power originally Dickens … and now Sanzel … have injected into this most endearing (and enduring) of all Yultide-oriented dramas.

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You may number this reviewer among those critics who have found Theatre Three’s productions of ‘A Christmas Carol’ more and more charming as the years go by. Leave it to Director Sanzel and his talented retinue to alter for the better even that which so many Long Islanders have already dubbed “…a perfect classic of the first rank…” and we’ve been quick to embrace the show as our very own contribution to the Arts. 

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That claim is not as presumptuous as it may sound at first blush, for just as a book is never really completed until it’s read, no play is ever truly finalized until seen in performance. Thus, local theater fans themselves contribute in a major way to the success of this home-grown classic.

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Indeed, Jeffrey Sanzel seems to delight so much in touching up his superb adaptation annually, that some of us who note these improvements with the passing seasons have taken to calling him ‘The Leonardo of Port Jefferson,’ such is his dedication to perfection. Of course, we do so in private … because the self- effacing impresario would be aghast to know that in his re-workings he is being compared to the greatest of all renaissance men. So be it. We stand by our characterization.

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It is only fair that five artists should be saluted for having earned key ‘A Christmas Carol’ roles for the first time. They are: Nicole Bianco (a charming Belle) … Eric Hughes (convincing London apprentice Dick Wilkins) … Michelle LaBozzetta (the perfect narrator of Christmas Past) … Andrew Lenahan (wonderful as Jacob Marley) … and Richard Schindler (endearing as the jolly Fezziwig). Congratulations to them all … their sure-footed performances on the Theatre Three stage reveal clearly why they’ve been selected for the important parts they play.

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Of course, this most beloved of all Christmas Season stories belongs largely (though not exclusively by any means) to its antagonist-turned-protagonist—Ebenezer Scrooge. The central character is played by Jeffrey Sanzel himself, and it is nigh on to impossible to picture anyone else undertaking the miser’s demanding but unforgettable role. Similarly, one can hardly imagine a serious patron of the Theater Arts ever leaving Port Jefferson’s famed Theatre Three … its glittering Main Street marquee flashing the invitation to, ‘A Christmas Carol’ … without feeling amply rewarded for having partaken of the grand old playhouse’s holiday treat.

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The Show runs thru December 29th - (631) 928-9202 … and by all means, bring the kids … they’ll love you for it!

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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