SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - The Push To Pave Over LI Has Always Been An Inside Job

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman 

A push for more intense development of Suffolk County is underway.

Driving in Huntington the other day (on a visit to my mother-in-law on Mother’s Day), we went past signs declaring “Save Our Town—Stop Villadom” posted along roads. Being protested is a proposed “Mega-Mall” named Villadom. An $80 million 486.380 square foot project, it’s proposed to be built on 50 acres of open land along Jericho Turnpike between Dix Hills and Elwood.

And there’s resistance elsewhere in the county to major development projects which include Greybarn Sayville, a 1,365-unit apartment complex proposed for Sayville at the former Island Hills Golf Club, and Heartland Town Square, a 9,000-apartment complex slated for Brentwood.

The development push has caused civic groups to unite—including the 4 Towns Civic Association which covers the towns of Babylon, Huntington, Smithtown and Islip and is among the most powerful civic entities in Suffolk. “Civic Groups Use Regional Strategy to Oppose Development,” was the sub-head of a Newsday article last month. It reported: “Members of these groups say they want to maintain Long Island’s suburban feel and are voicing shared concerns about over-crowding, traffic…and potential harm to the environment.”

Suffolk’s East End is not immune to this new development drive. Having paved over Nassau County and a lot of western and central Suffolk, the bulldozer boys are seeking to finish up their activities “up the Island”—building bigger and with greater density than ever. And with their money and political influence, the East End will be all that’s remaining on Long Island for them to hit. 

“It can’t happen here?” Years ago, my family lived in Sayville adjacent to the Island Hills Golf Club—a pretty community now facing transformation into high-density development. 

The biggest intense development project is slated for Ronkonkoma.

It’s called the “Ronkonkoma Hub” and has been pushed hard by Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone—1,450 apartments and 545,000 square feet of retail and office space on 50 acres at a cost of $650 million. 

And last month the county executive’s office announced it has accepted a $1 billion proposal to build on 40 acres of county land just south of the core of Ronkonkoma Hub a complex involving a 17,500-seat sports and entertainment arena, a 500-room hotel, two ice rinks, 160,000 square feet of medical research space, and 90,000 square feet of retail stores and restaurants.

Even Newsday which through the decades has sounded a clarion call for Long Island development couldn’t stomach the stadium plan. “A Big Arena in Suffolk County Makes No Sense for Long Island,” was the headline of a Newsday editorial.  The sub-head noted that “Nassau Already Has the Coliseum” and a “Bigger” arena is “in the Works at Belmont Park.”

“Major projects should be developed with a grasp of how they complement other parts of the region. That’s not what has happened here,” said Newsday’s editorial board. “There’s no sign that any professional team, including the Islanders, would settle in Suffolk…Given all that, it’s worrisome that Suffolk officials would choose the arena-centric option proposed by Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle and Woodbury engineer John Cameron.”

Mr. Cameron is a key figure in the stadium-plus project and is also chairman of the Long Island Regional Planning Council. The council’s website declares it “the only planning body representing both Nassau and Suffolk Counties.” Its 12 members are appointed by the county executives of Nassau and Suffolk. In 2016, it received $250,000 from each county. Mr. Cameron has been its chairman for a decade. He was a field engineer at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant above New York City before founding Cameron Engineering & Associates in Woodbury.

The other figures in the stadium-plus project are Chicago real estate developer Jones Lang LaSalle and investment banker Ray Bartoszek who resides in Montana and also has a home in Southampton.

Commenting in the stadium-plus scheme—in a column headlined “Suffolk’s Grand Plan for a Sports Arena”—Joe Werkmeister, editor of the Riverhead News-Review and The Suffolk Times, wrote: “As the details trickled out, this arena proposal became more and more absurd.”

Richard Murdocco, who studied planning under longtime Suffolk County Planning Director Lee Koppelman at Stony Brook University and is a professor in its Public Policy Graduate Program, on his blog, The Foggiest Idea, criticized the process through which the builders of the arena-plus project were selected—top-down by a handful of Suffolk County officials. “He asked: “Why did Suffolk County seemingly shy away from the public eye?”

 “Like most other things on Long Island, what’s old is new again,” he wrote.

Indeed, the push to pave over Long Island has always been an inside job.

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 – 'Curtains'

Theater Review – ‘Curtains’

Produced by Theatre Three – Port Jefferson

Reviewed by Jeb Ladouceur

I fell for this wacky musical the minute I realized that the opening number ‘Wide Open Spaces’ was leading us into the mother of all theatrical farces. Indeed, after the ‘Curtains’ company had finished their corny, Oklahoma-like prancing around, it appeared that this reviewer would have to live up to the entertainment industry’s equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath, and pan the ‘yee-haw’ show.

My oh my … what an injustice that would have been! 

Because the routine that followed, ‘What Kind of Man?’ features key members of the creative team for a hokey play-within-a-play called ‘Robbin’ Hood.’ They’re reading mordant reviews in the Boston papers of the show’s opening night tryout and speculating bitterly in song about the kind of man who would want to write such scathing stuff. It’s possible that only a professional reviewer could recognize the full implication of the number.

Moments later, however, the production crew comes across an obscure critique that praises their show (if only obliquely) … and they do an about-face. Now theater commentators are extolled as among the wisest of literary pundits. Ah, me!

Like all farces, this complex combination of love, betrayal, ambition, and murder is almost impossible to review adequately. There are just too many facets to the plot that need explaining. The play must have been (pardon the pun) ‘murder’ to direct. That said, if anyone could accurately steer this ship called ‘Curtains,’ (the term for ‘a violent end’ popularized by gangsters in the 20s) it’s Jeffrey Sanzel. He is probably the finest director working in live theater today.

But it’s one thing for your resident critic to laud this rib-tickling musical … let’s see what the American Theatre Wing had to say when they issued their nominations for 2007’s coveted Tony Awards. ‘Curtains’ received a total of eight nods in the Musical category. Furthermore, those nominations spanned all the key groupings … Actor, Actress, Director, Choreographer, Score … and yes, Musical.

That year’s Drama Desk virtually mimicked the Theatre Wing’s recognitions. The organization honored ‘Curtains’ with nine nominations, adding Set and Costume design to the categories saluted by The Wing. Quite the collection of accolades one would have to say.

Though it’s billed as a ‘whodunit,’ this show is not without its placid moments. The best of them, in my view, is rendered when James Schultz (who plays lyricist Aaron Fox) sings the tender ballad, ‘I Miss the Music.’ The song holds particular significance for those of us who have missed the multi-talented Schultz. His return to Theatre Three after a several months-long hiatus from his home stage was acknowledged by an applauding crowd who stood and cheered during his curtain call.

I’ve always been a sort of patsy for good productions of ‘Oklahoma,’ ‘Carousel,’ and the like, but to be frank, they invariably smack somewhat of pizza without the hot pepper. One of the things that distinguishes Broadway musicals is the touch of naughtiness they can get away with. In the show running at Theatre Three thru June 23 you’ll find just enough impishness to tickle your funny bone without making you feel depraved.

This review would be incomplete without recognizing the contributions of Mary Ellen Kurtz as ‘Carmen Bernstein’ (move over Ethel Merman) … Steve McCoy controls the pace as ‘Lt. Frank Cioffi’ … Matt Senese is a spot-on ‘Chris Belling’ … Meg Bush plays a convincing ‘Jessica Cranshaw’ while doubling as Dance Captain. And yes … Jeffrey Sanzel directs.

In sum … ‘Curtains’ is the kind of multi-faceted production that almost magically, according to one Artistic Director, has the effect of an anti-depressant. So, if you’re feeling a bit low … or harassed … or if the weather’s got you down … or the kids have you climbing the walls … head on over to ‘Broadway on Main Street’ in Port Jeff. 

Theatre Three … ‘Curtains.’

No prescription necessary.

________________________________________________________________

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 newly completed thriller, THE SOUTHWICK INCIDENT, was introduced at the Smithtown Library in May. The book involves a radicalized Yale student and his CIA pursuers. Mr. Ladouceur’s revealing website is www.JebsBooks.com

Theater Review – ‘Singin’ in the Rain’

Theater Review – ‘Singin’ in the Rain’

Produced by The John W. Engeman Theater - Northport

Reviewed by Jeb Ladouceur

Danny Gardner & Ensemble (Michael DeCristofaro photo)

It seems almost every successful stage show has a gimmick. ‘Mary Poppins’ floats under her magic umbrella … ‘A Christmas Carol’ scares the (Charles) Dickens out of us with that 15-foot ‘Ghost of Christmas yet to Come’ … a flesh-eating plant inhabits the‘Little Shop of Horrors’ … and of course ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ is famous for its on-stage deluge.

Theatergoers who have come to expect the signature splash-scene from which ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ derives its title, will not be disappointed when at Northport’s plush Engeman playhouse a drenched Danny Gardner steps into Gene Kelly’s soggy shoes and spins around that dripping lamp post. As a friend recently observed when we left the Gateway Playhouse at the conclusion of ‘A Chorus Line,’ “Some things in show business you just never get tired of.” The familiar inundation number made famous by Kelly falls easily into that category.

It was obviously much simpler to choreograph the famed rain scene in the film from which this musical is drawn than it is to present it on stage. Accordingly, the event is a sodden show-stopper. But it should be remembered that there’s much more to this Betty Comdon – Adolph Green book than a few minutes of cute splashing around in a street full of puddles.

Not to be overlooked is the madcap business delivered by a comedic singer/dancer name of Cosmo Brown who is lead actor Don Lockwood’s best friend. Cosmo (unforgettably played in the motion picture by Donald O’Connor and here by the equally talented Brian Shepard) performs an extraordinary version of ‘Make ‘em Laugh’ … a number that is every bit as cleverly original as the title song that Don sings and dances to splendidly. 

Indeed, this show is so replete with memorable ballads that it’s difficult to single out a winner … the score is incredible. ‘Fit as a Fiddle,’ ‘All I Do is Dream of You,’ ‘Make ‘em Laugh,’ ‘You Are My Lucky Star,’ ‘Good Morning,’ … and half a dozen other smash hits keep everyone’s toes tapping. No wonder ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ is almost universally considered the best musical ever filmed.

For you first-timers, here’s the story line: Lockwood is a Roaring Twenties silent film star … and he barely tolerates leading lady, Lina Lamont (performed by Engeman’s brilliant Emily Stockdale). Their Producer, a guy named Simpson, (savvy veteran Leer Leary) noting that the first talking movie, ‘The Jazz Singer,’ is a boffo success, decides to convert his new Lockwood/Lamont film, ‘The Dueling Cavalier,’ into a talkie … and a musical talkie at that. But hold it … Lina’s grating voice is worse than fingernails scratching on a blackboard. This’ll never do.

There’s a disastrous screening … a dubbing over Lina’s screechy vocalizing (by Tessa Grady playing the sweet-voiced female protagonist Kathy Selden) … a conversion of ‘The Dueling Cavalier’ into ‘The Dancing Cavalier,’ … all accompanied by a plethora of related complications.

And would you believe it? … the premiere of ‘The Dancing Cavalier’ is a tremendous success! … until … but what happens next, you’ll have to see for yourself between now and July first. Suffice it to say … as my friend presciently perceived … there’s no getting tired of those really great show biz experiences … thank goodness they’re eternal.

This show is wonderfully directed and choreographed by Drew Humphrey … and Kurt Alger does a bang-up job of dressing the cast in 1920s attire. The hairdos and ‘flapper’ dresses are certain to remind you of those nifty old pictures of Grandma that so lovingly decorate your hall at home. 

But let’s face it, the star of the show is the downpour … (during which hoofer Danny Gardner somehow manages to maintain his footing) … and the ten ‘stagehands’ who mop up at intermission, leaving The Engeman with what has to be the cleanest floor of any theater on Long Island. One woman a few seats to my right was heard to say, “I wonder if they do windows?”

 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 newest 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 - What Say You About Bellone's New Suburbia ?

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

County Executive Steve Bellone is promoting development that would transform Suffolk County, intensifying density here. “A New Suburbia is Coming to Long Island,” was the title of an essay by Mr. Bellone recently published in Long Island Business News. 

He advanced a vision for Suffolk not welcomed by one planning expert or in online comments by a good number of readers. However, Mr. Bellone’s approach is supported by pro-development interests along with the Long Island Federation of Labor and Building Trades Council of Nassau and Suffolk Counties.

“Long Island is in the midst of historic change,” wrote Mr. Bellone. “Today, a new suburbia is on the horizon, and Suffolk County is leading the way….This is about protecting the suburban communities that we love by adapting to the transformative change happening in our world.”

Mr. Bellone pointed to building projects he is championing led by “the $650 million Ronkonkoma Hub mixed-use project. When this project is fully built out, it will deliver a true walkable downtown and create 18,000 jobs.” 

As described in Newsday, based on a presentation to the Long Island Regional Planning Council in November by Robert Lozcalzo, CEO of Tritec, an East Setauket real estate firm developing the Ronkonkoma Hub project for Suffolk County, “when completed, the hub is expected to encompass about 50 acres, with 1,450 apartments and 545,000 square feet of retail and office space.” It would be, he said, the “Gateway to Eastern Long Island.”

There’s no question that Ronkonkoma, north of Long Island MacArthur Airport and where the terminus of the electrified central branch of the Long Island Rail Road is located is ripe to be a commuter hub. But to create a new small city on top of that is something else.  

Then, last month, the county executive’s office announced it has accepted a proposal to build on 40 acres of county land just south of the core of Ronkonkoma Hub a complex involving a 17,500-seat sports and entertainment arena, a 500-room hotel, two ice rinks, 160,000 square feet of medical research space, and 90,000 square feet of retail stores and restaurants. This is to be a $1 billion project.

A push in recent years by Suffolk County executives for development is not new. Mr. Bellone’s predecessor, Steve Levy, a decade ago promoted a $400 million project in which an arena, hotel, restaurants, retail stores and 1,215 housing units would be built on 225 acres of county land in rural Yaphank. The scheme—dubbed “Levyland”—got nowhere. Perhaps the Ronkonkoma Hub and the adjoining major development might be dubbed “Belloneyland.” 

“Getting Dense with Development Doesn’t Make Sense” was the title of an essay countering Mr. Bellone by Richard Murdocco, who studied under longtime Suffolk County Planning Director Lee Koppelman at Stony Brook University, received a master’s degree in public policy, and is a professor in its Public Policy Graduate Program. He is on the American Planning Association’s Long Island Section Steering Committee.

As Mr. Bellone “touts his record of suburban transformation,” wrote Mr. Murdocco on his The Foggiest Idea blog, “Long Island continues to slowly suffocate under its own weight. It’s not surprising that the county’s chief policymaker who has prioritized economic development over sound community-driven and environmental planning efforts might be a bit too quick to take a victory lap.” 

Mr. Bellone’s “new suburbia…may not be the panacea so often touted when it actually arrives. Our groundwaters are increasingly being tainted by new pollutants, and the Sound and the sea are increasingly at risk…Real estate development, when allowed recklessly, can amplify these impacts even further. In recent years, the traditional model of suburban sprawl is being replaced with merely a new variant: just higher densities and rentals shoehorned in between the existing poorly planned subdvisions and worn-out shopping centers.”

Critical comments on the Long Island Business News website about Mr. Bellone’s essay included one reader, Jan Williams, complaining about “too, too much density. All over the place. Everyone else will suffer except the business elites and the politicians.” Another reader, Theresa, wrote: “This is not a vision of suburbia; this is creating urban centers, crowding, pollution, and congestion.” More development, said Julie, will ruin the “natural beauty of the area and why people originally came to Long Island.”

Suffolk’s first county executive, H. Lee Dennison, five years after he left office after 12 years, called for steps to “strongly limit” Suffolk’s population to 1.5 million people.  This was in 1978 when there were 1.28 million people here. Now we are at 1.5 million.  More than that, he said, would be “too many people for the resources we have.. .fresh water, air and space.”

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 - Schneiderman "Probably" To Challenge Kennedy For County Comptroller

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Jay Schneiderman, the Southampton Town supervisor, told me last week he “probably” will be running this November for Suffolk County comptroller.  A Democrat, he would be facing Republican incumbent John A. Kennedy, Jr.

It’s an important position: Suffolk County government’s chief fiscal watchdog.

Both men have long experience in Suffolk government. Mr. Schneiderman was first elected a county legislator in 2003. Between 1991 and 1996 he was a member and then chairman of the Town of East Hampton Zoning Board of Appeals, was elected East Hampton supervisor in 1999 and from there went to the legislature. He served five two-year terms as a legislator before being term-limited under the panel’s rules. So, in 2015, he ran for and was elected supervisor of Southampton Town, having moved from Montauk to Southampton. He is the only person in county history to be supervisor of two of Suffolk’s 10 towns. 

He has long been interested in being Suffolk County comptroller. In 2014, while a legislator, Mr. Schneiderman spoke about running for the position saying: “I think I’d make a good comptroller. I’m a numbers guy.” However, the Democratic Party nominated instead James Gaughran of Huntington, then and now chairman of the Suffolk County Water Authority, who was defeated by Mr. Kennedy

Mr. Kennedy, of the Smithtown community of Nesconset, started working for the county in 1986 under County Executive Peter Cohalan in the executive’s Office for the Aging. He went on to serve a succession of county executives, two Republicans and Patrick Halpin, a Democrat, before becoming an official in the county clerk’s office in 1995. He ran for the Suffolk Legislature in 2003. Between 2012 and 2014, he was its GOP minority leader. He was also term-limited after five two-year terms.

In running for comptroller, Mr. Kennedy, an attorney, stressed how he “streamlined” operations in the clerk’s office where he was official examiner of title.

There would be a geographical issue in a Schneiderman-Kennedy race. Although well- known in East Hampton and Southampton towns—and in the somewhat wider area covered by the legislative district he represented including Shelter Island after it was added to the district in 2014—how would Mr. Schneiderman fare in a countywide race? Mr. Kennedy is, as is said on Suffolk’s East End, from “up the Island”—where most of the county’s 1.5 million people reside. Will Mr. Schneiderman have the name recognition he might need to run a county race decided by voters in western and central Suffolk.

There is a wrinkle to this, however. He has ties to the west. Although Mr. Schneiderman’s folks owned a motel in Montauk, and the family spent summers in Montauk, during most of the rest of the year they lived in Hauppauge. He is a graduate of Hauppauge High School. Interestingly, Ed Romaine, now Brookhaven Town supervisor, was Mr. Schneiderman’s seventh grade social studies teacher in Hauppauge. (Former teacher and student served together on the Suffolk Legislature. Messrs. Schneiderman and Kennedy also served together as legislators.) 

Then there’s classic politics—involving personality, conflict and future plans.

 The current county executive, Democrat Steve Bellone, has had a contentious, sometimes bitter relationship, with Comptroller Kennedy. Meanwhile, Mr. Schneiderman and Mr. Bellone have been friends. It’s personal, not based on some party line allegiance, because Mr. Schneiderman has been on a winding political road. He was a Republican as East Hampton supervisor and Republican, too, for years on the county legislature, but then joined the Independence Party in 2008 and only changed his enrollment to Democrat last year. However, while an Independence Party member he ran for legislator and Southampton Town supervisor endorsed by Democratic Party. 

If Mr. Schneiderman can knock out Mr. Kennedy as comptroller, he would help Mr. Bellone when, as expected, Mr. Bellone runs for re-election to a third four-year term next year.  If Mr. Kennedy is re-elected this year, he’d be a likely Bellone opponent. Mr. Schneiderman does not have to give up his Southampton supervisor’s post to run for county comptroller.

Messrs. Schneiderman and Kennedy have interesting histories before getting into government. Mr. Schneiderman, with a B.A. in chemistry from Ithaca College and an M.A. in education from SUNY at Cortland, was a teacher, and he is an accomplished musician, trained and adept as a drummer. Mr. Kennedy worked at Kings Park Psychiatric Center while attending Stony Brook University, where he received a B.A. in psychology, and after graduation became a counselor and administrator at a State Office of Mental Health outpatient treatment program. Before getting a law degree from St. John’s University School of Law, he received an MBA with a concentration in capital budgeting from Adelphi University.

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.