Amy's Perspective - Minimal Requirements Not Pathway For Improved Smithtown

Communication Concerns – Social Media, Town Meetings, Agendas

There’s got to be a better way!

A commitment to communication together with active listening are essential qualities necessary to improving our community, including residents, businesses and government relationships.  It takes effort and ingenuity to keep Smithtown informed and involved in the administration of our town’s activities and development.  Developing an overall consensus (through a town-wide survey) and then forming a town plan is vital to ensure that Smithtown thrives in the future while appreciating our past and addressing the concerns of our residents.

The funding promised by the State of New York will come to fruition if and when our town provides the Comprehensive Master Town Plan that details our clearly developed intentions.  Realizing the money offered by Gov. Cuomo requires that our town present a plan that reflects Smithtown’s interests and requirements to prosper. These funds need a plan that is formulated and supported by the input of our town’s citizenry.       

Real communication goes beyond providing the minimal, legal requirements.  The effort to inform and interact with Smithtown’s taxpaying residents would enhance our town’s quality of life.  It would be a positive change towards inclusion and meaningful communication.  Our new administration has the potential to improve community relations through social media and enhanced interactive website. This level of commitment to communication, outreach and transparency takes ingenuity and creativity.  

This concern for communication and participation has been voiced on various occasion.  The interest to create a citizen’s advisory board and an open and straightforward process to participate in planning with ‘Smart Growth,’ principles applied for future town development has been stated repeatedly. 

Admittedly, there are regular meetings and legal postings.  The meetings are less than friendly and even occasionally overcrowded whenever too many presentations are scheduled.  The underpopulated meetings are scheduled in the middle of the day (2:00 PM) which makes it almost impossible for anyone who works to attend.  The agenda is published within one day of the board meeting, so it’s hard to review and prepare.  

Some of the agenda’s contents are necessary and detailed, while other issues are not fully explained or represented.  (As an example, legal payments and settlements mention the dollar amounts paid, but there is no description of the lawsuit and the actions taken to correct the problem that incurred the payout.) Regrettably, I discover the actual contents and town issues from print media in THE DAYS AFTER the Town Board meeting.  Clarity, transparency and explanations would be a huge benefit to our town as Smithtown moves forward.   

Commitment to real communication and the dedication to actively listening is possible through the efforts to reach out through various methods.  A user-friendly web site design and social media offer the opportunity to share information, interaction and engagement.  Town meetings could offer a more positive encounter by creating an approachable atmosphere while conducting Smithtown’s local administration.    

Amy Fortunato is a Smithtown resident who ran for Town Council on the Democratic line in 2017.

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - How A Hard Fall Can Lead To Holes In Your Head

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Your faithful columnist now has holes in his head.  

Through the years, I have written now and then about physical maladies I’ve suffered. 

This was a humdinger—I’m just out of out of Stony Brook University Hospital for the after-effects of a terrible accident. 

SPLAT!!!!! I fell hard on my left cheek on a tile floor in a motel room in Fort Lauderdale in January. I didn’t notice a leg on the bed sticking out, and I tripped over it in the dark. I never suffered a worse fall. I thought I fractured my cheek. But initially, other than having a black eye, there were no impacts. It happened after we went out to dinner with friends in Florida. The next day, Saturday, I was feeling OK and we went to lunch with other friends with whom I have worked on my TV show. Then we flew back to Long Island that afternoon. 

Still no impacts. Sunday we were home and Monday I had the every-six months bladder check-up I need to take.  The next week I began teaching journalism again at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury. Still, no impacts whatsoever.

Then, I had arranged a cataract operation for March 1 (I’ve been told I need this) and a couple of days earlier I saw my primary care physician, Dr. Allen Fein, a specialist in Family Medicine at Stony Brook University Hospital. Allen is also a friend. He said something was wrong—my gait was off, my retinas weren’t working the way they should, and he did other tests. His wife, Beverley, drove me to the emergency room at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. There they found in a CTscan two giant hematomas, deposits of blood, on both sides of my skull.

I was taken by ambulance to the Emergency Room at Stony Brook University Hospital (was never transported by ambulance before.) There I was given a choice—surgery or the use of steroids which, I was told, work some of the time to reduce hematomas. But these were very big ones. Still I opted for the steroids as a less invasive procedure. 

Things seem to be getting better for a couple of weeks, but then the slow gait and other symptoms came back, and Dr. Fein and Dr. Charles Mikell, the neurosurgeon I originally saw at the Stony Brook Emergency Room, strongly recommended surgery—what is called a “burr hole” procedure in which little holes are drilled in the top of your head to drain out the blood produced by the hematomas.  It is brain surgery, but in between the skull and brain and so ostensibly less invasive. Still, I was scared as could be about someone putting holes in my head, and after I was informed of possible unexpected adverse impacts, even more frightened.  However, at this point, a friend, also a doctor, whose wife as a nurse was involved with a lot of “burr hole” surgery, told me it is the main route in dealing with hematomas. 

Furthermore, a follow-up CTscan showed only a 15% to 20% reduction in the size of the hematomas with the steroids. The Feins told me how one of their sons had a comparable accident in a snowboard crash and was successfully operated on at Stony Brook with this “burr hole” procedure.

I had an appointment the next day with Dr. Mikell, arranged earlier, and we drove through the snowstorm from Sag Harbor to see him. Dr. Mikell had my wife, Janet, and me compare the two CTscans, and you could see my head was still full of this mass which was putting pressure on my brain and could cause a seizure. 

Further, Dr. Mikell, a young fellow, a graduate of Princeton and Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, said that with the snow it would be a good time to do the operation because Stony Brook was not too busy and he would be able to do it the next day. And that’s what happened. His team was highly proficient. I was left with tubes coming out of four holes in my head leading to two plastic containers collecting drained fluid from my head. It was extremely difficult functioning with the tubes and also the monitoring equipment all over my body. By far, it was the worst several days in my life. I didn’t know if I would get out of this life-threatening situation. 

But five days later, by Saturday, the hematomas had completely drained away. However, a CTscan showed that a spinal fluid deposit was now forming on the top of my skull. The doctors at Stony Brook were concerned as to whether this might increase. So they kept me under observation until Monday when a new CTscan found there was no increase. Flabbergasted and joyous, I was told I would be released. 

I will need follow-up medical attention. I’m not supposed to carry anything heavy, and there are other restrictions. The recovery time for this situation runs in the months. 

So that’s the (crazy and scary) story!!!!!

Incidentally, I have been told that this “burr hole” procedure goes back to cavemen time—that a caveman who was hit by another caveman on the head with a club would have holes drilled in his skull to drain off hematomas—that ancient skulls with such holes have been found. For me it wasn’t a caveman with a club—but a damn tile floor in a motel in Fort Lauderdale, not a caveman in sight.

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 - Part 3 Leaf Blowers Health Risks

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Last year, Long Island state Assemblyman Steve Englebright, chairman of the Assembly’s Committee on Environmental Education, called on Basil Begos, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, to include information on his department’s website “explaining the hazards” of gas-fired leaf blowers.

“Additionally, it would be important to explain the advantages of switching to battery-powered equipment to reduce any health risks and reduce greenhouse gases,” wrote the lawmaker from Setauket.

Mr. Englebright continued that “the EPA has noted that the fine particulate matter from the using gas-powered leaf blowers poses serious health threats including cardiovascular and respiratory harm.”

This is one avenue in challenging gas-fired leaf blowers. 

Also last year, the Suffolk County Legislature unanimously passed a resolution, sponsored by Legislator Bridget Fleming of Noyac and Sarah Anker of Mt. Sinai, calling on the Suffolk Department of Public Works “to study the feasibility of alternatives to gas powered maintenance equipment.”

The resolution began: “Whereas the County of Suffolk has made environmental protection…a top priority…and national organizations including the American Green Zone Alliance, as well as local organizations including Huntington CALM—

Citizens Appeal for Leafblower Moderation—have identified gas-powered leaf blowers as a concerning source of pollution.” 

 This is another avenue for Suffolk in challenging gas-fired leaf blowers. 

 As we have been writing in this series of articles: gas-fired leaf blowers constitute a huge health and environmental threat. As Dr. Ken Spaeth, MD, MPH, of the Hofstra School of Health Sciences, has written, they are “extremely harmful to the health and the environment…Gasoline-powered leaf blowers pose multiple health and environmental hazards.” The use of them “for clean-up and routine landscape maintenance is exposing us all unnecessarily to pollutants and noise…When compared to an average large car, one hour of a gas-powered leaf blower use emits 498 times as much hydrocarbons, 49 times as much particulate matter and 28 times as much carbon monoxide.”

As to noise, the noise they make are “are in orders of magnitude—since decibels are on a logarithmic scale.” The “fine particulate matter—under 2.5 microns” that they spread “which easily gets into the lungs and even into the blood stream can cause premature death,” stated Dr. Spaeth, “heart attacks, strokes, congestive heart failure, and lung disease—including asthma attacks—and can result in the increase of chronic lung disease in the elderly.” 

Moreover, he stated, “there is environmental degradation.” Their high velocity “can destroy nests and animal habitats, desiccate pollen, sap and other natural plant substances, and injure or destroy small birds, small mammals and beneficial insects.”

Furthermore, Dr. Spaeth emphasizes, there are “alternatives” to gas-fired leaf blowers. “Alternatives include commercial grade lithium ion batteries or other electrical equipment.”

Also calling for restrictions on gas-fired leaf blowers is the Sierra Club’s Long Island Group. “The Sierra Club’s motto is ‘Explore. Enjoy and Protect the Planet,’” it explains. “Part of enjoying the planet is to hear its natural sounds—singing of birds, wind in the trees, and children playing in a toxic-free environment.” Gas-fired leaf blowers “interfere with all these and more, both while they are running and afterwards as the dust settles. Many communities across America have recognized these issues and put some basic limits on the use of leaf-blowers.”

On the front line of those laboring with gas-fired leaf blowers are often low-income immigrant workers and their health is being impacted. Gas-fired leaf blowers “can make an infernal racket, and environmental officials say that exhaust from gas-powered lawn and garden equipment is a surprisingly big source of air pollution,” the organization FairWarning has written in a study. 

This non-profit investigative news organization focuses on public health, safety and environmental issues and related topics of government and business accountability. “But are landscaping workers who use the equipment day in and day out exposed to harmful emissions?…With the help of a grant for the Fund for Investigative Journalism, FairWarning hired a health consulting firm and carried out testing among workers using gas-fired leaf blowers in Los Angeles. Among the conclusions: the gas-fired machines generated “far more” contaminants than “detected” at a “busy” LA highway intersection—“while the electric machines did not.”

From FairWarning and others, we’ve received plenty of fair warning about gas-fired leaf blowers. It’s high time for action—for widespread limits and bans on their use!

Amy's Perspective - $300,000.00 budgeted for “Revision of Town Code”

By Amy Fortunato

$300,000.00 budgeted for “Revision of Town Code”

Smithtown has a special charm and unique character on Long Island.  It is clearly an attractive destination.  There are numerous benefits to living and working in this appealing town.  Smithtown is family friendly - a safe community for children adults and seniors to thrive!   Our notable highlights include the exceptional school districts, beautiful beaches and parks situated within our vital historic heritage.  Retail shops and businesses also prosper.  Smithtown’s attractive neighborhoods draw new homeowners and pleases current residents who stay within our charming community. 

Smithtown asserts a pre-Revolutionary foundation.  Our history books describe the impact of the LIRR that brought urban families to our country setting in 1870.  Newly constructed homes and commercial buildings began to populate the countryside within Smithtown’s borders.  It became obvious to the town officials that organization and safety standards were necessary to manage this residential and business growth.   The Building Zone Ordinance of the Town of Smithtown, Chapter 54, (General Code Publishers Corp., Spencerport, NY 14559, 1970) states its purpose:

“A. To guide and regulate the orderly growth, development and redevelopment of the Town of Smithtown outside of the limits of any incorporated village, in accordance with a comprehensive plan and with long-term objectives, principles and standards deemed beneficial to the interests and welfare of the people.  

B. To protect the established character and the social and economic well-being of both private and public property.  

C. To promote, in the public interest, the utilization of land for the purposes for which it is most appropriate.  

D. To secure safety from fire, panic and other dangers, and to provide adequate light, air and convenience of access. 

E. To prevent overcrowding of land or buildings, and to avoid undue concentration of population.  

F.  To lessen and, where possible, to prevent traffic congestion on public streets and highways.  

G.  To conserve the value of buildings and to enhance the value of land throughout the town outside the limits of any incorporated village.”  

Obviously, Smithtown has added many more citizens and businesses to our community since 1970.  Our current context has expanded, BUT these principles retain their value to guide our elected town officials as they move to approve reviewing town code towards changes that allow for further development without drafting, adopting and completing a Comprehensive Master Plan based on a town-wide survey and other various issues that impact Smithtown.  The capital budget includes $300,000.00 for “Revision of Town Code” (2018 Proposed Capital Funding Plan.)  It’s time to revisit our past to inform our future in Smithtown.  

 Amy Fortunato is a Smithtown resident who ran for Town Council on the Democratic line in 2017.

Commack Resident Dr. Fred Kruger Honored With IEEE Outstanding Teacher Award

On Thursday evening, March 22, a ballroom at the Crest Hollow Country Club was filled for this year’s Annual Awards Banquet of the Long Island Section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). Dr. Fred Kruger was presented the Region 1 award for Outstanding Teaching in an IEEE Area of Interest. “For outstanding mentoring of high school science students research activities and inspiriing them to pursue engineering and science as a career.”

Dr. Kruger has served as a Volunteer Science and Technology Mentor to students in the Commack (NY) High School Science Research Program and as a science, engineering, and technology consultant to the program for about 10 years. He has introduced several students to Ham Radio and the role it can play in support of their present and future science and engineering activities and education. Many of the students he helped mentor have gained local, regional and/or national, or international recognition for their competition winning science research projects. His wife, Dr. Barbara Kruger, has worked at his side as a Volunteer Science and Technology Mentor during the same period.

Commack resident Dr. Fred KrugerDr. Kruger holds a Ph.D. in Neuropsychology, a Post-Doctorate in Speech and Hearing Sciences, and is trained in electronic engineering and computer sciences.He is a Senior Life Member of the IEEE, a life member of: Acoustical Society of America, American Radio Relay League, and other organizations. He holds an FCC Extra Class Amateur Radio license (K2LDC), and an FCC First Class Commercial Radio-Telephone License. He serves on several ANSI/ASA and IEEE standards committees, the IEEE LI Section Executive Committee, and chairs the LI Rotary District 7255 Emergency Preparedness Committee. Dr. Kruger is also the AEC and DRO for Smithtown ARES. He holds several patents.