Amy's Perspective - Town Board Is Not Off To A Good Start

By Amy Fortunato

Town Board Meeting-

Hopeful to find a good seat, I arrived early – 6:30 PM on Thursday, January 25th. The addition of security guards in uniform for the first time were off-putting.  I asked the guards about the need for their presence.  They joked good naturedly.  But, it’s not welcoming. 

I knew there were three presentations scheduled for this regular meeting and advertised as public forums.  Earlier in the day, I queried Supervisor Ed Wehrheim and our Town Clerk, Vincent Puleo about the room inadequate size of the room.  Obviously it would not accommodate the potential residents who are interested in the various, important presentations.  He told me it was too late to change the location.  The advertised public forums to be presented were: King’s Park Market Analysis sponsored by the King’s Park Civic Association, Cell Tower information presentation for consideration of a possible code exception and the Smithtown United’s NY Ave. proposal toward the completion of a Comprehensive Master Plan.   

As the room filled up, I gave my seat to one of the presenters of the King’s Park market analysis report presentation.  Many of us were stranded, waited outside the room on the stair landing until my neighbor Gerry Halloway tried to find a seat.  Gerry is 80 yrs. old, recently recovering from an accident and dependent on his cane to stabilize his balance.  Sadly, the security guard told him there were no seats and Gerry would have to stand.  At that point, I insisted that someone inside the room give up their seat for our senior citizen.  When Gerry was seated, I left the room again to wait outside with approximately ten others.  There was no way to hear the discussion taking place in the meeting room.  Then, we were asked to be quiet because those inside the room were distracted by our conversations.

It’s imprudent to invite Smithtown residents and then clearly NOT anticipate that those interested citizens would actually attend these advertised, public forums.  The room has approximately 35 chairs, which are usually empty.  Granted, this is a recent phenomenon; but this undersized room has been fully populated during the last two, most recent, previous Town Council meetings.  The disappointed consensus of those who tried to attend (stairs, landing and down the hallways) was obvious.  I called the next day to express my concern.  Ed Wehrheim returned my call, but I didn’t experience any satisfaction or assurance of creating a better, more appropriate accommodation.  

The presentations are available on-line; but I was there to participate and show my concern.  It’s time to consider the Smithtown community by providing adequate space and hearing from those concerned and respond accordingly.    

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

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Honesty An Oxymoron Atlantic Oil Drilling

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

It was offshore oil drilling deja vu for me—having broken the story about the oil industry seeking to drill in the offshore Atlantic, including off Long Island, nearly 50 years ago.

But this time offshore drilling would be completely unnecessary with the U.S. awash in petroleum (thus $2.50-a-gallon gas) and oil drilling in the sea ten times more costly than drilling on land. Plus, renewable energy, led by solar and wind, is now well-developed and cheaper than fossil fuels. And although in 1970, the spill from an oil-drilling platform off Santa Barbara, California in 1969 had just demonstrated the environmental dangers of offshore oil drilling, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and oil spill disaster dwarfed that, devastating marine life and the coast along the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, global warming—mainly caused by burning of fossil fuels notably oil—has shown in recent years the dangerUn of continuing to use oil. Another difference: this time partisan politics has become part of the process.

But there I was as the new year began at an inn in Key West, Florida. This was among the areas I traveled to after, in 1970, at the daily Long Island Press, exposing the oil industry’s offshore drilling plans. I picked up The Key West Citizen and I read about the Trump administration giving a blanket go-ahead to offshore oil drilling.

The arguments against it in The Key West Citizen were similar to those made in the Keys, on Long Island, and up and down the Atlantic Coast, nearly 50 years ago—that drilling would threaten marine life and a “robust tourist-based economy which generates $2 billion alone in water-based activities,” as the newspaper noted.” Florida Senator Bill Nelson was quoted as calling the Trump administration plan “an assault on Florida’s economy, our national security, the will of the public and the environment. This proposal defies all common sense.”

Back decades ago, I visited the first offshore drill rig set up in the Atlantic, off Nova Scotia, and the dangers of drilling were obvious. On the rig it was admitted that the booms, promoted in oil industry ads as containing spills, wouldn’t work in even moderate seas. Peat moss was being stockpiled along the Nova Scotia coast to try to sop up spilled oil.  On Long Island, “you’d use straw,” the Shell Canada official said. A rescue boat circled the rig 24 hours a day. I covered days of government hearings in Boston, Trenton and here in Suffolk. 

But then a succession of moratoria on Atlantic offshore drilling voted in overwhelmingly by Congress caused the issue to largely fade away. In recent years, however, the Obama administration moved to somewhat reopen the offshore drilling possibility. Now the Trump administration had thrown the door completely open.

Back on Long Island, I read the strong protests here to the move.  DuWayne Gregory, presiding officer of the Suffolk Legislature, said the Trump offshore oil-drilling plan “would be devastating to our coastal communities on Long Island by damaging marine life and precious natural resources, increasing the chances for a catastrophic spill.” Members of the Suffolk Legislature in a letter to U.S. Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke, drafted by Legislator Bridget Fleming of Noyac, noted that “the proposed program would promote oil and gas drilling on more than 98 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf, including a region that encompasses the entirety of Suffolk County…This program will cause substantial harm to our county’s tourism revenue…as well as our precious marine resources.”

“Our beautiful coastline is crucial to this state’s economy,” declared Governor Andrew Cuomo. It “generates billions of dollars through tourism, fishing and other industries.” 

Both Mr. Cuomo and the Suffolk legislators cited a sudden deal between Mr. Zinke and Florida Governor Rick Scott exempting Florida from the drilling scheme, and asked for an exemption, too, considering the environmental sensitivities of the coastlines of both states.

It’s been widely reported in Florida and nationally that the deal with Mr. Zinke has to do with the Trump administration wanting to help Republican Scott in a run for the U.S. Senate, challenging Nelson, a Democrat. At least when I got into the issue in 1970, with Richard Nixon as president, politics had nothing to do with his administration’s decisions about where drilling should take place—this would be an “equal opportunity” environmental threat.

I originally got into the offshore oil drilling story with a tip from a fisherman out of Montauk who said he had seen in the ocean east of Montauk the same sort of vessel as the boats he observed searching for petroleum when he was a shrimper in the Gulf of Mexico. I called oil company after company with each saying they were not involved in searching for oil in the Atlantic. Then there was a call from a PR guy at Gulf saying, yes, Gulf was involved in exploring for oil in the Atlantic, in a “consortium” of 32 oil companies doing the searching. These included the companies that all had issued denials. This was a first lesson in oil industry honesty, an oxymoron. 

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 - 'I Hate Hamlet!'

Theater Review – ‘I Hate Hamlet!’

Produced by Theatre Three – Port Jefferson

Reviewed by Jeb Ladouceur

“I wouldn’t have missed this unique show for the world”

There are essentially two types of theatergoers in existence … those who adore Shakespeare, and those who despise him: it seems there is no theatrical middle ground to be had. In the farcical comedy (if readers will pardon that redundancy) now being offered thru Feb 3^rd at Theatre Three in Port Jefferson … a show unambiguously titled ‘I Hate Hamlet!’ as you see … both types of patrons are miraculously accommodated. On the one hand, half the audience empathizes with, and cheers on, Dylan Andrew Poulos (who plays the conflicted young Hamlet-loathing television star, Andrew Rally) … and on the flip side are those who simply cannot imagine such negative theatrical sacrilege being levelled at one of The Bard’s most noted tragedies.

This laugh-a-minute play was written by Paul Rudnick in 1991 and it opened to predictably mixed reviews in April of that year at Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre. The cast consists of three women, and three men, all of whom play off one another with exceedingly clever dialogue, even if the plot itself is somewhat less than ingenious. This is farce, after all, and amusing absurdity is the order of the day.

When TV icon, Rally … he with the knock-down gorgeous girlfriend (who’s determined to avoid pre-marital sex at all cost) … has his TV series cancelled (more bad news), Andrew is offered the opportunity to fulfill every actor’s dream … how would he like to play the part of Shakespeare’s melancholy Dane, Hamlet, in New York’s Central Park? That’s when the play’s title is inexplicably invoked: “Not on your life,” sayeth recalcitrant Rally, “I hate Hamlet!”

At that point, this show’s three women … real estate representative Felicia Dantine (played by Theatre Three veteran Linda May), Andrew’s agent, Lillian Troy (interpreted by the marvelous Marci Bing), and virginal girlfriend, Deirdre McDavey (delightfully delivered by Jessica Contino) … decide to whip up a séance that will summon the ghost of the great John Barrymore (wonderfully played by Steve McCoy). If anyone can change Andrew’s obdurate mind, the trio figures, it would be history’s most celebrated Shakespearian thespian … the handsome artist known throughout the entertainment world as ‘The Great Profile.’

Playwright Paul Rudnick, whose Barrymore ghost smacks of Hamlet’s nocturnal battlement-roaming dead daddy … and whose three conniving women are almost certainly suggested by the Weird Sisters of Macbeth … definitely knows a thing or two about Elizabethan tragedy. Furthermore, as we will soon see, Rudnick has a good handle on the eccentricities traditionally associated with the inimitable Barrymore himself.

The multi-talented Steve Ayle, playing Gary Peter Lefkowitz, Andrew Rally’s deep-pockets friend from La La Land, adds significantly to the non-stop humor of this very funny show. Gary’s connections are prepared to offer Rally a Hollywood deal worth millions … ah, but let’s see how that dovetails with Barrymore’s predilection for Shakespeare … and his persuasiveness in convincing Andrew to give Hamlet a shot.

In sum, Theatre Three’s dependable cast and crew has given us another side-splitter … and notably, director Mary Powers proves that legendary Jeffrey Sanzel isn’t the only major domo capable of taking the helm with authority at Port Jeff’s aptly nicknamed ‘Broadway on Main Street.’ Indeed, nobody could have more successfully constructed a reminiscence scene in Act II, wherein aging talent agent Lillian Troy very nearly resurrects a decades-old romance with Barrymore’s ghost. It’s a remarkably poignant, and at once rib-tickling piece of theatre.

I wouldn’t have missed this unique show for the world … though I might have preferred it ‘miked.’

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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 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

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Plum Island "The Island Of Secrets"

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Congressman Lee Zeldin and a grouping of environmentalists are pushing to block U.S. plans to sell Plum Island. Mr. Zeldin has introduced a bill to preserve most of the island while providing for “continued research” at it. This comes despite the warning of Michael Carroll, author of a best-selling book about U.S. government research on the island causing widespread contamination and a recent report by a private consulting firm about environmental issues on the 843-acre island.

“The island is an environmental disaster,” says Mr. Carroll, author of “Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory.” ”You can’t let anybody on it…There is contamination all over the island” and thus it needs to be “forsaken.” As for Lab 257, an early laboratory on the island, “They can’t get that building clean.”

The report, done by Dermody Consulting of Center Moriches last year, notes that among other things “waste materials from PIADC [Plum Island Animal Disease Center] operations were buried in numerous locations throughout the island” and, as for Lab 257, it cites information “a former employee at the PIADC” gave to Save the Sound—the organization which commissioned the report—that it “was sealed with contamination remaining in place.”

Plum Island was originally developed in the early 1950s by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps to use animal diseases to wage biological warfare. Newsday investigative reporter John McDonald in 1993 reported: “A 1950s military plan to cripple the Soviet economy by killing horses, cattle and swine called for making biological warfare weapons out of exotic animal diseases at a Plum Island laboratory, now-declassified Army records reveal.” A facsimile of one of the Army records, dated 1951, documenting this mission covered the front page of Newsday.

The article went on: “Documents and interviews disclose for the first time what officials have denied for years: that the mysterious and closely guarded animal lab off the East End of Long Island was originally designed to conduct top-secret research into replicating viruses that could be used to destroy enemy livestock.”

In 1954 Plum Island was turned over to the Department of Agriculture because, according to research conducted in the National Archives in Washington by Mr. Carroll, an attorney, the U.S. military became concerned about having to feed millions of people in the Soviet Union if it destroyed food animals. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff “found that a war with the U.S.S.R. would best be fought with conventional and nuclear means,” says his book.

Research into foreign animal diseases—to prevent their spread to the U.S.—became the mission on Plum Island, although Department of Agriculture officials also acknowledged that “defensive” biological warfare research was done there, too. 

After the 9/11 attack, Plum Island was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security. And, subsequently the federal government decided to close down its Plum Island operations and shift the research done there to a new National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Kansas to function at the government’s highest safety level, Biosafety Level-4—with a special focus on terrorists seeking to poison U.S. animals. 

No matter what agency has been in charge at Plum Island, until recent decades all the waste generated at it stayed there—buried in numerous locations or incinerated. The government feared, until recent times, germs getting off the island in waste. 

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been concerned about what he has called “the island of secrets.” The Cuomo family is quite familiar with Plum Island with Mr. Carroll having been a colleague of Andrew’s father, former Governor Mario Cuomo, at a Manhattan law firm. The elder Cuomo provided an endorsement of “Lab 257” on its jacket describing it as “a carefully researched, chilling expose of a potential catastrophe.” Andrew Cuomo has called for a “comprehensive investigation” of the island by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Save the Sound, based in Connecticut, in a recent press release, quotes Peter Dermody, president of Dermody Consulting, as saying, “Homeland Security personnel have folded their arms and delayed performing investigations required by New York State regulations and guidelines.” Save the Sound says “everyone wants Plum Island cleaned up.” 

The big question: can it be?

Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Mr. Zeldin’s bill blocking the Plum Island sale, seeking preservation and providing for “continued research” at it—despite the shift of PIADC’s functions to Kansas. Government opens an office, starts a department and a vested interest is created that seeks to perpetuate itself. Will “continued research” generate new and more contamination? A spokesperson tells us Mr. Zeldin is “working hard to encourage his Senate colleagues to bring this legislation up for a vote in early 2018.” If it passes in the Senate, it would go to President 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. 

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Pay Attention NYS Law "Fees Must Not Exceed Cost Of Service"

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

A decision last month by a state Supreme Court justice that Nassau County was imposing an “illegal tax” on commercial property owners is seen “absolutely” by Suffolk Legislator Rob Trotta as a sign that a class action lawsuit brought against increased real property fees charged by Suffolk County will also win out. 

If that happens and these and other increased Suffolk fees are ordered refunded, “the county will end up on the brink of bankruptcy,” says Mr. Trotta, who has been highly critical of Suffolk Executive Steve Bellone making use of hiked fees.

The Nassau case involved $36 million in fines charged to property owners who didn’t file financial information with the county assessor. Justice Anthony Marano ruled there wasn’t a “scintilla of evidence” that the fines had anything to do with funding assessment operations in Nassau. Instead, “the bottom line is they are relied on to balance the county’s budget.” 

That’s the same charge in the lawsuit brought against Suffolk in October which focuses on new real property fees imposed by its county government. 

“If Suffolk County wants to raise revenue, it needs to do it legally, not by levying unauthorized taxes through excessive fees on a subset of residents,” says Cameron Mitchell, executive director of the Government Justice Center in Albany and attorney for five Suffolk residents who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

It charges: “Unwilling to rein in its spending or face the political consequences of raising taxes to pay for general fund expenditures, the county passed legislation in 2015 and 2016 imposing unauthorized taxes on county real property owners, labeling the taxes as fees. Each year the county chose to fund budget gaps by raising the fees on tax map verifications performed by the Real Property Tax Service Agency for documents filed with the county. The revenue raised by the agency far exceeds the county’s cost to operate the agency.”

Under state law, the lawsuit maintains, fees must not exceed the cost of service.

It relates how in 2015 Suffolk “in an effort to balance the county’s revenue to spending, the county executive recommended increasing the agency’s [tax map] verification fee to $150 a parcel” from $60. Then the Suffolk Legislature, it goes on, increased that to $200. “The county was not finished,” it says. In 2016 “an additional $300” was added to the “verification fee…for every mortgage filed.” 

“The county knew that it had its home buyers and sellers over a barrel and that it would be unlikely that home buyers would do anything but pay the verification fees,” it says.

Meanwhile, the county’s Real Property Tax Service Agency cost the county $1.2 million last year to operate, it continues, thus the increased fees collected—$66 million in 2017 alone—have overwhelmingly not been for the agency but for general county purposes.

The lawsuit says “it is against equity and good conscience to permit the county to retain the illegal taxes.” It demands Suffolk “refund and repay” the money raised. In the Nassau case, the county is holding off on refunding money pending its appeal.

The office of Mr. Bellone, a Democrat, takes the position that the Suffolk lawsuit is “politically motivated.”

Mr. Trotta, a Republican, has in recent years been blasting the county for increasing fees for a variety of functions. In a legislative debate in 2016, when the additional $300 fee for filing mortgages was passed, he said—and this is pointed to in the lawsuit—“This is nothing more than a tax disguised as a fee. It’s death by a thousand knives.”

Mr. Trotta says increased fees for general county purposes “is not even a grey area. The New York State comptroller has stated you can’t do this, and there is case law stating it can’t be done.”  A retired Suffolk Police detective, Mr. Trotta says: “It’s a recipe for disaster.”

He further cites a statement at a Suffolk Legislature meeting by its counsel, George Nolan, himself a Democrat, that “if a case is brought challenging any fee on this basis, and the court finds it far exceeds the county cost of providing service, there is a good possibility a court would say the fee is excessive.”

As a class action lawsuit, if it is victorious everybody who has paid the increased real property fees could get them refunded. Then Mr. Trotta anticipates more lawsuits “going after every one of the increased fees—and like dominoes, they’ll all go down.” This would mean more refunds and, he says, the specter of bankruptcy for Suffolk County government. 

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Elizabeth Cella of Melville, Winifred Esoff of Kings Park, John McCarthy of Commack, Carol Rodgers of Calverton and Nicholas Accardi of Shirley. The first four paid Suffolk’s increased real property fees when they closed out home equity loans “established years before.”

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.