Kings Park Interact Students Bring Beauty Back To NRSP Healing Garden

A group of 25 students from Kings Park HS volunteered their time and labor at the Nissequogue River State Park Tuesday, September 26th. The students are members of the school’s Interact Club a service club sponsored by the Commack - Kings Park Rotary Club.

L-R Rotarian Larry Flynn, KP Superintendent of Schools Dr. Tim Eagen, NRSP Park Manager Bill Purtill, NRSP Asst. Mgr. Bill Hein and KPHS Interact Advisor Susan PortnoyThe students chose an optimal time to volunteer since the garden was off limits for most of the summer due to construction and was in desperate need of  of attention. Weeds and overgrown plants had overrun the garden which consists of indigenous plants, a walking path and a dry bed filled with rocks. 

The garden was created in 2013 by the Cormack-Kings Park Rotary Club partnering with the Nissequoque River State Park Foundation, it was designed by Joan Mcgullicuddy, Surrogate Gardener, and installed by Eric Hagenbruch, Finesse Landscaping and Design.

NRSP Park Manager Bill Purtill instructs students tending to the Healing GardenNot only was there a lot to do on the garden, but  there was also a lot to learn. Native plants can look a lot like weeds if you are not a gardner, so Nissequogue River State Park Manager Bill Purtill and the park’s assistant manager Bill Hein were on hand to instruct the volunteers on the finer use of garden tools and the difference between weeds and plants. The volunteers kept focused and threw themselves into the task. Fortunately, the weather was wonderful and the view of the bluff was stunning. The students were able to see that the site, once part of the home of the Kings Park Psychiatric Center, has beauty and is calming and inspirational.

Students who join Rotary Interact clubs adhere to the principle of “service above self”. The Kings Park students with the assistance of their advisor Susan Portnoy, a teacher a Kings Park High School, will develop the leadership skills that will help them throughout their life.

NRSP Assistant Manager Bill Hein identifies weeds and plants for studentsThis was not a one-shot deal for the Kings Park students. They plan to return at least two more times this year and into the 2018 school year. The next time the students may have a respite from the weeding, the students may get to do some planting for spring viewing. Interact is more than just getting rid of the chaff it’s also about making things better.

The volunteer work being done by the students is making the park a little nicer for everyone. 

Book Review - The Boyhood Of Shakespeare

Book Review – ‘The Boyhood of Shakespeare’

Author: J. Roland Evans – Hutchinson Press

Reviewed by Jeb Ladouceur

When my granddaughter Kimberly was most recently in Europe, specifically on an exchange student program in the U.K., she had occasion to visit Paris from her home base in London. There, Kim toured one of the world’s most famous bookstores—‘Shakespeare and Company’—on rue de la Bucherie, near Notre Dame Cathedral.

Knowing her grandfather’s appetite for anything that even smacks of The Bard and his life in Stratford upon Avon, Kimberly selected a slender 256-page volume as a gift to bring home to me when she returned to Marist College the following month. It was a book she was almost positive I had never seen … and certainly one I didn’t own. She was right.

The book is titled ‘The Boyhood of Shakespeare,’ and I read it eagerly the day after Kim’s festive homecoming party here in Smithtown. Unlike most works dealing with the rather nebulous details in the life of The Bard of Avon, this one (though it’s meticulously researched fiction) tells us convincingly of things we probably would never have thought to ask historians.

The novel is dressed up in a well-fitting biographical suit, and its author, J. Roland Evans, gives the impression that he could have been the teacher at young Will Shakespeare’s school in Stratford … or a client of Will’s father, John, a glove-maker and town Mayor … or one of the itinerant actors who visited hamlets like Stratford when trying-out new plays, much as performers do in suburbia to this day.

Of course, Shakespeare was someone about whom we know relatively little, despite the fact that he was (and is) the greatest rhetorical genius that the English language has ever produced. Whether we know it or not, he coined literally thousands of the words, phrases, and homespun idioms that make up our colorful language, and which we still use on a daily basis.

It was Will Shakespeare who called jealousy ‘the green-eyed monster’ … who first referred to ‘a fool’s paradise’ … who noted ‘a foregone conclusion’ … ‘a sorry sight’ … and when something was ‘dead as a doornail’ it was the Bard of Avon who originally said so. 

One of the great charms of ‘The Boyhood of Shakespeare’ derives primarily from the fact that J. Roland Evans sprinkles so many of these terms and phrases appropriately throughout the dialogue in this quaint biography about history’s greatest of literary giants … expressions like ‘a full swoop’ … ‘bated breath’ … ‘bag and baggage’ … these and untold scores of similar terms are on the record right there in his plays. But it’s only when we read their applicable use by the young man who would eventually turn the phrases, and insert them forever in our vocabularies, that we can fully appreciate the skill of his biographer.

There are any number of books, movies, and yes, plays about William Shakespeare, and that is as it should be … but the Evans book that my granddaughter brought me from Paris is the only one I’ve ever seen about young Will’s childhood. Thus, for me a new light has been shone on the unparalleled wordsmith of our long literary history; the master linguist whom I studied with such fascination in college.

Those who question William Shakespeare’s authorship of the thirty-six or so plays most commonly attributed to him, generally do so on the ground that no mere schoolboy from rural Stratford, England could have grown up to be the descriptive genius who told us that ‘brevity is the soul of wit’ … that ‘discretion is the better part of valor’ … or that one should ‘fight fire with fire.’

In reading J. Roland Evans’ book (a novel though it may be) we are introduced to an aspect of life in Elizabethan England we may never have considered before—that even a Stratford youngster in his pre-and-early teens … attending school from six in the morning ‘til six at night … reading the works of Cicero and Homer in the original Latin and Greek … received an education far beyond that which we consider adequate undergraduate schooling today. 

As The bard himself might have said, “It’s Small Wonder” that so many of our Liberal Arts students graduate only to find themselves, “In a Pickle.” Perhaps they should “Brush up on” more books like ‘The Boyhood of Shakespeare.’ 

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 on May 21st. The book involves a radicalized Yale student and his CIA pursuers. Mr. Ladouceur’s revealing website is www.JebsBooks.com

County Executive Bellone Makes A Pitch For Amazon To Build In Suffolk County

County Executive Steve Bellone, Long Island Association Kevin Law, Islip Town Supervisor Angie Carpenter Amazon has announced a plan to invest $5 billion to build and staff a second headquarters (HQ2). The facility is expected to employ 50,000 workers. The competition is intense. In a press conference this week Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone made his public pitch to Amazon to build the facility here in Suffolk County. Bellone’s proposal supports building HQ2 on the site of the former Pilgrim State Hospital in the town of Islip.

“This is very exciting this is an exciting opportunity. Amazon East Coast and our message to Amazon is that Long Island and particularly Suffolk County is the place that you want to be. We have everything here; we have first of all a history of innovation on Long Island and innovation to assets here that are global in scale and scope and are incredible. From Stony Brook University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbory Laboratory, another institution right on the boarder.

And of course we have world class natural resources here, world class beaches and golf courses, and fishing, and everything you can imagine, boating, for an incredible quality of life. And we know how important that is in today’s global economy for your employees to provide a kind of lifestyle and in life that is attractive, particularly to those young millenials and high-skill high-knowledge workers that you need in an innovation company like Amazon.

We have that here. We have the educated workforce you know, we have the vibrancy, we have you know proximity to the most vibrant city in the world, and we have a great spot and that is in the great Town of Islip, I’m here with my colleague and friend, Supervisor Angie Carpenter, and that site is the old Pilgrim Psychiatric Center, which is now known as the Heartland Town Square development. And that is a perfect place because it not only meets all of the requirements, and the Supervisor can talk more about that — but 15 million square feet of space, 452 acres, it’s got all the elements that that young people are looking for.

The vibrancy the cultural arts that you know the shops and the restaurants and the housing all together all one right off of the LIE right close to the Deer Park train station right on the Main Line of the Long Island Railroad. And, of course,  the supervisors going to talk about proximity to our region’s airport.

This is a great sight. Long Island is place of innovation. We have a history of innovation we have a highly educated workforce. We have all of the amazing lifestyle requirements that anyone would want to see and we have a wonderful location.”

Edward Wehrheim Smithtown's Republican Candidate For Town Supervisor

By Stacey Altherr

Edward Wehrheim 2017 Smithtown Republican Nominating ConventionSmithtown Councilman Edward Wehrheim knew he would run for the seat held for four decades by his former friend and political party colleague when he realized that the town was not moving forward because of infighting and side-taking.

“I spent a fair amount of time being disillusioned with the board,” he said. “No communication, work sessions with no agenda… always hit with something you weren’t privy to before. I always thought it was no way to run a government.”

So he ran a primary against his former friend Patrick Vecchio. Wehrheim was backed by the Smithtown Republican Committee, and unseated the longest serving town supervisor in Long Island history in the dramatic primary, winning by 85 votes after the absentee ballots were counted.

If he beats his Democratic opponent, attorney Bill Holst, and independent candiate Kristen Slevin, his council seat will be an appointed position, with someone else filling out his term.

Wehrheim is a lifelong Kings Park resident. A Vietnam veteran who served in the U.S Navy, he started in Smithtown as a laborer, eventually becoming director of the town’s parks, buildings and grounds department. He was tapped to fill an empty seat on the town board in 2003, and has been on that council for 14 years.

Working on a platform of getting things done for businesses and residents, he includes a source of irritation to many residents, a real revitalization of the downtowns –Kings Park, St. James, Smithtown. He got frustrated with movements forward that would be stalled for years, he said, despite sporadic talk by the board on downtown redevelopment.

“It took a few years to realize, because there were promises made, which would happen in the election cycle, and then it all went away,” Wehrheim said. 

“Look at the municipalities that border us,” he said. “Huntington, Brookhaven… Those downtowns are all thriving. They are getting grant money, putting in sewers…they are putting in a lot of planning for those walkable downtowns. I think it is particularly important to those ones who are raising children here. And I think they see it is not part of the growth.”

Wehrheim is also running on the Independence and Conservative party lines, as are his two running mates: Tom Lohmann and Robert Doyle, who were running for council seats. Both Lohmann and Doyle will stay on those minor party tickets, both lost the primary to Republican incumbents Lynn Nowick and Thomas McCarthy.

If he wins the supervisor seat, Wehrheim wants to work to repair relationships between the council members, and improve transparency, especially the way meetings are held. Often, he said, the lines were blurred in what was discussed in executive session that should be held in a public forum. A case in point was a discussion held in executive session recently by the comptroller, he said, on capital project money.

“I said, ‘You can’t discuss that now,’ and it stopped,” Wehrheim said. He also vows that all council members will be privy to the same information and discussions.

Pointing to an expensive brush and leaf collection program that failed, and that he was never told about, despite his experience in that area, he knows what is like to not be privy to important conversations. The candidate vows to include all council members in the decision-making process.

“I was being left out of major decisions, in my estimation, and it was getting worse and worse, he said. “I thought, ‘Maybe I need to step up and change that, because it’s wrong.’” 

“You are elected by the people. You have the right to know everything going on.”

Stacey Altherr is a former Newsday reporter now living in Sarsasota, Florida. Her beats included Smithtown, where she covered governmental affairs.  She now runs a café in Longboat Key near her home and writes freelance. Altherr has won many awards, including a 2010 Society of Silurian Award for community service journalism for a multi-part series, “Heroin Hits Main Street,” and a third-place National Headliner Award for public service for a multi-part year-long investigation on spending at fire districts on Long Island.

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - DEC Wants To Get Rid Of Swans

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“I’d like to see them abandon this task that they are compelled to do,” commented State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. last week about a new revised plan by the New York State  Department of Environmental Conservation to go after mute swans including possibly killing some.

“The DEC should abandon this as not necessary,” said Mr. Thiele of Sag Harbor. “Their rationale to justify this makes no sense whatsoever.” With the  revised plan, said the assemblyman, “the DEC is putting lipstick on a pig.”

Three years ago the DEC unveiled an outrageous plan to kill many of the 2,200 mute swans in the state. Most of the beautiful and graceful birds, some 1,600, are on Long Island.

The DEC claimed in advancing the plan to slaughter the elegant birds that they were an “invasive” species and thus should be destroyed. The reaction to the scheme by the public, environmentalists and members of the New York State Legislature—Mr. Thiele and many other state lawmakers—was loud and intense.

“Real stupid” said Larry Penny, a Long Island naturalist and formerly the long-time East Hampton Town director of natural resources and environmental preservation. Of swans being “invasive,” he said: “Nonsense.” They were brought to North America from Europe after the Civil War and “they’re not doing any harm,” said Mr. Penny. Also, there “are natural checks on their population — raccoons and foxes take them. They’re subject to a lot of pressure.”

The State Legislature in 2014 and 2015 overwhelmingly passed bills to block the DEC’s kill-the-swans plan. But Governor Andrew Cuomo vetoed each of the measures.

Finally, last year he signed a measure requiring the DEC to provide more scientific justification for taking on swans, minimizing killing them and holding public hearings before moving ahead.

The just-released revised plan says the DEC will keep the population of mute swans downstate the size it is now. Eggs would be prevented from hatching through a process called “egg-addling” which involves coating the eggs with corn oil. Upstate, the number of mute swans would be reduced each year. The plan says “non-lethal” means would be used upstate, if possible. “Less than 100” mute swans “annually” would be captured upstate and sent to “DEC-licensed facilities” but if capture can’t be accomplished, the upstate mute swans would be killed. Also, “DEC will evaluate the pros and cons of allowing waterfowl hunters to take mute swans.”

The DEC calls this a:”regionalized approach.” Says the plan: “Downstate, where mute swans have existed in a wild state for many decades, the DEC will work with cooperators conducting non-lethal mute swan control activities to minimize population growth in the region, primarily through egg-addling.”

“Upstate, where the range expansion and introduction is more recent, DEC will be pro-active to mitigate the environmental impact of feral mute swans by preventing range expansion reducing or stabilizing the overall population over the next six years with an emphasis on non-lethal removal and nest treatments. Every effort will be made to use non-lethal management techniques, however, where necessary mute swans will be lethally removed.”

For both upstate and downstate, “DEC will consider statewide regulations to prohibit the intentional feeding of wild mute swans and other waterfowl, similar to what was enacted to prohibit the feeding of bears in New York.”

The new—and still outrageous—19-page plan is on the DEC website at http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/wildlife_pdf/muteswanmgmtpln17d.pdf

In addition to the three public hearings, people can send written comments on the DEC scheme to: Bureau of Wildlife, Mute Swan Plan, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233  or  email comments to Wildlife@dec.ny.gov and include on the subject line: “Mute Swan Plan.” 

Assemblyman Thiele said that once the State Legislature reconvenes in January, lawmakers will consider the new DEC mute swan plan.

 A DEC press release posted at http://www.dec.ny.gov/press/111322.html says: “Mute swans are likely to remain in most areas of Long Island, New York City, and the lower Hudson Valley where they have been seen for many years, but DEC will encourage non-lethal population controls to protect local wildlife and habitats and will authorize control measures to ensure that mute swans do not interfere with human interests.”

DEC Commissioner Basil Segos is quoted as saying: “DEC’s revised draft management plan is responsive to the public’s concerns about complete elimination of mute swans from New York.”

Doesn’t the DEC have anything better to do?