Hauppauge Dentist John Potente Wins "Best Music Video" AT L I International Film Expo

By John Sawyer

Best Music Video winner John Potente with unidentified winner in Feature Film category.This week, at the closing ceremony of the Long Island International Film Expo (LIIFE), John Potente, a long time Hauppauge resident, received the Award for the “Best Music Video”. His film, “Chopin’s Fantasia Impromptu”, was chosen from the 6 semifinalists as the winner for the music category in this 2017 film festival held in the historic century-old Bellmore movie theatre. In the video, John performs on a baby grand piano, the classical piece of music that was composed by Frédéric Chopin in 1834. It was performed and filmed in a small room in Hauppauge last year in August, while commuters were in traffic, while landscapers were cutting lawns, and while workers were on computers in office buildings.   

This was the 20 year anniversary for the LIIFE international music festival. There were a great deal of entertainment celebrities attending and hosting the awards ceremony. Among them were  actor William Sadler (The Shawshank Redemption) and actress Ilene Kristen (Ryan’s Hope, One Life to Live). John received his award on stage from Broadway star Ciarán Sheehan (the phantom from Phantom of the Opera, and Les Miserables). 

-

The ceremony concluded the week-long screening of over 160 films from around the world. Each day, there were sessions of movies showing throughout the day. Some of the shorter films ranging from 5 to 20 minutes long were bunched together, while some of the feature length films stood alone.  

-

John Potente standing with New York fashion model AwaJohn has been a resident of Hauppauge for over 25 years and has been playing piano since the age of 8. When younger, he played piano for high school shows and after school in ephemeral rock bands. Later, in his college years he played on stage in Stony Brook University and in the noisy corners of piano bars in Bayville. Then, while in dental school at Washington University, he would sit at a piano, late at night after his studies, to play classical piano. 

-

Currently, John has a dental practice in Hauppauge (in the Township of Smithtown), and it was his patients, Jessie and Kaitlyn of Wildlife Productions, that directed the filmed and created and submitted the film to the festival. So, while John is fixing the teeth of Smithtown and Hauppauge residents by day, he is “tickling the ivory teeth” of the piano by night. (As ivory is no longer used on pianos, his piano keys are of plastic). Now, after all the fanfare, John has taken under his arm the “Best Music Video” trophy for his performance of a classical piano piece that competed with videos of reggae, rap and rock and show tunes from all parts of the planet.

St. James Fire District Sets Date For Capital Bond Referendum

St. James Fire District sets date for capital bond referendum; encourages community participation 

The St. James Fire District Board of Commissioners has announced that a communitywide capital bond referendum vote will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 19, from 3-9 p.m. Voting will take place at the Jefferson Avenue firehouse, located at 221 Jefferson Ave. For residents who reside within Election District 79, voting will take place at the Fairfield at St. James. 

This referendum comes as a result of several years of research and planning to determine how to best serve the community now and into the future, given the vast infrastructural needs and safety hazards that are present at both firehouses in the district. 

“To put it simply, the way our fire district is currently operating is no longer the most efficient or safe way to serve the residents of our community,” said Lawrence Montrose, chairman of the board of fire commissioners. “Our district’s current configuration presents safety challenges for our volunteers who put their lives at risk to keep our community safe. It is our duty to keep them safe as well.”

The firehouse at the intersection of Lake Avenue and Route 25A was built in 1922; the last major renovation was completed almost 50 years ago. The antiquated building can no longer house the majority of the district’s fire trucks or engines – in fact, only one truck is currently housed at that location. The location of the facility also presents significant safety challenges, given the volume of traffic at the intersection. 

“Traffic volumes and speeds in front of the firehouse have increased greatly over the years,” said Montrose. “Not only does this hamper our response time when the truck at that location must respond, but it threatens the safety of our volunteers and those passing by at the time of a call.”

The district’s second firehouse, located on Jefferson Avenue, also has a number of significant infrastructural challenges. The firehouse suffered a flood last August, rendering sections of the building nearly useless to volunteers and forcing the district to operate out of a temporary structure on the property. Following the flood, engineer and architect reviews of the facility revealed that the building has numerous structural issues, some of which existed prior to the flooding. In addition, the layout of the Jefferson Avenue property presents other safety challenges for volunteers. 

“Our volunteers ‘gear up’ in one building but must cross the parking lot to board the trucks in another building,” said Montrose. “At the same time, other volunteers are entering the parking lot, creating a major safety issue.” 

The proposed plan calls for the consolidation of all fire services through the construction of a new facility on the existing Jefferson Avenue property. A new, centralized building will not only alleviate the safety concerns that currently exist, but will also allow the district to efficiently serve the community well into the future. The building would feature spaces that could be converted into accommodations for members and the community during storms or other major emergencies, and would also house a large meeting room for department meetings and community use. The proposed building would fully comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and facilitate improved traffic flow onto Woodlawn Avenue during emergency responses. Additionally, through green spaces and design, the new facility would protect the neighborhood feel of the current property and remain unobtrusive to surrounding homes. 

The cost of the proposed plan is $12.25 million. Based on current market conditions, for a home with an assessed value of $3,000, the estimated increase in fire district taxes would be approximately $118 a year. For a home assessed at $4,000, the project equates to an annual increase of $158, while a home assessed at $5,000 would see an increase of approximately $198 a year. 

“While we are mindful of any increase in fire district taxes to our community, we believe this plan is fiscally responsible,” said Montrose. “If we do not consolidate our services and merely renovate the existing Jefferson Avenue facility, it would cost us an estimated $10.6 million. The safety issues present with the property layout would still exist. For $1.6 million more, we are able to construct an entirely new, 21^st century structure that will allow us to serve the community in the best way possible for decades to come.” 

The fire district encourages all residents to learn the facts of what is being proposed through the capital improvement bond project. The district will host a public information hearing about the proposed plan on Tuesday, Aug. 29, from 7-9 p.m. at the Jefferson Avenue firehouse, located at 221 Jefferson Ave. The district will also host a number of open houses, during which residents are encouraged to see the conditions firsthand and ask any questions they have on the proposal. Open houses will be held on Saturday, Sept. 9, from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.; Thursday, Sept. 14, from 7-9 p.m.; and Sunday, Sept. 17, from 1-3 p.m., all at the Jefferson Avenue location. 

Information on the proposed project will be sent to all homes within the district and posted to the district’s website, www.stjamesfd.org. Please also “Like” the district on Facebook by searching “St. James Fire District” for important updates and information.

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP -No Farms No Food

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“America has been losing over 40 acres of farmland every hour to development,” said the letter I just received from the American Farmland Trust. “This land—the most fertile soil in the world—is irreplaceable and urgently needed to grow food. It’s a national disgrace on a catastrophic scale.”

With the letter was an American Farmland Trust bumper sticker: “No Farms No Food.”

The threat to farmland in the United States has been mirrored in the threat to farmland in Suffolk County. But the county’s visionary Farmland Preservation Program has met the threat and been central in keeping Suffolk a top agricultural county in New York State and so much of it green. Not only do the farms of Suffolk, on some of the best soils on the planet, produce food and other agricultural products, but they are integral to the thriving tourism industry in Suffolk.

However, the Long Island Pine Barrens Society brought a lawsuit that claimed allowing “structures” on preserved farmland permitted by amendments to the program approved by the Suffolk Legislature was not legal. And a state Supreme Court justice last year ruled in favor of the society’s lawsuit.

Justice Thomas Whelan “basically misconstrued what the county’s original intent was—to prevent the development of farmland but still allow typical and acceptable farm practices to be utilized,” says State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor, an attorney. The Farmland Preservation Program “didn’t freeze in a moment of time” structures that could be on a farm. Farmers who have put their land into preservation under the program, said Mr. Thiele, have been
“entitled” to build sheds, barns and other structures “as long as they complied with the definition of agricultural practices. The idea was that farming is dynamic and that there would have to be changes in the future.”

It’s unfortunate that the judge didn’t understand this.

His ruling is on appeal with the county having retained a law firm that has long fought for the environment, Riverhead-based Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley and Quartararo. Handling the appeal is a partner in the firm, Lisa Clare Kombrink, who has a specialty in farmland preservation as former Southampton Town attorney and in other public legal positions. 

John v.H. Halsey, president of the Peconic Land Trust, itself long involved in conservation including of farmland, commented last week: “If we want farmland to be farmed we have to allow farmers to do what we told them they could do when they sold their development rights. They retained the right to build structures. They never sold that right to the county and the county didn’t buy it. Suffolk’s Farmland Preservation Program, the first of its kind in the country, was created to protect not only farmland but farming. Farm operations by definition are the land, the structures, the improvements and the practices necessary to perform agricultural production.”

Suffolk County is with vigor challenging the lawsuit and ruling which threaten Suffolk’s Farmland Preservation Program.

Conceived by County Executive John V. N. Klein, a Smithtown resident and former Smithtown Town supervisor, the program, begun in 1974, is based on the brilliant and then novel idea of purchase of development rights. Farmers are paid the difference between the value of their land in agriculture and what they could get for it if they sold it off for development. In return, the land is kept in agriculture in perpetuity. The Suffolk program has been emulated across the nation.

Suffolk’s current county executive, Steve Bellone, says: “We believe the findings in this lawsuit strike at the very heart of agricultural success in Suffolk County. Support structures on agricultural land have always been an essential and inherent component of agricultural production.”

The Suffolk Legislature has been standing strong in the challenge.

Rob Carpenter, administrative director of the Long Island Farm Bureau, explains that “in this day and age, farmers can’t just go out and put a seed in the ground and watch it grow. Farming today is very sophisticated and complicated.” Greenhouses are used. Crops need to be stored in a building—“they can’t be left out in the field in the hot sun.” Farmers utilize large pieces of equipment and they “need to be sheltered.” In some instances, deer fencing is necessary.” He said last week: “No farmer is going to preserve their land if they can’t continue as a farm operation and that means with modern agriculture having the necessary infrastructure in order to farm.”

Legislator Al Krupski of Cutchogue, who is a fourth-generation Suffolk farmer, said last week that the hope is that what has happened is a “temporary setback” of the county’s Farmland Preservation Program. He said: “We want to restore confidence in this historic program.”

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 - Suffolk County Legislators Recognize Karl Grossman's 50 Years Of Journalism

Editor’s note - Congratulations Karl Grossman! Suffolk County residents are enriched by your ability and willingness to tell our story. Kudos to Legislators Krupski and Flemming for pointing out the obvious, Karl Grossman is a Suffolk County treasure. Pat Biancaniello

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Suffolk Legislators Al Krupski and Bridget Fleming, Karl Grossman and Dennis Fabiszak, director of the East Hampton LibraryMemories sprung into my head as I walked into the meeting room of the Suffolk County Legislature last week to receive a proclamation from the legislature honoring me for more than 50 years as a Suffolk-based journalist and spotlighting an archive of my work that has been established.

I was in this room regularly in the mid-1960s covering the Suffolk County Board of Supervisors. I looked last week at the horseshoe table in front, where the 10 members of the board sat—the supervisors of the 10 towns of Suffolk. It’s been widened since the days of the board to 18 places for the 18 members of the legislature.

 I thought of some of the remarkable members of the Board of Supervisors—Evans K. Griffing, supervisor of Shelter Island, Harry Kangeiser from Islip, Bob Flynn from Huntington, and John V. N. Klein, the Smithtown supervisor and the board’s last chairman. The board after two centuries was dissolved due to a lawsuit citing the one-person-one-vote court rulings of the 1960s. A panel of 18 districts of equal population, a Suffolk Legislature, was established in 1970 to replace it.

Mr. Klein, so very committed to this county, gave up being Smithtown supervisor to run to be a legislator on the new panel and he became its first presiding officer. He guided it in its early years, forging a continuum between the board and legislature. Thereafter he became Suffolk County executive with his biggest achievement the first-of-its-kind Suffolk County Farmland Preservation Program which has allowed so much of Suffolk to remain agriculturally productive and green.

On the walls of the meeting room were the portraits the 18 past presiding officers of the legislature. Down the row of photos from Mr. Klein’s was that of John Wehrenberg of Holbrook. My mind went back to 1971 and the tarmac at the Sydney, Nova Scotia airport. A year before, as an investigative reporter then for the daily Long Island Press, I broke the story about the oil industry seeking to drill in the Atlantic. Strong opposition developed on Long Island to drilling off our shores.  The following year, Shell Canada invited a delegation of Suffolk legislators to visit the first drilling rig set up in the Atlantic, off Nova Scotia. No press was allowed. But the legislators going listed my name as part of the delegation.

“You don’t think you’re going to get on this helicopter, Mr. Grossman,” a Shell Canada executive told me on the tarmac. Mr. Wehrenberg and the other legislators intervened, he telling the Shell Canada executive: “If Karl isn’t going, we’re not going.” The men from Shell Canada huddled, and soon I was on the chopper out to the rig. The visit was instructive—it was clear on the rig, with its equipment in preparation for a blow-out and spills, that off-shore drilling is a dicey proposition. I recall heading back to Long Island with the legislators, us talking about the impacts on Long Island of oil hitting our beaches.

I looked at the photo of another presiding officer, Lou Howard of Amityville. Now Lou and I were at odds over nuclear power. He was an ardent supporter of the Shoreham nuclear power plant. It was to be the first of 7 to 11 nuclear power plants in Suffolk. Grassroots opposition to Suffolk turning into what nuclear promoters at the time called a “nuclear park” led to election defeats for pro-nuclear officials. But Lou held on and stuck to his pro-nuclear positon. 

He was a highly affable fellow, however, and an aviation instructor. And one day we were talking about flying and he invited me to go fly with him. Over Long Island, he gave me the wheel and after a while the plane began bucking from turbulence. It was scary. But Lou advised, “Just go with it.” And I let the plane be bumped around, and finally the turbulence ended and it was again flying straight and steady. Lou had things wrong about nuclear power, but his philosophy on how to deal with turbulence was right-on.

I was called up to the rostrum with Dennis Fabiszak, director of the East Hampton Library where the archive has been established. Legislators Al Krupski of Cutchogue and Bridget Fleming of Noyac presented me with the proclamation which, incidentally, cited “my extensive reporting and writing on the dangers of nuclear power.” If it weren’t for the Suffolk Legislature under the leadership in the 1980s of Presiding Officer Gregory Blass of Jamesport, we’d have nuclear plants in Suffolk today. 

Mr. Fabiszak, explaining what’s been named the Karl Grossman Research Archive, said: “We are digitizing all of Karl’s articles and also all of the primary research which he used to write the articles. When it is done it will be the largest data base of historic documents in Suffolk County.…Already we have about 7,000 documents online, available and fully searchable. And we’re continuing to add to it every day…We can’t wait to continue the work.”

Please go to the library’s website—http://easthamptonlibrary.org/—to access the information. It’s wonderful that my stories and columns, and an array of documents, are available now and into the future.

Karl’s column is carried by Smithtown Matters and appears weekly on Thursday. Past columns carried by Smithtown Matters may also be found in the archives. Pat

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - 60 Vineyards And World Class Wine

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Long Island with a very long history of agriculture has undergone an agricultural revolution in just several decades. It was brought forth in 1973 by a pair of pioneers in planting grapes for fine wine, Louisa and Alex Hargrave.

Driving on the North Fork the other day, I was amazed to see now vineyard after vineyard along Sound Avenue, and then returning, vineyard following vineyard on Route 25, too.  There are vineyards now as well on the South Fork and in central and western Suffolk County. 

In the Town of Smithtown, there are Whisper Vineyards in St. James and Harmony Vineyards in Head of the Harbor. “Why drive all the way to the Forks,” proclaims Harmony Vineyards on its website. 

On Long Island, “the number of vineyards today—60, ranging from two-and-a-half acres planted to over 500 acres,” notes The Long Island Wine Council on its website. 

Eastern Long Island has become a major wine region, an East Coast equivalent to Napa Valley in California. A substantial wine industry has—in the context of the rich farming heritage on Long Island beginning with the arrival of its Native Americans thousands of years ago— come relatively suddenly.

So importantly, most of the land where now there are vineyards had been used to grow potatoes and, with the once mighty Long Island potato having faded in the face of stiff competition, would have gone to development.  Growing grapes on Long Island for wine is, financially, a far better use of expensive Long Island land than potatoes. 

The Suffolk County Farmland Preservation Program, begun in 1974 the year after the Hargraves planted their first wine grapes, the Community Preservation Fund in the five East End towns, other town, county and state and private initiatives to save farms—and the proliferation of vineyards—have been instrumental in keeping much of Long Island green and its avoiding the development fate of farmland in western Long Island. 

I’ve seen the march of development eastward starting in the far west of geographical Long Island. I’m old enough to remember a farm near where I began elementary school, P.S. 159—in Brooklyn!  Growing up in eastern Queens in the 1950s, riding my bicycle into neighboring Nassau County, I witnessed farm field after farm field swallowed up in suburban development. My family used to take us to Lollipop Farm in Syosset. Lollipop Farm is gone, literally and figuratively.

Furthermore, the wine produced on Long Island has become—as suddenly as it arrived—world-class. This story has been told, with some amazement, by many wine experts. As the magazine Food and Wine declared with a 2015 article headlined, “Can Long Island Make World-Class Wines?”, its reporter “Lettie Teague finds great wines—including some of the best American wines she’s ever tried” on Long Island.

And the Long Island wine industry has been a huge boon to Long Island tourism. There are “approximately 1.3 million visitors…annually” to the wineries of eastern Long Island, says the Long Island Wine Council. There are tours of wineries, and tastings, classes and musical events.

Louisa Hargrave in her wonderful book, The Vineyard, relates: “I was 25 and Alex was 27. With no farm experience and little life experience, we really didn’t think the vines would need much attention. Before we bought the farm in Cutchogue, neither one of us had grown so much as a vegetable garden … The idea of the vineyard at that point was still a fantasy whose only tangible basis in reality lay in the 10,000 rooted, grafted vines we had bought.”

She and Alex—they met as students at Harvard and shared a love of fine wine and a dream of producing it in America—had been told by John Tomkins, a pomologist for Cornell Cooperative Extension in Ithaca,  that “There’s this guy on Long Island who has been growing table grapes.’”

That was John Wickham, who worked some of the oldest continually cultivated land in the U.S. on a 287-acre farm in Cutchogue that goes back to 1661. “It was the day before Thanksgiving, 1972,” writes Ms. Hargrave. Mr. Wickham told the couple how “I was called crazy” for moving away from potatoes to grow peaches and cherries and other fruit on Long Island. “He took us to bodies of water and explained how they moderated the climate” — and made this possible.

Thus, the Hargraves figured they could grow cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir and merlot and chardonnay here, the grapes from which the great wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy were made from. They were right.

Mr. Wickham, who died in 1994 at 85, was a Long Island original, long a farmer and long vice chairman of the Suffolk County Planning Commission and chairman of the Southold Town Planning Board, and deeply involved in seeking to preserve Suffolk County as a top agricultural area in New York State. Thankfully, it remains so.

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.