SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Coronavirus "What A Situation Here And Globally"

By Karl Grossman

The signs on Route 27 that usually warn of an accident up ahead or tell people not to text while driving were announcing alternatively “Stay Home” and “Stop The Spread.” Along Montauk Highway restaurant after restaurant were shut down—many with hand-drawn signs posted about take-out being available. At a supermarket, people were wearing face masks.

In front of a grocery store in Westhampton Beach a crowd had gathered and there were items being sold, one customer at a time, from a table outside. 

Driving home, I passed the Southampton Full Gospel Church with a sign in front of it: “Fear Not, Nor Be Dismayed, Be Strong And Of Good Courage.” 

In sum, what a scene out there—it would have been unbelievable a few weeks ago.

 What a dramatic, mammoth change for us all—like nothing in my lifetime. The only thing, I think, in modern times comparable in the U.S. to the coronavirus pandemic were the huge changes after the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

I’ve been a professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury and early on all classes were moved to “alternate instructional delivery,” as they were at every SUNY and CUNY campus. This includes Suffolk County Community College, part of SUNY. Before the order came down from Governor Cuomo, we prepared for online teaching.

“You’ll be engaging students virtually,” said Virek Ramgopal, a representative of Blackboard. He was opening a webinar that I participated in, one of many that Blackboard was holding. There were more than 300 teachers from around the globe on it. Blackboard is based in Washington, D.C. and on its website describes itself as “the largest” company “in the world” specializing in “distance learning.” 

Edgar Gonzalez, who noted he came to Blackboard from the University of Texas where he had been director of distance education, said what was involved was us “transitioning from face-to-face to online” instruction. As he spoke, an acronym for “face-to-face” came up on the computer screen: “F2F.”

The webinar included presentations about “looking at automation options,” establishing a “live chat,” putting a video online—“keep the video short”—and ways to “create teacher presence.” The idea regarding the latter is that students shouldn’t feel they’re being subject to robotized education. It was suggested the teacher put up her or his photo to help humanize the lesson.

At the college, Old Westbury professors were given Blackboard training in groups and individually. I so much more prefer “face-to-face” teaching. For instance, in my Environmental Journalism course just before this all happened, I devoted two classes to the nature writing of essayists and poets Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, writer, conservationist and crusader for national parks John Muir, and Walt Whitman. I changed teaching gears when from the facial expressions of students and answers to my questions, it was clear most weren’t familiar with Emerson, Thoreau and Muir. They knew about Whitman, but he was a Long Islander, after all, his birthplace in West Hills, 10 miles from the college. I shifted immediately to more extensive presentations about Emerson, Thoreau and Muir. 

Online instruction has become a necessary alternative now. But it’s no real substitute for the personal interaction of teaching face-to-face, despite the big push in academia in recent years to give courses online. 

Because of coronavirus, a hospital is to be built on an emergency basis on the SUNY/Old Westbury campus—and the second on Long Island on the Stony Brook University campus.

Sabbath services at our Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor, were also held online. “This is different,” said Rabbi Dan Geffen from the pulpit at Long Island’s oldest synagogue: “We are all adopting and changing and trying to bring out the best in each other.” He said the situation was “an opportunity for us to each reinvigorate our spirituality.” The rabbi said “we have lost control over many things we had just weeks ago,” and that: “We are all connected one way or the other. We are all suffering.” The traditional “Prayer for Healing”—normally devoted to ill members of the congregation, relatives and friends—was broadened to all those struck by the virus pandemic.

Religious services—all over Long Island and world—were being streamed online.

As a teacher, you get close to students. My wonderful A-student from Vietnam was having trouble booking a ticket home. Suddenly, due to a last-minute cancellation, she got a seat on Japan Airlines. She telephoned from Kennedy Airport waiting for her flight and emailed upon arriving in Vietnam to first spend, she said, 14 days of quarantine “in the countryside.” 

What a situation here and globally!

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 - Coronavirus Nightmare Is Here

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

FYI -  Suffolk County reported the following confirmed cases and deaths due to COVID-19 through 2:30 p.m. on 3/25/2020

• 2260  confirmed cases  (up 380 from the 1,880 cases that were reported at 2:30 p.m. on March 24)
• 206 are hospitalized (up 43 from March 24), 67 of those are in the intensive care unit
• 20 deaths (up 3 from March 24)

By Karl Grossman

It’s a modern-day plague: the deaths, the quarantines, the states of emergency, the declaration of a worldwide pandemic, the lockdowns of cities and entire countries, the shutdown of schools and businesses, the mass layoffs, the courage of those doctors and nurses and other health care providers treating people with an infectious disease despite the danger to themselves, the fear we all have of getting infected, the “social distancing,” and on and on.

It’s a health disaster, a calamity on a global scale. 

“Our lives are all changing in ways that were unimaginable just a week ago,” said New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio as he issued an executive order last Sunday closing restaurants and bars, other than for take-out and delivery. All of New York State including Suffolk County, and the neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut, followed. “We are taking a series of actions that we never would have taken otherwise in an effort to save the lives of loved ones and our neighbors.” Meanwhile closings in the three states also include schools.

The strategy is to limit the transmission of the disease by restricting contact of people with other people thus reducing spread and “flattening the curve” of people needing medical care—so hospitals won’t be overwhelmed and treatment of the seriously ill can be managed. The percent of people with severe effects requiring hospital care is calculated at about 10%. 

But then there is the huge problem involving ventilators and respirators.

“U.S. hospitals bracing for a possible onslaught of coronavirus patients with pneumonia and other breathing difficulties could face a critical shortage of mechanical ventilators and health care workers to operate them,” the Associated Press reported last week.

“In the most severe cases,” AP explained, “the coronavirus damages healthy tissue in the lungs, making it hard for them to deliver oxygen to the blood. Pneumonia can develop, along with a more severe and potentially deadly condition called acute respiratory distress syndrome….Ventilators feed oxygen into the lungs of patients with severe respiratory problems through a tube inserted down the throat.”

“But the nation has only about 200,000 of the machines,” it said, citing a figure from the Society of Critical Care Medicine, which projects “that 960,000 coronavirus patients in the U.S. may need to be put on ventilators…during the outbreak.” 

President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act last week to ramp up manufacture of ventilators, but can hundreds of thousands of ventilators be produced quickly? The act, passed in 1950 at the start of the Korean War, empowers the federal government to require businesses to fulfill orders deemed necessary for the national defense. Also, as AP noted, will there be “enough…specialist nurses and doctors with…critical care training” to operate the machines? Further, Mr. Trump has not implemented use of the act as of this writing. 

As to effective face masks or respirators needed in order to protect nurses, doctors and other health care workers treating coronavirus patients, the New York State Nurses Association issued a statement last week on: “The Shortage of Respirators and Personal Protective Equipment For Health Care Personnel and First Responders.” The association said: “If the health care system and our hospitals are to continue to operate at the levels that we need, emergency action must be taken to protect nurses and other direct care staff from exposure and infection.”

It said the federal government “failed to maintain adequate stocks of respirators in the national reserves and further failed to take action when the outbreak arose in November-December to secure additional supplies of N95 respirators.” The N95 is considered the preferred face mask for hospital use. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website says the N95 protects “the wearer from airborne particles and from liquid contaminating the face” by blocking “at least 95 percent of very small test particles.”

The association recommends “Federal, state and local authorities must take immediate emergency action to secure and distribute stocks of N95 or higher-rated respirators…to our hospitals and other health care institutions in quantities necessary to protect staff from exposure and illness.” 

Meanwhile, it complained, the CDC and other federal agencies have issued directives that “substantially roll back the standards for protecting health workers.” That will “make things worse by exposing nurses and other workers to increased risk of exposure and infection…This will undermine the capacity to sustain operation of the health systems that our people will rely on as the virus spreads in coming weeks. If our nurses are in isolation or sick, they will not be there to provide patient care.” It called for restoring “the previously established infection control protocols and standards” as well as providing many more respirators. Last week, the Defense Production Act was also invoked by Mr. Trump to compel industry to produce more respirators.   

But this, too, has not been implemented. 

The world—including the U.S. and Suffolk—has been turned upside down by the coronavirus nightmare. 

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 - It's Time Suffolk County Creates An Office Of Inspector General

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Suffolk County Legislator Rob Trotta is back with his bill to establish an independent office of inspector general in Suffolk. Such an office needed, Mr. Trotta, a long-time Suffolk County Police Department detective told me last week, because of a “culture of corruption and mismanagement” in Suffolk County government. 

Mr. Trotta, a four-term Suffolk legislator from Fort Salonga, twice introduced measures previously to create an office of inspector general in Suffolk. The new bill was inspired, he said, by the death of Thomas Valva, an autistic eight-year-old Center Moriches boy who froze to death in January after being forced to sleep without blankets or a mattress on the cement floor of an unheated garage. The child’s father, a New York Police Department transit officer, and the father’s fiancée have been charged with murder and endangering the welfare of a child. 

The Child Protective Services division of the Suffolk Department of Health Services and police and courts in both Suffolk and Nassau Counties had been asked by Thomas’s mother to investigate mistreatment of the boy and his two siblings. At Thomas’s wake, his mother charged: “This could have been preventable. But the people who protect children were protecting the abuser instead.”

In Nassau, three years ago, its county legislature by a unanimous vote approved the establishment of an office of Nassau County inspector general. Its website says: “The mission of the OIG is to foster accountability, efficiency, integrity and restore trust in County government.” 

Mr. Trotta’s previous bills were not enacted. Neither was a similar one sponsored by Suffolk Legislators Kara Hahn and Rob Colarco, both Democrats. Mr. Trotta and the co-sponsor of the new bill, freshman Legislator Anthony Piccirillo, are both Republicans. Mr. Colarco at the start of this year became the legislature’s presiding officer. 

The Trotta-Piccirillo measure declares “that Suffolk County…with a population that exceeds that of eleven states…provides a tremendous range of services to its residents, from policing to public works to environmental protection and public health monitoring.” And “given the size, scope and breadth of services rendered, there are often opportunities for fraud, waste, misconduct and mismanagement to occur.” It says that “in recent years incidents of misconduct, waste and abuse involving various elements of Suffolk County government have been discovered, reported upon by the media and addressed through policy changes initiated by the legislature.” 

It goes on that “it has become clear that greater change and oversight is essential to identify and eradicate instances of fraud, waste, abuse and corruption at the county level to protect public integrity of government and safeguard the use of taxpayer dollars.” 

It then states that “the recent tragic death of Thomas Valva also brings forth questions of possible misconduct and mismanagement on the part of county departments involved with his case which are of tremendous consequence and the utmost importance.” 

It says that “establishment of an independent investigatory authority for Suffolk County is essential to ensuring that the county is subject to necessary oversight and held accountable for living up to its mandates to serve and protect its residents, especially those who are the most vulnerable in our society.” The office would “provide critical accountability and oversight to county government and would be able to identify, investigate and deter fraud, waste, mismanagement, misconduct and abuse.”

The inspector general would be required to have “at least ten years of experience in any one or a combination” of being a “federal, state or local law enforcement officer/official or prosecutor…a federal or state court judge…an inspector general, certified public accountant or internal auditor.” 

At a public hearing on the bill, former Suffolk County Social Services Commissioner Gregory Blass, who also was a Suffolk Family Court judge and presiding officer of the Suffolk Legislature, testified for it. He said an investigation by a Suffolk inspector general of the Valva death would “do more than an internal departmental investigation [by the Suffolk Department of Social Services] would do.” However, at a subsequent hearing, Thomas’s mother, Justyna Zubko-Valva, told legislators that the proposed office would be similar to those that ignored her “crying for help” and “completely failed in protecting my son.”

Meanwhile, Suffolk District Attorney Timothy Sini has just announced the empaneling of a special grand jury to investigate what occurred. Earlier, the legislature moved to form a “special committee” to do the same, and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone announced an “internal review” by county government.

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 - Gardiner's Island An Ecological And Historical Jewel

By Karl Grossman

I’ve been to beautiful islands—Bora Bora, and Moorea in the South Pacific; the Greek islands of Paros, Mykonos and Santorini; the New England islands of Cuttyhunk and Nantucket; Virgin Gorda and Tobago in the Caribbean. But just off Long Island’s shores is a gem, splendorous, an exquisite island that rivals any. It’s been aptly called a paradise.

Gardiner’s Island—an ecological and historical jewel. What will its future be?

The 3,300-acre island is home to hundreds of bird species, freshwater ponds and lagoons, meadows, and the 1,000-acre Bostwick Forest that is the largest stand of White Oak in the Northeast. It was the oldest English settlement in what’s now New York State. Among its structures: a windmill, brilliant white, built in 1795, by Nathaniel Dominy 5^th  which is on the National Historic Register, and a carpenter’s shed that’s the oldest wood-frame building in New York. 

Gardiner’s Island, its nature, its historic buildings —breathtaking. 

I first went to Gardiner’s Island nearly 50 years ago. 

Robert David Lion Gardiner, the “16^th Lord of the Manor” of the island, purchased from the Montaukett Indians in 1639 and privately held by the Gardiner family since, welcomed a big camp-out of Boy Scouts to it in 1971. I covered the camp-out and interviewed Mr. Gardiner. The next year, I got to know him pretty well when he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in the lst C.D. on the Conservative Party ticket against Democratic incumbent Otis Pike in protest to Mr. Pike’s effort to make Gardiner’s Island a federally preserved National Monument.  

In 1974, I wrote and presented a 10-part, five-hour television series aired on WLIW/21 on Long Island and WPIX/11 in New York City titled “Can Suffolk Be Saved?” It was about the eastward tide of development on Long Island and whether all of Suffolk County could avoid being enveloped in sprawl. I started it on Gardiner’s Island declaring it a “time capsule” for Long Island. I interviewed Mr. Gardiner for the series and afterwards again on TV and for print.

Mr. Gardiner, who died in 2004 at 93, was an excellent steward of Gardiner’s Island. 

The island is now owned by Mr. Gardiner’s niece, Alexandra Gardiner Creel, who has also been a superb steward of Gardiner’s Island. She is a strong environmentalist with a master’s degree from the Yale School of Forestry. A great environmentalist, too, was her late husband, Robert Goelet (he died last year), former president of the American Museum of Natural History, New York Zoological Society and the New York Historical Society, too.

After Mr. Gardiner’s death, a conservation easement covering more than 95% of the island was arranged in 2005 with the Town of East Hampton. It is for 20 years—expiring in less than five years. It bars development on the island which earlier was upzoned to five-acre zoning.

Lee Koppelman, the former long-time Suffolk County planner, has described Gardiner’s Island as “perhaps the most important offshore island on the entire Atlantic seashore from Maine to Florida.” Among his recommendations for preserving it has been having “development rights” purchased by government—the basis of the Suffolk County Farmland Preservation Program. He has emphasized: “The overriding concern is for the long-term future.”

The Goelet family—there is a son and a daughter—are committed to preserving the island and keeping it within the family. They want it “preserved…in perpetuity.”

The Goelet family has enormous wealth with ownership of significant real estate in New York City. It has the bucks to keep Gardiner’s Island preserved privately.

But Gardiner’s Island has not had a financially seamless history. During the Depression, the Gardiner family was unable to pay a mortgage taken out on the island. In 1937 it was announced that Gardiner’s Island would be put up for sale. One account stated that there was “’widespread interest’ by ‘out-of-town parties,’ one of which, for example, ambitiously proposed to convert the island into an American Monte Carlo with a casino, hotel and race track.” The auction didn’t happen. Mr. Gardiner’s aunt, Sarah Diodati Gardiner, came to the rescue and purchased it from executors. 

A wise future course to insure this exquisite and highly important island, ecologically and historically, would be Dr. Koppelman’s suggestion of sale of development rights.

Even for the very wealthy, over the long-term—over centuries—there are financial ups and downs. With development rights purchase, the Goelets and their descendants would retain full ownership and full control of the island. The only change would be—as it works with Suffolk’s Farmland Preservation Program—a covenant legally requiring the island have no development in perpetuity. There would be, in effect, a permanent conservation easement for Gardiner’s Island. 

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. 

Mills Pond Students Present "Broadway Bonanza"

The magic of Broadway came alive at Mills Pond Elementary School in the Smithtown Central School District as the fifth grade classes presented their “Broadway Bonanza” on March 12. Featuring music from “Annie,” “TheGreatest Showman” and “The Lion King” the students wowed their classmates and invited guests during their performances with their song and dance numbers. Photos courtesy of Smithtown Central School District