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TBR Staff

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TBR News Media covers everything happening on the North Shore of Suffolk County from Cold Spring Harbor to Wading River.

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The Piping Plover could be completely lost from the shores of Long Island due to climate change. Photo by Kimberley Caruso/Audubon Photography Awards

By Brooke Bateman

Brooke Bateman

Fifty years ago on April 22nd, millions of Americans made their voices heard. It was this first Earth Day that brought on the environmental movement as we know it today, where concerned individuals collectively said that it was time to take action to be better for our planet. 

Across the country, people demanded that action be taken to clean up our air and water and protect our environment. The momentum of that day helped bring about public support in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and helped usher through the passage of key laws including the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and the Endangered Species Act. 

As Earth Day 2020 is set to be celebrated in nearly 200 countries, this year’s celebration may look different to the crowd-filled events and rallies typical of this day; we are in truly unprecedented times. As I write this we are a few weeks into the pandemic quarantine, but I am blessed to be outside listening to the familiar calls of the birds I have come to know in my neighborhood. 

That’s the thing about birds; their presence can connect us to the local rhythms of nature, the signature of a time and place. As the majority of people are spending their days at home on lockdown, I have had many friends reach out to me about how much solace they are finding in birds right now. As one of the most beloved and ubiquitous forms of wildlife, birds are our connector to nature around us. Birds are also our messengers and if we pay attention, they’re showing us that our world is changing. 

Over the last 50 years, America has lost over one quarter of its birds, nearly 3 billion birds less fill our skies today then in 1970. Yet, the century-old Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) is being dismantled, making it much more likely that even more will be lost and without any accountability for incidental loss. 

We are losing nature at an unprecedented rate, yet we are seeing rollbacks on some of our bedrock protections such as the Clean Air and Water Acts, making it easier for our planet to be polluted yet again. Looking forward to the next 50 years, climate change is the biggest issue both birds and people alike will face. Birds are already telling us that our climate is changing — birds ranges are changing, shifting and contracting as the climate conditions change across the globe. Birds like the Rusty Blackbird are lost to large parts of their historical range as climate conditions worsen. Whole communities are collapsing, with mass seabird die offs now happening yearly off our northern shores due to warming sea temperatures. Seabirds like puffins and murres are dying from starvation from the changes in the food web brought about by extreme heat in the oceans. 

Bird migration has shifted. As spring arrives earlier and earlier, birds are either having to migrate earlier or find themselves out of luck when they arrive too late and their resources have past their peak. Even the herald of spring, the American Robin, has decided that it may not have to fly south after all, sticking around through warmer winters in many places. 

Without global action, such as the Paris accord (of which the U.S. is no longer a part of), how can we meet the significant actions needed to limit global temperatures to 2C (or preferably 1.5C)? The consequence of not doing so is that our planet would be transformed into a more inhospitable place. 

The consequence is potentially losing billions more birds. Audubon’s Survival by Degrees: 389 Bird Species on the Brink, a report forecasting the survival of birds to climate change, shows that two-thirds of North American bird species are at risk of extreme range loss and potentially extinction from unmitigated climate change. In New York, 116 species are vulnerable to climate change, including charismatic species like the Scarlet Tanager, Wood Thrush, American Woodcock, Saltmarsh Sparrow, and Piping Plover. 

The Piping Plover could be completely lost from the shores of Long Island due to climate change. No species will escape climate change, with birds (and the places they share with us) also facing multiple coincident climate change-related threats. New York will experience greater extreme heat events, increased coastal and inland flooding from sea level rise and heavy rainfall, increased pressures from urbanization, and disrupted ecosystems.

But this loss is so much more than just numbers. It is the loss of some of our familiar neighborhood birds we have come to know and love, of nature and our sense of place as we know it. It is not being able to share the joy of seeing a Piping Plover on our beaches with our children. It is the loss of our familiar seasons and weather patterns, where extreme events and natural disasters become more frequent. It’s some of our more vulnerable communities being put at further risk, as climate change will disproportionately affect our children, our elderly, lower income communities, and communities of color. 

However, we still have time, and as the threat of climate change grows, so does the work we need to do. If we can limit climate change to between 1.5C to 2.0C, then we can limit the loss we will come to see. Indeed, 76% of bird species will be better off if we can do just that, and our communities and environment will also not see such drastic affects. 

To get there we need to listen to the science, and make changes now both as individuals and as a nation. We have done this before. One of the greatest environmental successes of our time came as concerned Americans listened to what the birds were telling us. Toxic pesticides, pollution and ecosystem destruction were devastating some of our beloved birds including the Bald Eagle and the Brown Pelican. We gathered evidence, and looked hard at our values. 

As Americans, we decided that we value clean water, clean air, and healthy ecosystems for our wildlife and natural spaces. We decided we did not want a world where unchecked environmental destruction quieted our birds as described in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. We listened to the science and we took action, and as the environment got healthier, the birds returned. I now marvel at the Bald Eagles and Osprey that have returned to Long Island, having never been a feature of my Long Island childhood.  

So where do we stand on this 50th Earth Day? We need to yet again examine our values and embrace science-based conservation. We need to take action, to set in motion the momentum to spark the next environmental movement taking us beyond just one day. We need to face these incredible challenges and opportunities collectively, to do what needs to be done to solve this climate crisis. 

The science illustrates how our warming planet will impact both the birds we all love, and the people in our communities, but also shows us that if we act there is still time to create a brighter future for birds and people. If we do something now to stabilize climate change, then we can improve the chances for the majority of these species. And we already have a lot of the tools we need to reduce the effects of global warming. 

Climate change is a global crisis, a threat that humanity faces as a whole. Even as we face the current global pandemic threat, the need for effective and coordinated advocacy for climate change action is greater than ever. We have shown through our current pandemic crisis we are able to come together (even by being apart), and we must harness this united energy as the climate is changing and the window to act is closing. Birds are telling us, the time to act on climate change is now. 

This Earth Day, and every day, we need to come together and listen and to act on our values.  We once again need to be a collective voice of change to protect the earth we all share. 

Brooke Bateman is a mother, nature lover, and scientist. She received her PhD in Ecology and Conservation and is the Senior Scientist, Climate at the National Audubon Society. The Stony Brook resident also sits on the board of Four Harbors Audubon Society.

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Peregrine falcon. Photo by Carl Safina

By Carl Safina

Carl Safina. Photo by Ines Dura

When I was 15 or so, an older neighbor took me fishing to his secret pond in Flanders. It was 1970, the year of the first Earth Day. He led me along a narrow trail through the pine woods to his special spot. It was a modest-sized pond, and the first thing I noticed was that right across the shore was a huge nest made of big sticks. It was a little dilapidated. Abandoned. 

I’d always loved birds. And among birds, I particularly was thrilled by hawks, eagles, and falcons. But living in a cookie-cut suburb of central Nassau County, my real-world contact with wild nature at that time was very limited. Much of what I knew was from books. I knew what that nest was. And I knew why it was abandoned.

It belonged to a spectacular species I’d never seen: huge fish hawks called ospreys. And I knew, also — from reading Newsday and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring — that I would probably never see them because DDT and other hard pesticides had caused all their eggs to break. Adults were now dying off wholesale due to old age, and ospreys were already erased from most of the region. 

I knew all this from reading, but actually seeing that nest made me realize in a very visceral way how narrowly I’d missed growing up in a world that contained what it was supposed to contain. I could not believe the bad luck of the timing of my life. 

Bald Eagle. Photo by Carl Safina

And speaking of bad timing; that same year The New York Times Magazine ran a story on my favorite bird — another that I had only read about and seen photos of. The title of the story: Death Comes To The Peregrine Falcon. I would never see my favorite bird, because the same pesticides that were snuffing out ospreys had also wiped peregrine falcons from their cliff-nests from the New England to the West Coast and indeed all across Europe. 

Bald eagles — forget it. A few left in places like southern Florida and Alaska, places I was sure I would never get to. 

I assumed the trends would continue. I did not yet know that a small group of people based in a place called East Setauket were about to sue for the cessation of aerial spraying of DDT and some other chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides. But they did. More surprising — they won! 

In a few years, with those pesticides banned, the new Endangered Species Act in place, and the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and National Environmental Policy Act signed into law by a president named Nixon, the natural environment became noticeably cleaner. 

Scientists at Cornell University had succeeded in breeding some of the last peregrine falcons in the U.S. — hatchlings collected in Arctic Alaska. So in 1976, I drove up to Ithaca, tucked my long hair under my collar, and entered the office of the breeding facility to make the strongest case I could muster for why I would be a good candidate for helping to release the first generation of captive-bred peregrine falcons into a world newly cleansed of the worst pesticides of the time. 

Carl Safina with a peregrine falcon at the age of 21

And thus I started my professional career by securing the first of several dream jobs, spending part of the summer caring for and managing the release of three precious falcon chicks that were not just birds; they were three promises we were making to ourselves and to the future of Life on Earth. If it was going to be up to us — and it was, of course — this wondrous species, the fastest living thing in the world, would not vanish from this planet.

That was also the year that I saw an osprey in Cold Spring Harbor.

Other Cornell scientists, who refused to see our ospreys wither into oblivion, moved viable eggs from remaining Chesapeake pairs to failing Long Island nests, keeping a few remnant pairs on reproductive life-support so that a smattering of new young birds might survive and return to the region. 

It all started working. Ospreys did start coming back, laying eggs that no longer broke. Slowly at first and then to a degree I never could have imagined, ospreys recovered and came off the Endangered Species list. New York City now hosts the densest known nesting population of peregrine falcons in the world, sited on bridges and tall buildings, back in the Hudson’s Palisades, and even, locally, around Port Jefferson Harbor. 

Bald eagles are nesting on Long Island for the first time in our lives, with perhaps a dozen pairs now, and regular sightings in our Setauket and Stony Brook communities. All of that we owe to the few, early, never-say-die scientists and environmentalists of the first Earth Day era.

When the continued existence of several species of whales was very much in doubt, people who are now friends and colleagues of mine worked tireless, hard-fought battles that achieved, in 1986, a global ban on most commercial whale hunting. Another of my friends was burned in effigy for her tireless work to secure regulations that would prevent the last sea turtles on the East Coast from drowning in shrimp nets. 

But whales are now so common in our waters that it is no longer exceptional to see them from our ocean beaches. Sea turtle numbers have sky-rocketed from 1980s lows. Since the 1990s I’ve worked on several key campaigns to turn around the deep depletions in our fish populations and some of these, too, have worked beyond our — and our opponents’ — expectations. 

Osprey on a nest. Photo by Carl Safina

Last summer, a friend told me of seeing several whales from the beach in East Hampton. He said they were feeding just beyond the surf on dense schools of herring-like fish called menhaden. Because they formerly existed in enormous schools, are very energy and nutrient rich, and are eaten by many kinds of fish, seabirds, and marine mammals, menhaden have been called “the most important fish in the sea.” And because of recent hard-won catch restrictions, they’ve been rapidly recovering.

The morning after I got my friend’s tip, I checked five beaches from Amagansett to the west side of East Hampton. To my astonishment, I saw whales, dolphins, and dense schools of menhaden at every stop. The next morning I took my boat around Montauk Point for a water view. I first encountered the menhaden schools just west of the Point. Millions of fish extended in an unbroken school twenty miles long, with a humpback whale or two lunging spectacularly into breakfast every mile and a half or so. I went as far west as Amagansett, traveling just beyond the surf. I took a bunch of photos and decided to head back, knowing that the fruits of these spectacular recoveries continued far down the beach.

Nature is under withering pressure worldwide. But we here on Long Island are beneficiaries of some of the best successes I know about. And the successes are both spectacular and instructive. 

When we give natural communities and endangered species a break, and make the slightest accommodation to coexist and let life live, they strive to recover the abundance, vitality, and beauty of the original world. Two things are required: we have to want it, and a few people have to move a few obstacles and let it happen. And then we can have, and pass along, a more alive, more beautiful world. It can work.

Carl Safina is an ecologist and a MacArthur Fellow. He holds the Endowed Chair for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University and is founder of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He is author of numerous books on the human relationship with the rest of the living world. Carl’s new book is “Becoming Wild; How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace.” More at CarlSafina.org and SafinaCenter.org

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Patricia Paladines teaches a child the art of seining during Setauket Harbor Day on Sept. 28, 2019. Photo by Maria Hoffman

By Patricia Paladines

Patricia Paladines at West Meadow Creek. Photo by Carl Safina

The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 catalyzed the modern environmental education movement. A few months after that first official celebration of the Earth’s natural environment, the Congress of the United States passed The Environmental Education Act, which was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on October 30, 1970. Later, Nixon noted that it is “vital that our entire society develop a new understanding and new awareness of man’s relation to his environment – what might be called ‘environmental literacy.’” 

The Act states that “The Congress of the United States finds that the deterioration of the quality of the Nation’s environment and of its ecological balance poses a serious threat to the strength and vitality of the people of the Nation and is in part due to poor understanding of the Nation’s environment and of the need for ecological balance; that presently there do not exist adequate resources for educating and informing citizens in these areas, and that concerted efforts in educating citizens about environmental quality and ecological balance are therefore necessary.” 

The Environmental Education Act encouraged and provided financial support for the development of curricula that improved American’s understanding of policies that enhance environmental quality and maintain ecological balance. It called for the use of such curricula in model educational programs at the elementary and secondary school levels, the development of training programs for teachers, other educational personnel, public service personnel, community, labor, industrial and business leaders, and government employees at State, Federal and local levels. 

It supported the planning of outdoor ecological centers that would provide community education programs on preserving and enhancing environmental quality and maintaining ecological balance, and the preparation and distribution of material by mass media in dealing with the environment and ecology. 

In 1971, the U.S. Commissioner of Education, Sidney P. Marland Jr. wrote an article titled Environmental Education Cannot Wait in American Education. In the article he stated, “Environment as a high priority educational theme has also been assisted by strong student concern for the decline in environmental quality. Youth is more concerned with the future state of the environment than is the older generation because young people are, for one thing, going to spend so much time inhaling that future environment, swallowing it, and finding their way through it. Environmental concern offers an attractive neutral ground in which to work out the ‘alliance between generations’ which President Nixon spoke of at the University of Nebraska in January.”

Many of us were the “youth” Mr. Marland refers to in his article. We grew up inhaling, swallowing and finding our way through the environment our leaders at the time sought to protect. We raised our children on a less polluted planet than what we had begun to experience in the 1950s and 60s when we were children. 

Opportunities for learning about the natural environment that surrounds us are readily available around Long Island through nature centers, aquariums, universities, and our protected forests and beaches. 

On this 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, the world is on lockdown due to a pandemic which is believed to have originated from disturbance to wildlife and habitats. It is an opportunity to give us pause and reflect on how we now should work out an “alliance between generations” for preventing future Earth Days experienced in lockdowns caused by environmental illiteracy. 

Patricia Paladines is an environmental educator and photographer living Setauket. She works as a consultant for an organization that funds UNICEF’s Let Us Learn projects in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Liberia, Madagascar and Nepal. Patricia is on the board of various local environmental organizations including the Four Harbors Audubon Society and the Center for Environmental Education and Discovery in Brookhaven, and in the warm months enjoys leading trips around Stony Brook’s West Meadow Creek aboard the Ward Melville Heritage Organization’s Discovery tour boat.

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Poseidon, Greek god of the sea/ Drawing by Vanderbilt artist Megan Gallipeau
Dave Bush. Photo by Ken Spencer

 

The Reichert Planetarium at the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum in Centerport is closed for now, but its astronomy educators, artists, and show producers are busy creating new programs to make it easy for parents and children to enjoy its offerings — at home.

“We are producing an array of virtual planetarium programs that we will begin posting on a YouTube channel called Reichert Planetarium’s Virtual Outreach. The first episode, titled How to Use a Telescope, is now live,” said director Dave Bush.

“Other projects will include a comic strip based on Konnie – our affectionately named planetarium star projector; a coloring book; crafts and projects targeted to family groups for home use; and educational materials for teachers to download and use with their at-home students,” he said.

Some programs will be posted on the museum’s website and on social media.

The planetarium’s Konica Minolta star projector was the inspiration for a character called “Konnie” to be featured in a comic strip that presents astronomy information in an entertaining way. 

“Konnie will become a comic strip and we’re considering turning the strips into coloring books,” said Bush.

When the planetarium reopens, visitors will see several fresh, original programs. Bush and his staff have created new program scripts for staff who operate the projector and star-ball systems through the command console in the rear of the planetarium’s William and Mollie Rogers Theater. The programs explore stars visible during the different seasons, and feature trips to the planets.

“The programs cover a wide range of subjects,” Bush explained, “including tours of habitable worlds, the history of space exploration, the solar system, the life cycle of stars, how far Earth is from the stars, and how astronomers measure that distance. Console operators are developing their own 20- and 45-minute star talks, with their personal choice of music, narration, imagery, and humor.”

Bush plans to produce virtual planetarium shows using the popular conferencing app Zoom. He is creating the shows remotely, away from the planetarium, using professional recording equipment and video-editing software.

The Reichert Planetarium staff is creating downloadable worksheets for children. “Our challenge is, what do we add to make sure kids stay interested and engaged?” Bush said. “We want to make pages that make sense visually, with fun information, games and characters.”

The team is also developing new mythology shows for both recorded and live presentations. The shows will be a series of short constellation stories from ancient civilizations around the world.

“We have talented artists on staff who can create the characters, scenery and panoramas that will be displayed on the domed projection screen of the planetarium,” Bush said. “We’ve tossed around the idea of turning Konnie into a time machine. We can imagine traveling through time in an imaginary spaceship. We can be magically transported to lands in ancient places like Greece, Rome and Stonehenge, as well as to original, imaginary landscapes. Whatever we want!”

While Bush and his colleagues produce new programs, they are also “touching up” existing educational programs for school groups. “Now we have the time to focus on what we need to do to enhance programming,” he said.

For more information, visit www.vanderbiltmuseum.org and select Virtual Learning.

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Frank Melville Memorial Park. Photo by Beverly C. Tyler

By Beverly C. Tyler

The intersection of Main Street and Old Field Road in Setauket marks the entrance to the Frank Melville Memorial Park and Sanctuary. The horseshoe-shaped park, completed in 1937, includes extensive plantings, a simulated grist mill, a magnificent view of Conscience Bay and the cottage of the last Setauket miller Everett Hawkins. From the park, there is an entrance to the Frank Melville Memorial Foundation Sanctuary grounds with its extensive nature paths.

Frank Melville Memorial Park. Photo by Beverly C. Tyler

Just after dawn, the Setauket Mill Pond shimmers with morning mist and reflects the early morning sky. Walking along the path in the Frank Melville Memorial Park, the only sounds, except for the occasional car going by, are the birds in the trees and the ducks in the pond. They contrast with the greens, browns and grays of early morning. The contemplative surroundings start the day with the beauty of God’s creation and give perspective to the rest of the day.

I walk the park almost every day. I often stop at one or another of the many benches that line the park and face the lower mill pond. From that perspective, I see what I don’t take in while walking.

At first, the pond surface is like glass reflecting the bare brown trees, their branches forming interlacing patterns against the clear blue sky. Then a gentle breeze turns the pond to silver, moving it with patterns of dark and light. I notice walkers strolling along the path, their bright jacket colors contrasting with the brown shades of old gnarled black birch, white birch and evergreens. One variety of the rhododendrons along the path shows a few beginning buds. The forsythia, the park’s first spring color, is already showing yellow blooms. The dark evergreens, planted almost 80 years ago as mature trees, add vertical splendor climbing skyward.

As I walk, I hear the background sounds of water flowing over the mill dam and into the bay. A pair of mallards glides slowly across the pond occasionally dipping their beaks into the water. Suddenly a mallard glides down to the pond, his wings flapping to slow him down and his feet striking the pond and creating a spray of water. The trumpet calls of geese announce flight as they fly over the Old Field Road bridge, then across the mill dam and into Conscience Bay.

Almost every day I watch a swan glide slowly under the bridge and into the lower pond. Within a few minutes, he suddenly rises just above the water and with wings slapping the surface of the pond, creating a staccato of sound, flies to the north end of the pond near the island and then glides around the lower pond exercising his authority over ducks and geese.

Last month, my wife and I spent an early spring afternoon in the park and sanctuary. We walked into the park past the Setauket Post Office with its Greek Revival columns topped by corn cob capitals. Spring colors were just beginning to emerge along the one-third mile path around the lower mill pond. Together we turned off the horseshoe path and walked past the red barn and the new fencing that marks the entrance to the park sanctuary. We chose one of the middle paths that led into the woods and we were suddenly surprised by a grove of conifers between the path and the Bates House parking lot. There is almost no undergrowth at this time of year and with several trees and bushes removed or cut back the evergreens look spectacular. We continued along the wood chip paths and were delighted by the looks of the bare trees, shrubs and evergreens surrounding us and with the smell of red cedar as we walked.

This is a wonderful time of year to be in the park and especially to wander along the sanctuary pathways. It is impossible to get lost here as all the pathways are circular and you end up at either the red barn at the park or the Bates House at the end of Bates Road. It is also easy to stay a safe distance from other walkers, especially in the sanctuary.

The area around the Setauket Millpond was a center of commerce for the community from the time it was settled in 1655 until early in the 20th century. It is easy to imagine almost any time in Setauket history while in the park. Looking out over the mill dam, Conscience Bay reflects the 8,000 years the Native Americans lived here before the English settlers came to Setauket. The mill tells the story of the farmer grinding grain in the 1700s. The recently restored red barn was originally made from World War One barracks buildings at Camp Upton in Yaphank. The stable is a reminder of the white horse “Smokey” from the 1950s who would always come to the fence for half an apple. The stone bridge relates how an immigrant’s great-grandson, Ward Melville, came to Setauket and gave us an image of the countryside of rural England and Europe with a park and sanctuary.

Beverly C. Tyler is a Three Village Historical Society historian and author of books available from the society at 93 North Country Road, Setauket. For more information, call 631-751-3730 or visit www.tvhs.org.

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District Attorney Tim Sini (D). File photo by Victoria Espinoza

By Leah Chiappino

Suffolk County District Attorney Tim Sini (D) hosted a Town Hall Meeting via Zoom on Thursday, with over 300 constituents in attendance.

Sini first took a moment to acknowledge the difficulties the pandemic is having on people’s mental health and offered condolences to those who know someone who has lost their life to the virus.

“This is more than an inconvenience and will have a long-term impact on mental health, especially with those who have pre-existing conditions and substance abuse disorders,” he said.

The District Attorney, who himself tested positive for COVID-19 March 24, says he has made a full recovery after self-isolating for two weeks, while experiencing mild symptoms such as the loss of smell and taste. He added his diagnosis was not surprising, given the high contact nature of his position

“As of March 16, I was still in court, and doing community outreach and public engagement,” he said. “I am definitely one of the lucky ones.”

Sini is participating in an antibody testing program at Stony Brook Hospital to see if his blood plasma can be found with antibodies for the virus. He encouraged other survivors of the virus to do the same.

Sini reported that violent crime has seen a 24.3 percent reduction, and most other major crimes are down with the exception of commercial burglaries and motor vehicle theft. He says the rise commercial burglaries makes sense, as businesses are shut down and people are taking advantage. His office is coming up with a strategy to address the increase in the coming weeks. However, since March 23, 130 out of 188 handcuffed arrests have been the result of a domestic or child abuse crime.

“We recognize this challenge and we’ll come up with strategies to combat it,” Sini said. He added that prosecutors and victims advocates are mean to get in contact with those who have reported a domestic crime. They are also in coordination with safe shelters for domestic violence victims, most of whom are running and working with hotels if needed. The county has also granted an automatic extension on orders of protection until a victim’s next court date, or until a judge changes it. Victims can text 911 for help or call 631-853-4138 to obtain an order of protection.

The district attorney’s office is assisting enforcement of social distancing guidelines, as part of New York State on PAUSE executive order, made effective March 22. Sini said they would prosecute those who don’t heed warnings by Suffolk County Police, code enforcement officers or village Police, with charges of obstruction of governmental administration and/or disorderly conduct.

“If someone needs to be taught a lesson or made an example of, we’re willing to do that,” he said.

Throughout the call, Sini reassured the DA’s Office will continue operate at its fullest capacity

“We are getting things done,” he said. “You have enough to worry about, whether it be health, homeschooling your children, or finances. One thing you do not have to worry about is whether or not the DA’s office is keeping you safe.”

Sini said his office is continuing to invest in technology and update their protocol to ensure employees can work from home effectively. As of March 16, 80 percent of employees at the DA’s office was working from home, and the entire staff was working from home as of March 17. Suffolk County was the first County in New York state to allow essential hearings and arraignments to be done via Skype, with the necessary paperwork being shared via email.

Sini added the office is taking the time to invest in professional development and zoom-based training. 115 employees have taken Spanish language classes. The bureau is also reviewing strategy, policy development and long-term planning.

According to the district attorney, The Financial and Money-Laundering Bureau is aggressively vetting Personal Protective Equipment suppliers to the county to ensure there are no scams. The county has obtained and distributed 2.2 million pieces of PPE to healthcare workers. Justin Meyers, Sini’s Chief of Staff, is acting as a liaison to the county executive, as well as to hospitals working on expansion and coordinating the implementation of mobile testing sites and PPE Distribution.

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Printers at Stony Brook University were donated by the Comsewogue School District. Photo from Deniz Yildirim

By Deniz Yildirim

The Comsewogue School District is helping Stony Brook University in the fight against the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. Comsewogue found out about the project from David Ecker, a professor and director of iCREATE at Stony Brook University. Ecker was inspired by an article he read about a good samaritan producing face shields for a hospital upstate and thought if he could we do it with a 3D printer? He went out the next day with his wife to gather supplies from Joan Fabrics, Home Depot and Staples. He produced a sample face mask that was so impressive, Stony Brook University asked him to make five thousand more. That Sunday morning, Ecker met with his team at Stony Brook University. 

“I designed stations; a station for inspecting the 3D-printed models, another for putting on the weather stripping, inserting the foam, cutting the elastic to size and finally adding the face shield.” Ecker said. “This process allows multiple people to work at the same time while still practicing social distancing.” 

Comsewogue was excited to lend a helping hand by providing over 1,000 yards of filament, the material used to make the frame of the face shield. Comsewogue also delivered five of its MakerBot Replicators and 3D printers for Stony Brook to borrow for this project. Vincent Verdisco, an art educator for over 20 years who teaches Auto-CAD in several of his courses said, “it’s so rewarding to be able to help out during this crisis.” 

Verdisco has been working with Ecker to help improve the mask designs for this project. 

“Now more than ever we have to support one another and it’s nice to show my students the real-life application of what we study in my courses,” Verdisco said. A list of materials and links to the designs are available for free at https://nyinnovate.com/faceshields. 

“It’s a great community effort and I am so thankful we can do this,” Ecker said. “We are doing what we love, innovating to help the front line medical professionals in any way possible.”

Other school districts or organizations want to lend their 3D Printers should contact [email protected].

Deniz Yildirim is a librarian at the Terryville Road Elementary School.

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Photo from Metro

COVID-19 has completely changed the way we all live.

But along with worrying about keeping themselves and their families healthy, thousands of small business owners across New York state are losing sleep over how to keep this virus from killing the businesses they have worked so hard to build.

At the same time, lawmakers in Albany are trying to craft a budget in the face of plunging revenues. Sales taxes — much of them generated by small business — brought in a whopping $73.6 billion last year. Our schools, as well as other vital government services, rely on these funds. When a business fails — and too many are on the precipice of failure right now — that sales tax revenue goes, too.

We believe a simple proposal could help restart local business and bolster sales tax revenues, but swift action is required by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and the state legislature.

Small businesses are the backbone of our communities. Everyone wants a thriving downtown where they can shop, eat or go to a movie. The good news is that small businesses have always been engines of innovation and entrepreneurship, and we are seeing that again today as they adapt to the new reality. Local gyms are streaming personal training sessions. Restaurants offer free delivery and online happy hours. Medical practices are expanding their telemedicine capabilities. Car mechanics are making house calls that require no personal contact at all.

Of course, it’s vital that these businesses let potential customers know about their services. That’s the role of advertising in all its myriad forms. But advertising costs money, and the sad truth is that advertising is one of the first things small businesses cut when times are tough.

Put yourself in the shoes of a local restaurateur with a stack of bills and very little money coming in. By the time she finishes paying the most urgent bills — rent, food suppliers, payroll — there’s not much left for advertising. Whatever stimulus money she gets from Washington or Albany will most likely be needed to keep the door open and the lights on. Yet studies show that how well businesses survive a downturn is in large part determined by whether they continue to market and advertise during the hard times.

Fortunately, there is a way for Albany to prime the sales-tax pump to keep revenue flowing to both small businesses and state coffers. Let businesses use some of the money they would have sent to Albany, as sales taxes, to market their new offerings. The formula would be simple: Every dollar a small business spends on advertising (up to some reasonable limit) would be a dollar saved off that business’s sales tax bill. 

It would be a win-win-win. Local businesses would be healthier because the increased advertising would jump-start sales. The state would get more sales tax revenue because local businesses would be selling more. And media companies (like ours) would benefit from the additional ad revenue. We’d like to think that we, too, are vital to the character and strength of our communities, not to mention our democracy. Think for a moment of the critical role that journalists have played in getting vital local information out to your community during this unprecedented crisis.

The legislature has a lot on its plate right now, and the temptation will be to bury this idea, or to take the shortsighted view that we can’t afford to do it right now. But right now is when it’s needed. We’ve been impressed with Cuomo’s levelheaded leadership in this crisis, and we call on him to back this innovative yet simple policy.

-— From the New York Press Association

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Beverly C. Tyler, historian for the Three Village Historical Society, at the grave of Culper Spy Abraham Woodhull during filming on April 6.

By Beverly C. Tyler

The Three Village Historical Society’s virtual local history programming is kicking off this week with a series of virtual SPIES! bicycle tours to locations that include spy videos, ciphers, codes and the stories of the five principal Setauket members of the Culper Spy Ring. 

This will be followed by a series of virtual Founders Day tours that will take you to seven locations in the Town of Brookhaven Original Settlement area. Students, teachers and family members of all ages will be able to enjoy these local history explorations initiated every Monday for the next twelve weeks on the Society’s web site. 

For the next five weeks we will be exploring local sites of Setauket’s Revolutionary War Culper Spy Ring. At each site you will learn about a spy who played a key role in the ring and you will be able to decode a spy message and send your  decoded messages to the Three Village Historical Society. On Friday of each week the decoded message will be posted on the Society’s web site.

Following the Virtual Spies Tours we will take you to seven Founders Day locations in the original settlement area of Setauket, including the Village Green; Setauket Presbyterian Church and graveyard; Frank Melville Park Sanctuary at Conscience Bay; Caroline Church of Brookhaven graveyard and Emma S. Clark Library; Frank Melville Memorial Park, mill and historic miller’s home; Setauket Neighborhood House, general store and post office; and Patriot’s Rock. 

At these locations you will discover stories about Setalcott Native Americans, agents for the English settlers, artist William Sidney Mount, Setauket’s war heroes, Three Village immigrants, philanthropists, millers, farmers, ship captains and more.

We don’t know when we’ll open our doors to in-person programs again, but please know that we are doing everything we can to prioritize the services and programs that you love and enjoy during this time of social distancing. 

For more information check out our web site at: https://www.tvhs.org/.

To go directly to our virtual spy tours, visit https://www.tvhs.org/virtual-programming.

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Photo from HCDS

After more than two weeks spent at home as a result of the COVID-19 school closure, students at Harbor Country Day School in St. James continued to remain fully engaged — academically and socially — through the school’s ‘distance learning’ platform. 

Leveraging the online conferencing website Zoom, alongside Google’s ‘Classroom’ app, students have managed not only to continue learning, but also to come together in a unique and special way to recognize those on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.

As part of their ‘distance learning’ co-curricular art instruction, teacher Amarilis Singh tasked students with the challenge of displaying gratitude and inspiring positivity through art. Leaning on Maya Angelou’s famous quote, Try to be the rainbow in someone’s cloud, which the kindergarten class had been studying prior to the school closure, and paired with a musical selection from a recent school concert, “A Million Dreams” from The Greatest Showman, the students’ work was created into a slideshow.

Harbor Country Day School’s music teacher, Donna Siani, initially shared the slideshow with SUNY Stony Brook University’s Director of Community Relations, Joan Dickinson, to thank front line medical workers for their extraordinary efforts during the most unusual and frightening of times.

Still, the students recognize that there exist many others on the front lines and hope their message can be heard by all. To view and share this beautiful gesture from the students at Harbor Country, please visit https://vimeo.com/402577169.

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