Photo caption: Ward Melville High School All-State musicians and alternates are pictured with members of the Three Village Central School District’s music department, Principal William Bernhard and District Director of Music Anthony Pollera.
Photo courtesy of the Three Village Central School District
Ward Melville High School student musicians have once again earned high praise from the New York State School Music Association, with seven students being selected to perform at the 85th annual Winter Conference in Rochester. In addition to the students named All-State musicians, 20 students were selected as alternates for the festival.
The event will take place from Dec. 2 to 5, 2021. This year’s conference will include the traditional variety of conference sessions with renowned professional musicians, concert hour performances, statewide recognitions and guest speakers. The district congratulates the following students:
On Saturday, Oct. 23, the Greater Port Jefferson Chamber of Commerce teamed up with local health care providers for their 12th annual Health and Wellness Fest.
According to Barbara Ransome, director of operations with the chamber, the fair is usually held at Port Jefferson High School — but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was moved to a new venue, The Meadow Club, located at 1147 Route 112 in Port Jefferson Station.
“We’re very happy to have the event after not having it for one year,” she added. “The new venue is working out great and it could be a new tradition for us.”
The purpose of the Port Jeff Health and Wellness Fest is to promote good health to all in the local areas of Port Jefferson by providing important information for all of one’s health and wellness needs.
Ransome said that over 50 vendors participated this year, including Stony Brook Medicine, Catholic Health, Northwell Health, New York Cancer & Blood Specialists and other chamber partners.
Stony Brook University students with Music and Medicine performed songs for visitors throughout the event.
“I’m very pleased,” she said.
Little ones who came with family members were able to trick-or-treat out of cars and received other goodies from the vendors, some who were in costume.
Incumbent Brookhaven Town Clerk Donna Lent is running against Democrat Ira Costell.
Lent photo from Town of Brookhaven, Costell photo from Costell
TBR News spoke with Town Clerk Donna Lent (R) and Ira Costell (D) over Zoom on Monday. They will be running against each other as the election for town clerk for the Town of Brookhaven approaches quickly.
Lent, who is serving her second term as town clerk, has managed day-to-day operations such as issuing death certificates and handicap parking permits, while land-use applications are filed within the office.
There are three divisions — licensing, registrar and administrative units — in her department alone, and on some days, Lent says up to 200 people will come into the office.
After extensive training, Lent was certified as a registered municipal clerk by the New York State Town Clerks Association in 2017, but before entering public service, she worked as a law office manager and was a small business owner.
Her opponent, Costell, has taken leadership roles in environmental causes such as the Suffolk County Watershed Protection Advisory Committee and served as chair of the county’s Pine Barrens Review Commission.
He has been passionate about the fight against opioid addiction and prescription drug abuse. Costell is a New York State-certified addiction and recovery coach and has been involved in various recovery committees.
The two opponents came to TBR News Media’s offices to debate their opinions on whose ideas would be best suitable for the town clerk’s position.
The concern of making Freedom of Information Law appeals more accessible to the public is something that Costell said he will actively work on if elected. His main argument is that residents of Brookhaven have been left in the dark when it comes to requesting information from the Town Clerk’s Office.
However, Lent said if materials or records are not able to be provided, there is a reason as to why not.
“They probably haven’t asked for the records correctly, we are not required to create records for them, we only have to provide what is already existing,” she said. “Sometimes people don’t search thoroughly because there was an aspect of something they weren’t unaware of that we were able to shed light on.”
Rebutting Lent’s argument, Costell said he had very serious questions about the FOIL process as there were nearly 14,000 requests last year in the town’s Law Department.
“I would like to work as part of that process for an audit to figure out how we can streamline that process,” he said.
Costell feels the information on the town’s website is not readily available to residents.
“When initiating a public hearing notice on the town’s website, the information about the hearing is not connected to the notice, so residents don’t always know about the particulars of what’s being proposed in the public hearing,” he said.
Lent said the Town Clerk’s Office does the public hearing notices, which are readily available on the website as soon as they go up. However, the town clerk does not make the determination on what needs to get posted because the notice is from what the Law Department already drafted.
“It is incumbent upon the clerk in my belief, to coordinate and collaborate, not to just handle a piece of paper and move it on to the next level,” Costell said.
In regards to communicating with the Town of Brookhaven, he said the software the office is using should be able to have direct sign-ups for people who are interested in a particular issue so people from various areas do not have to rely on someone from a different town to tell them there’s a hearing related to something they are interested in.
However, Lent said there is a sign-up system within civic clerks for alerts and areas of topic. She noted that residents can call her office to be added to get notifications as well.
Costell believes that the Town Clerk’s Office should have more outreach to the public on a quarterly basis by using town facilities such as senior centers and recreational programs, to help residents navigate the online services or to assist communities that don’t have access to broadband.
“We have been improving that process, that’s why we changed our software system last February,” Lent said. “There has been a period of adjustment for residents that were accustomed to finding documents within the old system, but if you use the search bar at the top it will take you to whatever you are looking for.”
Disagreeing with Lent, Costell said he thinks the website is hard to navigate and should have the option to be translated to Spanish.
Lent feels her opponent will be biting off more than he can chew if elected as town clerk. “Everyone has hopes dreams and aspirations of what a job may be like, but it’s not until you get into the job that you have to face the reality of day-to-day operations and restrictions,” Lent said.
The Teen department of Emma S. Clark Memorial Library, 120 Main St., Setauket is hosting a drive for local charities, collecting new pajamas for children now through Nov. 14. The public (residents or non-residents) may drop off donations in the “Kids Pajamas Drive” box located in the lobby, during library hours. Pajamas must be new (with tags) and for children. Sizes 2T – 4T are most needed, but all sizes are welcome.
In addition, teen volunteers are making birthday gifts for homeless children as part of the community service program at the library. The class will be held on Wednesday, November 17 from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. Teen volunteers will pick pajamas (from the Pajama Drive) and an Elephant & Piggie book by Mo Willems. They will then create a no-sew pillow, no-sew Elephant & Piggie finger puppets, and a birthday card for the complete gift set. Participants must register ahead of time at emmaclark.org/programs and must be Three Village residents in grades 7 – 12.
“It never ceases to amaze me how generous our community can be, and I’m so excited we are offering these two new ways to help children in need,” says Emily Ostrander, Emma Clark Library’s Teen Services Librarian. “Pajamas are such a basic necessity, and it’s so sad that there is such a huge need for them in local shelters and through local charities. Between the Drive, and our Birthday Gifts for Homeless Children program, I’m glad we can do our part to fill the need and can’t wait to work with the teens on such an important project!”
Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon speaks during a media event at the Suffolk County Correctional Facility in Yaphank. File photo by Kevin Redding
Errol Toulon Jr. (D) is running again for his seat as the Suffolk County sheriff with the hope to continue his efforts providing aid services for nonviolent inmates alongside the office’s law enforcement work with gangs and sex trafficking.
Toulon’s opponent, William Amato, who is running on the Republican ticket, did not respond to multiple requests for a debate with TBR staff. The Suffolk County GOP office confirmed Amato is not actively campaigning.
Toulon, who has cross-party endorsements from both the Suffolk Democratic and Conservative parties, said his job as head of his department is “to take the brunt of everything, good and bad. And during these real challenging times, I have to ask, ‘How do I keep my staff calm, how do I keep them safe, how do I feel like they’re still valued?’” And compared to his previous positions in corrections, his current job gives him a satisfaction he hasn’t had before.
“I have a job now that directly impacts the community that I live and work in,” he said.
The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office is the law enforcement branch dedicated to managing Suffolk’s jail system. Along with handling inmate populations, the office’s sheriff deputies are responsible for patrolling roadways alongside Suffolk County Police Department, investigating crimes committed on county property as well as managing the Pine Barrens protection hotline. The Sheriff’s Office also contains several specialized bureaus and sections for emergency management, DWI enforcement, domestic violence, among others.
Toulon, a former Rikers Island officer and captain, was voted into his first four-year term as sheriff in 2017 and was the first Black man elected to the role in the county’s history. Over those four years, his office has been involved with several high-profile drug and gang investigations, which included fact-finding trips to El Salvador and Los Angeles to investigate the connections of MS-13 to Long Island. He is proud of his office’s accomplishments, including his work with the office’s human trafficking unit and the creation of the START Resource Center, which provides inmates leaving county jails with employment and housing assistance as well as drug treatment and mental health care services.
But the year 2020 would throw a monkey wrench into all best-laid plans. Toulon said last year started out rough with the change to New York’s bail reform laws. Then the COVID-19 pandemic created a host of new challenges, especially safeguarding prison populations as well as corrections officers.
During COVID’s height, officers kept inmates largely separated, which resulted in a minimal number of reported cases in Suffolk jails. Still, the year did have its share of tragedies, including the loss of Investigator Sgt. Keith Allison, a 25-year veteran of the office who died from issues relating to the virus in December. Recently, the Sheriff’s Office had to cancel its open house and family day due to staff shortages and the spread of the Delta variant. The sheriff’s website reports that, in September, 29 inmates tested positive for COVID, where 26 of those reportedly contracted the virus while in jail. Inmates are required to quarantine in a special housing pod for 14 days before being moved to general housing. Staff must take temperature checks and wear masks when coming into the facilities.
And all these extra protections have exacerbated current staffing shortages. Toulon said the Sheriff’s Office is currently down around 180 corrections officers and 43 sheriff’s deputies.
The recruitment struggle is one felt across many industries, law enforcement not excluded, though Toulon said his office has a uniquely difficult time getting people to apply, to have applicants pass the required tests and then to keep them on after they’ve had a taste of what can be a trying job at times. The challenge in recruiting is partially due to what he said has been a degradation of trust between law enforcement and the community since the start of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. The Suffolk sheriff has also seen more senior officers retire because of health concerns during the pandemic, and because of COVID they were not able to host any new police classes last year.
Though there are currently over 1,700 people who are ready to take the next law enforcement exam in November, the expected acceptance rate is normally around just 15% to 20%, Toulon said. This lack of staff also has the effect of increasing required overtime for current officers, leading to faster burnout.
“Sometimes, even when you get through the entire process and they have their first days in a jail when they’re working a lot of overtime, having to deal with inmates … it becomes challenging on the individual, especially someone that’s not used to it,” the sheriff said.
It’s another stress on a system that he said requires more financial help to truly give aid to the transient, nonviolent jail populations who need it. Toulon would like to see more psychologists and psychiatrists within the jail providing counseling, though there’s currently no budget for it.
“The mental health institutions throughout New York state were closed in the 1980s or 1990s, and so these individuals are winding up in jail, but [state government] never funded the jails,” he said. “The staffing model for the Sheriff’s Office was really from a 1960s or ’70s version, and it hasn’t been updated to what we need to do to address the particular individuals in our custody.”
Though the sheriff said their new initiatives have not increased the office’s budget, he is still banging the drum for more funding. Suffolk County reportedly received approximately $286 million in aid from the federal American Rescue Plan back in May, though Toulon said they have not received any percentage of those funds. County spokesperson Derek Poppe said in an email that no ARP money is slated to go to the sheriff’s department.
Challenges still exist for Suffolk jails due to the pandemic. Corrections officers are still required to wear masks on their shifts. At the same time, only around 40% of corrections officers are currently vaccinated. There is no legal requirement for Suffolk law enforcement to be vaccinated in order to work, and while Toulon is fully vaccinated, he said he told his staff to consult their primary care physicians to make that determination.
“I understand it’s an individual’s choice at the moment,” he said.
The number of people incarcerated in Suffolk jails hovers around 780, according to the sheriff, though that population is transient, and can change from day to day. The Sheriff’s Office, through the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, has tried to provide vaccinations for its inmates, leading to around 350 so far. Still, only approximately 30% to 40% of that jail population is currently vaccinated. “All we can do is just try to encourage the inmates to at least receive the vaccine — hopefully help them learn a little bit more if they’re a little skeptical before making that decision,” he said.
As for the future, the sheriff said he wants to work hard to make sure that the majority of the inmate population — all those who are nonviolent and not a danger to the community — receive the social services they need.
“Everybody should be held accountable for their actions, I should be very clear on that, and [incarceration] is necessary for those who would do harm to be removed from society,” Toulon said. “But those men and women that are going through domestic violence, substance abuse — we have many victims of human trafficking that are in our custody, many females that we’re working with — we want to help them, empower them so that they can support themselves and support their families.”
Stony Brook University’s Staller Center for the Arts, 100 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook presents a lecture and recital by award-winning composer Matthew Aucoin titled “Primal Loss: Four Hundred Years of Orpheus and Eurydice in Opera” in the Recital Hall on Thursday, Oct. 28 from 8 to 9:30 p.m. Aucoin will discuss his opera Eurydice premiering at the Metropolitan Opera in November 2021, the influences of playwright Sarah Ruhl and the history of Orphic operas. Soprano Liv Redpath will perform selections from the play.Free.
Proof of vaccine or valid exemption required for all attendees.
Sponsored by the English Department, the Office of the Provost, the Music Department, the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook, The Hellenic Center, the Graduate Student Organization, the Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department, the Walt Whitman Birthplace, and the Walt Whitman Initiative.
Over the summer, dozens of nonprofits and organizations hosted beach and park cleanups across Long Island.
People came together with their trash bags in hand to pick up debris and trash. Families made days out of it, grabbing dinner afterward with the kids. Couples turned it into a bonding experience.
While it’s inspirational and helpful for members of the community to work together to clean up the communities in which we live, shouldn’t the town government take the lead with these efforts?
To that end, the road along Route 25A in Setauket has eyesores that detract from the beauty and safety of our community, including several dead trees, overgrown gardens, leaves and debris. Street lights that protect pedestrians and help drivers navigate the area are dimming, making them less useful as we approach days with less sunlight.
Long Islanders receive and appreciate the return on investment from their taxes, particularly when roads are cleared after a storm or when children receive excellent educations from public schools. Given the tax bill, however, shouldn’t the town be able to use some of that money for upkeep?
The community doesn’t police itself and shouldn’t need to clean up accumulating messes or detritus from trees or other vegetative growth. Residents can, and should, dispose of their own trash. Landlords should also take responsibility for the space outside their residences.
As for those public places the village, town or county oversees, those responsible for upkeep on those properties should step up their game.
We appreciate the work the municipalities do, particularly under difficult circumstances and, at times, with limited resources. We are also grateful to the go-getters whose efforts enhance the beauty of the communities we share.
At the same time, we need our elected officials and people with authority to take action to remove these dead trees, fix dim lights and remove garbage by the side of the road. The effort they put in now will save money and aggravation later, as well as improve the local environment.
Above, an AI-Grid prototype that is being built by the research team. Image courtesy of Stony Brook Power Lab
By Daniel Dunaief
The Department of Energy is energized by the possibility of developing and enhancing microgrids.
What are microgrids? They are autonomous local power systems that have small, independent and often decentralized energy sources. Often, they use renewable energy, like wind or solar power, although some use natural gas or diesel.
The DOE’s dedication to developing these microgrids may cut costs, create efficiencies and enhance energy reliability.
Peng Zhang. Photo from SBU
Peng Zhang, SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Stony Brook University, is leading a diverse team of researchers and industry experts who received $5 million of a $50 million investment the DOE recently made to developing, enhancing and improving microgrid technology.
Bringing together these energy experts, Zhang hopes to use artificial intelligence to create a usable, reliable and efficient source of energy, particularly during periods of power outages or disruption to the main source of energy.
“The traditional microgrid operation is based on models and human operators,” Zhang said. “We developed this data-driven or AI-based approach.”
Artificial intelligence can enhance the safety and reliability of microgrids that can receive and transmit power.
One of the objectives of the systems Zhang and his collaborators are developing will include protecting the power supplies against faults, accidents from natural disasters and cyberattacks.
“This project led by Professor Zhang is a great example demonstrating the impact of this novel research on essential infrastructure that we rely on daily,” Richard Reeder, Vice President for Research at Stony Brook University, said in a statement.
Zhang said he has verified the methods for this AI-driven approach in the lab and in a simulation environment.
“Now, it’s time to demonstrate that in more realistic, microgrid settings,” he said. He is working with microgrid representatives in Connecticut, Illinois and New York City. His team will soon work with a few representative microgrids to establish a more realistic testing environment.
The urgency to demonstrate the feasibility of this approach is high. “We need to kick the project off immediately,” said Zhang, whose team is recruiting students, postdocs, administrative staff and technicians to meet a two-year timeline.
The group hopes AI-grids can be used in different microgrids around the country. If the platform is generic enough, it can have wide applications without requiring significant modifications.
While operators of a microgrid might be able to know the ongoing status, they normally are not able to respond to contingencies manually. “It’s impossible for the operator to know the ongoing status” of power sources and power use that can change readily, Zhang explained. “That’s why we had to rely on a data driven approach.”
Additionally, end users of electricity don’t necessarily want their neighbors to know about their power needs. They may not want others who are using the same microgrid system to know what appliances or hardware are in their homes.
Instead, the system will rely on the data collected within each microgrid, which reflects the behavior at different intervals. Those energy needs can change, as people turn on a TV or unplug a wind turbine.
At the same time, the power system load and generation need to remain in balance. Microgrids that produce more energy than the system or end users need can send them to a utility grid or to neighboring microds or communities. If they don’t send that energy to others who might use it, they can lose some of that energy.
Power needs to be balanced between supply and demand. Storage systems can buffer an energy imbalance, although the cost of such storage is still high. Researchers in other departments at Stony Brook and Brookhaven National Laboratory are pursuing ways to improve efficiencies and reduce energy storage costs.
Balancing energy is challenging in most microgrids, which rely on intermittent and uncertain renewable energy sources such as sunlight. In this project, Zhang plans to connect several microgrids together into a “mega microgrid system,” that can allow any system with a surplus to push extra energy into one with a deficiency.
Microgrids aren’t currently designed to replace utilities. They may reduce electricity bills during normal operations and can become more useful during emergencies when supplies from utilities are lower.
While artificial intelligence actively runs the system, people are still involved in these programmable microgrids and can override any recommendations.
In addition to having an alarm in the event that a system is unsafe or unstable, the systems have controllers in place who can restore the system to safer functioning. The programming is flexible enough to change to meet any utility needs that differ from the original code.
In terms of cybersecurity, the system will have three lines of defense to protect against hacking.
By scanning, the system can localize an attack and mitigate it. Even if a hacker disabled one controller, the control function would pop up in a different place to replace it, which would increase the cost for the attacker.
Stony Brook created a crypto control system. “If an attacker got into our system, all the information would be useless, because he would not understand what this signal is about,” Zhang said.
While he plans to publish research from his efforts, Zhang said he and others would be careful in what they released to avoid providing hackers with information they could use to corrupt the system.
For Zhang, one of the appeals of coming to Stony Brook, where he arrived two years ago and was promoted last month to Professor from Associate Professor, was that the university has one of the best and best-funded microgrid programs in the country.
Zhang feels like he’s settled into the Stony Brook community, benefiting from interacting with his neighbors at home and with a wide range of colleagues at work. He appreciates how top scholars at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and national labs have proactively approached Stony Brook to establish collaborations.
Zhang is currently discussing a Phase II collaboration on a microgrid project with the Navy, which has funded his research since his arrival. “Given the federal support [from the Navy], I was able to recruit top people in the lab,” he said, including students from Columbia and Tsinghua University.
Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis has announced that Harold “Hal” Paz, M.D., M.S., currently Executive Vice President and chancellor for health affairs at The Ohio State University and Chief Executive Officer of the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, has been named Executive Vice President for Health Sciences at Stony Brook University, effective Oct. 4.
Paz will report to President McInnis and is a member of her senior leadership team. As EVP for Health Sciences, he will work in partnership with academic, hospital and clinical leadership and with community partners to ensure the continued development of a premier academic medical center and health system.
“Hal has a vision of growth for Stony Brook Medicine that integrates our clinical, educational, research and service missions,” said President Maurie McInnis. “In a time of great transformation in the health care and social environments, his distinct experience will enhance our position as a world-class leader in research and innovation.”
“It is my privilege to join Stony Brook University during a time of strategic growth and tremendous opportunity,” said Paz. “Together with partners across the university and community, I believe we can set new standards for excellence in care, research, education and innovation.”
Paz succeeds Dr. Kenneth Kaushansky, who retired from his position as Senior Vice President of the Health Sciences in June 2021.
Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn (D-Setauket) is a daily runner who has participated in many local races, but her effort on the Port Jefferson/Setauket Greenway on Saturday, Oct. 16 in the Annual Kenya/USA Bi-Continental race was special.
For the last 17 years, Hope Children’s Fund, a local not-for-profit, has held a 5K fundraiser in support of the Jerusha Mwiraria Hope Children’s Home for AIDS-affected former street children in Meru, Kenya.
Hahn came in first among the female competitors in this year’s event with a time of 28:52. The overall winner was Setauket resident Donald Dodge, with his time of 24:28.
The Kenyan times were inconclusive, but in all of the competitions since 2005, the Kenyans have won 16 times.
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