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Monthly Archives: December 2015

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Colorado Springs is not around the corner. But the effects of a tragic shooting there the day after Thanksgiving have trickled down and made a very real impact on Suffolk County.

We spent much of the fall season interviewing candidates running for various offices, and more than once we were reminded that our county police department was being stretched too thin.

Fast forward a few weeks to the aftermath of Friday’s shooting at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado that killed three and injured nine. Our county police department announced it would be increasing patrols near the five clinics in its jurisdiction as a result. The department also committed itself to training Planned Parenthood officials in crime prevention, which hopefully will provide a more lasting impact on preventing similar tragedies here.

Sometimes there is a disconnect between the national conversation and the small-town scuttlebutt, but this is an example of how one person’s actions can have a nationwide effect. In our case, it is strapping an already taxed police department.

The consequences are real, and there are things we could do on a local level that could perhaps trickle in the opposite direction — up to the national conversation.

We could strive to better care for our neighbors, both through publicly funded mental health programs that provide more access to treatment and more comprehensively deal with mental illness, and by speaking up when someone we know is behaving erratically or speaking in an alarming manner. We are seeing more and more irrationally thinking people commit acts like the shooting in Colorado Springs, in which the assailant targeted people unknown to him. And it seems impossible that none of these perpetrators displayed irrational behavior or thought beforehand.

A strongly connected community is an excellent safety net. We should work to weave ours tighter.

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Huntington’s 4x400 relay state championship team. Photo from Huntington athletics

Head coach Ron Wilson knows he has a good squad, but is it good enough to successfully defend the Suffolk Division II title that the Blue Devil boys’ winter track and field team captured last year?

The winter campaign is now underway and knowing that Huntington has one of the top indoor track teams on Long Island brings a smile to the face of the veteran coach.

The Blue Devils feature returning 4×400-meter relay state champions Infinite Tucker, Exzayvian Crowell, Kyree Johnson and Lawrence Leake. The Fantastic Four also won league, county, Long Island and LI Millrose Games titles.

Huntington boasts a roster that has talent and depth in just about every event this winter.

“Our strength in terms of quality and balance, however, lies in that of our sprinters and jumpers,” Wilson said. Juniors Johnson and Leake are two of Suffolk’s best sprinters.

Newcomer Kei Ron Byrams is expected to make an immediate splash with his speed and athleticism. “He should definitely help,” Wilson said of the junior.

“We graduated a great cast of throwers last year in Matteo McNeil and Jimmie Nelson,” Wilson said. “But we have a few throwers that will definitely draw some attention this year. Seniors Michael Lonergan, Amaru Jones, Vernon Alexander and Tasean Betts earned All-League honors during the spring season and should really be competitive this year.”

Sophomore strongmen Clay Jamison and Sam Bergman are two more throwers expected to be competitive this winter. Bergman was runner-up in the Suffolk freshmen shot put championship.

“Our distance program has shown a steady improvement,” Wilson said. Seniors Kyle O’Brien and Tom Kopstein earned All-League honors last spring and should be a factor this year. Joining the distance crew during the indoor season is junior Shane McGuire, who exploded on the scene last spring with a string of sensational performances, including All-League, All-County and All-State honors.

“He just finished an exciting cross country season and should do well this winter,” Wilson said.

Senior Mitch Rudish and junior Mark Rafuse were alternates on last winter’s 4×400 relay team and are set to take a big step forward this season.

The roster includes a bunch of newcomers to the sport and the school.

“With a bit of luck and good health, we should do well,” Wilson said. “We are a fairly balanced team this year, with a pretty solid lineup.”

Seniors Tucker and Crowell will contend in the 55 hurdles, among other events. Joining them will be sophomores Brian Pierre and Luke Eidle. Pierre won the freshman class of the 400 intermediate hurdles and took second place in the 110 high hurdles last spring. Sophomores Nick Sanin and Will Vollack were competitive last winter and should improve this year.

“We will look to advance several of our athletes to the state championship this year,” Wilson said.

Huntington has won two consecutive league titles, but this year’s competition is expected to be especially fierce.

“This year the pressure will be on,” Wilson said. “It’s always difficult to defend your championship title. There are a number of great teams in our league, including Smithtown East, North Babylon, West Islip, Half Hollow Hills West, West Babylon, Deer Park, Bellport, Eastport-South Manor and East Islip. These teams boast some outstanding athletes.”

The Blue Devil have carved out a national reputation during recent winter and spring seasons.

“Our top returning athletes are determined to compete at a high level and those who are joining us this season for the first time will look to make a name for themselves as well,” Wilson said.

Huntington is again set to travel to some of the most prestigious high school meets in the country this winter, including the Dartmouth Relays in New Hampshire, the Rhode Island Classic and to the new facility on Staten Island for a showdown with some of the best athletes from New York City and New Jersey.

“We know and understand that our road to a championship is going to be a difficult one,” Wilson said. “However, our boys have never backed down to a challenge.”

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The leg lamp is lit at Northport Hardware Co. Photo by Victoria Espinoza

Northport residents gathered to see the town’s “award” light up for a 10th straight year.

Northport Hardware Co. has held a leg lamp-lighting ceremony for the past decade, playing off the famous lamp from the holiday classic “A Christmas Story.”

“I think it’s so popular because it’s a hometown event,” said Northport Village Mayor George Doll, who is the master of ceremonies for the lighting. “All the locals thought it was a great idea and it’s just grown and grown every year.” This year, there were more than 100 people gathered outside the hardware store.

Northport residents dance to Christmas music before the leg lamp-lighting at Northport Hardware Co. Photo by Victoria Espinoza
Northport residents dance to Christmas music before the leg lamp-lighting at Northport Hardware Co. Photo by Victoria Espinoza

The Reichert family has owned the shop for more than 30 years, and when the leg lamps first began being sold, the Reicherts decided to have an impromptu lighting.

“We pulled a couple of guys from Gunther’s [Tap Room] and had the mayor light it,” Jim Reichert, one of the owners of the hardware store, said of the original lighting. Every year after, it became more elaborate, according to Reichert. A projector outside the store plays the movie, a snow machine adds to the ambiance, and the Northport High School kickline team performs for the crowd.

Reichert said that the event is a village collaboration, with residents volunteering to do the lighting, the sound and more.

“It’s a great family night,” he said. “I never expected it to grow this much.”

Doll said when the event started, there was no intention of making the lighting an annual ceremony, but “the event just took a life of its own, and every year people ask if we’re going to do it again.”

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Donations from the 10th Annual Kevin’s Ange’s Toy Drive will be wrapped on Dec. 19 before volunteers deliver them to the families in need. Photo by Giselle Barkley

After Sept. 11, 2001, the Williams family wanted to so something special to remember their son Kevin who died on that day, and after 15 years, they’re still honoring him.

Community members packed themselves into Phil’s Restaurant in Wading River to help support and donate toys to the Kevin Williams Foundation’s 10th annual Toy Drive, which was held on Dec. 1, from 7 to 10 p.m. The toy drive is an expansion of the Williams service to the community.

Fifteen years ago the family created Kevin’s Angels, which helped send children to a sports camp or play for a team. However, after schools and organizations like Long Island Youth Mentoring sought the family’s help for other families in need, the Williams started the toy drive to continue their outreach. For the Williams, giving back to the community and offering a helping hand during the holidays is a way to remember their son.

“We knew that we had to share his zest for life,” said Patti Williams, Kevin’s mother. “What better way than creating a foundation; and we could give to children and hopefully change the direction of some of their lives.”

Kevin Williams worked for Sandler O’Neil, a financial company based in Manhattan. The 24-year-old was on the 104th floor of Tower Two when tragedy struck and the building collapsed. Williams was to be married 10 weeks after Sept. 11.

Patti Williams takes donated gifts. Photo by Giselle Barkley
Patti Williams takes donated gifts. Photo by Giselle Barkley

In 1995, Williams graduated from Shoreham-Wading River High School and had a passion for academics as well as sports. In high school he was the captain and the most valuable player of his basketball, baseball and golf teams. Several years ago, Shoreham-Wading River renovated its varsity baseball field and renamed it after Williams. The field offers the family and other community members with a safe space to remember a loved one and reflect on Sept. 11.

This was the fifth time Phil’s Restaurant, owned by Phil Marcario, donated the space for the toy drive. Since Marcario’s wife grew up with Kevin Williams, the two are like family. Together, they made the night more than just a toy drive.

“We really wanted to make it a night where people could mingle and talk instead of just dropping off a toy,” Marcario said. “You could come and kind of spend time together, which is what the holidays are really all about.”

According to Mike Williams, Kevin Williams’ father, the toy drive helps around 30 families annually. They’ve also helped 1,025 underprivileged kids attend sports camps in the past 15 years. Despite their efforts, the family said the community is what really helped get to this point in their lives.

“We have a great faith, but we also surround ourselves with an abundance of love,” Mike Williams said.

While the Toy Drive was created in light of a tragedy, Shoreham resident Steve Malandrino said the Williams are one of few families who have turned a bad situation into something positive. Malandrino was once Mike Williams’ student when he attended Miller Place High School in the 1970s. Thus far, he’s attended nine of the 10 toy drives.

In addition to the abundance of community support, turning a negative situation into something positive also helped the family get through tough times.

“Anyone who’s gone through a tragedy, especially losing a child — you have a decision to make,” Patti Williams said. “You somehow have to get yourself from that point of not wanting to wake up in the morning because it’s another day of pain, to finding an avenue where you can make lives better for others.”

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Joanna Cadolino, English chair at P.J. Gelinas Junior High School, talks about the future of Three Village’s teaching strategies of less memorization and more critical thinking. Photo by Andrea Moore Paldy

A common theme regularly voiced by Three Village educators is the desire to produce “lifelong learners,” and its emphasis was underscored by English language arts educators during a recent school board meeting.

While the “Literature to Literacy” presentation by the district’s secondary level English chairs outlined changes to the English curriculum in the continued alignment to Common Core Learning Standards, Ward Melville High School English chair Brian McAuliffe noted that some are not new to Three Village.

Developing student vocabulary, along with an emphasis on close readings and critical thinking, are skills that are being developed in all disciplines, particularly in social studies and science, he said.

“In effect, we are all literacy teachers,” McAuliffe said.

He told the school board that students will be reading a balanced amount of fiction and nonfiction across the entire academic curriculum, adding that teachers “are very loathe to give up their beloved literature, and they don’t have to.”

The difference is that units will no longer be defined by one text — rather they will focus more on “intertextuality.” That means students will work with a central or “fulcrum text,” such as a novel, that will be supplemented by “texture” texts like poetry and nonfiction reading.

Those who attended the board meeting also heard that there would be an emphasis on close readings and the use of evidence from texts to support assertions and analysis. Students will also learn to analyze and write arguments, as well as deconstruct texts using literary and rhetorical devices, develop oral communication skills and be taught proper grammar and punctuation.

The emphasis on written skills is supported by the Lucy Calkins Units of Study for Writing from kindergarten to the eighth grade. Cathy Duffy, chair of English at R.C. Murphy Junior High, said this is the second year that the seventh and eighth grades are using the program. Students will have opportunities to practice writing, receive feedback and do revisions so that, at the end of the school year, they will have a portfolio of their three major writing projects. The portfolio will be passed on to the next teacher, who will use it to assess where the student’s writing focus should be for the coming year, Duffy explained.

In addition to final exams and the ELA state assessments, seventh and eighth graders will take a Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) assessment. It is a computer-based test that allows teachers to monitor students’ reading comprehension and select appropriate reading material.

Joanna Cadolino, English chair at P.J. Gelinas Junior High School, added that for ninth graders, the curriculum would continue to move away from memorization and toward more critical thinking. Additionally, ninth graders will explore speech writing, public speaking and research writing, which will require the evaluation and synthesis of source material at the honors level.

McAuliffe said that this year’s junior class would be the first to take the new English Regents exam. Changes include longer, more complex texts, as well as a section in which students will have to take a position on an argument and support it with evidence from provided texts.

Though he noted “a great deal of uncertainty” about the new exam, he said he was optimistic.

“We’re not working in isolation,” he said, adding that students have had good preparation from the previous grades.

The increased rigor of Regents-level courses will mean that Ward Melville will no longer offer an 11th grade Honors ELA class.

Students can take either a Regents-level course, or AP English Language and Composition.

The high school will also offer new electives, including news literacy, poetry of hip hop and sports literature.

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Event benefits children with life-threatening illnesses

John and Janet Kornreich will be honored at the Friends of Karen’s annual gala Friday. Photo from Friends of Karen

Friends of Karen of Port Jefferson will present its third annual Long Island Gala, which will take place on Friday, Dec. 4, at Stonebridge Country Club in Smithtown.

The event will honor Rich Panico, president of Symbio of Port Jefferson, John and Janet Kornreich with the Friends of Karen’s Humanitarian Award and Debbie Peck with the Friends of Karen’s Shelia Petersen Award.

Panico has been a champion for the charity for several years, the group said, and the Kornreiches were selected for their award because of their work as the founders of the John and Janet Kornreich Charitable Foundation. Peck has been a longtime Friends of Karen advisory board member and speaker for the organization and has shared her family’s personal story with schools, corporate employees and others so they can learn about the important work of Friends of Karen.

The group provides vital, practical and comprehensive support, at no cost, to families in the tri-state region who are caring for a child with a life-threatening illness. Since 1978, Friends of Karen has helped the children and their families with personal advocacy provided by a team of dedicated professionals — which includes social workers, expressive arts therapists and child life specialists — who work to ensure they have the financial, emotional and practical support they need to get through the turmoil and treatment process of a devastating diagnosis.

Friends of Karen began in 1978 when friends and neighbors came to the aid of a family with a 16-year-old daughter, Karen, who was terminally ill. A fund-raising campaign for medical and other costs enabled Karen to spend her precious last days at home surrounded by loving family and friends. More than 37 years later, Friends of Karen has helped nearly 14,000 children in the tri-state region, from birth to age 21, who have been diagnosed with cancer or another life-threatening illness.

For sponsorship and ticket information or to learn more about Friends of Karen, visit www.friendsofkaren.org or call Patricia Conway at 631-473-1768, ext. 303.

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Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone speaks during SepticSmart Week earlier this year. File photo by Victoria Espinoza

Suffolk County is getting more serious about a smelly situation.

Sixteen months ago, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) bumped water quality issues to the top of his to-do list. Now, the Suffolk County Health Department is reviewing existing sewage treatment plant sites, its enforcement and possible means to strengthen current regulatory programs.

Suffolk County Health Commissioner Dr. James Tomarken said the program could be more effective despite the efforts of wastewater management staff members.

“As a part of a comprehensive approach to improve water quality, it makes sense to review our existing regulatory programs in consultation with governmental agencies and other stakeholders to identify areas where those programs can be improved,” Tomarken said in a press release.

According to Peter Scully, deputy county executive, there aren’t any specific steps to improve the programs yet.

Earlier last month the health department met with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Suffolk County Water Authority, on Nov. 5 and Nov. 16, respectively. Scully said the department addressed regulation efforts and compliance issues with the DEC while they tackled water quality concerns and siting requirements for the sewage treatment plants.

According to the county executive’s website, there’s an excess of 200,000 on-site residential wastewater disposal systems in environmentally compromised areas in the county as of last year. Reviewing the existing programs is an extension of Bellone’s Reclaim Our Waters Initiative. He announced the initiative in March of 2014 to address the county’s poor water quality.

Nitrogen pollution is rampant in the water, which not only affects the water quality but also the organisms living in these waters. The Town of Brookhaven took on similar efforts to address Brookhaven’s declining water quality. In October, the town issued its own study about Long Island’s water, starting with the Setauket Harbor. While that study will take up to a year, conducting the review on the county’s regulatory programs may take several months, according to Scully.

The sewage plant application process will also be evaluated. The health department receives around three applications annually. The review will examine whether the department has adequate penalties for those who don’t comply with sewage plant siting regulations. The regulation process of new facilities or those under order is also up for examination. Scully said this is to help make the facilities better for the environment.

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During the holidays we donate coats to the homeless, buy presents for strangers and send cards to the brave soldiers representing our country far from home. In addition to those charitable efforts during this time of year, how about if we come up with ways to give to our planet?

Huh? In light, if you’ll pardon the pun, of the current United Nations climate-change meeting of world leaders in Paris, perhaps we can add a few small items to our lists. And, no, most of them don’t require spending any money. In fact, they will help save money.

For starters, and this is something my Depression-era grandparents ingrained in me from an early age, turn off the lights in rooms we don’t use. I know that’s tough, especially during this darker time of year, but it cuts our electric bill. That’s an extra few bucks in your pocket at a time when our kids absolutely, positively, have to get the latest, greatest, fastest, most-fashionable present to pass the holiday parent test.

When we drive somewhere and wait for someone, turn off those engines. Seriously, idling is something we should never do. It wastes gas and pollutes the environment. I appreciate all the effort parents make to sit outside schools, piano lessons, practices and games, waiting to pick up their children. But leaving the engine on is not only unnecessary, it fills the air with pollutants just before our children step in the car. Having sat in cars in temperatures below freezing for close to a half-hour, I assure you that the car stays warm if you don’t open your window or door. Seriously, try it. It also gives us those cherished moments of silence.

Then, there’s the thermostat. Yeah, I know we like it warm, but for the month of December, how about turning it down just 2 degrees? If that becomes unbearable, lower it just 1 degree. It might not seem like much individually, but that can and will make a huge difference collectively.

During the night we can turn off our computers and printers. These machines are much faster at booting up than the same electronics were just a decade ago. While we’re waiting for our computers to come back online, we can check our emails, send important messages about what we just realized we need to get from the store, and send instant messages to people around the world.

OK, so, we’ve got that shopping list and we know you’ll forget something because the overstimulating holiday environment of most stores has an ability to soften our brains. The bright and clever displays and constant caroling music on the radio encourage us to buy something that wasn’t on the list, turning us into consumer marionettes.

But if we were more efficient about our holiday shopping, we could buy that extra thing and still cross everything else off the list. What does that buy us? It gives us more time to write that rhyming couplet expressing our enduring love for our spouse and it reduces the amount of time we’re running back and forth to stores.

How about walking? I know it seems hard to imagine carrying everything from store to store but, let’s face it, it’s hard to find parking spots anyway. Instead of using gas to get from one place to another, by walking we could burn off that extra piece of pumpkin pie that called to us from the refrigerator.

Like so many other efforts at this time of year, giving to our planet will bring returns for us, our children and grandchildren down the road.

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If you are looking for a holiday gift that is out of the ordinary, I have a suggestion for you. In fact, this particular product has been written up recently in The New York Times in the Fashion & Style section so dramatically that it has caught people’s imagination. Perhaps that is because the giver of the gift can realize as much benefit as the receiver. Ready for the offbeat suggestion?

The Times sums it up with this headline: “The Cult of the Toto Toilet.”

What? You may say that you have had indoor plumbing all your life. You may even have a commode previously manufactured by Toto, the Japanese plumbing company. But the object of this cult, dear reader, is no ordinary bit of plumbing. If you own one, it will change your life. Let me explain.

While this Toto marvel may look the same as a regular toilet bowl as it quietly sits in the bathroom, when you lift the lid the differences become obvious. You see several buttons in a housing alongside the seat. And like many of the latest electronic luxury items, its use is intuitive. There is the on-off switch, two different buttons that regulate temperature and a couple more that control position of the flow. This seat, you see, is actually a bidet, with all the benefits brought right to your doorstep, so to speak.

Called a Toto washlet, the product has inspired unbelievable devotion. This Japanese creation boasts a heated seat, a bidet function for a thorough cleanse and, if you have one of the more recent models, “an air purifying system that deodorizes during use,” according to the Times. There is even an air dryer, virtually eliminating the need for toilet paper if you have higher tolerance for risk.

I first saw the washlet when I visited Japan seven or eight years ago. It seemed like such an upscale item, yet it was so widespread: in hotels, department stores, restaurants and airports. I was so impressed with its functionality that when I returned home I called my plumber to see if I could order one. He thought I was kidding when I described how it worked. I challenged him to call his supplier before he totally laughed me off, and then call me back with the answer. He did, 20 minutes later, and added that in addition to mine, he was going to buy one for himself.

I was not so surprised on my trip to China this past September to find such a seat in the home of a Chinese family. Though they are still a novelty here, they are more common in Asia, and they are now made by more companies than just Toto.

The installation of the washlet is a little complicated in an existing bathroom. In addition to bringing a water line to the seat, an electric outlet needs to be placed within a cord’s reach of the commode, and this is counter to the normal safety regulations for distance between electricity and water. Therefore this outlet has to be one certified for use near water, like the one near the bathroom sink used for shavers or hair dryers, and the electric line probably has to be snaked over behind the bathroom wall from the nearest source of electricity. This is not impossible, however, but it is the largest expense in making this change. I can tell you, and so can everyone who has one, that it is well worth the effort and not just as a luxury or convenience. There is a real health component.

The washlet I have is the most basic, and the entire transition cost in the three figures. But now there are many more upscale and sophisticated models. They can also be a lot more expensive. Features can include urine testing and other medical data that can then be relayed via the Internet directly to physicians.

But you can still get the stripped-down version, like the most basic model of washing machine or dishwasher, and that is quite sufficient to take you to a better place.

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Francis Barrios mugshot from SCPD

Police arrested a homeless man for sexual assault on Tuesday night, after he allegedly attacked a taxi driver on a trip that started at a local hospital.

The Suffolk County Police Department said that the female cab driver picked up her passenger at John T. Mather Memorial Hospital in Port Jefferson that evening, but during the trip he assaulted her and the taxi crashed into a fence on Mount Sinai-Coram Road in Mount Sinai. The suspect, 34-year-old registered sex offender Francis Barrios, then sexually assaulted the driver.

Police did not release the name of the taxi company, to protect the identity of the victim.

Officers had initially responded to the crash scene when a passing motorist called 911, according to police, but the responders arrested Barrios after further investigation. He was charged with first-degree criminal sexual act, first-degree attempted rape, second-degree strangulation and third-degree assault.

Attorney information for Barrios was not immediately available and he could not be reached for comment. He was held overnight and scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday.

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