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Yearly Archives: 2015

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Harry S. Truman was president during a critical time in the United States. Photo in the public domain

By Rich Acritelli

He came from humble beginnings to make one of the most critical but grave decisions in United States history.

Born on May 8, 1884, to a poor Missouri farming family, Harry S. Truman’s roots were far removed from those of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. While he was a capable student, his poor eyesight prevented an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He never attended college, and was expected to help with the family business. But to get away from the boredom of agriculture, he enlisted in the National Guard and, though he would have been exempted from Selective Service, re-enlisted at age 33, when President Woodrow Wilson declared war in April 1917.

At once, Truman’s superiors and peers voted that he become an officer, and the future president was proud to take on the role. His soldiers saw him as an organized and bright leader who took care of his men. After training in Oklahoma, Truman and his artillery battery traveled to New York City, where the Missouri soldiers were some of the first Americans to be transported on the USS George Washington, a confiscated German passenger ship that was used to transport a portion of the 2.5 million Americans who fought on the Western Front. While in New York, Truman was not overly impressed with Manhattan and, in fact, liked Paris better when he visited that city after the World War I armistice.

Once in France, Truman learned how to fire the French 75-mm field gun, the best artillery weapon produced during the conflict. He was promoted to captain and the head of an artillery battery, and proved to be an honest man, speaking objectively to superior officers about the needs of his men. Near the front, Truman trained with Gen. John J. Pershing and led his battery in the 1918 Muesse-Argonne offensive. He was one of the 600,000 soldiers used to punch a hole into the tired lines of the German military. It is possible Truman’s guns fired some of the final shots before the Central Powers surrendered on Nov. 11, 1918.

The interwar years were spotted with success and failure for Truman. Once the war concluded, Truman desperately wanted to marry his Missouri sweetheart, Bess Wallace, and for a brief time he was a partner in a thriving clothing store with a veteran from his unit. While he had good sense, the business closed and Truman refused to file for bankruptcy protection. Some 20 years later, right before he became president, he finally paid off those debts.

Did you know?

President Truman was a talented piano player. According to the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, as a child he woke up at 5 a.m. to practice for two hours, and music was one of his passions throughout his lifetime.

Truman got his political start as a county judge, with help from Kansas City Democratic political boss Thomas J. Pendergast. While he probably favored Pendergast on municipal building projects in return, he was seen as a clean politician and later won a spot in the U.S. Senate. Truman was a key advocate of Roosevelt’s New Deal as well as measures to supply American allies with military necessities early during World War II. He used a common-sense approach to leadership, stemming from his time as a farmer, a captain in the Army and a businessman, and it was an approach small-town Americans understood.

As Roosevelt ran for his fourth and final term, he picked an originally reluctant Truman as his vice president. But shortly after the victory, Roosevelt’s health declined. After four months in office, Truman was commander-in-chief. Americans, saddened over the trusted Roosevelt’s death and in the midst of war, knew little about the make-up of Truman. During World War I, he was a junior officer under future Gens. George C. Marshall, George S. Patton and Douglas R. MacArthur, but he was now their boss. And the stakes were higher — the Manhattan Project gave the U.S. the atomic bomb. Truman had a tough call to make.

It was 70 years ago this month that Truman authorized the military to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was a strategy to end the war, save American lives and demonstrate the nation’s immense power to the Soviets. About his controversial decision, the plainspoken Truman said he could not have looked into the eyes of American mothers who lost a son in combat knowing that he could have defeated the Japanese earlier but chose not to.

The presidency was a difficult chore to handle, but Truman never wavered from his responsibilities. Though he faced criticism during the postwar recession and the earliest moments of the Cold War, he was the underdog figure with a bullish sense of honesty that helped win World War II and set a precedent for American dealings with the Soviet Union for decades to come.

Rich Acritelli is a social studies teacher at Rocky Point High School and an adjunct professor of American history at Suffolk County Community College. He was a staff sergeant in the New York Air National Guard 106th Rescue Wing in Westhampton Beach.

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‘Bronx’ 2015 by Ruben Natal-San Miguel

By Talia Amorosano

Born in Puerto Rico and currently residing in New York City, photographer, writer and art critic Ruben Natal-San Miguel knows what it is like to experience life in vastly different places. With photography exhibited in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago and Mexico City (among other national and international locations), he has a knack for capturing images that display the human spirit in unique and varied settings.

His visionary eye for capturing people and life has been brought to Long Island’s own Ripe Art Gallery in Huntington. An artist reception was held on Aug. 8. The Rights of Summer  photography exhibit, juried by himself and Sean Corcoran (curator of photography and prints for the Museum of the City of New York), showcases his original photography alongside the work of over 25 other photographers from Long Island to Japan (to Portugal, to Canada, to Missouri, to California).

“Everybody’s summer looks different depending on where and how they live,” said Cherie Via Rexer, owner of Ripe Art Gallery, who has worked with Natal-San Miguel during past exhibitions.

This statement uncovers the main controlling idea of the exhibit, that different people of different socioeconomic classes, cultures, lifestyles and locations experience and celebrate summer differently.  “We wanted to see what summer looked like for the 99 percent as well as the 1 percent,” said Via Rexer, who noted that the Ripe Art Gallery is the perfect place to showcase this theme, based on its location between New York City and the Hamptons.

‘Mercy Playground’ 2014 by Ruben Natal-San Miguel
‘Mercy Playground’ 2014 by Ruben Natal-San Miguel

The result of sorting through over 300 submissions is a final set of 57 images that each convey summer living in a diverse way and showcase “a little bit of everything,” according to Via Rexer.  The styles of the photographs range from portraits to landscapes to abstract, but they all illustrate the Rights of Summer.

A particularly striking photograph that Via Rexer believes embodies the theme of the exhibit is “Bronx,” by Natal-San Miguel, in which a man stands in front of the ocean with the iconic word visibly tattooed across his back. “It shows a beautiful beach that is surrounded by projects and all kinds of living situations,” she said.  “It shows the ocean but visibly zeroes in on a location.”

Also notable are the six established fine art photographers whose work will be on display at the exhibit: Richard Misrach, Christopher Rauschenberg (related to photographer Robert Rauschenberg), Karine Laval, Gillian Laub, Amy Arbus (related to photographer Diane Arbus) and Arlene Gottfried.   

Eleonora Ronconi captured Best in Show with “Corn Stand,” first runner up was “Girl from Palm Springs” by Dolly Faibyshev, second runner up was Robert Herman’s “Heat Wave NYC NY” and third runner up was Luis Carle’s “Abanicos.” Honorable mentions went to Lauren Welles for “Coney Island 1,” Jennifer McClure for “Untitled,” Nancy Oliveri for “Coney Island Venus” and Russ Rowland’s “Brighton Beached 3.”

All are encouraged to view the artwork on display until Sept. 5. This event is sure to excite photography and fine art enthusiasts alike and offers a great opportunity for Long Islanders to view art by both internationally recognized and local photographers.

Ripe Art Gallery is located at 1028 Park Ave., Huntington. For more information, call 631-239-1805 or visit www.ripeartgal.com.

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By Linda M. Toga, Esq.

The Facts: I am in my early fifties and in good health but I am concerned about depleting my assets in the event I need to enter a skilled nursing facility. Some of my friends have purchased long-term care insurance and have complained about the cost of their policies.

The Question: Is long-term care insurance a good value?

The Answer: Long-term care insurance can be a good value, but whether it is a good option for you depends on many factors, not the least of which is how much you have to spend on your long-term care and the value of the assets you want to protect.

People between the ages of 55 and 64 account for more than 50 percent of the people who purchase long-term care insurance, and nearly one-fourth of those people purchase the insurance to protect their assets. They are basically buying long-term care insurance to ensure that their assets will pass to their heirs rather than being depleted paying for their care. If you have assets to protect, and have the income to cover the annual premiums, long-term care insurance can be an excellent option for you.

The cost of long-term care insurance is based upon your age when you purchase the policy, the amount of the daily benefit paid by the policy, the term of the coverage, how long you must pay for your care before coverage begins and whether you purchase any riders to the policy such as an inflation rider that effectively increases the daily benefit amount. In order to apply for coverage, you will be required to undergo a physical exam and a mini mental competency test as part of the application process.

The younger you are when you purchase a long-term care insurance policy, the lower your annual premium. For example, a policy with a four-year benefit period that might cost you $2,225 annually if purchased at age 55 will cost over $3,700 annually if purchased at age 65. Although purchasing coverage at age 55 rather than 65 may result in you paying the premium for a longer period of time, when you make a claim, you will likely have paid less for your coverage by buying sooner rather than later.

Using the figures set forth above, if you buy a policy at age 55 and make a claim for benefits at age 85, you will have paid just under $68,000 for coverage. However, if you buy the same policy at age 65 and make a claim at age 85, you will have paid nearly $75,000 for coverage. Clearly, the savings enjoyed by purchasing a policy in your fifties rather than your sixties are significant, as is the peace of mind that comes from knowing your long-term care needs will be met. In addition to saving money, buying a policy when you are younger avoids the risk that you may subsequently develop health issues that preclude you from getting coverage later in life.

Even if you wait until you are 70 to buy long-term care insurance and your health deteriorates somewhat between now and when you purchase a policy, doubling or even tripling the annual premium, the cost of a policy over time will likely be small compared to what you would have to pay to cover your long-term care needs. 

For example, at today’s prices, the average annual cost of a semi-private room in a nursing home on Long Island is at about $155,000. The average stay is three years. That means individuals who do not have insurance or government benefits to cover the cost of long-term care will pay $465,000 over three years for their care. Assuming your long-term care insurance premium is $9,000 and you paid that premium every year until age 85 when you put in a claim for benefits, the total you will have paid for three years of coverage will be $135,000. That’s a $330,000 savings.

Although the examples set forth above do not take into consideration the future value of the money you use to pay your premiums over time, or the case where a person makes a claim after only making one or two annual premium payments, they illustrate why long-term care insurance can be a good value for many people.

Since more than 75 percent of people over the age of 65 will need long-term care at some point in their life, insuring against the risk of depleting savings and not having the assets to pay for care makes sense for many people. Since insurers now offer riders that include money back options and the option of using a death benefit toward long-term care services, even those people who have balked at the idea of buying long-term care insurance because they worry that they may die without making a claim can find a policy that works for them.

Insurance is complicated and everyone’s needs are different. Before buying a long-term care insurance policy, you should discuss your situation with an experienced elder law attorney and a reputable insurance agent with expertise in the area of long-term care insurance. That way you can be sure that the policy you decide upon includes the features that are best suited to your situation.

Linda M. Toga, Esq. provides legal services in the areas of litigation, estate planning and real estate from her East Setauket office.

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Woodbury Road residents have called the thoroughfare unsafe in recent years. File photo by Barbara Donlon

Plans to calm traffic and reduce car crashes on Woodbury Road accelerated on Tuesday.

The Huntington Town Board voted to pay traffic consultants an additional $16,635 to design some of the recommendations they made in a traffic- calming study of the road released earlier this year.

In the study, GEB HiRise, of Uniondale, recommended things like larger and more reflective signs; thicker lane markings; rumble strips in the double yellow lines in the center of the road; reduced speed limits in some areas from 30 to 25 miles per hour; and narrower lanes in some areas.

Residents in the area have been calling for traffic-calming changes, citing a number of crashes along the road.

Huntington Town Councilwoman Susan Berland (D), who has spearheaded the issue, said after the town board meeting on Tuesday that this measure takes traffic calming on Woodbury Road “to the next level.”

The engineering firm will be charged with mapping out where things like rumble strips will go, where to narrow the road and exploring the road-skidding aspect of the issue.

“This is the next step,” Berland said.

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A rain garden in Rocky Point is a pretty way to collect stormwater runoff. File photo

Just about every time there’s any significant rainfall on the North Shore, our newsroom gets an advisory against swimming in our local waters — mostly embayments off the Long Island Sound.

As it issues the advisories, the Suffolk County Department of Health Services always explains that stormwater runoff increases bacteria levels in waterways, and because these little nooks and crannies of water along the North Shore do not flush out as quickly as other places, it can be unhealthy to go for a dip.

Stormwater runoff is an environmental issue we talk about a lot, but it seems we are not actually addressing the problem. There’s so much pavement in our residential and commercial developments that rainwater has nowhere to go but toward the sea, and it carries with it all the dirt, chemicals and trash it passes along the way.

The ideal solution is increasing the amount of permeable surface in our neighborhoods so the runoff goes into the ground instead, where it is naturally filtered. We can do that by taking note of the locations we see to be in the most need of improvement and calling on our elected officials to install more catch basins, which absorb and help filter the runoff.

We can also lobby for our municipalities — and even our businesses as well — to use permeable surfaces in parking lots or driveways. These absorbent pavements are not just fantasy; they exist and, though they are more expensive than asphalt, would save us a ton of money on stormwater and environmental maintenance costs in the future. And most importantly, no matter the cost, they would help protect the only home planet we have.

On a personal level, we can help our local bodies of water by planting rain gardens on our properties, as they help absorb stormwater runoff, and by refusing to use harmful chemicals to treat our lawns.

Everyone can do something to ease the burden of bacteria on our waterways. Protecting the environment is a group effort, so we all need to step up to the plate.

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Residents vet plan for Eaton’s Neck deer

Some Three Village residents became concerned when they received an advertisement for a deer management program offering its services. File photo

Dozens of residents weighed in at a public hearing on Tuesday on a Huntington Town Board plan that would allow seasonal longbow hunting of deer on Eaton’s Neck.

The proposal would amend the town code to allow longbow hunting during hunting season on private properties on Eaton’s Neck and in unincorporated areas of Asharoken to anyone who has a hunting license issued by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Nearly 30 people took to the podium at town hall to voice their concerns on the plan.

Those who supported the proposal, which would only apply to private properties, said they wanted the measure in place to regulate what’s become an overpopulation of deer in the neighborhood. The great numbers of deer have given rise to public health, safety and quality of life issues, supporters said.

Opponents called the plan an “inhumane” solution and suggested the town explores other deer management routes and raised questions about whether the hunting method would even be effective in curbing the population.

Among the residents who spoke against longbow hunting included some who have been impacted by tick-borne illnesses, like Lyme disease, an infectious bacterial disease that if left untreated can spread to the joints, heart and nervous system; and babesiosis, a disease caused by microscopic parasites that infect red blood cells.

Dr. Gary Stone, Huntington Hospital’s chairman of pathology and director of the laboratory, said in an interview on Wednesday that the hospital has treated about 10 to 15 cases of babesiosis in total this year. Those cases are of individuals from the Huntington Town area, he said. The hospital announced in a statement “more are expected,” and said the disease is “prevalent in our area but sometimes goes unnoticed.”

“This has happened before but it doesn’t happen to do this degree this summer,” Stone said. “This summer is definitely worse than the last few summers.”

He said in research he’s carried out on cases at other area hospitals, it seems as though medical centers on the North Shore are experiencing greater numbers of cases of babesiosis.

“I’m thinking there’s a higher percent of ticks here on the North Shore actually have the disease than on the South Shore,” he said.

Doug Whitcomb told Town Board members that the population has exploded to the point where “everybody encounters deer on a daily basis.” He and others pleaded with board members to consider the elevated health risks associated with a large deer population and to allow longbow hunting.

“I am here to represent that the residents of Eaton’s Neck deserve the same opportunity to quality of life as all of the other residents of Huntington have, and deer are causing us unimaginable problems,” Whitcomb said.

Animal advocates, however, took aim at longbow hunting.

“Animals feel pain and experience a full range of emotions — happiness, contentment, fear and dread,” Jeannie Gedeon said. “They are intelligent. …  If you vote to allow deer hunting in the Town of Huntington we might as well go home and shoot our pet dogs and cats with an arrow and go watch them die.”

The uptick in the deer population has led to a rise in car accidents, residents said. They also claim the animals eat their plants.

Residents of the Eaton Harbors Corporation have been working on the issue. The group posted on its website a January meeting with DEC deer biologist Josh Stiller, who provided an overview of the deer population growth issue.

“The problem is going farther and farther west it seems like every year,” he told residents then. … “Deer can multiply really quickly under ideal situations and in a lot of these suburban areas you have an ideal situation for deer.”

In prior interviews, Councilwoman Susan Berland (D) and Councilman Gene Cook (I) spoke about wanting to see a more humane approach to managing the deer population. In separate interviews after the public hearing, they said they hadn’t decided whether they’d support the measure or not.

Councilman Mark Cuthbertson (D) echoed similar sentiments. Supervisor Frank Petrone (D) told reporters that he felt something needed to be done and that he’d look into the issue further.

“It is getting out of hand. We have to do something. Are we happy about this alternative with bows and deer running and they’re shot? No. There’s no immediate quick fix,” the supervisor said.

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The early morning fire sent one emergency responder to the hospital. Photo by Jeff Bressler

Marquette Drive in St. James became ground zero over the weekend after an early morning fire took over a residential home and sent one firefighter to the hospital, officials said.

The blaze broke out around 2:10 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 9, when the Smithtown Fire Department received a report of a structural fire with possible occupants inside the home, Public Information Officer Jeff Bressler said.

The early morning fire sent one emergency responder to the hospital. Photo by Jeff Bressler
The early morning fire sent one emergency responder to the hospital. Photo by Jeff Bressler

The ferocious fight sent one Smithtown firefighter to Stony Brook University Hospital to be treated for a minor injury associated with the emergency response, Bressler said.

“Upon arrival, the call was upgraded to a fully involved structural fire,” Bressler said. “Three occupants were assisted out of the house before units arrived. The occupants were taken by the Smithtown Fire Department and Kings Park Fire Department ambulances to Stony Brook University Medical Center.”

Bressler said emergency responders deployed two hoses to fight the flames and also utilized a ladder from Company 7 for assistance.

At one point, the flames became so out of control that the fire started to spread to an adjacent house before being put out with significant damage to the siding, Bressler said.

By the time the blaze had been doused, Smithtown saw emergency response assistance from fire departments in St. James, Nesconset, Hauppauge, Kings Park and Nissequogue, Bressler said.

The cause of the fire was still under investigation, Bressler said.

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Northport's Austin Henningsen fights for possession at the “X.” file photo

One of Long Island’s top face-off specialists is headed to the University of Maryland this fall.

Austin Henningsen, a recent Northport grad, was stellar at his midfield position all four years of high school, winning 70 percent of his face-offs across that span, according to head coach George Searing.

Searing said the talent his now former player possesses is something he saw from a young age.

“We looked at him in seventh grade because I like to take a look at the young kids in our program,” Searing said, adding that coaches in the middle school told him how good a face-off player Henningsen was, that the summer after his eighth grade year he was asked to join the team for a competition. ”We were in a highly competitive summer tournament and I thought it would be a good experience for him to come with us and see what he was capable of. It was national tournament and he did really good.”

He did so well that other coaches even approached Searing after the tournament to ask questions about his soon-to-be new addition.

“A lot of the coaches asked me what school he was going to next year, and I had to tell them he was only in eighth grade,” he said, laughing. “I think that was a great experience for him and it really showed what capabilities he had.”

He made the varsity team his freshman year, and Searing said Henningsen worked tirelessly to continue to improve his skills, both with his team and with a private face-off specialist. As a result of his training and dedication to honing his skills, the Tigers star continued to rise to the occasion as the competition grew tougher each season.

Austin Henningsen breaks away with the ball for Northport. File photo by Kevin Freheit
Austin Henningsen breaks away with the ball for Northport. File photo by Kevin Freheit

“He does a great job preparing for each lacrosse season and every year he got better,” the head coach said. “He’s an excellent leader for the kids, no matter what his skill level was, but then certainly, his on-field performance in terms of his desire to succeed and how he persevered from injury and continued to work hard just set the bar for everyone else on the team.”

In Henningsen’s first season with the Tigers, the team went 11-7 after falling to No. 1-seeded West Islip in the Suffolk County Class A quarterfinals. His sophomore year, the team took it a step further, and went 15-3 after losing to Smithtown West in the semifinals. The Tigers had a more difficult season in 2014, going 9-9, but made it back to the quarterfinal game, where the team lost to Smithtown East.

According to Searing, Henningsen’s junior year was his best in terms of statistics. The former player won 77 percent of his face-offs, scored 11 goals and three assists, and picked up 240 ground balls. But the head coach thought Henningsen was especially tremendous for the Tigers this past season, where the team made it back to the Class A semifinals, but fell to Ward Melville, 11-10, after going 17-1 up to that game.

“He was a very important player for us this past season,” Searing said of Henningsen, who won 75 percent of his face-offs and tacked on 14 goals and 10 assists while scooping up 184 ground balls. “I think the thing that he learned here at our program is how he has to commit himself and how hard he has to work. His work ethic is tremendous and that’s one of the reasons he is so successful when lacrosse season comes around.”

His commitment to the game earned him national recognition from high-level colleges and universities, but Henningsen ultimately chose to play lacrosse at the University of Maryland.

“I think the thing that really separates him from a lot of people is that he is very driven to succeed, but you wouldn’t know it from his demeanor when you see him off the field — he’s very low key, very humble,” Searing said. “He’s very well-prepared athletically and mentally to get into the season and he’s going to find it to be very challenging at the next level once he gets to college, but I think with the work ethic he acquired, it’s going to allow him to succeed at the next level.”

Maryland put together one of its best seasons in program history in 2015, when head coach John Tillman led the team to a Terrapin single-season record 15 victories and a berth in the NCAA national title game. The team featured the top-ranked scoring defense, and five players earned All-American honors.

Henningsen will be working under Tillman, who joined the program in 2010 after three years at Harvard University and 12 seasons as the top assistant at Navy. The university’s head coach captured his first Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year honor by leading the Terrapins to the 2014 ACC regular season championship and the program’s third Final Four appearance in four seasons.

An All-American this year, just one out of nine in Suffolk County to receive the honor, Henningsen joins a strong Maryland program that his old coach is looking forward to seeing him succeed with.

“He’s been a tremendous player,” Searing said. “He’s been very coachable and a great role model for the younger guys. He’s exactly what you want to see in a student-athlete. I’m looking forward to watching him play once he gets to Maryland and am very confident he will be successful at the next level.”

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Smithtown fire marshals allege the office building at 811 W. Jericho Turnpike housed an illegal massage parlor, pictured above in the top right lot of the map. Screen capture from Google Maps

Smithtown fire marshals put a Queens woman’s hands in cuffs and charged her with violating the state’s penal law via an illegal massage parlor, officials said.

Peiyu Du, a 44-year-old woman from Flushing, was arrested July 30 and charged in connection with an illegal massage parlor raided last month in Smithtown. Public Safety initially busted the parlor on July 19 around 2 p.m. operating out of 811 West Jericho Turnpike to find what Department Director Chief John Valentine described as an elaborate hidden facility with multiple bedrooms, each holding three to four young Asian women.

Officials cited suggestive advertisements for the space on Backpage.com, promising patrons body rubs from Korean and Japanese girls for $60 to $70.

Among the multiple violations of Smithtown code included the interfering with the duties of the fire marshal, Valentine said. Du was also charged under the state’s penal law for obstructing governmental administration. She was released with a field appearance ticket and her arraignment was scheduled for Sept. 29.

The investigation will be continuing with help from the Suffolk County District Attorney.

Late last month, Valentine said the fire marshals acted in response to a request for assistance from the Smithtown Fire Department to find the parlor, filled with young Asian women in “various stages of undress.” Upon their entry, Valentine said an Asian woman confronted the fire marshals and tried to block their entrance into the location.

“The unidentified females and several apparent patrons fled the location upon entry,” Valentine said when the parlor was busted last month. “Suffolk County Police 4th Precinct officers were contacted and responded to the location.”

Inside, officials found what Valentine described as suggestive advertising and photographs promoting the services. Subsequent online searches posted that same day on Backpage.com advertised a grand opening for cash-only massage services with several provocative photos of young Asian women. The posting was listed under a “Long Island body rubs” thread.

An ongoing investigation was put into motion through the Smithtown Public Safety Department and fire marshals have uncovered multiple violations of the fire and property maintenance codes as well as town code violations, including interfering with emergency personnel, Valentine said.

It was unclear if there would be additional arrests.

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Port Jefferson’s upcoming paving project is fit for a president

There are some patches of rough road in the presidential section of Port Jefferson Village. Photo by Elana Glowatz

A contractor is hitting the pavement to smooth out some Port Jefferson roads.

The village board of trustees last week approved paving projects on the presidential streets, off of Old Post Road, and at the Riviera condos in the Harbor Hills section, between Port Jefferson and Mount Sinai harbors. In total, the projects will cost just shy of $360,000, with about two-thirds of that figure financing the roads named after former U.S. presidents — Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt avenues and Wilson Drive — as well as the adjacent Rustic Road. The other third will cover Lookout Ridge Drive, Sawtooth Cove, Rockledge Path and Laurel Crescent.

Medford-based Suffolk Asphalt Corp. will handle both those neighborhood projects. More than half of the cost to Suffolk Asphalt will come out of surplus money left over from the 2014-15 village budget, village officials said.

Of all the roads in the village that needed work, Mayor Margot Garant said during the Aug. 3 board meeting, “The presidential section was in the most need of repair, so they were approved first,” followed by the Riviera section.

As for smaller side streets that need to be repaved, officials said the village’s Department of Public Works will handle them in-house, rather than hiring a contractor. Trustee Larry LaPointe gave the examples of Grant and Bleeker streets, off East Broadway, which he said are in bad shape.


Path takes Highlands road
Port Jefferson’s village board of trustees approved a contractor last week to install about 0.2 miles of sidewalk along Highlands Boulevard, between the entrance to the Highlands condominiums and Oakland Avenue.

The sidewalk has been planned for a while. During a resident push for the village-owned grassy area on Highlands Boulevard, along which the sidewalk would run, to be declared as open space or parkland, the village also tossed around the idea of putting in a walkway there.

“They don’t even have a sidewalk,” Mayor Margot Garant said about the condos residents at a previous board meeting. “They have to walk in the road to get from the Highlands … to the upper Port area.”

Nesconset-based Jadeco Construction Corp. will put in the sidewalk at a cost of $65,100 and the village will pay Welsbach Electric Corp., of Flushing, $17,000 to install lighting along the route.

Although sidewalk plans are coming together now, the village approved the parkland designation for the 6-acre parcel in March, limiting its future use or development. Officials have discussed keeping the park passive, but possibly putting in benches and walking paths.

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