Northport Village and St. James residents were ready for the Easter Bunny this year, as families and children of all ages came to hunt for eggs, take pictures with the Easter Bunny and play Easter-themed games.
Drug addiction on the North Shore and across Suffolk County is a complicated problem, so the police department and the community are coming together to come up with strategies to combat it.
One of the reasons Salvatore Pitti, a retired New York City police officer, left the Big Apple to live on Long Island he said in part was to escape drug-related crime. But in recent years, he has seen what he called an alarming uptick in heroin and opioid-related overdoses and deaths in the suburbs — so he decided to do something about it.
“We need to put the fear of God into our kids about this problem.”
— Salvatore Pitti
“We need to put the fear of God into our kids about this problem,” Pitti said April 11 during a Crime Awareness Committee meeting at Brookhaven Town Hall. “I’ve had the misfortune, in my career, to scoop three or four children off the street, dead. I don’t want to see that.”
Pitti, vice president of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Civic Association and leader of a local neighborhood watch group designed to eliminate local criminal activity, co-sponsored the event along with Brookhaven Town.
Joined by several guest speakers including Supervisor Ed Romaine (R), Councilwoman Valerie Cartright (D-Port Jefferson) and Suffolk County Police Department Commissioner Tim Sini, Pitti spoke with local organization leaders and residents about how they can help make their communities safer.
Sini, who became commissioner last year, has already rolled out several initiatives through the SCPD to address the issues of illegal drug sales, abuse and overdoses as well as prevention and recovery in his short time leading the department.
Many of them rely on police department collaboration with the public.
“I can’t tell you the number of times that information from people in this room or from folks like you have helped us solve crimes,” Sini said, highlighting such programs as the NARC hotline, a partnership with Suffolk County Crime Stoppers, where callers can give crime tips anonymously and receive cash rewards for those that lead to arrests.
Another initiative, Sini said, is the Long Island Heroin Task Force, which targets drug dealers causing overdoses and the areas that have the biggest spikes in overdoses through data collected in the department. Programs are also being implemented in local schools that teach about the consequences of taking drugs, offer prevention and recovery steps, and even train parents and teens on how to administer Narcan, the nasal spray used to reverse heroin overdoses.
“We need to get people off drugs and into treatment for recovery,” Sini said. “Please think of ways the SCPD can partner with you to promote drug prevention in your community.”
Cartright said she understands the importance of a partnership with local law enforcement.
“I can’t tell you the number of times that information from people in this room or from folks like you have helped us solve crimes.”
— Tim Sini
“I grew up in Queens, in an urban community where there was a lot of crime, and there was no interaction with the police department the way we interact with the police department here,” the councilwoman said. “They come in and ask, ‘how can we work with you?’ That’s something, 25 years ago, I didn’t have when I was growing up. This is not a problem we can solve alone.”
Pitti said he started the Crime Awareness Committee three years ago to shine a spotlight on a local marijuana dealer in his neighborhood. Due to his effort and a collaboration with neighbors and the police, the dealer was ultimately pushed off the block.
Even though the group has since grown, he said he wants more community involvement.
“When I first started this, I received a civic email list but, unfortunately, it was antiquated and outdated,” he said. “We’re working together on it, to try and fix it and put more emails in. That, to me, is the first problem. If we can’t call each other, how can we help each other?”
He handed out a packet to attendees of the meeting outlining ways to identify dangerous people in the community. The packet gives details on how to check if houses in a neighborhood have rental permits; report town code violations; deter underage drinking at parties and neighborhood gatherings; and a detailed physical description form to fill out upon witnessing suspicious activity.
The penalty for illegally dumping on county-owned properties may soon include jail time in Suffolk County, after legislators unanimously approved on March 28 both increased fines and the potential of up to one year’s imprisonment for anyone convicted. The bill, sponsored by Legislators Sarah Anker (D-Mount Sinai), Kara Hahn (D-Setauket), Tom Muratore (R-Ronkonkoma), Rob Trotta (R-Fort Salonga) and Kate Browning (WF-Shirley), now goes to Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) for his signature within the next 30 days.
Once implemented, maximum fines for illegal dumping of nonconstruction, demolition and hazardous material wastes by a business or corporation will increase to $15,000 from the previous fine of $5,000. The penalty for dumping nonconstruction materials by an individual will remain at $1,000. If an individual is found dumping construction or demolition material, the misdemeanor fine will increase to $10,000 for an individual and $15,000 for a corporation or business. Under the change, both an individual and someone convicted of dumping material on behalf of a commercial entity may be sentenced up to one year in jail. Imposition of the ultimate fine or criminal sentence is within the sentencing court’s discretion.
“For far too long, fines associated with illegal dumping were considered just the cost of doing business,” said Hahn, chairwoman both of the Legislature’s Parks & Recreation and Environment, Planning and Agriculture Committees. “For those who choose to pursue greed over the health of the public and our environment, your cost of business has just gotten a lot more expensive. The one-two combination of increased monetary penalties and potential jail time will hopefully give pause to any person or commercial entity that believes these significant fines and the potential loss of freedom is a cost effective business strategy.”
Illegal dumping on Long Island has emerged as a serious environmental issue and threat to public health following the discoveries of potentially toxic debris within the Town of Islip’s Roberto Clemente Park, Suffolk County’s West Hills County Park and a housing development for military veterans in Islandia. In February, New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation issued approximately 200 tickets for unlawful disposal, operating without a permit and other violations during stings conducted on Long Island and the Hudson Valley that also identified nine dumping sites upstate.
“Illegal dumping of hazardous materials and construction waste on county property causes harmful chemicals to seep into our water.”
—Sarah Anker
“For decades, Suffolk County has worked tirelessly to preserve land in order to protect our environment and groundwater,” Anker said. “Illegal dumping of hazardous materials and construction waste on county property causes harmful chemicals to seep into our water, which negatively affects our health. It is important we do everything in our power to continue to protect our parklands and to ensure that illegal dumping does not occur. By doing so, we are not only preserving the environmental integrity of Suffolk County, but improving the quality of life for all residents.”
Trotta called the dumping a crime against the residents of Suffolk County.
“I want to make it unprofitable for contractors to dump this material,” he said, “and more importantly, I want them going to jail for this.”
Browning added that the parks are vital assets for Suffolk County residents, and one of the core recreational resources available to them. She doesn’t like seeing the destruction of quality of life. Legislature Presiding Officer DuWayne Gregory (D-Amityville) agrees, saying it’s an important step to protecting parks, while giving teeth to all legislation recently passed on this quality of life issue.
“I applaud legislator Hahn for her hard work toward preventing this serious problem,” Browning said. “Aggressively attacking illegal dumping head on will ensure the sustainability of our parks and preserve one of the many reasons Suffolk County continues to be a great place to live.”
The Marty Lyons Foundation was among a group of donors who helped make a dream come true for Selden resident Andrew Rosa.
The foundation, a nonprofit organization that grants wishes to children who have been diagnosed with terminal or life-threatening illness, together with mother and son Eileen Valenti and Blake Burgan of Sachem and sisters Dawn and Kim Roesch of the Roesch Law firm in East Meadow, raised money to purchase a Quadriciser rehabilitation chair to assist in Rosa’s recovery.
Now 22 years old, Rosa was a college-bound teenager, junior firefighter, BMX biker and snowboarder. In 2010, he was struck by a car while he was riding his bike. The force of the impact left him in a coma for months while he fought for his life. He sustained a traumatic brain injury and became physically disabled, unable to walk or speak.
In 2013, Rosa’s mother JoAnn applied to the Marty Lyons Foundation for a wish for her son. While he was immediately approved for a wish, he and his family were not quite sure what would be the most appropriate wish. When Rosa’s occupational therapist discussed the great benefits of the Quadriciser with his family, it became quite evident that this was his wish.
“The goal is for Andrew to use the Quadriciser in the home setting on a regular basis to improve his physical capabilities,” his mother said. “It is our hope that he will eventually be able to stand and perhaps take a few steps on his own.”
Currently, Rosa requires 24/7 nursing care, while receiving lots of love and support from his friends and family. He is showing signs of regaining brain function as a result of the intense therapy he receives in his home.
Because this miraculous piece of equipment was way beyond the financial parameters of the organization’s guidelines, others became involved to provide outside fundraising to help Rosa. Through the efforts of the foundation’s wish coordinators, Terri Fudens and John Gordon, multiple donors generously contributed to the purchase of the Quadriciser, including a GoFundMe page set up by the Burgans, and a generous donation from the Roesch Law firm.
“Andrew’s wish took four years to complete,” Fudens said. “But it was well worth the effort.”
The Quadriciser Rosa received stimulates the brain and simultaneously encourages muscle memory in the extremities which later results in neurological connections and advancements.
The equipment lets a patient move his or her arms and legs in patterns that closely simulate walking and crawling. For the first time in years Rosa’s arms and legs can move simultaneously.
The Greater Port Jefferson Chamber of Commerce hosted its 19th annual Easter Parade down Main Street in the Village, followed by an egg hunt in Harborfront Park Easter Sunday, April 16. Hundreds of kids and their parents scoured the park for eggs to fill their baskets, and later posed for photos with the Easter Bunny.
Suffolk County Police have arrested a man for driving while intoxicated following a motor vehicle crash that critically injured his passenger in Melville April 14.
Alvarado Barrios-Martinez was driving a 1996 Honda Accord north on Route 110 when he hit a 2014 Subaru Outback, which was stopped at the red light at the intersection of Route 110 and Arrowwood Lane. The Subaru was forced into a third vehicle, a 2016 BMW X3, which was also stopped at the red light.
A male passenger from the Honda was transported to Huntington Hospital in critical condition with a head injury. A female passenger was treated for non-life threatening injuries at Huntington Hospital.
Barrios-Martinez, 26, of Huntington Station was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated. He was scheduled to be arraigned at First District Court in Central Islip.
All vehicles were impounded for safety checks and the investigation is ongoing. Detectives are asking anyone with information to call the Second Squad at 631-854-8252.
By Bill Landon
By Daniel Dunaief
When he was in high school in Negenborn, Germany, Percy Zahl built his own computer, with some help from one of his father’s friends. Nowadays, Zahl spends considerable time improving the computer capability of an open-source community drive software project that helps researchers see structures and interactions at a subatomic level.
Recently, Zahl, who is an associate scientist in the Proximal Probe Microscopy facility at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven National Laboratory, completed an extensive upgrade to software called Gnome X Scanning Microscopy, or GXSM, that adds a whole suite of new features. Zahl re-coded about half of the original 300,000 lines of code during this project.
The software, which is used to operate any kind of scanning probe microscopy system which includes atomic force microscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy, has a wide range of applications, from understanding catalysts that facilitate chemical reactions, to capturing gases, to biomedical sensors.
Oliver Monti, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry and a professor of physics at the University of Arizona, has been working with Zahl for over four years and has been using this system to explore atomic and molecular-scale processes that determine efficiency in plastic solar cells and other next-generation low-energy-use technologies. He said he uses the GXSM for data analysis.
Zahl “often introduces modifications and upgrades as instantaneous response to some scientific need,” which has “helped us solve specific problems efficiently,” Monti explained in an email. A former student of Monti’s needed to analyze molecule-to-molecule interactions. The two came up with an algorithm to study that and, unprompted, Zahl “introduced a version of this algorithm to his software.”
Monti said he is “very much aware of the most recent release,” which he considers a “major upgrade” and he is in the process of installing it. The new software allows the export of images in formats such as PDF and SVG, which are editable and resolution independent, Zahl explained. A PDF output of a graph has publication quality, while the images with high-resolution displays are enhanced and sharper than the previous bitmap PNG files.
The upgrade also includes making a remote control process for automating scanning and manipulation tasks “easy to use,” which is a “big plus for less experienced users,” Zahl explained. It can help automate complex or tedious repetitive jobs. As an example, Zahl said the need to scan an image that takes 10 minutes each for 20 different settings creates a laborious task. “I can either sit there and enter manually a new number every 10 minutes” or he can program a script that he made to use a list of bias voltages and hit execute in the new remote console, he explained, leaving him time to work on other projects for the next two hours and 20 minutes.
Recently, Zahl ran a spectra covering the area of a molecule, which is a task he can do reliably without worrying about user typos or errors. An additional noncontact atomic force microscopy simulation plug-in module provides researchers with a more efficient way to generate data. The new approach measures the force between atoms and molecules of the surface of a sample and a probe smaller than the diameter of an atom. Zahl has calculated and simulated forces between atoms, taking into account all atoms of a molecule and the probe atom and finds the equilibrium position of his probe. Using that three-dimensional force field, he can extract an image that he compares to the model.
Zahl spends about three quarters of his time working with users like Monti, while he dedicates the remaining time to his own projects. He appreciates the opportunity to work with many different systems and with people in a wide range of scientific disciplines.
“It’s really as diverse as it can get in this particular field of fundamental surface science — a specialty of solid state physics,” Zahl explained in an email. He has the experience to work with many different sample types while still continuing to learn “all the tricks on how to get the best images possible.”
Monti appreciates Zahl’s dedication to his work. “Data processing and analysis can be challenging,” he explained. His students often compare a trip to BNL to drinking from a firehose.
Zahl has been “essential in helping us figure out how to sift through the data and quickly focus on the most important observations,” Monti added. That appreciation extends well beyond Monti’s lab. “Whenever I meet colleagues across the world who had the pleasure to interact with [Zahl], they lavish praise on his scientific and technical expertise,” Monti said.
Bruce Koel, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University, appreciated Zahl’s contribution to his research on chemical reactions at surfaces. Zahl has “enabled us to do very high impact research,” Koel explained in an email. This work would “not have been possible without [Zahl’s] technical support and guidance about what experiments could be done.”
A resident of Rocky Point, Zahl rides the 20 miles to work as often as he can on one of several of his bicycles. An avid cyclist, Zahl has a high-end racing bike, a commuter bike and a mountain bike from those “beloved times” riding mountain trails in Switzerland.
In Chile, he reached a top speed of around 56 miles per hour descending the Osorno Volcano. In a YouTube video of his ride, he can be seen passing a car in a clearing along the windy road.
As for his work, Zahl remains committed to continuing to improve the software scientists use to enhance their visual understanding of the small surfaces of the substances they study. “I am pretty much always working on some new details or fixing this and that tiny issue,” he said. “No software is ever done. It’s evolving.”
“The first duty of wine is to be red. The second is to be a Burgundy.”
— Alec Waugh, 1898-1981, British novelist, “In Praise of Wine,” 1959
By Bob Lipinski
The superb 2015 vintage is described by Jancis Robinson, M.W. as “seriously impressive.” The vintage produced excellent red and white wines across the board. The red wines I tasted were loaded with heaps of ripe, concentrated fruit, good acidity and considerable flavor. The whites displayed a fine balance between fruit, acidity and alcohol. Fruit was dominant in most of the wines I tasted with a striking array of flavors.
At a recent trade tasting featuring the 2015 Burgundies, there were more than 100 wines to taste, and although I tried my best, I couldn’t taste them all! Below are some of my tasting notes.
2015 J.J. Vincent, Pouilly-Fuissé “Marie Antoinette”: (The name a tribute to Jean Jacques Vincent’s mother, Marie Antoinette Vincent): Pale straw-colored with an abundant bouquet of almonds, green apples, and citrus. Medium-bodied and quite refined, with layers of peach, melon and minerals.
2015 Château Fuissé, Pouilly-Fuissé “Tête de Cru”: Light and quite refreshing bouquet of minerals and apples with some toasted notes. Flavor is rich, tasting of vanilla, yellow plum and citrus.
2015 Château Fuissé, Pouilly-Fuissé “Les Combettes”: Bouquet of citrus, tropical fruit and pear. In the mouth, it is refreshing, medium-bodied and balanced, with flavors of yellow plums, orange and licorice.
2015 Château Fuissé, Pouilly-Fuissé “Les Brûlés”: Light straw-colored with a light bouquet of pear, apples and citrus. A full-flavored wine tasting very much of honey, butterscotch, coconut, toasted nuts and vanilla.
2015 Billaud-Simon, Chablis “1er Cru Mont de Milieu”: Complex nose combines citrus fruit with melon notes, enticing tangerine flavor and firm acidity.
2015 Billaud-Simon, Chablis “1er Cru Vaillons”: Medium-bodied, dry, lively and clean tasting with flavors of spices, peach and orange and a minerally finish and well-balanced aftertaste.
2015 Billaud-Simon, Chablis “Vaudésir Grand Cru”: A spicy bouquet and flavor of oranges, peaches and melon, with plenty of vanilla. Clean, minerally finish and lingering aftertaste.
2015 Billaud-Simon, Chablis “Montée de Tonnerre 1er”: Refreshing aroma of oranges, peaches and citrus. Nutty with flavors of tart tangerine, melon and a sort of minerally chalky character.
2015 Armand Rousseau,“Gevrey-Chambertin”: Deeply colored with a medium-full bouquet of plums, roses, violets and citrus. Full in the mouth with tart plums and spicy cherries. Great finish.
2015 Armand Rousseau, “Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru”: Deep ruby color; full bouquet of raspberries and Marasca cherries; silky with layers of berries, light tannins and citrus. What a wine!
2015 Armand Rousseau, “Clos de la Roche Grand Cru”: Bright ruby color: bouquet of jammy spices, plums, cola and cinnamon. Almost a sweetness in the mouth with concentrated fruit, tannin and berries.
2015 Armand Rousseau, “Chambertin Grand Cru”: This wine stole the show (to me). Sweet, concentrated, jammy, spicy fruit; layers of fruit, blackberries, chocolate and damson plums.
Bob Lipinski, a local author, has written 10 books, including “101: Everything You Need to Know About Whiskey” and “Italian Wine & Cheese Made Simple” (available on Amazon.com). He conducts training seminars on wine, spirits and food and is available for speaking engagements. He can be reached at www.boblipinski.com or [email protected]m.
From left, Valerie D. Cartright (D-Port Jefferson Station), Jane Bonner (C-Rocky Point), Richard Baer, Ed Romaine (R), Brian Jablonsky, Neil Foley (R-Blue Point), Kevin LaValle, Dan Panico (R-Manorville), Michael Loguercio (R-Ridge) and Town Clerk Donna Lent (R). Photo from Town of Brookhaven
At the April 6 Town Board meeting, Councilman Kevin LaValle (R-Selden) honored Albert’s Pizza as Business of the Month for March in Council District 3. The award is given to a business deserving special recognition for the positive impact it has on the community.
Owned by Richard Baer and Brian Jablonsky, Albert’s Pizza has been an outstanding community partner for many years, providing jobs for local residents. Baer, who has lived in Ronkonkoma for over 30 years, recently launched his “Imagine the Pizzabillities” campaign. It is a “pay-it-forward” program where people come in, buy a pizza, decorate the box and have it sent to someone in the community to brighten their day.
“Rich and Brian have made a big difference in the lives of so many people, and that is what community is all about. I am happy to recognize them and all the folks who work at Albert’s Pizza as the CD 3 March Business of the Month. It’s a well-deserved honor,” said LaValle. Albert’s Pizza is located at 601-9 Portion Road, Ronkonkoma, in the Lake Shore Plaza. For more information, call 631-467-4674.
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