Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and Suffolk County Police Sixth Precinct Crime Section officers are seeking the public’s help to identify and locate the man who allegedly stole from a South Setauket store this month
A man allegedly stole assorted items from Target, located at 265 Pond Path, on May 8. The merchandise was valued at approximately $980.
Suffolk County Crime Stoppers offers a cash reward for information that leads to an arrest. Anyone with information about these incidents can contact Suffolk County Crime
Stoppers to submit an anonymous tip by calling 1-800-220 TIPS, utilizing a mobile app which can be downloaded through the App Store or Google Play by searching P3 Tips, or online at www.P3Tips.com. All calls, text messages and emails will be kept confidential.
A view of Owl Pond in Flanders. Photo by John Turner
A Pine Barrens trail in Flanders. Photo by John Turner
A trail in the pine barrens. Photo by John Turner
A trail in the Pine Barrens. Photo by John Turner
A pink lady slipper orchid growing in the Pine Barrens. Photo by John Turner
A view of Sears Pond in the Pine Barrens. Photo by John Turner
A trail in the Pine Barrens. Photo by John Turner
A trail in the Pine Barrens. Photo by John Turner
Atlantic White Cedar in the Pine Barrens. Photo by John Turner
By John L. Turner
John Turner
It’s a warm Spring day and I’m relaxing on a bench on the edge of Swezey’s Pond within Cranberry Bog County Nature Preserve. Situated in western Southampton Town, about three quarters of a mile south of the Riverhead traffic circle, the preserve contains the remains of one of the larger commercial cranberry bogs that once prospered on Long Island.
The light is bright and the warmth most inviting, both for me and the eight painted turtles of various sizes that have scrambled up on two nearby logs. At first the water appears to be still but looking a little more closely I can see a current moving from right to left or from south to north. This water drains from Wildwood Lake about a mile to the south providing the base flow to the Little River, one of the four tributaries to the Peconic River.
At the far end of the pond a ghost white American Egret stalks the shallows and to its right, much closer to me, I hear the “phoe-be” call of a spring migrant Eastern Phoebe flitting around the spindly-spiraled top of an Atlantic White Cedar.
I am in the middle of the Pine Barrens, the largest intact forest remaining on Long Island, protected by state law after a long and intense legal battle that Newsday called the “War in the Woods.” It was a battle well worth fighting as the protection of the tens of thousands of contiguous pine-clad acres adds immeasurably to the quality of life of Long Islanders.
From a pragmatic point of view the Pine Barrens sits over the largest and cleanest groundwater supplies on Long Island with an estimated five trillion gallons of water contained in the saturated sands beneath the barrens. Also, the Pine Barrens is ecologically significant as it provides habitat to many hundredsof species of plants and animals, some with novel adaptations that enable them to survive wildfire and other harsh conditions of the ecosystem.
And like Manhattan’s Central Park, a destination forcountless visitors and city dwellers, the Pine Barrens, Long Island’s Central Park, will, through time, become the same. Already used by many Long Islanders to hike, camp, bird, and canoe, the Pine Barrens will undoubtedlybe visited by many more as it becomes better known.
Pitch Pine is the dominant plant of the Pine Barrens and provides half of the epithet — the Pine Barrens (the other half relates to the sandy, porous, and nutrient-poor soils that underlie the area). In many places, typically areas that have burned more frequently,it is the only tree found; in other areas of the Pine Barrens it shares the canopy with various oak species such as scarlet, white, and black oak.
Beneath the canopy, in the shrub layer, two dwarf oaks — bear oak and dwarf chestnut oak — form extensive thickets. These oaks are genetically dwarfed and even if their acorns are planted in soils rich in nutrients, the species will never obtain the height of our native tree oaks. Intermingled in these shrubby thickets are the heath species, such as black huckleberry, and early and late lowbush blueberries. On the forest floor where there’s ample sunlight you can find both common and striped wintergreen and the beautiful trailing arbutus.
In the wetlands a host of other plant species abound — water lilies in the open water of ponds and lakes to a number of rare plants growing in the shallow water near shorelines and along the sandy shorelines themselves — including several carnivorous plant species as bladderworts and sundews. Highbush blueberry rings many wetlands and fills small bogs. These wetlands provide habitat toturtles, frogs, toads, and salamanders while ovenbirds, scarlet tanagers, whip-poor-wills, pine warblers, and may other songbirds fill the forests and wetlands with song.
Fire has long played a dominating role in shaping the character of these pine dominated forests, having swept through the barrens for thousands of years. Many of the plants and animals have adapted to fire with pitch pine having thick bark; in the unique and globally rare dwarf pine plains the dwarf pines depend upon fire to open their cones which remain resolutely closed in fire’s absence.
It’s no accident that nearly one hundred square miles of the Pine Barrens has been permanently preserved. Were it not for the direct and intensive intervention of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, both in the courts and in the court of public opinion, the Pine Barrens would, no doubt, have succumbed to development. But in a classic David (the Society, other conservation organizations) vs. Goliath (municipalities and wealthy, well-heeled developers) contest, the environmental community won with the passage of the 1993 Pine Barrens Protection Act that established the 105,000 acre Central Pine Barrens including the 55,000 acre Core Preservation Area in which development is not allowed.
All Long Islanders will long be the beneficiaries of the Pine Barrens being preserved and this preservation effort has a unique aspect to it: it ensures in a bi-county region, cheek-to-jowl with one housing subdivision after another, surrounding industrial parks, strip shopping centers and large malls, where 2.7 million Long Islanders work, live, and play, there will always be wildness available — a wild character where if you’re positioned in the hollow of the morainal hills in Manorville you will hear no human sounds, where at night the pin prick light of stars shine amidst the inky blackness and from which the rhythmic calls of the whip-poor-will or deep hoots of the great horned owl can still be heard. It is a landscape where, in so many places you can hike on meandering trails for many miles and see no one, or evidence of anyone save the footprints of fellow hikers seeking the same solitude.
A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.
Hauppauge United Methodist Church Photo by Corey Geske;
By Corey Geske
The headstone of Alfred Griffin
Trustees of the Hauppauge Rural Cemetery connected to the Hauppauge United Methodist Church have sponsored marble markers for previously unmarked graves of Civil War veterans. The first inscribed is for Alfred Griffin, a Landsman, U.S. Navy, former enslaved and self-emancipated Black man whose first name and record were previously unknown. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs engraved and delivered the government headstone to be placed at his gravesite. Cemetery Trustees and the Society of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a non-profit fraternal organization, plan a graveside rededication ceremony on Saturday, June 17 at 10 a.m. at the cemetery adjacent to the Church. That weekend precedes the federal holiday of Juneteenth, which marks the end of slavery in the U.S. in 1865.
Built in 1806, the Hauppauge church and its cemetery in the township of Smithtown were listed in 2020 on the State and National Registers of Historic Places. The Hauppauge Rural Cemetery includes veterans from as far back as the Revolutionary War through today. The cemetery’s Civil War markers tell of young Wessels Payne (1844-1864) killed at Fort Harrison, VA by a Rebel sharpshooter and Daniel O. Hubbs (1835-1862), who died on the USS Horace Beals near Fort Jackson, LA, blockading Confederate ports in Gulf waters where Alfred Griffin escaped enslavement and joined the U.S. Navy.
Fought to be free to fight
Since his death 125 years ago, generation to generation at the church remembered that Mr. Griffin [first name unknown] made his escape from enslavement and fought in the Civil War. Cemetery Trustees have long sought to identify Mr. Griffin’s full name. Their oral history provided enough clues for me to reconstruct his life story in my 2021 report “Enslaved, Escaped, Emancipated, Enlisted,” referenced by Veterans Affairs and on file with the State of New York Office of Historic Preservation.
Searching for Mr. Griffin’s identity
My search for Mr. Griffin’s first name and life dates across seventy years of census data extended to possible family in the Hauppauge area. In 1900, one possible relation, age 10, named ‘George Griffin,’ was boarding at a Hauppauge home next door to a brick mason west of the church. The 1900 and 1910 censuses, recording parental birthplaces, documented George’s father as born in Florida and Alabama, respectively, suggesting he may have been an enslaved brick mason working at U.S. forts built from millions of bricks near Pensacola, FL. It began to look like George’s father could be Mr. Griffin. In 1920, George was living in Bay Shore and veterans’ records brought to light his full name, ‘George Alfred Griffin’ (1890-1974), offering two potential first names for his father.
Relying on church history relating Mr. Griffin was a veteran, I located an ‘Alfred Griffin’ born in Pensacola, FL in the ship’s crew of the USS Circassian’s 1863 muster rolls posted by the National Parks Service. His veterans pension [November 23, 1895] was subsequently located, with his mark signed at Smithtown to his statement, “My correct name is Alfred Griffin . . . I do not write. . .” When census data, military records, and newspaper primary sources were put together, they provided answers once lost to enslavement.
The previously “unknown” Alfred Griffin was born circa 1828 and died December 11, 1897. Mr. Griffin’s just-identified Brooklyn Daily Eagle obituary [December 13, 1897], described him as a mechanic and brick mason, “highly respected . . . in the community,” but did not mention his Navy service. Now, Mr. Griffin’s ‘ship’ has been set right by the Hauppauge church’s collective memory, proved to correspond directly to his life.
Freed ‘off Mobile’
USS Huntsville, 1859. Watercolor (1945) by Erik Heyl for his book Early American Steamers. Courtesy Naval History and Heritage Command.
On July 6, 1861, twelve weeks after the Civil War began, two Black persons, ’Alfred’ and ‘George,’ were granted their independence off Mobile, AL. When brought aboard the 860-ton U.S. Steamer Huntsville, part of the Union’s Gulf Blockade Squadron patrolling the Confederacy’s coastline from Key West, FL to Mexico, Commander Cicero Price (1805-1888) effectively emancipated them.
Entered into the muster roll as “Supernumeraries” added to a crew already at its prescribed number of 64, Alfred and George were protected as part of the ship’s complement. Implementing the July 4, 1776 Declaration of Independence proclaiming “all men are created equal,” and eighteen months before President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freeing the enslaved, future Commodore Price wasted no time putting pen to paper. He had already fought for emancipation, having seen the horrors of enslavement before the Civil War, when serving on the U.S. Africa Squadron blockading enslavers’ ships on the Atlantic enslavement trade’s dreaded Middle Passage that transported kidnapped African people to enslaved labor.
Eyewitness to ‘Freedom’s Fortress’
‘Alfred’ added the surname ‘Griffin’ to his person when officially enlisting aboard the Huntsville on November 25, 1861. He soon saw action fighting the Confederacy. Off Mobile Bay, Christmas Eve, 1861, Huntsville engaged in an hour-long battle turning back the Florida, a steamer of superior force challenging the Union blockade, followed in January 1862, with Huntsville assisting in capturing a rebel schooner, again off Mobile.
Then, on December 9, 1863, in one of the most internationally famous Union Navy victories of the Civil War, Alfred’s next ship, the USS Circassian, captured the British blockade runner Minna near Wilmington, NC, severing an international lifeline supplying the South’s ironclad fleet. The Circassian towed its prize to the Virginia coast, where Alfred Griffin saw the Union’s Fort Monroe, the so-called ‘Freedom’s Fortress,’ granting sanctuary to thousands of escaping enslaved people, many joining the Union Army.
Brick mason builds in Smithtown
Mr. Griffin was honorably discharged in New York, the Huntsville’s port of launch, when that ship was decommissioned in 1862. He reenlisted in the Navy and served as a Landsman into 1864. After the war, he returned to New York and became a resident of Brooklyn, working as a ‘boss’ brick mason, described in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle as doing the work of two men, setting 4,000 bricks in a day.
Mr. Griffin and his family moved to Smithtown in the early 1880s apparently influenced by Rev. Henry Highland Garnet (1815-1882). At age fifteen, after having escaped enslavement, Garnet was given sanctuary in 1830, at the Smithtown home of Epenetus Smith II (1769-1832) before it was moved.
In a Brooklyn sermon of 1879, Garnet said of Epenetus’s son Samuel Arden Smith (1804-1884) then in attendance, “if I have ever been useful to you or to the world, it was greatly owing to him; and I desire those of my friends who feel so disposed to come up to this stand and be introduced to him.” Garnet, a renowned abolitionist, would be the first Black speaker to deliver a sermon before the U.S. House of Representatives, marking Congressional passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing enslavement; the new law of the land proclaimed December 18, 1865.
In the early 1880s, Mr. Griffin appears to have built his home of brick in Smithtown Branch south of Main Street on Hauppauge Road (Route 111), neighboring Samuel Arden Smith. The Smith family inherited the fortune of merchant A.T. Stewart (1803-1876), including his Garden City Company brick business, which supplied bricks used in Smithtown, likely by Mr. Griffin.
Later moved east on Main Street to the Smithtown Historical Society grounds, the ‘Epenetus Smith Tavern’ where Garnet received sanctuary in 1830, was originally located north of Main, proximate to today’s Town Hall near where the Smithtown Branch Methodist Episcopal Church was then located, and where Mr. Griffin’s funeral was held.
Smithtown’s freed enslaved men and women would regularly meet about a block south and in 1910, their descendants would build Trinity African Methodist Episcopal Church on New York Avenue. Alfred Griffin was a prosperous mechanic, skilled brick mason known for his business ethic, and member of the fraternal organization of Free and Accepted Masons that worked to build the African American community after the war.
Alfred Griffin’s known descendants
Alfred Griffin married Mary Dixon (c. 1850-aft. 1897-before 1900), whose father born in the West Indies was possibly enslaved. Their children included Mary (c. 1873-unknown); Corie (c. 1876-c. 1899), and George Alfred. Corie Griffin Jackson had three children born in Hauppauge: Alonzo, Paul, and Cora.
Little is known of ‘George,’ rescued with ‘Alfred’ in July 1861, both assigned the singular job of “steward” aboard the Huntsville, suggesting, perhaps, that Alfred brought a young son on his journey to freedom. We do know Alfred Griffin’s son born in 1890 in Smithtown Branch, was named ‘George Alfred Griffin.’
A U.S. Army veteran Of World War I, George, a carpenter, married Minnie Mitchel (c. 1889-aft. 1938), a widow with two daughters, Daisy and Marguerite. The Griffins’ daughter, Jean, was born c. 1927. In 1918, Minnie was a founder of Bethany Baptist Church, built near the Griffins’ home, likely with George’s expertise, and dedicated in 1921, becoming First Baptist Church on Second Avenue in Bay Shore.
About the author:Independent historian Corey Geske of Smithtown has identified lost titles of Hudson River School paintings mistitled on museum and library walls, as well as internationally known, yet forgotten owners and architects of Smithtown’s historic structures. Since 2016, to generate incoming grant money for downtown Smithtown, she has proposed recognition of historic places, notably through a new National Register Historic District focused on the c. 1752 Arthur House, identifying it as the home of Mary Woodhull Arthur, daughter of Washington’s chief spy, Culper, Sr. She prepared the report resulting in determination of the Smithtown Bull as Eligible for the National Register (2018) and wrote the successful National Register nominations (2019) for the Byzantine Catholic Church of the Resurrection and its Rectory, and with SHPO, for the Hauppauge United Methodist Church and Rural Cemetery (2020).
Each year, 805,000 people in the U.S. have heart attacks, or myocardial infarctions —about one every 40 seconds (1). These statistics traverse race and gender lines, even though symptoms may be experienced differently. Outcomes for those having a heart attack are significantly better if they receive immediate medical attention. First, however, you need to recognize the symptoms.
What are symptoms of aheart attack?
The most recognizable symptom is chest pain. However, there are a number of other, more subtle, symptoms such as discomfort or pain in the jaw, neck, back, arms and epigastric, or upper abdominal areas. Others include nausea, shortness of breath, sweating, light-headedness and tachycardia (racing heart rate).
Unfortunately, less than one-third of people know these symptoms (2). About 10 percent of patients present with atypical symptoms — without chest pain — according to one study (3).
It is not only difficult for the patient but also for the medical community, especially the emergency room, to determine who is having a heart attack. Fortunately, approximately 80 to 85 percent of chest pain sufferers are not having a heart attack. More likely, they have indigestion, reflux or other non-life-threatening ailments. However, don’t hesitate to seek immediate medical attention; it’s better to have a medical professional rule out a heart attack than to ignore one.
Are heart attack symptoms different for men and women?
There has been much discussion about whether men and women have different symptoms when it comes to heart attacks. Several studies speak to this topic.
There is data showing that, although men have heart attacks more commonly, women are more likely to die from a heart attack (4). In a Swedish study, after having a heart attack, a significantly greater number of women died in the hospital or near-term when compared to men. The women received reperfusion therapy, artery opening treatment that consisted of medications or invasive procedures, less often than the men.
However, recurrent heart attacks occurred at the same rate, regardless of sex. Both men and women had similar findings on an electrocardiogram. This was a study involving approximately 54,000 heart attack patients, with one-third being women.
One theory about why women receive less aggressive treatment when first presenting in the ER is that they have different and more subtle symptoms — even chest pain symptoms may be different. But, is this true? Not according to several studies.
In one observational study of 2,500 patients with chest pain, results showed that, though there were some subtle differences, when men and women presented with this main symptom, it was of a similar nature (5). There were 34 chest pain characteristic questions used to determine if a difference existed. These included location, quality or type of pain and duration. Of these, there was some small amount of divergence: the duration was shorter for a man (2 to 30 minutes), and pain subsided more for men than for women. The authors concluded that determination of heart attacks with chest pain symptoms should not factor in the sex of patients.
This trial involved an older population; patients were a median age of 70 for women and 59 for men, with more men having had a prior heart attack. The population difference was a conspicuous weakness of an otherwise solid study, since age and previous heart attack history are important factors.
In the GENESIS-PRAXY study, another observational study, the median age of both men and women was 49. Results showed that chest pain remained the most prevalent presenting symptom in both men and women (6). However, of the patients who presented without distinct chest pain and with less specific EKG findings, significantly more were women than men.
Those who did not have chest pain symptoms may have experienced back discomfort, weakness, discomfort or pain in the throat, neck, right arm and/or shoulder, flushing, nausea, vomiting and headache. If the patients did not have chest pain, regardless of sex, the symptoms were diffuse and nonspecific.
Some studies imply that as much as 35 percent of patients do not present with chest pain as their primary complaint (7).
What should you do if someone is having a heart attack?
Call 911 immediately, and have the patient chew an adult aspirin (325 mg) or four baby aspirins, provided they do not have a condition that precludes taking aspirin. The purpose of aspirin is to thin the blood quickly, but not if the person might have a ruptured blood vessel. The 911 operator or emergency medical technician who responds can help you determine whether aspirin is appropriate.
What are the most frequently occurring heart attack symptoms to watch for?
Most patients have chest pain, and both men and women have similar types of chest pain. However, this is where the simplicity stops and the complexity begins. The percentage of patients who present without chest pain seems to vary significantly depending on which study you review — ranging from less than 10 percent to 35 percent.
Non-chest pain heart attacks have a bevy of diffuse symptoms, including obscure pain, nausea, shortness of breath and light-headedness. This is seen in both men and women, although it occurs more often in women. It’s important to recognize heart attack symptoms, since quick action can save your life or that of a loved one.
Dr. David Dunaief is a speaker, author and local lifestyle medicine physician focusing on the integration of medicine, nutrition, fitness and stress management. For further information, visit www.medicalcompassmd.com or consult your personal physician.
Port Jefferson Village trustee Stan Loucks on his bid for reelection. Sketch by Kyle Horne: @kylehorneart • kylehorneart.com
If reelected, what would be your top priority during the coming term?
I want to go forward successfully with a plan to capture water — not only to give us more water at the golf course but to protect the environment.
The water now that’s running rampant, a lot of it is dumping right into the Long Island Sound. We have a large spillway that goes right alongside our golf course. All that water we’re going to try to collect, putting it in ponds on the golf course.
The water we collect will be purified before we put it on the golf course. We’re going to have a system to sanitize the water.
The one pond we have now is filled with turtles, fish and wildlife. I’d like nothing better than to see more water on our golf course.
How do you intend to help guide ongoing bluff stabilization efforts at East Beach and maximize the potential of the village-owned Port Jefferson Country Club?
The lower wall is basically complete. The bluff itself — except directly underneath the clubhouse — has been stabilized.
It’s all been raked out, leveled out and covered with a heavy-duty burlap. And both the east and west portions of the bluff project are fairly complete. Now we’re waiting for [the Federal Emergency Management Administration] to come through with the money to begin phase II of the bluff project — an upper wall.
Our goal at this point in time is to save that structure, our clubhouse up there now. Prior to FEMA, maybe my thoughts would be different. But that [$3.75] million we’re getting from FEMA is a game changer for the taxpayers and the village.
What is the proper role of the Board of Trustees in overseeing new developments and redevelopment of village parcels?
We’re running out of space for further development, barring, for example, uptown. Many developers have come in there and bought out a lot of the businesses.
Beyond the master plan, a lot of that development came in as a way to replace revenue lost from [the Long Island Power Authority glide path settlement]. Unfortunately, the Town of Brookhaven controls the [Industrial Development Agency] tax situation.
When those developers come in and get a tax break, that’s not on us. That’s very unfortunate because, in the first two or three years, they pay a very small percentage of what they should be paying.
The village has probably reached its max in development. Maryhaven is kind of a foggy area for me right now. I was not involved in any of the discussions leading up to the [May 1] public hearing. I think some of the board members were a little surprised.
I have some great ideas, but I’m not so sure that, moneywise, the village can afford my great ideas. We have some major [flooding] problems with the fire department, Village Hall and all of Theatre Three. The village is built in a bowl, and as we keep developing more buildings and more blacktops, water has nowhere to go. Things are going to deteriorate and get worse downtown.
If I had a magic wand, Maryhaven would be a village possession. Village Hall, the parks department, the fire department — everything can go on that property. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. I definitely would not want and would not vote for any kind of apartment complex to go in there — we have enough of that.
Would I like to see more homes in the village and more green space? Absolutely. But I think we’ve reached the point of density that we want to be at in terms of building in the village.
How can the village alleviate its parking capacity challenges while balancing the competing parking interests of residents, businesses and tourists?
The only solution I see is a parking facility — a parking garage.
It would not be a subsurface parking garage because of the water table in Port Jefferson. Where I would put it, I don’t know, but that’s the only solution I can see — a two-story, maybe three-story parking garage somewhere in the village.
We do have some vacant land that the village owns. It’s the location, the acceptance or rejection of that location and the concept. Some people don’t like parking garages, but I can’t see a solution beyond that.
Would you support resurrecting the parking committee?
I think a parking committee should be in place. The more people you can get ideas from, the better off you are.
What is your preferred method for engaging the public?
It’s about time that we’ve got a [civic] organization that’s going to take an interest in what’s going on in our village.
I have spent eight years as a trustee, and it was always amazing to me — I’d go to a board meeting and see eight people sitting in the audience. Yet you have all these major problems — parking, flooding, code enforcement.
I come from a small village upstate where their civic association was half the village’s population. It’s a valuable organization — to get information from the people who live there.
I was very pleased the other night with that whole scenario [during the May 1 public hearing]. People were sincere, they were civil and they gave a lot of good feedback. I hope the [Port Jefferson] Civic Association stays active, and I hope they stay in the direction that they’re going in.
When they talk about zoning, I don’t think that’s negative. That’s a sincere concern. The board can listen to the public more, and it’d be nice if even the Planning Board exposed themselves more to the public. I like hearing from the public, and I think that’s important.
What is your professional background, and how does it apply to the duties of a trustee?
My professional background is in education. A graduate of [SUNY] Cortland, I started as a phys ed teacher. At that time, I immediately started my education at Hofstra University, receiving a master’s degree in secondary school administration, then continued my education and got a master’s degree in districtwide administration.
I moved from a physical education teacher to the local athletic director. Throughout my career, I coached girls tennis, boys golf, boys basketball and varsity football. After 34 years in Plainview, I retired in 1995.
One year after the village purchased the [Port Jefferson] Country Club, I got involved in tennis, belonging to the tennis membership up at the country club. I got involved on the tennis board and became chairman, then moved over to the golf side when it became reasonably priced. I got involved with the board of governors, became president and was later appointed to the [Country Club Management Advisory Committee].
In 2013, [Mayor] Margot [Garant] asked me to run for trustee. At that point in time, I was not interested. In 2015, I did relent and ran for trustee and was elected. I was elected again in 2017, 2019 and 2021, and I’m running again now.
I am involved in the recreation and parks in the village. And, of course, the country club is my main goal. Right now, we have a lot of projects going on up there.
My entire career, my goal has been to work for people and work with students of all ages and backgrounds. My main interest right now is to continue working in pretty much the same direction I have been going in. I’m interested in serving the public, continuing what I did for 34 years [in education].
Note to our readers
We intend to interview each of the declared candidates for village office, starting with those running for trustee, then mayor. In keeping with past practice, we first interview incumbents seeking reelection, followed by nonincumbents, selected alphabetically.
The Port Jefferson Power Station. Photo by Raymond Janis
The Environmental Protection Agency’s new regulations concerning power plants could have dramatic consequences for communities across the North Shore.
The EPA is proposing emissions caps and further guidelines for fossil-fuel-burning power plants.
The proposed guidelines aim to “set limits for new gas-fired combustion turbines, existing coal, oil and gas-fired steam generating units, and certain existing gas-fired combustion turbines,” according to an EPA statement.
While we certainly acknowledge the need for government to intervene in the spread of planet-warming carbon, we expect these regulations to have severe consequences for our local communities.
Generations ago, residents of Port Jefferson and Northport planned their communities around these power plant facilities. Power plants have represented a lucrative tax base for these communities, subsidizing several important community ends.
In exchange for the industrial activities taking place at these plants, residents saw opportunities — opportunities for better schools, better services and a better way of life. Now these opportunities may remain only aspirational.
Local governments and school districts are already struggling as it is. Between inflation and rising costs, further declines in public revenue will only compound the financial troubles of our public institutions. Yet, despite the challenges ahead, plans must start moving now.
At the local level, municipalities and school districts that rely upon LIPA subsidies should begin imagining a future in which those subsidies no longer exist. If plants start shuttering, public officials will be tasked with plugging enormous holes in their budgets. What are their plans to do that?
We are seeing warming temperatures and the changing climate affecting a wide array of local issues. From coastal erosion to prolonged droughts to intensifying flooding and countless other concerns, this global environmental phenomenon is already reshaping our local policies — and soon our bottom line.
Using fossil-fuel-powered plants to subsidize our way of life has become increasingly untenable. Municipal and school district officials may soon face some extremely uncomfortable discretionary choices.
For this reason, it is time for our leaders to adopt a policy of radical acceptance and realism. Relocating waterfront properties inland, conserving our scarce water supply and protecting open spaces are some ways to meet this moment. But the necessary conversations about taxes and budgets need to happen as well.
With a new frame of mind, we can rise to the challenges ahead. We can adapt our communities to the changing environment.
With a clear focus and sober long-term thinking, let us cease denying the transformations happening before our eyes. Instead let us plan to deal with them.
Suffolk County Police Seventh Squad detectives are investigating a motor vehicle crash that seriously injured a bicyclist in Sound Beach on May 19.
Matthew Aparicio was riding a bicycle eastbound on the North Shore Rail Trail, when he stopped at the intersection of Hallock Landing Road at a stop sign. He proceeded through the intersection, where he was struck in the crosswalk by a 1997 Ford Super Duty truck traveling southbound on Hallock Landing Road, at approximately 4:35 p.m.
Aparicio, 20, of Miller Place, was airlifted by Suffolk County Police helicopter to Stony Brook University Hospital for treatment of serious injuries. The driver of the Ford, Luis Delgado, 27, of Riverhead, was not injured.
Detectives are asking anyone with information on the crash to contact the Seventh Squad at 631-852- 8752.
New proposed EPA regulations may affect the Northport Power Station, pictured above. File photo
By Aidan Johnson
The Biden administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced new proposed regulations on May 11 that would require most power plants fired by fossil fuels to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent between 2035 and 2040. Plants that do not meet these requirements may have to close down entirely, according to the new plan.
Starting in 2030, the EPA guidelines would generally require more CO2 emissions controls for power plants that operate more frequently, phasing increasingly stringent CO2 requirements over time, an EPA statement said.
If passed, the new requirements would likely impact the Port Jefferson and Northport power stations, both fired by natural gas.
The EPA projects the carbon reductions under the new guidelines would help avoid over 600 million metric tons of CO2 released into the atmosphere from 2028 to 2042, “along with tens of thousands of tons of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and fine particulate matter,” the statement reads.
This new proposal comes over four years after the Long Island Power Authority, which buys all of the Port Jefferson Power Station’s power, settled its tax lawsuit with the Town of Brookhaven and the Village of Port Jefferson.
“The terms of settlement shelter us from having to pay back taxes (taxes collected during the 6-year-long court battle) while also providing a glide path moving forward over the next 8 years, during which the 50% reduction of tax revenue can be absorbed,” Village of Port Jefferson Mayor Margot Garant said in a 2019 statement.
The new EPA standards represent a step toward alleviating the climate crisis, according to the Biden administration. Their impact, however, will likely be felt locally given that a sizable portion of PJV’s budget is subsidized by the plant. This applies to other local institutions, such as the Port Jefferson Fire Department and school district.
Bruce Miller, former Port Jefferson Village trustee, said in an interview that it is technologically feasible to remove carbon dioxide and other polluting gasses from the smoke stacks. He also maintains that the possibility of using hydrogen, a clean fuel source, remains an option.
“The thing that I’m talking to National Grid [the owner of the plant] about is hydrogen,” Miller said. “Will they be thinking in terms of possibly a combined cycle plant in Port Jefferson? That would be our hope.”
These talks are still preliminary as the proposed regulations are still subject to a public comment period. “Whether National Grid and LIPA would want to make the investment to put some hydrogen-powered combined cycle plants — redo the Port Jefferson plant — is a huge question mark,” Miller indicated. “I don’t have an answer for that or even a projection.”
The former trustee added that the impact to local budgets could be “substantial,” noting, “It’s going to be a major adjustment if that plant goes offline.”
While the long-term plans for the plant remain unknown, Garant maintained that the village’s finances would not be hit all at once if the plant were to shutter.
“The community wouldn’t be on a cliff,” she said in a phone interview. “The norm is like another 10-year glide path to give you a chance to settle into another loss of revenue.”
While the potential loss of public revenue remains a critical policy concern for local officials, the impact that climate change has had on the village cannot be ignored either. The past few years have brought both droughts and flooding, likely the consequence of intensifying storms and rising tides due to climate change.
“Projections for sea-level rise over the coming decades are nothing short of staggering,” said trustee Rebecca Kassay, Port Jeff’s sustainability commissioner, in a statement. “If the global community does not work together — from individuals to villages to states to nations and every agency in between — and climate change is not slowed from its current projections, [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] confidently forecasts that Port Jefferson Harbor will engulf Port Jefferson Village’s downtown Main Street within a century’s time.”
The EPA will host virtual trainings on June 6 and 7 to provide information about the proposed regulations.
Slow down multifamily development in Port Jeff Station/Terryville
Certain multifamily housing project proposals are progressing too fast in the hamlets of Port Jefferson Station and Terryville.
In Port Jefferson Station, starting at the intersection of Terryville Road and Main Street (aka Route 112), traveling north there are proposals to build four multifamily housing communities.
Proposal 1 will be built at the shopping center where the post office is located. Proposal 2 will be built at the old Malkmes Florists on Oakland Avenue. Proposal 3 will be built on Cherub Lane. And Proposal 4 will be built adjacent to the railroad tracks on both the east and west side of Main Street.
As a result of these proposed multifamily housing projects, our communities have requested an environmental impact statement and a comprehensive traffic study. Both requests have either been ignored or denied by the Town of Brookhaven.
This is not an anti-development letter. It is a shoutout to our Brookhaven elected officials to slow down the process of reviewing these proposed multifamily housing projects.
It is time to perform the necessary studies to help us better understand how these proposed projects will affect the air we breathe, the water we drink and the current and future traffic patterns in our communities.
We have a right to breathe clean air, drink clean water and feel safe in our communities without worrying about increasing traffic on our neighborhood streets. It is time to complete the necessary studies so that we can better understand how these multifamily housing projects will affect our quality of life.
Multifamily housing is not a cure all, and there are times when such projects cause detrimental quality-of-life issues that cannot be reversed.
Please slow down and complete the necessary studies.
Louis Antoniello
Terryville
Consider eminent domain for Maryhaven
In the United States, governmental bodies, at all levels from federal to a village, have an obligation to promote, and often provide, resources for the general welfare of their population.
In Port Jefferson vacant land is becoming a precious resource for uses that could provide and promote our general welfare. To that purpose, governments have the authority to gain ownership of land through the process of eminent domain.
Our village government held a public hearing on May 1 regarding a code change that would specifically allow a developer of the Maryhaven property to purchase the entire property, and construct as many as 192 condominium units. Special permission to do so is contingent on the builder’s willingness to maintain the outer walls of the existing historically important building known as the Maryhaven Center of Hope.
A building that was used for generations to help many in need — young children with severe disabilities, and later to house and aid those who required group living quarters, training for minimal paying jobs and other needs for their adult lives.
Without dishonoring the building that served those with the greatest needs for survival, it is difficult to understand how the proposed code change aimed specifically at “saving” the Maryhaven building is achieved by gutting the structure for the creation of expensive condominiums, a clubhouse and a swimming pool within, all to serve a private luxury gated community.
How does the proposed code change honor those that spent their professional lives providing for those with the greatest needs for their survival?
The future of this land is of particular importance at a time when the effects of climate change, ushering in periods of rain beyond current capacity to mitigate the potential of severe flooding, threatens our fire department and, possibly in years to come, the accessibility of our current Village Hall.
Now is the time to plan for a new Center of Hope with uses that promote and provide for the general welfare of those who follow us. The use of eminent domain to secure that property would honor the building and its grounds in service to the public, the fire department and village government operations.
Michael Mart
Port Jefferson
Local crime exposes bail reform dangers
In an effort to champion the successes of cashless bail, letter writer David Friedman cited a study done by the Data Collaborative for Justice [“Eliminating bail reduces recidivism,” TBR News Media, April 27]. Along the way he took the opportunity to make inaccurate personal assumptions about me, while criticizing respected Albany District Attorney David Soares [D]. In a clumsy effort to paint me as insincere, Friedman applies the term “crocodile tears.”
I’ve spent over three decades working with special needs and at-risk children ranging in age from preschool to high school. Responsibilities included teaching, meeting with parents and working with multidisciplinary teams that included probation officers, child protection specialists, social workers and psychologists. We had uplifting successes and heartbreaking disappointments. Tears, whether for joy or sorrow, were genuine.
Soares, shamefully silenced by his own party for condemning cashless bail, had a different take on much of the Collaborative Justice “data.” But an area where he could agree was the study’s very own “Summary and Conclusions.” Here were highlighted the dangers of “increased recidivism for people with substantial recent criminal histories.”
That terrifying scenario became reality in Suffolk County.
On April 24, Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney [R] announced the recent seizure of guns and narcotics: “Law enforcement was able to recover … approximately 268 grams of fentanyl, which could kill 134,000 people.’’
Tierney blamed bail reform laws: “Out of the 21 individuals arrested, we only got to seek bail on 11.” Consider that fact, knowing 350 of our neighbors died of fentanyl overdoses last year.
On May 11, Michael Lafauci, a six-year veteran assigned to the 6th Precinct’s Anti-Crime Unit, barely survived a gunshot wound. The alleged shooter was Janell Funderburke. Last August, he and three others were arrested after fleeing police, then crashing a 2018 BMW. Suffolk cops pulled them from that burning vehicle and, in the process, found a handgun and drugs.
Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association President Noel DiGerolamo linked Lafauci’s horrific wounding to what he considers New York’s failed bail reform law, saying this suspected gang member “should never been out on the street.” He continued, “An individual who one day is rescued by Suffolk County police officers … only … for him to attempt to kill one. This is what our leaders in Albany have created.”
Counting on those 10 enjoying a cashless bail release, as described by Tierney, after their drug bust to “reform”? Ask DiGerolamo, the two DAs and, most importantly, Officer LaFauci.
Jim Soviero
East Setauket
WRITE TO US … AND KEEP IT LOCAL
We welcome your letters, especially those responding to our local coverage, replying to other letter writers’ comments and speaking mainly to local themes. Letters should be no longer than 400 words and may be edited for length, libel, style, good taste and uncivil language. They will also be published on our website. We do not publish anonymous letters. Please include an address and phone number for confirmation.
It sounds like something straight out of a superhero origin story.
With resistance to widely used drugs becoming increasingly prevalent among bacteria, researchers and doctors are searching for alternatives to stem the tide.
That’s where shape shifting molecules may help. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor of Organic and Click Chemistry John Moses and his team have attached the drug vancomycin to a molecule called bullvalene, whose atoms readily change position and configuration through a process called a thermal sigmatropic rearrangement as atoms of carbon break and reform with other carbon atoms.
The combination of the bullvalene and vancomycin proved more effective than vancomycin alone in wax moth larva infected with vancomycin resistant Enteroccoccus bacteria.
“Can I make a molecule that changes shape and will it affect bacteria? That was the question,” Moses said. The promising early answer was, yes!
Moses believes that when the bullvalene core is connected to other groups like vancomycin, the relative positions of the drug units change, which likely change properties related to binding.
The urgency for novel approaches such as this is high, as drug resistant bacteria and fungi infect about 2.8 million people in the United States per year, killing about 35,000 of them.
In his own life, Moses said his father almost died from a bacterial infection five years ago. Vancomycin saved his father’s life, although the infection became resistant to the treatment. Other drugs, however, conquered the resistant strain.
“We need to work hard and develop new antibiotics, because, without them, there will be a lot more misery and suffering,” Moses explained.
To be sure, an approach like this that shows promise at this early stage with an insect may not make the long journey from a great idea to a new treatment, as problems such as dosage, off target effects, toxicity, and numerous other challenges might prevent such a treatment from becoming an effective remedy.
Still, Moses believes this approach, which involves the use of click chemistry to build molecules the way a child puts together LEGO blocks, can offer promising alternatives that researchers can develop and test out on a short time scale.
“We shouldn’t be restricted with one set of ideas,” Moses said. “We should keep testing hypotheses, whether they are crazy or whatever. We’ve got to find alternative pathways. We’re complementary” to the standard approach pharmaceutical companies and researchers take in drug discovery.
Looking to history, Moses explained that the founders of the Royal Society in 1660 followed the motto “nullius in verba,” or take nobody’s word for it. He believes that’s still good advice in the 21st century.
The shape shifting star
Moses has described this bullvalene as a Rubik’s Cube, with the parts moving around and confounding the bacteria and making the drug more effective.
The CSHL scientist and his team don’t know exactly why shape shifting makes the drug work in this moth model.
He speculated that the combination of two vancomycin units on either side of a bullvalene center is punching holes in the cell wall of the bacteria.
Moses is eager to try to build on these encouraging early developments. “If you can make it, then you can test it,” he said. “The sooner the better, in my opinion.”
Moses acknowledged that researchers down the road could evaluate how toxic this treatment might be for humans. It didn’t appear toxic for the wax moth larvae.
Welcoming back a familiar face
Adam Moorhouse Photo by Rebecca Koelln
In other developments in his lab, Moses recently welcomed Adam Moorhouse back to his team. Moorhouse, who serves as Chemistry Data Analyst, conducted his PhD research in Moses’s lab at the University of Oxford.
Moorhouse graduated in 2008 and went on to work in numerous fields, including as an editor for the pharmaceuticals business and for his own sales consultancy. In 2020, he had a motorcycle accident (which he said was his fault) in which he broke 16 bones and was hospitalized for a while. During his recovery, he couldn’t walk.
At the time, he was working in the intense world of sales. After the accident, Moorhouse decided to build off his volunteer work with disabled children and become a high school teacher. After about 18 months of teaching, Moorhouse reconnected with Moses.
“It’s nice getting here and thinking about chemistry and thinking about ideas and communicating those ideas,” Moorhouse said.
He has hit the ground running, contributing to grants and helping to translate intellectual property into commercial ventures.
The chance to work on projects that get molecules into humans in the clinic was “really exciting,” Moorhouse said. “I’m back to try and support that.”
Moorhouse will be working to procure funding and to build out the business side of Moses’s research efforts.
“Where I’d like to lend a hand is in driving ongoing business discussions,” Moorhouse said. He wants to “get these small molecules into the clinic so we can see if they can actually treat disease in humans.” The vehicle for that effort eventually could involve creating a commercial enterprise.
Like Moses, Moorhouse is inspired and encouraged by the opportunity for small operations like the lab to complement big pharmaceutical companies in the search for treatments.
Moses believes the work his lab has conducted has reached the stage where it’s fundable. “We’ve done something that says, ‘we checked the box,’” he said. “Let’s find out more.”
Currently living on campus at CSHL, Moorhouse appreciates the opportunity to do some bird watching on Long Island, where some of his favorites include woodpeckers, herons, egrets, robins and mockingbirds.
He is tempted to get back on a motorcycle and to return to mountain biking.
As for his work, Moorhouse is excited to be a part of Moses’s lab.
“Back in my PhD days, [Moses] was always an idea machine,” Moorhouse said. “The aim is to move ideas to the clinic.”
Prev
