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Yearly Archives: 2023

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Above, conceptual rendering of the proposed Center for Climate Solutions on Governors Island. Photo from New York City

The New York City Mayor’s Office and the Trust for Governors Island may soon announce the winner for the global competition to create the Center for Climate Solutions.

In October, Stony Brook University was announced as a finalist for the ambitious project. Northeastern University and the City University of New York and the New School were the leaders of the other bids.

A multidimensional environmental effort designed to educate the public, offer climate solutions and ensure equitable climate solutions, the competition, which was launched in 2020 by former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), is expected to create over $1 billion in economic impact and create 7,000 permanent jobs.

The winner or winners will create a space on the island that features views of the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge with several key features. The center will provide a way to study the impacts of climate change, host a living lab that provides entrepreneurs and nonprofits that can test and showcase their climate solutions, serve as an urban center for environmental justice organizations, feature dormitories and housing and provide space for New Yorkers and visitors to discuss climate change.

Partners on the Stony Brook proposal include Brookhaven National Laboratory, International Business Machines, Georgia Institute of Technology, Pace University, Pratt Institute, University of Washington, Duke University, Moody’s Corporation, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Maritime College, Oxford University, URBS Systems, General Electric and other business, nonprofit and on-Island partners.

The proposals offered ways to support interdisciplinary research focused on urban adaptation, urban environments, public policy, environmental justice and public health.

At the same time, the finalists offered educational programs for students all the way from K-12 through graduate and adult education.

The center will provide workforce training opportunities, incubators and accelerator spaces for nonprofits and entrepreneurs working on climate and public programming.

The selection committee that is choosing the winners includes representatives from the Trust for Governors Island, Mayor Eric Adams’s (D) Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, the Mayor’s Office of Equity and the New York City Department of City Planning.

“New York City is facing some of the most complex climate adaptation challenges in the world,” Kizzy Charles-Guzman, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, said in a statement when the finalists were announced last October. “The Center for Climate Solutions will bring together actionable science, community-based partnerships and innovative and equitable solutions to communities on the frontline of the climate crisis.”

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Do you recognize this man? Photo from SCPD

Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and Suffolk County Police Fourth Precinct Crime Section officers are seeking the public’s help to identify and locate the man who allegedly stole merchandise from a Commack store.

A man allegedly stole approximately $250 worth of merchandise from Walmart, located at 85 Crooked Hill Road, on April 13 at approximately 2:55 p.m.

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.

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File photo
Photos from SCPD

Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and Suffolk County Police Fourth Precinct Crime Section officers are seeking the public’s help to identify and locate the man who allegedly stole a bicycle parked inside an Islandia store this month.

A man allegedly stole an SE So Cal bicycle parked in the vestibule of Walmart, located at 1850 Veterans Memorial Highway, on April 4 at approximately 4:20 p.m. The bicycle was valued at approximately $450.

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.

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Grace Mehl, far right, at the Association of the United States Navy Dining in 2019.

By Daniel Dunaief

Grace Mehl had made it onto her first navy ship, passing through a fiercely competitive process in which the U.S. Navy only had openings for two out of 60 women. 

Her first boss, who was a warrant officer, made his feelings about her presence on the ship known. “I don’t believe women belong on a ship,” he told Mehl in 1980. “I don’t believe they belong in the navy. If you do your job, we’ll get along fine.”

Grace Mehl with a junior officer on the Gunston Hall. Photo from John Harrington

That conversation, however, was among the only ones Mehl, who grew up and now lives in Smithtown, had with people about whether her gender could affect her ability to serve. At the same time, members of the navy sometimes grumbled about the expanding role of women in the armed forces.

“I heard a lot of gruff from older guys talking about having women in the navy,” said Troy Wussow, an enlisted man who served aboard the USS Shenandoah with Mehl after the ship was christened in 1983. “The old salt saw it as problematic.”

Mehl often won over others with her professionalism, talent, and willingness to work.

When he met Mehl, Wussow and others were building an office that they wouldn’t complete by a deadline because supplies hadn’t arrived. When he presented the situation to Mehl, she told them to get lunch. While the others ate, Mehl redesigned the building with the supplies on hand. Wussow was grateful for her solution, which enabled him and the rest of the crew to execute their orders.

“She solved the problem for us, which was an extraordinary beginning,” Wussow said.

Indeed, Mehl also impressed her superiors, rising through the ranks to become one of the first five women to command a navy combatant ship. For 14 years of Mehl’s career, women only joined navy combat ships when they volunteered. In 1994, however, the navy started assigning women to ships the way they had men. The executive officer sent some of those frustrated female navy crew to see Mehl.

“When they walked into my state room and looked at me, they just stopped” being upset, Mehl said. They couldn’t tell Mehl how unfair it was when she had been living that life.

“After they got there, they started to learn that it wasn’t so bad and it was just another job,” she said, “although you were floating around while you were doing it.”

Commanding respect

A graduate of SUNY Binghamton, Mehl, who grew up on a chicken farm, had a desire to get a job that makes a difference and to see the world. Her sister Jane and her college roommate had also joined the military, so she already had examples of women who had gone into the service.

Her father John Albert Mehl had also been in the Army Air Corps during World War II. A tail gunner, the Mehl patriarch had been stationed in England and France and had been on 65 missions. Her sister was an Army nurse.

Despite the army family connection, Mehl entered the navy because she didn’t want her sister to have the ability to boss her around.

“The army wasn’t big enough for both of us,” Mehl said.

Wussow suggested that Mehl had an effective approach with those under her command and with superior officers. Officers either commanded or demanded respect, Wussow suggested. Mehl was in the former category, listening to problems, working with people to solve them, and following and enforcing rules.

Dave Gellene, who was her executive officer when she was the commanding officer of the Gunston Hall, appreciated her naval skills. “She was able to maneuver the ship the best I’ve seen,” he said.

Gellene, who served on active duty in the Navy for 23 years and has been a government civilian for the navy for 15 years, said Mehl maneuvered the ship expertly through all kinds of weather and in densely populated areas where other boats were nearby.

Her ability to control the ship “gained the crew’s confidence,” Gellene said. Even early in Mehl’s tenure as commanding officer, Gellene could tell that the spirit of the ship improved dramatically the day after she took command.

The Bronze Star

Grace Mehl addressing the new Chief Petty Officers on the Flight Deck of the Gunston Hall during 1999 deployment. Photo from John Harrington

The navy awarded Mehl the Bronze Star for her work in 1999, when the armed forces provided support during the humanitarian crisis in the former Yugoslavia.

“I was very proud of the people on the ship,” Mehl said. “I got to wear the Bronze star, but I didn’t earn it: my crew earned it.”

Gellene recalled that the marines who were disembarking for the peacekeeping mission had to get ready each day, only to learn that the mission encountered additional delays.

Mehl, whom Gellene said kept everyone informed of orders and important information, had agreed to play bagpipe music on the day the mission would occur which was “very motivating.”

Mehl and the crew of the Gunston Hall also provided critical assistance in 1999, when an earlier enormous earthquake rocked Turkey, killing over 17,000 people.   With Mehl at the helm, the ship tied up at a dock and the crew put up tents for displaced residents.

“The crew would have stayed forever if they could,” Gellene said. “Under her leadership, she kept everyone motivated and focused.”

In a less stressful but important moment for the ship, Gellene also recalled how the Gunston Hall was stationed in North Carolina during the Super Bowl in 1999. Before the widespread use and availability of cell phones, the ship had to face a particular direction to get a good satellite feed to watch the game. Mehl stayed at the helm, keeping the ship at the right angle so the crew could watch the Broncos defeat the Falcons in Super Bowl 33.

“You could imagine the morale boost,” Gellene said.

Grace Mehl speaks at a Memorial Day service at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Bald Hill in Farmingville. Photo by Ron Pacchiana

Current contributions

Mehl has established numerous connections to the Long Island community. Having given talks to students in elementary and high schools, she said people know her as “the Navy lady.”

She volunteers with Vietnam Veterans of America, is on the Board of Directors of the United Veterans Beacon House, and serves on Veterans Court.

Mehl also earned a certification as Eastern Apicultural Society Master Beekeeper and is the Education Director of the Long Island Beekeepers club.

Looking back on her service, Mehl believes she did something important during her two decades in the navy.

“I feel like I opened a door for women to be able to follow in the path that I broke for them,” she said. “I feel that we have come a long way in the military.

This column is generously sponsored by Bryant Funeral Home, 411 Old Town Road, East Setauket
631-473-0082/bryantfh.com

 

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High School East sophomore Abigail Brennan was recognized by the board of education April 11 for her recent accomplishments at the FIRST Long Island Regional Championship at Hofstra University. Photo from Smithtown Central School District

By Leah Chiappino

During the April 11 Smithtown Central School District Board of Education meeting, the district honored students who achieved high placements in the Robotics Competition and DECA state finals, where each competitor chooses to compete in one of four career clusters: marketing, business management and administration, hospitality and tourism, or finance. 

The district also passed policies relating to time-out rooms, and updates to the Freedom of Information Act. 

Armed guards 

During the public participation portion of the meeting, Maddox Elbert, Smithtown High School East’s Class of ’26 president, spoke out against the district’s February decision to hire armed guards. 

“I’m not a criminal,” he said. “My classmates are not criminals and my teachers are not criminals. Stop treating us like them.”

He went on to cite a variety of statistics and arguments against armed guards, including increased anxiety and cases in which armed guards were on campus during shootings.

Matthew Gribbin, BOE president, thanked Elbert for expressing his concerns, noting the decision was not made lightly and offering to discuss it with him further. 

 “When it’s our responsibility to protect over 8,000 students, we take that extremely seriously and we understand that not everybody will agree with it,” Gribbin said. “But we’re not going to sit back and wait and hope nothing happens.”

“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if we had the opportunity to protect our students and our staff and our community, and we didn’t,” he added.

 

Policy meeting

Trustees Michael Catalanotto, and Michael Saidens along with an attorney for the district, Steven Goodstadt, Superintendent Mark Secaur, among others, met at a prior policy meeting.

Officials reviewed policy with Goodstadt, and discussed certain areas to be updated. 

Saidens suggested the district could have parents sign a form noting they reviewed the school’s concussion policy rather than them hearing it in passing. Other policies for review included enforcement of nonresident students attending the district. Goodstadt recommended the district updates policy further, specifically proof of residency requirements, to make the policy more enforceable.

Officials agreed to bring in feedback from administrators and faculty before suggesting changes to the district’s social media policy between students and teachers

Secaur said he thinks the policy should set clear boundaries for students and teachers for what they can and can’t do. Saidens said social media should be used positively to highlight students, but acknowledged there was a possibility that contact between students and faculty could go down the wrong road. Saidens did not respond to a request for comment to further clarify his position.

The policy presently prohibits staff from posting “pictures, video or any other material that identifies students or provides any information that would be considered confidential” on social media sites “Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, VSCO, LinkedIn, Messenger, Pinterest, Yelp, Google, WordPress, YouTube, blogs, etc.” It also requires staff to keep their personal social media activities/accounts private from students.

Time-out rooms

The school board adopted a policy relating to a time-out rooms, which will be used in cases in which the “Committee on Special Education has made a recommendation that this type of behavior management approach would be appropriate.”

The rooms are meant to give students an opportunity to de-escalate and regulate their emotions, so they can return to instruction. The policy states the rooms are to be used “in conjunction with a therapeutic behavior management intervention” or in an emergency situation. The use of the rooms must be specified in the student’s individualized education program, which also needs to give direction on the maximum amount of time students can stay in the room, taking into account their age and needs.

Parents need to be notified prior to the rooms being used and must be shown the space upon request. The amount of time students are in the rooms will be carefully monitored to “ensure that a time-out room is not being used to the detriment of a student or student’s educational program.”

A room can never be locked, and a staff member must be able to see and hear the student.

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VHB landscape architect Andrew Kelly, above, presented three concept plans to the Six Acre Park Committee and the Village of Port Jefferson Board of Trustees. Photo by Raymond Janis

With an approaching May 1 public hearing on the Maryhaven Center of Hope property on Myrtle Avenue, tensions are simmering within the Village of Port Jefferson Board of Trustees.

During an April 18 business meeting, trustee Lauren Sheprow clashed with Mayor Margot Garant and members of her administration over “the process” in which potential zoning code changes have been handled to date. This dispute comes as the village enters the heart of election season, with decisions over term extensions, term limits and election administration hanging in the balance.

The Six Acre Park Committee also inched closer toward a concept plan for the last remaining tract of undeveloped open space in Upper Port.

Maryhaven

‘We’d like to see the building be maintained or preserved somehow.’

— Margot Garant

As the village board prepares for the highly anticipated May 1 public hearing, Sheprow is at odds with some of her colleagues over how decisions with the property have been advanced. “I’m wondering about the process,” she said.

Responding, Garant said deliberations over Maryhaven predate Sheprow’s entry to the board in July 2022 as the previous board held a work session approximately 18 months ago with Alison LaPointe, former special village attorney for building and planning. At the time, LaPointe had advised the board to consider rezoning the property, the mayor said.

Gradually, the matter has become a question of historic preservation as maintaining the existing building is in the village’s interest, Garant added. 

“We’d like to see the building be maintained or preserved somehow,” the mayor said.

Village attorney Brian Egan gave additional context, saying the process began in 2019 when Catholic Health notified the village it would sell the property. The issue, Egan noted, lingered for some time though Garant started pushing for the structure’s preservation.

“It became the village’s initiative — the mayor’s initiative — of engaging with Catholic Health, saying, ‘We’re going to work toward trying to save that building,’” Egan said. “That was really impetuous and got us to this point to say, ‘How can we save the building for an adaptive reuse as opposed to putting it all into a landfill.’”

He continued, “The policy of the Village of Port Jefferson — hopefully, if this board adopts it — is to preserve the historic building that’s on it and encourage its adaptive reuse as opposed to demolition.” Egan added, “The ideal process is to draft the zoning that this board wants to see, and make the developers work to that standard.”

Sheprow expressed her appreciation for Egan’s clarification, adding, “I appreciate that explanation very much, just would have loved to have had that before opening it up for a public hearing so that we all kind of understood the entirety of the concept.”

The board agreed to set a work session on Tuesday, April 25, at 2 p.m. to discuss the matter further.

Elections

Trustee Rebecca Kassay reported she had received resident interest in creating a task force to oversee the restructuring of village government and elections, exploring issues such as term limits and extensions, change of election month and counting ballots by hand or machine.

Sheprow shared that PJV is working to obtain a document from the Village of Southampton for reference. Southampton “had a panel that went through this process,” she said. “So maybe we can use that document as a guide to help look at best practices.”

Conversations surrounding election changes were prompted by a notification from the Suffolk County Board of Elections that its electronic voting machines would not be made available to the village, to be used instead for primary elections this June.

Sheprow inquired whether the village could rent or purchase voting machines to administer the upcoming June 20 election for village mayor and trustees, especially as at least two other Long Island villages will be using such devices.

Egan clarified the legality of this proposal. The village attorney cited the New York State Election Law, which bars villages from renting machines from vendors outside their county BOE.

“It’s not a question of the integrity of the machines,” the village attorney said. “It’s a question about whether the Election Law will allow us to do it, and the Election Law is very clear that it does not, and [the New York Conference of Mayors] is very clear that it does not.”

Six Acre Park

The Six Acre Park Committee met with the board, along with representatives of the Hauppauge-based civil engineering company VHB, toward finalizing conceptual plans for the 6-acre parcel along Highlands Boulevard.

‘Projects like this have been proven to greatly increase the safety and security of an area.’

— Rebecca Kassay

Garant outlined the committee’s purpose and the current status of the project. “The whole reason why we got this structure in place with the committee and the design team of VHB is because there’s a New York State grant that we are positioning ourselves to make an application for,” the mayor said. “We’re just trying to get to that point where we have what we need to make a submission.”

Andrew Kelly, a VHB landscape architect, presented three concept plans to the committee and board. Kelly said most spaces within the 6 acres would be open, tree-lined areas with native plantings. All options accommodate a realignment of, and on-street parking along, Highlands Boulevard.

Plans are to include security lighting, Kelly said. Kassay, trustee liaison to the Six Acre Park Committee, added that transitioning this area into parkland would discourage people from camping on-site.

“Projects like this have been proven to greatly increase the safety and security of an area,” she said.

The next steps are to decide upon a conceptual plan, likely integrating elements of all three concept proposals presented during the meeting. The mayor added that the board would soon return for a final round of public input as it completes the conceptual planning phase.

To watch the entire presentation on Six Acre Park, see the video above.

Correction: In the print version of this story, we reported an incorrect time for the upcoming Village of Port Jefferson Board of Trustees work session on the Maryhaven Center of Hope property.
The work session will take place on Tuesday, April 25, at 2 p.m. at Port Jefferson Village Hall. We apologize for the error.

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Supervisor Ed Romaine, center, left, and Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich, center, right, visited the North Country Administration Center in Stony Brook to announce the winners of the 2023 T-Shirt Design Competition for Sidewalks for Safety. Photo from the Town of Brookhaven

By Mallie Kim

Three Village Central School District Board of Education unanimously approved a $230.9 million budget for the 2023-24 school year, paving the way for a community vote on May 16. 

The board gave its approval of the budget — a 3.07% increase — at a meeting Wednesday, April 12. 

The proposed budget stays within the district’s state-mandated maximum 2.65% tax levy increase cap, and therefore requires only a simple majority for community approval.

Assistant Superintendent Jeff Carlson, who leads the budget process, said due to increasing costs, the administration needed to cut $4.7 million to stay within the tax cap. 

The district’s transportation costs will jump by nearly $600,000 for next year, and salaries and benefits at current staffing levels would have increased by more than $9 million. 

A plan to cut 30 full-time staff positions accounts for the majority of the cuts, and the rest came from belt-tightening.

“We went through all of the budget codes, all of the supplies, equipment and contracted services … and we came up with $1.6 million in reductions,” Carlson said. “And I can tell you not everybody’s happy about that, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Shari Fontana, a representative from the Budget Advisory Committee — a group of parents, students, community members, board members and district employees — spoke in support of the budget.

“The BAC has seen that during these very difficult economic times, our district has always kept the goal of filling the educational, social and emotional needs of our children as their main priority,” Fontana said, noting that the many presentations the committee heard from the district made clear that Three Village is working toward increasing fiscal stability. 

“We realize that no budget will ever be perfect, but our district is truly doing the very best it can under the circumstances,” she added.

Fontana said the committee recommended that the district convenes next year’s Budget Advisory Committee earlier in the year and provide more specific information, down to the line items and dollar amounts, of each topic presented. 

She reported the committee urged prioritizing later secondary school start times, with the board also taking a more forward-looking approach when hiring in light of the decreasing enrollment projections.

“We know that hiring is easy, but reducing staff is not,” Fontana said.

Restructuring tabled, for now

The Board of Education also decided to table a vote to adopt a district restructuring plan, over lack of data on what it would cost, and because it does not address concerns that secondary school start times are too early. 

The plan, which was the clear preference among options presented in a recent community survey, would move sixth graders and ninth graders up to middle school and high school, respectively. 

Currently the junior high schools start at 7:40 a.m. and Ward Melville High School begins at 7:05 a.m., and without a change to those start times, sixth graders and ninth graders would begin school even earlier than their current schedules require. 

District elementary schools, where sixth grade classes are currently housed, begin at 8:43 a.m. or 9:25 a.m.

None of the survey options included cost impact information, and this uncertainty gave some board members pause. 

“I would also like the administration to move forward to give the board and give the community information on: Can this work? If it can work, how much would it cost?” said board vice president Vincent Vizzo. 

“At the same time, give us the figures also for the delayed start time, because right now that’s a health issue.”

Superintendent of Schools Kevin Scanlon agreed changing start times needs to be prioritized, but added that any delay in adopting a restructuring plan could make it harder to enact any changes by the original target school year of 2024-25. 

Restructuring “is not a matter where it’s dire, where we need to get it done immediately,” Scanlon said. “I do think the start time is dire and that does need to be addressed as soon as possible.”

Scanlon estimated the administration could figure out by September the information the board is requesting on cost and plausibility of the restructuring plan with start time changes dovetailed in.

Sidewalks For Safety prizewinners

Town of Brookhaven Supervisor Ed Romaine (R) and Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich (D-Stony Brook) made cameo appearances at the meeting to present awards to Ward Melville students who won a T-shirt design contest for Sidewalks For Safety. 

This is a local advocacy group working to get more sidewalks installed in critical places around the community, primarily for pedestrian safety — especially for Three Village students walking to schools and bus stops — but also to promote healthier lifestyles and increase foot traffic for local businesses. 

Romaine and Kornreich, the competition judges, awarded first place to Melina Montgomery, second to Julie Yang and third to Zoe Xiao; Lila Dabrowski and Rebecca Fazio each received an honorable mention for their art. Sidewalks For Safety printed the designs by Montgomery and Yang on bright, “safety green” T-shirts for use in an upcoming 5K walk/run on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 14.

“Sidewalks are extremely important but they cost money, and we have to balance the budget,” Romaine said, adding that not everyone is a fan of sidewalks in more rural areas of Brookhaven. “But here in a busy community where a lot of children ride their bikes or walk to school, it is something that we want to do.”

Romaine also praised the winners for using artwork to engage in lobbying to “make sure the government does the right thing,” adding that his neighborhood does not have sidewalks.

 “I have to walk my two little dogs, and I could tell you I wish I had sidewalks, particularly when people go speeding by,” he said.

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H. Andrew Schwartz Photo from SBU

By Daniel Dunaief

Ideally, doctors would like to know about health threats or dangers such as diseases or chronic conditions before they threaten a person’s quality of life or expected lifespan.

On a larger scale, politicians and planners would also like to gauge how people are doing, looking for markers or signs that something may be threatening the health or safety of a community.  

Researchers in computer science at Stony Brook University have been designing artificial intelligence programs that explore the language used in social media posts as gauges of mental health.

Recently, lead author Matthew Matero, a PhD student in Computer Science at Stony Brook; senior author H. Andrew Schwartz, Associate Professor in Computer Science at Stony Brook; National Institute on Drug Abuse data scientist Salvatore Giorgi; Lyle H. Ungar, Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania; and Brenda Curtis, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania published a study in the journal Nature Digital Medicine in which they used the language in social media posts to predict community rates of opioid-related deaths in the next year.

By looking at changes in language from 2011 to 2017 in 357 counties, Schwartz and his colleagues built a model named TrOP (Transformer for Opioid Prediction) with a high degree of accuracy in predicting the community rates of opioid deaths in the following year.

“This is the first time we’ve forecast what’s going to happen next year,” Schwartz said. The model is “much stronger than other information that’s available” such as income, unemployment, education rates, housing, and demographics.

To be sure, Schwartz cautioned that this artificial intelligence model, which uses some of the same underlying techniques as the oft-discussed chatGPT in coming up with a model of ordered data, would still need further testing before planners or politicians could use it to mitigate the opioid crisis.

“We hope to see [this model] replicated in newer years of data before we would want to go to policy makers with it,” he said.

Schwartz also suggested that this research, which looked at the overall language use in a community, wasn’t focused on finding characteristics of individuals at risk, but, rather at the overall opioid death risks to a community.

Schwartz used the self-reported location in Twitter profiles to look at representation of a community.

The data from the model, which required at least 100 active accounts each with at least 30 posts, have proven remarkably effective in their predictions and hold out the potential not only of encouraging enforcement or remediation to help communities, but also of indicating what programs are reducing mortality. Their model forecast the death rates of those communities with about a 3 percent error.

Both directions

Schwartz explained that the program effectively predicted positive and negative changes in opioid deaths.

On the positive side, Schwartz said language that reflected a reduction in opioid mortality included references to future social events, vacation, travel and discussions about the future.

Looking forward to travel can be a “signal of prosperity and having adventures in life,” Schwartz said. Talking about tomorrow was also predictive. Such positive signals could also reflect on community programs designed to counteract the effect of the opioid epidemic, offering a way of predicting how effective different efforts might be in helping various communities.

On the negative side, language patterns that preceded increases in opioid deaths included mentions of despair and boredom.

Within community changes

Other drug and opioid-related studies have involved characterizing what distinguishes people from different backgrounds, such as educational and income levels.

Language use varies in different communities, as words like “great” and phrases like “isn’t that special” can be regional and context specific.

To control for these differences, Schwartz, Matero and Giorgi created an artificial intelligence program that made no assumptions about what language was associated with increases or decreases. It tested whether the AI model could find language that predicted the future reliably, by testing against data the model had never seen before.

By monitoring social media in these specific locales over time, the researchers can search for language changes within the community. 

Scientists can explore the word and phrases communities used relative to the ones used by those same communities in the past.

“We don’t make any assumptions about what words mean” in a local context, Schwartz said. He can control for language differences among communities by focusing on language differences within a community.

Schwartz recognized that fine refinements to the model in various communities could enhance the predictive ability of the program.

“If we could fully account for differences in cultural, ethnic and other variables about a community, we should be able to increase the ability to predict what’s going to happen next year,” he said.

With its dependence on online language data, the model was less effective in communities where the number of social media posts is lower. “We had the largest error in communities with the lowest rates of posting,” Schwartz explained. On the opposite side, “we were the most accurate in communities with the highest amounts” of postings or data.

Broader considerations

While parents, teachers and others sometimes urge friends and their children to limit their time on social media because of concerns about its effects on people, a potential positive is that these postings might offer general data about a community’s mental health. The study didn’t delve into individual level solutions, but these scientists and others have work that suggests this is possible.

As for his future work, Schwartz said he planned to use this technique and paradigm in other contexts. He is focusing on using artificial intelligence for a better understanding of mental health.

“We hope to take this method and apply it to other outcomes, such as depression rates, alcohol use disorder rates,” post traumatic stress disorder and other conditions, Schwartz said. “A big part of the direction in my lab is trying to focus on creating AI methods that focus on time based predictions.”

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Photo courtesy of Town of Smithtown

This spring, the Town of Smithtown Stream Team kicked off an annual stream cleaning of the Northeast Branch of the Nissequogue River. This project began on the morning of Tuesday, April 11, and continued through Friday, April 14. Multiple levels of government worked together to conduct a thorough and efficient cleanup of our town’s waterways for the second year in a row.

Crews started working on sections of the East Branch from Route 347 to Stump Pond in Blydenburgh Park by removing fallen branches and debris that had accumulated, slowed the flow and created stagnant water. Other regions focused on included near Harrison Pond in Kings Park and near Hunts Pond in Hauppauge. Many areas that were cleaned as part of the 2022 stream cleaning were checked and cleaned again as needed.

There are multiple environmental benefits to stream cleaning. Removing debris prevents standing water that attracts more mosquitoes to the area. Additionally, with reduced flow of the stream, water cannot flow away, so potential flooding by surface or groundwater can be reduced with cleaning.

Workers from the Town of Smithtown Parks Department, Town of Smithtown Municipal Services Facility, Suffolk County Vector Control, Suffolk County Parks, Village of the Branch, and Town of Smithtown Highway Department participated in this effort. The cleanup was organized by the Town of Smithtown Department of Environment and Waterways and Environmental Protection Director David Barnes.

About the Stream Team:

In search of proactive measures to address flooding, high water table issues and reducing pollution caused by stormwater runoff, the Highway Department teamed up with department experts in Environment and Waterways, Engineering and Parks to create a Stream Team. This group works together to study and inspect the small streams beneath us for blockages, sediment and invasive species. The team will create a database, mapping out areas where water struggles to flow through, and will create a plan to remove harmful debris, invasive species and other blockages, which prevent the natural filtration and movement of water. This is a game changer for our local ecosystem and water quality.

The Stream Team engages with various neighborhoods, residents and each other to clean and maintain areas where sediment buildup and poor water flow causes flooding issues for residents. The plan moving forward is to maintain these clean streams through proper management and partnership, giving local residents peace of mind during significant rain events.

This program is spearheaded by department leadership; Parks Director Joe Arico, Assistant Town Park Maintenance Director Tom Heester, Environmental Protection Director David Barnes, Town Engineer Mark Riley, Highway Superintendent Robert Murphy and Deputy Superintendent Jim Deutsch.

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Madison Dunleavy attacks the goal
Emma McLam looks for options as Norah Kelly defends
Emma McLam (1) and Jenna Soto get entangled
Emma Greenberg breaks away from pack
Ava Arceri (22) gets some air against Kennedy Radziul
Ava Arceri (22) gets some air against Kennedy Radziul
Jenna Soto goes for a goal against Megan Morris
Jenna Soto
Fab Freshman Kate Atkinson scores past Grace McDonald
Kate Atkinson jars the ball loose from Jenna Mehlinger
Fab Freshman Kate Atlinson had seven goals against Smithtown East
Emma McLam hurries the ball upfield for Northport

Fabulous freshman attacker Kate Atkinson had an astonishing seven goals for Northport as the Lady Tigers beat the Smithtown East Lady Bulls, 17-11, on Tuesday.

Northport continues its undefeated season and moves to 7-0 and has won 61 of its last 62 games dating back to 2019. The only blight on this record is a loss to Baldwinsville in the New York State Championship final last June. Smithtown East falls to 4-2.

Northport spotted East the first goal of the game, and the Lady Bulls controlled the ball for a large portion of the opening five minutes. Jenna Mehlinger scored at 19:32.

The Lady Tigers got in gear after Mehlinger’s goal and reeled off the next seven in a 13-minute span, three of which coming off the stick of Atkinson. Northport took a commanding 10-3 into the half.

The two teams traded goals in the second half, and the Bulls outscored the Tigers 8-7 in the second session, but it was not nearly enough.  Kennedy Radziul had three goals, and Haleigh Greenberg and Grace McCarthy had two each. Goalkeeper Megan Morris had six saves.

Ava Aceri had five goals for Smithtown East, all of them coming after halftime. She also assisted on a goal by Jenna Soto, who had a pair of goals.  Mehlinger totaled three goals and an assist as beleaguered Bulls netminder, Grace McDonald, faced 24 shots on the afternoon, stopping seven of them. 

Northport has a non-league match coming up on April 22 against Westchester County’s Fox Lane High School, and Smithtown East will suit up next against Sachem East on April 20.

— Photos by Steven Zaitz

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