Authors Posts by Julianne Mosher

Julianne Mosher

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The county legislature passed a bill to crack down on reckless bicycling this week, Port Jefferson officials created a village task force that will help prevent problems and keep patrons safe. File photo from SCPD

The Suffolk County Legislature recently approved a bill to crack down on “reckless biking,” which could stop riders from endangering themselves and others on the road. 

Sponsored by county Legislator Rudy Sunderman (R-Mastic), the bill claims to crack down on trick riding — like popping wheelies and swerving into traffic — and biking while intoxicated.

While it was approved 13-4, Deputy Presiding Officer Kara Hahn (D-Setauket) abstained from the vote.

“There were pieces of his bill that I really liked,” she said, “And there were some things I didn’t agree with.”

Hahn, who is still in public hearing with her complimentary bike bill, said hers focuses more on the education for drivers when put in contact with bikers on the road. 

“Legislator Sunderman’s bike bill regulated dangerous behaviors by bicyclists, while my bill tries to clarify the laws about drivers and how they should pass bicyclists on the road,” she said. 

She added that motor vehicle law states that a driver must pass a bicyclist at a safe distance.

“My bill states drivers need to give them at least three-feet [space],” she said. 

Hahn said two legislators from the East End had some concerns regarding her bill, and she is “working to address them.”

The next general meeting is March 2 where Hahn hopes she can close the public hearing so the bill can move to the Public Safety Committee on March 11. If her bill passes, it can be voted on by the full Legislature on March 16.

Meanwhile, the Village of Port Jefferson has implemented their own policies. 

According to trustee Kathianne Snaden, a new code was introduced in the fall of 2019 to pre-vent problem bikers causing issues in the village. 

It started when Snaden and her daughter were outside and a young person was recklessly riding his bike in front of them, doing tricks.

“When the bicycle just about came over me and my daughter’s heads and landed in the street in front of a car, I said, ‘That’s it, I’m done. We need to do something about this.’” 

That’s when the village brought in the new code, which enforces code officers to confiscate a bike from a bicyclist involved in any type of reckless behavior. The bike then must be picked up and signed for by a parent. 

“Because of COVID, things were quiet in the village,” Snaden said. “But then we put together the outdoor dining and the ‘trouble’ bicyclists saw it as a beautiful stage to start performing their acts in front of the patrons.”

She said that’s when code enforcement “really put down the hammer and started implementing that code.”

Snaden said that since summer 2020, bikes have been taken and bikes have been returned to parents, with the majority of them “mortified by their children’s behavior.”

“I want to be proactive and just get them off the street, so no one gets hurt,” she said. 

Along with code enforcement, the village has recently started up a task force for business owners, the Port Jefferson Chamber of Commerce, the commissioner of public safety, the code chief, the village attorney and a representative from the Suffolk County Police Department. 

“It’s eyes on the street,” she said.  “And now we’re working more as a team.”

Photo from Mount Sinai Fire Department photographer, Elliot Perry

Jaime Baldassare, an active Mount Sinai community advocate, passed away last week after a battle with COVID-19. 

A retired Suffolk County corrections officer, Baldassare dedicated his life to volunteering in the Mount Sinai and surrounding communities. He served on the Mount Sinai School Board, was a past president of the North Shore Youth Council for a full decade, held the title of former vice president of the North Shore Colts and was ex-chief of the Mount Sinai Fire Department. 

Photo from Mount Sinai Fire Department photographer, Elliot Perry

“It’s difficult to sum up someone like him in a few sentences,” said Andrew Samour, assistant chief at the Mount Sinai Fire Department. “He will be missed.”

Samour said Baldassare was with the department for 26 years.

“He was a dedicated firefighter for this department,” he said. “He was a fun guy to hang around with and had a great sense of humor.”

Baldassare was previously the assistant chief at the department from 2009-2015, and most recently served as chief from 2016-2017. 

In 2017, he told TBR News Media that he loved helping other people.

“There’s nothing quite like when you pull someone out of a fire or out of a wrecked car and you find out the next day that they made it,” he said. “It’s a feeling you can’t describe. I love to do this. We train to be the best we can be so anytime a call comes in, we’re ready to do whatever it takes to help the people of Mount Sinai.”

When Baldassare wasn’t putting out fires, he was helping his wife with the Heritage Trust. Lori Baldassare founded Heritage Park nearly two decades ago, and he was right by her side. 

Victoria Hazan, president of Heritage Trust, said that he could be found joking and chatting with people visiting the center. 

“He surely will be missed, that’s for sure,” she said. “He was a great contributor to Heritage and truly well-loved by many people in the community.”

Baldassare was brought to Stony Brook University Hospital in December where he was diagnosed with the virus. 

He was just 62 years old when he died on Feb. 4. 

“He’s done so much for the community,” Hazan said. “Even though he was in the background, he was an asset to Heritage.”

From left: Legislator Sarah Anker, Heritage Trust Vice President Brad Feldman, Jaime Baldassare, Heritage Trust Treasurer Lori Baldassare, and Heritage Trust President Victoria Hazan. Photo from Leg. Anker’s office

On Sept. 10, Suffolk County Legislator Sarah Anker (D-Mount Sinai) joined the Heritage Trust Board of Directors to honor Baldassare for his dedication and service to the community. 

“I want to personally thank Jaime for all the years of service he has provided to our community,” Anker said. “Our community has been so positively impacted by Jaime. Among Jaime’s many contributions, he was instrumental to the creation and maintenance of our beloved Heritage Park in Mount Sinai.”

The North Shore Youth Council is mourning his loss, too. 

Robert Woods, executive director, said he will be greatly missed.

“Jaime Baldassare served diligently for many years on our board of directors. He always served with joy during his time as president and made great strides in helping youth and families cope in our communities,” he said. “His legacy helped shape our unique prevention model, which supports hundreds of youth today.

Baldassare is survived by his wife of almost 30 years Lori, and his three children, Katie, Jesse and Cody.

A plow trying to clear the roads during the first snowfall of 2021. Photo by Bill Landon

In recent weeks, two large snowstorms have hit Long Island back-to-back. While Town of Brookhaven Superintendent of Highways Dan Losquadro (R) said the town is doing well, when it comes to plowing and cleaning up, some residents say otherwise. 

Melissa Neff of Port Jefferson Station said she has lived in the Town of Brookhaven her entire life and never saw the roads this bad. Her complaint is typical of many residents.

“Ever since I could remember there’s always been plows going up and down the streets,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it needs to be drivable.”

Losquadro said all of the town’s vehicles are equipped with GPS, which shows him the times the plows go to each area. 

“During the day we had people calling us on Monday insisting we didn’t plow,” he said. “But when you had snowfall rates of 2, 3, 4 inches an hour and plows go through areas with 40-to-50 miles-per-hour winds, they got completely covered.”

And with the larger storm that occurred the first week of February, that he said lasted more than 30 hours, he claims he met his goal. 

“Within 24 hours of stopping, my goal is to always have every road passable — not pushed all the way back to the curb — but to have every town passable,” he said.

But Neff said she lives on a main road, right off of Route 347, and it was not passable. 

“I’m an essential employee — I have to go to work,” she said.

And when she did, she said, she ended up damaging her new car thanks to a block of ice that was not pushed far enough aside. 

“To see the roads like that and to damage my car — that’s not how you thank essential employees,” she said.

Neff said she is mad and wants answers.

“The taxes we pay in the Town of Brookhaven should cover all of the Town of Brookhaven. … We have a much larger town, and you should have enough taxpayer money to clean a town of this size.”

A car buried in its driveway during the snowstorm earlier this month. Photo by Bill Landon

Losquadro said that he had approximately 200 highway employees working in the field during Sunday’s latest storm. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, about 10 of his workers were quarantined. He added that after the first big snowfall, within days he was on the phone with vendors trying to secure additional equipment. 

“Because of the complications of two back-to-back storms, there were some areas we still are working on — but that was just because 22 inches of snow came down in one week,” he said. “That’s a little bit irregular for Long Island. We don’t deal with it frequently, especially over the last two years where we haven’t had a lot snow.”

Losquadro said that he thinks people have gotten “spoiled” with the lack of snowfalls the last couple of seasons.

“This is Long Island, New York. We can get very little snow, or we can get a lot of snowfall,” he said. 

Neff said she believes that he needs to reach out to more private contractors.

“He has the money for it,” she said. “I don’t know what he does with the money, but he should be reaching out to more private contractors before the snow occurs and pay them on time, so they come back to Brookhaven during the next storm.”

Losquadro responded that the number of available hired contractors is down because of several reasons. He said the lack of snowstorms over the last couple of years has played a part: Outside contractors have gone out of business due to equipment maintenance and insurance; insurance policy rates for plow endorsements have gone up; and the pandemic. 

But Neff said COVID isn’t a good enough excuse for poorly plowed roads.

“COVID is not the reason,” she said. “Other towns have been able to plow and clear their roads better than Brookhaven has.”

Losquadro said that he knows people are unhappy when plows push snow into freshly shoveled driveways.

“My staff don’t have a good answer for that other than its your responsibility as a homeowner,” he said. “Private residences are responsible for cleaning their own driveways including where it meets the roads.”

A shopping center in Shoreham covered in snow. Photo by Bill Landon

He said that snow removal in the Town of Brookhaven has many moving parts. The crews make the roads passable, and day-by-day continue to widen and maintain the impacted snow on the sides of the streets. 

“I don’t think there is anyone who likes shoveling compacted snow,” the highway superintendent said. “It’s just something you have to do when you live in the Northeast. I think that social media and the instant gratification world we live in has led a lot of people to post things and create an unreasonable expectation of a time frame that’s just not obtainable.”

He’s asking residents to be patient.

“What’s the alternative? Don’t plow the roads?” Losquadro said. “We’re going to keep continuing to do what we do, and I hope people appreciate the number of hours and hard work and exhaustion that the men and women who are doing this work put in during and after each of these storms.” 

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Paul Perrone

By Joan Nickeson

You’re hot. It’s true. There is a continuous high demand and if you own a home today you’ve got nothing to lose. 

I can say this with confidence after speaking with Paul Perrone, associate broker and number one agent at Realty Connect U.S.A. He is also vice president of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Chamber of Commerce.

Curious and cautious about the real estate market during this unprecedented global health crisis, I was put at ease after speaking with Paul. His technical savvy, and friendly nature provided peace of mind. 

Folks have varying levels of concern as new information on testing and vaccinations becomes available. 

Is it also your time to tap into the hot sellers market? No buyers would ever need to step foot in your home, if that’s your wish. 

He described his success with his fully virtual Live Facebook Zoom Open House tour. With his phone in hand, in real time, he is directed by buyers as they view rooms, inspect crown moldings, storage, square footage and more. 

Simultaneously, a seller can direct him to areas that might otherwise be missed like on-demand hot water heaters, new windows or the herb garden. Paul, who I find to always be in good humor, is creative and patient.

Okay with buyers in your home? Paul provides disposable booties and gloves and takes a masked buyer and their masked ‘plus one’ adult, for a showing. No children are permitted these days. 

“There are 12 pages of  New York State Dept. of Health Safety Guidelines for Real Estate Services during the COVID-19 health crisis,” he said. “It works great for sellers and buyers.” He added that “We connect safely and responsibly.”  

It is no surprise to me that he enjoys serving as Real Estate Team Leader as well as a real estate coach, helping agents across the U.S. to maximize their careers.

Paul’s success in Real Estate might stem from his early career as an R.N attention to detail, a desire to assist and an instinct for assessing outcomes.

“It’s in my nature,” Paul said. He tells me that he enjoys helping people. “It is what drew me to join the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Chamber of Commerce.” 

Paul is also an active parent in the Comsewogue School District.

These days you’re in good company if you’re interested in the value of your home, condo or commercial property. 

You’ll be well cared for if you contact Paul at [email protected], 631.236.3699, or find him at li-mls.com.

Joan Nickeson is an active member of the PJS/Terryville community and community liaison to the PJS/T Chamber of Commerce.

 

Deirdre Dubato, president of the Rotary Club of Rocky Point, said that when she first heard of the Million Mask Challenge just after Christmas, she knew her club had to get involved. 

Along with other Long Island-based rotaries, the Million Mask Challenge is inspired to help people in need of masks within the community.

Earlier this month, 40 rotaries from Brooklyn to Montauk gathered in Hicksville to retrieve a batch of masks to distribute to schools, food pantries and shelters. 

The Million Mask Challenge — originally created by Rotary International — began when The Rossi Family Foundation donated hundreds of thousands of masks to the local chapter, in hopes that along with the donation, more masks could be acquired and reach a million people worldwide.

Dubato said that since they gathered in early January, 14,000 adult masks and 1,000 kids-sized masks were brought to different organizations.

“Every soup kitchen, food pantry and school district are having issues finding masks,” she said.

So, they decided to help out by donating to local spots that were in need. The 1,000 children’s masks went to the North Shore Youth Council and to Blessings in a Backpack — which helps students in the Longwood Central School District. 

And it won’t stop there. Dubato said that as long as they keep gaining masks, they will continue to distribute them. 

The Rotary Club of Rocky Point covers the Rocky Point, Miller Place, Shoreham-Wading River, Middle Island and Longwood School districts.

Dubato said they’re always looking for new members. 

“If giving back to the community is your goal,” she said, “Then you are welcome.”

Photo from Kara Hahn

Before she gets to the long list of initiatives she wants to act on this year, Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn (D-Setauket) said combating the coronavirus is priority number one. 

After just four weeks into the new year, the deputy presiding officer for the county Legislature said that while she has a lot of goals to accomplish before the end of 2021, COVID-19 is the biggest hurdle to overcome. 

“The most important thing that anyone can be working on right now is COVID response and recovery for residents, for businesses, for communities as a whole,” she said. “A lot of things have been kind of put on the backburner because of the need to focus on COVID.”

Hahn said that while the pandemic has been ongoing for nearly a year now, she keeps reminding the county Department of Health Services that notes need to be taken and research must continue. 

“We have to be looking at this not only in the now,” she said. “What are we learning from this? How can the next time this happens — because there will be a next time, it’s just a matter of when — how can we have learned from this?”

Hahn said in order to move forward, the virus and the issues it brought on throughout 2020, like food insecurity and evictions, will have to be addressed even after the vaccine. 

“Getting through this from a health perspective, and then recovering from it for every person’s financial impact, mental health … people are just going to start to hurt even more,” she said. “We haven’t seen the full repercussions.”

Hahn made it clear that while the county recovers from the aftermath of COVID-19, she keeps busy with some of her other plans to help the environment, reduce traffic and keep people safe on Long Island. 

Infrastructure 

Hahn is hoping that the federal government with disperse funding to county infrastructure projects, she said, and two of the most prominent projects in her district include the electrification of the Long Island Rail Road from Port Jefferson Station, and an overpass on Route 347 going over Nicolls Road. 

The decades-long debate about electrifying the LIRR has been discussed by many and will continue to be debated, along with the possibility of EPA Superfund site, the Lawrence Aviation property, to become a rail yard for electric trains. 

“So that if that happens, it is the most critical thing that could happen for my district from an infrastructure perspective,” she said. “Right now, the electric train stops at Huntington and the time it takes to get into Manhattan to Penn Station more than two hours.”

With the electrification, she said, 20 to 25 minutes will be cut off the journey, with no switches in Huntington.

“They can go a little bit faster, they are much more efficient in energy and obviously less polluting,” she added. “Once you cut off almost a half an hour from that trip, the property values around those stations go up significantly, just being within that kind of vicinity to Manhattan.”

Hahn said that electric trains could help students at Stony Brook University, revitalizing the downtown, and allowing students to live in the village, close enough to hop on a train to class. 

“You can create different things with an electric line that would make for better movement of people between Huntington and Stony Brook, Huntington and Port Jeff, or Port Jeff and Stony Brook,” she said. 

And that could help eliminate traffic on Nicolls Road. The overpass there, which has also been heavily discussed for years, is another project she’d like to see through.

“The intersection of Nicolls Road and 347 is incredibly unsafe,” Hahn said. “There are accidents there all the time. I’ve witnessed more than one in my lifetime.”

The overpass would be federally funded and wouldn’t be completed for many years, she said, but it would be critical in alleviating traffic that comes from the university and the hospital. 

“Having that intersection function better is critical to a number of regional objectives,” she said. “So, having those funds would be terrific.”

Retail recycling

As chair of the Environment, Parks & Agriculture Committee in the county Legislature, as well as chair of the Economic Development, Planning & Housing Committee, Hahn hopes to see the launch of a recycling retail campaign called Reclaim Our Land.

“Every year the amount of land left to preserve and protect is smaller and smaller,” she said. 

So, in an effort to buy back land for greenery and parks, Hahn said the vision is to reclaim areas that have been built on and have abandoned. 

In terms of development, reclamation costs more than preservation, she said, so building on an empty acre is cheaper than buying a previously built building, demolishing and rebuilding something new. But now with constant bankruptcies and the fall of big-box stores, Hahn said the number of vacant buildings across Suffolk County, alone, is constantly increasing. 

“I’ve been noticing it in the last two years prepandemic, but COVID just really accelerated it,” she said. 

Bookstores, supermarkets and stores like Sears or JCPenney in the Smith Haven Mall have left huge spaces with nothing to fill.

“When JCPenney’s was going out of business, I thought, ‘This is great place to have some housing, have some maybe office space,’” Hahn said. “It’s large, it’s got parking, it’s got sewers, it’s got electric — it’s already there. There’s already a bus that goes to the university campus.”

With problems of students living in communities or causing issues with illegal housing, Hahn said there has been discussion on how to create a place that young people can live, that’s convenient and appealing.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could encourage these stores that have been vacant for a long time to be recycled into something the community needs?” she said. By creating affordable micro apartments for single, young people, it could help smaller shops and reduce traffic. 

“That’s what was so important to me about the recycling retail,” she said. “Let’s try to incentivize developers to recycle what already exists, so that we don’t have to build on the green space.”

Photo from the Town of Brookhaven.

It’s helping the environment, but saving a whole lot of money, too.

The Town of Brookhaven Highway Department recently completed phase I of its energy-efficient street light conversion program — a program replacing all low-pressure sodium and high-pressure sodium overhead lights with light-emitting diode (known as LED) streetlights. 

Brookhaven Highway Superintendent Dan Losquadro (R) said he began researching for this project as soon as he joined the Highway Department in 2013. With the size of the town being equivalent to all of Nassau County, he said that his department is responsible for 44,000 streetlights. With the support of Supervisor Ed Romaine (R) and the Town Board, the project was approved.

“The goal that I had in those first years was to go after the highest energy-consuming fixtures that we had,” Losquadro said. 

Brookhaven Highway Department employees replace streetlight fixtures and poles as part of the town’s light conversion project. Photo from the Town of Brookhaven.

During phase I, the department tackled streetlights that are mounted on utility poles known as “cobra heads,” which tend to use the most wattage, and most of those overhead lights have been finalized, after three short years of work. Phase II is now in effect, moving to convert all existing neighborhood post top fixtures to LED lighting, and replacing old fiberglass poles with new aluminum poles to be completed by 2023.

“There are a multitude of factors that play in as to why we wanted to do LED,” the highway superintendent said, noting the energy savings, cost savings and maintenance cost that LED lighting can have. “Not only are you saving that money every year on energy, but instead of having a bulb that’s going to last you two-to-three years, you’re buying a fixture that has a 10-year warranty, with an anticipated life expectancy of up to 20 years — so your maintenance costs go down tremendously.”

Losquadro added that LED lighting is safer and will prevent light pollution compared to other bulbs. 

“I’m a firm believer to do something once and do it right,” he said. “This is about the future of Brookhaven Town, and doing things that are going to pay long term with benefits to everyone, myself included as a resident.”

The total project cost was $11.25 million, however, $4.5 million was paid for with part of the $20 million Municipal Consolidation and Efficiency Competition grant the town was awarded. The remaining $6.75 million was paid for with town funds.  

In 2020, alone, the town has saved $930,000 in energy costs.

Losquadro said, from a taxpayer perspective, the town has already saved $1.5 million. By just using raw numbers, they can expect to pay off the project in less than five years.

“To convert the entire town, it’s a big endeavor,” he added. “You make the upfront investment, but you know you’re going to get a payoff in short.”

He said that “even with a 10-year warranty, you’re paying it off before the things are even out of warranty. And with an anticipated life expectancy of 20-years plus, it’s a tremendous, tremendous savings.”

Port Jefferson’s East Beach after the sand dredging was completed this week. Photo by Gerard Romano

The decade-long, multimillion-dollar project to spruce up Mount Sinai Harbor and its jetties is finally looking more complete, as the dredging project was finalized this past week.

In November of last year, the Town of Brookhaven permitted Suffolk County to complete the dredging at a total cost of $2 million with close to 80,000 cubic yards of sand.

A shot from the dredging process last month. Photo by Gerard Romano

“This is just another project where the layers and layers and layers of government all the way up to the federal level worked together,” said Village of Port Jefferson Mayor Margot Garant. 

But the project is more than baskets of sand returning to the local shorelines. After many years of planning, both the east and west jetties in Mount Sinai Harbor were repaired in May 2020. For 10 years, both have been largely submerged at high tide, with water and sand leaking through breaks in the stones and settling into the mouth of the harbor. 

Garant added that after about 60 days, “basketfuls of sand” were brought back to Port Jefferson’s East Beach, which included sand from the postponed Stony Brook Harbor dredging project, to replenish the erosion caused throughout the years. 

“We’re just so thrilled to have our beach back,” she said. 

Brookhaven Councilwoman Jane Bonner (R-Rocky Point) said the completion of the project was a long time coming.

She said there were numerous issues with the jetties, the inlet and the harbor itself. 

“We rebuilt the fishing pier that has been subjected to numerous nor’easters, built two new jetties and a complete dredge of the beaches,” Bonner said. “I’m hopeful it lasts a long time.”

The same spot in 2018. Photo by Gerard Romano

In November, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers designated that most of the sand be primarily brought to the Port Jefferson side of the harbor. While Bonner admitted she hoped for an equitable split of sand, she’s happy that the goals of keeping recreational boaters and fishermen safe, while enhancing the North Shore’s water quality, have been achieved. 

“All levels of government have put a lot of money and resources into this project,” Bonner said. “It’s a win-win.”

It’s not completely done, though. Garant said the next phase is to repair the retaining wall going down the hill and revegetate the bluff. 

“It’s just an ongoing process of protecting our shoreline,” she said. 

Photo from Jodi Giglio

After serving on the Riverhead Town Board for 11 years, it’s time for something new.

Assemblywoman Jodi Giglio (R-Riverhead) started her term this month, by replacing now-state Sen. Anthony Palumbo (R-New Suffolk) in his former Assembly district. When state Sen. Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson) chose not to run again for the Senate in Albany, Palumbo took his seat after battling it out against Democrat Laura Ahearn.

The Long Island delegation is featuring seven new faces out of 16 Republican representatives — four new State Assembly members and three new senators — and Giglio, a woman with more than a decade-long political history on the East End, is thrilled to take on a new challenge. 

“It’s very exciting being in Albany,” she said. “I’m honored by the fact that the voters elected me to represent them, I am working hard every day, learning the system and trying to represent them to the best of my ability.”

Apart from being a former Riverhead board member, Giglio owns her own construction management company. Now she’s ready to tackle whatever 2021 will bring. 

“It’s very important in this political and economic climate that we all come together and do what’s best for not only the people of New York state, but for the country,” she said. “I always try to listen to what other people have to say whether I agree with them or disagree with them.

The new assemblywoman said that she will “never be condescending, even if I have a different viewpoint.” Her goal is to find solutions to the problems New York state is currently facing. 

Property taxes

Giglio said one of the bills she is currently working on is to waive penalties and interest for late payments of property taxes for homeowners impacted by the pandemic and those on a fixed income. 

“By adding penalties and interest every single month that they don’t pay is a strain on the people that are trying to pay their taxes,” she said. 

The assemblywoman wants to waive penalties in 60 days from Dec. 31. If a person cannot pay in those two months, there would be no penalties or interest from 60 days to the 90 days, making it a smaller percentage. 

Waste management

“We need to figure out our garbage situation with recyclables because we live on an island and clean water and clean air is very important to us,” Giglio said. 

With the Brookhaven Landfill expected to close in 2024, the assemblywoman wonders how will waste be removed from the Island.   

“What’s the plan? How are we going to get garbage off of Long Island?” she asked. “The costs of getting garbage off of Long Island is really going to have a tremendous tax impact on the residents.”

COVID-19 vaccines

Giglio is hoping to combat the vaccine distribution issues Long Islanders are facing. By rolling out a coherent vaccine plan, she said, then COVID recovery can begin. 

“You have to get people vaccinated where they feel comfortable going out and they feel secure,” she said. “That will recreate the businesses opening up, opening up the catering halls, opening up everything at full capacity.”

Giglio said she is unhappy that New York has been at “such a disadvantage compared to other states.”

“I think we should be getting the vaccinations sooner than later,” she said. “It should have been a collaborative effort, whereas the Legislature decided who was the most vulnerable and when the vaccines came in who would be the people to be vaccinated first. It’s based on us as elected officials hearing from our constituents as to who the most vulnerable are.”

On Monday, Feb. 1, the first snowstorm of the year hit Long Island, causing people to stay home and shovel nearly two-feet of snow.  We asked residents to share their snow day photos with us.