Stony Brook University's COVID-19 testing site. Photo by Matthew Niegocki
As part of an awareness campaign, Suffolk County is trying to provide residents with updated information on testing locations, including sites in pharmacies that are free of charge.
Suffolk officials said this was in response to U.S. Centers for Disease Control Guidelines which were inexplicably changed Aug. 25 to say that individuals do not necessarily need to get tested for COVID-19 after coming in contact with someone who has tested positive. New York State officials have also spoken out against the change, arguing it flies in the face of what we currently understand about COVID-19.
Such sites are listed below:
Town of Brookhaven and East End
CVS Pharmacy, 6221 Route 25A, Wading River, NY 11792
CVS Pharmacy, 496 County Road 111 Building C, Manorville, NY 11949
Rite Aid, 803 Montauk Hwy Unit D, Shirley, NY
CVS Pharmacy, 29 Havenwood Drive, Shirley NY 11967
Walgreens, 1580 Route 112, Medford, NY 11763
CVS Pharmacy, 470 West Main Street, Patchogue, NY 11772
CVS Pharmacy, 1710 Route 112, Coram, NY 11727
CVS Pharmacy, 2315 Middle Country Road, Centereach, NY 11720
Rite Aid, 229 Independence Plaza, Selden, NY
CVS Pharmacy, 729 Portion Road, Ronkonkoma, NY 11779
Stony Brook Drive Through Testing Site, 100 Nicolls Rd, Stony Brook, NY 11794
Town of Smithtown
CVS Pharmacy, 977 Jericho Turnpike, Smithtown, NY 11725
CVS Pharmacy, 111 Terry Road, Smithtown, NY 11787
Town of Huntington and Western Suffolk
CVS Pharmacy, 520 Larkfield Road, East Northport, NY 11731
CVS Pharmacy, 2000 Jericho Turnpike, East Northport, NY 11731
CVS Pharmacy, 111 Depot Road, Huntington Station, NY 11746
CVS Pharmacy, 107 South Country Road, Bellport, NY 11713
CVS Pharmacy, 450 Main Street, Farmingdale, NY 11735
CVS Pharmacy, Candlewood Road and 5th Avenue, Brentwood, NY 11717
CVS Pharmacy, 311 Main Street, Center Moriches, NY 11934
CVS Pharmacy, 831 Connetquot Avenue, Islip Terrace, NY 11752
CVS Pharmacy, 105 Montauk Highway, West Sayville, NY 11782
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said during a press conference Aug. 26 that New York would not adhere to the new guidance. He instead proclaimed that the CDC was following the bidding of President Donald Trump (R). He called the new health policy “political propaganda.”
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) said in a release that the new CDC guidance is inconsistent with what has already helped stop the spread of COVID-19.
“From day one, we have prioritized access to testing, especially in our hard hit communities,” Bellone said in a release. “In light of the puzzling CDC guidance released this week, I am proud to stand with Governor Cuomo and others in the medical community to encourage our residents to continue to get tested. If we want to avoid a second wave and keep our infection rate below one percent, testing must be a top priority.”
For their part, federal health officials have told reporters the CDC’s change in testing policy was not based on politics and the change was made by CDC themselves. However, Trump has publicly said that he believed the reason the number of coronavirus cases continues to increase was because the U.S. has increased the number of tests it conducts.
Suffolk Commissioner of Health Services Dr. Gregson Pigott said testing is the best way to prevent a new wave of the virus come the end of summer.
“A robust testing program allows us to identify as many positive cases as possible, isolate those individuals and quarantine their close contacts, therefore slowing and containing the spread of COVID-19,” Pigott said in a release. “In order to protect public health and help prevent a second wave in the fall, we will continue to recommend everyone who is exposed to the virus gets tested.”
Suffolk County District Attorney Tim Sini (D). File photo
A Mount Sinai man was officially sentenced in Suffolk County Supreme Court Wednesday, Aug. 26 for an alleged scheme to defraud people about a fake recycling plant in upstate New York.
Between August 2010 and November 2017, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office said Joseph Prosa, 53, of Mount Sinai, operated a money-making scheme where he claimed to victims that he was seeking investments to build a recycling facility in Poughkeepsie, telling them he owned land for the facility, that he had a permit and that he was a recycling and plant construction expert for a process called “gasification,” or the process of burning garbage for use in things like boilers furnaces and gas engines. Prosecutors said none of this was true.
Through the scheme, Prosa stole around $3.6 million from a blind Poughkeepsie man in his 80s. The man has since passed away. He also allegedly stole around $250,000 from a second victim who resides in Suffolk County. Both victims were previous acquaintances of Prosa’s, the DA’s office said.
“This was a grossly deceitful scheme in which the defendant stole millions of dollars from his victims, including a senior citizen who was robbed of his life savings,” District Attorney Tim Sini (D) said. “He operated this scheme out of pure greed and callousness.”
The DA said the investigation revealed Prosa used the stolen money on personal expenses, including using more than $1.2 million in casinos and racehorse gambling. An additional amount was used to purchase a racehorse. The defendant also used the stolen funds to repay large amounts of debt incurred by gambling and to pull his house out of foreclosure.
Prosa was indicted in December 2018 and he pled guilty May 18, 2019.
Prosa was sentenced by Acting Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Fernando Camacho for first degree grand larceny and first degree scheme to defraud. The sentence incurs 2 ½ years to 7 ½ years for the grand larceny and 1 to 3 years for the scheme to defraud. The sentences will run concurrently.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Thalia Stavrides, currently of the Conviction Integrity Bureau.
Cops said that over the past week there have been a rash of car thefts and vehicle break-ins within the Three Village area.
Now several Port Jefferson residents have also reported vehicles were stolen from their property as well, though police said they are still investigating if the same perpetrators were committing the robberies in both areas.
Suffolk County Police provided TBR News Media a list of 16 total car thefts and break ins. The list shows a total of four cars were stolen from residences in Stony Brook Aug. 23. Two of those vehicles, a 2020 Nissan and a 2019 Volkswagen were recovered — the former was found in Connecticut while the latter was located in Stony Brook. Two other cars, a 2016 Mazda and a 2009 Acura, have so far not been located, according to police.
The 12 other incidences were petit larcenies of property from cars in Stony Brook, Setauket and Old Field. Several items electronics like laptops or earphones, while others were purses, money and car keys. All incidents took place within the 6th precinct.
Suffolk County Police Detective Lt. Sean Beran said all incidents were from unlocked vehicles. The investigation is ongoing, according to Beran, though he added there are a couple of people of interest.
Uniformed and plainclothes personnel have been patrolling the area, and the Special Operations Team has been assigned to the case. Beran said no additional break-ins or thefts were reported after Aug. 23 in the Three Village community.
Beran said it’s important for car owners to remember to lock their vehicles, make sure they have their car key FOB and remove belongings even when parking a car in a driveway.
Police confirmed that more car thefts have since been reported by locals in the Port Jefferson area as well. A man in the Harbor Hills section of the village on Landing Lane said two cars were stolen from his driveway at around 1:45 a.m. Friday, Aug. 28.
One vehicle was a 2020 Honda Accord and another was a 2016 Honda CRV, according to the Port Jefferson man’s posts on social media. Cops also said that a 2013 Mercedes was also stolen from Sands Lane in Port Jeff. That vehicle has since been recovered nearby.
Police said it is still under investigation whether the Three Village and Port Jeff car thefts are connected.
People can contact the 6th Precinct with information at 631-854-8652 or submit an anonymous tip by calling 1-800-220-TIPS (8477), 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.
The Belle Terre village board. File photo by Kyle Barr
With two trustee seats and the mayoral position up for election in the Village of Belle Terre, three individuals have thrown their hats into the ring along with the three incumbents.
This year, incumbent Mayor Bob Sandak is joined by Deputy Mayor Sheila Knapp and Trustee Jacquelyn Gernaey. Opposing them are newcomers Enrico Scarda, who’s running for mayor, along with trustee candidates Peter Colucci and Lou Bove.
The mayoral race has already started to heat up in anticipation for the Sept. 15 voting date. Ballots can be cast at the Belle Terre Village Hall from 12 to 9 p.m.
Mayor
Enrico Scarda
Enrico Scarda
Scarda, the president and founder of the Crest Group development agency, said he is running to help bolster local property values and update how the village communicates with residents.
“We’re all getting up in age and want to sell our homes to downsize, and I believe we could do much better with property values than our [competing villages],” Scarda said. “The village has the opportunity here to get an attorney who has experience in the community for free.”
The Crest Group owns multiple properties around the Port Jeff area, including Danford’s Hotel & Marina and The Waterview at the Port Jefferson Country Club. Scarda is a 20-year resident of the village, having moved there with his wife to help raise his three children. With his two sons having already graduated from college they are helping him run the business, and with his daughter also graduating soon as well, he said he has more time to spend caring about local issues.
The village, he said, could do better with its communications efforts, including buffing up its website. He suggested Belle Terre should create a ticket system for things like road repair that can be submitted electronically, such as he has in his business. The village would give updates through the system for when a ticket has been accepted and when a project is complete.
He added there could be small additions that would make the beach program more attractive, including more renovations to the beach pavilion.
All these small changes, he said, would go to making the village more attractive, and thereby increasing everyone’s property values.
His home on Seaside Drive is only one of several Sound-facing homes which are facing issues with eroding bluffs. Scarda said though he has already received permits from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to begin revetment of those bluffs, the village should work with all property owners along that road to shore up the bluffs, especially because fixing one residents’ bluffs will still leave an issue for others all along the shore. It’s not to benefit him or any one person but creating some kind of initiative to do bluff repair would go a long way.
“If one home falls into the sound, the property values of the rest of the village are going to go down,” he said. “If we all did the work at the same time, we could protect that bluff, we would all be safe.”
Similar houses in Belle Terre compared to Old Field are going for a worse rate than their counterparts, he claimed, saying it’s because of small things that are leaving the village in the past.
Other issues for the candidate include safety, as he calls for more cameras including one by the village gate. He also said the village should do more to beautify the roads, including repair and garbage pickup.
Overall, he said his experience would make him a great pick to lead Belle Terre.
“The village is getting an experienced developer who has built communities as large as Belle Terre from the ground up,” he said.
Bob Sandak
Four-year Mayor Sandak has been a village official since he became trustee in 2004. He came on as trustee during Vincent Bove’s 25-year reign, and originally ran unopposed in 2016.
Sandak said he and fellow trustees have already made many strides since the time he’s sat on the board. The mayor is a former school administrator, having worked in districts such as Hicksville, Half Hollow Hills and William Floyd at times overseeing millions of dollars’ worth in construction along with other administrative tasks over 38 years. He said this work has translated well into administrating a small village like Belle Terre.
“We’ve tried to pass codes that make this a nice place to live for everybody,” he said. “Noise is something we deal with — there’s no construction on Saturday and Sunday — we try to make it a nice place to live.”
The village, he said, has done well in creating public/private partnerships to create municipal projects that are partly funded by both residents and Belle Terre. These include the restoration of the gatehouse and entrance wall, the design and construction of the children’s playground, the installation of the walking/cycling track, the reconstruction of the “Circle” at the end of Cliff Road, and most recently the reconstruction of the bathhouse pavilion at Knapp Beach. The latter was originally built in the 1930s and needed to be made handicap accessible. That project, which he said started in concept around two years ago, was done with volunteered architectural designs by a resident and donations from the community.
The community also donated their time and money to help construct kayak and canoe racks at Knapp Beach. These proved so popular that the village plans to help construct additional racks in the future, along with some mats that people may walk down onto the beach.
In the future, Sandak said Belle Terre needs to be readier to handle potential storms. He said he wants to propose the community center should be turned into a shelter for residents, especially those who lose power in a storm. This would require backup generators for people to use the location as a refuge.
“We’ve really noticed a real change in weather patterns — we’ve been hit by nor’easters — they really batter us,” he said. “It leads to a lot of road reconstruction.”
In terms of property values, the Belle Terre mayor said the noticeable loss in property values was due to a large number of people who inherited their homes from longtime residents all started putting homes on the market at once, many of whom had not been fixed up since the 1960s. To his knowledge, there are only four houses up for sale in the community, and he expects property values to increase up to levels comparable with similarly sized villages on the North Shore.
Sandak also agreed that erosion around homes on the edge of the Sound was a major issue, though he said he had two years ago proposed to property owners a special taxation area that could help pay back a bond that would be used to fix the erosion issues, but only two of 11 homeowners were interested in that.
“We certainly want to try and help stop the erosion there,” he said.
Trustees
Sheila Knapp
Sheila Knapp
Knapp, who has spent a lifetime amongst the Belle Terre community, said she is running again to continue to make the village live up to her memories of spending time there as a child.
“A year before I was born my parents bought our home in Belle Terre. It was the most wonderful place to grow up,” she said in an email response to questions. “The beach, the friends, the belonging to a community that was like family … I want everybody to love this place as I do.”
Knapp has been beach commissioner since 1977, trustee since 1997 and deputy mayor since 2004. She said the best part of the village is the natural beauty and peacefulness, and that every board she has served on has had the goal “to keep everybody’s quality of life here at it’s best.”
Close to 70 years ago, when Harbor Hills Country Club was built, she said her father got the land for what is now the current beach, which she has long worked to take care of. Otherwise, she said the village has passed noise and construction ordinances to keep the village serene on the weekends. She said the new wall along the beach parking lot is a “dream come true” and their recently installed cell tower has allowed more reception range throughout the village.
The 43-year beach commissioner said that in the future she would continue on with Belle Terre’s current trajectory.
“Things are not broken here,” she said. “We improved communication and do our best to keep residents informed with the website, meetings, emails and letters. All of the trustees and mayor publish our private phone numbers. We want to be accessible.”
Peter Colucci
Peter Colucci
Colucci, who has lived in Belle Terre along with his wife for 12 years, said he is running because he deeply cares about the community and believes he can improve several aspects of the village.
Two things he’s running on are security and modernizing the village’s communication systems. In 2017 he and his wife were victims of a home invasion and burglary where police at the time said the perpetrators got away with several hundred thousand dollars in cash and jewelry.
“I would like to see modernization in all areas,” Colucci said in an email response to questions. “Simple things are easily done such as upgrading security cameras and increasing communication to all residents especially during times of weather-related emergencies.”
He said he would like to continue with current efforts to keep the beauty and quaintness of the village going, but he said he would also look forward to working on a plan to alleviate the issues with Anchorage Road, where people park all along the road making it dangerous for both cars and pedestrians looking to access McAllister County Park.
Jacquelyn Gernaey
Jacquelyn Gernaey
Gernaey, who has been on the board of trustees for six years after she was originally appointed to the board, said the best part of being on a board like that in Belle Terre is that “trustees really don’t have a personal agenda, and I like being part of a group that can make changes for the village not personally focused.”
The trustee has lived in the village for 25 years, originally hailing from Kings Park. She said she came to love the community feel of Belle Terre, especially since it emphasized keeping trees and nature serene.
As the fiscal officer in the village, Gernaey said one of the big issues she said is that village residents will be losing out in taxes due to the settlement over the Long Island Power Authority power plant tax certiorari case. Over a 10-year glide path, LIPA’s property taxes will decline, which will necessitate village residents pay more in Port Jefferson School District taxes over time.
“We want to continue to get state grants, something we’ve been very successful in doing,” she said, adding they have gotten several hundred thousand for roads from the state and $800,000 in FEMA aid for storm damage.
In addition, she said she wants to keep the pressure on Suffolk County to remediate the parking issues with McAllister Park on Anchorage Road. She said they have been working with more county park officers to deter any more parking along that road.
Erosion issues for houses along the sound are also a major issue. While the village has received a small $100,000 grant towards stabilizing the beach, the issue may be in the near future the whole cliff could start to go, making the homes along the bluff structurally unsound.
“In the last since we applied, we lost 30 feet,” she said. “That’s something we’re really working on.”
As a founder and CEO of two companies, one a human resource outsourcing company and a small business consulting firm, she jokingly said “she certainly doesn’t need this to keep me busy,” but that “she was always taught to give back.”
“We work hard for the village — all about the village, not about us,” she said.
Lou Bove
Bove is the president and CEO of East Setauket-based contractor Bove Industries and is now seeking a seat on the Belle Terre village board.
The candidate did not return several requests for comment through his company. If he does respond in time for the election, his comments will be put on the website version of this article at tbrnewsmedia.com.
Mount Sinai senior running-back Matthew LoMonaco drags a Babylon defender out of the back field in the semi-final playoff round at home Nov. 15, 2019. Photo by Bill Landon
Players in Suffolk schools will be hitting the courts and fields come the start of the September sports season … well, some will be.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Aug. 24 that certain sports are allowed to start up Sept. 21, though all leagues must stay in their home region until Oct. 19.
Sports have been divided into what are considered low or high risk. Low risk sports include soccer, tennis, cross county, track, field hockey and swimming. High risk sports would be football, wrestling, rugby, hockey and volleyball. How the distinction between the two was made was up to the New York State Department of Health.
All those sports deemed high risk will be allowed to practice starting Sept. 21 but not to play against other teams until after Dec. 31.
There are still lingering questions about how some sports were determined to be high risk while others remain medium or low. The Department of Health guidance about sports details that a low risk sport is mostly individual activities like running, swimming or golf, or any sport that maintains little cross contamination of equipment. Medium risk sports have more but still manageable interaction between shared equipment (or the ability to clean between use) but with limited ability to maintain distance, which includes sports like baseball, soccer or even flag football. Games that need to have shared contact with equipment like volleyball or games that mandate close confines like wrestling are off the table, at least for the rest of this year.
Not every region will be participating in the fall. Nassau County school officials and Section VIII, which handles Nassau high school sports, have already made the decision this week to postpone all sports until the start of 2021. Meanwhile members of the Section XI board, which governs Suffolk sports, voted to host its sports season as described by the governor’s parameters.
What the exact guidelines for practices and games is still to be determined. Section XI wrote in a release Aug. 26 that the New York State Public High School Athletic Association has already met twice based on Cuomo’s Aug. 24 announcement. The association said it will come up with guidance for school districts to help them get started on their sports seasons.
“Over 200,000 students participate in the fall high school sports seasons and yesterday’s announcement was certainly a positive step for all those athletes,” said NYSPHSAA’s Executive Director Robert Zayas.
There will be several known restrictions for the start of the fall sports season. Indoor facilities can be at no more than 50% occupancy and districts must limit spectators to no more than two spectators per player. This is in addition to the normal masks and social distancing guidelines.
Coaches whose students will be left out of the chance for a fall sports season said it’s a hard pill to swallow. More so because of the vagaries still left for how the sports year will progress after December.
“I am in contact with the kids and I think all they want is a plan — something concrete — whether we play in the fall, or a condensed schedule starting in February,” said Mount Sinai High School Football Coach Vinnie Ammirato. “It would just be nice to get some clarity and a plan.”
Still, he understands why the decision was made.
“Everyone wants to play — with that said we need to keep the health and safety of all the players and coaches at the forefront.”
Brookhaven intends on completing the North Country Road repaving, having recently come close to finishing a section in Miller Place. Photo by Kyle Barr
The Town of Brookhaven has come close tofinishing a single section of a much larger project along North Country Road.
This past weekend, Brookhaven finished paving and painting the lines along North Country Road in Miller Place from Honey Lane to the Miller Place Duck Pond, over to the entrance to the Laddie A. Decker School on Lower Rocky Point Road. The new resurfacing includes fixing the drainage along the side of the road and the installation of sidewalk and curbing. The new road and sidewalks pass in front of several area staples like the Town & Country Market, McNulty’s Ice Cream Parlor and the William Miller House.
According to the town Highway Department and Highway Superintendent Dan Losquadro (R), the North Country Road Highway project is actually a combination of three separate capital improvement projects.
The New York State Department of Transportation grant received by the Highway Department funded 60% of the “complete streets” portion of this project, which is the new paving in Miller Place. The contractor responsible for this section of the project should complete their work within the next few weeks. This part of the project came now in order to finish before schools reopened in September.
The second section of this project was the sidewalk and curb installation on North Country Road that was completed in 2019 from the entrance to the Laddie Decker School to Echo Avenue. The Highway Department resurfaced that section of North Country Road Aug. 6.
The final section of this project is North Country Road from Washington Avenue to Route 25A in Sound Beach. Highway crews are completing the preparation work on this stretch of road this week, with the milling and resurfacing of this section to be completed within the next few weeks.
The Brookhaven Highway Department has included in its 2021 budget request to install a significant amount of drainage infrastructure on North Country Road from Pipe Stave Hollow Road to Honey Lane to remove the water from the roadway. Once the drainage work is complete, that final section of roadway will be resurfaced.
This will complete the paving of North Country Road from the Village of Port Jefferson border to Route 25A at the Rocky Point/Miller Place border.
In July, the town announced the finalized resurfacing of Lower Rocky Point Road from Woodhull Landing Road to Rocky Point Landing Road, as well as Hagerman Landing Road. The town is also currently active milling 37 roadways all over Sound Beach. Once milling is complete at a near future date, weather permitting, all roads will be resurfaced.
Final details about the North Country Road project, including the total cost, grant funding and photos will be available when the project comes to completion in the next few months.
A Ronkonkoma motorcyclist was seriously injured in a Selden crash Wedensday evening, police said.
Suffolk County Police said Anthony Bartoszewicz, 22 of Ronkonkoma, was driving a 2008 Suzuki motorcycle eastbound on Middle Country Road when a 2018 Toyota Camry being driven by George Major, 65 of Selden, made a left-hand turn in front of the motorcycle and they collided at around 5:15 p.m., throwing Bartoszewicz from the motorcycle.
Bartoszewicz was taken via ambulance to Stony Brook University Hospital in serious condition. Major was also taken to Stony Brook University Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Both vehicles were impounded for safety checks. 6th Precinct Detectives are asking anyone with information on this incident to call at 631-854-8652.
Andi Fortier and James Burke have, in only a few months, built a farm from scratch. Photo by Kyle Barr
Boots squelching in the morning dew of the roughly shorn grass in East Hampton, James Burke and Andie Fortier together know they have a long day ahead of them.
James Burke prunes a grouping of sunflowers. Photo by Kyle Barr
In the land known for its mansions and rich flavoring from Southampton to Montauk, nothing comes easy to those who work the land. The farmers, both just 23 years old, have many vegetables to grow, their winter squash, the hot peppers, watermelons and many others in the small plot of land behind the restaurant they work for. After working a full day there, it’s over to another patch of land they farm in Amagansett where they grow produce for their stand at the Port Jefferson Farmers Market. They will be working from early morning until the sun kisses the horizon, but they will return to their small Amagansett apartment proud of what they’ve done, because everything they have, has been built with their own hands.
The pair effectively operate two small farms far out on the South Fork. One provides the food for a multitude of local restaurants, the other is for all their produce sold at the PJ Farmers Market, where they hold their stand as Sand and Soil Farm.
To them, nurturing things, whether it’s any one plant or an entire garden and farm, is only natural.
“It’s really satisfying to see something from start to finish, from when you put a seed in the ground then take care of it and harvest from it — watching things come full circle,” Fortier said.
Burke said he relishes watching the way customers react to their food. At their farmers market stand, customers come and say what they used the farm’s produce for. Others look for something they haven’t cooked with before, then they come back the following week and “they’re hooked on it,” Burke said.
Getting Hooked on Produce
Starting a farm at a young age is certainly not common, especially for two people whose families have no recent history or experience with extensive agriculture.
The pair are both 2015 graduates of Port Jefferson high school, though it would have been hard for either of them to say five years later they would find themselves knees in the dirt and their hands in the earth.
Andie Fortier and James Burke stand with their boss talking about what comes next for the garden in East Hampton. Photo by Kyle Barr
In high school, Burke was engendered to environmental issues. Later, when attending Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., he started working at an urban farm, which helped grow local products in the so-called food deserts, or the places in poorer urban areas that have no local access to a supermarket or any kind of fresh food. Coming back to Long Island, he knew that’s something he would want to continue but on a larger scale.
Fortier, like her father Andrew, was interested in music but did enjoy working with her father outside in his carpentry business. After graduating with Burke in 2015 she went to The New School in New York City to study theater. Missing wide open spaces and looking to find work she could really enjoy, she returned to Long Island and “fell into” the agriculture industry more on the education and market side of things. Gradually, she grew to love the farmer’s life.
“If you had asked me in high school if James and I would own a farm together, I would have said, ‘What are you talking about?’” she said.
The two worked at Amber Waves Farm Market & Kitchen in Amagansett for just a few years when in 2019 the owners of the Nick and Toni’s restaurant in East Hampton asked for somebody to clean up the establishment’s backyard garden. The person who previously worked that patch of land up and left one day without a word, and over months the half an acre became overgrown with weeds that reached up to chest height.
“It was kind of a blank canvas, so we just started seeding,” Fortier said. “It’s just grown and grown over the past couple of months.”
Practically by themselves, Fortier and Burke transformed it into a thriving garden, adding more onto it since they started handling it full time last September.
So much has been built by hand. Using excess wood found in a pile on the property, the pair built a 10-foot wide toolshed. Elsewhere in the garden, they found old half-moon metal rails buried in the weeds, and taking those they constructed their own greenhouse. The only items of those two projects they purchased was the roof for the shed and the canvas for the greenhouse.
During the winter months, especially at the edge of March during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two had to keep seedlings warm in the greenhouse though they lacked a space heater. That’s when the pair started to get innovative, where they buried crockpots in the ground to keep the seeds warm at 75 degrees before being taken out in the mornings to receive light.
“We had to work with what we got,” Burke said. “We had to get creative.”
Growing Something New
The work was enough to keep anybody busy, but the pair wanted something more, something they could call their own. Working with the Peconic Land Trust’s Farms for the Future Initiative, a program that aims to protect land that could be potentially developed and keep it for agriculture, they hit the books, literally. The PJ natives trawled through pages at the local library along with online articles about how they would set everything up — from creating a business plan, to figuring out how many seeds they would need to buy, to what equipment they would need at the start. In Amagansett, they managed to procure a 1-acre plot of land, a piece of a larger property owned by the Peconic Land Trust where portions are run by a number of other small-scale farmers. They moved in this March.
Andie Fortier and James Burke at the garden they practically hand built in East Hampton. Photo by Kyle Barr
Through a winding dirt road cutting through fields, Fortier’s well-used van bounces along the uneven path until they reach their little patch of dirt in the northwest corner of the property, a place bursting with sunflowers, tomatoes, Malabar spinach and daikon radishes.
They didn’t have anything to start. They didn’t have a tractor or any heavy machinery to speak of, knowing that would be the biggest expense for any farm starting out. When plants needed water, they filled up a giant tub at home, stuck it in the back of a trailer and lugged the gallons down to the parched land in the spring and early summer when there was very little rain. So much of the heavy lifting was done by hand, and it was especially hard at first digging in each trough and seeding every ridge. The young farmers finally got an irrigation system going in early July, but they had to come up with solutions on the fly, like netting around the tomatoes to protect them from crows.
The families of the PJ natives have also noticed just how much the two care for their new farm. The Burkes and Fortiers often come out on Saturday to help with harvest and packing, getting everything loaded into vehicles so the two can set up their stand at the Port Jefferson Farmers Market on Sundays. During the pandemic, such escapades to the pastoral landscape were especially nice getaways for the families being stuck quarantined in their homes.
Burke’s sister Kyleen Burke said in an email that she was amazed, too, at the innovative means through which the pair have created so much from so little.
“I don’t think anyone is surprised that James has made his own way, but it is still amazing to see what he and Andie have been able to do and how quickly they have made the farm grow,” she said.
Now with summer starting to wrap up, the verdant field and garden are now what they have to show for their work. When they speak of their bounty, it’s with a sort of reverence one could reserve for one’s children. The two have even sectioned off a small part of their apartment where they keep vegetables in with the air conditioning on to help them avoid the oppressive heat of the late summer. They are still working out the logistics of owning a walk-in cooler.
“It doesn’t feel like work a lot of the time,” Fortier said. “It’s a real start of life now, sleeping next to the tomatoes.”
A surprised rooster finds itself abandoned in the Heritage Park playground. Photo by Floridia
Four roosters, two adults and two young, were found abandoned in the Heritage Park playground Aug. 21. Town workers, police and animal rescue groups responded to take the animals away and give them sanctuary outside the town.
A Brookhaven town worker holds a fence up as animal rescuer Frankie Floridia takes them away. Photo from Floridia
Visitors to Heritage Park reported on social media finding the roosters Friday morning. Suffolk County Police were notified, and upon calling the North Shore-based Strong Island Rescue League around 10 a.m. a town worker was able to corral the animals into a corner of the playground while Frankie Floridia, the president of Strong Island, picked them up to put them in cages and transport them away.
Floridia said the animals will either go to an animal sanctuary, or to families who wish to take care of them in townships where it is legal to own roosters.
The animal rescuer said there is a major issue in the Town of Brookhaven with people illegally abandoning animals such as domestic ducks in local ponds, but especially roosters. Mail order chickens have become an increasingly popular business, though some do not specify whether the chickens are male or female. The animal rescuer said they have come to calls for several abandoned roosters in Brookhaven over the past few years.
“What the people do, rather than get a fine is they go ahead and dump them,” Florida said. “The problem is dumping them, they can’t survive on their own in the wild. They are easy prey for predators, they get hit by cars, they have no food source. It’s a slow torturous death for them.”
Some online questioned whether the animals were runaways from the small farm just around the corner from The Wedge, aka Heritage Park. The roosters indeed did not come from Niegocki Farms, off of Mount Sinai Coram Road, but that small little taste of agriculture life on the North Shore has had major issues with people dumping chickens onto their property.
Tricia Niegocki, of Niegocki Farms, said that they have had six occasions in the past few years where they found roosters dumped on their property. This includes an incident where an unknown individual dumped 26 hens over their fence “in the dead heat of summer” of about 95 degrees.
“Anyone who knows us knows if it’s in our capabilities to be able to take hens off someone’s hands or help where we can,” Niegocki said. “By dumping them it was a three day ordeal in trying to catch them and pen them up in a pen we had to rush to get ready for them.”
Though the farm is often asked personally to look after chickens, especially roosters, another major issue with dumping roosters is the risk of disease spreading amongst a flock. This is especially concerning for a farm, which depends on those chickens as part of their livelihood, though leaving them to fend for themselves would only invite
The farmer said the town code is partly to blame for the number of people who abandon these animals.
“A person’s dog can bark all day and night but a rooster is unacceptable? She said. “I think the laws need to change to be more accommodating. If COVID-19 has taught us anything, having the ability to feed your family is very important and chickens provide not only eggs but also a source of meat.”
Strong Island Animal Rescue can be contacted at [email protected] or through their Facebook page.
Stony Brook McDonald's is planned to be demolished and rebuilt to add a tandem drive through. Photo from Google Maps
McDonald’s was granted a change of zoning Thursday, Aug. 13, by the Brookhaven Town Board in order to raze one and restructure two other restaurants on the North Shore. Representatives of the fast-food chain said it was to add new tandem drive-throughs and make the buildings more Americans with Disabilities Act compliant.
The three McDonald’s locations include the ones in Rocky Point and Miller Place on Route 25A and the one in Stony Brook along Route 347. Stony Brook is set to be demolished and remade into a restaurant with a tandem drive-through. Engineers hired by McDonald’s said doing so will actually reduce the buildings’ overall footprint.
The ones in Rocky Point and Miller Place will have signage changed and some extra work done on the exteriors. The two buildings will also be adding new ADA compliant walkways to allow better access to the buildings from the parking lots and sidewalks along Route 25A.
All three were zoned J-2 Business, but a rules change in 2003 mandated all sites with a drive-through had to be zoned J-5 instead. To complete the renovations, McDonald’s needed to get approval of the zone change from the Town Board. All three were granted zoning change approval at the Aug. 13 meeting.
Brookhaven officials said they received letters from the Three Village, Miller Place and Rocky Point civics indicating they did not have issues with the development. Councilwoman Valerie Cartright (D-Port Jefferson Station) said during the meeting the Three Village civic did have some concerns when the project was originally proposed but those were resolved by the developer.
One resident of Strathmore Gate Drive in Stony Brook, a gated community, asked about trees buffering behind the local McDonald’s property. Developers said the site will have 7-foot evergreens as a way to block line of sight to the restaurant.
Bob Sandak
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