The Northport Chamber of Commerce hosted the 14th annual Halloween Hayride in Northport Village Park on Sunday, Oct. 25. There was pumpkin-decorating, a petting zoo, Halloween treats and a costume contest. A hayride pulled by a Ford tractor took children on a ride through the park.
New trustee uses policy committee role to suggest better student accommodations
The Smithtown board of education has decided to look into adopting policy for transgender students.
School board Trustee Jeremy Thode introduced the issue at the board meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 13.
Thode is a chairperson for the policy committee and said he thinks the board needs to start looking into this issue. He said that at some point in the near future the policy committee would try to obtain language for a policy on transgender students.
“It’s important to ensure that all students are accounted for,” Thode said. “So that they understand what their rights are.”
Thode said that this is purely the beginning and that there are not many other details currently about how the board will approach adopting local policy for transgender students.
New York State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has had transgender issues in her sights since she first took office in May.
Elia released the Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Guidance Document in July to public school districts throughout New York State.
According to a press release from the New York State Education office, the document is intended to help districts foster an educational environment safe and free from discrimination for transgender and nonconforming students.
It includes information to help districts comply with federal, state and local laws concerning bullying, harassment, discrimination and student privacy.
“All students need a safe and supportive school setting to progress academically and developmentally,” Elia said. “We have a moral responsibility to foster civility in our schools, and to ensure that every student has equal access to educational programs and activities.”
This document also provides guidance on using pronouns and handling issues like restroom and changing room use. It will complement existing resources like the Dignity for All Students Act that was signed into law in 2010. DASA seeks to provide New York State’s public elementary and secondary students with a safe and supportive environment free from discrimination, intimidation, taunting, harassment and bullying on school property, a school bus and at school functions.
Smithtown school district Superintendent James Grossane recently renewed coordinators for this act throughout the school district.
Event raises money for cancer patients
Pink Aid Long Island hosted its second annual fashion show and luncheon to benefit victims of breast cancer at Mitchells|Marshs in Huntington on Thursday, Oct. 15.
Pink Aid is a nonprofit organization, with branches in Connecticut and Long Island and seeks to support breast cancer survivors and provide screenings to women in financial need.
Pink Aid’s grant programs provide services like free breast cancer screenings and help cover nonmedical expenses such as wigs, recovery garments and transportation for patients undergoing treatment.
The event featured a fashion show with models wearing Mitchells fall 2015 and spring 2016 lines. There were also silent and live auctions, where items ranging from a Gucci iPad case to a two-night stay at an inn in Ireland were prizes.
Allison Mitchell, president of Pink Aid Long Island, said she was proud of how this event has grown in just one year. Last year, the event raised more than $225,000 from its 300 attendees.
She said while they can only fit a certain number of people in the store for the event, they also had the option of an online auction this year for those who didn’t have a chance to reserve a ticket.
“Pink Aid helps women that are underinsured or not insured to get through their treatment and their diagnosis,” Mitchell said. “I think it’s really important we’re giving back to women here on Long Island right in our backyard [who] are struggling with treatment and keeping their families together.”
Mitchell’s husband Chris heads the Huntington store, previously known as Marshs, which is part of an independent family chain. “We own a retail store [here] with a lot of amazing clothes,” he said. “Women love clothes and this event allows us to have women come and support other women while having a fun day that is really a celebration.”
During the Celebration of Life portion of the fashion show, breast cancer survivors walk the runway in Mitchells after the professional models. The survivors are accompanied by an escort, specifically someone who supported them during their journey, according to Diana Mitchnick, co-chair of the Celebration of Life fashion show.
“I am going to walk this year,” she said. “I am very excited and a little nervous.”
Mitchnick said the entire event is uplifting, and that the room is filled with love and support: “Everyone who has been through the breast cancer journey knows how much help you need. Many people don’t have it and they need it.”
This year’s guest speaker was Marisa Acocella Marchetto, a breast cancer survivor and award-winning cartoonist and graphic novelist. Her graphic novel, “Cancer Vixen: A True Story,” follows her journey from when she discovered she had breast cancer through to the end of her treatment.
“What a positive impact you’ve made creating real positive change,” Marchetto said to the room. “You’ve made Strong Island ever stronger.”
Tornadoes defeat Rocky Point and break 9-year dry spell for league title, with playoffs on horizon
The Harborfields boys’ soccer team was crowned league champion on Friday, Oct. 16.
The team comfortably defeated Rocky Point at home, 4-1, to maintain its No. 1 spot in League V, with a 10-2 record.
The Tornadoes hadn’t won a league title since 2006, and for specifically League V, the team hasn’t won in 33 years; since 1982.
Harborfields’ Brian Root, a senior, scored the first goal 10 minutes into the game, off a rebound from a save by Rocky Point’s goalie. Minutes later, Harborfields committed a foul at the top of the 18-yard line, and Rocky Point’s Xavier Guey-Mock capitalized off a free kick for the equalizer.
With 10 minutes left in the first half, Harborfields senior Chad Terc scored off a corner kick, where the ball was sent into play by senior Gerard Espinoza, to break the tie. Several minutes later, Espinoza assisted again, with a second corner kick, and senior Hunter Cuthbertson sent the ball crashing into the back of the net for the 3-1 advantage.
In the second half, Harborfields junior Spencer Stapleton scored the final goal for the Tornadoes.
It was a fitting end for the team’s senior night, as the crowd was filled with parents and friends who came out to support the upperclassmen who were playing their last home game of the regular season.
Smithtown Highway Superintendent Glenn Jorgensen (R) has resigned and pleaded guilty to felony and misdemeanor charges in a scheme to alter road-repaving records from last year.
Jorgensen, 63, pleaded guilty in New York State Supreme Court in Riverhead on Thursday, Oct. 15, to a felony charge of offering a false instrument for filing and a misdemeanor charge of official misconduct as part of a plea deal with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
He will be sentenced on Dec. 11 to four months of jail but will serve an alternative sentence in lieu of jail of 570 hours of community service, and will receive three years probation, according to Robert Clifford, spokesman for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office.
“This disposition compels the defendant to resign from his elected position and his admission of guilt before the court confirms the facts uncovered during the investigation,” Clifford said in a statement. “As the Superintendent of Highways Mr. Jorgensen knowingly had false information about the paving of town roads filed as an official town record, and he knowingly directed that inaccurate information be filed to make it appear as though the roadwork met state mandatory specifications.”
Vecchio’s office confirmed that Jorgensen resigned from his position as of Friday, Oct. 16.
In April, Jorgensen was charged with tampering with public records, falsifying business records, filing false records, official misconduct and grand larceny, Suffolk County District Attorney Tom Spota said. Initially, Jorgensen pleaded not guilty to the charges.
At the time, Jorgensen, of St. James, was accused of altering road construction reports and stealing a public work order for an improper repaving. He tried to conceal his approval of paving at least eight Smithtown streets in freezing temperatures last November and then directed a highway foreman to alter the record of the weather conditions done during the repaving work.
District attorney detectives found work orders for the improper repaving jobs hidden under Jorgensen’s bed at his Hope Place residence.
“State Department of Transportation construction standards dictate asphalt must not be applied to a road surface in freezing temperatures, and in fact, the town’s own engineer has said repaving in freezing weather would result in the asphalt falling apart,” Spota said in an April statement. “The repaving of a residential street doesn’t happen that often and when it does, residents are paying for a job done correctly, not a faulty repaving that will soon need pothole repair work.”
Supervisor Pat Vecchio (R) has said he felt Jorgensen should resign from his post amid the slew of accusations.
“It is a sad occurrence and I will have no comment other than I have sympathy for Mr. Jorgensen and his family,” Vecchio said in an email on Tuesday morning.
Jorgensen had also been accused of sexual harassment involving his former secretary. The town was issued a notice of claim alleging he sexually harassed her in December. The claim also alleged he had taken her out to job sites, out to eat and eventually fired her after finding out she was dating an employee of the highway department. Earlier this year, Vecchio publicly called Jorgensen out for taking his new secretary out to job sites, going against the Suffolk County Civil Service’s job description for the position.
“It seems to me that you are either not comprehending why the position exists, you have a disregard for civil service law or you are mocking the town board and the public,” Vecchio said of Jorgensen bringing his new secretary to the job site in April.
Smithtown Democratic Committee Chairman Ed Maher also called for Jorgensen’s resignation in April, and said it was an outrage that the taxpayers were funding his salary.
Jorgensen worked for the Smithtown Highway Department for 37 years, and won election for highway superintendent in 2009 and 2013.
Jorgensen’s attorney could not be reached for comment this week.
Huntington Town Board candidates discussed development, term limits and more at a debate at the Elwood Public Library hosted by the Elwood Taxpayers Association on Wednesday, Oct. 14.
Two seats are up for grabs on the five-member board next month, and four contenders are in the running for the slots. Councilman Gene Cook (I) and Councilwoman Susan Berland (D) are both seeking re-election. Newcomers Jennifer Thompson, a Republican, and Keith Barrett, a Democrat, are looking for a first term.
In his opening statement, Cook said that he is such a strong believer in term limits that if he gets elected in November, he would “term-limit” himself voluntarily, pledging it would be his last run for the seat.
“It’s tough for those people to run that have never run before,” Cook said. “It’s an unfair advantage.”
Cook asked if every other candidate also believed in term limits and both Thompson and Barrett said they did.
“I think that most people come into office with the best of intentions, but the longer you’re there, the more susceptible you are to corruption,” Thompson said. “I do think that there also is benefit to having fresh perspectives and new ideas.” She also said that campaign funding is an uphill battle and incumbents make it a “David and Goliath situation” where it is very difficult for newcomers to raise matching amounts of funds.
Berland, however, said she does not believe in term limits.
“I believe elections are the best term limits,” she said. “If people want you to continue doing the job you’re doing, they’ll vote for you. If they’d rather have someone else do the job, they’ll vote for someone else.”
The most popular question of the night regarded the The Seasons at Elwood, and what each candidate’s opinion was of the project. The Seasons is a planned 256-unit condominium housing community geared towards residents 55 and older.
Cook said his opinion is on the town’s records, because he was the only town council member to vote against the project, which required a change of zone.
“When 5,500 residents who signed a petition against it and said ‘We don’t want it,’ I was right there behind you,” Cook said.
Barrett asked if it really matters what he thinks of the Seasons at Elwood. “How many of you don’t want it?” Barrett asked and the audience responded overwhelmingly that they did not. “Well then you got my answer.” Barrett also said he would have liked to see more community involvement before the project gained approval.
“I’d like to see somebody from the community and the development being involved,” Barrett said. “There is compromise for everything. We have to work on this more as a community and not ramming it down peoples’ throats.”
Thompson countered that she does think it matters what she thinks of this issue. “I will stand with this community and vote against it,” Thompson said.
Berland voted in favor of the project.
“It was a project that I supported because it’s senior housing and there are a lot of seniors who want to continue to live here,” Berland said. “They ended up with a high density number significantly lower than when they started. I think that [the Greens at Half Hollows] has been an amazing economic boom and I’m hoping that the Seasons will end up being the same.”
Some audience members continued to grill her on why she’d vote the project when many residents were against it.
“There were petitions in favor and in opposition,” Berland said. “They were a large number of people in and outside the Elwood community who welcome senior housing. I vote what I think is best for the people of the town and I don’t think this will hurt the people of the town.”
When asked for three items each candidate would prioritize if elected, Thompson started with safety in Huntington Station.
“We deserve the opportunity to walk our streets and feel safe.” Her other two priorities are making sure water quality remains clean and keeping taxes low. Barrett said he’d prioritize cleaning up criminal activities in Huntington Station. He also said parking in Huntington village is a big problem.
“Parking is a big issue because you can’t go down there and buy a slice of pizza without spending a couple bucks on parking,” Barrett said. His third issue is spending. He said he would like to broaden the scope of certain town department to get Huntington taxpayers the best bang for their bucks.
Cook brought up the shock he felt when he learned the news of Maggie Rosales, an 18-year old who died after she was stabbed in Huntington Station last year. Cook said he went to Supervisor Frank Petrone (D) with a plan to put public safety cars on the road, and link them up with 2nd Precinct to help cut crime. He also said he would like to challenge the some of the numbers in the supervisor’s budget. “I never once voted for Frank Petrone’s budget.”
All the candidates were unanimous on the issue of the ongoing litigation between Huntington Town and the Long Island Power Authority. The utility is suing the town to recover some $270 million in property taxes it paid since 2010, arguing the aging Northport power plant is grossly over-assessed.
Berland said she has been totally in favor of the litigation since day one.
“I think LIPA has to keep with the agreement that they made from the beginning that they would not ask for reassessment,” Berland said. She also said that Cook was the only vote against the litigation and that he wanted to settle instead, and that is something she strongly disagrees with.
Cook said he voted against initiating litigation because he was told if the town loses, Huntington could be on the hook for a large sum of money. He has since changed his stance — he said he believes at this point it is past negotiations and that they have to fight.
Barrett is in favor of fighting LIPA, and Thompson, who voted on the school board to put the district into the court battle, said she still strongly is for the litigation.
The next debate between the candidates will be sponsored by the League of Women Voters. It will take place at Harborfields Public Library on Oct. 26 at 6:30 p.m. at 31 Broadway in Greenlawn.
Kings Park’s Chamber of Commerce and Civic Association have joined forces to seek out improvements to downtown Kings Park.
The Kings Park Chamber of Commerce has been working for years to try and revitalize the downtown. It has now partnered up with the civic association and together they have hired Vision Long Island to do a community vision prospectus with hopes of creating a bucket list of items that could transform the community.
“For a long time it has been a sore subject that our downtown is struggling as it is,” said Anthony Tanzi, president of the Kings Park Chamber of Commerce. “We’re hoping to create a vision of what they’d like to see. Hopefully everyone feels that they’re vested in the process. Then we will take that plan to the town board.”
According to Tanzi, this includes a series of public meetings where they will meet with community members to try and get the broadest representation of what the community wants. Tanzi said he hopes to see residents flooding those meetings and sharing their desires for downtown Kings Park. He also said he wants to engage as many groups as possible, including school districts, fire districts and more, to get a diverse amount of opinions.
“I want to hear all the wants and dreams,” Tanzi said. “Whether it’s for more restaurants, housing, apartments or brick sidewalks.”
The next meeting was set for Oct. 24 at William T. Rogers Middle School on Old Duck Road at 10 a.m.
Tanzi said that the chamber and civic are each paying $5,000 to Vision Long Island, and Vision is underwriting the final $5,000 for its overall $15,000 fee. Tanzi said he hopes Vision Long Island will identify Kings Park’s marketability and assets, highlight the resources and then couple that with residents’ desires for a new downtown.
“Then, hopefully, the Town of Smithtown will have to make a commitment to implement these changes and identify sources of funding.” Tanzi said.
Vision Long Island will be meeting with the town later in October, according to Tanzi, and said it hopes to have a full plan within the next six months.
Wastewater management and high taxes are two specific problems Tanzi said downtown Kings Park faces currently.
“We don’t have the ability to move forward because of the lack of sewers,” Tanzi said. “This makes it difficult for someone to come and want to invest in downtown.”
Suffolk County Legislator Rob Trotta (R-Fort Salonga) said he agreed and has written to U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) expressing how desperately Kings Park needs sewers.
“I am writing you today to implore you to do all that is in your power to obtain funding to expand sewer access in the hamlet of Kings Park,” Trotta said in the letter. “Downtown Kings Park, with its railroad station just off Main Street and a beautiful state park in the heart of the town is ripe for economic revitalization.”
Sean Lehmann, president of the Kings Park Civic Association, said that this issue has been relevant in the civic association for years.
“Every year we give out membership forms, and on the forms we ask each member to list their top three concerns,” Lehmann said. “For the past four or five years downtown has been the number one concern.”
Lehmann also said the conditions of buildings in town are a concern as well as parking.
“We don’t have the type of businesses to drive customers out to shop here also,” Lehmann said.
He did say that some restaurants on Main Street are actually doing very well, including Ciros, Cafe Red and Relish. “But we’d like to invite more,” Lehmann said. “And sewers would really help with that.”
Lehmann also said downtown should have a focus on housing opportunities. “We want affordable housing opportunities,” Lehmann said. “It would be great for our kids who are just coming out of college.”
More than anything else, Tanzi said that resident participation is the most crucial factor.
“If we all fight for it and spend time and everyone feels that they’ve been heard, I think they’ll be more inclined to march to town hall and say what they want,” Tanzi said.
The Northport-East Northport school board mulled adding American Sign Language to the district’s curriculum at a meeting on Thursday.
Currently no such course is offered in Northport-East Northport schools.
“ASL is something I find really interesting, and many other students do too,” Emily Faltings, a student at Northport High School, said. “I think it’s very important we involve it in our district. Why don’t we have it?”
Many audience members agreed that it’s important for the district to add a sign language course.
“It’s not just for special needs kids who have hearing loss,” Cathy Josephson, a Northport resident said. “It’s also for people who want to communicate with them.”
Josephson said she has brought the issue to the board’s attention for the last six years, and she hopes members actually follow through this time.
Matthew Nelson, assistant superintendent for instruction and administration, said the reason the course hasn’t been offered is because the district can never get enough students to fill a full class. Trustee Jennifer Thompson wondered if this was because students aren’t getting enough exposure to the different language choices at a young age.
“I don’t know if there is a chance for students to recognize what other languages they could take,” Thompson said. “Maybe there could be more of a discussion about what other languages students could take and are interested in.”
Board President Andrew Rapiejko said that it sounds like no one on the board is opposed to the idea, and that the real challenge is figuring out how to publicize the course.
Superintendent Robert Banzer wondered where school officials would begin.
“Do we start this at the high school level?” Banzer said. “What would be the entry point? These are questions we can definitely look into.” Banzer also said the district could look into offering an ASL course at the middle school instead.
Trustee Regina Pisacani said language teachers in the district inform potential students of their course. She said the teachers from the middle school visit fifth grade classes and give presentations to the students about the language classes they teach.
“I think a lot of the students’ choices are influenced by the exposure of the teachers coming into their classroom,” Pisacani said. She said she thought that would be a good approach in publicizing an ASL course.
Trustee Lori McCue said that maybe ASL could be added to the elementary schools’ after-school programs, and many audience members cheered for the idea.
“That’s an obvious solution,” Rachel Friedman, a Northport resident said. “This is not something that should wait until high school. I think the best suggestion is to start it as an after-school program and then they can make that choice to continue in seventh or eighth grade.”
The board agreed that it would look into these options. No other decisions were made.
Squad says it services highest call volume in town
A report shows that Huntington Community First Aid Squad is requesting more help from neighboring fire departments than any other ambulance service in Huntington.
According to the report, commissioned by Huntington Town, five volunteer fire departments in the town approached town officials about an increase in requests from the Huntington ambulance squad to respond to calls in the squad’s service area.
HCFAS made more requests for ambulance support than those five departments combined, according to the report.
In a phone interview this week, Alyssa Axelrod, vice president of HCFAS, said that the study is misleading because it does not mention that the squad receives more calls than the five other departments combined.
HCFAS was formed in 1967 as a nonprofit and is the only exclusive volunteer ambulance program in the town. The taxpayers and Huntington Town fund the squad’s operations.
The chiefs at the respective fire departments started noticing an increase in requests starting in 2013, according to the study.
Huntington Town responded to those concerns by hiring Medic Health to assess the operational practices of HCFAS and provide recommendations to reduce the number of requests to neighboring fire departments and ambulance squads.
The study began in June 2014. Consultants worked with the Huntington ambulance squad, representatives of Suffolk County Fire Rescue and Emergency Services and Huntington Town to gather and analyze information.
The study found instances where HCFAS was understaffed during certain shifts.
In one graph, the study shows times of the day and days of the week where current staffing levels, which is a minimum of two staffed ambulances, may not be sufficient to cover the community’s demand. The study states that 1 and 5 p.m. are the two times of the day where resources are lacking the most, during six out of the seven days of the week, according to the study. Saturday from 1 to 7 p.m. is the busiest.
Currently the HCFAS services Huntington Town with a minimum of two on-duty ambulance crews based at the station for daytime shifts, and one crew for overnight shifts, according to Axelrod.
The study also highlighted a problem caused by the staff being made up entirely of volunteers.
Commitments from volunteers varied considerably for overnight and daytime coverage, according to the study. The report stated that 17 percent of the planned shifts had an insufficient number of members to staff the desired two ambulances. A chart showed the number of ambulances the HCFAS can field during different shifts based on member commitment. Friday, Saturday and Sunday overnight shifts only have enough member commitments to staff one or fewer ambulances, according to the chart. This is the same for 7 to 11:00 a.m. shifts on Friday and 3 to 7 p.m. shifts on Friday and Saturday.
Although there is no official time for how quickly an ambulance should respond to a call, organizations have given time limits to respond to life-threatening calls.
The Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services said a total response time standard of eight minutes and fifty-nine seconds is expected for life-threatening calls.
In 2014, the HCFAS was able to be on the scene to 62 percent of their calls within eight minutes of the call receipt, 76 percent within 10 minutes and 89 percent within 15 minutes. According to the study, 11 percent of the calls required more than 15 minutes for an ambulance to arrive on the scene.
If an ambulance can’t respond to the scene, mutual aid requests come into play.
Mutual aid requests were designed to allow surrounding departments to assist each other during times of unusual demand for services, like mass casualty situations or disasters. Volunteer-based organizations like HCFAS also resort to mutual aid requests when they are unable to muster sufficient resources to staff an ambulance and respond to a call.
During the first five months of 2015, HCFAS requested mutual aid 41 times compared to 23 times by all the adjacent departments.
The study concludes with eight recommendations for the HCFAS to reduce its mutual aid requests. They include employing dedicated staff to provide coverage for shifts that are too difficult to staff with current volunteer squad members, restructuring the recruitment and orientation process to reduce time investment for prospective members, and more.
It also states Huntington Town should mandate the submission of monthly performance measurements, including response time performance reports and establishing response time expectations.
Axelrod said she believes that there is a misunderstanding about what this study is about.
“We are a busy department,” Axelrod said. “This year we will do 60,000 calls. We’re stripped of our percentage of calls we get in this report. The report doesn’t show that we respond to more calls than the five other departments combined.”
She said this makes the report confusing, but there were helpful discoveries and some recommendations that HCFAS wants to integrate moving forward, according to Axelrod.
She said the squad is changing how it brings in members as it’s currently a lengthy process.
“The process is steeped in caution,” Axelrod said. “We are very careful when we vet people before we let them ride in an ambulance.”
She also said the squad has considered non-volunteers, and has added a line item to their budget for 2016 to add paid personnel. According to Axelrod, the squad’s budget for this year will be cut by 15 percent, so they will have to look into other funds if they want to hire employees.
“The bottom line is we do a great job and these other departments do a great job,” Axelrod said. “But when you take out the number of calls we respond to, it makes us look deficient.”
The Crab Meadow Golf Course is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month.
The town-owned golf course in Northport hosts between 42,000 and 45,000 rounds annually, according to Don McKay, director of parks and recreation for Huntington Town.
“The playing conditions here are outstanding,” McKay said in a phone interview. “There is a very dedicated staff and I think one of the best features of this course is that you have a view of the Long Island Sound from 16 of the 18 holes on the golf course. The views are stupendous.”
McKay has been researching the history of the golf course since its beginnings in the 1920s.
Originally, Crab Meadow Golf Course was part of the Northport Country Club, which was established in the 1920s. McKay believes that world-renowned golf architect Devereux Emmet designed the original course in 1921, and that the membership then was approximately 125 people. The Northport Country Club was abandoned in the 1940s, according to McKay, and he speculates it had to do with the Great Depression.
Then in the 1960s, with Huntington Town Supervisor Robert J. Flynn, the Crab Meadow Golf Course began to develop.
“I say it all the time, if it weren’t for Flynn, we would never have the golf course today, along with many other municipal parks in Huntington,” McKay said. “His vision for Huntington was extraordinary.”
McKay said that in 1961, a $2.5 million bond was put up to vote to Huntington residents to fund a townwide park program. Included in that plan was use of the Crab Meadow property to create a new golf course. The referendum failed, but Flynn did not give up. He got more groups to back his plan, including the Huntington Township Chamber of Commerce, and was able to get the bond approved the following year in 1962.
Robert J. Flynn Jr. said his father’s greatest pride was knowing how many people enjoyed the town parks and Crab Meadow Golf Course.
“He believed in the importance of recreation,” Flynn said. “His vision was to establish a municipal park program that would last for decades to come.”
According to McKay, once the town made the purchase of the land, the municipality began to restore the course and alter the layout a bit.
William F. Mitchell designed the current course, which officially opened in 1965. It’s an 18-hole course that is 6,574 yards by 5,658 yards and open to the public. There are social clubs at the course, including clubs for men, women and seniors, that anyone is welcome to join. “The club members are the MVPs of the course,” McKay said. There is also a restaurant, concession stand, locker rooms and a pro golf store.
Maureen Lieb worked at the golf course at its inception in the 1960s. She started working for the town in 1964, immediately after she graduated from Suffolk County Community College.
“When the golf course was opening, they asked if I would want to work there,” Lieb said in a phone interview. “It was between being a meter maid or working on the golf course. There wasn’t any question.” She started as a cashier and eventually became the manager.
Lieb said she worked out of a trailer when she first started working for the golf course, because it took another year after the course was opened for the club to be built.
“I always loved my job,” Lieb said. “I was very lucky. I enjoyed the residents the most that came to golf. They were so nice and I’ve actually kept in touch with some I met when I first started working there.” She retired in December 1993.
The Huntington Town Board authorized a special one-day reduced tournament green fee of $25 at the course on Oct. 21, as part of the 50th anniversary celebration. The day will also feature reduced fees for golf carts, driving range and food.
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