Lake Grove

Photo courtesy PSEG

PSEG Long Island is improving the reliability of the energy grid in Lake Grove. The storm hardening work on this distribution circuit is part of many system improvements included in the “Power On” program.

“This Power On infrastructure improvement project in Lake Grove is part of PSEG Long Island’s ongoing, multi-year effort to continue to improve electric reliability for customers,” said Peggy Keane, PSEG Long Island’s vice president of Construction and Operations Services. “We are working hard to reduce the number of outages that occur during severe weather by strengthening the electric lines that directly power homes and businesses.”

The work began in early May and is expected to last approximately one month. PSEG Long Island’s licensed and approved contractors will work along distribution lines in Lake Grove. To ensure traffic moves safely, PSEG Long Island will provide cones, flaggers and signage at the worksites as needed. Local officials will also be notified in advance regarding any potential traffic concerns.

The storm-hardening improvements include:

● Stronger poles: PSEG Long Island will replace some existing utility poles with stronger, more durable poles that are capable of withstanding winds up to 135 mph. The new poles will be approximately the same height as the existing poles, have a stronger base and will be placed no more than 5 feet from the current pole locations. PSEG Long Island will actively coordinate the removal of old poles with other utilities and municipalities.

● Narrow profiles: To help wires deflect falling limbs instead of catching them, PSEG Long Island will be installing shorter cross arms atop some poles.

● Stronger wire: Current wire will be replaced with more resilient and durable wire.

● Upgrading: PSEG Long Island will upgrade or replace worn equipment as necessary.

Crews will be working on the following streets in Lake Grove:

● Glen Way between Parsnip Pond Road and Bea Street

● Bea Street East of Sarah Drive

● Sy Court East of Sarah Drive

● Sarah Drive between Bea Street and
Hy Place

● Hy Place between Sarah Drive and Gould Drive

 PSEG Long Island prepares year-round for extreme weather to maintain reliable service for approximately 1.2 million customers. Since 2014, the company has made significant investments in strengthening the electric infrastructure. Using funding from both FEMA and LIPA, PSEG Long Island has completed storm hardening and reliability work on more than 1,000 miles of distribution mainline circuits.

 Power On, a program that started in the spring of 2020, continues the work now that the FEMA program has concluded. Since the launch of Power On, more than 420 miles of the most vulnerable distribution mainline and branch line circuits on Long Island and in the Rockaways have been storm hardened with stronger poles, thicker wire and other modern equipment.

These investments have strengthened the system so that fewer customers experience outages and, when they do occur, the duration is shorter, especially during extreme weather. Excluding catastrophic storms, from the first quarter of 2024 through the first quarter of 2025, the sections of circuits that PSEG Long Island has storm-hardened have seen a 39% reduction in damage leading to outages, compared with the rest of the distribution system.

Power On focuses on mainline circuits, the backbone of the distribution system. The main lines feed the many branch lines that power the homes and businesses in individual communities.

For more project details, visit psegliny.com/inthecommunity/currentinitiatives/stormhardeningprojects.

James Carr

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney announced on Feb. 28 that James Carr, 35, of Lake Grove, was found guilty after a jury trial of assault and drug possession charges, for the near-fatal overdose of his infant child. Co-defendant Robert Mauro, 33, of Miller Place, previously pleaded guilty to numerous crimes related to the fatal overdose of a 33-year-old adult female in January 2024.

“My office is determined and dedicated to fight the fentanyl crisis, and this conviction represents another step in the right direction,” said District Attorney Tierney. “This is the first time in New York that fentanyl has been deemed a dangerous instrument. We will continue our commitment to hold drug dealers accountable for selling this poison. My office will continue to fight to make sure we keep our children safe from fentanyl, and we will continue to seek justice for all victims of the fentanyl crisis.”

The evidence at Carr’s trial, and Mauro’s admissions during his guilty plea allocution, established that on January 13, 2024, members of the Suffolk County Police Department and the Ronkonkoma Fire Department responded to a 911 call reporting a non-responsive infant on Colmar Avenue in Lake Grove.

When they arrived, “John Doe,” an 11-month-old infant, had turned blue, his eyes were rolled toward the back of his head, and he was having extreme difficulty breathing.

Due to his serious condition, the ambulance that was transporting the boy to the hospital had to pull over during the transit so a MedCat Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) could board the ambulance to provide additional lifesaving care to the infant. The child had stopped breathing for an extended period of time on the way to Stony Brook University Hospital and had been unresponsive for approximately 40 minutes. The medics inside the ambulance determined that the symptoms the child was exhibiting were from opiate poisoning. They quickly acted and provided the baby with a quantity of Narcan in each nostril. Five minutes after the administration of Narcan, he took a full breath on his own and began to cry.

Once at the hospital, the 11-month-old child was diagnosed with acute fentanyl poisoning, hypoxia, and respiratory failure and required additional doses of Narcan in the Pediatric Emergency Room. After his admission to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, the infant was placed on a Narcan drip in order to prevent recurrent respiratory failure due to the opioid poisoning. James Carr, the child’s father, was arrested on the same day.

A search of the Lake Grove residence was conducted by the Suffolk County Police Department, and investigators recovered a straw containing cocaine, 4-ANPP (a precursor to fentanyl), heroin, and fentanyl residue, a digital scale containing cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl residue, and a plastic bag containing cocaine residue.

A review of phone data recovered from Carr’s phone revealed that on January 4, 2024, and January 5, 2024, he was in contact with Mauro where they discussed a sale of narcotics where Mauro offered to sell narcotics to Carr. Mauro knew that the narcotics that he intended to sell Carr had caused an overdose previously and advertised the drugs to Carr as an “oz of fire that some kid od’d off of.” Over the next few days, Carr actively sought out the drugs from Mauro. On January 9, 2024, Mauro sold the drug to Carr, just four days before the infant ingested a near-fatal dose of fentanyl.

On January 29, 2024, while Suffolk County Police Department Fourth Squad detectives were conducting their investigation into Carr and Mauro, Homicide Squad detectives responded to a fatal overdose that occurred at a home in Patchogue. At that location, law enforcement recovered from the scene the 31-year-old victim’s1 cell phone, and a quantity of fentanyl/4-ANPP.

A review of the victim’s phone data showed that she too had purchased narcotics from Mauro. This sale occurred on January 28, 2024. A further review of the data showed that on January 26, 2024, the victim texted Mauro that she had not used heroin in over a year and was concerned about the substance she was going to buy.

She texted, “I’m not trying to drop dead,” and asked, “is it really strong? Should I be concerned?” Mauro responded that “lol u will b fine” and that he would sell her a “non-fenty” mix, meaning narcotics without any fentanyl. That same day Mauro told an unidentified purchaser that his product was so strong that it put him “out” for a couple of hours.

An autopsy conducted by the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office concluded that the female victim’s cause of death was acute intoxication due to the combined effects of fentanyl, fluro fentanyl, acetyl fentanyl, methoxyacytal fentanyl, xylazine, and buprenorphine.

Xylazine, also known as “Tranq,” is a powerful sedative, commonly used by veterinarians to tranquilize large livestock, and is increasingly used by drug dealers as a “cutting agent” to increase their profits on their sale of drugs. Despite legislative efforts championed by District Attorney Tierney, Xylazine is still currently legal to possess and sell in New York State.

On February 20, 2024, a search warrant was executed at Mauro’s home in Miller Place. During the execution of the warrant, Mauro attempted to destroy evidence by throwing a digital scale and a quantity of fentanyl/4-ANPP out of his bedroom window into the snow, but those items were recovered by law enforcement, as well as suboxone pills and Mauro’s cellphone.

A review of the digital evidence recovered from Mauro’s phone showed that he was aware of how deadly his narcotics were. He told one contact that he was afraid to use it alone, texting, “I have Narcan but I’m alone so I gotta wait and see wut these kids say.” On January 26, 2024, the same day he reassured the victim before her fatal overdose, he had a separate conversation with an unidentified purchaser where Mauro mentioned how potent the drug was after he tried it.

On October 17, 2024, Mauro pleaded guilty to Manslaughter in the Second Degree, a Class C felony, and Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance, a Class B felony, before County Court Judge Philip Goglas.

On January 28, 2025, Mauro was sentenced to five to fifteen years in prison, which is the maximum sentence allowable under the law, and which will be followed by a period of two years post-release supervision once he is released. He was represented by Matthew Tuohy, Esq.

On February 27, 2025, Carr was found guilty of one count of Assault in the Second Degree, a Class D violent felony, and one count of Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the Seventh Degree, a Class A misdemeanor, after a jury trial heard before Judge Goglas.

Following the verdict, Carr was remanded into custody. He is due back in court for sentencing on March 31, 2025, and faces up to two to seven years in prison. He is being represented by John Campo Esq.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Danielle Davis and Daniel Fischer of the Narcotics Bureau.

A video recording of the incident can be found on DA Tierney’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9di_Xnhr8Mw&t=1s

 

Stony Brook Medicine’s new facility at Smith Haven Mall. Photo by Aidan Johnson
By Aidan Johnson

When a person plans a trip to the mall, they may imagine buying new clothes, browsing storefronts and eating at the food court. Now they can add a trip to the doctor’s office to their list.

Stony Brook Medicine has opened a new advanced specialty care facility at the Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove. The approximately 170,000-square-foot space, previously occupied by Sears, is now host to a plethora of specialties, offering a “one-stop shop” to patients.

Sharon Meinster, the assistant vice president of facilities planning and design, and Dr. Todd Griffin, vice president for clinical services and vice dean for clinical affairs at Stony Brook Medicine, explained how the new facility would be more accessible for patients than the offices at Technology Drive in Setauket.

The facility will open in multiple phases, likely to be completed by 2027. As their leases end at Technology Drive, the other practices will gradually make their way to Lake Grove. 

“What’s great here is that there’s much better public transportation to the mall,” Griffin said. “That was one of the things that we used to hate about tech parks because many of our patients were taking two or three buses to get there.”

The closest bus stop to Technology Drive is at Belle Meade Road, and if the practice was located farther down the park, it could be difficult for a patient to get there, especially in inclement weather such as heat waves or snowstorms.

There will also be an urgent care complex built in the automotive center at the Smith Haven Mall, which will have direct ambulance support to Stony Brook University Hospital.

Since the new location connects to the rest of the mall, the idea of a buzzer system, similar to those found in restaurants, was considered, allowing patients to walk around the mall while they wait, though Griffin does hope to cut down the wait times.

The phase one services, which are currently open and occupy 60,000 out of the 170,000 square feet, include family and preventive medicine, primary and specialty care, pediatrics, diabetes education, genetic counseling, neurology, neuropsychology and pain management.

The facility will help to foster collaboration between the different doctors since they will all be under one roof.

“It’s nice to have sort of the neuro institute people together,” Griffin said, adding, “You have the surgeons and the docs all in the same space, which helps with collaboration.”

“Right now, they’re in two different locations. So when they move here, they’ll be all together,” he added, “and it’s the same thing with our comprehensive pain center.”

Stony Brook Medicine will also continue to build its Commack location, which has been open since 2017. That building sits at around 350,000 square feet and houses around 38 specialties. They aim to open a surgical center as well as an advanced urgent care center by early 2025.

Despite not having many windows, the Lake Grove facility’s lighting and paint job help to create a more welcoming atmosphere. With much more to come from the Stony Brook care facility, it is already offering a fast and easy way for locals to see their doctor and then grab a pretzel on the way out.