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The Smithtown Patriots (red) playing the Brookhaven Bluejays. Photo courtesy Supervisor Wehrheim’s office
The Smithtown Patriots (red) playing the Brookhaven Bluejays. Photo courtesy Supervisor Wehrheim’s office
The Smithtown Patriots (red) playing the Brookhaven Bluejays. Photo courtesy Supervisor Wehrheim’s office
The Smithtown Patriots (red) playing the Brookhaven Bluejays. Photo courtesy Supervisor Wehrheim’s office

The Town of Smithtown Senior Softball Team, Smithtown Patriots, kicked off their Opening Day game for the 2025 season on Thursday, May 8th. The Smithtown Patriots played the Brookhaven Bluejays at Flynn Memorial Park. Supervisor Ed Wehrheim and Councilman Tom Lohmann were in attendance to wish both teams good luck, a great season, and a memorable opening day. 

“It was a beautiful day for a ball game as the Smithtown Patriots took the field, bringing their skill, sportsmanship and unbeatable spirit to kick off a brand-new season. Flynn Memorial Park was filled with energy, laughter and the kind of camaraderie that makes our community so special. We were proud to host the Brookhaven Bluejays and even prouder to celebrate a game that  is timeless, much like our incredible senior leagues.”  said Wehrheim. 

Opening ceremonies began with the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a moment of silence for Patriot’s long-time teammate and dear friend, Christopher Revere Sr., who passed away on March 26. Richard Claxton, the Patriot’s team manager and player, referred to Revere as “the heart and soul of the team.” Just before the Patriots took the field for the top of the first inning, Supervisor Wehrheim threw out the ceremonial first pitch, enthusiastically declaring, “Play ball!”

The battle between the Patriots and Blujays ultimately ended in a draw, as each team won one of the two games played. The Smithtown Patriots Senior Softball Team is sponsored by the Smithtown Senior Citizens’ Department.

Interested in joining?

Eligible players must be at least 59 by the year’s end (2025) to join the team. The team plays doubleheaders on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. The season starts in May and ends in August. Any interested participants should contact the Smithtown Senior Center at (631) 360-7616.

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The Forestwood Civic Association meeting on April 30. Photo by Sabrina Artusa
The Forestwood Civic Association meeting on April 30. Photo by Sabrina Artusa
The Forestwood Civic Association meeting on April 30. Photo by Sabrina Artusa

By Sabrina Artusa 

Residents of Forestwood continue to monitor changes to Blydenburgh County Park, which sits in the heart of their community. At a Forestwood Civic Association meeting, Suffolk County Chief Engineer Alexander Prego fielded questions regarding the design and timeline for a new dam, an essential step in the process of refilling Stump Pond.

The timeline for the lake, a signature characteristic of this national historic site and a major draw for hikers, fishers and kayakers, has been uncertain as county officials navigate permitting and funding. 

“Our goal is to build it back better,” Prego said. “That failure that occurred last fall — we need to make sure that we build it for more than that.” The failed dam was classified as Class A, or a low-hazard dam, where failure could result in damage to roads and undeveloped land with an unlikely risk of “substantial economic loss or substantial environmental damage.” The new dam will likely be Class B, or intermediate hazard, reflecting the reality of August’s storm and its potential for “downstream damage,” according to Suffolk County Department of Public Works Commissioner Charlie Bartha. The more “substantial” dam will require more periodic inspections from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. 

Blydenburgh is on a watershed, meaning the water from over 12,000 acres of land accumulated at the park. “We need to estimate how much water of that 12,000 will be coming in during a 25- or 100-year storm,“ Prego said. The new dam and spillway will be able to handle 225% of a 100-year storm. They installed five stream gauges to record rainfall and tide data. “We need to measure everything coming in here,” he said. 

In April, Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine (R) released a document detailing the steps to be completed, which include permitting and inspections from several different departments such as the DEC and the New York State Historic Preservation Office. Prego said the county aims to have permitting and plans completed by the end of this year.

Of the $6.6 million of county money dedicated to rebuilding, the mapping, engineering planning and other analyses used $500,000. 

In addition, they plan to add a fish ladder to promote the migration of the American eel, brook trout and river otters. 

Forestwood residents expressed concern for trail accessibility for horses as well as the safety hazard posed by the soft, muddy surface of the empty lake. “What are you going to do to protect the pond area and at the same time protect the kids in our neighborhood?” one resident asked. 

The swamp-like crater was described as looking like “a breeding ground for mosquitoes” by one resident, who then asked how it is being treated. The county can use larvicide to eliminate mosquitoes before they hatch, said Suffolk County Council on Environmental Quality Vice Chair Michael Kaufman. 

Members of the Suffolk County Department of Parks were invited but were not present for the meeting. Forestwood civic President Robert Sikora called their absence “very disappointing.” 

“They should’ve been here,” he said. “This is a park discussion.” Indeed, several residents had questions about trail maintenance that did not fall into the purview of the public works department.

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The Smithtown School District received nearly four times as many votes for this year's school budget compared to last years. File photo

By William Stieglitz

With three Smithtown Central School District Board of Education seats up for election on May 20 — two needing to be filled by new people due to term limits and the third due to a resignation — two trios of candidates are running to fill the spots. TBR News Media spoke with both slates of candidates about their experience and vision for the district. 

One group includes Bernadette Ackermann, who works as vice president of marketing for a software firm and previously served as the Tackan Elementary Parent Teacher Association president; Theresa Donohue, a 23-year educator with experience as a teacher, assistant principal and curriculum coordinator and currently as a central office administrator; and Brandon Solomon, a real estate project manager, PTA Council delegate and the husband of a Smithtown elementary educator. All three are endorsed by the teachers’ union.

The other group includes Karen Wontrobski-Ricciardi, who served as board vice president from 2021 to 2024 and beforehand worked within the PTA; Al Carfora, who works in insurance and is experienced negotiating bids with contractors; and Mike Simonelli, a retired Suffolk County police officer and author of “Justified Deadly Force and the Myth of Systemic Racism: The Facts Everyone Must Know.” All three have expressed that they don’t want the board fully controlled by those the teachers’ union backs. 

Budgeting

Ackerman, Donohue, Solomon: Solomon and Ackerman both emphasized their professional experience managing multimillion-dollar budgets, with Solomon saying how, if elected to the board, they should be “stretching every dollar we have.” Ackerman said it was also important to avoid unnecessary expenses, like “lawsuits between board members,” which she said happened five times in the period from 2021 to 2024, “all because there were certain people on the board who couldn’t get along.” 

Wontrobski-Ricciardi, Carfora, Simonelli: Simonelli, citing his time as a financial analyst officer in the military, argued the district should aim to reduce spending in a manner akin to the federal government. “We saw just recently with DOGE, they found fraud, waste and abuse in every agency they went to. So I believe we need a similar look.” He also stated that there could be funding issues if Smithtown and New York State “fight President Trump’s executive orders declaring all of that [DEI] should be coming out of the Department of Education.”

Bullying and mental health of students

Ackerman, Donohue, Solomon: Addressing bullying, according to Donohue, starts with upholding and building upon “The Smithtown Promise,” which promotes dignity, belonging, respect and ambition for students. She cited social media as a major factor and said limiting its use in schools helps reduce bullying proactively.

Solomon said another helpful factor is the district partnership with Northwell Health, which provides students with priority services for mental health. “It’s very important that that continues,” he said, “because bullying is an issue. Like Theresa said, it doesn’t go away when you go home, and people need help. And when they need help, they need it right away.”

Wontrobski-Ricciardi, Carfora, Simonelli: Simonelli stated he has seen depression and suicide rates go up despite there being “more mental health training and consideration being given in schools” than he’s ever seen and suggested “there’s a cultural thing going on that needs to be addressed by the families.” Wontrobski-Ricciardi made a similar statement, saying, “there is just a ton of support in place for our students’ mental well-being. And I think it’s great. It should be. But there are some fear mongers that will let you believe that there isn’t enough in place.”

Diversity, equity and inclusion

Ackerman, Donohue, Solomon: “For me,” said Ackerman, “it’s paramount that every student, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, is welcome and supported and made to feel safe in Smithtown schools.” She said that while the politicization of DEI has made it harder to achieve these goals, for her, “it’s basically making all students feel welcome and supported in every way — in terms of emotional [and] educational whether or not they learn differently.”

Solomon also spoke on accessibility, saying, “if a student needs extra time on a test, if a student needs to take a test on a Chromebook instead of using pen and paper, I think everybody needs every opportunity they need, and I think we owe it to them.” He emphasized too that, regardless of personal opinions on DEI, it is important that the board follow state law to avoid costly litigation for taxpayers.

Wontrobski-Ricciardi, Carfora, Simonelli: All three said the district is “pushing political ideology” on students regarding topics of race, gender and sexuality and that it is coming at the expense of academics, though the district says such claims are false and misrepresent their actual focus on safety, respect and support for learning. Among the trio’s arguments that DEI and anti-police material are being pushed was the claim that the district equity team was teaching about the Black Lives Matter movement counterproductively. “This was during the height of George Floyd,” Simonelli said. “The conversations among the group were sharing anti-police stuff, talking about deadly police incidents… This is the Philando Castile shooting, Alton Sterling, Michael Brown, all these incidents that have been proven to have been justified deadly force incidents.”

Wontrobski-Ricciardi and Simonelli also expressed concerns over Smithtown Library’s inclusions of children’s books featuring LGBT characters, describing it as a matter of topics of sexuality, questioning gender and pronouns being present. 

Communication and transparency

Ackerman, Donohue, Solomon: Donohue and Ackerman emphasized communication with parents as a top priority, particularly in regards to spending and the budget structure. “The district does many presentations when it comes to the budget planning,” Donohue said. “But at the same time, there’s a lot in there that’s just confusing that the normal person maybe doesn’t understand.” For Ackerman, reviewing previously discussed information is also important. “They’ll communicate something when it happens, but then it’s never discussed again,” she said, citing information on armed guards as an example.

Wontrobski-Ricciardi, Carfora, Simonelli: All three also expressed a desire to see more communication from the district. A particular concern for Carfora was in relation to the topic of potential mold in schools. “They have no answer other than trust us… we’re telling you there’s no mold,” he said, emphasizing what he called a lack of full testing. The district stated they did more testing than the third-party engineering firm they brought in suggested and that there was confusion due to circulation of outdated photos.

For more information visit the school website: www.smithtown.k12.ny.us.

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'Pond at Bayard Cutting Arboretum' by Ross Barbera will be on view through June 15.

By Heidi Sutton

As flowers and trees bloom across Long Island and the weather warms, the beauty of the season heads inside for the Setauket Artists’ Spring Exhibition at Deepwells Mansion in St. James.

Featuring over 100 works of art from 34 artists displayed on the first and second floors of the mansion, the stunning exhibit will open this weekend with an artist reception on Sunday, May 18 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.

“It will be a beautiful show painted by talented artists who are attuned to the beauty of the local area,” said Paula Pelletier, publicist for the Setauket Artists and a member for over15 years. 

Participating artists include Ross Barbera, Shain Bard, Kyle Blumenthal, Sheila Breck, Joyce Bressler, Renee Caine, Al Candia, Gail Chase,  Anthony Davis, Julie Doczi, William Dodge, Paul Edelson, Margaret Governale, Melissa Imossi, Flo Kemp, Karen Kemp, Joanne Liff, John Mansueto, Daniel McCarthy, Jane McGraw-Teubner, Eleanor Meier, Fred Mendelsohn, Muriel Musarra, Annette Napolitano, Paula Pelletier, Joan Rockwell, Robert Roehrig, Carole Link Scinta, Barbara Jeanne Siegel, John Taylor, Susan Trawick, Maria Lourdes Velez, Marlene Weinstein, and Patricia Yantz.

Many of the paintings are inspired by Long Island landscapes and seascapes of the Sound. This year’s Honored Artist is Anthony Davis whose oil paintings of the ever-changing surf will grace the walls of the mansion. Other paintings reflect artists’ travels and daily inspirations, which range from butterflies (Maria Lourdes Velez), birches (Shain Bard) to barns (Al Candia), according to Pelletier.

Mediums include oil, watercolor, acrylic and pastel. Additionally, hand-painted photographs and cyanotypes by Marlene Weinstein. All paintings are for sale. 

The first floor of the mansion will also feature a gift boutique where one can purchase original scarves, greeting cards and books, matted and unframed works (some originals, others giclee prints), as well as pottery by Russell Pulick. In addition, four paintings ­— generously donated by Patty Yantz, Paul Edelson, Eleanor Meier, and Carole Link Scinta — will be raffled off.

“The artists are excited to return to Deepwells with its floor-to-ceiling windows and extraordinary light. While there, visitors can admire its 19th century Greek-Revival architecture, learn the history of this beautiful mansion built in 1845 and view restoration projects,” said Pelletier.

“We would like to thank the members of the Setauket Artists community who work so hard and spend so many hours working to make our exhibits successful. In particular we would like to thank Renee Caine, Rob Roehrig and Patty Yantz for their time, energy, good humor and administrative skills,” she added.

Sponsored by Steven Baroumis of SBNY RE, the exhibit will run through June 15 at Deepwells Mansion, 2 Taylor Lane (corner of Route 25A and Moriches Road), in St. James. Admission is free. For more information and to view a selection of the paintings, visit setauketartists.com.

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File photo by Raymond Janis

Thank you

Many have witnessed the ongoing conversations and press surrounding the congressional budget and the potential changes to the programs so many people depend on. I would like to send a quick thank you to Congressman Nick LaLota [R-NY1] for signing the letter to House leadership on April 14 affirming his commitment to Medicaid.

Long Island members of Congress sent a letter to congressional leaders stating, “we would like to reiterate our strong support for this program that ensures our constituents have reliable health care. Balancing the federal budget must not come at the expense of those who depend on these benefits for their health and economic security.”

“Our constituents are asking for changes to the health care system that will strengthen the health care workforce, offer low-income, working-class families expanded opportunities to save for medical expenses, support rural and underserved communities and help new mothers.”

As a local volunteer advocate for the Alzheimer’s Impact Movement, I look forward to seeing these necessary programs remain intact so many of our friends and family can receive these benefits they so desperately need.

Christina Russo

Cora

Praise for Hal Sheprow

Port Jeff lost a remarkable man and I lost a friend of over 50 years, Mayor Hal Sheprow.

We served together on the planning board some 35 years ago, sometimes disagreeing. After each meeting, we and Walt Berndt would bend elbows at the Elks and bond.

Hal’s contributions cannot be overstated. To purchase the country club and make it affordable for village residents made the bond we paid a bargain. Hal never took enough credit for it. !t was visionary!

Unfortunately, I found out about his funeral too late. My very best to his wonderful wife, Peg, and his kids.

Fred Levine

Jefferson’s Ferry

WRITE TO US … AND KEEP IT LOCAL  

We welcome your letters, especially those responding to our local coverage, replying to other letter writers’ comments and speaking mainly to local themes. Letters should be no longer than 400 words and may be edited for length, libel, style, good taste and uncivil language. They will also be published on our website. We do not publish anonymous letters. Please include an address and phone number for confirmation. Email letters to: [email protected] or mail them to TBR News Media, P.O. Box 707, Setauket, NY 11733

 

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Last chance to view Building the Ballot Box at the Long Island Museum. The exhibit closes on May 18. Photo courtesy of LIM

By Heidi Sutton

On International Museum Day, Sunday, May 18, the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook is partnering with The Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington and the Whaling Museum in Cold Spring Harbor to celebrate the important roles museums and other cultural institutions play in our communities. 

At the Long Island Museum, 1200 Route 25A, Stony Brook, visitors can enjoy free admission to the museum from noon to 5 p.m., special “I Love Long Island Museums” buttons (while supplies last), and receive 10% off your purchase at the Gift Shop. This will also be the last day to view Building the Ballot Box: Long Island’s Democratic History and the Colors of Long Island student art exhibition in the History Museum. www.longislandmuseum.org

At the Heckscher Museum, 2 Prime Ave., Huntington, visitors will enjoy free admission to view exhibitions Robert Graham Carter: The Art of Reflection and Long Island’s Best 2025 from noon to 5 p.m. Take home a free button and tote bag too while supplies last. www.heckscher.org

And over at the Whaling Museum, 301 Main St., Cold Spring Harbor, visitors will receive a complimentary pin for every paid admssion, library passes included from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Available in five different designs, the special pins are the Museum’s way of thanking the community for their support. Visitors can view the Monsters & Mermaids exhibit, make up-cycled ocean crafts, take part in a Release the Kraken scavenger hunt and tour the museum’s exhibits. www.cshwhalingmuseum.org

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The police at the Kings Park Bluff after a 911 call was placed.

Suffolk County Police Homicide Squad detectives are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a man found in Kings Park on May 14.

Marine Bureau officers responded to a 911 call reporting a man in distress in the Nissequogue River on May 12 at 7:49 p.m. A witness at the scene said he waded into the water before being swept away from the shore. He began waving his hands, signaling distress.

The witness said a man jumped in to help, but the victim was too far. “It was just horrible,” the witness said.

“I looked for a life ring to throw him. It wouldn’t have reached him anyway,”  the witness said. “You couldn’t do anything.”

During a search of the area, an adult male was found deceased today in the Nissequogue River, near Old Dock Road, at approximately 6:40 p.m.

The man was pronounced at the scene by a physician assistant from the Office of the Suffolk County Medical Examiner. Following a preliminary investigation, detectives believe the cause of death to be non-criminal in nature. The man’s identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Homicide Squad at 631-852-6392 or anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS.

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Esther Takeuchi. Photo by Roger Stoutenburgh/Brookhaven National Laboratory

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Esther Takeuchi has won numerous awards and received plenty of honors for her work. 

In 2009, President Barack Obama presented her with a National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor possible for technological achievement in the country.

She has also been elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,  received the 2013 E.V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry from the American Chemical Society and was selected as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among others.

Takeuchi, who has over 150 patents to her name and is Distinguished Professor in Materials Science and Chemical Engineering at Stony Brook University and Chair of the Interdisciplinary Science Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory, spoke with Times Beacon Record News Media about a range of topics.

“In the long run, I think energy storage can significantly improve energy availability and affordability,” said Takeuchi. “We end up throwing a lot of [energy] away.”

Indeed, in a widely cited statistic based on a 2021 study, 65 percent of energy produced is thrown away. Energy from any source, whether it’s fossil fuels, sunlight, wind or nuclear, is inefficient, with losses from heat, limitations on technology, friction with machinery and incomplete combustion, among a host of factors.

“Let’s use it more effectively, where we can follow the load,” urged Takeuchi.

At the same time, Takeuchi recognizes the importance of ensuring the safety of energy storage, including for the proposed storage facilities in Setauket.

“The Fire Department and police need to be brought into the discussion,” she said. “A lot of these folks are extremely knowledgeable.”

Community education, involvement and awareness is necessary for any such project, ensuring that the appropriate people are informed and know how to respond to any crisis.

Energy needs

Future energy needs are considerably higher than they are today, thanks to the demands of artificial intelligence.

Large data centers that house the kinds of information necessary for AI are “incredibly power hungry,” Takeuchi said. If AI continues to expand at the current pace, it alone will use more energy than the world makes today.

“We need to have broader sources of energy” so it is available, she added. “Where is going to come from?”

Indeed, Takeuchi and her collaborators are working on energy storage that doesn’t use the kind of lithium-ion batteries that power much of consumer electronics. Lithium ion batteries are compact and are highly reactive, packing energy into a small volume. If something goes wrong, these batteries are flammable.

“We are working on a project at Stony Brook and Brookhaven National Laboratory where we’ve demonstrated electrolytes that don’t burn at all,” she said. “You can put a butane lighter on them and they won’t burn.”

To be sure, these batteries, which would be larger than the current systems, are a “long way” from commercialization, but it’s possible.

Still, Takeuchi is excited about rechargeable water-based batteries. She’s focused on making sure the materials are elements that are used broadly, instead of exotic materials mined in only one place on Earth. She’s also looking to create a cycle life that’s as high as possible.

Aqueous materials have a lower cycle life. She and her team are trying to understand why and overcome those challenges, which would enable these batteries to be recharged more times before degrading.

Funding environment

The current funding environment for science and technology has reached an uncertain time, Takeuchi said.

“One of the ways the United States has been so effective at competing economically on a global level is through science and technology,” she said. During many decades, the country has been an innovation leader as measured by the number of patents issued.

Driven by the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb, by frenzied competition with the Soviet Union after the launch of Sputnik in October of 1957 amid the Cold War, and by the drive to send people to the moon in the 1960’s, the country has attracted top talent from around the world while making important discoveries and creating new technology. Realizing that science and technology is a driver of future commercial and economic growth, other countries have been actively recruiting scientists concerned about the future funding landscape to their countries. This creates the potential for a brain drain.

If the United States gives up its leadership position when other nations are charging ahead, it could take a long time to recover the current standing, not to mention to mirror the successes and personal and professional opportunities from previous generations, said Takeuchi.

“Science is critical to lead us to the future we all want to live in,” she added. 

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William H. Luers. Photo from Bakers Institute

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

The worlds of art and politics might seem quite separate, but here is a life that bridges them both. Two lives, in fact.

In one of those chance happenings that amounts to little more than a footnote but turns the tide of history, William Luers became the new ambassador to Czechoslovakia in 1983. It was a time of tumult in the Soviet-bloc country, as the unlikely  poet-playwright, Vaclav Havel, was leading a peaceful uprising to oust the Communist state. Havel was in and out of prison and appeared to be a long-shot among other dissidents to triumph against the Soviets. Nonetheless Luers recognized the potential of the cultural leader and contributed to his very survival and political successes that resulted in the independence of Czechoslovakia in 1989 and the subsequent creation of the Czech Republic.

In betting on Havel, Luers was in fact recognizing the pairing of politics and art that informed his own life.

Luers was born in Springfield, Illinois, and attended high school there, where he played basketball with a distinct advantage. He was exceptionally tall. After majoring in chemistry and math and graduating from Hamilton College in upstate New York, he went on to switch to the humanities and study philosophy at Northwestern University, then joined the Navy. It was 1952 and the United States was at war with Korea. After graduating from officers’ candidate school and being discharged in 1957, he entered the Foreign Service and in 1958 earned a master’s degree in Russian Studies from Columbia University. He spoke fluent Russian, Spanish and Italian, and worked at embassies in Moscow, Rome and other capitals in Europe and Latin America. Before he went to Czechoslovakia, he was ambassador to Venezuela.

His most important post was his last. He protected Havel by inviting dozens of American cultural celebrities to visit Prague, and after meeting the playwright, “then at news conferences outside the reach of the government-controlled Czech news media, recast him in a protective armor of global publicity,” according to The New York Times. By burnishing Havel’s name “as a writer but not as a statesman, which might have increased Havel’s perils,” continued The Times’ reporter Luer saved him.

Some of the celebrity visitors included John Updike, Edward Albee, E.L. Doctorow, Kurt Vonnegut, William Styron, Philippe de Montebello, director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum, theater director Joseph Papp, abstract painter Richard Diebenkorn and Katharine Graham, publisher of The Washington Post. 

Since Luers came from a culturally prominent family, many of these people were his friends and they understood their purpose in visiting. “The underlying message…was that harming Mr. Havel might risk incalculable international consequences for the Czech government,” according to The Times. In fact, Luers used the arts to promote, protect and ultimately elect Vaclav Havel as leader of the Czech Republic. 

After 29 years in the Foreign Service, during which time he became an aide to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (and in 1974 personally delivered President Nixon’s resignation letter over the Watergate scandal to him), Luers went on to be president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 13 years. Like Havel, the arc of his life spanned politics and art.

William Luers died this past Saturday, May 10, in his home in Washington Depot, Connecticut, at the age of 95. His greatest satisfaction was the success of Vaclav Havel, according to The Times. “The Communist system was deeply flawed. It underestimated cultural leaders’ influence on the people.” 

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GSA Troop 833 during a recent clean-up of the PJS/Setauket Greenway Trail. Photo from Herb Mones

KEEP BROOKHAVEN BEAUTIFUL and Keep America Beautiful, Inc., in cooperation with Supervisor Panico and the Town of Brookhaven, invite you to join the Great American CleanupTM. Every spring, individuals and groups join the Great American Cleanup, the nation’s largest organized cleanup, beautification, and community improvement program.

The facts on litter are sobering. According to the most recent litter study there are more than 50 billion pieces of litter on the ground. That’s 152 pieces of litter for every American. But there is good news. In the past ten years, littering along US roadways is down 54%! Last year alone, over 64,000 clean-up events were held in the US, resulting in over 146,600 ACRES of parks, public lands, waterways, trails and playgrounds cleaned up by volunteers like YOU!

So, don’t wait for someone else to do it…pick a location…and volunteer for this year’s Great Brookhaven Cleanup! Join thousands of Brookhaven residents to help make Brookhaven … a cleaner, greener, more beautiful Town!

  • Identify a specific site that you would like to improve.
  • Visit the site to plan your event and get permission from the property owner if necessary.
  • Possible activities:
    • Litter cleanups on streets, parks, playgrounds
    • River, lake and seashore cleanups
    • Nature trails, woodland trails and field cleanups
    • School cleanups
    • Commercial Site / Shopping Center cleanups
    • Beautification / community improvement projects
  • Recruit family members, friends or neighbors to help.

Several organized events will be taking part in this year’s clean up including:

Farmingville

Farmingvile Residents Association will hold its 19th annual Spring Clean-Up at Triangle Park, corner of Woodycrest Drive and Horseblock Road, Farmingville from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Supplies will be provided. 631-260-7411

Lake Ronkonkoma

Lake Ronkonkoma Improvement Group hosts a clean-up of Lake Ronkonkoma on May 17 at 10 a.m. Meet at Michael Murphy Park. Call 631-451-6222 for more info.

Port Jefferson Station

— The Port Jefferson Station-Terryville Chamber of Commerce is  teaming up with the Port Jefferson Rotary Club and Old Town Blooms for a clean up of at the PJST Chamber Train Car, corner of Route 112 and Nesconset Highway in Port Jefferson on Saturday, May 17 from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.; Jayne Blvd, behind D & D from 10 a.m. to noon; and any area along Old Town Road, Crowley, School St, Block Blvd or Yale Street Parks from noon to 5 p.m. (on your own). 631-821-1313

— Three Village Community Trust’s Friends of the Greenway will hold a Setauket to Port Jeff. Station Greenway clean-up on Saturday, May 17 at 9 a.m. It will start at the Port Jefferson Station trailhead at NYSDOT parking lot by Routes 112 & 25A.  www.threevillagecommunitytrust.org

*If any organization would like to add their event to this list, please email [email protected]

 

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