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A new 24-hour hotline will soon be available to Long Islanders battling addiction, bringing new hope to families struggling to overcome drug-related issues.

Suffolk County officials recently announced their hotline, which the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence will run in order to direct callers to different resources in the area based upon their needs. It could launch by April.

While addiction is a growing issue that lawmakers have struggled to address, this hotline will become a new tool to combat it. We can see it assisting many people who previously would not have known where to turn. It could be particularly helpful because it will provide an easy route for a population that is often so isolated that they have trouble digging themselves out of the hole of addiction. Some have been pushed away by their families, or have only old friends who reinforce bad habits. But the hotline will be there in their moment of clarity, no matter the hour, to steer them toward the support they need.

Until the hotline launches a few weeks from now, there are other places to call for help:

• LICADD: 631-979-1700

• Response of Suffolk County 24-hour hotline: 631-751-7500

• Hope House Ministries: 631-978-0188

• Phoenix House’s Edward D. Miller substance abuse treatment center: 844-447-0310

• Samaritan Village’s Suffolk Outpatient Treatment Program: 631-351-7112

• St. Charles Hospital rehab program: 631-474-6233

This version removes an incorrect phone number.

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Congressman Lee Zeldin. File photo by Victoria Espinoza

People who come home after serving our country overseas should not have to cope with mental illnesses stemming from their experiences, but the sad reality is that most veterans have seen or dealt with traumatic things. That means we have to do everything we can for those who return home with post-traumatic stress disorder.

U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley), an Iraq war veteran, is on the right track in addressing this. When he was in the state legislature, he established a peer program in which veterans could help one another battle mental issues, and now he is working to take that initiative to the national level.

Part of the reason this program is important is that it addresses the stigma surrounding mental illness. The shame people feel deters the average citizen from getting help, but think of how those feelings must be compounded in people who carry the weight of a reputation as one of our country’s bravest and strongest. And even without the fear of appearing weak, veterans have experienced many things others cannot truly understand if they have not served in the military. They need and deserve the support of people who have been in their shoes — people who know what they are going through. Mental illness is often woefully misunderstood as it is, so we must mitigate that as much as possible.

Ultimately, we would prefer more resources for military psychiatrists to better identify and treat issues with active servicemen, so they leave their PTSD or other mental or emotional problems overseas, but we will gladly support a national veterans’ peer program to assist those we have so far failed to help.

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Laws governing sex offenders have turned a corner over the last year.

County and town governments recently lost the authority to regulate where registered sex offenders are allowed to live. That power now rests solely with New York State, which only limits offenders on parole or probation.

While we appreciate the good intention behind one state senator’s bill to let local governments enact their own residency restrictions, it is not ideal.

Part of the reason the local municipalities’ authority was overturned in the New York State Court of Appeals last year is that there were too many layers of restrictions.

In just our area alone, both Suffolk County and the Town of Brookhaven had their own separate restrictions on where registered sex offenders could reside in their jurisdictions.

There should be laws that prevent sex offenders from living within certain distances from schools or their victims, but allowing each county, town or village to decide on their own creates a mishmash of rules that are nearly impossible to follow. When this is the process, there are counties and towns next door to one another, or even overlapping, with different rules. That makes it more difficult for sex offenders to comply, and it would benefit us all if offenders are more able to actually comply with the laws we have enacted. In addition, clean-cut laws that are easy to identify, and thus follow, would also likely bring peace of mind to their victims, who deserve to feel safe.

The onus should be on the state to design more comprehensive restrictions on where registered sex offenders can live. That system should include required distances from victims’ homes and places of employment, as well as schools, playgrounds and other places where children gather. And the regulations should vary slightly based upon a community’s density, so as not to treat urban, suburban and rural areas as if they are the same.

Although more state regulation is not always an appealing idea, this is one of those cases when we need the state to intervene, in order to make enforcement more uniform. And it is an important issue, because it has an immediate impact on our children and on the sex crime victims we have a moral responsibility to protect.

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The Suffolk County Police Department needs more oversight, but a committee entirely composed of Suffolk County legislators is not going to cut it.

Rob Trotta, the Republican representative for the 13th Legislative District, called upon his experience in law enforcement when he proposed such a committee to investigate and oversee county police operations. There have been concerns after issues such as former police chief James Burke’s resignation last year amid charges of civil rights violations. Trotta is a former Suffolk County detective who once worked on the FBI’s Long Island task force. His idea would put six members of the Legislature on this committee to review police practices, as well as those in the district attorney’s office and the county sheriff’s office, and investigate allegations of favoritism and other issues.

While we support his notion of assembling an oversight committee to keep the county police department honest, we also prefer bringing in people from different backgrounds. There should be legislators involved on the committee, but we would limit it to only two members — one from the Legislature’s majority party and one from its minority. From there, we would add a local expert on ethics, one representative each from the police department, sheriff’s office and DA’s office, and perhaps a financial member such as Comptroller John M. Kennedy Jr. Bringing together these different brains and skill sets would bring more ideas to the table and help in problem-solving — diversity in opinions and backgrounds could enhance the conversation.

Having this sort of diverse membership would also help prevent abuse, as the committee Trotta has proposed will have the authority to subpoena and to administer oaths and affirmations. Not that we think our legislators are necessarily untrustworthy, but putting that level of power into the hands of any one lone group is asking for trouble. We already have enough of that with people who have abused their authority — that’s why we’re in this position in the first place.

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The Suffolk County Police Department announced it will be cracking down on the movement of drugs through our neighborhoods. Given the consistent rise in opioid addiction and overdoses across the county, as well as drug-related crime, we say an initiative like this is long overdue.

Over the past several weeks, investigators have executed nine search warrants and seized about $300,000 in cash; 2,672 grams of cocaine, 464 grams of heroin and 80 grams of oxycodone; seven guns; and drug paraphernalia. While we applaud the police department for its efforts, more could have been accomplished if cops used their resources to crack down on these problem areas much sooner.

Police said their new initiative to target houses of known drug activity is, in part, fueled by resident complaints. Maybe they couldn’t hear as well as we could, but residents have always been complaining and reporting about this issue — not just recently.

The Special Operations Team detectives who are now being utilized in each precinct to work with residents to obtain information on who is dealing what and where — and to execute search warrants on these locations and make arrests — will cost money. That money is well worth it. While the police department has used a limited budget as an excuse for why actions like these sometimes can’t be taken, if Suffolk County wants to bust up drug activity, police resources should be made a bigger priority. One would be hard-pressed to find a resident who disagrees.

For now though, we are pleased to see the police department being responsive to community concerns about known problem drug locations.

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In an attempt to promote transparency, the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics recently proposed requiring public relations consultants to register as lobbyists if they are trying to influence editorial writers.

That would mean any public relations professionals who contacts a reporter or editorial board in an attempt to get the media to advance their client’s message would be considered to be delivering a lobbying message.

Several New York public relations firms and New York Press Association members immediately spoke out against this proposal, and we side with them and share their concerns.

To force anyone to report to the government before they speak to a reporter seems dangerous, and almost medieval. It treads on freedom of speech if the government is effectively regulating newspaper content, and interfering with a newsroom staff’s ability to independently and objectively judge its sources on its own. On top of that, it is an example of government butting its nose into what are largely privately owned companies — a place it has no business giving orders.

On the surface, it seems as though JCOPE is paying the press a compliment, saying the news media are so valuable that it wants to help preserve the public watchdog’s objectivity. But, in an ironic twist, within the same stroke it would be compromising the independence of the Fourth Estate by controlling its sources.

Freedom of the press is one of the rights America was built upon and relies upon to this day, and this move would tramp on the media’s liberty to print the issues and concerns of the public without needing permission from the government. One of the main jobs of a reporter is to evaluate whether a source is credible and whether a story is newsworthy. Let’s keep this task out of the hands of the government and in the hands of the people who make these decisions every day.

As a newspaper that takes pride in serving the community before anyone else, we stand against this proposal to restrict our communication and we hope you will too.

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The New York State Senate voted last week to eliminate the Gap Elimination Adjustment, and we hope the Assembly follows suit.

The adjustment is a deduction taken out of each school district’s state aid and was introduced in 2011 to help state officials close a multibillion dollar budget deficit. Five years later, although the adjustment has seen reductions in recent budget cycles, Sen. Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson) says the state is still withholding $434 million from districts.

There have been unsuccessful efforts to eliminate the Gap Elimination Adjustment in the past but with Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-East Northport), the former chairman of the Senate’s education committee, sponsoring the bill to end it this time around, we are optimistic.

The adjustment was an unfair move that has hit students and educators everywhere hard — the billions of dollars taken from our schools over the last five years could have gone toward enhancing or adding academic courses, buying updated textbooks or making improvements to buildings and athletic fields. The money could have helped educators better implement the new Common Core curriculum and the mandates that went along with it.

Helping to fund education is one of the most important services the state government provides. Aside from the crucial task of shaping the future contributors to our society, the state’s school aid helps even the playing field by equipping poorer districts with the means to provide a level of education comparable to what wealthier districts can give their students, even without aid. To yank some of that money out from underneath them is wrong.

Not doubt securing a financial plan is important to the well-being of a state, but education should not suffer in the search for a balanced budget.

We call upon the Assembly to pass Senate bill S6377 and upon Gov. Andrew Cuomo to support that effort, for the betterment of our children.

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U.S. Rep. Steve Israel is stepping aside at the end of the year, declining to run for another term in the House this November, after what will be 16 years as the Democratic representative for the Huntington and Smithtown areas. But his departure will affect more than just western Suffolk County.

Long Island residents in general should be paying attention to the 3rd Congressional District seat in the coming year. Our officials at the federal and state levels work with their neighboring colleagues to get things done that benefit Long Island — sometimes in a quid pro quo sort of way. That means that no matter the elected body or who our representative is, the priorities and the character of the person who is elected in the next district over from us are important. And with Israel gone, no matter who is elected to replace him, Suffolk County will have two longtime congressman exiting in two years, after Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) unseated Democrat Tim Bishop in 2014.

That’s not to say that new blood is a bad thing.

Zeldin kept himself busy during his first year in the House, authoring several bills. Most recently, he introduced the Earnings Contingent Education Loans (ExCEL) Act of 2015, which aims to help young people manage their federal student loan debt by making the repayment system more flexible, with payment amounts based on the borrower’s salary. And in interviews with this newspaper, Zeldin has called being a newcomer a positive — party leadership supports their freshmen, he said, because they want to help them retain their seats.

We appreciate Israel’s long service to our community. That being said, electing a new point of view to Congress has the potential to be a good thing for Long Island, which is in a state of flux as we try to plan our economic and environmental future.

3rd District candidates, all eyes are on you.

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Narcan, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses, can be administered either through the nose or intravenously. File photo by Rohma Abbas

Ringing in a new year comes not only with celebrations, but also with ideas of what we could do better in the future. While thinking of personal resolutions, we can also begin to think of resolutions for the towns we live in and the people who serve them.

The Suffolk County Police Department went through some major changes in 2015. Shortly before the year ended, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) tapped Tim Sini for police commissioner in light of the recent investigation and indictment of former Police Chief James Burke, who has been accused of beating a handcuffed suspect and attempting to cover up the crime.

This week, former SCPD Sgt. Scott Greene began the first of two trials for allegedly stealing cash from Hispanic motorists during vehicle and traffic stops. He is being charged with seven counts of larceny as a hate crime.

A good place to start for a 2016 resolution could be within the county’s police department.

We hope that Sini will function with transparency as he takes on his new role and keep the lines of communication with the public as open as possible. We also hope he will work well and collaborate with the Republican legislators who have already challenged his appointment.

2015 was a huge year for substance abuse programs and drug summits as well. Officials, from town board members to congressmen, lent their voice to what many are calling an epidemic. While these programs have made great strides, it seems the younger generation, where the fight is really happening, seem least connected to these talks.

Going forward, focusing on drug programs that reach high school and college students may be the best bet. Although the winter break is coming to a close, spring break is right around the corner, and, soon enough, those students will be right back on our couches, enjoying a week off. That could be the perfect time to bend their ears.

As a community, we can make 2016 better than any year before it. Let’s work together to make that happen.

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Suffolk County Republicans assembled at the Legislature building last week to call for a federal monitor to oversee our county police department. They argued that a recent indictment of former Police Chief James Burke was a tipping point, proving that county government could not be trusted to operate independently without supervision. They also cited County Executive Steve Bellone’s appointment of Tim Sini to replace Burke as key evidence supporting their pleas, accusing him of not having enough experience to do the job at the level the county needs.

We don’t disagree with the Suffolk County GOP in saying that the federal government should consider monitoring the county’s police department to make sure it is adequately protecting us and that the taxpayer dollars funding it are being well spent. There should be a monitor — but not solely for the reasons our Republican lawmakers have outlined. There are plenty of other issues concerning the Suffolk County Police Department that a federal monitor could help alleviate.

For starters, we have editorialized in the past about the department’s ongoing relationship woes with the greater Hispanic community, which has had a public spotlight for the last several years. The department has taken some steps to address this issue, but a lot more can be done.

A federal monitor could also make sure our department utilizes its resources appropriately at a time when many elected officials argue that patrols are being stretched too thin and officers are overworked. Better management of resources could also mean better enforcement of the county’s gang population and fight against drug abuse.

As much as we might cringe at the idea of “more government” — especially on the federal level — it would be better than nothing.

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