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Centereach's Paige Emerson fights for possession of the ball. Photo by Bill Landon

By Bill Landon

Being young didn’t stop these Cougars from pouncing onto their prey.

The Centereach field hockey team commanded the field, owned the time of possession and held Port Jefferson scoreless on their own home turf to take a 4-0 victory in nonleague action Saturday. 

Centereach's Lindsey Noack carries the ball toward the cage. Photo by Bill Landon
Centereach’s Lindsey Noack carries the ball toward the cage. Photo by Bill Landon

“This is the first time we’ve played on our own turf and today we clicked,” Centereach head coach Michelle Cocchiaro said. “This afternoon we communicated well, which is something we didn’t do until today.”

A pair of freshman started the scoring for Centereach when forward Caroline McParland’s shot found the back of the cage off an assist by forward and midfielder Sophie Alois for the 1-0 lead.

Port Jefferson head coach Deb Brown said her team is also very young, with one senior and two freshmen on the forward line.

“It’s the first time on turf,” Brown said. “I think they got a little bit tired, but I think we handled ourselves OK. Some of the girls were out of position, and we’re inexperienced on turf.”

Centereach junior Lindsey Noack, a forward and midfielder, answered next when her shot found its mark to help the Cougars edge ahead 2-0.

Noack said her team had good communication on the field with good ball movement, and added that she thought the midfielders were effective in getting the ball to the forwards.

“Today I saw teamwork, which is a big difference from our first scrimmage against Newfield, where we were all over the place,” Noack said. “Today we meshed together and we played as one.”

Centereach junior Paige Emerson, also a midfielder and forward, lit up the scoreboard next with just over three minutes left in the first half.

The Royals spent much of the game on defense trying to contain the offensive pressure, and had few opportunities for shots on goal as a result.

Port Jefferson's Jackie Brown fights to keep the ball in bounds. Photo by Bill Landon
Port Jefferson’s Jackie Brown fights to keep the ball in bounds. Photo by Bill Landon

Port Jefferson junior forward and midfielder Jackie Brown said she thought her team did well despite this being their first game on turf.

“We passed well, but we’re not used to the speed of the ball because we play on grass,” she said, adding that she thinks her team needs to do a better job at cutting in front of the defense as the Royals prepare for their next game against Sayville.

Centereach sophomore forward Jessica Whalen rounded out the scoring for the Cougars with 14 minutes left to play, to give the team a 4-0 advantage, and the game its final score.

With time running out and desperate to get on the scoreboard, the Royals continued to push for a goal until the final horn.

“I thought we did really well, but we have to work on shooting on cage,” Port Jefferson junior defender Isabelle Koutsantanou said. “We have to get better getting our forwards back [faster] to help out on defense.”

Centereach junior defender Cassidy Treanor was also proud of her team’s efforts, especially being an almost completely new team compared to last year’s roster.

“We’re a brand new team — we had 10 seniors graduate last year so literally the junior varsity team is now the varsity team, with four extra players,” she said. “We’re so young and to see the players who are just now freshmen being able to compete with seniors is so big for us. They have such skills for being so young.”

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File photo

A car crashed into a guardrail on Route 347 and caught fire early Saturday morning, killing the elderly woman inside.

The Suffolk County Police Department said the woman, a 77-year-old Port Jefferson Station resident, had been driving west in a 2006 Chrysler 300 on the road, just past Old Town Road, at about 5 a.m. when she hit the guardrail.

The woman, whom police did not identify, was pronounced dead at the scene, but it was not immediately clear whether she died in the crash or the ensuing fire.

Police impounded her car for a safety check.

Detectives from the SCPD’s 6th Squad are investigating the East Setauket single-car crash. Anyone with information is asked to call them at 631-854-8652.

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AMVETS Post 1998 in Port Jefferson Station is hosting a fundraising barbecue to support aging and otherwise needy local veterans.

The nonprofit’s annual BBQ will fire up on Saturday, Sept. 12, at 1 p.m. at the American Legion Post, 1450 Hallock Ave., Port Jefferson Station. There will be chicken, hot dogs, burgers, clams, drinks and dessert, as well as a Chinese auction and a raffle.

Tickets are $25 for adults, and kids under 12 are free. They can be purchased through AMVETS Post Commander Barbara Alt at 631-509-4151 or Post Historian Ed Bednarek at 631-331-3853. The tickets will also be on sale at the American Legion on the day of the barbecue.

Contact Alt or Bednarek for more information about the event.

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‘Dance of the Haymakers’ by William Sydney Mount, 1845

By Erin Dueñas

The sounds of bluegrass, blues, acoustic and folk music are coming to East Setauket as the fourth annual Fiddle & Folk Festival returns to Benner’s Farm on Sept. 13.

According to Amy Tuttle, program director of the Greater Port Jefferson-North Brookhaven Arts Council, a festival sponsor, the festival is a celebration of acoustic music. “The formula we have found to be successful is to bring in a national act, a well-known blues based act and a Long Island band,” Tuttle said.

Headline acts this year include The Kennedy’s, Brooks Williams and Buddy Merriam with his band, Back Roads. During the festival, Merriam will be given the Long Island Sound Award honoring him for bringing bluegrass music to Long Island for 35 years, presented by the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.

The festival will feature a main stage where the headliners will perform, as well as a smaller stage that will include workshops and question-and-answer segments with the musicians. Another stage will host a jam session where not only will headliners play together to conclude the concert, but festivalgoers can play their own instruments. A kid’s corner will be set up offering story time and music, and the night will conclude with a contra dance, complete with a live band and caller. The farm will also be open where guests can check out organic gardens, barns and farm animals.

“This is an all-ages, family friendly event that people can either sit back to watch or participate in,” Tuttle said.

Charlie Backfish, who hosts the acoustic music show Sunday Street on WUSB 90.1, the radio station on the campus of SUNY Stony Brook, another festival sponsor, said Benner’s Farm is a good location for the event.

“This is the kind of music you probably could’ve heard at a farm at some point in history,” he said. “It really makes sense to have it there.” Backfish will host the question-and-answer session of the festival.

Bob Benner, who lives and works on the 15-acre farm, said the festival is a celebration of not only music but farm life. Benner referred to a painting at the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook by famed local artist William Sydney Mount of a fiddler playing at a barn dance on a farm. “What we are trying to do at the festival is to show what people would do way back when,” he said. “Everyone lived on a farm here on Long Island up until the 1900s.”

The festival is also sponsored by Homestead Arts, the nonprofit educational arm of Benner’s Farm that works toward keeping what Benner called “old time arts and processes” from fading into history. “Homestead arts are all the different things that people had to know how to do away from our modern sensibilities — things like meat processing and vegetable canning,” he said. Music is a big part of that.

“Way back when there were no phonographs, no forms of playing music. The festival has the kind of music you would hear when neighbors got together for haying or working in the fields,” Benner said. “This really is the perfect place for the festival.”

The fourth annual Fiddle & Folk Festival will be held on Sept. 13 at Benner’s Farm, 56 Gnarled Hollow Road, Setauket, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tickets are $15 adults, $11 children and seniors. The event will be held rain or shine. Bring a lawn chair or blanket for seating. Food and drink will be available for purchase. For more information, call 631-689-8172 or visit www.fiddleandfolk.com.

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A yacht club boat gets ready for the 2014 Village Cup Regatta in Port Jefferson Harbor. File photo by Bill Landon

After almost 40 years on Port Jefferson Harbor, an area yacht club is changing its name.

The Setauket Yacht Club announced on Thursday that it is now called Port Jefferson Yacht Club, paying tribute to the area that has been its home since 1977.

According to a press release from Port Jefferson Village, the yacht club’s members overwhelmingly approved the name change.

The announcement comes about a week ahead of the Village Cup Regatta, an annual boat race between the village and John T. Mather Memorial Hospital — in which the yacht club participates — that raises money for pancreatic cancer research.

“We have been a part of the Port Jeff community for many years and it was time for us to embrace our ties with the local residents, businesses and the wonderful harbor,” yacht club Commodore John Ciarelli said. “We feel a special bond to the village and wanted to reflect that in our name.”

Since moving from Setauket to Port Jefferson, the club, which was founded in 1959, has been based on Surf Avenue Pass Way, behind the Port Jefferson Village Center off East Broadway. It offers a summer sailing program and services such as launches to moorings.

According to the village press release, the renaming also coincides with a new type of membership program for special activities, aimed at people who need a place to store smaller watercraft like kayaks, canoes or paddle boards.

“We want to be the portal for the enjoyment of the harbor for the greater Port Jeff and Brookhaven community,” Ciarelli said. “We provide a broad spectrum of waterfront activities, including being the home of the Stony Brook University sailing and rowing teams.”

The Village Cup Regatta will be held on Saturday, Sept. 12, at Port Jefferson Harbor. Music will start around 10 a.m. at the harborfront park near the Port Jefferson Village Center, and the traditional parade of boats will begin an hour later.

In that memorial parade of boats, the sailboats racing in the regatta will cruise past with special banners and nautical flags. Following the race, the Village Cup will be presented to the winning team in the Village Center.

This year’s race ambassadors are actor Ralph Macchio, known for his roles in “The Karate Kid,” “My Cousin Vinny” and “The Outsiders,” and husband of a Mather Hospital nurse; and Maurice DuBois, a CBS news anchor.

In the four races held in the five years since the regatta was founded, Port Jefferson Village won the first three and Mather won the fourth, making the hospital the current cup holder.

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Empty canvas
Between Aug. 21 at 4 p.m. and Aug. 30 at 5:45 p.m., an unknown person used spray paint to make graffiti on the walls of an unoccupied building on Hallock Avenue in Port Jefferson Station.

Cheap Jeep owner
On Aug. 26 at 3:30 p.m., a man in a white Jeep took a kayak from the back of another man’s Toyota truck. Police said the incident took place on Nesconset Highway in Port Jefferson Station.

Path to prison
A 32-year-old man from Port Jefferson Station was arrested on North Bicycle Path for grand larceny on Aug. 24, after police said he stole a credit card and made purchases at a Pathmark.

Conditioned to steal
Someone stole cash from a restaurant on Echo Avenue in Sound Beach between Aug. 25 at 10 p.m. and Aug. 26 at 7 a.m. The person climbed into the restaurant by removing an air conditioning unit from a window.

Please take your receipt
Police arrested a 53-year-old Calverton woman on Aug. 26 on Middle Country Road in Selden. Police said last year she found a receipt at a K-Mart, retrieved the listed items from around the store and pretended to return them, fraudulently receiving cash in exchange.

All-terrain thieves
Between Aug. 26 and 28, someone entered a residence on Friendship Drive in Rocky Point and took three all-terrain vehicles. Police said more than one thief was involved in the incident.

I saw it on television
Police said between Aug. 26 and 27 an unidentified person entered another individual’s house on 3rd Avenue in Rocky Point and stole a television.

License to repeat
A 57-year-old Coram man was arrested at Route 25A and West Gate Drive in Mount Sinai for driving with a suspended license on Aug. 27. Police said the man, who was driving a 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass, has had his license suspended 10 times before.

Feetgum
Police said an unknown man kicked in a fence on Aug. 30 at a residence on Sweetgum Lane in Miller Place.

Meat me in prison
A 20-year-old man from Selden was arrested for reckless endangerment on Aug. 27 at 2:00 a.m., near Adirondack Avenue in Selden. Police said he had an altercation with a friend and threw a bottle of Windex and a bottle of meat marinade, which broke when it hit the floor. No one was injured.

Sleeping while intoxicated
On Aug. 27 at 1:37 a.m., police arrested a 21-year-old man from East Setauket for operating a motor vehicle while impaired by drugs. He was observed sleeping in the driver’s seat of a 2013 Toyota in Mount Sinai. Police said the man wasn’t steady on his feet and failed a sobriety test.

School of crime
Police arrested a 55-year-old man from Port Jefferson Station for criminal mischief. Authorities said he took a hammer and smashed the front passenger headlight and the windshield of a 2009 Suzuki SX4 on School Drive on Aug. 28 at 3:40 a.m.

Dozing driver
Police arrested a 23-year-old man from South Setauket on Aug. 29 for driving while ability impaired by drugs. The man was driving a 2001 Mitsubishi Galant down Route 25A in Centereach and passed out behind the wheel while waiting at a traffic light.

Hungry for cash
An unknown person shattered the glass on the front door of a restaurant on Middle Country Road in Centereach and broke into the building between Aug. 29 and 30. The individual stole cash and the cash box.

Between Aug. 27 at 10 p.m. and Aug. 28 at 6:45 a.m., an unidentified person broke into a restaurant on Route 25A in Miller Place. Police said the suspect broke the glass of the building’s front door and stole cash.

Simple physics
On the morning of Aug. 30, an unknown person damaged the rear passenger window on a 2010 Nissan. Police said the vehicle was damaged on Newton Avenue in Selden.

Give me Liberty
On Aug. 30 at 2:30 a.m. an unidentified person entered another person’s 2002 Ford Flex on Liberty Drive in Centereach and stole an iPod.

Dirty DWI
On Aug. 30 at 12:15 a.m., police arrested a 24-year-old man from Rocky Point for driving while intoxicated. Police said he was driving an unregistered Honda dirt bike on Noah’s Path in Rocky Point and that he was involved in a crash. It was not clear if anyone was hurt.

Stick ’em up
Suffolk County police arrested a 24-year-old man from Centereach in Setauket-East Setauket and charged him with first-degree robbery, burglary and seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance. Police said that the man displayed a gun and stole cash and lotto tickets from OK Petroleum fuel station on Middle Country Road in Centereach on Aug. 23 at 2:35 a.m. Before that, he entered the bathroom of another gas station, BP fuel, using burglar’s tools, but he didn’t take anything. He was arrested on Aug. 27 at 3:43 p.m. when he was stopped at the parking lot in Home Depot on Pond Path in South Setauket, where cops found him with prescription drugs without a prescription.

Shopaholic stopped
A 48-year-old woman from Central Islip was arrested in Setauket-East Setauket on Aug. 26 and charged with petit larceny. Police said the woman took a gift bag, trading cards, Kool-Aid, board games and a bath rug and fled a Target on Pond Path. She was arrested at 4:11 p.m.

Lights out
Police arrested a 29-year-old man from Setauket and charged him with first-degree driving while intoxicated. Cops said that on Aug. 26 at 11 a.m., the man was driving a 2003 Jeep SUV westbound on Route 25A in Setauket and was pulled over because his rear taillight was out.

Chump change taken
An unknown person took change from a 1996 Honda on Sycamore Lane in Stony Brook, sometime between 3  and 11:30 a.m. on Aug. 29. There have been no arrests.

Identity stolen
Someone reported an incident of identity theft from Saddler Lane in Stony Brook on Aug. 29. The person told police that someone made two Internet purchases and an ATM withdrawal from the individual’s account between 8:50 and 9:01 a.m. on Aug. 25.

Wallet woes
A woman told police that someone removed cash from her wallet in her purse while at the Three Village Inn on Main Street in Stony Brook. Cops said the incident occurred sometime between 4:50 p.m. on Aug. 28 and noon on Aug. 29. There have been no arrests.

Shoot!
Someone took two camera lenses, a Nikon camera and assorted gift cards from a 2014 Acura MDX on Blinker Light Road in Stony Brook between 6 p.m. on Aug. 26 and 10 a.m. on Aug. 27. There have been no arrests.

Phone, change stolen
Someone entered an unlocked Honda on Driftwood Lane in Setauket-East Setauket and took a Verizon cell phone and change. The incident happened between Aug. 28 at 10 p.m. and Aug. 29 at 6 a.m.

Who’s keeping score?
Someone took a metal scoring table with steps and a bench from Ward Melville High School on Old Town Road in Setauket-East Setauket sometime between Aug. 16 and Aug. 27. There have been no arrests.

Police search for store thief
Suffolk County police are seeking the public’s help in identifying and locating a woman who stole items from a Commack store last month.
Police said a woman stole Chanel and Gucci perfume bottles from Ulta, located at 78 Veterans Memorial Highway, on July 30, at about 2:15 p.m. The perfumes had a combined value of approximately $750.
Police described the woman as dark skinned, with long black hair, approximately 5 feet 3 inches tall and wearing a blue T-shirt and jeans.
Suffolk County Crime Stoppers offers a cash reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to an arrest. Anyone with information about this crime is asked to call anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.

Sheet out of luck
Suffolk County police arrested a 19-year-old Smithtown woman on Aug. 29 at the Smith Haven Mall and charged her with three counts of petit larceny. Cops said on June 17 and on June 21, she stole a sheet set and flat iron from T.J. Maxx on East Jericho Turnpike and both times returned them to the front desk for store credit. Police nabbed her on Aug. 29 at about 2 p.m. when she took various men’s Polo undergarments from Macy’s. She was arrested at about 2:30 p.m.

U-Gone
Someone rented a 2002 U-Haul trailer from a Smithtown location on Nesconset Highway and didn’t return the vehicle. Police said the incident occurred between June 19 and Aug. 28.

Buzz off
A woman told police that someone was leaving her harassing voicemails. The incident, reported on East Main Street in Smithtown on Aug. 28, occurred between the 27th at 9 a.m. and the 28th at 7:30 p.m.

Items taken
Someone stole items from the room of a nursing home on Route 25A in Smithtown sometime between Aug. 26 at 6 and 10 a.m. There have been no arrests.

Gadgets grabbed
Someone snagged a GPS and a DVD/CD player from a 2004 Dodge Ram 1500 pickup truck on Lancelot Court in St. James sometime on Aug. 24 at 10 p.m. and Aug. 29 at 9 a.m. There have been no arrests.

Door damaged
Someone keyed the front doors of a 1999 GMS on Lincoln Avenue in Kings Park, sometime between Aug. 28 at 3 p.m. and Aug. 29 at noon. There have been no arrests.

Laptop, smash-top
Someone smashed the rear passenger window of a 2002 Chevrolet TrailBlazer on Nesconset Highway and stole a laptop and two credit cards sometime on Aug. 27 between 5 and 11:10 p.m.

Drugs galore
Two 25-year-old men from Huntington were arrested on the corner of West 4th Street and 3rd Avenue in Huntington Station on Aug. 29 at 7 p.m. One man was charged with possession of marijuana, and the other man was charged with seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, for possessing prescription pills without a prescription.

Blurred lines
A 47-year-old Huntington man was arrested for driving while intoxicated driving westbound on Fairmount Street in Huntington, on Aug. 29 at about 3 a.m. He was driving a 2012 white Mercedes and was observed swerving outside the travel lanes.

Boats and woes
A unknown person stole a watch, laptop, television, toaster, sunglasses and earrings from a boat docked at Knutson Marine in Halesite. The incident was reported on Aug. 29 at 6 p.m.

Life’s a beach
A wallet was stolen from a doorless and topless 1998 Jeep parked at Crab Meadow Beach in Northport on Aug. 28. The wallet contained cash, a driver’s license and a debit card.

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Deer rutting season means more of the animals running out on local roads. Photo by Rohma Abbas

Belle Terre residents are up in arms, or ready to take up arms, over a village government proposal to allow bow hunting as a means of reducing the community’s deer population.

The village board of trustees set a public hearing for Sept. 15 to consider a law amendment that would allow the hunting, a notion that has split the community, with some calling for more “humane” approaches to the issue.

The deer population, in the absence of predators, has increased such that “people are having multiple deer sleeping on their lawns at night and eating all their vegetation,” and making driving in the area more treacherous, Trustee Bob Sandak said in a phone interview this week. “We’ve had an outcry from the population to please do something.”

According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which manages the state’s deer, the Long Island deer population has been steadily increasing since the 1980s. It calls hunting, or culling deer “still the most efficient and cost-effective way to stabilize or reduce deer populations and alleviate associated damages to private property and natural resources.”

But calling bow hunting “a very cruel way to kill,” resident Natalie Brett said she worried an injured deer would wander into her yard and die.

Brett said she has noticed the deer population increase and the animals eat her plants, but “I don’t have a problem; I just go with it.”

She said she wants to see a more “humane” approach to the deer, using sterilization to prevent breeding, tick control to prevent Lyme disease, or stop signs to slow down traffic in deer crossing areas.

But her main concern is whether allowing bow hunting will “open the door” to other types of hunting in a residential area.

“I didn’t move to a state hunting ground and put up a sign, ‘You shouldn’t hunt,’” Brett said in a phone interview. “I don’t want my neighbor, if he’s 150 feet from my house, having a hunter come in.”

Sandak said any Belle Terre bow hunting would be subject to the same state regulations as in any other community. Among those regulations are minimum distances from homes where hunting can take place, ruling out smaller properties. Sandak estimated a property would have to be three acres or more to legally support bow hunting.

The DEC said fertility control is not as effective as hunting in managing deer populations and does not “quickly reduce deer-human conflicts.” And Sandak said he would not necessarily count sterilization as a more humane method, as it puts deer under “unnatural stress” and could leave the animal open to infection.

It is also costly to pay for anesthetic and a marksman to hit the deer, and “doesn’t reduce the size of the herd because you’re not taking any of the herd away, as hunting would do,” the village trustee said.

Dori Scofield, founder of Save-A-Pet Animal Rescue and Adoption Center in Port Jefferson Station, confirmed that sterilization is a costly and tricky method that unnaturally stresses out the deer, but she also said she has at least six veterinarians who would donate time to sterilize deer, and the village is small enough to monitor such a program.

Scofield, a Stony Brook resident, also said in an email that having fewer deer would not reduce Lyme disease cases, as other animals like mice and raccoons also carry ticks. Furthermore, killing deer would not necessarily reduce that population, because it would leave more food for deer from neighboring areas to move in and motivate them to procreate.

“Ideally I would like them to leave the deer be,” Scofield said. “We need to protect the animals in our towns.”

Belle Terre is not the only area considering deer hunting as a means to control the population. The Town of Huntington is mulling a similar proposal for parts of Eaton’s Neck and Asharoken, and residents there are equally split.

Scofield said people who move to a wooded area should expect wildlife.

“I have deer in Stony Brook and, yes, they eat my shrubs and I sip my tea and watch them,” she said. “Then I feed them some horse feed and we all go about our day.”

Sandak said he is leaning toward allowing bow hunting in the village because “I don’t have strong feelings against it” and he wants to vote for what the majority of the community wants.

The Sept. 15 public hearing on the amendment to Belle Terre’s code chapter on hunting and firearms starts at 8 p.m. in the Belle Terre Community Center on Cliff Road.

“I would like everyone to come to the public meeting and express themselves,” Sandak said.

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The Pax Christi Hospitality Center is on Oakland Avenue in Port Jefferson. File photo

Pax Christi Hospitality Center needs help supplying guests with sanitary products.

The center, which shelters local homeless men and is under the umbrella of Port Jefferson-based nonprofit Hope House Ministries, founded by Father Francis Pizzarelli, has asked for donations of toothbrushes, small soaps and small shampoos, like the ones found in hotel rooms. The items will go to guests who visit the facility for a shower.

Pax Christi is located at 255 Oakland Ave. in Port Jefferson, near the Long Island Rail Road tracks. It is a 25-bed facility for males older than 16 that provides emergency shelter, food and social services. Call 631-928-9108 for more information.

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Nineteen more mosquitoes and two birds have tested positive for West Nile virus in various neighborhoods across Suffolk County, Health Commissioner Dr. James L. Tomarken announced on Monday.

The mosquito samples, collected from Aug. 17 to 19, hailed from: Lindenhurst, West Babylon, Northport, Huntington Station, South Huntington, Greenlawn, Commack, Nesconset, Smithtown, Saltaire on Fire Island, Port Jefferson, Farmingville, Holtsville, Yaphand, Southold and East Hampton. Two blue jays collected on Aug. 14 from Stony Brook and a blue jay collected on Aug. 24 and Aug. 25 from Smithtown, also tested positive for the virus.

“The confirmation of West Nile virus in mosquito samples or birds indicates the presence of West Nile virus in the area,” Tomarken said. “While there is no cause for alarm, we urge residents to cooperate with us in our efforts to reduce the exposure to the virus, which can be debilitating to humans.”

To date, this year Suffolk’s total West Nile count comes to 99 mosquitoes and seven birds. No humans or horses have tested positive for the virus in Suffolk this year.

First detected in birds and mosquito samples in Suffolk in 1999, and again each year thereafter, the virus is transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected mosquito.

While Dr. Tomarken said there’s no cause for alarm, the county is urging residents to reduce exposure to the virus, which “can be debilitating to humans.”

“The breed of mosquito known as culex pipiens/restuans lay their eggs in fresh water-filled containers, so dumping rainwater that collects in containers around your house is important,” he said.

Residents should try to eliminate stagnant water where mosquitoes breed, in order to reduce the mosquito population around homes. That includes: disposing of tin cans, plastic containers, ceramic pots or similar water-holding containers; removing discarded tires; cleaning clogged gutters; turning over plastic wading pools and wheelbarrows when they’re not being used; changing the water in bird baths; and draining water from pool covers

Most people infected with West Nile will experience mild or no symptoms, but some can develop severe symptoms, including high fever, headache, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, vision loss, numbness and paralysis. The symptoms may last several weeks and neurological effects may be permanent. Individuals, especially those 50 years of age or older or those with compromised immune systems, who are most at risk, are urged to take precautions to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.

Residents are advised to avoid mosquito bites by: minimizing outdoor activities between dusk and dawn; wearing shoes and socks, long pants and long-sleeved shirts when outdoors for long periods of time or when mosquitoes are more active; using mosquito repellent when outdoors, following label directions carefully; and making sure all windows and doors have screens and that all screens are in good condition.

To report dead birds, call the West Nile virus hot line in Suffolk County at 631-787-2200 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. Residents are encouraged to take a photograph of any bird in question.

To report mosquito problems or stagnant pools of water, call the Department of Public Works’ Vector Control Division at 631-852-4270.

For medical questions related to West Nile virus, call 631-854-0333.

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Bill would limit cars allowed per bedroom

Supervisor Ed Romaine listens to resident concerns at the town meeting. Photo by Giselle Barkley

It’s a battle between the town and landlords as officials and concerned homeowners keep trying to combat illegal housing.

A proposed Brookhaven Town law aims to prevent overcrowding in rental homes by limiting the number of allowed tenants to four unrelated people — half as many as currently permitted — and restricting the number of permitted vehicles at a rental house to one car per legal bedroom plus one additional car. At a four-bedroom rental house, that translates to five allowed vehicles.

The proposal is the most recent in a string of initiatives to prevent illegal house rentals, including a measure that outlawed paving over front yards to make additional space to park cars.

“That’s how bad it was,” Supervisor Ed Romaine (R) said during last week’s Brookhaven Town Board meeting.

The housing issue came to the forefront a few years ago with the help of Bruce Sander, the president of Stony Brook Concerned Homeowners. In Three Village and neighboring areas like Port Jefferson and Middle Country, residents have spoken against illegal and often overcrowded rental homes that are filled with Stony Brook University students, citing quality of life issues such as noise and overflowing trash.

Romaine said the rules detailed in the proposed law would make it easier for the town to identify rental homes that house more people than legally allowed.

“There are a number of people who have taken over foreclosed houses for sale with four bedrooms,” Romaine said. “They’ve carved it up and put around eight to 10 students in them.”

Sander said students aren’t the issue — landlords are.

“The law department and town investigators are on top of this all the time because the landlord never obeys the laws,” Sander said in an interview, referring to landlords who rent houses to more tenants than legally allowed. “It’s just the nature of the beast; it’s just what they do.”

Sander helped found Stony Brook Concerned Homeowners around three years ago, after he moved to Stony Brook and identified two illegal boarding houses across the street from him. As the boarding houses became disruptive, residents in the area became concerned.

“I saw the value of my house and the value of my property just go down the tank.”

Tracking the number of people living in one rental home has been difficult for the town, but officials hope counting cars will make the process easier. The town’s overall goal is to provide legal housing for students without disrupting their neighbors.

“Stony Brook is a middle to upper-middle income,” Romaine said. “People moving in with their kids expect a certain quality of life.”

One member of the concerned homeowners group said at the town board meeting that he would like the town to focus on property upkeep as well.

“We’d like [the homes] to stay at a level of cleanliness and order that the community has around [the home],” the man said.

While rental housing and landlord issues are not as bad as they once were, Sander said there is more to be done.

“We still have a lot of work to do; these houses are in disrepair,” Sander said during the board meeting. “Some of these landlords just believe that they’re immune and that our group is going to go away. Well no, we’re growing. We have 1,400 to 1,500 homeowners that are standing strong against these illegal houses.”

The public hearing on the latest proposed law is set for Thursday, Oct. 1, at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall in Farmingville.

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