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Times of Huntington-Northport

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Ava DeMarco goes up high between the raindrops for a header. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Northport goalkeeper Kaleigh Howard, in pink, tries to secure ball from Ward Melville striker Aliyah Leonard. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Jamie Inzerillo tries to get around Ale’ Victoriano of Ward Melville. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Ward Melville captain and midfielder Marissa Tonic Photo by Steven Zaitz

By Steven Zaitz

A soggy day got even soggier for the Northport Lady Tiger soccer team, as it dropped a 2-0 decision to its top-of-the-table rival and reigning New York State champion Ward Melville this past Saturday.

The Lady Patriots scored one very early and another very late to secure the win and, in between, used a suffocating brand of defense that allowed Northport nary a chance to even sniff a scoring opportunity. This was an especially impressive feat by Ward Melville, considering Northport had obliterated Walt Whitman two days earlier, 7-0.

Lady Pat senior Peyton Costello scored on a penalty kick in the 16th minute of the game, her eighth goal of the year, and freshman Aliyah Leonard knocked in a header off a gorgeous centering pass from Marissa Tonic with 13 minutes remaining for the knockout punch. Leonard was able to get a large piece of not only the ball, but Tiger goalkeeper Kaleigh Howard’s arm, as Howard was rising up to catch Tonic’s curving crosser. Howard never gained control and the ball squirted free and over the goal line.

The Lady Patriot defense did the rest. Fullbacks and sisters Adriana and Ale’ Victoriano were twin terrors on the backline with Sarah Jablonsky, Samantha Ruffini and Tonic at center midfield. The Patriots forced Tiger stars Madison Howard, Jamie Inzerillo and Brooke Heffernan into slippery decisions and often missed connections as Ward Melville goalkeeper Kate Ronzoni had a reasonably easy day at the office.

Northport had outscored its previous five opponents by a combined 21-2. Saturday in Setauket, however, was a different story for the Lady Tigers as they mustered only two shots at Ronzoni’s net. 

For the Patriots, it’s business as usual. Only one team scored against them all season and it was non-league Syosset. Ward Melville won that game anyway 7-2. So far this season, nine other teams have tried and failed to slip one past Ronzoni — including Northport.

“Our team is a mix of such good players from different club teams in Suffolk,” senior captain Tonic said. “Everyone works so well together, and we have such a great defensive shape.”

Ward Melville remains undefeated at 9-0-1 and has used that defensive shape to achieve a goal differential of 32-2 this year. Northport falls to 7-2-2. 

The game was played just hours after historic amounts of rain fell across Long Island and while the rain had tapered off considerably at game time, it was still played under slick conditions. Northport wasn’t using it as an excuse.

“Ward Melville has a very strong defense,” said junior captain and striker Madison Howard, who is Kaleigh’s sister. “I think we came out a little tentatively because there was a lot of hype surrounding this game. But if and when we see them again in the playoffs, we’ll know what to do.”

With their unblemished 8-0 record in Suffolk Division I, Ward Melville has a simple focus — repeat as state champs.

“We have a completely different team now than we had last year,” Costello said. “We are very young but still very hungry to win it all again.”

Northport, also with lofty aspirations, is now a respectable 6-2-1 in the division and currently seeded fifth. The top two teams in the conference will earn a bye in the first round of the playoffs. The victory by Ward Melville was a big step toward that pot of gold, but Northport is not done chasing that rainbow.

“We always try to stay positive,” Madison Howard said. “We will win as many games as we can and see where we end up.”

With opponents including Connetquot and Commack in the coming days, the Lady Tigers hope to crank up the machine again and render this loss a wet and wild one-off. 

Ward Melville intends to keep the good times rolling with upcoming games against Bay Shore, Connetquot and Walt Whitman.

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'Illuminations' will be presented during the Long Island Fall Festival on Oct. 7 and 8. Photo courtesy of Heckscher Museum

By Tara Mae 

As Columbus Day weekend draws near, many look forward to the annual Long Island Fall Festival at beautiful Heckscher Park in Huntington. Presented by the Huntington Township Chamber of Commerce, the four day event, from Oct. 6 to 9, will feature carnival rides, an international food court, music, over 300 vendors, and much more. 

One of the highlights of this year’s festival is a multimedia art installation titled Illuminations 2023: The Many Faces of Home.

If home is where the heart is, then leaving one home for another is perhaps a sort of heart transplant. A fresh lease on life: wistful and wondrous. On Oct. 7 and 8, from 7 to 8 p.m., the digital art show will spotlight the physical and emotional journeys immigrants undertake as they settle in foreign places and seek to make them familiar. 

Featuring the work by Stony Brook University adjunct art professor and digital artist Han Qin as well as other international artists, this digital art show features three intricately connected yet distinctive works, which will be projected onto the facade of an artistic hearth: the Heckscher Museum of Art located in Heckscher Park.

“It feels like the perfect space for such an event,” said Heather Arnet, Executive Director of the Heckscher Museum.

My New Home, by Qin, depicts and celebrates the immigration experience through a 3D image projection showing portraits of diverse community members who immigrated to Huntington and made it home. 

Journey Home, also by Qin, is an animated film projection. In ocean hues, it spotlights a school of fish that transforms into groups of people swimming to their new island home.  

The Grand Finale is a collaborative collection of engaging animation by six different international artists: Blake Carrington, Koi Ren, Yehwan Song, Silent Desautels, Shuyi Li, and Colton Arnold. 

The show is choreographed to original music composed by Professor Margaret Schedel, co-director of Stony Brook University’s Computer Music Program. “Margaret’s music…has dark energy that transforms into immense joy,” Illuminations co-curator Chiarina Chen said.

Shown consecutively, the elements of Illuminations likewise take patrons on a sojourn of the soul: from pensive introspection to audacious hope. The show immerses its audience in artistic excavation of existential inquiries. 

These questions were initially posited by Qin as part of her continuous exploration of, and meditation on, the identity quandaries immigrants may endure as they transition from their homeland to the precarious promise of a settled future. 

“My digital art piece works with the community of immigrants who speak different languages on Long Island. Its purpose is to show this group of marginalized immigrants — who they are looking to become or who their kids are looking to become, who holds the community together…this is a self-help project to figure out who those immigrants become,” Qin said. 

Such an investigation is personal for Qin who, during lockdown, began examining feeling adrift in her own immigrant identity: not quite of China, her nation of birth, nor the United States, her country of choice. 

“I was looking for a way to find people who know who they are,” Qin added. She got involved with different organizations that focused on the immigrant experiences of adolescents and adults. The relationships she formed through these endeavors answered questions her art was striving to ask.   

With a New York State Council of the Arts (NYSCA) grant processed through the Patchogue Arts Council, she was able to develop her artistic thesis from a intuitive theory into an expansive experience. 

As Qin crafted personal connections that revealed uncovered communal correlations, she utilized her professional network to recruit colleagues in curating and creating the third segment of Illuminations. 

“We invited six very interesting, talented international artists of various backgrounds. We have six parts in that: traversing memories, dreams, identities that are searching for belonging-cohesive with unique parts…digital art can be a public art form that brings people together, a sort of enchantment,” Chen said. “When connected stories are projected on the building, it becomes another level of togetherness.”  

Schedel’s music both belies and enhances the union. She composed six segments of music. Each has its own tempo and mini theme that nonetheless coalesces into a cohesive whole. Included in the piece are interviews with community leaders as well as water sounds; many people interviewed mentioned water as part of their immigration experience.

“It is a piece of music I composed to go along with the timeline that Han and I developed together, thinking of structure, movement, and emotion,” Schedel said. 

In its entirety, Illuminations is a medley of form, motion, and feeling. At its essence, the art is an overture of communal acceptance and understanding.  

“Illuminations celebrates immigrants, their influence on our community, and why they chose Long Island…It [seems] like a wonderful opportunity for the museum,” Arnet said. 

This is the Hecksher Museum’s first exhibition specifically designed for the Long Island Fall Festival, although the concept of home is one that is currently studied in its Raise the Roof exhibit, which is a study of the spaces people inhabit. 

Arnet approached Qin, who has pieces in the museum’s permanent collection, about doing a digital art projection on the front of the building. Qin was already in the process of developing My New Home and Journey Home. Illuminations was born of those discussions.

“What is exciting is that we are trying something new, which always involves risk. This is innovative, we are trying out the unknown, none of us quite know what it will be like…I am very interested in moving beyond four walls, engaging community in unique ways,” Arnet said.

Illuminations 2023: The Many Faces of Home at the Heckscher Museum of Art, 2 Prime Ave., Huntington is free to the public. For more information, call 631-380-3230 or visit www.heckscher.org

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

We need people around us for a host of reasons.

We have the kind of division of labor that makes it possible for someone like me with no mechanical skills whatsoever to fix, repair, install or replace something we need, like a dishwasher or roof, to pick up the phone and call a specialist who can do the job.

We also need people to provide the kind of food we don’t grow or cook ourselves and to ship that food across the country or the world.

How would we people watch without people strutting, holding hands, barking commands on cell phones, or pausing to take a giant mouthful of hot pizza?

We also need people for social and emotional reasons.

It’s helpful to have someone who can tell you whether your shoes match your outfit, who can point out if you have food in your teeth, or who can nix your idea to share a risqué joke with your boss.

We go through stages in life when our social needs rise and fall, depending on our age, vulnerabilities, and emotional equanimity.

I have several friends whose children are living through different phases in life, entering and leaving colleges, changing jobs or location, and starting or ending serious relationships.

When people in unfamiliar settings first settle into a new routine, they can feel vulnerable, disconnected, and incredibly lonely.

Making matters worse, they see other people around them laughing with friends, moving in a group, or chatting animatedly on the phone. Social media doesn’t help, as they can see pictures of other people having the times of their lives on other college campuses, surrounded by their new friends, while they look to the vacant space to the left and right of them.

These transitionary periods can make people feel as if they are the only ones without an invitation to an incredible party on the other side of the fence. They can hear music and laughter, they can smell the barbecued chicken, and they can see the flickering lights.

It’s as if a magnetic attraction drew everyone else together, while that same force repelled them, making them outsiders in their towns and universities.

While most young people can and do find comfort from companionship, the time when they feel as if they are on their own can seem extraordinarily long.

That’s where we come in.

You see, we are surrounded by students who are going to college, have returned for a few days or longer, or who have graduated and are trying to find their place in the world.

Some of them want or need nothing from us, as they glide effortlessly between their professional or academic responsibilities and their recharging social contacts.

Others, however, may be too unnerved or unsure to ask for help or to try to get what they may not even acknowledge they need.

The cost of offering an encouraging word, of asking about a student who is rounding up grocery carts in a parking lot, is restocking shelves at a department store or who is taking our order at a fast food restaurant is low.

Most of us are creatures of habit. We tend to go to the same places to eat, to buy our food, or to get our hardware store supplies.

When we go to those stores, we might see those same familiar faces, some of whom might be hiding behind extra long bangs or appear to be staring at their phones or shoes.

We don’t have to become best friends with any of them, and we don’t need to pull up a chair and ask their life stories.

We can, however, spend more than a few seconds getting whatever we need. We can ask how school is going, about the products they are selling or about the changing weather.

Those contacts, brief though they may be, could provide the kind of connection that offers them more of what they needed than whatever we purchased for ourselves in a store.

And who knows? Maybe our awkward attempts to offer some unsolicited connection can give them a good story to tell their current or future friends.

Surrounded by people, we can sometimes feel even more disconnected than we might if we were alone. Let’s try not to be too distracted to notice what someone else might need an encouraging or supportive word or two.

Students are not like the cracks in the sidewalk or the contour of a winding road: they may benefit from something we can and should consider sharing and that doesn’t cost anything more than our time and consideration.

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A scene from 'The Golden Bachelor' Photo from Facebook(ABC/Craig Sjodin)

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Lately, there have been numerous articles about older folks and aging in general. At least, it seems so to me. Remember Martha Stewart on the cover of Sports Illustrated? Probably the one now with the most buzz is “The Golden Bachelor,” the most recent in the long-running series of Bachelor programs shown on ABC.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to acknowledge that I have seldom watched any of the episodes on the so-called reality dating franchise. If I happened to be passing the television in my house, and one was on the screen, I might have been captured for a few minutes, especially by the beautiful settings in far away places, but it always struck me as improbably scripted.

Yes, I know there is some data showing that a few couples who met on the show actually married and went on to have children and make happy family lives for themselves. Good for those few, but it was too staged for me, and I never became hooked the way my mother, for example, was ensnared by “The Guiding Light” and other such radio soaps in her day.

It seems that television, in general, is suffering from a major drop-off in audience viewership, as people switch to streaming services. That is the case, except for older people, those above 60, who are reluctant to give up their favorite programs in favor of Netflix and hulu. So, some Bachelor television executive decided to give that older cohort more to watch, and as a result, we have been introduced to Gerry Turner, from Indiana, who is 72 years old and a widower looking for a new partner.

Now, he is not a billionaire jet-setting around the world but in need of a companion to make his life complete; rather he is retired from the food distribution industry and had a loving marriage that was cut short by his wife’s tragic bacterial infection. A father of two grown daughters and two granddaughters, who enthusiastically support his new role, he is attractive enough to hold the attention of 22 women contestants also looking for a mate. The women are between 60-75, range from divorced and widowed mothers and grandmothers, and in turn are alluring enough to put a gleam in Turner’s eye as he meets them for the first time.

How do I know? I watched the first episode, not on its Thursday night time slot but on a streaming service a couple of nights later. I admit it. I was curious enough to see what love was going to look like for the silver set.

The tone of the program was, if anything, conspicuously wholesome. What could be more wholesome than a mid-Westerner talking about how he lost his middle-aged wife of 43 years, whom he met in high school, and crying on national television? Still, Turner was called, “sexy,” and though the ladies were, for the most part, relatively restrained in their manners, the underlying message was, “Yes, older people can be attractive and still be looking for love.”

There is another message that seems to have emerged, as this quote from an article in The New York Times reveals.

“The prevailing narrative surrounding the growing number of unmarried older adults tends to focus on the risks of isolation and loneliness. [One in three baby boomers is single.] But Sindy Oh, a licensed clinical psychologist in Los Angeles, said she was struck by how different dating could be for her older clients because they had a much stronger sense of self. ‘They have accepted who they are, and they are presenting themselves as is,’ she said.”

This seems to fit what is offered by “The Golden Bachelor.” The producers note that when they cast for other Bachelor shows, intended for 20s and 30s participants, they sense that the auditioners feel they have to present a version of themselves that is what the show is looking for. But these women who responded were just themselves and could laugh about their age.

Older people still have hope.

 

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Gov. Kathy Hochul updates New Yorkers on Saturday, Sept. 30, the day after declaring a state of emergency for Long Island. Photo courtesy the New York State Executive Chamber

Flash flooding leveled much of the tri-state area last Friday, Sept. 29, prompting a state of emergency declaration for Long Island while unleashing damage and halting some services.

The National Weather Service issued a coastal flood watch for Long Island Friday, which remained in effect into the night. Heavy rainfall and intense flooding throughout the region prompted Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) to declare a state of emergency for Long Island, as well as for New York City and portions of the Hudson Valley.

Heavy flooding caused roadway closures at state Route 110 in Huntington between Mill Lane and Prime Avenue near Madison Street at Heckscher State Park, according to a NWS report. In Commack, a stranded motorist on Town Line Road required an emergency service response, the same report indicated.

In an emailed statement, Town of Huntington Supervisor Ed Smyth (R) maintained that much of the town’s infrastructure and services remained undisturbed despite the heavy rainfall.

“Highway Superintendent Andre Sorrentino and the Highway Department, along with our Environmental Waste Management Department, were out in full force with pumps and tree crews clearing and cleaning,” Smyth said. “Our sewage treatment plants received more than double their normal water flow without any reported spillage.”

He added that garbage collection continued as scheduled, though the storm had disrupted and canceled numerous local events. “However, normal government operations continued without interruption. Although there were no significant issues, the town is currently assessing all departments to determine any and all issues relating to the storm.”

Joana Flores, media liaison for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, indicated that operations along the Long Island Rail Road’s Port Jefferson Branch were largely undeterred.

“Friday’s weather event did not have any impact on MTA infrastructure in the Port Jefferson area or to Port Jefferson train service,” Flores said. “With the exception of one train that was momentarily delayed due to a non-weather-related matter, the Port Jefferson Branch operated on or close to schedule.”

“Crews did perform periodic patrols of the Port Jefferson Branch to monitor conditions of the infrastructure,” she added.

Electrical infrastructure had similarly avoided major damages, according to Jeremy Walsh, a spokesperson for PSEG Long Island. “Friday’s flooding did not impact the electric infrastructure,” he said in an email. “Overall, the system performed well. While we did experience scattered outage activity, it was mainly as a result of the heavy rains and gusty conditions impacting trees and tree limbs, not flood damage.”

Given projections for more frequent and intense storm events over the coming years, Walsh added that the utility company is continuing efforts toward mitigating the associated risks to the electrical grid.

“PSEG Long Island has been storm-hardening the electric grid since 2014, including elevating equipment at some substations to protect against flooding, and this has helped reduce the impact of severe weather events,” he noted. “We continue to storm-harden the infrastructure using the best projections for future flooding and wind conditions that are available to us.”

The storm’s impacts were not limited to public infrastructure, however. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation temporarily closed much of the North Shore to shellfishing due to “extremely heavy rainfall and extraordinary amounts of stormwater runoff and localized street flooding … which may result in conditions causing shellfish to be hazardous for use as food,” a NYSDEC report said.

At a press conference the following day, Sept. 30, Hochul announced that there had been no recorded fatalities due to the flooding, thanking the public for heeding emergency warnings.

“What had been described by myself as a potentially life-threatening event ended up being a time when people listened, they reacted properly, they took precautions and no lives were lost,” the governor said.

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Stony Brook University students Anusha Siddiqui, left, and Aafia Syeda volunteer at the university’s food pantry. Photo by Marc S. Levine

Donations to the Stony Brook University food pantry, which has been providing nourishment to students who are food insecure for 10 years, tend to track familiar routines.

During food drives, people go through their pantries or head to stores, often donating helpful and necessary cans of non-perishable goods like canned vegetables.

For students who are food insecure, some of whom stop by either the main food pantry on campus or one of the two satellite locations opened within the last year, items like granola bars, oatmeal, cereal, ready-made pasta meals and mac ’n cheese are also often welcome food choices to satisfy an instant need.

For members of the university community who are food insecure, the goal of the food pantry is to provide necessities while students concentrate on their studies.

“We want to make sure our students are able to focus on what they came here for, which is being academically successful and creating an enriching student life experience without worrying about where their next meal is coming from,” said Emily Snyder, director of the Department of Student Community Development at SBU.

The food pantry, which has 31 student volunteers, distributed about 22,900 individual items during 2022-2023.

Last year, the pantry had about 2,000 visitors, with about 600 to 700 people who sought sustenance at the pantry more than once during the course of the academic year.

On a busy day, the pantries can get upwards of 15 to 20 visitors, which can increase further when the school provides targeted outreach about available perishables with time-sensitive pick up windows.

The primary location for the food pantry is at the Stony Brook Union in Suite L-20 in the lower level. Satellite locations opened last winter at the LGBTQ Center on the second floor of the West Side Dining and the second floor hallway of the Student Activities Center.

The pantry has seen a “considerable increase from year to year,” said Ashley Mercado, assistant director in the Center for Civic Justice at Stony Brook.

The Student Community Development group took over operation of the pantry in 2020, when the needs were growing amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We were doing contactless delivery for residents still living on campus,” said Snyder. “The need is always there.”

Visits to the pantry have increased by 150% since 2020, with a rise of 112% in unique users since that time.

Snyder suggested that Stony Brook was focusing on “destigmatizing” the use of resources such as the food pantry. “We have really been focused on communicating that it’s OK to ask for help.”

Snyder and Mercado appreciated the support of students, university departments and the community, who have donated food items to a pantry that has become an increasingly important resource on campus.

Support for the pantry comes from the state as well as monetary and goods donations, including a recent donation of $10,000 from Stop and Shop gift cards.

Stop and Shop announces in September a $10,000 donation in gift cards to the SBU food pantry. Bottom row: Dylan Rehman, Adithya Muralli and Devin Lobosco. Middle row: Carl Lejuez, Anusha Siddiqui, Aafia Syeda, Emily Snyder, Ashley Mercado-Liegi, Rudy Foerster, Shannon Karafian, Rick Gatteau, Karman Pun and Nohemy Alfaro. Top row: Wolfie Seawolf, Ric McClendon and Daniel Wolk. Photo by Marc S. Levine

Student volunteers

Tanisa Usha, a junior from Brooklyn who started volunteering last fall, contributes eight hours a week as an undergraduate student coordinator.

She “enjoys being able to help” and appreciates the opportunity to “make sure [students] feel welcome,” Usha said.

The pantry also stocks a few hygiene products, which are popular with students. Hygiene items can include anything that’s packaged appropriately, such as razors, soaps and hair care products.

Unusual Thanksgiving items

Snyder and Mercado said donations typically increase around the holidays.

During Thanksgiving, people bring in pumpkin pie mix, stuffing and cranberry sauce.

“People assume that’s the cuisine everyone is looking for,” said Mercado. At Stony Brook University, where diversity is one of the school’s assets, students are often seeking foods that are more familiar to them.

“We have an Asian grocery store close to campus,” said Mercado. “People will buy from there and donate. Students get excited when we get products they are used to having.”

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Elwood-John H. Glenn High School senior Lauren LaMena, second from right, is named a National Merit Semifinalist in the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program. Photo courtesy ESD

Elwood-John H. Glenn High School senior Lauren LaMena was recently named a National Merit Semifinalist in the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program. 

She was recognized for her exceptional academic performances on the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test during the last school year.

Now in its 69th year, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation annually announces the names of approximately 16,000 semifinalists who go on to compete for 7,140 scholarships, totaling nearly $28 million.  

“Lauren is an outstanding leader and role model both in the classroom and on the athletic field,” principal Corey McNamara said. “It is always great to see our students get the well-deserved recognition that they have worked so hard for while here at John Glenn. Congratulations to Lauren and her family.”

“I’m really honored to be recognized as a semifinalist, but I would also like to acknowledge that none of this would be possible without all of the support I have received over the years from my school, my teachers and my family,” LaMena said. “I am also really excited about all of the opportunities this could bring.”

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These Koi statues were stolen on Sept. 25. Photo from SCPD

Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and Suffolk County Police Second Squad detectives are seeking the public’s help to identify and locate the person or people who stole statues in Dix Hills last month.

Two koi fish statues were stolen from Koi Market Aquatic Nursery and Bonsai, located at 539 Deer Park Avenue, on September 25 between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. The statues were valued at approximately $6,000.

Suffolk County Crime Stoppers offers a cash reward for information that leads to an arrest. Anyone with information about these incidents can contact Suffolk County Crime Stoppers to submit an anonymous tip by calling 1-800-220-TIPS, utilizing a mobile app which can be downloaded through the App Store or Google Play by searching P3 Tips, or online at www.P3Tips.com. All calls, text messages and emails will be kept confidential.

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Public domain photo

Long Island’s fishing industry may have dodged a bullet this hurricane season, although the official season for the Atlantic Basin does not end until Nov. 30. Yet stormier seas may be brewing for the years ahead.

Local fishermen sounded an upbeat tune after a sequence of intense tropical cyclones did not make landfall. While precipitation disrupted some local events in recent weeks, fishing operations have gone along without interruption.

Eric Huner owns and operates Captain Fish Port Jefferson, a fishing charter boat based in Port Jefferson that transports tourists and locals for fishing charters.

“For me personally, it didn’t affect me at all,” he told TBR News Media. “I can’t say there’s any real loss, probably for any private fishing boat like myself.”

On the commercial fishing side, the experience was relatively similar, according to Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association.

“As far as those guys that were fishing, most guys were out fishing the next day” after Hurricane Lee brushed past the Northeast, she said. “There wasn’t really much of an impact, thank goodness.”

Difficult past, uncertain future

Those interviewed suggested the Long Island fishing industry had averted a major threat with these storms avoiding landfall.

Reflecting upon the commercial impacts of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Brady remembered it as “particularly vicious” for the shoreline, with consequences for the fishing industry as well.

However, Huner said that irregular winds and tidal patterns are increasingly commonplace, complicating matters for his business. With projections for more frequent and intense storms, Huner said his line of work is becoming less predictable, noting the increasing difficulties in deciding which days to fish and selecting departure times.

“This year was the first time I took notice of the weather patterns being very difficult to predict,” he said. There was “a lot of volatility in the wind patterns, difficult to find windows of opportunity to go out,” adding, “It was not a normal, stable summer.”

More broadly, Brady expressed reservations about the regional trend toward offshore wind, saying this infrastructure could disrupt the local fishing industry.

“Offshore wind is going to, from our perspective, industrialize the ocean beyond any kind of repair,” she said. “It’s a very frightening time for our ocean, and that’s why we’re fighting so hard against it.”

Optimistic outlook

Huner said that the fisheries remain well populated despite the climactic challenges, a positive indicator that conservation efforts are working.

He also stated that the nature of the trade requires frequent adaptation to changing conditions. “The local fisherman is a pretty experienced person on the water,” he said. “I’m constantly reviewing what the weather forecasts are, what the wind forecasts are — and that’s a big part of my job.”

He added, “It takes a little more work, and if this is going to be what we call our ‘new normal,’ then we’re just going to have to be really on top of it.”

Adding to these sentiments, Brady said local fishermen are used to adapting “to changes in the water every day.”

“Those who are good at this trade tend to be experiential learners,” she said. “Every day, the ocean can change. The tides change. The moon changes. So they learn to adapt based on living it.”

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Photo courtesy Peter Gollon
By Peter Gollon

I commend this newspaper for its thorough and balanced Sept. 14 and Sept. 21 articles on the proposed conversion of the Long Island Power Authority into a fully municipal utility that would directly operate the electrical transmission and distribution system that it has owned for decades.

LIPA, which is the country’s third largest municipal utility, is legally required now to outsource its operation to another entity. Right now that is PSEG Long Island. Before that, it was National Grid.

LIPA’s staff of 60 experienced utility professionals supervises PSEGLI’s performance according to metrics taking 207 pages to outline. Each year, LIPA pays PSEGLI $80 million for just 18 executives to plan and direct the 2,500-line call center and other workers whose pay is provided by LIPA. That’s more than $4 million for each PSEGLI-supplied executive.

There is considerable overlap between the top PSEGLI staff and the LIPA staff that supervises and grades PSEGLI’s performance. Both the Legislative Commission on the Future of the Long Island Power Authority and LIPA agree that if LIPA hired a dozen more staffers, it could run the system itself, dispensing with PSEGLI’s management and saving about $75 million each year.

This savings would be real, even if PSEGLI were doing a good job. But it hasn’t been. Their performance in storm restoration after Tropical Storm Isaias in 2020 was so bad, and their reports on the causes of the failure of the outage management system were so dishonest, that LIPA considered PSEGLI to be in default of their contract.

Beyond PSEGLI’s shortcomings, the problem is the structure of the unique and convoluted “hybrid” system itself. Besides the extra cost, the inefficiency of this two-headed structure is why LIPA is the only large municipal utility in the country to be operated this way.

As a LIPA trustee for five years, I saw the difficulties, delays and expense that this structure results in. For example, it required three months and a resolution voted by the LIPA Board directing PSEGLI to develop and implement an accurate and modern asset management system for the billions of dollars of LIPA-owned assets before PSEGLI would take such action.

The delays and inefficiency of this management structure do not show up as a specific dollar cost in LIPA’s budget, but they are there and impede LIPA’s adaptation to the new reality of stronger storms and a faster transition to a renewable energy system.

LIPA needs the simple, common municipal utility structure recommended by the state’s Legislative Commission. The Board of Trustees should be reorganized so some trustees are appointed by both Suffolk and Nassau County executives, rather than now where all the trustees are appointed by the state’s political leadership in Albany.

Locally appointed trustees should give LIPA needed credibility with its Long Island customer base and might make it more responsive to local concerns. In recent years, there has been significant hostility resulting from inadequate understanding by both PSEGLI and LIPA of the impact of changes in tariffs, and from the location and details of new facilities or even just taller and thicker poles.

Finally, one trustee should be named by the union — IBEW Local 1049 — representing the utility’s workforce to ensure that their interests are represented at the highest level.

The legal structure in which the workforce is actually housed is critical. Their transfer from PSEGLI to LIPA must be done in a way that continues their employment under federal labor jurisdiction and preserves their well-earned pension rights. Any proposal that might put them under weaker state labor jurisdiction and possibly jeopardize their pensions has no chance of passing the Legislature, nor should it.

Long Islanders should support this once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix a broken utility structure.

The writer served on the Long Island Power Authority Board of Trustees from 2016 to 2021.

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