A Huntington teller did not comply with a robber’s demands, so the suspect tried a different bank.
The Suffolk County Police Department said a man in shorts, a white T-shirt and a red hat made verbal demands for money at the People’s United Bank, on Huntington’s East Main Street, just before noon on Tuesday but fled after the teller did not comply. But he was successful 25 minutes later, when he allegedly showed up at a TD Bank on Deer Park Avenue and once again verbally demanded money from a teller.
Police said the teller gave the man money and he fled south from the Deer Park bank on foot.
The suspect was described as a Hispanic man with a gray goatee, between 40 and 45 years old, and 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 7 inches tall with a medium build.
Police said the same man had robbed a TD Bank in Farmingdale a week earlier, again verbally demanding cash from a teller and fleeing on foot after the teller complied.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 800-220-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential. Crime Stoppers offers a cash reward of up to $5,000 if information leads to an arrest.
Suffolk County Legislator Steve Stern (D-Dix Hills) and the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless are seeking the public’s help to provide more than 4,000 school supplies and backpacks to kids in need.
Drop off school supplies at Stern’s office at 1842 East Jericho Turnpike in Huntington, through August 10, anytime between Mondays and Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Supplies sought include backpacks, crayons, pencils, binders, erasers, sharpeners, calculators, glue sticks, pens, colored pencils, highlighters, pocket folders, compasses, index cards, protractors, composition books and more.
For more information on how you can help, visit the coalition’s website here.
Artists, dancers, musicians and art enthusiasts from across Long Island gathered at Northport Village’s waterfront park for the Northport Art Coalition’s annual Art in the Park Festival on Saturday, July 11.
Festivalgoers browsed artist wares, watched performances from the Inner Spirit yoga center and dance and fitness center, and listened to local musicians. Children also had a chance to create their own paintings at a special workshop area.
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Attendees walk among the artist tents at Northport’s Art in the Park. Photo by Dan Woulfin.
Roni Yaari, of Inner Spirit Yoga Center in East Northport, dances to the delight of the crowd. Photo by Dan Woulfin.
Roni Yaari and members of the Inner Spirit Dance Company at Art in the Park in Northport. Photo by Dan Woulfin.
The crowd watches the Inner Spirit Dance Company and their students dancing at Art in the Park in Northport.
Erica Martinelli, choreographer of the Inner Spirit Dance Company, performs at Art in the Park. Photo by Dan Woulfin.
The wares of Dazzling Dichroics, one of the artists at Art in the Park. Photo by Dan Woulfin.
Marionettes from Marionettes and Dolls. Photo by Dan Woulfin
Artisan pottery crafted by Erika K. Arroyo of The Laughing Potter. Photo by Dan Woulfin
Nature-inspired wind chimes from Wind Drifts. Photo by Dan Woulfin
Mixed media collages by Sonoka Fukuma Gozelski, www.sonokacounty.com. Photo by Dan Woulfin.
Ken Korb and Lora Kendall play music at Art in the Park. Photo by Dan Woulfin
Claire Samson paints in the children’s art area at Art in the Park. Photo by Dan Woulfin.
Art made by children at Art in the Park in Northport. Photo by Dan Woulfin
Annie Mark and Chris James playing music at Art in the Park. Photo by Dan Woulfin
Erica Martinelli, choreographer of the Inner Spirit Dance Company, performs at Art in the Park in Northport. Photo by Dan Woulfin
A motorcyclist was seriously injured in Huntington after colliding with a car driven by a Huntington Station teen on Thursday night, according to police.
Suffolk County Police said they are investigating the motor vehicle crash, which took place at New York Avenue and Prime Avenue in Huntington. Quincy Nelson, 17, was driving a 2005 Chrysler 300 southbound on New York Avenue when he made a left turn onto Prime, colliding with Lee Ownes, 33, of Brooklyn, who was driving a 1974 Honda motorcycle at about 9 p.m.
Owens was transported to a local hospital where he is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries for a dislocated shoulder and a sever laceration to his left leg. Nelson and his two male passengers were uninjured.
No tickets were issued. The vehicle and the motorcycle were impounded for safety checks and the investigation is continuing.
Detectives are asking anyone with information about this crash to contact Second Squad detectives at 631-854-8252.
A toxic one-gallon bottle of sodium hydrochlorite spilled in a FedEx car in Huntington village on Wednesday, impairing the driver’s ability to breathe.
At 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, the Huntington Fire Department received a call from the Suffolk County Police Department regarding a hazardous materials incident on Green Street, according to Huntington Fire Department Chief Robert Berry. The department responded to the scene along with the Town of Islip HAZMAT TEAM. The team was able to secure the material.
The Fedex truck was carrying four one-gallon bottles of sodium hydrochlorite, an additive used in cleaning supplies, when one of the bottles opened and leaked in the truck.
The driver was transported to Huntington Hospital, Berry said, after having difficulty breathing.
FedEx didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment this week.
Suffolk Republicans select candidate with experience serving as town councilman, building commissioner
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone file photo
The Suffolk County executive race is on.
Jim O’Connor is stepping up to challenge Steve Bellone for Suffolk County Executive. Photo from Jim O’Connor
County Republicans have selected Jim O’Connor to challenge Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) in November. And in his words, O’Connor said he could not be more honored to represent his party in the pivotal race.
“John Jay LaValle [chairman of the Suffolk County Republican Committee] called me up and asked me if I would be interested in the position, and I said of course,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you be interested in that position?”
O’Connor, now a resident of Great River, is a partner in the Manhattan law firm of Maroney O’Connor LLP. He has a long resume of working in local government, starting in the Town of North Hempstead in 1998 as an elected councilman, where he served until 2001. From 2006-08, O’Connor was appointed building commissioner for North Hempstead.
He had a very brief run at the Nassau county executive spot in 2001 — for approximately 48 hours, to be exact — before the Nassau Republicans chose to back candidate Bruce Bent instead.
O’Connor’s opponent, Bellone, also garnered similar public service accolades before assuming office at the county level in 2011. Bellone served on the Babylon Town Board for four years, starting in 1997, and was then elected supervisor of Babylon Township in 2001.
Since being voted into office, Bellone said he was proud of passing three consecutive balanced budgets under the tax cap, securing a $383 million investment in clean water infrastructure — the largest of the county in 40 years — and negotiating labor contracts that make new employees more affordable and requires new employees to contribute to health care costs.
“We must continue to move Suffolk County forward,” Bellone said in an email through a spokesperson. “While we have made a lot of progress there is so much work left to do.”
Specifics of moving Suffolk County forward, Bellone said, include continuing to hold the line on taxes, creating new jobs, growing the economy and keeping young people on Long Island.
Bellone also said he is interested in utilizing better the many assets that Suffolk County has, including Stony Brook University, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. If re-elected, he said he wants to make sure the county is leveraging those assets to create innovation jobs.
But O’Connor said he found flaws in the way that Bellone has handled the financial aspects of the county.
“The attitude is, ‘Let’s put off tomorrow what we could do today,’ and that is hurting my children and my children’s children, in terms of the amount of debt that will fall on their shoulders,” O’Connor said in a phone interview.
Under an O’Connor administration, there would be an implementation of a Suffolk County debt management plan, which would start the process of a debt ceiling, much like what has been done in Washington D.C., O’Connor told Times Beacon Record Newspapers in an exclusive interview.
“It’s a simple concept,” he said. “Let’s look at the county’s existing revenue streams and compare it to the county’s maturing debt in an effort to retire, or reduce, the interest payments that will burden future generations of Suffolk residents.”
Suffolk County has $180 million of structural deficit and more than $1.5 billion in cumulative debt, according to O’Connor, who said these factors have led the New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, a Democrat, to say that the county is in fiscal distress. O’Connor said he wants to stand up for the taxpayers of the county.
According to Bellone, when he first entered office, Suffolk County’s finances were in free fall, with a deficit of more than $400 million. He has since cut the deficit significantly by shrinking the government by more than 10 percent.
“I know that Suffolk County taxpayers are overburdened,” Bellone said. “That’s why I am committed to staying under the property tax cap at the same time as I cut my own salary and volunteered to be the first employee in the history of Suffolk County to directly contribute to their health care.”
Keith Davies, campaign manager for Bellone, said his candidate was the right choice for residents to continue moving Suffolk County forward: “Steve Bellone has a proven record of protecting our tax dollars and our quality of life. He’s balanced three consecutive budgets, kept taxes under the tax cap and protected our drinking water by investing in our clean water infrastructure.”
The Suffolk County Republicans, however, said they believed O’Connor would lead the county in a better direction.
In a statement, LaValle said O’Connor’s reputation from both Democrats and Republicans from North Hempstead is what drew him to asking him to fight for the position.
“He’s a guy that is very well respected of course by Republicans in the area, but also by many Democrats,” LaValle said. “In this day and age of almost political hate, here is a guy where not only Republicans but prominent Democrats were speaking very highly of him. That stuck with me.”
Huntington nonprofit affords teachers a creative license
Officials break ground on a Huntington Foundation for Excellence in Education-funded pond at the Jack Abrams STEM Magnet School. File photo
In a time when most news about education is related to highly controversial state-mandated standardized testing, one Huntington nonprofit seems too good to be true.
The Huntington Foundation for Excellence in Education will reach $1 million in funded grants next year since its inception in June 1993, according to the foundation. HFEE is “dedicated to enhancing the quality of the Huntington public schools in education, the arts and athletics,” according to its mission statement. Its funding comes entirely from donations and 100 percent of that money goes back into the school district.
“We are very lucky to have had such concerned parents back in 1993 to have formed such an awesome organization,” Maria Cassar, co-president and board of directors member since 2004, said in an interview this week. “HFEE has donated so much to the district and has become an organization that teachers, parents and students can come to with great ideas for our school district,” she said.
“Teachers come to us with so much enthusiasm for special projects,” Cassar said. She mentioned a hydration water filling station and a cell culture lab at the high school as a couple of her favorite projects from recent years.
Some other grants listed on the foundation’s website include a freshwater ecosystem pond at Jack Abrams STEM Magnet School last May and a donation to the school district’s athletic department that included a three-dimensional climbing wall, a defibrillator and a new shell (a boat used for crew) for the crew team in 2013.
In 2015, HFEE funded grants for a gem stonecutter at the high school, a 3D printer for J. Taylor Finley Middle School and other projects totaling more than $40,000.
Teachers in the Huntington school district understand how lucky they are to have a support system like HFEE that allows them to come forward with creative ideas that often receive funding.
“It’s huge,” Maryann Daly, an employee of the Huntington school district for 33 years, said about the support both financially and creatively that she receives from HFEE. She estimated that she has personally written about $60,000 worth of grants over the years. “It’s what the association between parents and teachers is all about,” she said.
Daly is the chairperson of the district’s SEARCH program, which stands for Scholastic Enrichment and Resource for Children in Huntington. The program is designed to provide hands-on group instruction for the most gifted and talented of the district’s students.
Daly’s job involves implementing a creative curriculum meant to enrich and supplement traditional education, so the assistance that she has received from HFEE and the ability to spread those creative and enriching ideas to the whole district is irreplaceable, she said. Daly said that her position forces her to “think outside the box,” and that is never an issue for HFEE.
One of Daly’s favorite grants was funded by HFEE in 2004. The $15,200 grant replaced the district’s old Starlab, or a portable planetarium, with a brand new one. Another program, which started in 2004 and continued through 2014, allowed fourth-grade students to receive two one-hour lessons from the New York Hall of Science in preparation for a standardized test.
“The Huntington Foundation is absolutely amazing,” Tracey McManus, a teacher at Jack Abrams and an employee of the district for 15 years, said in an email this week. “They have helped me incorporate such unbelievable experiences for my students.” McManus cited a grant for an incubator used to hatch ducks and a grant in 2014 for the pond where she later saw ducks swimming as a couple of her favorite projects funded by HFEE.
Brian Reynolds, an employee of the Huntington school district for 25 years and a current technology teacher at the high school, fondly remembered the “smile from ear to ear” on a student who won a car race on a track for CO2 cars in front of his entire lunch period. He said the boy was virtually skipping through the halls for days after. Reynolds said it was the first thing the boy ever won in his life.
“It is a very exciting year for the Huntington Foundation for Excellence in Education,” Cassar said, looking forward to the 2015-16 school year. “We are all so thrilled to pass the $1 million mark in what we have funded for the school district.”
The foundation offers a few different types of grants to teachers in the district for special classroom enhancement projects, in addition to one $1,000 scholarship for a graduating senior and one scholarship for a lucky sixth-grader interested in a three-day environmental camp, according to the HFEE website.
For more information or to donate to HFEE visit www.huntingtonfoundation.org.
Newly elected Trustee Christine Biernacki takes her oath of office on Monday. Photo by Rohma Abbas
A new leader has taken the helm of the Huntington school board.
Trustee Tom DiGiacomo was unanimously voted the president of the school board at the board’s reorganizational meeting on Monday evening. Trustee Xavier Palacios nominated him for the position, and Trustee Bari Fehrs seconded his nomination.
Trustee Jennifer Hebert maintained her position as vice president of the board.
Newly appointed school board President Tom DiGiacomo is sworn in. Photo by Rohma Abbas
DiGiacomo succeeds incumbent President Emily Rogan, a nine-year member of the board, who has held the leadership role for four years.
After his appointment as president, DiGiacomo publicly thanked Rogan for her leadership, noting she’d “done an excellent job in helping our district improve.” He noted, at one point, that he had “big shoes” to fill.
When reached by phone on Wednesday, Rogan said she supported DiGiacomo.
“I think he will do a terrific job,” she said. “Tom has my support 100 percent. Did I still want to be president? I would have gladly been president. There were trustees on the board who wanted a change.”
In an interview after the meeting, DiGiacomo spoke briefly about his appointment.
“I’m honored and privileged that my fellow trustees have nominated me and made me president.”
Newly elected Trustee Christine Biernacki also took an oath of office at Monday night’s meeting, along with several other school officials, including Superintendent Jim Polansky and District Clerk Joanne Miranda.
New Northport-East Northport Superintendent Robert Banzer is sworn in on July 1. Photo by Rohma Abbas
Change is in the air at Northport-East Northport schools.
School board Trustee Andrew Rapiejko, a five-year incumbent who served as vice president, was sworn in as the board’s president at its reorganizational meeting on Wednesday, following a nomination by departing president, Julia Binger, and an 8-1 vote. Trustee Regina Pisacani was the lone vote against the appointment.
David Badanes take oaths of office. Photo by Rohma Abbas
Newly re-elected Trustee David Badanes was nominated and voted vice president of the board — but not without an unsuccessful attempt by Pisacani to nominate newcomer Trustee David Stein to the slot. Her motion to do so failed to gain support, and Badanes was unanimously appointed.
The July 1 meeting was the district’s first with new Superintendent Robert Banzer at the helm. Banzer, along with Stein, recently re-elected Trustee Tammie Topel, Badanes, District Clerk Beth Nystrom and new audit committee member Edward Kevorkian were all officially sworn in.
In his remarks to the community, Rapiejko called it a “critical year” for the district, and pointedly addressed what he called a divide on the board.
“The elephant in the room is this split on the board,” he said
Tammie Topel is sworn in. Photo by Rohma Abbas
While the board typically votes unanimously on most items, Rapiejko said in a Thursday phone interview that the community perceives a divide on the school board. Those differences among board members have given rise to tensions that began under the administration of former Superintendent Marylou McDermott, he said.
“The former superintendent is out of the equation now,” he said in his speech on Wednesday. “And I’m looking forward and to move on. I think we have to move forward and it’s critical we do that.”
He urged the school community to respect each other and said it is the board’s responsibility to set that tone of respect. In a phone interview, he said he was heartened that his appointment earned almost unanimous support, which hasn’t been the norm at reorganizational meetings in recent years past.
“We can disagree, we can have very strong opinions, but there’s a way to do it and a way to do it respectfully,” he said.
School auditorim dedicated in honor of late advocate as family members, former colleagues pay him tribute
Meredith Spector hugs Jim Polansky at a memorial celebration in honor of Adam Spector that saw the Jack Abrams STEM Magnet School auditorium dedicated in his name. Photo by Rohma Abbas
The memory of the late Adam Spector will live on at the Jack Abrams STEM Magnet School.
On Monday night, friends and family of Spector, who lost a battle with cancer last year, gathered to dedicate the school’s auditorium to him and to tell stories about a man who endeared many at a venue for which he cared deeply.
There was hardly a dry eye among Spector’s colleagues.
“I think about Adam every single day,” said Jennifer Hebert, vice president of the Huntington board of education. “There’s not a day that goes by that he’s not in my heart.”
Huntington Superintendent Jim Polansky’s voice broke as he offered personal words about Spector.
He said when he first got to know Spector, the two had no idea they grew up in the same hometown. Polansky jokingly said he recently flipped through his high school yearbook to find Spector in it, “featured more prominently” than he was.
“Adam was always one to keep me on my toes with his questions and most importantly his enduring sense of humor,” Polansky said. “It was always apparent that he loved Huntington and that this school district had a very special place in his heart. He was one of the strongest people I ever met.”
Other school board trustees also offered touching words.
“He was my enzyme, my catalyst into being involved in the board of education,” Trustee Xavier Palacios said, his voice breaking. “His spirit will always live here. I’ll never forget what he taught me.”
Meredith Spector, Adam Spector’s wife, said renaming the auditorium was a fitting tribute to her husband, who always wanted to see the school reopened after it was shuttered several years ago following a rash of crime in the area. Spector made reopening Jack Abrams one of the main thrusts of his campaign for school board. She called the board’s decision to reopen the school as a STEM school “turning lemons into lemonade,” and something Spector was greatly honored to be a part of.
“It’s truly an honor and Adam would be so happy,” she said in an interview before the meeting. “He was so happy and proud to be part of the board of ed and such a great team. They turned what was a bad situation, the closing of Jack Abrams Intermediate, into something so wonderful, the STEM school.”
The new name of the auditorium, the Adam Spector Memorial Auditorium, is affixed in bold letters to a brick wall outside the auditorium. In a celebratory gesture, family members flanked by a group of people ripped the protective covering off the brand new sign.
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