Suffolk County Police Officer Glen Ciano. File Photo.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison and Commack Fire District Commissioner Pat Fazio joined Susan Ciano, widow of Suffolk County Police Officer Glen Ciano, and representatives from New York Blood Center during a press conference on February 3 at the Commack Fire Department to announce the 13th annual blood drive named in memory of Officer Ciano on Saturday, Feb. 4.
There has been a chronic shortage of blood supplies in New York since the pandemic and blood supplies remain below the ideal five-day safety level. Types O-, O+, B-, and A- continue to hover at less than two-day levels.
The annual event is held in honor of Officer Ciano, who was responding to a call when he was killed by a drunk driver in Commack on February 22, 2009.
The blood drive will be held at the Commack Fire Department, located at 6309 Jericho Turnpike in Commack, on February 4 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call 631-499-6690.
Abraham Lincoln presenter Garry Rissman heads to the St. James Community Cultural Arts Center on Feb 12.
By Tara Mae
Legacy is where man and myth intertwine. More than a summation of his best ideals, the heritage of President Abraham Lincoln’s humanity takes the stage on his birthday, Sunday, Feb. 12 at 1 p.m. when he visits the St. James Community Cultural Arts Center in Celebrate St. James’ latest Living History event.
Garry Rissman, an Abraham Lincoln presenter, is the conduit for the 16th president. His interactive presentation will consist of scenes from three different plays in which Rissman inhabited the role, a monologue from the movie Lincoln, a game, and an audience Q&A session.
Abraham Lincoln presenter Garry Rissman heads to the St. James Community Cultural Arts Center on Feb 12.
“Many attendees are history buffs and their questions display their knowledge of the historical figures. So far, the Living Historians have been great — they really assume their character — costumes, persona, mannerisms, etc. They are knowledgeable and able to answer audience questions. You would think you are actually in [the historical figure’s] presence,” said Celebrate St. James President Patricia Clark.
Historical re-enactors and living history interpreters showcase an amalgam of artistry, history, and theatricality. They make the past present, facilitating scenarios in which audiences are not simply observers but rather cooperative collaborators participating in the presenter’s paradigm.
In this spirit, Rissman’s Lincoln interacts with his supporters, engaging with them throughout the program and creating an immersive experience.
“The audience members who volunteer to read lines in the Civil War plays really feel more involved by being the characters. It is very fulfilling to see them enjoy a living history lecture,” said Rissman.
A member of the Association of Lincoln Presenters for nearly six years, Rissman, who also belongs to the Screen Actors Guild, has appeared as Honest Abe on stage and screen as well as in private and public occasions.
Not unlike Lincoln, Rissman’s preferred profession is a second career. Whereas Lincoln was first a lawyer, Rissman was initially a working actor. Both roles benefit from a gift of oration.“I decided that being a living historian was more fulfilling than being an actor in a play with little to no pay and usually no possibility of getting a copy of my performance. I can do things my way,” he said.
Abraham Lincoln presenter Garry Rissman
Having found his path, Rissman had not yet selected the persona he would portray as he walked it. Initially, Rissman experimented with representing other prominent men of history, but they were not the right fit, so he sought inspiration from his previous occupation.
Like the five o’clock shadow that eventually yields a full beard, Rissman’s association with President Lincoln grew from portraying him in a play at the Incarn Theatre in Brooklyn to embodying him as a full time job.
“I was playing Lincoln in a Civil War play from [the] Incarn Theatre when I decided to go to the yearly Lincoln festival in his hometown of Hodgenville, Kentucky,” he said. “I believed that I needed to experience the Association of Lincoln Presenters first hand before deciding to spend the $200 for a lifetime membership.”
Finding resources and community to support his passion, Rissman, who is based out of New York City, embarked on his campaign of traveling Lincoln presenter. While he has been stumping, the staff and volunteers of Celebrate St. James have been organizing innovative programming to facilitate not only its mission of rejuvenating the town but buying the historic building in which it rents space.
Celebrate St. James resides in the historic Calderone Theatre. Built in the early 1900s, the organization hopes to purchase the building and restore it as a functional theater and creative arts space. Fundraising efforts are in the early stages and the Living History series, highlighting speakers and living history presenters, is a means of spotlighting the town’s robust history and paying homage to its theatrical roots.
These talks constitute Act One of the organization’s ongoing initiative to engage the public in local culture by invoking the past into the present.
“Our goal is to bring attention to the history of St. James, which is a hamlet with a very rich past,” Clark said. “We want to revitalize St. James as the flourishing hamlet it once was by bringing the cultural arts to our community to drive economic growth.”
Clark and members of her team have been inviting living history presenters to speak at their events following successful visits from Mark Twain, George Washington, and Alice Roosevelt Longworth, President Theodore Roosevelt’s oldest daughter, among others. Rissman and Clark connected via the Association of Lincoln Presenters’ official website.
“The historical recreations have become a regular series of events … Living History: Abraham Lincoln is a very family friendly educational/entertaining event and we encourage attendance from families with school age children to see the Living Historians bringing these historical characters to life,” Clark said.
Other Celebrate St. James endeavors include art exhibits, art classes, senior fitness classes, comedy shows, a virtual book club, various children’s events, a classic film series, and summer concerts at Celebrate Park this summer.
St. James Community Cultural Arts Center is located at 176 Second Street, 2nd floor (no elevator), in St. James. Tickets to Living History: Abraham Lincoln are $25 per person, $20 for members, $10 children ages 10 and up. The event will be followed by a Q&A and refreshments will be served. For more information, visit www.celebratestjames.org or call 631-984-0201.
The Huntington girls basketball team took on the Smithtown West Bulls Jan. 31 at a home game held at Huntington High School. The Devils emerged the winners of the Division 1 matchup, 49-38.
Huntington now stands 5-11 in the league, 6-12 overall. Smithtown West is 7-8 in Division 1 and 8-9 overall.
The Devils will take on North Babylon in an away game on Feb. 2 at 5 p.m. On the same day, the Bulls will host Northport.
To our readers: We appreciate your weekly letters to the editor. Writing a letter enables vital communication and contributes to a meaningful community dialogue. It is also a safety valve for expressing different, equally passionately held opinions in a civil fashion.
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So, please send us a letter — see address and formal policy statement to the right of this editorial. We are always interested in your thoughts, especially regarding what goes on in our coverage area.
One day, you’re playing with your twin sons at home, running around with a ball on the driveway, calling and waving to neighbors who pass by when they walk their dogs or take their daily stroll through the neighborhood.
The next day, your life changes.
You want to know why or how, but you’re too busy trying to apply the brakes to a process that threatens the nature of your existence and your current and future happiness.
Your son had some gastrointestinal issues for a few weeks. You took him to the pediatrician and he said he’s got to get over a virus.
You wait, hope, and maybe say a few extra prayers, because the hardest thing for any parent to endure is the sickness of a child.
You check on him, day after day, hoping he’s better, only to find that there’s no improvement.
Suddenly, three weeks later, you’re in the hospital, trying to keep yourself, your spouse, and your other son calm while doctors remove a malignant brain cancer in a 5-year-old boy who defines “goofy” and “playful.”
One of our close friends in our neighborhood just started this unimaginable battle against a disease many of us know all too well, although the specific form of cancer varies.
Their babysitter shared the horror of the prior weekend with me outside the window of her passing car, where she normally would have driven both the twins to school.
I heard the story because I asked about the empty car seat in the back, where both boys typically showed me whatever stuffed animals or toys they had decided to bring to school, either for show and tell or because they were carrying an object that began with a particular letter.
As I talked with the babysitter, who spoke in the kind of hushed and dramatic tones often associated with discussions about serious health crises, I thought about how hard it was and will be for the other son. I thought he needed the kind of 5-year-old normalcy that might become hard to find when he’s worried about his brother and the anxious adults around him.
I asked him to show me what he was holding. He had a pink llama, who he said wanted to poop on my head or on my dog’s head.
I told him that my dog wouldn’t appreciate the poop unless the stuffed llama somehow pooped pink marshmallows.
He laughed, flashing all his straight baby teeth.
As I walked home, I thought of all the things my wife and I planned to offer our neighbors. Maybe we’d babysit the healthy son, walk their dogs, help with house chores, bring over food, do anything to lighten the unbearably heavy load.
I also thought about all the scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University I have known who are working towards cures for cancer.
Many of them know someone in their family, their friend group, their neighborhood, or their schools who, like my daughter’s beloved first-grade teacher, suddenly were in a battle for their lives against a disease that steals time and joy from people’s lives.
Their labs often invite or include family members of people with cancer to staff meetings and discussions about their work, making the connection between what the scientists are studying and the people desperate for solutions.
It seems utterly cliche to write it, but I’m going to do it anyway: we should appreciate and enjoy the days we have when we’re not in that battle. The annoyance of dealing with someone who got our order wrong at a restaurant seems so spectacularly small in comparison.
We can appreciate that the person who seems like a total jerk for cutting us off on our way home may also be the one racing back to hug his child or spouse after an impossible day that changed his life.
Having been exposed to the pleasure of streaming movies on my “smart” television, I now look for good stories and have caught up with “The Sopranos.” I well remember how popular the series was, running from Jan. 10, 1999, to June 10, 2007, winning all kinds of awards and addicting millions with its 86 episodes. Somehow I never caught up with the drama, but now, thanks to HBOMax, I have turned the family room into a nightly theater and watch as Tony Soprano tries to balance his work “family” and his biological family responsibilities, thanks to the help of an Italian-American woman psychiatrist.
At the end of the latest installment, Tony, his wife Carmela and his daughter and son are driving at night when they are deluged by a wild rainstorm. Unable to see the road ahead, and with all of them feeling in peril, Tony parks and ushers his family into an Italian restaurant nearby. There, despite the loss of electricity, the proprietor cooks a marvelous pasta dinner for them, which they finally calm down and eat by candlelight, huddled together at a table in the warm and dry dining room. As he is appreciating the spaghetti on his fork, Tony looks up and says to his children something like, “When you think back on your childhood, it will be scenes like this that you will remember,” while the camera fades out.
That got me thinking. Can I recall such scenes from my childhood, when being with my family in a safe place was so comforting?
One of the first such memories for me was of an intense rainstorm in the Catskill Mountains. I was perhaps 5 or 6 and with my mother and sister in a dilapidated cabin, whose roof leaked ominously. After my mother put pails under the leaks, she realized I was frightened. “Just wait,” she said with a smile, “This storm has brought us pancakes.” With that, she took out a large frying pan from the cupboard, mixed together flour, eggs and milk, poured Hi-Hat peanut oil (the popular brand then) into the pan, and started cooking the mixture, as thunder cracked overhead. Almost immediately, the irresistible smell of the pancakes started to fill the rustic room.
My mother dabbed the extra oil from the dollar-sized pancakes at the stove, put them on a platter on the kitchen table, brought out a bottle of maple syrup, and my sister and I started to eat ravenously. Soon, my mother joined us at the table, and despite the frequent bolts of lightning I could see through the windows behind her head, and the dripping water in the buckets, I felt warm and safe.
The only trouble with that memory: every time there is a heavy rain, I get the urge for pancakes.
I asked my middle son if he had such a memory, and he remembered when we were out in the Sound in our 22-foot Pearson Ensign day sailboat, and the wind and seas suddenly picked up. We had been enjoying a sunny, peaceful sail near New Haven harbor, my husband and three sons and I, sprawled out in the big cockpit, when the unexpected shift in weather occurred.
With the waves towering around us, we pulled down the sail, put the outboard motor at the stern on high speed, and made for the harbor. My husband, at the tiller, gave each of us a task. My sons were to bail out the water that was flooding the cockpit with every crashing wave, and I was to sit on top of the motor to try and keep it in the water every time a wave pushed us up.
Needless to say, it was a harrowing ride until we finally reached shore and tied up at the marina, onlookers clapping. We left the boat and were thrilled to be on the sand. Drenched as we were, we walked the short distance to the harborside restaurant, Chart House and, laughing by then, had one of the best meals of our lives.
By the way, if you, too, missed “The Sopranos” the first time around, I heartily recommend it.
Suffolk County Police arrested two men on Feb. 1 after they allegedly crashed a stolen vehicle into a Kings Park marsh and fled the scene on foot. Fourth Precinct officers were on patrol when they observed a white 2017 Lexus SUV that matched the description of a vehicle that had been observed in the vicinity of larcenies reported in the Fourth Precinct over the last several weeks.
Officers then observed the vehicle enter Landing Avenue Park and crash into a marshy area at approximately 4 a.m. Three men fled the scene on foot, with two being apprehended a short time later, one outside of a Riviera Drive residence and one on Rumford Road, both in Kings Park. Neither were injured in the crash. A third man, who has not been identified by police, has not been located.
Following an investigation, it was determined the 2017 Lexus had been reported stolen from outside a Copperbeech Road residence in Saint James on January 13. Purses and credit cards that had also been previously reported stolen in the area were located inside the car.
Milton Allen, 19, of Hempstead, was charged with Criminal Possession of Stolen Property 3 rd Degree, Grand Larceny 3rd Degree and two counts of Grand Larceny 4th Degree, all felonies, as well as Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle 3rd Degree, a misdemeanor.
Andrew Lawrence, 21, of Hempstead, was charged with Criminal Possession of Stolen Property 3rd Degree, a felony, as well as Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle 3rd Degree and Leaving the Scene of a Crash with Property Damage, both misdemeanors.
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to contact Fourth Squad Detectives at 631-854- 8452.
Map included with the petition submitted to the independent federal agency Surface Transportation Board by Townline Rail Terminal, LLC to construct and operate a line of railroad. Blue lines show proposed tracks.
Community members are voicing their opposition to a proposed rail yard in Kings Park.
A petition titled “We Oppose Townline Rail Terminal” started by Keegan Harris, has already received more than 1,600 signatures on Change.org to stop the proposed construction of a rail spur that would extend approximately 5,000 feet off the Long Island Rail Road Port Jefferson Branch line and be located near Pulaski and Town Line roads.
The petition was posted after The Smithtown News published several articles by managing editor David Ambro, with editorials during January. Townline Rail Terminal LLC, an affiliate of CarlsonCorp. with property on Meadow Glen Road in Kings Park, made a proposal to the Surface Transportation Board — an independent federal agency — that asks for the tracks to be used for commercial use. Among the uses would be the disposal of incinerated ash and construction debris using diesel freight trains. The incinerated ash would then be trucked between the rail terminal and the Covanta waste facility on Town Line Road in East Northport. The proposal from Townline also said “that the line would provide freight transportation to CarlsonCorp’s transloading facility and could serve other local shippers, including Covanta Energy, Kings Park Ready Mix Corp., Kings Park Materials and Pelkowski Precast.”
Currently, ash is transported to the Town of Brookhaven Yaphank landfill, which will close in 2024.
Petitioners feel that if the project is approved, it will negatively affect Kings Park, Fort Salonga, East Northport and Commack. Harris stated on the petition, “Our concern with this project is that this is to be built bordering a residential area of a neighborhood where children live and play.” Other concerns listed were health risks associated with diesel exhaust and incinerated ash; rail spurs being close to homes; diesel trains operating between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.; the impact on the quality of life; noise and possible water pollution; negative impact on home values; and the lack of notice provided to residents about the project.
Members of the Commack Community Association have also stated their concerns on their website and at a Jan. 19 CCA meeting.
Comments from the Town of Smithtown
The Town of Smithtown is currently preparing a FAQ for its website regarding the proposal to answer questions they have received from residents.
According to the town, while Townline Rail Terminal has submitted its petition to the federal agency STB, it will be “the first of many steps in a multi-year-long process.”
Once federal approval is received for the rail spur, proposed buildings and site work will be subject to town approval. “These include a change of zone, amendments to the town’s zoning ordinance, Special Exceptions to the TB and BZA, and site plan approval, and would be subject to a full SEQRA review, including Environmental Impact Statement.”
Smithtown’s draft FAQ states that Covanta “is permitted to process non-hazardous residential, commercial and industrial wastes. Air emissions are monitored to ensure they are below permitted levels (emissions data is available on Covanta’s website) and ash residue is tested per state environmental regulations to ensure it is a non-hazardous waste.”
While Townline in its petition to the STB and in preliminary discussions with town staff and officials “expressed an interest in importing commodities for the local industrial area that are currently trucked to the area” the company would need an amendment “to the town’s zoning ordinance, including the requisite public hearing and SEQRA requirements.”
According to the town, the company plans to run one train per day, five days a week: “Per Townline and its engineer, HDR Inc., the proposed yard has been designed to handle one inbound and one outbound freight train of up to 27 cars daily. The storage tracks have the capacity to store approximately three days of excess storage (up to 79 cars) in the event of rail service outage.”
In a letter to the STB dated Oct. 28, 2022, Town of Smithtown Supervisor Ed Wehrheim (R) wrote in support of the project.
“The town is supportive of Townline’s petition because there is mounting pressure on towns and villages due to the anticipated 2024 closing of the Town of Brookhaven’s Yaphank landfill facility,” he wrote. “Smithtown’s residential and commercial solid waste and residential construction debris (“C&D”) is currently disposed of at the Brookhaven landfill. Smithtown’s solid waste is converted to ash at the Covanta waste-to-energy facility which then delivers the ash to the Brookhaven landfill. Alternative means of disposal and carting of C&D and ash off of Long Island will be mandatory soon for municipal and non-municipal waste facilities.”
According to a STB Jan. 12 decision, the federal agency will address the issues presented in a subsequent decision.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D), center, signed legislation Jan. 27 to provide Smithtown with an additional $5.4 million for the Kings Park Business Sewer District Project. Town Supervisor Ed Wehrheim, left, and Tony Tanzi from the Kings Park Chamber of Commerce were on hand for the signing. Photo from Steve Bellone's office
The Town of Smithtown received good news Jan. 27.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone And Smithtown Supervisor Ed Wehrheim. Photo from Bellone’s office
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) signed legislation last Friday to provide the town with an additional $5.4 million for the Kings Park Business Sewer District Project. A press conference took place in the hamlet’s Svatt Square to mark the occasion.
The funding is possible due to money the county received through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 signed by President Joe Biden (D).
Smithtown Supervisor Ed Wehrheim (R) and Town Board members, with Kings Park Chamber of Commerce and KP Civic Association representatives, joined state and county elected officials as well as Bellone and Deputy County Executive Peter Scully, for the announcement and signing.
Scully said the project initially was made possible by a $20 million state transformative program grant in 2014. With rising construction costs, expenses have increased for the project.
With the additional $5.4 million from the county, contracts were awarded to Holbrook-based G&M Earth Moving, ALAC Contracting Corp. in West Babylon and Amityville-based L.E.B. Electric.
Bellone called it “a great day” and thanked Wehrheim.
“This doesn’t happen without his leadership here and the Town Board,” the county executive said.
He also thanked county and state officials for working together in a bipartisan manner and the community, which he said is critical to working on projects such as this.
“A significant step forward in any community, in any way, is not possible without the work and the support of residents and the businesses in the community,” he said.
Bellone said sewers would be coming to Kings Park this year. He added construction would break ground in the coming weeks, and there would be community meetings to lay out the construction schedules and paperwork will be finalized.
“Make no mistake, the contracts have been awarded, the project is happening now,” he said.
Pipes will connect sewers to the Kings Park treatment plant located on the property of the former psychiatric hospital.
Bellone said the project “highlights how much more we need to do” regarding improving water quality on the Island. He added about 360,000 homes in the region are operating on old septic and cesspool systems.
“We have to address this issue in a way that is affordable for homeowners,” Bellone said. “That burden cannot be placed on them.”
He added investments in wastewater infrastructure are critical for a prosperous economic future.
With other Suffolk County areas needing sewer systems, including St. James, Bellone said, “This represents what we need to be doing all across the county.”
Wehrheim echoed Bellone’s sentiment that the project was a team effort, and he thanked the members of all levels of government and the chamber, civic and community.
“Without the cooperation and all working together, things like this will never come to fruition,” Wehrheim said.
The supervisor, who is a native of Kings Park, said he was proud “of what we’ve done here,” adding, “The future is bright for the Town of Smithtown as far as economic development goes, economic success and, especially just as important, environmental issues to clean up waters.”
Tony Tanzi, president of KP Chamber of Commerce, said, “Some would say we’re at the end of the road. Personally, I think this is the beginning of the road.”
He added he believes Kings Park will soon resemble the robust downtown it was decades ago.
“When you take politics out of it, we can all work together — and that’s the beautiful thing,” Tanzi said.
Hoyt Farm's interpretive specialist Sheryl Brook explains the process of maple sugaring to Hauppauge Girl Scouts Troop 428 during a previous year's event. Photo from Town of Smithtown
Hoyt Farm Nature Preserve in Commack is gearing up for another season of maple sugaring for families, scout troops and nature enthusiasts to take advantage of. This unique educational program, available to the general public, teaches the ancient process of making maple syrup/sugar, which was passed down by the Native Americans to the Colonists.
Classes will run on Sundays, Feb. 19, Feb. 26 and March 5, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Tickets are $5 per person (cash only.) The class is open to both residents and non-residents. It is recommended that guests arrive by 1 p.m. to register for the class as this is a very popular event.
Hoyt Farm Park Manager Jeff Gumin teaches a group about tree tapping at a previous event. File photo by Greg Catalano/TBR News Media
“This is one of the best educational programs the Town of Smithtown offers and it’s one that every Long Islander should partake in. The techniques used to make maple syrup are a part of our history that should be treasured for all time. Jeff Gumin, Sheryl Brook and the team at Hoyt go above and beyond in teaching this demonstration. It’s an unforgettable experience, which I highly recommend for the whole family,” said Town of Smithtown Supervisor Ed Wehrheim.
The maple sugaring program is a demonstration, encompassing the history of Native American early life, how maple sugaring was originally discovered, all the way up to the modern day process. An interactive portion of the program enlists the help of younger students to teach the anatomy of the tree, the importance of chlorophyll, and the role of photosynthesis in making maple syrup.
The Hoyt Farm Nature Preserve maple sugaring program is unique in that Black Walnut trees are also tapped for sugaring, in addition to making maple syrup from Maple trees. Maple sugaring season is approximately three weeks out of the year. In order to produce the sweetest sap, weather conditions must be below freezing at night and over 40 degrees during the day.
The maple sugaring program began in the late 1970’s, and started with one class. It is now a full blown family-oriented interactive experience, available to the general public, (not restricted to Smithtown residents) appropriate for all age groups. School classes, girl scouts, boy scout troops, kids and adults of all ages are welcome and encouraged to take advantage of this unforgettable experience.
Hoyt Farm is located at 200 New Highway in Commack. For more information, call 631-543-7804.
These talks constitute Act One of the organization’s ongoing initiative to engage the public in local culture by invoking the past into the present.
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