By Bill Landon
Kings Park outscores John Glenn for second win
Home Times of Smithtown
St. James, Northport celebrate Easter, hunt for eggs
Northport Village and St. James residents were ready for the Easter Bunny this year, as families and children of all ages came to hunt for eggs, take pictures with the Easter Bunny and play Easter-themed games.
Port Jeff civic association, Brookhaven Town host crime awareness discussion
Drug addiction on the North Shore and across Suffolk County is a complicated problem, so the police department and the community are coming together to come up with strategies to combat it.
One of the reasons Salvatore Pitti, a retired New York City police officer, left the Big Apple to live on Long Island he said in part was to escape drug-related crime. But in recent years, he has seen what he called an alarming uptick in heroin and opioid-related overdoses and deaths in the suburbs — so he decided to do something about it.
“We need to put the fear of God into our kids about this problem.”
— Salvatore Pitti
“We need to put the fear of God into our kids about this problem,” Pitti said April 11 during a Crime Awareness Committee meeting at Brookhaven Town Hall. “I’ve had the misfortune, in my career, to scoop three or four children off the street, dead. I don’t want to see that.”
Pitti, vice president of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Civic Association and leader of a local neighborhood watch group designed to eliminate local criminal activity, co-sponsored the event along with Brookhaven Town.
Joined by several guest speakers including Supervisor Ed Romaine (R), Councilwoman Valerie Cartright (D-Port Jefferson) and Suffolk County Police Department Commissioner Tim Sini, Pitti spoke with local organization leaders and residents about how they can help make their communities safer.
Sini, who became commissioner last year, has already rolled out several initiatives through the SCPD to address the issues of illegal drug sales, abuse and overdoses as well as prevention and recovery in his short time leading the department.
Many of them rely on police department collaboration with the public.
“I can’t tell you the number of times that information from people in this room or from folks like you have helped us solve crimes,” Sini said, highlighting such programs as the NARC hotline, a partnership with Suffolk County Crime Stoppers, where callers can give crime tips anonymously and receive cash rewards for those that lead to arrests.
Another initiative, Sini said, is the Long Island Heroin Task Force, which targets drug dealers causing overdoses and the areas that have the biggest spikes in overdoses through data collected in the department. Programs are also being implemented in local schools that teach about the consequences of taking drugs, offer prevention and recovery steps, and even train parents and teens on how to administer Narcan, the nasal spray used to reverse heroin overdoses.
“We need to get people off drugs and into treatment for recovery,” Sini said. “Please think of ways the SCPD can partner with you to promote drug prevention in your community.”
Cartright said she understands the importance of a partnership with local law enforcement.
“I can’t tell you the number of times that information from people in this room or from folks like you have helped us solve crimes.”
— Tim Sini
“I grew up in Queens, in an urban community where there was a lot of crime, and there was no interaction with the police department the way we interact with the police department here,” the councilwoman said. “They come in and ask, ‘how can we work with you?’ That’s something, 25 years ago, I didn’t have when I was growing up. This is not a problem we can solve alone.”
Pitti said he started the Crime Awareness Committee three years ago to shine a spotlight on a local marijuana dealer in his neighborhood. Due to his effort and a collaboration with neighbors and the police, the dealer was ultimately pushed off the block.
Even though the group has since grown, he said he wants more community involvement.
“When I first started this, I received a civic email list but, unfortunately, it was antiquated and outdated,” he said. “We’re working together on it, to try and fix it and put more emails in. That, to me, is the first problem. If we can’t call each other, how can we help each other?”
He handed out a packet to attendees of the meeting outlining ways to identify dangerous people in the community. The packet gives details on how to check if houses in a neighborhood have rental permits; report town code violations; deter underage drinking at parties and neighborhood gatherings; and a detailed physical description form to fill out upon witnessing suspicious activity.
Legislators vote for higher fines, jail time for illegal dumping at parks
The penalty for illegally dumping on county-owned properties may soon include jail time in Suffolk County, after legislators unanimously approved on March 28 both increased fines and the potential of up to one year’s imprisonment for anyone convicted. The bill, sponsored by Legislators Sarah Anker (D-Mount Sinai), Kara Hahn (D-Setauket), Tom Muratore (R-Ronkonkoma), Rob Trotta (R-Fort Salonga) and Kate Browning (WF-Shirley), now goes to Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) for his signature within the next 30 days.
Once implemented, maximum fines for illegal dumping of nonconstruction, demolition and hazardous material wastes by a business or corporation will increase to $15,000 from the previous fine of $5,000. The penalty for dumping nonconstruction materials by an individual will remain at $1,000. If an individual is found dumping construction or demolition material, the misdemeanor fine will increase to $10,000 for an individual and $15,000 for a corporation or business. Under the change, both an individual and someone convicted of dumping material on behalf of a commercial entity may be sentenced up to one year in jail. Imposition of the ultimate fine or criminal sentence is within the sentencing court’s discretion.
“For far too long, fines associated with illegal dumping were considered just the cost of doing business,” said Hahn, chairwoman both of the Legislature’s Parks & Recreation and Environment, Planning and Agriculture Committees. “For those who choose to pursue greed over the health of the public and our environment, your cost of business has just gotten a lot more expensive. The one-two combination of increased monetary penalties and potential jail time will hopefully give pause to any person or commercial entity that believes these significant fines and the potential loss of freedom is a cost effective business strategy.”
Illegal dumping on Long Island has emerged as a serious environmental issue and threat to public health following the discoveries of potentially toxic debris within the Town of Islip’s Roberto Clemente Park, Suffolk County’s West Hills County Park and a housing development for military veterans in Islandia. In February, New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation issued approximately 200 tickets for unlawful disposal, operating without a permit and other violations during stings conducted on Long Island and the Hudson Valley that also identified nine dumping sites upstate.
“Illegal dumping of hazardous materials and construction waste on county property causes harmful chemicals to seep into our water.”
—Sarah Anker
“For decades, Suffolk County has worked tirelessly to preserve land in order to protect our environment and groundwater,” Anker said. “Illegal dumping of hazardous materials and construction waste on county property causes harmful chemicals to seep into our water, which negatively affects our health. It is important we do everything in our power to continue to protect our parklands and to ensure that illegal dumping does not occur. By doing so, we are not only preserving the environmental integrity of Suffolk County, but improving the quality of life for all residents.”
Trotta called the dumping a crime against the residents of Suffolk County.
“I want to make it unprofitable for contractors to dump this material,” he said, “and more importantly, I want them going to jail for this.”
Browning added that the parks are vital assets for Suffolk County residents, and one of the core recreational resources available to them. She doesn’t like seeing the destruction of quality of life. Legislature Presiding Officer DuWayne Gregory (D-Amityville) agrees, saying it’s an important step to protecting parks, while giving teeth to all legislation recently passed on this quality of life issue.
“I applaud legislator Hahn for her hard work toward preventing this serious problem,” Browning said. “Aggressively attacking illegal dumping head on will ensure the sustainability of our parks and preserve one of the many reasons Suffolk County continues to be a great place to live.”
Hauppauge resident spends 25 years creating havens for sick kids
For 25 years, Hauppauge resident Bob Policastro has made it his mission to give medically fragile children and their families a place to turn to — not just for specialized nursing care but love and normalcy.
As founder and executive director of Angela’s House, a nonprofit organization that offers an extensive array of services for families to support children with severe medical conditions, the 57-year-old has worked tirelessly since 1992 to address the gap in New York’s health care system when it comes to helping chronically ill kids.
He said he was determined to be a voice for these parents and kids in the community after experiencing firsthand just how underhelped they are.
When his daughter, Angela, was born in August 1989, Policastro said everything went wrong.
“She lost a lot of blood and oxygen, and suffered severe brain damage, that left her very frail,” he said.
As there had been no permanent place on Long Island equipped to handle the technological and medical needs of frail children, Policastro and his wife, Angie, had a tough time finding a specialized home or facility to provide their daughter the nursing care she desperately needed.
They ended up finding a specialty hospital two and a half hours away in Connecticut, but the long drive just to see his daughter left an emotional and physical scar on Policastro.
After Angela died a little after her first birthday, a grief stricken Policastro got to work.
Now there are three large group homes that look and feel more like cozy resorts to choose from, with Angela’s House locations in East Moriches, Smithtown and Stony Brook.
Each location contains 24-hour nursing, local therapists and doctors on hand, and houses up to eight kids between the ages 6 and 16 with varying conditions. The residences offer top-of-the-line medical and monitoring equipment hidden within the warmth and beauty of a caring home.
And although the children that inhabit it are those who have suffered accidents, disease, developmental delays and more, Angela’s House helps provide them the freedom and opportunity to have a simple childhood.
During a walkthrough of the large Stony Brook house, which opened in 2013 and is dedicated to kids who rely on ventilators, Policastro pointed out one of the children’s bedrooms.
It looked like a kid’s paradise, with a bed covered in stuffed animals, the floor littered with toys, Nickelodeon on TV and a window that gives a beautiful view of the property’s nearby woods — a far cry from the hospitals and institutions in which many of the children at the house had been living.
“For me, it’s about the kids and giving them a safe and loving life,” he said. “I feel really blessed that these kids who have been given a limited lease on life can make the most of it in ways the average person could never dream possible, or can touch people in ways that change them forever. It’s remarkable to see a nonverbal kid, [many of house’s children can’t talk], that has a smile that can light up a room. It’s a great responsibility and I feel honored to be put in a position where I can try to help as much as I can.”
Deborah Church, nurse manager at the Stony Brook location who does everything for the kids from providing medical stability to planning birthday parties to giving them a hug when they need it, said Angela’s House is the best place for these children to be if they can’t be home.
“It’s nice to have the parents smile and know they can go out and have a life, and come and visit their children and see they’re so happy, safe and well taken care,” Church said. “This is a happy home for them to live. These kids can be as normal as possible and always have a smile on their face.”
Gathered around a kitchen table, Policastro and Church talked with 15-year-old Torren, who had been confined to a hospital and nursing home for the first 12 years of her life because of a respiratory illness, about her Sweet 16 next month. Torren will wear an extravagant dress, dance to her favorite band, OneRepublic, and eat nachos with her friends at the house.
Torren, who wheels her ventilator around inside a travel suitcase in order to feel less self-conscious about her condition, said her favorite parts about living in the house are the staff and outings — which include trips to the bank and local stores, as well as pumpkin patches in the fall.
Stephanie Caroleo has been working at Angela’s House for six years.
“The most rewarding aspect is when you come to work and you truly feel like you make a difference every day,” she said. “Every day we make a difference in the lives of these kids, and you see it in their face, in how they speak with you and the relationships we develop.”
When asked what’s kept him motivated for the last 25 years, Policastro pointed to Ella, a little girl in a wheelchair smiling from ear to ear. “That,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what mood you’re in, if you bump into one of these kids and you see that smile, oh man, that’s golden.”
The Shard Art Shoppe in St. James celebrates grand opening
The Shard Art Shoppe in St. James held a ribbon cutting and grand opening on Thursday, April 6. The shop, located at 2 Flowerfield, Suite 27 in St. James, offers mosaic glass art for sale, in-store parties and art classes for the community. “Creating mosaics is something that has brought me a great sense of joy and accomplishment. Therefore, I am thrilled not only to be able to share my pieces with others, but also to bless people with an opportunity to create their own masterpieces in my new store,” said owner Anna Fenimore. For more information, call 917-217-3958 or visit www.theshardartshoppe.com.
Smithtown East softball mercies West Babylon
By Bill Landon
The Bulls were raging, and Taylor Bigliani was leading the way.
The Smithtown East softball team may have found itself behind early, but a fifth-inning rush by the Bulls, which bled into the sixth, triggered the mercy rule for a 17-5 win over West Babylon April 8.
After the Eagles ripped a solo shot home run over the fence in the opening inning, Bigliani, a first baseman, smacked a two-run double that put the Bulls out front for good.
Smithtown East was swinging throughout the next two innings, but West Babylon’s defense was up to task, making play after play to hold off the threats. Smithtown East center fielder Kyra Dalli eventually drilled the ball to right center, driving in outfielder Rebecca Fields with a stand-up double as the Bulls pulled ahead 3-1.
“They had a tough defense, but we got the hits we needed today,” said Dalli, the leadoff hitter who went 5-for-5 on the day. “We were able to work through it.”
With runners at the corners, Smithtown East right fielder Samantha Swenson ripped a shot deep for a two-run double that plated Dalli and short stop Ashley DeGiorgio. Bigliani’s bat cracked next with another stand-up double that scored Swenson from second base for a 6-1 advantage.
West Babylon responded with a triple and a two-run single to close the gap, 6-3, in the top of the fifth inning, but DeGiorgio was able to apply the tag on a runner trying to steal second, to close out the inning. The Eagles would come no closer.
After Fields singled and DeGiorgio found the gap, a fly ball by Dalli dropped in to load the bases with one out.
Swenson cracked a single to right field, scoring Field for a four-run lead, 7-3.
“West Babylon is a good team, but we were good offensively and we hit the ball when we needed to,” Swenson said. “And our coaches give us a lot of confidence.”
After a passed ball on a full count, Smithtown East took a five run-lead. With the bases still loaded and now two outs, Bigliani stepped into the batter’s box. She jumped on a pitch and hit a rocket to straight away center, over the fielder’s head for a bases clearing double and an 11-3 advantage.
“We never gave up, we kept hitting the ball so hard and we had a lot of energy throughout the entire game,” Bigliani said. “I didn’t expect this. I thought we’d be in a very close game, but we jumped on them right away and I’m proud of my team for that.”
West Babylon threatened in the top of the sixth when the team loaded the bases with two outs. On a Smithtown East fielding error, two runners made their way home, but Smithtown East pitcher Marina Amicizia shut the door with the final strikeout of the game.
“We don’t usually play them, so they were kind of a mystery for us,” Amicizia said. “Our team came out there strong and we were ready for anything. We were able to score runs when we had runners in scoring position, so we were very clutch out there.”
Smithtown East, again doing its best work with two outs, got another opportunity in the bottom of the sixth after West Babylon turned a double play. The Bulls’ bats never missed a beat, and after a Savannah Coffelt double, Dalli drove one through the right field gap to plate Coffelt for a 12-5 lead.
“We treat every team the same — we didn’t come in here cocky, but we hit the ball well, we adjusted well,” Coffelt said. “[West Babylon’s pitcher] was a little slower than other pitchers, and we’re not used to that, so I think we adjusted to that nicely.”
Swenson hit the ball over the center fielder’s head, scoring Dalli, and catcher Courtney Hohenberger found the gap to score Swenson for a 14-5 advantage. Again, Bigliani stepped into the batter’s box and belted the ball deep for a stand-up double that scored Hohenberger. Bigliani finished with seven RBIs on the day. Smithtown East third basemen Tori Hussey was up next, and her single drove in Bigliani, before Andrea Lichas knocked the ball through the gap to bring home Hussey for the run that triggered the mercy rule.
“We have a lot of girls that can really hit — they have very fast bats, so we needed to be patient and let the ball get to us because their pitcher wasn’t overpowering,” Smithtown East head coach Glenn Roper said. “My infield played really well, my pitcher did a really good job keeping them off balance, so I’m happy with how we played all around. We got timely hitting when we needed it, we made the plays when we had to and just tried to keep it simple and let the game come to us.”
A lesson in sugar, short and sweet (part one: the players)
I have had the privilege of teaching high school science (biology, chemistry and physics) for the last thirty years. For the last ten years, I’ve had the additional privilege and responsibility of developing and teaching an elective we simply call “Food Science.” It’s not your usual health class dietary guidelines, nor does it rehash the familiar mantras of counting calories and exercising to balance intake. Instead, we study the cultural, historical, scientific, political and economic contexts of our food system and how that system impacts our environments, both external and internal. This in turn enables students to make much more informed decisions about what they want to put in their bodies.
When it comes to sugars, confusion is the name of the game. There are dozens of ingredients that mark the presence of sugars in our food: maltodextrin, dextrose, invert sugar, cane sugar, high fructose corn syrup and starch, to name a few. Regardless of what the food industry calls them, your body sees basically three end products of their digestion: glucose, fructose and galactose. Which ones you eat, and how much, will dictate both their value and their danger to you.
You may have heard of three additional sugars — lactose, sucrose and maltose. Lactose is a combination of one glucose and one galactose. Also known as “milk sugar,” lactose is the nemesis of lactose-intolerant individuals who lack sufficient quantities of the enzyme that can digest it. Instead, bacteria that reside in their intestines get to process it, making painful amounts of gas as a by-product. Galactose can be converted to glucose in your body, but most individuals do not consume enough dairy to make this a source of concern.
Maltose is another type of sugar. It is a pairing of two glucose units and is the namesake for maltodextrin, etc. Consuming foods with maltose adds glucose to your diet — worth keeping track of as part of your total glucose consumption.
However, the most likely source of sugars in your diet is either sucrose or high fructose corn syrup. Sucrose, known also as table sugar, can be derived from sugar cane (cane sugar) or sugar beets (sugar.) Like lactose and maltose, sucrose is a paired structure, made of one glucose subunit and one fructose subunit. That is what your body absorbs regardless of the source (even organic.)
Sparing you the science behind its production, high fructose corn syrup is approximately half glucose, and half fructose too. Regardless of the marketing efforts by the Sugar Association and the Corn Refiners Association to make you believe one is better for you than the other, they end up, metabolically, in a virtual tie. Debating which to consume is a distraction from the consequences of consuming too much of either, or both.
The consumption of sugar (the term is legally owned by the Sugar Association as the sole name for sucrose) used to be limited by the relative expense and difficulty in obtaining it from its tropical source. Now the record levels of corn production in America have made it relatively cheap to produce and distribute sugar’s nearly identical-tasting competitor, high fructose corn syrup. You can find it in soda for sure, but also in pickles, peanut butter, ketchup and pretty much anywhere sugar might be used for additional appeal to consumers.
This has paved the way for the combined consumption of these sweeteners to reach more than 150 pounds per year per person in America. This far surpasses the 60 pounds per year considered by some experts to be the maximum amount that can be metabolized without ill consequences including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, fatty liver, cataracts, personality and cognitive dysfunction, some cancers and (by the way) obesity.
Tying glucose and fructose consumption to the metabolic consequences noted above requires further discussion. And now, you are properly prepared for those lessons. As we say in Food Science class, “Chow!”
Chris Zenyuh is a science teacher at Harborfields High School and has been teaching for 30 years.
Motorcyclist seriously injured in crash in Smithtown
Suffolk County Police Fourth Squad detectives are investigating a motor vehicle crash that seriously injured a Farmingville man in Smithtown April 5.
Michael Lacorte was riding a 2006 Honda motorcycle east in the right-hand lane of Nesconset Highway, west of Terry Road, when he hit the rear of a 2015 Subaru traveling east. The Subaru was attempting to change lanes from the center to the right-hand lane when the crash occurred.
Lacorte, 29, of Farmingville, was transported via Smithtown Rescue to Stony Brook University Hospital where he was being treated for multiple serious injuries.
The driver of the Subaru, Caitlin OReilly, 30, was transported via Smithtown Rescue to St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown where she was being treated for minor injuries.
Both vehicles were impounded for a safety check and the investigation is continuing.
Detectives are asking anyone with information about this crash to contact the Fourth Squad at 631-854-8452.
Ward Melville pulls out win over Smithtown East lax
By Bill Landon
Ward Melville jumped out to a five-goal lead early in the first half, and even after the Smithtown East girls’ lacrosse team battled back to trail by two, the Patriots fired back, securing a 17-11 victory to remain undefeated in Division I April 4.
Junior midfielder Shannon Brazier and teammate Kerry McKeever rattled off two early goals, while senior attack Kaitlin Thornton added one of her own for a 5-0 lead just six minutes in.
Smithtown East sophomore attack Isabella Costa broke the ice for the Bulls when her shot found its mark for an unassisted goal seven minutes later.
Ward Melville head coach Kerri Kilkenny said her team had to press the entire game — knowing it had to after escaping the last matchup with a one-goal win.
With 12 minutes left in the first half, McKeever notched her hat trick goal for a 6-1 advantage.
“When we play together like we did at the beginning, we can close it out with a win, but we couldn’t be complacent,” McKeever said. “We worked together, we found the open cutter on transition; having turnovers on the ride starts the attack, so those were really big [because] it got us the ball back on offense.”
Costa teamed up with senior co-captain and attack Julia Smith, as each trailed two goals to trail 7-5 with just over nine minutes before the break.
The Bulls went a man down with four minutes left, but Ward Melville did too less than a minute later to even the teams. The loss didn’t affect the Patriots though, as Brazier scored her third goal, senior attack Kassidy Rogers-Healion buried her penalty shot and junior attack Kerri Thornton dished one off to sophomore Alexis Reinhardt, who put the team out front 10-5.
“Smithtown is definitely a great team — we play well together and we have a really deep bench, so there’s no deviation when we put subs in,” Brazier said. “We’ve all played together since we were young, so we mesh really well together.”
Smithtown East senior co-captain Shannon Kavanagh’s stick spoke next, when a foul shot hit the back of the cage in the opening minute of the second half. But again, the Patriots didn’t let the scoring last for long, and went on another tare, scoring four consecutive goals before Costa countered, to cut the deficit to 14-7.
Smithtown East head coach Ann Naughton critiqued her team’s performance, saying it was below average.
“It’s obviously disappointing, and we’re going to have to learn from it,” she said. “Ward Melville came out and they wanted it more than we did. I always respect them — they’re a really good team so I’m not surprised by them at all.”
With just over nine minutes left, Ward Melville ran the clock before senior attack Hannah Lorenzen scored on a hand off for her fourth goal of the game.
“We know that they’re a good team, so we had to get on their hands when they were shooting so they couldn’t get off a great shot,” Lorenzen said. “And that helps our goalie [Samantha Tarpey], who was a big part of our win today.”
Tarpey had eight saves on the afternoon.
Smithtown East wouldn’t go quietly though, and with time running out found the net four more times.
“They always have potential — they’ve given us a run for our money in the past and I just told the girls don’t allow those quick goals to rattle you,” Kilkenny said. “Sometimes they get a couple of quick ones on you and the team will deflate, but the girls stayed on their game.”
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