Police said an off-duty cop and other 6th precinct officers came to the aid of a man Saturday, Aug. 15 who suffered a cardiac arrest in Port Jefferson Village.
Suffolk County Police said off-duty Marine Bureau officer Michael Mason was walking through Port Jeff with his wife and saw a 62-year-old male collapse and become unconscious at 200 East Broadway, up the hill from the Village Center at around 3:45 p.m. Mason immediately called 911 and began CPR.
6th Precinct Patrol officers Christopher Sakowsky and Angelica Nebel responded and continued to administer CPR. Officer Sakowsky applied the defibrillator and administered one shock to the unconscious man.
Upon arrival of Port Jefferson EMS, the patient regained his pulse and was transported to St. Charles Hospital where he remains admitted. Police have the man’s name withheld pending notification of next of kin.
The boarded-up house at 49 Sheep Pasture Road. Photo by Kyle Barr
By Chris Parsick
As it remains in disrepair, a blighted house on Sheep Pasture Road in Port Jefferson has become the center of a difficult situation for the Village of Port Jefferson.
The house, located at 49 Sheep Pasture, has for years been a sore spot for surrounding residents. There have been examples of squatters and vagrants moving in and out of the home, the interior has become unsafe for entry and the surrounding property became overgrown. The building has since been boarded up, and the village takes care of the lawn.
As Port Jefferson began the process of demolishing the derelict building back in 2019, officialswere informed by members of thePort Jefferson Historical Society that the house had significant historical worth. Historians estimate it could be one of the oldest buildings in the Port Jeff area, potentially dating back to the 1740s, according to the book “The Seven Hills of Port” by the late Robert Sisler and his wife Patricia. State Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) also stepped in to request the house be preserved. This has left the village in an interesting dilemma.
“It’s a Catch 22,” said Trustee Kathianne Snaden, who as the liaison to code enforcement has worked with constables to look after derelict property in the village. “It’s our responsibility to do it, but not incur the cost.”
Snaden said she has been working to transfer the property to the ownership of the Town of Brookhaven now that the house is on the Historical Registry. Richard Harris, the village’s recently hired deputy attorney, is currently in the process of locating the owner.
Harris did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
However, every day that the owner is not found is a day that the house becomes more decrepit.
“The house is in major disrepair,” Snaden said. “Somebody needs to do it and fast, because the house is deteriorating.”
The owner of the house is reportedly TAB Suffolk Acquisitions, an elusive real estate company reportedly based at 63 George St. in Roslyn Heights, according to the town. The owner has in conversations with TBR News Media reporters called himself Sam, but would not return calls after initially being approached on the phone. Officials say the company has bought multiple local properties in foreclosure sales but has not done any improvements on them afterwards.
The home is just one example of many so-called “zombie homes” on Long Island. The Town of Brookhaven has taken a unique approach to dealing with these derelict properties, having to negotiate with owners and related banks, and then if either the owner cannot be found or persons do not make required repairs in a set time, the town demolishes the structure on its own dime. A lien is then placed on the property for both the demolition and any back taxes owed.
In 2019, the village signed an agreement with Brookhaven for town workers to assist in clearing derelict property.
LIPA Study Hints at Decommissioning Port Jeff Generating Station
Port Jefferson is fighting to keep property tax revenue flowing from the power plant and to prevent restrictions from being lifted on peaker unit output. File photo by Lee Lutz
Port Jeff officials are trying to combat potential LIPA plans to decommission the PJ generating station in the next few years, saying there is potential for the site when, or if, renewable energy isn’t enough to meet demands.
With so much attention put to the Long Island Power Authority over PSEG LI’s challenged storm response and upcoming public hearings over the Northport power plant, village officials now have their hands on a report by Robert Foxen, the CEO of Garden City-based engineering consultant Global Common, who was asked to create a study of potential use for the Port Jefferson generating station. The village board approved the study in June at a price not to exceed $7,500.
“If they have to unload 400 megawatts of power, we would prefer that would be somebody else and not Port Jefferson.”
—Margot Garant
In a draft version of his report, Foxen says there are advantages to the power facility on the harbor, including that it already has existing utility hookup for gas and electric and would serve as an “adequate” space for a new hybrid battery without demolishing the existing plant. He also cites in the report the site has strong capacity to switch from liquid fuel to natural gas to reduce costs, and that the site could serve as a host to potentially make Port Jeff electrically independent on its own microgrid, ensuring power for the village in case a shutdown to the main grid.
This comes down the pipe as the village’s purchase power agreement is set to expire in 2027, but because of a provision in the contract, LIPA could give notice and end its agreement as early as 2025.
Port Jeff Mayor Margot Garant was one of the main major players involved with the tax certiorari case about the Port Jeff Power Plant in advocating for the eventual settlement. Now that LIPA has made mention of decommissioning the plant, she argues losing that facility would mean a loss of reliable standard power to supplement the general push toward renewable energy.
She related it to the recent snafu with PSEG’s handling of Tropical Storm Isaias, where major sections of Port Jefferson went without power for days and the utility company was next to impossible to reach.
“It’s interesting we have a lot of plans on paper, but when you get into the everyday of how things are working or not working, it gets complicated,” Garant said. “We still really believe that our fossil fuel plant will benefit everyone in the long run because it will be reliable power. We want them to know that Port Jeff is doing their homework and is looking toward the future, and if they have to unload 400 megawatts of power, we would prefer that would be somebody else and not Port Jefferson.”
The report emphasizes that LIPA seems set to offer a PPA to large-scale battery projects “and will issue a [request for proposal] this fall.” Foxen notes that National Grid is set to propose a 100 megawatt battery for the Port Jeff site and expects to respond for an incoming RFP in late 2020.
National Grid did not respond to a request for comment.
Foxen writes in the report the next step is to create a phase 2 to the current study, and discuss strategy with Jim Flannery, the vice president of National Grid.
LIPA’s Future Plans
New York has set a lofty goal of having 70 percent of all electricity come from renewable sources by 2030 and that the electrical grid will be entirely carbon free by 2040. To that end, two wind power companies have won bids to create 1,700 watts of power from offshore wind farms. One of the two companies, the Denmark-based Orsted, has made previous announcements it plans to base its service and repair crews out of Port Jefferson Harbor. Though the timeline for those to be up and running have started to fall behind, as in April the company said they have experienced delays, some due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a May release, LIPA presented a study about closing down a number of its Long Island power plants, including stations such as Glenwood Landing in Nassau, Northport and Port Jeff. It cites new renewable energy has caused a general decrease in need from plants like Port Jeff. The document states it will craft a review by the end of this year on whether to retire “1960s-era steam plants” in Island Park and Port Jefferson as well as recommend an additional decommissioning of 400 to 600 megawatts of steam plants by 2022. Thomas Falcone, the CEO of LIPA, also said reducing the taxes on the plants would lead to “hundreds of millions in tax subsidies for years to come, even if the plants close, averting the immediate, drastic increase in residents’ tax rates that will result from a valuation of the plants reached by a court.”
Perhaps most vague, was the release supporting the idea that redeveloping the Port Jeff and other plants with cleaner technologies was “uneconomical.”
Whether this report was a way of aiding LIPA’s case against the Town of Huntington as it looks to nail down a settlement in that plant’s tax certiorari case, it still hints at what could be a loss for Port Jeff if it truly were to pack up its toys and leave. In a statement, LIPA clarified that “the overassessment of taxes at each of the steam plants, despite their declining energy production, is a significant factor in the early retirement of the plants. Any redevelopment of the sites with cleaner technologies, like storage, would likely be uneconomical because of the current tax assessments. The taxes on these properties are unsustainable for our customers.”
The LIPA plant as seen from Harborfront Park. Photo by Kyle Barr
Garant responded to the idea of the plant being uneconomical saying “They have to also look at is having an unreliable power grid, [keeping the plant open] is a drop in the bucket to what the storm just did to us.”
LIPA, in a statement said the after-storm repairs relates “to the transmission and distribution system, not to generating capacity. The storm experience does not affect our plans for achieving a clean power supply.”
The load on power plants often peaks when weather gets extreme, such as the middle of summer and winter, but according to a May report by LIPA, the forecast for peak load has declined steadily over the past year. LIPA has that while four fossil fuel plants built around the 1960s supply just 21 percent of Long Island’s electricity, the plants make up 80 percent of taxes of what customers pay. In December 2018, when LIPA was signing the settlement, it said the Port Jeff plant only ran 11 percent of the year in 2017.
According to a draft edition of the Global Common study, all Long Island plants have seen an annual decrease in the power output of these plants over the past decade, yet Foxen and now the village is arguing that there will be spikes in demand during extreme weather, and plants such as the one in Port Jeff will be needed to carry that extra load. Batteries, Garant argued, will also not be able to store the day’s worth of electricity if the grid is shut down.
Though the Town of Brookhaven and Village of Port Jefferson have settled on a 10-year glidepath for the Port Jefferson generating station, the Town of Huntington has yet to make a final decision on its Northport plant for what would be a seven-year glide path to an overall 50 percent reduction in the plant’s assessment.
LIPA Settlement and Finances
PSEG Long Island customers pay power plant taxes through monthly surcharges on their electric bills, but LIPA owns the electric grid and has agreements with National Grid for the power plants in both Port Jefferson and Northport. In 2009 LIPA challenged both the towns of Brookhaven and Huntington saying it had been overassessed for years, especially since the Port Jeff plant runs for so little time during the year.
For Port Jeff, however, the glidepath reducing the Port Jeff assessment by 50 percent over 10 years has caused additional problems during a year of pandemic. This year’s village budget saw a 3.19 percent decrease from last year’s budget, while residents have been asked to shoulder more thanks to the loss of power plant property taxes. The pandemic has eliminated a good amount of surplus carry over from last year, and village officials voted to put up a bond for multiple projects that were in varying stages of getting done, rather than letting them fall to the wayside.
On the Huntington side of the tax lawsuit, things seem to be coming to a head, though the Town of Huntington has not yet signed any deal and is hosting public forums to gather comments on the proposed 50 percent glide path settlement. Officials have also previously asked LIPA to beg the court to delay any verdict because of the pandemic. LIPA has refused.
Officials from the Town of Brookhaven, which also were part of the Port Jeff plant settlement, declined to comment because Huntington’s case is still being litigated, but Garant said she feels the best way to reduce economic harm to village finances and the community is to keep that power plant property open in some way shape or form.
“That was a major component of what I promised when I ran in 2009 that I would do everything I can to keep our plant open, and now we’re facing that again,” the mayor said. “I think I want to make sure Port Jeff is never not part of that discussion and is ahead of that discussion. Meanwhile everyone else is looking backward.”
Port Jefferson Village Board Trustee Bruce D'Abramo attends the Port Jefferson Dragon Boat Race Festival in Harborfront Park in 2016. Photo by Alex Petroski
By Liam Cooper
The Port Jeff Village elections, which take place Sept. 15, will elect the trustees for the Village Board. Trustees’ terms, which usually last two years, have been extended a few months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There are two seats open, meaning that newcomer Rebecca Kassay, the owner of the Fox and Owl Inn, and current Trustee Bruce Miller will both be running uncontested. Nine-year Trustee Bruce D’Abramo will not be seeking reelection this year.
Rebecca Kassay, the owner of the Fox and Owl Inn in Port Jeff, announced she would be running for village trustee. Photo from Facebook
As a child, Kassay said she used to visit Port Jefferson, and has been in love with the shops and waterfront ever since. Now a Port Jefferson resident of seven years, she decided to run after attending several of the recent public meetings, and wanted a voice in their decisions.
“We have such potential here as a small government,” Kassay said.
She said she’s most excited about Upper Port development and working with developers.
“[I’m excited to] step into the next phase of Port Jefferson — be proactive about Upper Port development — reaching out to these developers and trying to work with them to get what is best for the village,” Kassay said.
She said she believes that, as a business ownerm who has felt the wrath of COVID-19, she can add an interesting perspective to the board of trustees. On her Facebook page, she says she has experience obtaining COVID-19 relief grants and will advocate for outdoor dining at restaurants beyond COVID-19. Kassay said she is excited to be a trustee and make lasting decisions with the Board.
“I want my decisions to be good for the next 50 years, not just the next two years,” Kassay said.
Current Trustee Bruce Miller, who has been on the Board for over eight years and has been a Port Jefferson resident for 45 years, is running again for his 4th term. Before being on the board of trustees, he was on the Port Jefferson school board for 12 years.
“I like being able to contribute to the community — It’s fulfilling for me,” he said. “I’m trying to give back,” Miller said.
Like Kassay, he is excited aboutUpper Port development. Specifically, he’s looking forward to working with the architectural and parks departments.
“There’s a new project close to approval, and I’m concerned with the architecture on it,” Miller said. “..It’s important to do it right. It will benefit the people who produce the buildings, rental potential, and the image of the village.”
Along with Upper Portdevelopment, Miller has plans with the Port Jefferson power plant.
“We want to get new green energy on the Port Jefferson power plant site,” Miller said. “A very long time ago, I saw we were going to have problems with the power plant.”
Bruce Miller is running for re-election. Photo by Elana Glowatz
Miller said he is excited to continue to work with the board.
“I give my time because I love my community and it’s rewarding to me — I have a vision for a better community,” Miller said.
Current Trustee Bruce D’Abramo is not running for reelection. He has been on the board since he was appointed by Mayor Margot Garant in November of 2011.
“I’ve decided not to seek re-election as a trustee and I do it with a heavy heart — I’ve really enjoyed being here,” D’Abramo said at the Board of Trustees meeting Aug. 3.
He has decided not to run to focus more time on family, specifically his granddaughter, his business, and to travel with the Port Jefferson Lions Club.
Kassay and Miller will both be running foruncontested seats.
Voting takes place at the Village Center Sept. 15 from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Reps of Vision Long Island, Port Jeff Village, former property owners and The Gitto Group were there to receive an award for top mixed use developments. Photo by Kyle Barr
The Brookport complex, the planned apartment and retail building slated for Port Jefferson, was visited by redevelopment advocacy group Vision Long Island and was presented one of its Smart Growth Awards Aug. 12.
Rob Gitto, the Vice President of The Gitto Group accepts a mixed use award from Vision Long Island. Photo by Kyle Barr
At a press conference, representatives of Port Jefferson Village, the Brookhaven Industrial Development Agency and developers on the project, The Gitto Group, were present to receive the award for mixed use projects.
Eric Alexander, the director of Vision Long Island, said that such developments with both living and retail elements were the future for Long Island’s downtowns. The director said the Gitto family has paved the way for such mixed use projects on Long Island downtowns.
“[Rob Gitto and The Gitto] family and his company invested in a mixed use project on a main street long before it was popular,” Alexander said.
Rob Gitto, vice president of The Gitto Group, said foundations are in place and the outer walls are beginning to take shape. They hope to be constructing the interior by the fall and hope to have people inside by this time next year, barring another coronavirus shutdown.
“We’re going to expand the main street of Port Jefferson further south — we’re excited about it,” Gitto said.
Professional muralist Linda Menda-Alfin, pictured, worked alongside Jennifer Hannaford to paint the new mural behind Chase Bank. Photo by Barbara Ransome
As Port Jefferson, as well as the rest of Long Island, is struggling to its feet after the last sorrowful months of the pandemic, Port Jeff business entities are looking to inject a little more life and art into places that haven’t seen it before.
The electrical box before it was painted with the mural. Photo by Barbara Ransome
The Greater Port Jefferson Chamber of Commerce and Business Improvement District worked together to fund a new art installation on a previously graffiti-covered electrical box behind Chase Bank on Main Street. The solid green box now features an aquatic scene like staring into a fishbowl, complete with painted faux wood panels on both the top and bottom of the cabinet.
The project was actually being planned in January, but once the pandemic hit all plans for the new art installation were pushed back into summer. Chamber President Mary Joy Pipe was actually the one to suggest the fishbowl design, according to chamber director of operations Barbara Ransome. Artists Linda Menda-Alfin and Jennifer Hannaford, both of Port Jeff, spent two and a half days in July crafting the mural. It has been sprayed with a coat of varnish to protect the paint, and there is a security camera watching the space in case of any attempted vandalism.
Ransome said the chamber requested $1,000 in seed money back in January for the project.
“It was a three-pronged reason, one for beautification, two was for those areas that were blighted a little bit or vandalized with graffiti, and the third was to recognize our artistic community and make people aware of our artwork,” she said.
The chamber has plans to paint another such mural on the electrical box on East Broadway just east of The Steamroom’s dining area. Both artists have already told Ransome they were interested in a second project.
Mayor Margot Garant said at the village’s Aug. 3 trustee meeting the chamber did an “outstanding job” on the murals.
However, even more public art installations could be coming to Port Jeff in the next few months. The chamber has worked with tourism promoter Discover Long Island in creating a kind of mural tourism, with Port Jeff set to be one of the first of what could be many such installations. Maggie LaCasse, director of communications for Discover LI said the other mural is also being planned for Long Beach. The project is being funded by the tourist promoter though is working with local groups in finding the best locations. The installation of both murals is set for September.
The finished mural behind Chase Bank in Port Jefferson. Photo by Barbara Ransome
Street art, or murals, has seen a new wave of popularity in places like Philadelphia, which has been called the mural capital of the world for the number of incredible building-spanning artworks.
“This is to generate more foot traffic in our downtowns for people to safely enjoy all our wonderful businesses — drum up some extra excitement for our shops,” LaCasse said.
The new mural is planned for the alleyway off of Main Street between Salsa Salsa and Chris Silver Jewelry. Ransome said this could be the perfect spot, with plenty of foot traffic and a nice solid brick wall. She said the tentative plan is for an interactive mural, to create a set of angel wings for people to stand under and take photos and selfies with.
“Street art tourism is a fantastic way to encourage foot traffic to our downtowns and keep our communities buzzing with pride during this unprecedented time,” said President and CEO of Discover Long Island Kristen Jarnagin in a statement. “This initiative is part of a series of targeted projects designed by Discover Long Island to boost economic recovery for the region. Long Island’s tourism industry is a $6.1 billion industry and an essential component in providing relief to the small business community whose lifeblood is at stake.”
If Caran Markson could make the world green, cover it in manicured sets of pollinating flowers and sweet smelling herbs, she would.
Hearing her talk about planting and gardening, the possibilities seem endless. If she had unlimited hours in the day, she would pick up every spare piece of litter on the road from Port Jeff to Montauk, she would kneel in the medians along Route 25A with cars flashing past on either side and weed the curbs of their overgrown stalks and giant vegetation. If she was the queen of gardening, there would be a pocket park on every corner of every publicly accessed street in Suffolk County, or even wider, all of New York state. If she was the monarch of the pollinating flowers, there would be a gardener for every county, town and village, and she would lead her army from the front.
PJ Village Gardener Caran Markson transplants and weeds near the Village Center June 24. Photo by Kyle Barr
To hear her speak, one may truly believe the world could be green from one end to the other, if only there were more people with mindsets like hers.
“A gardener’s work is never done,” Markson said. “Turn around after you’ve done something, and if you don’t enjoy it or see the progress you’ve made, then you’ve got to go do something else.”
But alas, she can only control what goes on in Port Jefferson village, and there’s more than enough there to keep her occupied. Since she started six years ago, she has turned from one of two seasonal part-time village gardeners to the lone full-time caretaker of the village’s many pocket parks. She’s out nearly every day of the week, most of the time beginning the job at 6 a.m. She’s out on the weekends too. She’s out in the blazing sun and the drizzling rain. In normal times, she would open the basketball court and Rocketship Park and take out the trash. She still walks all around the village and picks up litter, every single discarded wrapper and cigarette butt. To her, strewn garbage is public enemy number 1.
“Because I’m a nut, and I’m an absolute anal person as far as litter is concerned,” she said. “I think it’s absolutely disgraceful everyone throws everything on the ground.”
In autumn, she keeps the parks clear of debris. In the winter, she’s out shoveling snow. She has worked with the Long Island Explorium to construct three rain gardens at Village Hall, the Village Center and the Department of Public Works building, the last called the Whale’s Tail for its unique shape. She works an area of 3 square miles, from the country club to downtown and uptown to the village limits near the train station.
At 61, with a wiry frame, Markson is like a coiled spring as she attacks green spots in the village such as the gardens next to Harborfront Park and in the center of the roundabout next to the Village Center. Three years ago, she described it as “a bunch of weeds, and a bunch of overgrown looking bushes.” The village parks department helped remove the old shrub, and Markson replanted it with many native plants like Sweet Joe-Pye weed and tall asters. Though she said some thought the plantings seemed sparse, now the area is full to bursting with color once her plants grew out. Among mistakes novice gardeners often make, the biggest are forgetting the importance of maintenance and not recognizing that plants will grow out to occupy more of the space they’re in.
It’s been much the same for Markson as she’s grown to fit her role. Her family is from Port Jeff, and both her parents and children attended Port Jefferson School District. Her mother was the one to originally teach her about horticulture. She quit being an oral surgeon’s assistant to take care of her terminally ill mother. Once she passed, Markson came back to Port Jeff to “reinvent myself.” Her children are in their 40s, and the plants dotting the village have become her babies.
Mayor Margot Garant said the gardener has an annual budget of around $15,000, but that Markson “does magic with it,” making it stretch by accepting donations from Port Jeff and neighboring communities and by replanting from denser areas of the village to parts that need more. The village gardener and mayor also thanked Kunz Greenhouses in Port Jefferson Station for working with them to provide many of the flowers and greenery all across the village.
The family-owned Kunz Greenhouses has been around for close to 60 years and has been working with the village for nearly four decades. Carolyn Zambraski, who along with her brother is the second generation of greenhouse owners, said she often works with Markson, offering suggestions of native plants and ideas for different planting beds. Driving around the area, the greenhouse owner said the village gardener’s work has made a noticeable improvement in Port Jeff.
“It’s certainly getting better,” she said. “The anchor is a great example, as that was really an eyesore with evergreens and rocks a few years back. The village is going in the right direction.”
Port Jefferson also put up the money for Markson to go through her Master Gardener program with the Cornell Cooperative Extension. She received her certificate of completing 85 hours of training July 25.
“She cares 1,000 percent — her whole heart is in it,” Garant said of Markson. “I find her to be an exemplary employee with an old-fashioned work ethic you can’t just get anywhere.”
As much as she does, Markson isn’t stopping. She has an idea to create a children’s garden in a small patch of grass next to Rocketship Park, adding she is working with Port Jeff’s grant writer Nicole Christian to get some type of funding for such a project. She imagines it as a place where young people can walk through and learn about nature and planting.
She also wants to work with school-aged children to create small gardens next to the downspouts at Village Hall, where she says there are erosion issues.
Beyond that, though, her ambition stretches past what might be humanly possible. She wishes there were more like her on the town, county and state level who paid as much attention to beautification, to make every stretch of road, street, parking lot, park as perfect as can be.
“Beautification is so important,” she said. “Everything should look beautiful.”
Scenes from the Eastern Long Island Mini Maker Faire in Port Jefferson Village June 9. Photo by Kyle Barr
Talking to the conductor once the STEM engine comes to a halt, it’s clear that for nonprofits pushing for education among young people, the track ahead is still uncertain.
Like many nonprofits, the Long Island Explorium in Port Jeff, a small haven for interactive learning on the North Shore, has been hit hard by the pandemic, but since so much of its revenue depends on schools’ field trips, the onus has shifted to a virtual approach. That, however, is something difficult for a learning center that has long emphasized interactivity.
Angeline Judex, the executive director of the explorium, said that once COVID-19 hit Long Island, her space along East Broadway was closed, while her museum employees were furloughed and her volunteers sent home. It would take until the end of April before she finally received her Paycheck Protection Program loans from the federal government, and she was able to rehire several people to help with administrative tasks. Their PPP loans will likely be exhausted by the end of July, Judex said.
Meanwhile, all their teaching apparatus was transported online, specifically to video conferencing app Zoom. Keeping some of their regulars who often came to the explorium, they were able to transform one planned field trip into an online field trip, but the vast majority of booked school trips were canceled once the pandemic hit.
Judex said the situation has made the explorium learn to innovate in new ways. So far they have conducted more than 80 live STEM workshops including a virtual science fair, impacting approximately 120 families and 400 students over the past few months. She said general reaction to the programming has been positive from parents and teachers alike.
“The Explorium will continue to scale up and expand on their virtual offerings over summer and beyond to ensure that students of all means, abilities and needs have access to high quality STEM programming,” she said.
One of the benefits of the last few years is that the explorium has started to diversify its revenue streams, from grants, school districts as well as individual donors. The explorium remains financially solvent, she said, despite the obvious hits from the pandemic. Much of their revenue normally came from their work with local school districts, so depending on how well districts are in the fall, which also depends on whether New York State will slash school aid, could leave the nonprofit without 30 to 40 percent of its normal revenue stream.
“We’re hoping schools have this one year to get back to normal, and by hopefully next year things will get better again,” Judex said.
The explorium is tentatively planning to open the museum location in August, though it will only be for private sessions, and how they do will determine if the place remains open for the rest of the fall. If not, then the museum has plans to open again in spring of 2021. Currently, she said the nonprofit has enough funds in the coffers to survive until then.
“As a children’s museum, it’s supposed to be a high touch environment, but if they’re not allowed to touch anything, what are they going to do?” the executive director said. “That’s a huge challenge for museums everywhere, not only mine.”
After several months of hosting learning online, the challenges of keeping students’ attention became apparent. At first, Judex found their online programs became very popular, then when schools started to catch up with computer-based schoolwork, demand dropped. By April and May, she said students were tired of completing schoolwork on a computer and listening to teachers online. Judex said she’s finding the same challenge with her own children doing schoolwork from home.
“I think I’m Zoomed out,” Judex said. “Meeting in person, there’s so much more warmth to it, whereas on a screen you have to make due. Several months of making due in virtual meetings, it was just too much.”
The explorium has three virtual summer camps coming up in the next few months, with the first one including 14 kids. The next, Judex estimated, will likely contain just 10 children.
She said her team found hosting a single Zoom call with 30 students to be nearly impossible, and they are loath to sacrifice the quality of their learning apparatus in order to facilitate more kids per group.
“We’re not compromising on the quality of the experience,” she said.
Still, Judex said the online programs were well-received.
“The pandemic allowed us to focus even more on our mission of meeting the needs of all students regardless of means, abilities and needs as well as advance our strategic plan to explore distance learning,” she said.
Port Jefferson village Mayor Margot Garant said multiple nonprofits in the village have struggled to maintain during the worst months of the pandemic. The building the Long Island Explorium occupies right next to the Village Center is in year 12 of a 20-year lease and they are up to date with their rent at $750 a month.
The explorium requested some kind of rent relief, and at its July 20 meeting, the village board unanimously voted to reduce the nonprofit’s rent by $250 so as to cover utilities.
“It’s real tangible support, that every little bit counts,” Judex said.
Towards the end of summer, the explorium is crafting its Reimagining the Future strategic plan with steering committees set up with members of the community. This would outline how our explorium will move forward in the next stage of the pandemic.
One of the most well-known activities for the explorium is the annual Maker Faire in Port Jeff. This year’s event got pushed back from June to September, but this week it was announced that all of maker faires in New York State were combining forces to host the online Empire State Maker Faire Oct. 16 and 17, including demonstrations of art, crafts, technology and robotics. The event is free and open to the public.
Port Jefferson Village Hall. File photo by Heidi Sutton
With nine projects currently on Port Jefferson Village’s plate, the board decided July 20 to put over $2 million worth of beach, road and facility improvements into a 5-year bond anticipation note, known as a BAN, anticipating more surplus and grant funds in the following years.
The nine projects are worth $2,364,216, though all are in various phases of development and the end costs on several could change. With grants and the use of otherwise existing funds, the village anticipates it will need to pay off $1,241,416 over time.
Denise Mordente, the village treasurer, said a BAN is a 5 year loan that has lower interest rates than a normal bond, with this one being at 1 percent. In that time between when a BAN becomes a bond, the village is anticipating to have paid off significant portions of what they owe through the grant funds or other surpluses.
Projects include:
• $118,562 for the Highland Boulevard retaining wall project
• $519,745 (with a $450,000 grant) for an expansion of Public Works Facility and creation of a emergency command center
• $399,250 for the East Beach retaining wall
• $711,150 (with existing $350,000 bond and $350,000 grant) for Station Street project
• $141,056 (with a $49,000 grant) for Rocketship Park bathroom renovations
• $125,603 (with a $73,800 grant) for Village Hall bathroom renovations
• $180,000 for the Longfellow Road drainage project
• $814,069 (with an existing $300,000 bond, $200,000 grant and $314,069 in parking funds) for Barnum Parking Lot project
• $230,000 for the digitization of planning department records
For this year’s budget, Port Jefferson’s $9,992,565 in appropriations was a 3.19 percent decrease from last year’s total amount. Not only that, but Port Jeff’s settlement with LIPA over the assessed tax value of the Port Jefferson Power Station meant the village will need to raise $6,451,427 from taxes, a near $50,000 increase from last year.
Mayor Margot Garant said in previous years the village has had its surplus carried over from year to year, which has been used to fund these projects, especially when grants often take a significant amount of time before the village can be reimbursed on said projects. This year, with the loss of revenues from the first and second quarters due to the pandemic, the village anticipates much less of that surplus into next year.
“We have a lot of projects in the works, but what we don’t have is a lot of surplus money,” she said during the livestreamed July 20 meeting. “We are three years into the LIPA glidepath and last quarter losing $350,000 due to COVID, we still closed last year’s budget with a surplus, but it’s just not the money we used to have.”
The village is currently working to pay off two other existing bonds, while one other BAN on the village books will be made into a bond this August. That original $1,480,000 BAN was created in 2016 to finance the purchase of a vehicle for the department of public works, renovate Rocketship Park and purchase the dilapidated structure on Barnum Avenue that will soon become a new parking lot. As the BAN becomes a bond, that $1.4 million has been lowered down to $720,000, and will be a 2 percent interest rate. The first payment of $85,000 will be due in 2021.
The two older debt services the village is paying off include a 2011 and 2013 bond with a total outstanding debt of $4,040,000, which are expected to be paid off in 2029. Both of those bonds were refinanced in 2019, which saved the village about $37,000 a year, according to Mordente.
The village currently has an AA bond rating.
The board also tackled the difficult question of potential future staff layoffs due to the loss of funds this year. Trustee Bruce D’Abramo suggested the village makes active strides in its budget and potentially even borrow money to reduce layoffs.
“I would like to see us make up for the projected revenue from the courts, from parking and from the Village Center — I’d like to see us borrow that money and make our 2020-21 budget whole for the rest of the year and not lay any of our good employees off,” D’Abramo said.
Both Mordente, in speaking with the village’s financial advisers, and Village Attorney Brian Egan argued that current municipal finance laws wouldn’t allow for Port Jeff to borrow in that way.
“Everyone’s in the same boat, they’re up against that same issue,” Egan said, who added the village will monitor bills in Albany that would allow municipalities to gain access to additional funds.
D’Abramo confirmed the village should be thinking about such in the future.
“I would like the board to think about this, so we can keep all of our employees,” he said.
Local animal activists and Brookhaven town to set up the new task force in March. File photo by Kyle Barr
Town of Brookhaven TNR [trap-neuter-return] Task Force, which started up as a pilot program in March, has already spayed and neutered 113 cats in the local area in April, according to Erica Kutzing, one of the heads of the task force and animal rescuer with Strong Island Animal Rescue League.
Erica Kutzing, of Strong Island Rescue and Brookhaven’s TNR Task Force, spoke at PJ Village’s July 20 meeting.
On a call with the Port Jefferson village board July 20, Kutzing said 113 cats no longer producing kittens means an exponential decline in the number of feral cats (aka community cats) crowding local areas.
While in the grand scheme of the many thousands of feral cats in local communities 113 may seem paltry, every neutered or spayed cat is potentially a way to slow the growth of feral communities. Kutzing said they have trapped, neutered and returned 40 feral cats back into their homes in Port Jefferson. Of those 40, if 20 are female, that means those cats can no longer produce five additional kittens per litter; and if a cat produces two litters per year, neutering 20 potentially prevents 200 more cats on the streets.
“Every neighborhood has a feral cat,” Kutzing said. “They usually hide, and you don’t see them, but there are feral cats all over the place.”
The Brookhaven voted to create the task force back in March, providing $60,000 that all goes to the costs of paying a veterinarian to perform the procedures. Kutzing, who works with Katrina Denning, the founder of Jacob’s Hope Rescue, and cat enthusiast Jenny Luca all work on a voluntary basis. They said the pandemic put their plans on hold, but they plan to be out again in August.
Though she said some locals may be hesitant to contact them, Kutzing emphasized there is no charge to the homeowner and they are professionals who know how to capture the felines without harming them. Though some residents may want the rescuers to move the cats from the area, taking an animal like a feral cat away from its habitat is considered abuse and is against the law.
The TNR Task Force can be contacted online at its Facebook page by searching TNR Taskforce of Brookhaven.
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