In this business, you get a lot of anonymous calls and letters. People want anonymity for different reasons. Some fear retribution by government or neighbors. Many don’t give a reason, but it’s pretty obvious. They want to say mean things, but they don’t want to trash their good name. Now that’s what I call having the courage of your conviction.
“This call will remain anonymous,” announced a female voice on my voice mail recorder Tuesday afternoon. “I’m calling to say that your newspaper reporting skills suck, Denise. I can’t believe that you didn’t even report that the guy who does all the Christmas lights on the Main Road near 105 is in the hospital and that’s why he can’t do the lights this year that all the children enjoy so much ... I can’t believe the newspaper didn’t even notice that the house wasn’t lit this year. I hope you break this story, Denise, because I’m calling the other papers.” CLICK.
And a very Merry Christmas to you, too, lady.
Now, let’s set the record straight.
First, Bill Doonan, “the guy who does all the lights” is not in the hospital. He had an emergency appendectomy on Nov. 11 and is abiding by his doctor’s orders to avoid heavy lifting and ladder-climbing.
Second, of course we noticed the house was dark this year. We live here, too, you know. We noticed it Thanksgiving weekend, the weekend Mr. Doonan’s been lighting up his Main Road house for the past decade. Barbaraellen Koch called his house and spoke to his wife Sharon, who jokingly said they were thinking of putting up a sign that says “No, he’s not dead. He just had an appendectomy.” We discussed writing a story about it, because we knew people were talking about it. But we decided that the man was entitled to recover from an appendectomy in privacy and peace.
Wrong.
“We’ve had a ton of calls,” Bill Doonan told me Tuesday afternoon, when I called his house to make sure he hadn’t in fact, suffered a complication that landed him back in the hospital. “I am alive and kicking,” the 50-year-old limousine company owner reported with a chuckle. “The rumor mill in this town is just amazing,” he noted.
Bill is really into Christmas. He’s bummed out over the darkness at his house this year, and feels a sense of responsibility to put on his spectacular light show. Bill said he and his wife actually considered hiring people to put the lights up this year. But that just didn’t seem right. “It’s something my wife and I do together, something we love to do. Our heart goes into that display,” he said.
“That display” consists of thousands of lights — too many to count — and 30 illuminated inflatables, along with more than 100 Christmas lawn ornaments. It takes the Doonans 10 full days to set it up.
“I’m an all or nothing kind of guy,” he said wistfully. Last year, he even dressed in a Santa suit — a gift from his wife — and stood outside his bedecked homestead waving to passersby. “You wouldn’t believe how many people stopped and gave me bottles of champagne,” he marveled. “Too bad I don’t drink.”
People really appreciate his efforts every year, he said. Last year, a busload of carolers knocked on his door one Saturday night and sang to him and his wife. He was so touched it made him cry. I was on that bus and saw Bill’s eyes tear up. I’d assumed it was our singing. But he was genuinely touched by our expression of appreciation of the gift of his Christmas spirit to the community.
That’s what it’s all about.
“There’s nothing like seeing a kid’s face pressed up against the window of a car, looking in awe at the house,” Bill says dreamily. “Or watching the stress drain from parents’ faces as their kids roam around our yard in wonder.”
People love the Riverhead Christmas house, as he calls it. He’s gotten plenty of notes and drawings from kids over the years saying thank you for “the Christmas house.” He laminates them and hangs up. He feels bad for the children he knows are disappointed by the darkness there this year. But then he brightens, “Wait’ll next year,” he says. I could hear the twinkle in his voice, and could picture him in his red flannel suit, waving and smiling.
We wish you a Merry Christmas, Bill and Sharon Doonan, from all of us at The News-Review and all over Riverhead. Thank you for your effervescent spirit and good humor.
And to that anonymous caller: Thanks for the gift. I wanted to write a Christmas column, but until your message, I was stumped.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Where's my happy switch?
The PC police have sensitized us on the issue of offending Jews, Muslims and atheists, among others, as we celebrate the Christmas holiday. To use a phrase that will date me, we’ve had our consciousness raised.
But the celebration of Christmas is “offensive” to another group of people for completely different reasons. Offensive isn’t quite the right word, but it’ll do.
The Christmas season is really hard on the depressed and grieving among us. Count me in. This time of year, I’m not very merry. Being wished a Merry Christmas — or a Happy Holiday for that matter — only reminds me of the hole in my heart. I force myself to go through the motions of the holiday, trying my best to continue our family traditions “for the sake of the children” but it’s hollow. I feel like a fake.
And a failure. I struggle with my faith, and the past couple of years, when Christmas rolls around, I’m reminded of my spiritual shortcomings. If I had a strong faith, I wouldn’t be depressed, I chastise myself. If I were focused on the true meaning of the season, I’d be joyful, not down.
I wish we humans came equipped with a happy switch.
Some of my holiday tsouris is cultural. As a first generation Italian-American, my childhood was steeped in the cultural traditions of the “old country.” My entire extended family lived within a 10-block radius of my great-grandmother’s house in Brooklyn, until my parents wound up settling our family in Coram — “in the middle of nowhere.”
We saw each other, well, constantly. Family was our social network. Holidays were spent together — always. Great aunts and uncles, their children and their children’s families crowded together in my great-grandmother’s home on Christmas Eve for a traditional fish dinner, zuppa di pesci. Holidays were boisterous at “Big Grandma’s” — at 5’7” she “towered” over her husband in the turn-of-the-century wedding picture that hung in a place of honor in her living room. My great-grandfather died before I was born, but Big Grandma was the center of my mother’s extended family until she passed away when I was 14.
Our move to Coram marked the beginning of The Scattering. My parents’ generation left that one-square-mile “village” in Brooklyn for the suburbs. But they returned with their children for holiday gatherings. After Big Grandma died, my mother’s parents’ home became holiday central for us. Nana gave up the Christmas gig the year my grandfather died, 1975, and Christmas gatherings after that took place at my Aunt Evy’s home in Rocky Point. It was brand new and huge, an ideal place for parties of every kind. And she was the embodiment of gracious entertaining. Martha Stewart has nothin’ on my Aunt Ev. Nana would come for an extended holiday stay, and Aunt Evy’s kitchen became a bakery for a few weeks before Christmas. The aroma of their confections baking mixed sweetly with the evergreen scent of her Christmas tree and the logs burning in the fireplace — until all the shellfish cooking on Christmas Eve fouled the air!
Nana’s five children, their spouses, their children and grandchildren all gathered at Aunt Evy’s house for Christmas. That’s where my own daughters got a little taste of the family holidays I knew as a child. But after Nana passed away in 1998, my aunt and uncle moved to Florida, and Christmas changed. There were no more huge, noisy family gatherings. We still made the Christmas Eve fish dinner, but there weren’t 20 of us seated around a long dining room table to share it.
It was on Christmas Eve two years ago that my mom got sick. Her stomach was upset, and it seemed like no big deal at the time. We didn’t know it was the first symptom of a blockage in her large intestine that would send her to the emergency room two days after New Year’s. We didn’t know it was the beginning of the end. She didn’t touch her dinner, changed out of her fancy clothes and into sweats — absolutey unheard of for my mother — and watched her family enjoy the last Christmas fish dinner she’d make. It was delicious.
Now, Mom’s gone. Her generation is scattered up and down the East Coast. Their children — my generation — are scattered around the country. There will never again be another family Christmas of the kind I grew up with. Where my mother and her cousins were friends and hung out with each other, I’m barely in touch with my cousins. An occasional e-mail, a Christmas card, and sporadic visits during weddings and funerals.
I guess we’ve become “real” Americans. We don’t live like Italians any more.
All of these things are wrapped up in the Christmas holiday for me, so this season triggers many complex emotions. I don’t feel especially merry, but I do feel the pressure to be merry, everywhere I turn. And that makes this season even harder.
I’ll keep looking for that happy switch. But if my “Merry Christmas” is less than enthusiastic when we meet on the street, please understand it’s got nothing to do with being politically correct.
But the celebration of Christmas is “offensive” to another group of people for completely different reasons. Offensive isn’t quite the right word, but it’ll do.
The Christmas season is really hard on the depressed and grieving among us. Count me in. This time of year, I’m not very merry. Being wished a Merry Christmas — or a Happy Holiday for that matter — only reminds me of the hole in my heart. I force myself to go through the motions of the holiday, trying my best to continue our family traditions “for the sake of the children” but it’s hollow. I feel like a fake.
And a failure. I struggle with my faith, and the past couple of years, when Christmas rolls around, I’m reminded of my spiritual shortcomings. If I had a strong faith, I wouldn’t be depressed, I chastise myself. If I were focused on the true meaning of the season, I’d be joyful, not down.
I wish we humans came equipped with a happy switch.
Some of my holiday tsouris is cultural. As a first generation Italian-American, my childhood was steeped in the cultural traditions of the “old country.” My entire extended family lived within a 10-block radius of my great-grandmother’s house in Brooklyn, until my parents wound up settling our family in Coram — “in the middle of nowhere.”
We saw each other, well, constantly. Family was our social network. Holidays were spent together — always. Great aunts and uncles, their children and their children’s families crowded together in my great-grandmother’s home on Christmas Eve for a traditional fish dinner, zuppa di pesci. Holidays were boisterous at “Big Grandma’s” — at 5’7” she “towered” over her husband in the turn-of-the-century wedding picture that hung in a place of honor in her living room. My great-grandfather died before I was born, but Big Grandma was the center of my mother’s extended family until she passed away when I was 14.
Our move to Coram marked the beginning of The Scattering. My parents’ generation left that one-square-mile “village” in Brooklyn for the suburbs. But they returned with their children for holiday gatherings. After Big Grandma died, my mother’s parents’ home became holiday central for us. Nana gave up the Christmas gig the year my grandfather died, 1975, and Christmas gatherings after that took place at my Aunt Evy’s home in Rocky Point. It was brand new and huge, an ideal place for parties of every kind. And she was the embodiment of gracious entertaining. Martha Stewart has nothin’ on my Aunt Ev. Nana would come for an extended holiday stay, and Aunt Evy’s kitchen became a bakery for a few weeks before Christmas. The aroma of their confections baking mixed sweetly with the evergreen scent of her Christmas tree and the logs burning in the fireplace — until all the shellfish cooking on Christmas Eve fouled the air!
Nana’s five children, their spouses, their children and grandchildren all gathered at Aunt Evy’s house for Christmas. That’s where my own daughters got a little taste of the family holidays I knew as a child. But after Nana passed away in 1998, my aunt and uncle moved to Florida, and Christmas changed. There were no more huge, noisy family gatherings. We still made the Christmas Eve fish dinner, but there weren’t 20 of us seated around a long dining room table to share it.
It was on Christmas Eve two years ago that my mom got sick. Her stomach was upset, and it seemed like no big deal at the time. We didn’t know it was the first symptom of a blockage in her large intestine that would send her to the emergency room two days after New Year’s. We didn’t know it was the beginning of the end. She didn’t touch her dinner, changed out of her fancy clothes and into sweats — absolutey unheard of for my mother — and watched her family enjoy the last Christmas fish dinner she’d make. It was delicious.
Now, Mom’s gone. Her generation is scattered up and down the East Coast. Their children — my generation — are scattered around the country. There will never again be another family Christmas of the kind I grew up with. Where my mother and her cousins were friends and hung out with each other, I’m barely in touch with my cousins. An occasional e-mail, a Christmas card, and sporadic visits during weddings and funerals.
I guess we’ve become “real” Americans. We don’t live like Italians any more.
All of these things are wrapped up in the Christmas holiday for me, so this season triggers many complex emotions. I don’t feel especially merry, but I do feel the pressure to be merry, everywhere I turn. And that makes this season even harder.
I’ll keep looking for that happy switch. But if my “Merry Christmas” is less than enthusiastic when we meet on the street, please understand it’s got nothing to do with being politically correct.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
'Tis the season to argue
I don’t watch Fox News. All those angry conservative white men in an incessant tirade give me a headache.
So I wasn’t up-to-snuff on the latest raging battle in the cultural war for the American mind and spirit — and dollar. I didn’t realize that when the Wal-Mart greeter wished me “happy holidays” I, as a Christian living in this predominantly Christian nation, should be offended. I just smiled back at her and wished her the same.
And when my Dad and sister showed up at the Big Duck holiday lighting ceremony in Flanders last week with their knickers in a twist, I was at first perplexed.
“He’s all worked up over this Christmas thing,” my exasperated sister informed me.
“Christmas thing?” I asked.
“You know. O’Reilly.” She assessed the blank look on my face and explained further.
Our Dad watches Fox constantly — except when there’s a Yankee or Ranger game on. Fox even blares on the TV in his bedroom all through the night — helps him sleep, he says. Go figure. And Bill O’Reilly? He’s the man. You can always get a glimpse of O’Reilly’s cause du jour by having a brief conversation with my Dad.
Her recitation of the latest O’Reilly-driven family flap completed, my sister gestured to the county showmobile stage and whispered, “I hope nobody says ‘happy holidays’ or else I’ll be hearing about it all the way home, too.’
It was the holiday lighting ceremony, after all, so that prospect seemed inevitable. But whatever ill will those “happy holiday” wishes might have generated was offset by the sight of his grandchildren singing traditional Christmas carols — and other songs — before the strand of colored lights around the Big Duck’s neck was lit and Santa arrived by fire truck.
I don’t argue these points with my father any more. Sparks flew at the dinner table every night during my teenage years, when we would argue about anything and everything. In the late 60s and early 70s, there were plenty of topics to choose from, too. My poor mother.
Sunday in Wal-Mart, I’m actually looking at boxed Christmas cards when my cell phone rings. It’s my Dad. He’s not happy when he hears where I am, and it’s not because he thinks I should be in church instead. When I tell him what I’m doing, he says he hopes I buy cards that say Merry Christmas and not Happy Holidays — if Wal-Mart even sells cards that say Merry Christmas, that is. Of course — maybe in response to my father yelling in my ear — I go for the secular version. (That’s how I became a Mets fan and a Democrat, if you want to know the truth.)
Now I happen to think there’s a whole host of valid reasons not to shop in Wal-Mart, but the greeter wishing me a “happy holiday” instead of “Merry Christmas” isn’t one of them.
Bill O’Reilly wrote in his Dec. 1 column: “Corporate America should get down on its knees and thank God that the baby Jesus was born two thousand plus years ago.” I don’t get it, Bill. It’s OK for corporate America to exploit the birth of Christ for profit, as long as they acknowledge that “Jesus is the reason for the season” as they’re counting their loot?
Christians have had much to be offended by at this time of year for decades. I’m not talking about seeing menorahs lit next to crèches on public property or people using a secular phrase like “happy holidays.” The Christmas holiday in America hasn’t been about celebrating the baby Jesus for half a century at least. Who are we kidding? It’s been all about money — shopping and spending, even going into debt to do it. That’s the meaning of Christmas in America. So if you’re going to get offended about anything, Bill, as a Christian, that should be it. The celebration of the birth of Christ — which didn’t even happen in December, by the way; it was, ironically, placed on the calendar at this particular time of year by the early church in an effort to coopt a pagan holiday and win followers — has long been exploited for commercial gain by corporate America. It’s not about Jesus or any of the things he taught, like loving your neighbor and serving others.
It’s an excuse to sell things. One trip to The O’Reilly Christmas Store at billoreilly.com illustrates the point. There you can buy “The Spin Stops Here” fleece vests and “O’Reilly Factor” garment bags and a variety of “No Spin” mugs, pens, umbrellas, caps and dormats — even a tin with “No Spin” mints. There’s no Christ or Christmas at The O’Reilly Christmas Store. In fact, the only mention of God I could find there was a “God Bless America - No Spin Zone” license plate frame, specially priced for this holiday — um, I mean Christmas — season at just $17.95. Seems Mr. O’Reilly, the self-appointed guardian of American Christian values, understands the true meaning of Christmas: retail.
Even so, I’m not sure how much Jesus would mind, since the season seems to help people -of all religious persuasions to spread a little good will and cheer for a few weeks.
Until now. With Christmas made part of the conservatives’ cultural war, it’s been turned into another reason to mistrust, hate and fight one another. I’d bet Jesus would have something to say about that, for sure.
So I wasn’t up-to-snuff on the latest raging battle in the cultural war for the American mind and spirit — and dollar. I didn’t realize that when the Wal-Mart greeter wished me “happy holidays” I, as a Christian living in this predominantly Christian nation, should be offended. I just smiled back at her and wished her the same.
And when my Dad and sister showed up at the Big Duck holiday lighting ceremony in Flanders last week with their knickers in a twist, I was at first perplexed.
“He’s all worked up over this Christmas thing,” my exasperated sister informed me.
“Christmas thing?” I asked.
“You know. O’Reilly.” She assessed the blank look on my face and explained further.
Our Dad watches Fox constantly — except when there’s a Yankee or Ranger game on. Fox even blares on the TV in his bedroom all through the night — helps him sleep, he says. Go figure. And Bill O’Reilly? He’s the man. You can always get a glimpse of O’Reilly’s cause du jour by having a brief conversation with my Dad.
Her recitation of the latest O’Reilly-driven family flap completed, my sister gestured to the county showmobile stage and whispered, “I hope nobody says ‘happy holidays’ or else I’ll be hearing about it all the way home, too.’
It was the holiday lighting ceremony, after all, so that prospect seemed inevitable. But whatever ill will those “happy holiday” wishes might have generated was offset by the sight of his grandchildren singing traditional Christmas carols — and other songs — before the strand of colored lights around the Big Duck’s neck was lit and Santa arrived by fire truck.
I don’t argue these points with my father any more. Sparks flew at the dinner table every night during my teenage years, when we would argue about anything and everything. In the late 60s and early 70s, there were plenty of topics to choose from, too. My poor mother.
Sunday in Wal-Mart, I’m actually looking at boxed Christmas cards when my cell phone rings. It’s my Dad. He’s not happy when he hears where I am, and it’s not because he thinks I should be in church instead. When I tell him what I’m doing, he says he hopes I buy cards that say Merry Christmas and not Happy Holidays — if Wal-Mart even sells cards that say Merry Christmas, that is. Of course — maybe in response to my father yelling in my ear — I go for the secular version. (That’s how I became a Mets fan and a Democrat, if you want to know the truth.)
Now I happen to think there’s a whole host of valid reasons not to shop in Wal-Mart, but the greeter wishing me a “happy holiday” instead of “Merry Christmas” isn’t one of them.
Bill O’Reilly wrote in his Dec. 1 column: “Corporate America should get down on its knees and thank God that the baby Jesus was born two thousand plus years ago.” I don’t get it, Bill. It’s OK for corporate America to exploit the birth of Christ for profit, as long as they acknowledge that “Jesus is the reason for the season” as they’re counting their loot?
Christians have had much to be offended by at this time of year for decades. I’m not talking about seeing menorahs lit next to crèches on public property or people using a secular phrase like “happy holidays.” The Christmas holiday in America hasn’t been about celebrating the baby Jesus for half a century at least. Who are we kidding? It’s been all about money — shopping and spending, even going into debt to do it. That’s the meaning of Christmas in America. So if you’re going to get offended about anything, Bill, as a Christian, that should be it. The celebration of the birth of Christ — which didn’t even happen in December, by the way; it was, ironically, placed on the calendar at this particular time of year by the early church in an effort to coopt a pagan holiday and win followers — has long been exploited for commercial gain by corporate America. It’s not about Jesus or any of the things he taught, like loving your neighbor and serving others.
It’s an excuse to sell things. One trip to The O’Reilly Christmas Store at billoreilly.com illustrates the point. There you can buy “The Spin Stops Here” fleece vests and “O’Reilly Factor” garment bags and a variety of “No Spin” mugs, pens, umbrellas, caps and dormats — even a tin with “No Spin” mints. There’s no Christ or Christmas at The O’Reilly Christmas Store. In fact, the only mention of God I could find there was a “God Bless America - No Spin Zone” license plate frame, specially priced for this holiday — um, I mean Christmas — season at just $17.95. Seems Mr. O’Reilly, the self-appointed guardian of American Christian values, understands the true meaning of Christmas: retail.
Even so, I’m not sure how much Jesus would mind, since the season seems to help people -of all religious persuasions to spread a little good will and cheer for a few weeks.
Until now. With Christmas made part of the conservatives’ cultural war, it’s been turned into another reason to mistrust, hate and fight one another. I’d bet Jesus would have something to say about that, for sure.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Free exercise vs. the establishment
I consider myself a Christian. But that’s beside the point.
My personal spiritual beliefs have little to do with my opinion about the lawsuit brought a few weeks ago against the Riverhead school district by four residents angered by the district’s agreement to rent space at Riley Avenue Elementary School to a Christian church for Sunday worship services.
This is a frivolous lawsuit that we taxpayers are going to pay dearly to defend.
It’s frivolous because there’s plenty of legal precedent that says so, including decisions by the highest court in the nation. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that an upstate New York school district’s refusal to allow a religious group to use school property because its activities were religious in nature violated the group’s First Amendment rights under the United States Constitution. That decision followed the Supreme Court’s 1993 ruling against the Center Moriches School District in a similar case. Less than a week after the plaintiffs announced their lawsuit against the Riverhead school district, a federal judge in New York City threw out a similar case, citing these two Supreme Court decisions as binding precedent.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the current lawsuit against Riverhead schools will eventually meet with the same fate.
Why is this lawsuit a dog, anyway? Isn’t it true that our constitution mandates the separation of church and state in the U.S.? How can it possibly be legal for a church to hold Sunday services in a public building like a school? The very notion raises the hackles of many an uninformed secularist.
Actually the words “separation of church and state” are nowhere to be found in the U.S. Constitution.
When it was written in 1787, the constitution was intended to create a unified, lasting national government — without infringing too much on states’ rights. It didn’t make much note of individual rights. It was a controversial document then, and so it remains today. One of the most heated controversies at the time was actually the document’s failure to protect individual rights — the constitution nearly wasn’t ratified because of its silence on certain individual freedoms. That’s why the framers went to work amending the constitution even before its ratification was official. Their work is reflected in the first 10 amendments of the constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights.
The first order of business was to guarantee certain freedoms that the framers of the Constitution held essential. And so the First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
The exact meaning of these 45 words — arguably the most important words in the document for ordinary people like you and me — has been the subject of a legion of federal cases. The freedoms they guarantee, as precious to individuals and as essential to a free society today as they were 214 years ago, are in greater jeopardy today than ever before in our union’s history. But not because the North Shore Christian Church is renting space at Riley Avenue Elementary School for Sunday services. The so-called Patriot Act is what ought to be putting fear in the hearts of Americans worried about their personal freedom.
In the current case against the Riverhead school district, two basic First Amendment questions are raised. Does renting space in a school building, when school isn’t in session, to a religious group for religous purposes constitute an “establishment of religion?” The answer is, simply, no. If the school district refused to rent space to a religious group for religious services while at the same time renting space to other community groups, would that constitute prohibiting the free exercise of religion? The answer to this is yes.
The First Amendment rights of the small group of Christians meeting in a publicly owned building — in space they are paying rent for — are the only First Amendment rights in danger of being trampled here. They are no different than all the other groups that rent school property during non-school hours for purposes that have nothing to do with primary or secondary public education — groups of adults learning line dancing or reiki healing, cultural groups putting on dance performances or theater groups producing plays. They are certainly no less protected by the First Amendment than the Indian cultural heritage organization that holds Hindu religious services in another district school.
The establishment clause and the free exercise clause of the First Amendment go together hand in glove. Our founding fathers (and mothers) knew about religious persecution. They knew what it was like to have one’s particular brand of spiritual expression banned — even on penalty of death. They understood the role an “official” state religion has in that kind of repression and persecution. And with the very first words of the Bill of Rights they sought to ensure that such persecution would never again happen on American soil.
Note: December marks a season deep in spiritual meaning for many people in our multicultural society. Fittingly, this month also marks the anniversary of the Bill of Rights, ratified Dec. 15, 1791.
My personal spiritual beliefs have little to do with my opinion about the lawsuit brought a few weeks ago against the Riverhead school district by four residents angered by the district’s agreement to rent space at Riley Avenue Elementary School to a Christian church for Sunday worship services.
This is a frivolous lawsuit that we taxpayers are going to pay dearly to defend.
It’s frivolous because there’s plenty of legal precedent that says so, including decisions by the highest court in the nation. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that an upstate New York school district’s refusal to allow a religious group to use school property because its activities were religious in nature violated the group’s First Amendment rights under the United States Constitution. That decision followed the Supreme Court’s 1993 ruling against the Center Moriches School District in a similar case. Less than a week after the plaintiffs announced their lawsuit against the Riverhead school district, a federal judge in New York City threw out a similar case, citing these two Supreme Court decisions as binding precedent.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the current lawsuit against Riverhead schools will eventually meet with the same fate.
Why is this lawsuit a dog, anyway? Isn’t it true that our constitution mandates the separation of church and state in the U.S.? How can it possibly be legal for a church to hold Sunday services in a public building like a school? The very notion raises the hackles of many an uninformed secularist.
Actually the words “separation of church and state” are nowhere to be found in the U.S. Constitution.
When it was written in 1787, the constitution was intended to create a unified, lasting national government — without infringing too much on states’ rights. It didn’t make much note of individual rights. It was a controversial document then, and so it remains today. One of the most heated controversies at the time was actually the document’s failure to protect individual rights — the constitution nearly wasn’t ratified because of its silence on certain individual freedoms. That’s why the framers went to work amending the constitution even before its ratification was official. Their work is reflected in the first 10 amendments of the constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights.
The first order of business was to guarantee certain freedoms that the framers of the Constitution held essential. And so the First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
The exact meaning of these 45 words — arguably the most important words in the document for ordinary people like you and me — has been the subject of a legion of federal cases. The freedoms they guarantee, as precious to individuals and as essential to a free society today as they were 214 years ago, are in greater jeopardy today than ever before in our union’s history. But not because the North Shore Christian Church is renting space at Riley Avenue Elementary School for Sunday services. The so-called Patriot Act is what ought to be putting fear in the hearts of Americans worried about their personal freedom.
In the current case against the Riverhead school district, two basic First Amendment questions are raised. Does renting space in a school building, when school isn’t in session, to a religious group for religous purposes constitute an “establishment of religion?” The answer is, simply, no. If the school district refused to rent space to a religious group for religious services while at the same time renting space to other community groups, would that constitute prohibiting the free exercise of religion? The answer to this is yes.
The First Amendment rights of the small group of Christians meeting in a publicly owned building — in space they are paying rent for — are the only First Amendment rights in danger of being trampled here. They are no different than all the other groups that rent school property during non-school hours for purposes that have nothing to do with primary or secondary public education — groups of adults learning line dancing or reiki healing, cultural groups putting on dance performances or theater groups producing plays. They are certainly no less protected by the First Amendment than the Indian cultural heritage organization that holds Hindu religious services in another district school.
The establishment clause and the free exercise clause of the First Amendment go together hand in glove. Our founding fathers (and mothers) knew about religious persecution. They knew what it was like to have one’s particular brand of spiritual expression banned — even on penalty of death. They understood the role an “official” state religion has in that kind of repression and persecution. And with the very first words of the Bill of Rights they sought to ensure that such persecution would never again happen on American soil.
Note: December marks a season deep in spiritual meaning for many people in our multicultural society. Fittingly, this month also marks the anniversary of the Bill of Rights, ratified Dec. 15, 1791.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
What's news, what's not
As I'm sure you can imagine, I get frustrated and angry when I see people accusing The News-Review of being biased or slanted because I was a Democratic councilwoman once upon a time. I am not by any means a partisan. Period. My lack of partisanship got me into a great deal of trouble with the Democrats when I was on the Town Board. Why? They hated me every time I voted with the Republicans. That's just the way partisan politics "works" and why government is so dysfunctional.
I've got my own opinions about things certainly. Who doesn't? Does that disqualify me as a reporter or editor? It would only if I let my opinions drive what I report or how it's reported. And it most certainly does not.
Contrary to what many people here assert whenever we report something they'd rather not have aired, we really try our best to play it right down the middle at The News-Review, without the "bias" or "slant" that some here like to accuse us of. We take our responsibility seriously to provide fair and accurate coverage of what's going on in our town. We confine our opinions to the editorial conmentary pages.
Some people think it's not "news" that a candidate for Town Board wrote a false address on his witness affidavit on his nominating petitions.
Some people think it's not "news" that a sitting councilman would go into business with a man who has pending litigation against the town and has operated an illegal 45-acre sand mine --literally digging $10 million out of Calverton-- for several years.
Some people think it's not "news" that the same councilman would participate in policy-making and decisions on issues that directly affect the business interests of that same sand-mine operator, even after they established their business together.
Some people think it's not "news" that this councilman didn't even bother to tell his colleagues on the Town Board, never mind the public, of his business relationship in the context of all these things, and that, if a question wasn't asked in an interview, it never would have come to light. (His disclosure statement does not disclose who he owns "Densieski Fuel" with.)
Some people think it's not "news" that our councilman's business partner helped send the former county Republican leader to jail for taking $20,000 worth of bribes from him.
Some people think it's not "news" that our councilman's business partner TESTIFIED in federal court on Nov. 17, 1999 that he bought a truck with the corrupt county political leader and gave the corrupt political leader money in connection with that business deal.
To the people who would question why we report these things, and assert that we do so to advance our own "agenda" I would like to know why they think a newspaper would NOT report these things. They are all relevant to a candidate's qualifications to hold the public trust. Are they not? It doesn't matter to me a whit whether the councilman involved in this kind of stuff is Republican, Democrat or any other party enrollment.
It seems to me that the only reason you might disagree with that premise is that your own political bias has blinded you. Or that you are intent on defending your party or your candidate by spinning facts and/or discrediting whomever might get in the way of your cause (or doing whatever else it takes.)
We'll keep doing what we do, and work as hard as we can to produce the best newspaper we can for Riverhead. I do this because I love my town and I'm concerned about its future and I believe in democracy, which depends on the free flow of information to the public. That's my agenda, and I'm proud of it.
You keep drawing your own conclusions. You can buy our paper or not. Feel free to get your "news" from these message boards or from Suffolk Life or the Independent or any other source instead. It's still a free country and we're still a free press. But I don't believe you'll be as well informed about what's happening in our community, because we DO play it down the middle and because we are the only newspaper completely dedicated to covering this community, inside and out.
I've got my own opinions about things certainly. Who doesn't? Does that disqualify me as a reporter or editor? It would only if I let my opinions drive what I report or how it's reported. And it most certainly does not.
Contrary to what many people here assert whenever we report something they'd rather not have aired, we really try our best to play it right down the middle at The News-Review, without the "bias" or "slant" that some here like to accuse us of. We take our responsibility seriously to provide fair and accurate coverage of what's going on in our town. We confine our opinions to the editorial conmentary pages.
Some people think it's not "news" that a candidate for Town Board wrote a false address on his witness affidavit on his nominating petitions.
Some people think it's not "news" that a sitting councilman would go into business with a man who has pending litigation against the town and has operated an illegal 45-acre sand mine --literally digging $10 million out of Calverton-- for several years.
Some people think it's not "news" that the same councilman would participate in policy-making and decisions on issues that directly affect the business interests of that same sand-mine operator, even after they established their business together.
Some people think it's not "news" that this councilman didn't even bother to tell his colleagues on the Town Board, never mind the public, of his business relationship in the context of all these things, and that, if a question wasn't asked in an interview, it never would have come to light. (His disclosure statement does not disclose who he owns "Densieski Fuel" with.)
Some people think it's not "news" that our councilman's business partner helped send the former county Republican leader to jail for taking $20,000 worth of bribes from him.
Some people think it's not "news" that our councilman's business partner TESTIFIED in federal court on Nov. 17, 1999 that he bought a truck with the corrupt county political leader and gave the corrupt political leader money in connection with that business deal.
To the people who would question why we report these things, and assert that we do so to advance our own "agenda" I would like to know why they think a newspaper would NOT report these things. They are all relevant to a candidate's qualifications to hold the public trust. Are they not? It doesn't matter to me a whit whether the councilman involved in this kind of stuff is Republican, Democrat or any other party enrollment.
It seems to me that the only reason you might disagree with that premise is that your own political bias has blinded you. Or that you are intent on defending your party or your candidate by spinning facts and/or discrediting whomever might get in the way of your cause (or doing whatever else it takes.)
We'll keep doing what we do, and work as hard as we can to produce the best newspaper we can for Riverhead. I do this because I love my town and I'm concerned about its future and I believe in democracy, which depends on the free flow of information to the public. That's my agenda, and I'm proud of it.
You keep drawing your own conclusions. You can buy our paper or not. Feel free to get your "news" from these message boards or from Suffolk Life or the Independent or any other source instead. It's still a free country and we're still a free press. But I don't believe you'll be as well informed about what's happening in our community, because we DO play it down the middle and because we are the only newspaper completely dedicated to covering this community, inside and out.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Politics as usual?
I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post. Things have been hectic and I've been under the weather with a nasty cold and sore throat. Yuck!
The last two weeks have been a rather wild ride around our newsroom. Political intrigue, anonymous letters, even copies of emails that somebody evidently accessed without the owner's permission. Just another boring local election season in Riverhead.
The beginning of the present strange journey started with those anonymous mailers blasting the two incumbent councilwomen, mailers that everyone denied having anything to do with. Well, you know they had to come from somewhere, and somebody had to pay for them. And you can bet that whoever did isn't about to abide by the campaign finance laws and file a statement with the board of elections. Although the law requires the filing, no law requires the sender to identify himself, so the filing requirement is a joke.
The only tantalizing link to the anonymous sender was the return address on the mailers, a vacant condo in a fairly new complex here in Riverhead. Tax records showed the unit still in the name of the developer.
The developer told us the condo was sold and would be closing any day. Figuring the new owner would be moving in, I went back to the condo to try to talk to him or her — and see if there was any connection to the anonymous mailers. It was still empty, but that's when I saw a small "for sale" sign in a window. I called the number on the sign, and hit a jackpot of sorts. The guy trying to sell the condo, who told me he's owned it for about a year, was the graphic artist named in Tony Coates' email correspondence between Tony and others involved in the GOP campaign (including Republican committee treasurer Russ Kratoville and Ed Densieski's campaign manager, Tara McLaughlin. The artist, Christopher Carbone, admitted to me that he worked on the mailers at Tony's request, but said he didn't know who they were working for. He said he used his condo address because the post office won't accept the mailer without a return address.
Now, Tony still — incredibly — maintains he has no idea who did the mailers. He just "threw some ideas out there" and — poof! — they ended up on these 8 1/2 by 11-inch glossy pieces mailed to every registered Republican in Riverhead the day before the primary.
The GOP chairman and candidates Ed Densieski and John Dunleavy all insist — quite indignantly — that they knew nothing about this either. Yet Ed's paid campaign consultant and his campaign manager were involved in the development of these mailers (the emails show them discussing language, punctuation, etc.) and GOP treasurer Russ Kratoville was also aware of them, getting at least one email from Chris Carbone.
So, how do we believe all these denials? Personally, I can't.
And why did the condo developer try to help with the cover up by saying that the condo had just been sold? Did he have something to do with this?
Mailers like these cost a nice chunk of change— to produce and mail. Who financed them? Even though there are laws on the books requiring such expenditures to be disclosed, we'll of course never know, because whoever sent them is sure to ignore the laws.
Then there's Robert Woodson, who needed four days to come up with "an address." The one on his voter record and nominating petitions was long-vacant. Trying to get this answer out of Woodson involved me in the most bizarre conversations I've ever had in my life. Refusing to answer my question about where he lives, he calls a press conference to announce his address and complain that The News-Review attacked his "patriotism" for asking him where he lived! At the press conference he says he lived at the vacant Aquebogue address until July. So we go to the Board of Elections to look at the nominating petitions he filed, and find that he's listed — hand written — the same address on his petitions all through the month of August! So the man signed the legal equivalent of an affidavit, lying about his residence.
I've had several people call me to tell me that Woodson has actually been living in Coram for years. I even have an address in Coram.
The Riverhead Conservative & Republican parties have political motives to want Woodson on the ballot. I guess their reasoning was he would have been likely to draw votes from a traditional Democratic base, the African American community. But how could the Conservatives stand with this candidate after it's pretty clear he doesn't live in town? And, by his own admisson, he filed false statements on his nominating petitions?
I'm disturbed that a reporter for another local paper was so willing to accept Woodson's allegation that he rented a room in the Aquebogue house from "a former owner" who, he said, was the owner until July. Real estate records are public documents. The person named as an "owner" by Woodson never held title to that house. The current owner, a corporation whose principal I located and interviewed last week, has owned the house since Sept. 2004. He never heard of Woodson. The prior owner lived in the house for several months after she sold it last fall, and she too said Robert Woodson never lived there. The house has been vacant since she moved out, the current owner said. How could you print a report stating that the house was owned by someone without checking into it? That's not responsible journalism.
Given what we've seen so far, it's safe to say the rest of this campaign is going to be nothing if not interesting.
The last two weeks have been a rather wild ride around our newsroom. Political intrigue, anonymous letters, even copies of emails that somebody evidently accessed without the owner's permission. Just another boring local election season in Riverhead.
The beginning of the present strange journey started with those anonymous mailers blasting the two incumbent councilwomen, mailers that everyone denied having anything to do with. Well, you know they had to come from somewhere, and somebody had to pay for them. And you can bet that whoever did isn't about to abide by the campaign finance laws and file a statement with the board of elections. Although the law requires the filing, no law requires the sender to identify himself, so the filing requirement is a joke.
The only tantalizing link to the anonymous sender was the return address on the mailers, a vacant condo in a fairly new complex here in Riverhead. Tax records showed the unit still in the name of the developer.
The developer told us the condo was sold and would be closing any day. Figuring the new owner would be moving in, I went back to the condo to try to talk to him or her — and see if there was any connection to the anonymous mailers. It was still empty, but that's when I saw a small "for sale" sign in a window. I called the number on the sign, and hit a jackpot of sorts. The guy trying to sell the condo, who told me he's owned it for about a year, was the graphic artist named in Tony Coates' email correspondence between Tony and others involved in the GOP campaign (including Republican committee treasurer Russ Kratoville and Ed Densieski's campaign manager, Tara McLaughlin. The artist, Christopher Carbone, admitted to me that he worked on the mailers at Tony's request, but said he didn't know who they were working for. He said he used his condo address because the post office won't accept the mailer without a return address.
Now, Tony still — incredibly — maintains he has no idea who did the mailers. He just "threw some ideas out there" and — poof! — they ended up on these 8 1/2 by 11-inch glossy pieces mailed to every registered Republican in Riverhead the day before the primary.
The GOP chairman and candidates Ed Densieski and John Dunleavy all insist — quite indignantly — that they knew nothing about this either. Yet Ed's paid campaign consultant and his campaign manager were involved in the development of these mailers (the emails show them discussing language, punctuation, etc.) and GOP treasurer Russ Kratoville was also aware of them, getting at least one email from Chris Carbone.
So, how do we believe all these denials? Personally, I can't.
And why did the condo developer try to help with the cover up by saying that the condo had just been sold? Did he have something to do with this?
Mailers like these cost a nice chunk of change— to produce and mail. Who financed them? Even though there are laws on the books requiring such expenditures to be disclosed, we'll of course never know, because whoever sent them is sure to ignore the laws.
Then there's Robert Woodson, who needed four days to come up with "an address." The one on his voter record and nominating petitions was long-vacant. Trying to get this answer out of Woodson involved me in the most bizarre conversations I've ever had in my life. Refusing to answer my question about where he lives, he calls a press conference to announce his address and complain that The News-Review attacked his "patriotism" for asking him where he lived! At the press conference he says he lived at the vacant Aquebogue address until July. So we go to the Board of Elections to look at the nominating petitions he filed, and find that he's listed — hand written — the same address on his petitions all through the month of August! So the man signed the legal equivalent of an affidavit, lying about his residence.
I've had several people call me to tell me that Woodson has actually been living in Coram for years. I even have an address in Coram.
The Riverhead Conservative & Republican parties have political motives to want Woodson on the ballot. I guess their reasoning was he would have been likely to draw votes from a traditional Democratic base, the African American community. But how could the Conservatives stand with this candidate after it's pretty clear he doesn't live in town? And, by his own admisson, he filed false statements on his nominating petitions?
I'm disturbed that a reporter for another local paper was so willing to accept Woodson's allegation that he rented a room in the Aquebogue house from "a former owner" who, he said, was the owner until July. Real estate records are public documents. The person named as an "owner" by Woodson never held title to that house. The current owner, a corporation whose principal I located and interviewed last week, has owned the house since Sept. 2004. He never heard of Woodson. The prior owner lived in the house for several months after she sold it last fall, and she too said Robert Woodson never lived there. The house has been vacant since she moved out, the current owner said. How could you print a report stating that the house was owned by someone without checking into it? That's not responsible journalism.
Given what we've seen so far, it's safe to say the rest of this campaign is going to be nothing if not interesting.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Tuesday night
Tuesdays are always grueling days for a Thursday-publication weekly editor. Some are worse than others. Some more interesting than others. This one was a doosy. But you're going to have to wait till Thursday to "read all about it."
Meanwhile, I've decided to disable the comments feature on my blog until after the election. I'm not happy about this, because it's the interactivity of this venue that was new and exciting. But I'm tired of the repetitive slams of the one-note symphonies. And I think anybody reading this blog who doesn't share the one-track mind of the person or people who keep posting essentially the same comments over and over again (no matter what the subject of my blog entry) is tired of it too. That's the upshot of the majority of the emails I'm seeing, at least.
I will keep posting here, at least twice a week (that is my intention, anyway.) If you have comments, questions or news tips, please email me at denise@timesreview.com.
After November 8, I'll open this up for comments again. Hopefully, after "silly season" is over, we can engage in a meaningful dialogue here, absent the rote attacks and constant venom. Deal?
Meanwhile, I've decided to disable the comments feature on my blog until after the election. I'm not happy about this, because it's the interactivity of this venue that was new and exciting. But I'm tired of the repetitive slams of the one-note symphonies. And I think anybody reading this blog who doesn't share the one-track mind of the person or people who keep posting essentially the same comments over and over again (no matter what the subject of my blog entry) is tired of it too. That's the upshot of the majority of the emails I'm seeing, at least.
I will keep posting here, at least twice a week (that is my intention, anyway.) If you have comments, questions or news tips, please email me at denise@timesreview.com.
After November 8, I'll open this up for comments again. Hopefully, after "silly season" is over, we can engage in a meaningful dialogue here, absent the rote attacks and constant venom. Deal?
Saturday, September 24, 2005
How important is EPCAL?
I have absolutely no doubt that EPCAL is THE central issue of this year's campaign. And that is as it should be. It is Riverhead's one hope for long-term economic stability.
Redevelopment of the EPCAL has been bungled from Day One. Most of the bungling is because it's been turned into a political football Election Year after Election Year.
Planning for the future of the 2,900-acre facility was marred from the get-go by the guiding principle of the people doing the planning: Make it impossible for EPCAL to become an airport. The re-use plan even states as much up front.
Now, that's OK by me, because I don't want to live next to an airport any more than the next person.
But the management by objective (i.e. no airport) has had negative ramifications. First, the crazy-quilt zoning for the site, adopted during the Villella Administration. It was self-contradictory, confusing and stupid. It has done more to prevent redevelopment of the site than an army of tiger salamanders.
Two years ago, when I questioned then-candidate Cardinale about some of the zoning code's most puzzling contradictions, he told me, and I quote: "That was a code that was adopted basically without being read." Remember, he was on the Town Board and voted for this code— without reading it carefully, he says? That amazed me — no, it shocked and appalled me, and I told him so. Perhaps the most important piece of legislation to come before you as a councilman, and you're trying to tell me you didn't read it? And Cardinale, of all people, whom I've seen be quite masterful at picking things apart when he wants to be. (I did report this interview, including that quote, in the newspaper at the time, by the way.)
The crazy-quilt zoning still exists, and it's the same zoning that allows for proposals like the FRP theme park, water ski park, and condos "accessory" to golf courses.
STOP! Stop it right now!
It's bad enough that this town gave away all the industrial buildings and infrastructure at the old Grumman plan (except the runways) on a total of 463 acres to an out-of-town developer for $17 million! Bad enough that the developer turned around a flipped the buildings to others without even bothering to get a legal subdivision, and made himself who-knows-how-much in the course of a day! Bad enough that the buyers there are sucking wind because they're occupying illegally created lots, so they can't get use permits or bank financing! Bad enough that the developer's subdivision STILL isn't finalized more than five years later! (And the developer has lawsuits peinding against the town, including property tax reduction actions!) Bad enough that the town allowed a sand mine to be dug so deep (in the name of a recreational water ski facility) that they hit our aquifer IN THE PINE BARRENS! Bad enough that the place even looks like the joke it is: an abandoned manufacturing facility now being run by the gang that couldn't shoot straight.
Now you don't have to go and tear up runways and replace them with fairways to prevent EPCAL from becoming MacArthur Airport East End! All you have to do is use common sense, good planning and appropriate zoning. But there's not much of that going around in this town, especially during an election year.
There shouldn't be a single home or golf green built on that site.
I called the supervisor the other day to talk about the Wilpon plan. I'd received an email from someone saying that Cardinale had agreed to postpone the contract until after the election and I wanted to verify this. Not true. He is intent on moving ahead with the deal.
There's something not right here. A piece of the puzzle is missing. Why is Riverhead willing to sell more than 755 acres (Phil told me the survey just completed for the town showed it's more like 780 acres, not 755) for $66 million. That's $84,615 per acre if we're selling 780 acres. Why would WIlpon's purported hotel chain client (Starwood) want to build a huge hotel there? (Especially when you take into account the four other large hotels already in the pipeline in Riverehad.) The town hasn't even required Wilpon to file a business plan. How is he (or Starwood) planning to fill those rooms? If the hotel/convention center portion of this deal is the "economic development" carrot being dangled before us to get us to swallow the idea of HOUSING at EPCAL, shouldn't the town be investigating this and making sure its real? (I've tried to get Starwood to back up Wilpon's claims about their plan to build this hotel/convention center, but they've ignored my requests for an interview.) Wilpon doesn't even pretend to be anything more than "an assembler of land" for developers. His entity is named "Kenneth I. Wilpon as Agent." Who is he agent FOR? Shouldn't the town know this before selling such a huge chunk of real estate to him?
If there really is going to be a hotel built here, might it have anything to do with a future casino there? The Wilpon draft contract has a clause that says "no casino" but it also has a giant loophole : "unless allowed by federal, state or local law." Does Wilpon or somebody know something we don't?
Cardinale told me that Wilpon doesn't want anybody to steal his idea, and that's why he is jealously guarding his plans. Come ON. Even the imposters who tried the land-grab in the name of a theme park submitted a business plan. It was a complete joke and, once exposed for the imposters they were — complete with phony financing letter — they packed up and left town.
Now, with Wilpon, we've done away with the need for any business plan at all. Why?
To justify this sellout, Cardinale told me that, with the addition of 600 new acres in the industrial zone (thanks to the zone change now pending and nearing completion) there will be no need for additional industrial zoning for another 25 years. My answer: So what? That's not a very long time. And they're not making any more land, you know. It's an investment in the future. There's no need to hold a fire sale and sell our future out from under the next generation.
The sale to Wilpon accomplishes two critical things for a politician in an election year like this. First, it puts millions in the town's coffers (not $66M, because you have to deduct costs, fees, broker's commissions, etc. but millions nonetheless.) You tell me: what useful things did the town accomplish with the net proceeds of the Burman deal?
Second, it drives the final nail into the coffin of an airport at EPCAL, which mollifies the western Riverhead constituency that Cardinale counts as his core voter base.
I think this issue is so critical that I would have a tough time voting for Cardinale on Nov. 8 because of it.
But then — there's Ed.
Though I agree with him about the Wilpon deal, I remember his passionate advocacy for an airport there (a point of view that seems to have evolved and scaled down over the years) and for a racetrack, too. His connections to people who operate illegal sand mines in Riverhead bother me, too. Heck, there are plenty of things about Ed that bother me. (And I'm sure it's mutual. No, I know it is.)
Can this be, should this be, a one-issue campaign? Is the future of EPCAL important enough to the future of Riverhead that we should make our choice in the polling booth based on where a candidate stands on housing at EPCAL, as Ed advocates?
Redevelopment of the EPCAL has been bungled from Day One. Most of the bungling is because it's been turned into a political football Election Year after Election Year.
Planning for the future of the 2,900-acre facility was marred from the get-go by the guiding principle of the people doing the planning: Make it impossible for EPCAL to become an airport. The re-use plan even states as much up front.
Now, that's OK by me, because I don't want to live next to an airport any more than the next person.
But the management by objective (i.e. no airport) has had negative ramifications. First, the crazy-quilt zoning for the site, adopted during the Villella Administration. It was self-contradictory, confusing and stupid. It has done more to prevent redevelopment of the site than an army of tiger salamanders.
Two years ago, when I questioned then-candidate Cardinale about some of the zoning code's most puzzling contradictions, he told me, and I quote: "That was a code that was adopted basically without being read." Remember, he was on the Town Board and voted for this code— without reading it carefully, he says? That amazed me — no, it shocked and appalled me, and I told him so. Perhaps the most important piece of legislation to come before you as a councilman, and you're trying to tell me you didn't read it? And Cardinale, of all people, whom I've seen be quite masterful at picking things apart when he wants to be. (I did report this interview, including that quote, in the newspaper at the time, by the way.)
The crazy-quilt zoning still exists, and it's the same zoning that allows for proposals like the FRP theme park, water ski park, and condos "accessory" to golf courses.
STOP! Stop it right now!
It's bad enough that this town gave away all the industrial buildings and infrastructure at the old Grumman plan (except the runways) on a total of 463 acres to an out-of-town developer for $17 million! Bad enough that the developer turned around a flipped the buildings to others without even bothering to get a legal subdivision, and made himself who-knows-how-much in the course of a day! Bad enough that the buyers there are sucking wind because they're occupying illegally created lots, so they can't get use permits or bank financing! Bad enough that the developer's subdivision STILL isn't finalized more than five years later! (And the developer has lawsuits peinding against the town, including property tax reduction actions!) Bad enough that the town allowed a sand mine to be dug so deep (in the name of a recreational water ski facility) that they hit our aquifer IN THE PINE BARRENS! Bad enough that the place even looks like the joke it is: an abandoned manufacturing facility now being run by the gang that couldn't shoot straight.
Now you don't have to go and tear up runways and replace them with fairways to prevent EPCAL from becoming MacArthur Airport East End! All you have to do is use common sense, good planning and appropriate zoning. But there's not much of that going around in this town, especially during an election year.
There shouldn't be a single home or golf green built on that site.
I called the supervisor the other day to talk about the Wilpon plan. I'd received an email from someone saying that Cardinale had agreed to postpone the contract until after the election and I wanted to verify this. Not true. He is intent on moving ahead with the deal.
There's something not right here. A piece of the puzzle is missing. Why is Riverhead willing to sell more than 755 acres (Phil told me the survey just completed for the town showed it's more like 780 acres, not 755) for $66 million. That's $84,615 per acre if we're selling 780 acres. Why would WIlpon's purported hotel chain client (Starwood) want to build a huge hotel there? (Especially when you take into account the four other large hotels already in the pipeline in Riverehad.) The town hasn't even required Wilpon to file a business plan. How is he (or Starwood) planning to fill those rooms? If the hotel/convention center portion of this deal is the "economic development" carrot being dangled before us to get us to swallow the idea of HOUSING at EPCAL, shouldn't the town be investigating this and making sure its real? (I've tried to get Starwood to back up Wilpon's claims about their plan to build this hotel/convention center, but they've ignored my requests for an interview.) Wilpon doesn't even pretend to be anything more than "an assembler of land" for developers. His entity is named "Kenneth I. Wilpon as Agent." Who is he agent FOR? Shouldn't the town know this before selling such a huge chunk of real estate to him?
If there really is going to be a hotel built here, might it have anything to do with a future casino there? The Wilpon draft contract has a clause that says "no casino" but it also has a giant loophole : "unless allowed by federal, state or local law." Does Wilpon or somebody know something we don't?
Cardinale told me that Wilpon doesn't want anybody to steal his idea, and that's why he is jealously guarding his plans. Come ON. Even the imposters who tried the land-grab in the name of a theme park submitted a business plan. It was a complete joke and, once exposed for the imposters they were — complete with phony financing letter — they packed up and left town.
Now, with Wilpon, we've done away with the need for any business plan at all. Why?
To justify this sellout, Cardinale told me that, with the addition of 600 new acres in the industrial zone (thanks to the zone change now pending and nearing completion) there will be no need for additional industrial zoning for another 25 years. My answer: So what? That's not a very long time. And they're not making any more land, you know. It's an investment in the future. There's no need to hold a fire sale and sell our future out from under the next generation.
The sale to Wilpon accomplishes two critical things for a politician in an election year like this. First, it puts millions in the town's coffers (not $66M, because you have to deduct costs, fees, broker's commissions, etc. but millions nonetheless.) You tell me: what useful things did the town accomplish with the net proceeds of the Burman deal?
Second, it drives the final nail into the coffin of an airport at EPCAL, which mollifies the western Riverhead constituency that Cardinale counts as his core voter base.
I think this issue is so critical that I would have a tough time voting for Cardinale on Nov. 8 because of it.
But then — there's Ed.
Though I agree with him about the Wilpon deal, I remember his passionate advocacy for an airport there (a point of view that seems to have evolved and scaled down over the years) and for a racetrack, too. His connections to people who operate illegal sand mines in Riverhead bother me, too. Heck, there are plenty of things about Ed that bother me. (And I'm sure it's mutual. No, I know it is.)
Can this be, should this be, a one-issue campaign? Is the future of EPCAL important enough to the future of Riverhead that we should make our choice in the polling booth based on where a candidate stands on housing at EPCAL, as Ed advocates?
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
You be the editor
"D Day" has a good idea. If everyone who posts here picks an identity — a "handle" if you will — that will facilitate discussion. Then people could reply to each other by "name." I am changing the settings to require that you register to post a comment. All that's needed is a handle and an email address. It should be pretty painless to register. After you've chosen a user name & password, blogger asks you to name your blog. If you don't want to start a blog of your own, you can quit the registration process right then. You'll still be registered and have a user name & password for posting. If you have any problems let me know by sending me an email to denise@timesreview.com and I'll do my best to help you.
It's interesting reading some of these comments to see how certain stories morph over time as they are told and re-told. Maybe this is intentional on the part of some people with an obvious agenda. Or maybe it's just like the old childhood game of telephone. Remember that?
Here's an example. Somebody or some people have been postng about Cardinale allegedly having the parking lot of a business associate paved by the town. We've never heard THAT one at The News-Review.
But here's what we did hear, and to some extent, see.
A while back, someone sent me a photo (by email) that showed town highway department workers re-paving the driveway apron at the entrance to the parking lot of Smith, Finkelstein, Lundberg, Isler & Yakaboski. This is a law firm that's been representing the town in all different types of legal matters for as long as I can remember — but for a two-year break when a short-lived Democratic majority on the Town Board (one that consisted of John Lombardi, Rob Pike & me) fired Smith Finkelstein and hired Twomey, Latham, Shea & Kelly.
Anyway, the property being repaired by the highway guys in the photo sent to me by an angry resident (also someone I know to have an agenda of his own that goes beyond furthering "good government") was actually PUBLIC property, NOT private property and it was a driveway apron, not a parking lot. I think this is the item that morphed into what people have written about here, i.e that Cardinale used town workers to pave the parking lot of one of his business associates. Also it pays to note that the highway department is run by an independently elected official, the highway superintendent. It is not run by the town supervisor, who has no legal authority over the highway department workers or over the highway superintendent. The highway superintendent, in case you don't know, is former councilman Mark Kwasna. A Republican, incidentally.
One thing, though. At around the same time that this work was done, the town board adopted a policy that the maintenance of all sidewalks in front of businesses is the responsibility of the property owner, not the town. It's not clear to me whether the "maintenance" they're talking about here includes major repairs with cement and asphalt, though.
Question for all of you: This item was presented to The News-Review like it was some sort of a huge scandal. We decided that it had little if any news value. It was public property, after all. Should we have reported this, i.e. that the Riverhead highway department repaired the driveway apron at the entrance to a parking lot belonging to the town's longtime law firm, in spite of the town board's adopted policy requiring sidewalks in front of businesses to be maintained by the property owner? What do you think? If you were the editor receiving that email, what would YOU have done? Was this a news story? Did we drop the ball?
NB: The hIghway department also did a fair amount of repair work to the runways at EPCAL two years ago, just before the NY Air Show. That was also done in spite of a previous voter referendum prohibiting the expenditure of public funds on those runways. So maybe there's some sort of trend here... But that's another story.
It's interesting reading some of these comments to see how certain stories morph over time as they are told and re-told. Maybe this is intentional on the part of some people with an obvious agenda. Or maybe it's just like the old childhood game of telephone. Remember that?
Here's an example. Somebody or some people have been postng about Cardinale allegedly having the parking lot of a business associate paved by the town. We've never heard THAT one at The News-Review.
But here's what we did hear, and to some extent, see.
A while back, someone sent me a photo (by email) that showed town highway department workers re-paving the driveway apron at the entrance to the parking lot of Smith, Finkelstein, Lundberg, Isler & Yakaboski. This is a law firm that's been representing the town in all different types of legal matters for as long as I can remember — but for a two-year break when a short-lived Democratic majority on the Town Board (one that consisted of John Lombardi, Rob Pike & me) fired Smith Finkelstein and hired Twomey, Latham, Shea & Kelly.
Anyway, the property being repaired by the highway guys in the photo sent to me by an angry resident (also someone I know to have an agenda of his own that goes beyond furthering "good government") was actually PUBLIC property, NOT private property and it was a driveway apron, not a parking lot. I think this is the item that morphed into what people have written about here, i.e that Cardinale used town workers to pave the parking lot of one of his business associates. Also it pays to note that the highway department is run by an independently elected official, the highway superintendent. It is not run by the town supervisor, who has no legal authority over the highway department workers or over the highway superintendent. The highway superintendent, in case you don't know, is former councilman Mark Kwasna. A Republican, incidentally.
One thing, though. At around the same time that this work was done, the town board adopted a policy that the maintenance of all sidewalks in front of businesses is the responsibility of the property owner, not the town. It's not clear to me whether the "maintenance" they're talking about here includes major repairs with cement and asphalt, though.
Question for all of you: This item was presented to The News-Review like it was some sort of a huge scandal. We decided that it had little if any news value. It was public property, after all. Should we have reported this, i.e. that the Riverhead highway department repaired the driveway apron at the entrance to a parking lot belonging to the town's longtime law firm, in spite of the town board's adopted policy requiring sidewalks in front of businesses to be maintained by the property owner? What do you think? If you were the editor receiving that email, what would YOU have done? Was this a news story? Did we drop the ball?
NB: The hIghway department also did a fair amount of repair work to the runways at EPCAL two years ago, just before the NY Air Show. That was also done in spite of a previous voter referendum prohibiting the expenditure of public funds on those runways. So maybe there's some sort of trend here... But that's another story.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Calling all citizen journalists
I'm writing this morning from Lake Placid, where I'm attending the N.Y. Press Association's publishers' convention. I'm sitting in the bistro of the inn where the convention is being held, next to a window overlooking Mirror Lake. The sky's just getting light and, while it's overcast, it's not raining. It's a lovely sight. Lake Placid is a nice little town, lots of great little shops. Our first seminar isn't until 11 AM this morning, so I'm planning to walk the 2.7 mile trail around the lake.
Being new to the role of publisher, there's so much to learn, and the workshops have been quite informative.
One of the seminars I was most interested in was about — you guessed it — blogs. Weblogs — blogs for short — are actually part of a broader phenomenon the seminar presenters call citizen journalism. They talk about it as "unbundled journalism" or the decentralization of journalistic functions. The way journalism has traditionally worked, news organizations tell people what the news is, and the rest of us are consumers of the news. With the widespread access to the internet, that model is changing rapidly. It may even disappear altogether.
The seminar presenters yesterday challenged us to re-envision our news organizations as part of the public conversation, not as 'owning' or defining the news. That's a really big and difficult challenge for most publishers, who tend to see it as turning 'the way things work' right on their head. It's also somewhat threatening, because we fear being usurped. The way I look at it, this is happening with or without us, so journalists and publishers had better figure out how to embrace it and adapt what we do to it, or risk being left in the dust. (If you're interested in this, check out the website IReporter.org.
After attending that seminar yesterday I went online and looked at my last post and felt embarrassed by how snarky I was. I apologize. I was feeling frustrated by all the repetitive snipes at the supervisor and two councilwomen, and the rather low level of public discourse we've been witnessing in the early stages of this year's local election campaign. I asked the speakers at yesterday's seminar how to deal with that sort of thing, and they advised me to (1) work to encourage others to post more meaningful comments and (2) just delete the ones that are bogging down discussion like that. But I really hate the idea of deleting comments. I'd rather just ignore them if I can. What do you think?
I came away from that seminar yesterday with a whole bunch of ideas. What if Times/Review started a community website where we can feature the blogs of maybe six or ten people— or more? Different people could rotate in and out of the role of blogger. There could also be topical discussion forums there. What do you think of that idea? Do you have any other ideas for a site like that? Anybody interested in participating? Please post here or send me an email and let me know.
I've been out of town since early Thursday morning. What's going on? Anything new? There's been lots of rain from Ophelia, right? How much? Have we had any flooding? High winds? Any intrepid citizen reporters out there willing to post some local news?
Meanwhile, I think I'll take that walk.
Being new to the role of publisher, there's so much to learn, and the workshops have been quite informative.
One of the seminars I was most interested in was about — you guessed it — blogs. Weblogs — blogs for short — are actually part of a broader phenomenon the seminar presenters call citizen journalism. They talk about it as "unbundled journalism" or the decentralization of journalistic functions. The way journalism has traditionally worked, news organizations tell people what the news is, and the rest of us are consumers of the news. With the widespread access to the internet, that model is changing rapidly. It may even disappear altogether.
The seminar presenters yesterday challenged us to re-envision our news organizations as part of the public conversation, not as 'owning' or defining the news. That's a really big and difficult challenge for most publishers, who tend to see it as turning 'the way things work' right on their head. It's also somewhat threatening, because we fear being usurped. The way I look at it, this is happening with or without us, so journalists and publishers had better figure out how to embrace it and adapt what we do to it, or risk being left in the dust. (If you're interested in this, check out the website IReporter.org.
After attending that seminar yesterday I went online and looked at my last post and felt embarrassed by how snarky I was. I apologize. I was feeling frustrated by all the repetitive snipes at the supervisor and two councilwomen, and the rather low level of public discourse we've been witnessing in the early stages of this year's local election campaign. I asked the speakers at yesterday's seminar how to deal with that sort of thing, and they advised me to (1) work to encourage others to post more meaningful comments and (2) just delete the ones that are bogging down discussion like that. But I really hate the idea of deleting comments. I'd rather just ignore them if I can. What do you think?
I came away from that seminar yesterday with a whole bunch of ideas. What if Times/Review started a community website where we can feature the blogs of maybe six or ten people— or more? Different people could rotate in and out of the role of blogger. There could also be topical discussion forums there. What do you think of that idea? Do you have any other ideas for a site like that? Anybody interested in participating? Please post here or send me an email and let me know.
I've been out of town since early Thursday morning. What's going on? Anything new? There's been lots of rain from Ophelia, right? How much? Have we had any flooding? High winds? Any intrepid citizen reporters out there willing to post some local news?
Meanwhile, I think I'll take that walk.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Let's rise above the muck, shall we?
From now on, any comment that is not a comment on the subject of the post it's attached to will be deleted.
Comments that are nothing but repetitive name-calling and "Hooray for our team! Let's throw the other bums out" will be deleted.
If you've got something to say, say it well. Posting essentially the same thing over and over again only shows the rest of the world that you've got too much time on your hands, whoever you are. And, frankly, it's really boring for everyone else to read.
Can't we have some intelligent discussion in Riverhead? Does it always have to sink to the level of name-calling and made-up allegations masquerading as facts just to "get" someone and/or advance your own personal agenda?
When people who truly want to serve the public have to be subjected to this nonsense, and have themselves and their families dragged through the mud as the price they pay for trying to give something back to the community, what is the net effect? Good people, people of conscience, people who aren't involved in "politics" just to line their own pockets, get turned off and drop out. Nobody with half a brain voluntarily subjects himself to character assassination for too long. And what are we left with? Look around.
This blog wasn't started an excuse or an opportunity for one "side" or the other to slam the other "side." It was meant to be a place for discussion, debate, exchange of ideas, etc. If you have nothing more to say than one-line zingers bashing a public official, ANY public official, go post on 631politics.com. There are plenty of people who seem to spend an inordinate amount of time on that message board, hiding behind the anonymity of the Internet, propagating and feeding on that kind of mindless garbage.
You want to have a frank discussion about pertinent issues facing Riverhead today? Great! I'm all ears. But if all you can offer is continued blather about how Blass, Sanders & Cardinale are responsible for all the ills of the world, I invite you to go blather somewhere else. Maybe start your own blog.
We just witnessed a really ugly primary campaign in this town, characterized by the same sort of mindless, gutless, personal attacks on people running for public office. I'm sure we're in for more of the same in the weeks between now and Nov. 8. Ick.
Comments that are nothing but repetitive name-calling and "Hooray for our team! Let's throw the other bums out" will be deleted.
If you've got something to say, say it well. Posting essentially the same thing over and over again only shows the rest of the world that you've got too much time on your hands, whoever you are. And, frankly, it's really boring for everyone else to read.
Can't we have some intelligent discussion in Riverhead? Does it always have to sink to the level of name-calling and made-up allegations masquerading as facts just to "get" someone and/or advance your own personal agenda?
When people who truly want to serve the public have to be subjected to this nonsense, and have themselves and their families dragged through the mud as the price they pay for trying to give something back to the community, what is the net effect? Good people, people of conscience, people who aren't involved in "politics" just to line their own pockets, get turned off and drop out. Nobody with half a brain voluntarily subjects himself to character assassination for too long. And what are we left with? Look around.
This blog wasn't started an excuse or an opportunity for one "side" or the other to slam the other "side." It was meant to be a place for discussion, debate, exchange of ideas, etc. If you have nothing more to say than one-line zingers bashing a public official, ANY public official, go post on 631politics.com. There are plenty of people who seem to spend an inordinate amount of time on that message board, hiding behind the anonymity of the Internet, propagating and feeding on that kind of mindless garbage.
You want to have a frank discussion about pertinent issues facing Riverhead today? Great! I'm all ears. But if all you can offer is continued blather about how Blass, Sanders & Cardinale are responsible for all the ills of the world, I invite you to go blather somewhere else. Maybe start your own blog.
We just witnessed a really ugly primary campaign in this town, characterized by the same sort of mindless, gutless, personal attacks on people running for public office. I'm sure we're in for more of the same in the weeks between now and Nov. 8. Ick.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
The teabag test
I once read in a great book about living a Christian life that a person is like a teabag. When submerged in hot water, the stuff on the inside seeps out, and we get to see what's there.
When I arrived home from work yesterday-- Monday, the day before Primary Day -- there were three glossy campaign mailers in our pile of mail, all of them from the Dunleavy camp. They were mailed to my house because my husband is a lifelong registered Republican.
Two of them were nasty attacks on his two opponents in today's party primary.
One slams Rose Sanders for having a full-time job in the County Clerk's office. Accusing her of double-dipping, it also slams her for having a husband employed by the county. Now even if Rose and her husband have political patronage jobs, I've got to wonder how the Republican camp can suddenly get indignant about that? Doesn't Riverhead GOP chairman Bruce Stuke work at OTB? Doesn't his wife have a county job, too? What's that? Something other than patronage? And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Many Riverhead Republican committeepeople and their family members have government jobs. If there's one thing the Suffolk County Republican political machine has been good at for generations, it's patronage! So talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
The other mailer actually raps Blass and Sanders for cooperating and working together. It includes a color photo of conjoined twins! (Llamas, I think, joined at the hindquarters.) This one also includes a picture of Blass & Sanders with Sen. Clinton, when she came to Wading River to announce her opposition to Broadwater. That photo is captioned: "Birds of a feather???"
Neither one of these attack pieces has a name attached to it, so you don't know who sent it. Now, there's real character for you! There is a return address on both of them: 2906 Pebble Beach Path, Riverhead. And the Bulk Mail permit on both of them is Permit No. 4, Westhampton.
The third piece seems like a more benign, positive piece advocating John Dunleavy for councilman. While it lacks the "2906 Pebble Beach Path" return address, it has the same Bulk Mail permit affixed to it.
The problem with this one is the statement, in bold print: "Without your vote [in the Sept. 13 primary] my name will not appear on the ballot for the General Election in November." That's just not true. Mr. Dunleavy has the Conservative Party line, last I heard. So he's on the ballot this November regardless of what happens today.
Submerged in "hot water" -- a tough primary race --we now know what this candidate has on the inside. Nasty attacks and twisted facts. I'm not a Republican, but if I were, Mr. Dunleavy's mailers yesterday would have made up my mind for me about how to vote. And it wouldn't have been the conclusion Mr. Dunleavy was hoping for.
When I arrived home from work yesterday-- Monday, the day before Primary Day -- there were three glossy campaign mailers in our pile of mail, all of them from the Dunleavy camp. They were mailed to my house because my husband is a lifelong registered Republican.
Two of them were nasty attacks on his two opponents in today's party primary.
One slams Rose Sanders for having a full-time job in the County Clerk's office. Accusing her of double-dipping, it also slams her for having a husband employed by the county. Now even if Rose and her husband have political patronage jobs, I've got to wonder how the Republican camp can suddenly get indignant about that? Doesn't Riverhead GOP chairman Bruce Stuke work at OTB? Doesn't his wife have a county job, too? What's that? Something other than patronage? And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Many Riverhead Republican committeepeople and their family members have government jobs. If there's one thing the Suffolk County Republican political machine has been good at for generations, it's patronage! So talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
The other mailer actually raps Blass and Sanders for cooperating and working together. It includes a color photo of conjoined twins! (Llamas, I think, joined at the hindquarters.) This one also includes a picture of Blass & Sanders with Sen. Clinton, when she came to Wading River to announce her opposition to Broadwater. That photo is captioned: "Birds of a feather???"
Neither one of these attack pieces has a name attached to it, so you don't know who sent it. Now, there's real character for you! There is a return address on both of them: 2906 Pebble Beach Path, Riverhead. And the Bulk Mail permit on both of them is Permit No. 4, Westhampton.
The third piece seems like a more benign, positive piece advocating John Dunleavy for councilman. While it lacks the "2906 Pebble Beach Path" return address, it has the same Bulk Mail permit affixed to it.
The problem with this one is the statement, in bold print: "Without your vote [in the Sept. 13 primary] my name will not appear on the ballot for the General Election in November." That's just not true. Mr. Dunleavy has the Conservative Party line, last I heard. So he's on the ballot this November regardless of what happens today.
Submerged in "hot water" -- a tough primary race --we now know what this candidate has on the inside. Nasty attacks and twisted facts. I'm not a Republican, but if I were, Mr. Dunleavy's mailers yesterday would have made up my mind for me about how to vote. And it wouldn't have been the conclusion Mr. Dunleavy was hoping for.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Black & White & Gray All Over
I knew going into this (the blog thing) that it could/would be a free-for-all. The internet provides people with complete anonymity and anonymity doesn't necessarily bring out the best in people. When you don't have to be held accountable for what you write, it's easy to be reckless about it.
I certainly don't want to play censor here. I agree with the person who commented on my last post that it's too bad that some one or some people want to turn every single subject into another opportunity to bash one of the local politicians.
It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that all of the town's many complicated and difficult issues aren't the fault of one man or one woman or even one administration. Throwing this or that bum out or getting rid of all of them will still leave us with the same problems tomorrow, none of which has an easy solution.
We're wrestling right now with problems that are a result of past inaction, lack of vision, lack of courage on the part of town, county, state and federal governments alike -- not to mention The Way Things Work to favor those private interests that grease the wheels of government and political parties with donations and outright bribes, as well as with more subtle influences such as dinner and drinks, baskets of cheer at Christmas time, tickets to a Knicks game, or even something as small as a few dozen Krispy Kreme donuts strategically delivered to Town Hall offices.
Politicians want to get reelected. They need money to fund their campaigns and votes in the polling booths. To get both of those, they have to make friends with people who have money to contribute -- enter the developers and their representatives -- and they have to avoid pissing off too many people in the community. This combination doesn't lend itself to maintaining strong principles and achieving high ideals.
In 1987, at the age of 29, I got myself elected to the Riverhead Town Board quite by accident. Not that I didn't want to get elected, and not that I didn't run a serious -- or good -- race. I got elected -- a young, unknown, new-to-town Democrat in a town where Republicans outnumbered Democrats two to one -- mostly because Vic Prusinowski, the incumbent seeking reelection, pissed too many people off. He didn't get the Conservative committee's designation, then he ran a primary for the Conservative nomination. The primary ended in a tie--yes, a tie! If Vic had made some calls and gotten just one more person out to vote... But he thought he was a lock. Election Law allowed the Conservative committee to make the choice, and they were allowed to pick anyone. They picked me.
I was a Democratic nominee that year mostly because they had no one else silly enough to waste their time taking on Vic Prusinowski, a homegrown Republican with a Polish surname. It was considered a lost cause. I remember the Saturday morning when Bob Tomlinson, our Democratic committee chairman, called and excitedly informed me that I had the Conservative endorsement. Being young and naive and-- as Supervisor Joe Janoski would tell me many times over the course of the next four years -- "too damned idealistic," I told Bob I couldn't possibly accept the Conservative line, I didn't agree with any part of their platform, from abortion to land use regulation. Bob raced from his house in Wading River to my house in Riverhead in about five minutes and sat me down in my kitchen and told me flat-out I couldn't refuse this endorsement, it could mean the election, they wouldn't ask me about my views on abortion and they wouldn't make me promise them anything about land use regulation. "Don't be stupid," he told me. In the end, the couple hundred votes I got on Row "C" put me over the top and I became the first woman in the history of the town to be elected to a full four-year term as "Councilman." (Bob's wife, Jessie, had been elected to finish out the term of someone who had vacated his Town Board seat previous to that, becoming this town's first-ever elected councilwoman.)
Being a local elected official, and being so deeply involved in local politics was a real eye-opening experience.
One big lesson I learned was that, on the outside looking in, everything seems quite black and white. When you're sitting there, charged with making a collaborative decision with four other people, that will affect people's lives and livelihoods in town, everything becomes a shade of gray. There are no easy choices, no easy answers, from the smallest site plan question, like where's the best spot for a dumpster in the municipal parking lot, to the really big questions, like what to do with all the garbage and sewage produced by the town's residents.
I loved working in government. But I hated politics. And I STUNK at politics. I'm bad with names and I'm too transparent. And I find it all very ugly. The deeply partisan people, no matter what their political stripes, are really passionate and can get extremely nasty, on a very personal level. They have one goal and one goal only: to get their "team" elected. And many of them don't care what they say or do or how much they hurt people in the process, even when they're totally making stuff up about people. And they will bite into something, dig their teeth in and hang onto it no matter what.
Which brings us back to this blog. That's why I think we can continue to expect some people to post snipes at Phil or Ed or Rose or Barbara or John or Darren or Robert or Vince or Bill (hope I covered all bases here) as comments on completely unrelated subjects.
Yes, I know, as they say, in the end, everything is politics. But sometimes I want to watch my daughters looking at themselves in the mirror and just be in that moment. Sure I worry about where they're going to work and where they're going to live. And I realize it's probably not going to be around here. That's more than sad, considering this town has been home to my husband's family for generations. But it's naive to think that one Town Board or one supervisor could change all that at this stage of the game. Look around. It's no different anywhere on Long Island.
That being said, I'm going grocery shopping. Then there are mountains of laundry to do and garden chores to tackle. A typical Saturday. But I'm grateful we can put food on the table, keep a roof over our family's head and have a garden to pull weeds out of. Sometimes it takes discipline to remember to be grateful and not take anything for granted. Sometimes all it takes is flipping on the news.
Have a blessed day!
Denise
I certainly don't want to play censor here. I agree with the person who commented on my last post that it's too bad that some one or some people want to turn every single subject into another opportunity to bash one of the local politicians.
It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that all of the town's many complicated and difficult issues aren't the fault of one man or one woman or even one administration. Throwing this or that bum out or getting rid of all of them will still leave us with the same problems tomorrow, none of which has an easy solution.
We're wrestling right now with problems that are a result of past inaction, lack of vision, lack of courage on the part of town, county, state and federal governments alike -- not to mention The Way Things Work to favor those private interests that grease the wheels of government and political parties with donations and outright bribes, as well as with more subtle influences such as dinner and drinks, baskets of cheer at Christmas time, tickets to a Knicks game, or even something as small as a few dozen Krispy Kreme donuts strategically delivered to Town Hall offices.
Politicians want to get reelected. They need money to fund their campaigns and votes in the polling booths. To get both of those, they have to make friends with people who have money to contribute -- enter the developers and their representatives -- and they have to avoid pissing off too many people in the community. This combination doesn't lend itself to maintaining strong principles and achieving high ideals.
In 1987, at the age of 29, I got myself elected to the Riverhead Town Board quite by accident. Not that I didn't want to get elected, and not that I didn't run a serious -- or good -- race. I got elected -- a young, unknown, new-to-town Democrat in a town where Republicans outnumbered Democrats two to one -- mostly because Vic Prusinowski, the incumbent seeking reelection, pissed too many people off. He didn't get the Conservative committee's designation, then he ran a primary for the Conservative nomination. The primary ended in a tie--yes, a tie! If Vic had made some calls and gotten just one more person out to vote... But he thought he was a lock. Election Law allowed the Conservative committee to make the choice, and they were allowed to pick anyone. They picked me.
I was a Democratic nominee that year mostly because they had no one else silly enough to waste their time taking on Vic Prusinowski, a homegrown Republican with a Polish surname. It was considered a lost cause. I remember the Saturday morning when Bob Tomlinson, our Democratic committee chairman, called and excitedly informed me that I had the Conservative endorsement. Being young and naive and-- as Supervisor Joe Janoski would tell me many times over the course of the next four years -- "too damned idealistic," I told Bob I couldn't possibly accept the Conservative line, I didn't agree with any part of their platform, from abortion to land use regulation. Bob raced from his house in Wading River to my house in Riverhead in about five minutes and sat me down in my kitchen and told me flat-out I couldn't refuse this endorsement, it could mean the election, they wouldn't ask me about my views on abortion and they wouldn't make me promise them anything about land use regulation. "Don't be stupid," he told me. In the end, the couple hundred votes I got on Row "C" put me over the top and I became the first woman in the history of the town to be elected to a full four-year term as "Councilman." (Bob's wife, Jessie, had been elected to finish out the term of someone who had vacated his Town Board seat previous to that, becoming this town's first-ever elected councilwoman.)
Being a local elected official, and being so deeply involved in local politics was a real eye-opening experience.
One big lesson I learned was that, on the outside looking in, everything seems quite black and white. When you're sitting there, charged with making a collaborative decision with four other people, that will affect people's lives and livelihoods in town, everything becomes a shade of gray. There are no easy choices, no easy answers, from the smallest site plan question, like where's the best spot for a dumpster in the municipal parking lot, to the really big questions, like what to do with all the garbage and sewage produced by the town's residents.
I loved working in government. But I hated politics. And I STUNK at politics. I'm bad with names and I'm too transparent. And I find it all very ugly. The deeply partisan people, no matter what their political stripes, are really passionate and can get extremely nasty, on a very personal level. They have one goal and one goal only: to get their "team" elected. And many of them don't care what they say or do or how much they hurt people in the process, even when they're totally making stuff up about people. And they will bite into something, dig their teeth in and hang onto it no matter what.
Which brings us back to this blog. That's why I think we can continue to expect some people to post snipes at Phil or Ed or Rose or Barbara or John or Darren or Robert or Vince or Bill (hope I covered all bases here) as comments on completely unrelated subjects.
Yes, I know, as they say, in the end, everything is politics. But sometimes I want to watch my daughters looking at themselves in the mirror and just be in that moment. Sure I worry about where they're going to work and where they're going to live. And I realize it's probably not going to be around here. That's more than sad, considering this town has been home to my husband's family for generations. But it's naive to think that one Town Board or one supervisor could change all that at this stage of the game. Look around. It's no different anywhere on Long Island.
That being said, I'm going grocery shopping. Then there are mountains of laundry to do and garden chores to tackle. A typical Saturday. But I'm grateful we can put food on the table, keep a roof over our family's head and have a garden to pull weeds out of. Sometimes it takes discipline to remember to be grateful and not take anything for granted. Sometimes all it takes is flipping on the news.
Have a blessed day!
Denise
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
New beginnings
The first day of school. My morning solitude is officially a thing of the past, at least on weekdays. The hub-bub has already descended around me, and it’s only a quarter past six. There’s excitement in the air, excitement brought by the notion of a fresh start, the endless possibilities of a new school term. New friends to meet, boys to check out, social orders to structure. Oh, yeah, new subjects to learn. That too.
My daughters inspect themselves carefully from head to toe. They dwell on every imperfection, from the slightest blemish on the cheek to the chapped bottom lip. It all matters so much, too much, really. Their fortunes in middle school will rise and fall on a blemish, or the wrong style of sneaker worn, or whether their hair cooperates this morning.
I remember that kind of adolescent fretting, though I can’t say for sure what I fretted about. The same things, I’m sure. It wasn’t pleasant. Being a girl hasn’t changed much between 1970, when I entered 8th grade, and 2005. It’s still about looking a certain way, being attractive to boys, popular with the “in crowd.” My daughters will likely survive this difficult time, just as I did. There will undoubtedly be scars that will take time — perhaps into adulthood — to heal. They’ll make mistakes and pay the price. They’ll laugh and cry and love and get their hearts broken. With the help of God and some TLC from Mom and Dad, they’ll survive it all no worse for the wear. And someday they’ll watch their own children primp and fuss in front of a mirror getting ready for the 8th grade and remember what it was like for them.
My daughters inspect themselves carefully from head to toe. They dwell on every imperfection, from the slightest blemish on the cheek to the chapped bottom lip. It all matters so much, too much, really. Their fortunes in middle school will rise and fall on a blemish, or the wrong style of sneaker worn, or whether their hair cooperates this morning.
I remember that kind of adolescent fretting, though I can’t say for sure what I fretted about. The same things, I’m sure. It wasn’t pleasant. Being a girl hasn’t changed much between 1970, when I entered 8th grade, and 2005. It’s still about looking a certain way, being attractive to boys, popular with the “in crowd.” My daughters will likely survive this difficult time, just as I did. There will undoubtedly be scars that will take time — perhaps into adulthood — to heal. They’ll make mistakes and pay the price. They’ll laugh and cry and love and get their hearts broken. With the help of God and some TLC from Mom and Dad, they’ll survive it all no worse for the wear. And someday they’ll watch their own children primp and fuss in front of a mirror getting ready for the 8th grade and remember what it was like for them.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
It's worth the struggle
It’s been a heck of a week in community journalism land. Holiday issues are always a great challenge for us, because they’re big papers. And then, in the “adding insult to injury” department, when the following Monday is a day off, that means we’re a day short in terms of the production cycle. On top of that, you can pretty much forget about being able to reach anybody on the Friday of a three-day weekend.
But now it’s Saturday morning, the sun’s coming up over the back of the house and I’m sitting on the patio out front, surrounded by lovely, fragrant flowers, watching a pair of black-capped chickadees dance in and out of the butterfly bush to peck at the feeder a few feet away.
Relaxation never came easily to me. And this is the kind of job that’s hard to leave at the office. Everything we do is about our community. Like the majority of people who work for Times/Review, I do what I do, and love what I do, because I care deeply about my community. I’ve lived here almost 20 years now. My husband and my children have never lived anywhere else. Riverhead still manages to retain an identity in the face of the onslaught of big box development and all the new subdivisions and condos. It’s still got a sense of place, the way small towns with a history do. Since I first came to work here in 1985, answering an ad in the N.Y. Law Journal that read, simply, “Country lawyer requires associate,” I’ve passionately believed that this place is worth fighting for.
Even with all its changes, even though our main commercial drag looks more like East Setauket than Riverhead, even though we’ve got a raft of difficult problems to deal with as a community — from poverty, to racial and ethnic tensions, to lack of meaningful jobs and a crisis in affordable housing, to spiraling property taxes (a list that hasn’t changed much in the two decades I’ve been here) — out town is a great place to live your life.
But now it’s Saturday morning, the sun’s coming up over the back of the house and I’m sitting on the patio out front, surrounded by lovely, fragrant flowers, watching a pair of black-capped chickadees dance in and out of the butterfly bush to peck at the feeder a few feet away.
Relaxation never came easily to me. And this is the kind of job that’s hard to leave at the office. Everything we do is about our community. Like the majority of people who work for Times/Review, I do what I do, and love what I do, because I care deeply about my community. I’ve lived here almost 20 years now. My husband and my children have never lived anywhere else. Riverhead still manages to retain an identity in the face of the onslaught of big box development and all the new subdivisions and condos. It’s still got a sense of place, the way small towns with a history do. Since I first came to work here in 1985, answering an ad in the N.Y. Law Journal that read, simply, “Country lawyer requires associate,” I’ve passionately believed that this place is worth fighting for.
Even with all its changes, even though our main commercial drag looks more like East Setauket than Riverhead, even though we’ve got a raft of difficult problems to deal with as a community — from poverty, to racial and ethnic tensions, to lack of meaningful jobs and a crisis in affordable housing, to spiraling property taxes (a list that hasn’t changed much in the two decades I’ve been here) — out town is a great place to live your life.
Friday, September 02, 2005
Hurricane Relief Organizations
I've collected some Internet links to the websites of organizations participating in the relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina. You can donate to any of these organizations online.
American Red Cross
http://www.redcross.org/
Habitat for Humanity
http://www.habitat.org/
Salvation Army
http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/USNSAHome.htm
Lutheran Disaster Relief
http://www.ldr.org/index.html
Episcopal Relief Fund
http://www.er-d.org/
Catholic Charities
http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/news/katrina.cfm
Samaritan's Purse
http://www.samaritanspurse.com/
Southern Baptist Relief Fund
http://www.namb.net/site/c.9qKILUOzEpH/b.224451/k.7BDB/
Disaster_Relief_Homepage.htm
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
http://www.pcusa.org/pda/
B'nai B'rith International
http://bnaibrith.org/pubs/pr/050829_hurricanekatrina.cfm
World Vision
http://www.worldvision.org/
Americares
http://www.americares.org/
The Humane Society of Northwest Louisiana
http://www.hsnwla.org/
American Red Cross
http://www.redcross.org/
Habitat for Humanity
http://www.habitat.org/
Salvation Army
http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/USNSAHome.htm
Lutheran Disaster Relief
http://www.ldr.org/index.html
Episcopal Relief Fund
http://www.er-d.org/
Catholic Charities
http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/news/katrina.cfm
Samaritan's Purse
http://www.samaritanspurse.com/
Southern Baptist Relief Fund
http://www.namb.net/site/c.9qKILUOzEpH/b.224451/k.7BDB/
Disaster_Relief_Homepage.htm
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
http://www.pcusa.org/pda/
B'nai B'rith International
http://bnaibrith.org/pubs/pr/050829_hurricanekatrina.cfm
World Vision
http://www.worldvision.org/
Americares
http://www.americares.org/
The Humane Society of Northwest Louisiana
http://www.hsnwla.org/
Thursday, September 01, 2005
The truth about blogs?
Blogs. I've been scanning as many of them as I can, and it's amazing how many of them there are.
In the wake of the hurricane, I read an article on the NY Times website the other day about the role blogs are playing in reporting news as it's happening, virtually on the scene, in the trenches, often by "ordinary people"--i.e. not journalists. There are many gripping accounts posted by bloggers of what is going on in New Orleans right now.
Blogs are an exciting development, but they're also kind of scary. Especially when you consider that the traditional checks and balances for truth in reporting don't exist.
Yeah, I know, I can hear people objecting with comments about the recent scandals in some big media outlets where reporters and editors were caught playing fast and loose with the truth. But the vast majority of journalists are very serious about their profession and Truth-- with a capital "T"-- is the number one value.
Blogs scare me a little because there are no rules, no checks and balances. It's too easy for them to masquerade as truth, or as serious journalism and news reporting, when they really are not, in most circumstances. And I'm afraid the news-consuming public, having grown accustomed to the disturbing blend of news and commentary prevalent on the cable "news" channels, is losing the ability to discern the difference.
Here's a "for instance." I roamed onto one site, called punditeria.com. The blogger, under a headline that screams "THE quote of the disaster! SUPPRESSED BY ALL NEWS OUTLETS" claims that the major media "even Fox News" have not reported a quote by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin complaining about the federal government's response to the disaster. Then he says that he's been told that a couple of people in New Orleans reported that they heard the mayor say these things on a local radio station. The blogger puts the purported comments in quotation marks, even as he admits "this is a close paraphrase, I am told" and then attributes a quote to the mayor of New Orleans in which the mayor supposedly used the "F word" five times in talking about the President of the United States and the U.S. government.
So, somebody told him that somebody else heard the mayor say these things in a radio interview. And he not only reports it as fact, he puts the comments in QUOTES, and then decries the mainstream media for participating in a "cover up'! (EVEN Fox News!)
That's the thing about blogs.
On this blog, I've been sort of disheartened by some of the comments, which have been on the level of name-calling. I was hoping that the people of Riverhead could engage in a discussion of current events and issues that consisted of more than zinging one-liners calling government officials nit-wits and weasels. I think we're capable of more thoughtful discussion than that. There are plenty of message boards out there where that's the standard fare, and if that's what you're interested in, I'd invite you to check them out. In my first post, I said I would delete comments that stoop to that level and I intend to do that if it keeps up.
In the wake of the hurricane, I read an article on the NY Times website the other day about the role blogs are playing in reporting news as it's happening, virtually on the scene, in the trenches, often by "ordinary people"--i.e. not journalists. There are many gripping accounts posted by bloggers of what is going on in New Orleans right now.
Blogs are an exciting development, but they're also kind of scary. Especially when you consider that the traditional checks and balances for truth in reporting don't exist.
Yeah, I know, I can hear people objecting with comments about the recent scandals in some big media outlets where reporters and editors were caught playing fast and loose with the truth. But the vast majority of journalists are very serious about their profession and Truth-- with a capital "T"-- is the number one value.
Blogs scare me a little because there are no rules, no checks and balances. It's too easy for them to masquerade as truth, or as serious journalism and news reporting, when they really are not, in most circumstances. And I'm afraid the news-consuming public, having grown accustomed to the disturbing blend of news and commentary prevalent on the cable "news" channels, is losing the ability to discern the difference.
Here's a "for instance." I roamed onto one site, called punditeria.com. The blogger, under a headline that screams "THE quote of the disaster! SUPPRESSED BY ALL NEWS OUTLETS" claims that the major media "even Fox News" have not reported a quote by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin complaining about the federal government's response to the disaster. Then he says that he's been told that a couple of people in New Orleans reported that they heard the mayor say these things on a local radio station. The blogger puts the purported comments in quotation marks, even as he admits "this is a close paraphrase, I am told" and then attributes a quote to the mayor of New Orleans in which the mayor supposedly used the "F word" five times in talking about the President of the United States and the U.S. government.
So, somebody told him that somebody else heard the mayor say these things in a radio interview. And he not only reports it as fact, he puts the comments in QUOTES, and then decries the mainstream media for participating in a "cover up'! (EVEN Fox News!)
That's the thing about blogs.
On this blog, I've been sort of disheartened by some of the comments, which have been on the level of name-calling. I was hoping that the people of Riverhead could engage in a discussion of current events and issues that consisted of more than zinging one-liners calling government officials nit-wits and weasels. I think we're capable of more thoughtful discussion than that. There are plenty of message boards out there where that's the standard fare, and if that's what you're interested in, I'd invite you to check them out. In my first post, I said I would delete comments that stoop to that level and I intend to do that if it keeps up.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
The rising price of gas
Wow! Look at those numbers!
Gas prices at the pump rose by about 50 cents a gallon overnight in our area. One local station was selling regular unleaded for $2.779 yesterday (Tuesday) morning. This morning at 8 a.m. their price was $3.219 per gallon. Tonight at 7 p.m. the same station was asking $3.379 per gallon. I shudder to think what tomorrow will bring. They changed the price twice yesterday and twice today. Did they get new deliveries — at the higher prices — twice yesterday and twice today? They wouldn't answer that question when asked by a reporter. But I doubt it.
The owner of OK Petroleum on East Main Street didn't jack his prices up today, unlike just about every other station. He told our reporter he still had "gas in the ground" and wouldn't rip off his customers. A man of integrity— we ought to all buy our gas from him from now on.
People on the road today were ripping mad. I , too, was kicking myself for not gassing up yesterday, when my needle was hovering at a little less than a quarter-tank. No, I waited till this morning, when I had to pay almost 50 cents a gallon more for the privilege. A whopping $59 later, I was not a happy customer, either.
It amazes me how willing so many people were to take it out on the gas station attendants, though. Some customers had really nasty things to say to the attendants — things that had to do with their Middle Eastern heritage — and hearing their comments repeated by our reporter made me feel ashamed.
This could be the beginning of a gas crisis, reminiscent of the 70s. With world demand up and supplies not increasing, having Gulf refineries knocked off line by the hurricane, perhaps indefinitely, could trigger a shortage in the U.S. Are you old enough to remember those days in 1973, when gas was rationed due to the Arab oil embargo? We may see them again.
But we have to keep our troubles in perspective, after all. Looking at the photos and watching the videos of the devastation in New Orleans and coastal Mississippi snaps it all into focus for us. What a horror.
Your heart has to go out to the mayor of New Orleans. Imagine being the person responsible for figuring out how to clean up and put that city back together after a catastrophe like this. My God.
Gas prices at the pump rose by about 50 cents a gallon overnight in our area. One local station was selling regular unleaded for $2.779 yesterday (Tuesday) morning. This morning at 8 a.m. their price was $3.219 per gallon. Tonight at 7 p.m. the same station was asking $3.379 per gallon. I shudder to think what tomorrow will bring. They changed the price twice yesterday and twice today. Did they get new deliveries — at the higher prices — twice yesterday and twice today? They wouldn't answer that question when asked by a reporter. But I doubt it.
The owner of OK Petroleum on East Main Street didn't jack his prices up today, unlike just about every other station. He told our reporter he still had "gas in the ground" and wouldn't rip off his customers. A man of integrity— we ought to all buy our gas from him from now on.
People on the road today were ripping mad. I , too, was kicking myself for not gassing up yesterday, when my needle was hovering at a little less than a quarter-tank. No, I waited till this morning, when I had to pay almost 50 cents a gallon more for the privilege. A whopping $59 later, I was not a happy customer, either.
It amazes me how willing so many people were to take it out on the gas station attendants, though. Some customers had really nasty things to say to the attendants — things that had to do with their Middle Eastern heritage — and hearing their comments repeated by our reporter made me feel ashamed.
This could be the beginning of a gas crisis, reminiscent of the 70s. With world demand up and supplies not increasing, having Gulf refineries knocked off line by the hurricane, perhaps indefinitely, could trigger a shortage in the U.S. Are you old enough to remember those days in 1973, when gas was rationed due to the Arab oil embargo? We may see them again.
But we have to keep our troubles in perspective, after all. Looking at the photos and watching the videos of the devastation in New Orleans and coastal Mississippi snaps it all into focus for us. What a horror.
Your heart has to go out to the mayor of New Orleans. Imagine being the person responsible for figuring out how to clean up and put that city back together after a catastrophe like this. My God.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
So many opinions
Well, much to the chagrin of my daughter, I haven’t posted here in a few days. This is something I’m supposed to do EVERY day, she tells me. Like a diary. Not sure if I can pull that off. Maybe if I adjust to writing something shorter than a 700-word essay each time. Blogging is different than writing a column, right?
But rest assured, my lack of writing is not for lack of opinions.
I’ve gotta admit I’m a little bummed by the lack of comments on my blog. I was hoping that some of the thoughts I posted here on Thursday would have elicited more responses. The blog’s getting some traffic, but only two comments as of this writing? Come on. Nobody’s got nuthin’ to say about any of the issues I brought up? Jill Lewis and Mike Cholowsky? Housing at EPCAL? School administrators’ raises that weren’t discussed prior to the budget vote? Surely I can’t be the only Riverhead resident with opinions about these things.
Somebody told me today that people are “afraid” to post on this blog. Not that they’re afraid of me. More like they’re afraid of retribution around town, by town government officials or maybe others...
Since my daughter also chastised me about requiring people to register in order to comment here, I changed the settings and now you can post ANONYMOUSLY. Happy?
So, go ahead. Click that little comment button and let it rip.
Why do you think the administration isn’t doing anything to stop the ethics code from being openly flouted by the former deputy supe? Is Phil afraid of somebody? Should he be? Is he doing Dick Amper a favor by letting Amper’s former right-hand woman skate? It just doesn’t make sense to me. And why isn’t anybody calling him on it?
Ed’s quiet because he’s so chummy with Jill — and Mike — that people were saying Jill was actually working on Ed’s campaign. And he’s a proponent of getting Cholowsky his rail spur at EPCAL. I’m sure Ed’s campaign financials — and the Riverhead GOP’s — will reflect the benefit of that stance, too. So the most likely critic of the behavior of Phil’s former deputy is silent. Convenient for Jill — and Mike.
Here's a photo sent to me by a reader that graphically illustrates why the ethics code would slam shut the revolving door. The former deputy supervisor and her new employer sitting with the town planning director at a work session where the rail spur grant was on the agenda. Nice and friendly and cozy are these former colleagues, wouldn't you say? This particular threesome was seen frequently at local watering holes BEFORE the deputy supe left town employ and when she and the town planning director were both still on the public payroll.
This isn't any different than former supervisor Bob Kozakiewicz representing Suffolk Theater Enterprises right after he left office in the matter of the contract of sale for the theater — a contract Koz negotiated. That rankled Phil and, he said, inspired him to push for a long-overdue ethics code. Why doesn't this thing with Jill & Cholowsky and the rail spur bug Phil, too, especially since we now have an ethics code that pretty clearly prohibits her from representing Cholowsky at Town Hall on the rail spur stuff? Phil, you disappoint me. What happened to putting Riverhead first?
But rest assured, my lack of writing is not for lack of opinions.
I’ve gotta admit I’m a little bummed by the lack of comments on my blog. I was hoping that some of the thoughts I posted here on Thursday would have elicited more responses. The blog’s getting some traffic, but only two comments as of this writing? Come on. Nobody’s got nuthin’ to say about any of the issues I brought up? Jill Lewis and Mike Cholowsky? Housing at EPCAL? School administrators’ raises that weren’t discussed prior to the budget vote? Surely I can’t be the only Riverhead resident with opinions about these things.
Somebody told me today that people are “afraid” to post on this blog. Not that they’re afraid of me. More like they’re afraid of retribution around town, by town government officials or maybe others...
Since my daughter also chastised me about requiring people to register in order to comment here, I changed the settings and now you can post ANONYMOUSLY. Happy?
So, go ahead. Click that little comment button and let it rip.
Why do you think the administration isn’t doing anything to stop the ethics code from being openly flouted by the former deputy supe? Is Phil afraid of somebody? Should he be? Is he doing Dick Amper a favor by letting Amper’s former right-hand woman skate? It just doesn’t make sense to me. And why isn’t anybody calling him on it?
Ed’s quiet because he’s so chummy with Jill — and Mike — that people were saying Jill was actually working on Ed’s campaign. And he’s a proponent of getting Cholowsky his rail spur at EPCAL. I’m sure Ed’s campaign financials — and the Riverhead GOP’s — will reflect the benefit of that stance, too. So the most likely critic of the behavior of Phil’s former deputy is silent. Convenient for Jill — and Mike.
Here's a photo sent to me by a reader that graphically illustrates why the ethics code would slam shut the revolving door. The former deputy supervisor and her new employer sitting with the town planning director at a work session where the rail spur grant was on the agenda. Nice and friendly and cozy are these former colleagues, wouldn't you say? This particular threesome was seen frequently at local watering holes BEFORE the deputy supe left town employ and when she and the town planning director were both still on the public payroll.
This isn't any different than former supervisor Bob Kozakiewicz representing Suffolk Theater Enterprises right after he left office in the matter of the contract of sale for the theater — a contract Koz negotiated. That rankled Phil and, he said, inspired him to push for a long-overdue ethics code. Why doesn't this thing with Jill & Cholowsky and the rail spur bug Phil, too, especially since we now have an ethics code that pretty clearly prohibits her from representing Cholowsky at Town Hall on the rail spur stuff? Phil, you disappoint me. What happened to putting Riverhead first?
Thursday, August 25, 2005
So much to think about
Welcome. Thank you for coming to check out my blog.
My goal is to develop this blog into a provocative discussion of things going on in and around Riverhead Town. Like The News-Review, this blog is dedicated to Riverhead. If it doesn't have a "local hook," it doesn't belong.
This is different from anything I've ever done, and while I'm looking forward to watching this blog evolve, it's not without some trepidation. Will I have anything worth blogging about on a regular basis? Will it be interesting enough for people to come back to? Will it engage readers enough to spark discussion, both here and elsewhere? I'm hoping the answer to these questions is "yes."
To achieve these things, there have to be some ground rules for comments. No foul language. No nasty name calling and carping back and forth between readers. And no advertisements for businesses or politicians. I reserve the right to delete comments that violate these rules.
And away we go.
There are so many things going on, it's hard to decide what to begin with.
There's the wide-as-the-Grand-Canyon split in the local Republican party, something that's been festering for years on the Town Board, going back to the days of "the boys against the girls" Kozakiewicz administration. Now, one of the Republican councilwomen is off the ticket and the other one is being frozen out, with the local party blatantly supporting one of the candidates in the three-way council primary race.
There's the alliance of our former deputy supervisor and a sand-mine/solid waste guy with a very interesting past and her brazen appearances with him, as his business associate, at Town Hall concerning a matter — the EPCAL rail spur — she was involved in as deputy supervisor. This seems to flout the town's recently adopted ethics code and nobody in Town Hall seems to be showing any interest in doing anything about it. The supervisor even seems to be interested in defending his former deputy's behavior. Why?
Then there's the Wilpon deal, a deal this administration has been pushing since the beginning. Does it make sense for EPCAL? For Riverhead? Will the administration push this through before Election Day? RIverhead has had bad experience with deals inked in the shadow of a looming local election — the Burman deal in 1999, the Suffolk Theatre deal in 2003. Ed's thrown down the gauntlet this week, telling voters that a vote for Phil is like a vote for housing at EPCAL, while a vote for him is like a vote for jobs and tax base there. He challenged Phil to postpone any decision on Wilpon until after the election — to, in essence, make the election a referendum on the Wilpon deal. A very interesting move on Ed's part.
EPCAL, oh EPCAL. That could be a blog unto itself. Maybe it should be.
Then, as if town politics weren't enough to give us all a headache, there's the wonderful world of school politics. The school stuff is actually more intriguing. I'm still sort of dumbstruck that the school board gave our new superintendent a four-year contract extension and a hefty raise in pay before the first year of his original two-year contract was up. What is THAT about? And they also rewarded our $700-a-day interim assistant superintendent with a $50-a-day increase. (I heard they were matching an offer he got from another district.) And gave 4% pay hikes to two other assistant superintendents already making six-figure salaries.
Since these increases weren't part of any public budget discussion as far as we can tell, where'd all this extra dough — tens of thousands of dollars — come from? Ours was a "bare bones" budget, we were told before the budget vote in May. Sounds like there was significant funds squirreled away for post-budget-vote maneuvers, and that's disturbing. Especially when the school board plans to ask the taxpayers to approve borrowing tens of millions — probably well over $100 million — for a major capital expansion project in the coming year. What they've pulled with these administrators' salary increases doesn't build trust among the tax-paying, voting public, that's for sure.
So much to think about, so little time.
My goal is to develop this blog into a provocative discussion of things going on in and around Riverhead Town. Like The News-Review, this blog is dedicated to Riverhead. If it doesn't have a "local hook," it doesn't belong.
This is different from anything I've ever done, and while I'm looking forward to watching this blog evolve, it's not without some trepidation. Will I have anything worth blogging about on a regular basis? Will it be interesting enough for people to come back to? Will it engage readers enough to spark discussion, both here and elsewhere? I'm hoping the answer to these questions is "yes."
To achieve these things, there have to be some ground rules for comments. No foul language. No nasty name calling and carping back and forth between readers. And no advertisements for businesses or politicians. I reserve the right to delete comments that violate these rules.
And away we go.
There are so many things going on, it's hard to decide what to begin with.
There's the wide-as-the-Grand-Canyon split in the local Republican party, something that's been festering for years on the Town Board, going back to the days of "the boys against the girls" Kozakiewicz administration. Now, one of the Republican councilwomen is off the ticket and the other one is being frozen out, with the local party blatantly supporting one of the candidates in the three-way council primary race.
There's the alliance of our former deputy supervisor and a sand-mine/solid waste guy with a very interesting past and her brazen appearances with him, as his business associate, at Town Hall concerning a matter — the EPCAL rail spur — she was involved in as deputy supervisor. This seems to flout the town's recently adopted ethics code and nobody in Town Hall seems to be showing any interest in doing anything about it. The supervisor even seems to be interested in defending his former deputy's behavior. Why?
Then there's the Wilpon deal, a deal this administration has been pushing since the beginning. Does it make sense for EPCAL? For Riverhead? Will the administration push this through before Election Day? RIverhead has had bad experience with deals inked in the shadow of a looming local election — the Burman deal in 1999, the Suffolk Theatre deal in 2003. Ed's thrown down the gauntlet this week, telling voters that a vote for Phil is like a vote for housing at EPCAL, while a vote for him is like a vote for jobs and tax base there. He challenged Phil to postpone any decision on Wilpon until after the election — to, in essence, make the election a referendum on the Wilpon deal. A very interesting move on Ed's part.
EPCAL, oh EPCAL. That could be a blog unto itself. Maybe it should be.
Then, as if town politics weren't enough to give us all a headache, there's the wonderful world of school politics. The school stuff is actually more intriguing. I'm still sort of dumbstruck that the school board gave our new superintendent a four-year contract extension and a hefty raise in pay before the first year of his original two-year contract was up. What is THAT about? And they also rewarded our $700-a-day interim assistant superintendent with a $50-a-day increase. (I heard they were matching an offer he got from another district.) And gave 4% pay hikes to two other assistant superintendents already making six-figure salaries.
Since these increases weren't part of any public budget discussion as far as we can tell, where'd all this extra dough — tens of thousands of dollars — come from? Ours was a "bare bones" budget, we were told before the budget vote in May. Sounds like there was significant funds squirreled away for post-budget-vote maneuvers, and that's disturbing. Especially when the school board plans to ask the taxpayers to approve borrowing tens of millions — probably well over $100 million — for a major capital expansion project in the coming year. What they've pulled with these administrators' salary increases doesn't build trust among the tax-paying, voting public, that's for sure.
So much to think about, so little time.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Entering a brave (not so) new world
I’m learning that I am, after all, something of a traditionalist.
I know that now because of the trepidation in my heart as I look at the blank posting screen on the civiletti blog on blogger.com. Truthfully, I had a hint of it when I created the civiletti blog on blogger.com a month ago. I created it, but left it empty.
I’m not sure what to do with this forum. It’s a strange concept: a sort of public diary. I’ve been an off-and-on avid journaler all my life. I don’t think I ever shared my journal writings with anyone, much less the anonymous public-at-large.
So this is scary.
It’s also intimidating because it’s unchartered territory and I’m used to doing what I do the way I’ve always done it. I’ve been churning out a 700-word essay every week, more or less, for six years. My column has a structure, a format, a time and a place. Top of page nine of The News-Review, every Thursday. This blog thing is uncomfortably amorphous. You write when you feel like you have something to say. Long, short, doesn’t matter. Topics vary. You can even post pictures.
Yep. I’m a traditionalist all right.
Now that I’ve wandered outside of my comfort zone, I have so many questions. But there are no real answers, because, in blog world, there are no real rules. At least that’s what my 13-year-old daughter tells me.
When I asked her if she knew what a blog was, she responded with a huge guffaw. Eyes rolled. Head shook. Well, duh, of course. I then learned that she has three blogs of her own. And that everybody knows what a blog is.
Except this particular 13-year-old’s embarrassingly antiquated parental unit. (That’s what she calls me, parental unit.)
I got to wondering about blogs (sure, I’d heard of them but they hadn’t become more than a fleeting blip on my radar screen) after a recent conversation with a young woman who’s just finishing college. She’s a regular writer of letters to the editor. She’s articulate, organizes her thoughts well, and she knows how to construct a sentence. I asked her if she’d be interested in a job at the newspaper. No, she replied. But she was thinking of starting her own blog about local issues and politics, she casually informed me.
There was that word again.
I started to look into this blog thing a little more. And the more I read, the more I realized the potential we traditionalists have for sitting back while the world passes you by — and you don’t even realize it’s happening.
This realization hit me like a bucket of ice water in my face. And not just because I never thought I’d be such a dinosaur about communication technology at this young age. (I can see my daughter rolling her eyes right now.) This is the direction the publishing industry is going in. This may be the future of the newsroom. And it was happening without me. I was hunkered down in my comfy little corner of the maze with Hem and Haw, and one day I’d emerge from my comfort zone and find that the cheese had moved. Vanished. Just like that.
If you’ve never read Spencer Johnson’s “Who Moved My Cheese?” you really should. It’ll make you think about how you deal with change in your life, whether it’s change at the office or at home. And there’s certainly enough change in this world to keep us all on our toes. Or left behind wondering what happened, like Hem and Haw, the mice in the “Cheese” parable who didn’t anticipate change and one day emerged from their comfort zone to find that everything was different.
And so began my thinking about my personal blog experiment, a thought process that led me to this blank screen on the civiletti blog at blogger.com.
It’s got some words on it, now. Close to 700 words in fact. The traditionalist dies hard, you see.
Meanwhile, I’ll write. Maybe not every day. But then again maybe so. I’ll blog about life in Riverhead. I’ll blog about the upcoming local elections. I may even blog about you. I’ll blog about whatever the spirit moves me to blog about, since that’s what a blog is all about.
And if I can figure it out, I’ll set it up so that you can comment on my blog, too. If I can’t, I’ll get my daughter to help me. So check it out, read all about it, and chime in. Go to civiletti.blogspot.com.
I know that now because of the trepidation in my heart as I look at the blank posting screen on the civiletti blog on blogger.com. Truthfully, I had a hint of it when I created the civiletti blog on blogger.com a month ago. I created it, but left it empty.
I’m not sure what to do with this forum. It’s a strange concept: a sort of public diary. I’ve been an off-and-on avid journaler all my life. I don’t think I ever shared my journal writings with anyone, much less the anonymous public-at-large.
So this is scary.
It’s also intimidating because it’s unchartered territory and I’m used to doing what I do the way I’ve always done it. I’ve been churning out a 700-word essay every week, more or less, for six years. My column has a structure, a format, a time and a place. Top of page nine of The News-Review, every Thursday. This blog thing is uncomfortably amorphous. You write when you feel like you have something to say. Long, short, doesn’t matter. Topics vary. You can even post pictures.
Yep. I’m a traditionalist all right.
Now that I’ve wandered outside of my comfort zone, I have so many questions. But there are no real answers, because, in blog world, there are no real rules. At least that’s what my 13-year-old daughter tells me.
When I asked her if she knew what a blog was, she responded with a huge guffaw. Eyes rolled. Head shook. Well, duh, of course. I then learned that she has three blogs of her own. And that everybody knows what a blog is.
Except this particular 13-year-old’s embarrassingly antiquated parental unit. (That’s what she calls me, parental unit.)
I got to wondering about blogs (sure, I’d heard of them but they hadn’t become more than a fleeting blip on my radar screen) after a recent conversation with a young woman who’s just finishing college. She’s a regular writer of letters to the editor. She’s articulate, organizes her thoughts well, and she knows how to construct a sentence. I asked her if she’d be interested in a job at the newspaper. No, she replied. But she was thinking of starting her own blog about local issues and politics, she casually informed me.
There was that word again.
I started to look into this blog thing a little more. And the more I read, the more I realized the potential we traditionalists have for sitting back while the world passes you by — and you don’t even realize it’s happening.
This realization hit me like a bucket of ice water in my face. And not just because I never thought I’d be such a dinosaur about communication technology at this young age. (I can see my daughter rolling her eyes right now.) This is the direction the publishing industry is going in. This may be the future of the newsroom. And it was happening without me. I was hunkered down in my comfy little corner of the maze with Hem and Haw, and one day I’d emerge from my comfort zone and find that the cheese had moved. Vanished. Just like that.
If you’ve never read Spencer Johnson’s “Who Moved My Cheese?” you really should. It’ll make you think about how you deal with change in your life, whether it’s change at the office or at home. And there’s certainly enough change in this world to keep us all on our toes. Or left behind wondering what happened, like Hem and Haw, the mice in the “Cheese” parable who didn’t anticipate change and one day emerged from their comfort zone to find that everything was different.
And so began my thinking about my personal blog experiment, a thought process that led me to this blank screen on the civiletti blog at blogger.com.
It’s got some words on it, now. Close to 700 words in fact. The traditionalist dies hard, you see.
Meanwhile, I’ll write. Maybe not every day. But then again maybe so. I’ll blog about life in Riverhead. I’ll blog about the upcoming local elections. I may even blog about you. I’ll blog about whatever the spirit moves me to blog about, since that’s what a blog is all about.
And if I can figure it out, I’ll set it up so that you can comment on my blog, too. If I can’t, I’ll get my daughter to help me. So check it out, read all about it, and chime in. Go to civiletti.blogspot.com.
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