A Community Mosaic

What a wonderful event in downtown Riverhead yesterday-- the 13th annual Community Mosaic Street Painting Festival. Lots of artists creating masterpieces with chalk pastels on the pavement of East Main Street. Vendors. A full program of music all afternoon. It was absolutely terrific.

Kudos to Pat Snyder and her staff at the East End Arts Council for producing this festival and bringing downtown Riverhead to life. Pat conceived the street painting festival when she was director of the Arts Council school of the arts, just before I became the organization's executive director. We produced the first couple of these together. (Lots of trial and error!) And oh, my, what a long way this event has come. Pat and her staff have really taken it to the next level (or two!) over the years. It's so nice to see throngs of people on our riverfront, appreciating art and music and a pleasant family-oriented afternoon. 

No, we're not anti-teacher or pro-Scricca

We're working hard at the News-Review to come to terms with new technologies and figure out how to best use them in news gathering and reporting. We've enhanced the Web site in some ways already, but later this year we'll be launching a completely new site ¬­-- now in development -- that will be much more powerful, more interactive, and easier and more fun to use.

Among the enhancements we've made to our existing site is the ability of site users to comment on stories. This is supposed to help get a dialogue going in the community and (I think) improve communication between readers/users and the newspaper staff.

"Experts" tell us we (at the paper) should respond to people's comments online. We haven't done that yet. Lack of time is probably one reason why not. But as reporters and editors, we don't much like the idea of getting into debates with people about the issues we cover. Reporters of course have opinions about the subjects of the stories they write. But generally, they're supposed to keep those opinions to themselves. That's tough in the community newspaper business, where newspaper editors often double as reporters. We don't have editorial departments per se, so editors can't avoid writing editorials and opinion columns. It can get tricky. We have to be very careful about not letting our opinions seep into our news reports. Most of the time, I think, we do OK.

In spite of our sensitivity to such matters and redoubling our efforts to make sure we play news items down the middle -- especially if it's something we've opined about on the commentary pages -- people are cynical. Indeed, their level of cynicism sometimes amazes me. When people are passionate about a point of view, they tend to forget that reasonable people can, in fact, disagree.

Our editorials the past two weeks -- and the comments made about them on our Web site -- illustrate this point. (Though I should point out that in the case of education coverage, the reporter, Tim Gannon, never writes editorials, and the editors never do any reporting.) We published editorials on the proposed school budget and school board candidates. In them, we disagreed with some of the opinions expressed by the teachers' union.

"This paper seems to have fallen under Scricca's spell," wrote one anonymous poster on our site.

"Is Dr. Scricca writing these editorials herself? With the half truths that have been written in these last two editorials, it seems so. She definitely has someone's ear at the News-Review," wrote another, also anonymously.

Nobody, anywhere, has anyone at the News-Review under any spell. And certainly no one but us is writing our editorials. No one but our staff ever even sees them before publication.

Can't reasonable people disagree? And can't disagreement be expressed and debate undertaken without people smearing those who express opposing points of view?

I'm afraid the mode of communication on the Internet, with the proliferation of anonymous messages like this on Web sites, has debased public discourse -- even more than the 24-hour cable "news" networks had already done with their endless, mind-numbing offerings of people shouting at one another about this or that. That, to my mind, is a very unfortunate result of this new communication technology. When people don't have to take responsibility for what they say by putting their name to it, people will say all kinds of things. That's why we don't publish anonymous letters in our newspaper. And, although our editorials are not "signed," they are written by editor Michael White or me, or, more often, by both of us in collaboration.

For the record, I think the superintendent seems earnest, hardworking and smart. She seems to be doing a pretty good job in a tough situation. That doesn't make me anti-teacher or even insensitive to their plight. My children have had some truly wonderful, amazing and dedicated teachers in the Riverhead school district. And some of them have used their classroom as a soapbox for espousing opinions about their contracts, the administration and the school board. One of them recently complained in class that my daughter's mother's newspaper was "anti-teacher." That kind of thing is just plain inappropriate. Nobody should be pulling our kids into the union-administration tug of war -- even if the kid happens to be the daughter of the newspaper publisher.

Call me idealistic, but I'd like to see the administration, teachers and parents all work together toward the common goal of giving our children the best education we possibly can, within our district's financial means. There's been way too much "politics" for way too long in the Riverhead school district -- to the point of dysfunction. And in that kind of situation, the best interests of the kids can get lost in the shuffle.

Freedom of information, but at what cost?

A funny thing happened in Riverhead Town Hall during "Sunshine Week" last month. Our town government tried to pull the curtains shut. Funny? Not really. Ironic? Yes. Especially when Supervisor Phil Cardinale touts the value of open government and signs e-mails with a quote from Justice Louis Brandeis: "Sunshine is the best disinfectant."

Let me explain.

In researching a story on Gov. David Paterson's plans to cut spending on the state's Empire Zone program, reporter Tim Gannon submitted a Freedom of Information Law request for annual reports filed by businesses receiving Riverhead/Suffolk County Empire Zone credits. The plan announced by the governor would have pumped up the required job creation and investment minimums for these businesses, and we wanted to see where our local Empire Zone beneficiaries stood on these criteria. So Tim filed the FOIL request asking to review the records.

Tim was later told that since the records he requested had the businesses' tax ID number on them, which is "confidential," he couldn't simply look at the records in the town's file. They would have to be copied and "redacted" to remove the tax ID numbers.

Accordingly, the 25-cents-per-page copying fee provided by the state's FOIL law would be charged. Since the reports we wanted to review totaled 522 pages, we'd have to pay copying charges of $130.50. In addition, he was told, we would have to pay for three hours of one employee's wages, plus benefits, for the time it would take to copy the records. That would be an additional $178.49. Grand total to inspect reports required by law to ensure accountability to the taxpaying public: $309.

The person in our town's "open government" conveying this news to Tim was none other than the town's "FOIL appeals officer," deputy town attorney Dan McCormick.

The law is plain: "the fees for copies of records which shall not exceed twenty-five cents per photocopy not in excess of nine inches by fourteen inches, or the actual cost of reproducing any other record" which can include "the hourly salary attributed to the lowest paid agency employee who has the necessary skill required to prepare a copy of the requested record."

Incidentally, the cost of reproducing those "other records" is limited to "salary" and does not include benefits. Not incidentally, if the hourly wage (even with benefits) of "the lowest paid ... employee" at Town Hall "who has the necessary skill required" to run pages through a copier and cross out a tax ID number is 60 bucks an hour ($178.49 divided by three), it's easy to understand why the cost of government is out of control. But that's another column.

Think about it. In order to look at records the very purpose of which is accountability to taxpayers, the government demanded $309 -- misinterpreting a law written to ensure public access to records.

The public shouldn't have to pay one red cent to look at those records and see if Empire Zone businesses are doing what they're supposed to be doing with our tax dollars. Forcing the public to pay more than $130 in copying fees (never mind the illegally demanded $178.49 for staff time to do the copying) is contrary to everything the disclosure laws are supposed to accomplish. What's the point of requiring public disclosure if the government can effectively prevent the public from the information being disclosed by charging exorbitant fees to access the information?

Bob Freeman, the executive director of the state's committee on open government -- a post he's held since its inception more than 30 years ago -- said Riverhead is all wet. The law doesn't require the town to "redact" tax ID numbers for corporations. The public has the right to inspect the reports and shouldn't be forced to pay for copies of them. And if copies are requested by the public, the town has no right to charge staff salary costs to make the copies.

But the town's FOIL appeals officer doesn't get it. He even argued with Mr. Freeman and insisted to us that it's Freeman who doesn't know what he's talking about. McCormick agreed to waive the staff salary charge "this time" but said he "reserved the right" to impose this charge in the future. He said he would research the matter further.

So editor Michael White took this up with Phil Cardinale, figuring he's got a loose cannon in the town attorney's office and that, believing in open government as much as he says he does, the supervisor would want to straighten him out. Mike asked for assurance that McCormick would be set straight and wouldn't pull this with members of the public seeking access to public documents. Instead of an assurance, the supervisor sent Mike a lawyerly response saying that McCormick "acknowledged" the legal charge was 25 cents per page.

"It has been my intent since I became supervisor to keep town government open and to err on the side of greater openness," Mr. Cardinale wrote in an e-mail.

Now the supervisor needs to make sure his FOIL appeals officer walks the walk. Judging from another citizen's recent experience with Mr. McCormick on a FOIL issue (see Guest Spot, below), I'd say either McCormick still doesn't get the "sunshine is the best disinfectant" stuff -- or Cardinale is saying one thing and doing something else.

If you've experienced difficulty accessing public records in Town Hall, or if you've been told you had to pay copying and salary charges just to see records, I'd like to know.

Send me an e-mail: denise@timesreview.com.

When a church says 'enough'

The Open Arms soup kitchen had been serving a hot meal each weekday to hungry and often homeless people in the fellowship hall at First Congregational Church in downtown Riverhead for the past 16 winters. To many served by this program, supported largely by donations, that meal was their only meal of the day. The hour or two during which the church opened its doors was, for many, their only chance to sit in a warm room, sheltered from the cold, snow and rain.

On Oct. 1, 2008, the church trustees sent Open Arms a letter ordering the soup kitchen to vacate its premises by Dec. 31. No explanation was provided.

Zona Stroy, a retired IBM executive who heads up Open Arms' volunteer board, was puzzled by the termination notice, as there had never been any problems at the site, she told me last week. So she called the chairman of the trustees -- twice, leaving a message each time, she said. Her calls were not returned.

Ms. Stroy said she learned by reading this newspaper that the church trustees hoped to rent out the space for more money, possibly for use as a day-care center. She remains baffled that Open Arms was never even asked if it could pay a higher rent before it was told to leave. (It's been paying $125 per month.)

Clearly, Ms. Stroy concluded, the church just wanted the soup kitchen out.

Resigned to that fact, Ms. Stroy wrote a letter to the trustees last month asking if the church would extend Open Arms' occupancy of the space until the end of March, offering to pay a higher monthly rent.

Again, no reply.

I called the new chairwoman of the trustees myself last week and left a message on her home answering machine. I never got a call back either.

Ms. Stroy has since wrangled temporary use of the unoccupied Riverhead railroad station to distribute cold sandwiches and coffee, supplied by Suffolk County Community College's culinary school for $2 per person. About 80 people have been showing up for lunch at the train station. At $2 a head, it's costing Open Arms much more to feed the hungry than before. The group has use of the train station until April. Ms. Stroy is searching out other locations, so far without luck. And she's desperately seeking financial support. (Open Arms is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit. In addition to the soup kitchen, it operates a food pantry out of space donated to it by First Baptist Church on Northville Turnpike.)

I used to be a member of First Congregational Church. I was enticed to join by its former pastor, the Rev. Donna Schaper. We became good friends during her tenure there (late 1980s-early 1990s) and remain so to this day. She struggled as a pastor with the sometimes conflicting needs of a church congregation versus those of the world at large.

Whose church is it anyway? Does it "belong" to the families who attend services there on Sunday and support its maintenance with their weekly donations? Does it exist to tend to their needs? Or is its function to reach out beyond the congregation, to touch the lives and hearts of others, to care for the poor and the hungry among us?

These are not new questions. Some 20 years ago, Donna went head-to-head with church trustees who objected to her practice of allowing homeless people to sleep in the church office on frigid winter nights. And First Congregational is not alone in wrestling with this basic issue. At least it wrestles. Some church congregations don't even find themselves discussing such questions.

Meanwhile, the hall at First Congregational Church sits empty at mid-day. Plans to use the space as a day-care center, if they exist, are in the very earliest stages and months from fruition. There was no good reason to kick Open Arms -- and the hungry -- out into the cold this winter. Especially not this winter, in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, when the needs of the poorest among us grow greater each day, and the number of people needing help is also escalating.

Copyright 2009 Times/Review Newspapers Corp.

You gotta love Riverhead

What a game! What a team! What a season! What a town!
Saturday’s Long Island championship game was classic 2008 Riverhead Blue Waves football. A romp, effectively wrapped up in the first half. It seemed like every Waves possession ended in a Waves touchdown. Give the ball to Miguel, put six points up on the board. Two Maysonet TDs separated by — what — 11 seconds?
But, in classic Blue Waves style, Maysonet was only the beginning. There was Gilliam. There was Moore. There was Velys. And LaGue. And Fitzgerald. And Meyer. And the rest of the undefeated championship team.
Let’s not forget Coach Shay, who’s come a long, long way from being “reassigned” in 2007 for covering up the lens of a security camera in the gymnasium.
But this isn’t about football, exactly.
This is more about what Saturday meant to Riverhead and about my adopted home town.
Saturday, Riverhead kicked butt.
In a big way.
There was the 42-6 score posted on the board at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium at Stony Brook University.
But the story of Riverhead’s triumph was told in the stands and in the parking lot almost as much as it was told on the field.
Riverhead turned out to support the home team. The Riverhead crowd filled up most of two levels of the stadium seating. (In contrast, the turnout for our rivals on the gridiron, not counting Elmont’s excellent marching band, fit into one section of the one-level bleachers across the field.) But — and this is the really cool part — the Riverhead crowd wasn’t there just because it was the L.I. championship game. No, no. Riverhead’s “road” crowd — the people who turn out to watch “away” games — is as big or bigger than any other team’s “road” crowd in the league. There are the parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles of team members. And then there are the people like Tony James, star of a Waves team of more than 30 years ago, in the stands every week, ringing a bell, shaking a tambourine and shouting out words of advice and encouragement to current team members on the field. And the teachers, administrators and staff. And the people who come just because … it’s Riverhead, their team, their town.
Riverhead, the much-maligned, often dumped-on putative seat of Suffolk County government. Riverhead, the little town that couldn’t.
Oh, yes, we can. Yes, we can. And we do.
Whether it’s Blue Waves football or any one of a host of other teams, clubs and groups in our school district (for example, our award-winning Latinists, our nationally recognized, exemplary Council for Unity, our award-winning choirs, to name a just a few), Riverhead’s young people shine. They excel. They do us proud. Every day.
They are children of honest, hardworking people who live in a community that still has a soul, a sense of place, an identity — increasingly precious commodities in the modern world.
The magic this weekend — the players on the field and the people in the stands ­­— reminded me all over again why Riverhead is such a great place to live and raise a family.
Thank you, Blue Waves. And congratulations.
Ms. Civiletti invites you to join a discussion of this topic at civiletti.blogspot.com. Her e-mail address is denise@timesreview.com.

Steve Levy, quit dumping on Riverhead

Wake up, Riverhead! What's it going to take to get the people of this community to rise up and tell County Executive Steve Levy we're not going to stand for being a dumping ground for the county's homeless sex offenders and we're not going to tolerate any more bull?

How about this? The county is now planning to replace the cots in the trailer with bunk beds, so the county can double up the number of men "living" in the trailer? (See story in the Oct. 9 edition of The News-Review.) That will allow twice as many sex offenders to live in the trailer.

Stack 'em up and pack 'em in, Stevie boy. Thank you very much.

When the county first set up house for homeless sex offenders in a trailer in the parking lot of the county jail in Riverside in early 2007, county officials told this community the trailer was going to be moved from one location in Suffolk County to another.

Bull chips. It hasn't budged.

Despite complaints from residents and town officials, not only did the county keep the trailer here, it brought in an even bigger one, so it could house even more homeless sex offenders. Now 16 convicted sex offenders, some of them bearing the "violent sex offender" designation and the vast majority of whom are deemed "level three" by the state, or at high risk of repeating their heinous crimes -- many of them against little children -- call that trailer home.

When residents and town officials complained, because this concentration of dangerous sex offenders, thanks to the County of Suffolk, was living within walking distance of the library and several public schools, county officials told us not to worry. The sex offenders were kept locked up in the trailer at night under the watchful eye of private security guards behind a secure fence (even though the men are not, technically, in jail) and during the day they are taken in a county van to their "home" social services offices.

More bull chips. The "secure" fence has a gaping hole in it and a wide-open gate through which anyone can stroll, any time. (They're fixing it now, they say.)

Well, we asked, what about on weekends and holidays, when county offices are closed? What happens then?

On weekends, the county spokes-hack tells us, the men are driven up-island to shower at an industrial complex whose location the county refuses to disclose.

All right, that's half a day. What about the other day-and-a-half every weekend? And the trailer's got no kitchen. What do they do for meals?

Humminna ... humminna ... humminna...

The needle on the bull chip meter just went wild.

The county rejected my idea of moving the trailer to land outside the county's minimum security jail in Yaphank -- a very good idea, if I do say so myself -- because the Yaphank site is undergoing a $150 million renovation that "makes it impossible" to place the trailer there.

Wanna bet this is just more bull?

And now, in the add-insult-to-injury department: bunk beds, so the county can squeeze 40 men in a trailer now equipped to house only 20.

Remember, folks, the county trailer came into being because other communities -- Coram and Mastic -- objected loudly to the large number of registered sex offenders in county housing within their borders. Mr. Levy's solution was to put them in a trailer and rotate the trailer around the county. It would be moved every week or two, we were told at the time.

Social Services deputy commissioner and Jamesport resident Greg Blass (our former county legislator, one-time Family Court judge and the husband of Councilwoman Barbara Blass) told The New York Times in February 2007 that the trailer would be rotated around county-owned sites "in large, undeveloped areas away from communities."

Uh, like downtown Riverhead?

"[Sex offenders] have tended to locate permanently in places where they were placed in temporary shelters," Mr. Blass was quoted in The Times. "This lets us avoid making any one area a haven for sex offenders. It's an attempt to prevent saturation."

Except saturation is OK if it's in Riverhead.

Mr. Levy, a Democrat cross-endorsed by the Republicans last time out, thinks he is politically invulnerable; he certainly doesn't think he needs Riverhead's votes. He believes he can do whatever suits him.

And right now, dumping on Riverhead suits the county executive just fine. It's convenient, and not too many voters seem to give a damn. This is Riverhead, after all. We're used to it.

Besides, Stevie figures what better place to dump all the county's homeless sex offenders than a town where a convicted sex offender once headed up the Business Improvement District and actually ran for supervisor? We must be a very tolerant place.

C'mon, people, make some noise.

Copyright 2008 Times/Review Newspapers Corp.

MEET THE HOMELESS SEX OFFENDERS THE COUNTY DUMPED IN RIVERHEAD NOT FAR FROM YOUR CHILD'S SCHOOL

These are the registered sex offenders currently housed in the Dept. of Social Services trailer in the parking lot of the county jail in Riverside, on Route 24, according to the NYS sex offender registry. There are presently 17 men living in the trailer, dumped there by the county (beginning in 2007), a stone's throw from Riverhead library and within walking distance to two public elementary schools, an intermediate school, a middle school and a high school. Eleven of these men were convicted of sex crimes against children, as indicated below.

I've posted their information and mug shots here so you can see for yourself, educate your children and, I hope, complain to County Executive Steve Levy for using Riverhead as a dumping ground for the county's homeless sex offenders. It's dangerous and it's just plain wrong. (My editorial about this situation is posted below.)

Speak out. Call Steve Levy at 853-4000 or e-mail him at county.executive@suffolkcountyny.gov.

Under state law, the court classifies sex offenders according to the risk of them committing another sex crime.

• Level one (low risk);
• Level two (medium risk); and
• Level three (high risk).

Andre Briggs (aka Andre Greene)
DOB 8/3/1963
Level 2
black; 5-11; 170;
5/31/1986- sodomy 1st degree, rape 1st degree, sexual abuse 1st degree
female, unknown age

************************
Donald Brown (aka Donald Evans)
DOB 6/26/1982
Level 3
black; 6-0; 207
1999- sodomy 1st degree
victim female, 8 yrs. old


************************
Carmine Califano
DOB 7/31/1962
Level 3
white; 5-9; 185
brown hair, green eyes
sexually violent offender
1992- sodomy 1st degree, sexual abuse 1st degree,
victim female 11 yrs old


************************

Luis Casanova
DOB 3/22/1953
Level 3
black; hispanic; 5-3; 185
black hair, brown eyes
3/8/2001 - use of a child less than 17 in a sexual performance
sexual abuse 1st degree
possessing a sexual performance by a child less than 16
victim female, 13 y/o

************************
Anthony Consolazio
DOB 4/14/1968
Level 3
white; 5-6; 165; blonde hair green eyes
sexually violent offender
course of sexual conduct against child
sodomy 3rd degree
victims male, 10 yrs old; male, 15


*************************
Eric Gallon
DOB 9/9/1983
Level 3
black; 5-8; 185

2002- rape 2nd degree
victim female, 14 y/o

************************
Eric Greaves
DOB 2/15/1982
Level 3
white; 6-0; 135; brown hair, brown eyes
2002- rape 2nd degree




************************
Robert Harris
DOB 10/16/1963
Level 3
black; 5-6; 185
2006- rape 2nd degree
victim female 13 yrs old




************************

Joseph Milnes
DOB 8/16/1953
Level 3
white; 5-9; 175; brown hair, blue eyes
2000- attempted rape 1st degree
victim female, 18 yrs old



************************
Raul Oquendo
DOB 5/2/1967
Level 2
white; hispanic; 5-7; 155; black hair, brown eyes
2006- rape 2nd degree
Victim female, 11 yrs old




************************
Louis Reyes
DOB 9/9/1954
Level 3
white; hispanic; 5-10; 195; brown hair, brown eyes
sexually violent offender
1996- rape 1st degree, female, 33 y/o




************************
Lucas Rivera
DOB 9/7/1961
Level 3
white; hispanic; 5-10; 160; brown hair, brown eyes
predicate sex offender
attempted sodomy 3




******************************
Daniel Rosenblad
DOB 5/25/1964
Level 2
white; 5-10; 160; blonde hair, blue eyes
sexual abuse 1st degree
victim male, 7 yrs old


******************************
Raul Torres
DOB 12/31/1965
Level 3
white; hispanic; 5-11; 215; brown hair, hazel eyes
sexually violent offender
sexual abuse 1st degree
victim female, 6 yrs old


********************************
Robert Trocchio
DOB 2/24/1963
Level 3
white; 5-6; 177; black hair, hazel eyes
1982 sodomy 1st degre



************************

Jermaine Walton
DOB 6/20/1974
Level 3
black; 5-8; 155; black hair, brown eyes
sexually violent offender
sexual abuse 1st
victim female younger than 17 yrs old

****************************
I've also mapped out the registered sex offenders living in the 11901 zip code (on both sides of the Peconic) other than those who are incarcerated at the county jail or living in the DSS trailer. (See below.)

Please note this information is current as of today, and is subject to change DAILY. Under Meghan's Law, the police must notify the school district when a registered sex offender moves into the district. The district notifies its residents. The notification is not taking place regarding the homeless men in the county trailer, because, as social services recipients, they have a right to confidentiality, according to the county executive's spokesman. Good for them, bad for our kids.

If you click on the blue pins, you will see the registered sex offenders name, classification and conviction information.


View Larger Map

Oh, for the love of Vinny

Vinny Nasta, artist and educator who died this week in a plane crash at age 46 (see stories at riverheadnewsreview.com), is gone from this life far too soon, but he continues to teach, inspire and make people love, laugh and learn

I knew Vinny for many years, though not very well. Back when, as director of the East End Arts Council, I dealt with Vinny when he'd mount at least one exhibit of student work in our gallery every year. Deal with him but once, and you knew how deeply he cared for his pupils. They were more than pupils to Vinny. And he was more than a teacher to them.

This week, as I read through messages posted on the wall of a Facebook group created in his memory, and interviewed students and former students of this affable, fun-loving and passionate man, I encountered the same statements over and over again. It was almost eerie, as if they were all reading from the same script -- a testament to the breadth and depth of his commitment to youth and his passion for teaching.

From the teens in Riverhead, to the college students and the alumni artists, photographers and businessmen and women across the country and across the globe, their voices were one:

He was more than a teacher to me. He was one of my best friends. He was like my big brother. He was like my father. He made me believe in myself. He encouraged me more than anyone. He made me understand that I could accomplish something. I wouldn't have gone to college if it weren't for Mr. Nasta. I wouldn't be an artist today if it weren't for Mr. Nasta. He understood me. He cared about me. He cared about everyone. He would do anything for anyone. He was always there for me. He listened. He cared. He cared. He cared.

The intensity and the depth of love and grief that poured forth this week from the young people whose lives Vinny Nasta touched over the past 17 years at Riverhead High School was one of the most startling and moving things I've ever experienced as a journalist.

Their love for this man and the pain they felt at his untimely passing united them, and "the thing Mr. Nasta loved" -- as Erika Haas, the Riverhead High School junior who started the Facebook site in his memory, put it -- technology, gave them the means by which to come together to express that love and pain.

"I thought it was only fitting," Erika answered when I asked what made her set up the Facebook site, "to use the thing Mr, Nasta loved, technology, to create a memorial to him."

She set it up Monday morning, and by time the Duchess County Sheriff's Office, later that morning, officially released the name of the pilot killed at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome on Sunday afternoon, the "In Loving Memory of Vincent Nasta" Facebook group had more than four dozen members. Its numbers steadily climbed throughout the day Monday and Tuesday. As I write this Wednesday morning, it's 371 people strong, and growing still. Its members are almost all Riverhead students and alumni, representing almost every graduating class between 1995 and 2010, every class touched by Vinny Nasta. While most were students in his classes, not all had that honor. You didn't have to be one of his students to be one of his kids -- another oft-repeated refrain of the people who knew Vinny best, his kids.

Vinny's room was a place of refuge as well as learning, a haven where kids who might not otherwise have found their way through adolescence could "chill with Nasty." It was a place where they could belong, share their feelings, express their fears, laugh out loud, and feel good about themselves. Vinny's room was a place where kids dared to dream, and learned to soar.

"Fly high, Nasta," wrote Riverhead alum Sean Rachubka, "fly high."

The halls of Riverhead High School will be a little darker without Vinny Nasta's bright smile and warm presence, but, as his friend and colleague Frank Yolanga wrote, "Heaven just got a little bit brighter."

Copyright 2008 Times/Review Newspapers

What to do about Zimbler

David Zimbler didn’t stand a chance. Before he even crossed the threshold of the high school’s main entrance last year, he was a marked man.

His predecessor, Jim McCaffrey, was beloved by students, faculty, staff and parents alike, which may have been an unprecedented feat for a principal at Riverhead High.

Last year, when the new superintendent brought with her a new principal to replace Mr. McCaffrey, a retired principal serving as an interim, with one year remaining on his three-year contract, there was an uproar. The kids wanted no part of the new guy. I know this because I have two children in the high school, and they were as unhappy with the change as were all of their friends.

Everything Mr. Zimbler did or said was unpopular with the kids, whose opinions, I found, were often shaped by comments of teachers in the classroom criticizing the administration for this or that policy or rule. Students even started a Facebook group called something like “David Zimbler ruined Riverhead High School.” The group on the popular social networking Web site was formed within weeks of the beginning of the last school term. Talk about a rush to judgment.

By the end of the school year, while Mr. Zimbler was still no Mr. McCaffrey, it seems a lot of the skepticism and resistance his presence inspired had worn away — at least among the kids. Some teachers, I think, may be another story.

But Mr. Zimbler made a “bad decision” on June 13, as he says in his letter to the community sent to The News-Review for publication this week. (See page 8.)
A really bad decision. One of the worst decisions anybody can make. He drank alcohol and got behind the wheel of a car.

While Mr. Zimbler now faces public humiliation and possible disciplinary action, or worse — his career may be on the line — he is a very lucky man. Driving while intoxicated on June 13, Mr. Zimbler was lucky he didn’t hurt or kill someone. Anybody who drives while under the influence of alcohol or drugs without hurting or killing someone is lucky. People are hurt or killed by drunk drivers every day.

Yet people keep drinking and driving. Lots of people. People you know. People you love. People you respect. Maybe even you.

I know I’ve done it. I have driven home from parties or nights out with friends after having imbibed alcohol and might have flunked a Breathalyzer test had I been stopped by a cop. I don’t know for sure, but I’m willing to bet I’ve taken the same risk that David Zimbler took on June 13 and didn’t get caught. I, too, was lucky — not that I didn’t get caught but that I didn’t hurt someone, or take someone’s life. May God forgive me my stupidity.

Now I’m no party animal, and I don’t take risks the way I did when I was younger. But before we tar and feather David Zimbler, we’d all best look within. Even if you’ve never had a drink in your life, haven’t you ever made a mistake or done something incredibly stupid that you regret? Who hasn’t?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not minimizing the seriousness of Mr. Zimbler’s offense, or the stupidity of his action. I’m not suggesting school officials look the other way or give him a slap on the wrist. As high school principal, he is supposed to be a role model for our children. But as a human being, he’s fallible, and in his fallibility he can also be a role model — by admitting his error, as he’s done, and by talking about it very frankly and openly with his students. And if he has an alcohol abuse problem — something none of us is in the position to know right now — he can be a role model by admitting that, talking about it, seeking help and talking about that, too.

Our kids need to hear adults admit we’re not perfect. They need to learn from us how to admit to making mistakes. They need to learn from us how to face the consequences of our mistakes and bad decisions. They need to learn from us that it’s all right to seek help, if we need it, to deal with substance abuse issues.

David Zimbler has an opportunity to teach kids these important lessons. It sounds like he gets it. We should encourage him as he works through this and encourage him to be that role model in the process.

The district administration and school board also have an opportunity to use this bad situation to accomplish something good. It should break with precedent and be forthright about what the principal did and what action it’s taking to discipline him — as well as how it’s working to prevent other teachers and administrators from making the same mistake. The “no comment, this is a personnel matter” response doesn’t serve anyone well in this situation, least of all the kids.

Finally, the rest of us should be on the lookout for people who will seek to exploit this terrible circumstance to further their own agendas. You will recognize them and what they are trying to do. We should all insist — also breaking with precedent — that reason prevail in Riverhead.

e-mail: denise@timesreview.com.

Copyright 2008 Times/Review Newspapers Corp.

Blues on the riverfront

The 10th Annual Riverhead Blues Festival seems to be a smash success. Great day yesterday. Fantastic lineup of talent. The closing band last night was just awesome. Tonight will rock again, with fireworks after the show.

Stop by the Times/Review tent on the riverfront side of the venue (right next to the LI Blues Society tent). We've got a guitar hero contest going on and (FREE) raffles for a $150 Stop & Shop gift card and 4 tickets to a LI Ducks baseball game. We're also giving away caps, pens, pads and SUNSCREEN.

Bluesfest is a fantastic riverfront party. There should be at least one more riverfront party like this every summer. It proves that if you give people a REASON to come to downtown Riverhead, they will flock there in droves.

Pavilion could be misstep

I honestly don't relish the role of contrarian. Really. Especially when it means contradicting opinions expressed on our own editorial page. As co-publisher and executive editor, you'd think I'd fully support every point of view that appears under the "editorial" banner on page 8. But there's room for disagreement on our editorial board. And there's always room for reconsideration.

Though The News-Review has given its "tentative support" to the BID's riverfront pavilion concept, it was, in my personal opinion, premature to do so.

And I'm not simply expressing reservations about either the initial design offered by BID architect Martin Sendlewski or the revised rendering unveiled at a Town Board work session two weeks later.

I'm not sure that a pavilion is needed on the riverfront and I'd hate to see the town get locked into something that may prove to be more of an impediment to riverfront development than an asset. I can appreciate the frustration of downtown merchants, which makes them susceptible to a "something, anything" kind of desperation. But feelings of desperation don't make for good long-term planning.

I'm not opposed to the riverfront as a concert venue. It's a perfect concert venue. Easily accessed by both forks and eastern Brookhaven, it has plenty of space and is surrounded by ample (free) public parking. I've personally been directly involved in planning and producing numerous concerts on the riverfront, dating back to my days with the East End Arts Council -- everything from Dizzie Gillespie to the American Wind Symphony Orchestra, which sailed into town on a huge concert barge for a riverfront concert, complete with fireworks, a decade ago.

The arts attract people. And there's no disagreement that people are what downtown Riverhead needs most.

Check out what's going to happen downtown this very weekend. The 10th annual Riverhead Blues Festival will be staged on the riverfront, and downtown will be transformed.

So it's really rather a no-brainer (even in my beloved adopted "no-brainer" town) that a riverfront concert venue makes eminent good sense.

But does a pavilion provide the right kind of venue infrastructure? Not exactly. A 6,000-square-foot pavilion is not a great concert venue, except for relatively small concerts. Pavilions, though they provide shelter from raindrops, can actually make staging concerts difficult. With the band set up on a stage under a pavilion, viewing from outside the shelter is limited. The town's showmobile could no longer be used. It couldn't fit inside the pavilion, and couldn't be positioned outside the structure and still be viewable by people within the pavilion. That means a portable stage would have to be set up for each concert -- increasing production costs. The interior capacity of the pavilion is likewise limited.

The fact is, concerts are better staged at bandshells than under pavilions. In addition to providing unobstructed sight lines, bandshells provide great acoustic support -- which pavilions lack. Many years ago, there was a plan afoot to site a bandshell on the riverfront -- also a "no brainer," I thought. But Riverhead wasn't smart enough to do it. The town got bogged down in an argument over location. And the bandshell idea died.

That experience makes me hesitate to voice my concerns about the pavilion. I, too, have a sense that "this is better than nothing -- just do it, do something -- anything -- already!"

But honestly, pavilions are better structures for picnics than for concerts. Not that I have anything against picnics. But the economic development impact of a picnic just isn't the same.

And then there's the potential of this sheltered area becoming a magnet for loiterers -- or worse. Zero-tolerance or no, downtown still offers more than its fair share of unsavory characters who might see alternative uses for our nice pavilion. Enough said?

Riverhead needs to take the time to think this through and get it right. Especially since it's considering plopping this down smack in the middle of the riverfront. Which brings me to another troubling aspect of this proposal.

Is it part of a larger redevelopment plan? Getting the riverfront right means dealing with it as a whole, not doing things hodgepodge and willy-nilly. A few years back, then-Councilman Ed Densieski offered a plan to transform the riverfront with green space, eliminating the riverfront roadway, creating picnic areas, an ice rink in winter and other recreational amenities where now only asphalt exists. He had the right idea, both in terms of the overall plan and the approach.

A couple of months of "big picture" thinking and planning isn't too much to ask for a project that will shape the identity and usability of the riverfront for generation to come.

Copyright 2008 Times/Review Newspapers Corp.

Riverhead High School students shine at Music in the Parks

The high school's chamber choir won "Best Overall High School Choir" in the Music in the Parks festival at Kings Dominion, Doswell, Virginia today. They won first place and were rated "superior" by the judges.

The high school orchestra and jazz band were both rated "excellent" and the orchestra placed 2nd in the competition. The jazz band didn't compete because there were no other jazz bands in the competition, according to my trusted source, my 10th grade daughter, Katie Blasl, who's in the chamber choir.

Congratulations to all these fine musicians and their extremely dedicated teachers, Sean O'Hara, David Loddengard and Lee Hanwick.

There were some scary moments in the park late this afternoon, as a line of severe thunderstorms blew through. Nobody was injured, thankfully, but there was lightning, hail and strong winds, and the kids were in the picnic pavillion as the storm passed. The system spawned at least three tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service, which were spotted in communities to the northeast, east and southeast of the park. They were all pretty shook up.

A tornado watch remains in effect there until 9 o'clock tonight. It sounds like the park might be closed for the evening, and the students are going to go back to their hotel in Richmond. They are supposed to go back to the amusement park tomorrow morning, before boarding their buses for Riverhead mid-afternoon.

Why Riverhead revitalization has stalled

It was deja vu all over again.

I sat down to write a column about revitalizing downtown Riverhead.

And then I realized: I wrote this one already. Probably four or five times.

I'm sick of it.

We all know what's got to happen downtown. The buildings on the south side of the street have to be reoriented to the river -- or razed and rebuilt. The big parking lot along the river has to be transformed into green space -- park, band shell, walking trails, outdoor dining -- to form a walkable, livable scenic space. A multilevel parking garage must be built in the parking lot between East Main and Second streets; it will make up the parking spaces lost to the green space on the south side. People need to reinhabit downtown. They need places to live there -- decent, affordable places. Restaurants and a movie theater will draw visitors, both during the day and after dark.

And the Suffolk Theatre must reopen as a performing arts center, a community theater.

But forget it. Ain't gonna happen -- though the renaissance of similarly distressed downtown areas in Suffolk County is already well under way, thanks to these kinds of redevelopment efforts, including the conversion of old movie palaces into community theaters and performing arts centers.

Why not Riverhead?

I'll tell you why: Riverhead lacks the guts, the political will, the backbone, the verve, the audacity. It's lacking in that quality often described -- though I can't quite figure why -- as a feature of the male anatomy synonymous with bravery.

The only way these things are going to happen downtown is if Riverhead uses every weapon at hand to get rid of the bloodsuckers who are profiting from the status quo -- the absentee commercial landlords, the slumlords, the drug dealers, and, yes, the pimps.

And you don't do that by sitting in the Town Hall meeting room wringing your hands and worrying about getting sued.

The town had a real player on the hook with Apollo. (I'm using the past tense here for a reason. I think they've checked out, moved on, given it up. Just a hunch.) But the town didn't have the chutzpah to do something about the one obstacle to revitalization: Riverhead Enterprises, aka Shelly Gordon. The "Shelly Obstacle" could have been handily dispensed with. The town could have -- should have -- exercised its right of eminent domain in the name of urban renewal and condemned the properties Apollo wanted to buy on the south side of East Main Street. Such action was contemplated by the town and Apollo as a likely necessity in the "master developer" agreement signed in 2006. In anticipating moving ahead with condemnation, the town even had appraisals of Gordon's buildings made last August.

It's not a complicated process, really. The town brings the eminent domain action, gets title to the building and flips it to Apollo. Meanwhile, the court sets, by appraisal, the value of the property taken by the town. Apollo pays the town and the town pays the former owner. And he goes home to Nassau County.

Downtown's "weakest link" is gone. Goodbye.

But that would take boldness. Bravery. And b---s. Aw, never mind.

This town doesn't even have the guts to refurbish an old movie theater, much less an entire downtown.

And it shows.

So we'll sit around wringing our hands and whining about the state of downtown for who-knows-how-many years to come.

On the bright side, we've got to have something to take our minds off whining about EPCAL, right?

And maybe, just maybe, in the end, downtown doesn't matter, anyway. Does it? A colleague posed that question to me last week. Maybe revitalizing downtown really doesn't matter. What if we just let it be? Who cares? Route 58 is thriving. Why isn't that good enough?

Here's why: Route 58 is Anywhere, USA. It's the crass, soulless byproduct of global corporate commercialism. Route 58 is the same as Nesconset. Or Fredericksburg, Va. And the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. Downtown Riverhead is one-of-a-kind, warts and all. It's got character. It's got a sense of place. It's real. It's us. It, unlike the Route 58s of this world, has a soul. And wrapped up in that soul is our identity as a community. Downtown can be, should be, the very model of "smart growth" planners have nowadays grown fond of, having seen how the sprawling suburban malls have scarred the nation's landscape and robbed its soul.

That's why downtown matters. That's why it will always matter. And as long as downtown is hurting, we as a community hurt, too.

Copyright 2008, Times/Review Newspapers Corp.

EPCAL follies: the last act

Riverhead Town is in over its head at EPCAL, as various town administrations have demonstrated again and again. The proof is in the pudding. The town has presided over one bad idea and botched project after another at the former Grumman site.

The false starts and bad deals at EPCAL are for two disparate reasons, connected by one theme: short-sightedness.

First, the town has looked upon the 2,900-acre gift from the U.S. government as a cash cow, land to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Second, the town has let its fear of an airport there color everything it's done -- and not done -- with the site.

So, before the town even got title to the property, it sold off the so-called industrial core of the site -- the existing buildings and much of the infrastructure -- for just $17 million to one "developer" who turned out to be not very interested in development at all. Jan Burman was more of a middleman. He flipped the property to others so quickly -- at a handsome profit -- he didn't even bother to wait for his subdivision map to be approved.

Then the town created a bizarre patchwork of zoning for the property outside the "industrial core." This anything-but-an-airport zoning scheme is what's made the rest of the site virtually undevelopable. It calls for things like theme parks, sports stadiums, hotels and golf course condominiums. All this on a site that has no road access capable of moving thousands of cars at once, something necessary for a sports stadium or theme park. Duh.

Remember the colossal traffic jam for the air show in September 2003? There was bumper-to-bumper traffic for miles, stretching west on Route 25 from the park entrance all the way to William Floyd Parkway in Ridge, and then miles south to the Expressway. The only way to bring tens of thousands of people to a theme park at EPCAL is a direct-access road to the site from the LIE -- which requires cutting a new road through preserved Pine Barrens. Yeah, right. Maybe with climate change, hell will eventually freeze over. But that road ain't gettin' built.

The town's inability to properly develop the Calverton lack-of-enterprise park is so complete that the open fields next to the runways where Grumman used to test its F-14 Tomcat fighter jets have overgrown and are now foraging habitat for protected species. In other words, the town's paralysis over the years since it's controlled the site has been so thorough, it managed to effectively turn the former naval weapons reserve plant -- officially a "brownfields" site in need of environmental remediation -- into a nature preserve.

Congratulations, Riverhead.

Dick Amper and the environmental folks would be giving the town a conservation award for its stewardship of the site and creation of new "critical habitat" were it not for the town's insistence on selling off the rest of its holdings at EPCAL to a developer who plans to build "eight themed resorts," including a 350-foot-tall indoor ski mountain, smack in the middle of the "grasslands."

State Sen. Ken LaValle, fed up with town's shenanigans at EPCAL, is calling for regional management of the site. The town, he says, should come to grips with the fact that developing EPCAL properly is beyond its capability. He's right. The senator wants to broker a deal where the town will retain "the right to say yes or no" to development proposals at the site, but where stewardship and oversight will rest in a regional entity that has the resources to do the job correctly.

That means tax base and meaningful jobs from development compatible with the site's ecosystems and its supporting infrastructure. It can be done. Look at what's going on in and around county-run Gabreski Airport, where the county is using the Empire Zone designation (transferred out of EPCAL in 2004, by the way) to develop the Hamptons Business and Technology Park -- also in the Pine Barrens region.

Why, then, in Riverhead, do we insist on trading meaningful economic development for minimum-wage amusement park and hospitality jobs?

Ms. Civiletti invites you to join a discussion of this topic at civiletti.blogspot.com. Her e-mail address is denise@timesreview.com.

A matter of black and white

Racial segregation is alive and well in Riverhead.

It's true. Neighborhoods are mostly segregated by race. So are churches. And social circles.

And while our school system is integrated, legally and technically, the student population is, de facto, quite segregated.

There are exceptions, but they are minor. By and large, we live in a world -- and in a community -- where whites and blacks live side by side, but inhabit two very separate and distinct universes.

This has been driven home for me with disturbing clarity since the day my children started Riverhead High School. Attending various school programs, concerts and plays, you'd never know that you were in an ethnically and racially diverse school. The children on the stage and the people in the audience are nearly all white. All the time. We could be in Miller Place or some other almost-all-white community, not Riverhead.

I've peppered my daughters with questions about race relations among the students. They think I'm weird, maybe even a little obsessed. Blacks hang around with blacks, whites with whites, Hispanics with Hispanics, they report. The division is almost exclusive. They find this unremarkable. I find it astonishing. They point out that I don't have many black friends. I'm sorry to say, they are right.

But racial integration, while a technical reality, isn't any more of a social fact than it was when I was in high school in the early 1970s.

Every time I attend an event at the high school I look around at the nearly all-white audience and the nearly all-white cast or chorus or concert band or orchestra, and I wonder: why?

But at no time was this phenomenon more disquieting than last week, at a Black History Month celebration at Riverhead High School. There were four black people in the entire auditorium: one member of the chamber choir, two students -- both of whom were being honored for receiving awards from the African-American Advisory Board -- and an adult accompanying one of the student honorees. That was it.

As we sat through a slide show of photos of famous blacks -- from Frederick Douglas to Nelson Mandela to Tiger Woods -- curiously, Barack Obama was conspicuously absent -- my eyes wandered around the auditorium and I turned over the possible reasons for the all-white audience at the black history celebration at the high school last Thursday. All I could think was, "How bizarre."

OK, maybe we white people are truly more in need of black history lessons. Or maybe a black history celebration sponsored and presented by our white school district administration and teachers, complete with Negro spirituals sung by a nearly all-white choir, is something blacks would take a pass on. And why not? I can buy that. But that doesn't explain why there are so few black children in the music and drama programs at Riverhead High School.

It also says nothing about why my children's classes are almost entirely white. They are in a lot of honors and AP classes. Why is the enrollment in these courses so homogenous, so white? You can't tell me it's because minorities can't do the work. Something is wrong. There is a disconnect in our schools where race is concerned. And there has been forever. The point is, it continues. Even today. Maybe it's a reflection of the larger community, but it serves to perpetuate the status quo -- a status quo of racial, social and economic injustice.

Segregation is wrong. It is unhealthy for a society, whether it's "official" or de facto. But it's a fact of life in Riverhead even as we close out the first decade of the 21st century. The sooner we face it and come to terms with it, the sooner we can eliminate it, the better off we'll all be.

News-Review endorsements

We've got our voters guide on the News-Review Web site, with the paper's endorsements.

This wasn't easy. We hated not endorsing a candidate in the supervisor's race. Our reasoning is explained in the endorsement. Personally, I'm still not sure which lever I'm going to pull in that race.

Some people have expressed surprise about our endorsement of Ed Densieski for Highway Superintendent. That wasn't easy either. Certainly, Ed showed lack of judgment as an elected official two years ago in starting a business with Calverton sandminer/trucker Mike Cholowsky, a convicted felon. But he says he has dissolved the partnership and, while Densieski Fuel is still listed as an active corporation in N.Y., that doesn't mean the partnership with Cholowsky is still active. And there was never, at any time, any indication that Ed did anything illegal or unethical as a result of that business association.

Ed came across during the candidate interview we conducted as the better candidate, plain and simple. Gio is a heck of a nice guy. But he didn't seem to possess the vigor and verve the job is going to demand to make the changes the department desperately needs. The only reason to withhold the endorsement from Ed would have been because of his previous business partnership — and a very short-lived one, at that — with someone who has a criminal conviction in his past. That simply didn't seem fair to us.

Budget must be discussed

Budget must be discussed

Denise Civiletti

The town budget process is typically tedious but very important.

What question is more fundamental than how our elected officials spend our tax dollars — except maybe how much of our hard-earned dollars government will take for taxes? The answers to both lie in the budget.

However, budgets are easy to manipulate to the political advantage of the person controlling the budget process, the town supervisor. Every two years, you can bet the sitting supervisor, whoever he may be, presents a budget that produces the lowest possible tax rate. There's even a name for it: "election year budget," a document that uses every gimmick imaginable to keep the tax rate increase low to please voters. Often election year budgets are unrealistic. Sometimes they are downright irresponsible. Supervisors have been known to prepare budgets that purposefully underestimate known expenses, leaving it to the Town Board to restore necessary funding on crucial line items. Then the supervisor can tell potentially angry taxpayers (voters): "My budget held the line on taxes. The Town Board hiked spending and taxes." It's an unconscionable practice — and violates the supervisor's duty as budget officer — but it's the oldest "election year budget" trick in the books and one very frequently employed by sitting supervisors of all political stripes.

That's why the budget process has typically been long and, often, contentious.

Phil Cardinale prides himself on what he calls transparency in government. He's got the TV cameras rolling in every work session and regular meeting of the Town Board. That's great.

But if business is being transacted outside those televised meetings, the rolling cameras are meaningless.

I'm afraid that's the case when it comes to the fundamental question of how our town government is spending our tax dollars. The budget process Mr. Cardinale has implemented has effectively foreclosed public discussion and scrutiny of the supervisor's tentative budget. He has not held a single budget meeting with the Town Board. One is scheduled to take place, finally, at today's work session — but only because the three Republican members of the board demanded it this week. My question is: What took them so long?

Mr. Cardinale told me on Friday he had council members meet "two by two" with the town's financial administrator to discuss changes they wanted to make to the supervisor's proposed budget. (If three board members are in a meeting, it must be open to the public, you see.)

Former Supervisor Jim Stark, Mr. Cardinale's challenger in this year's election, in last week's paper accused him of "cooking the books" — overestimating revenues and underestimating expenses.

Are Mr. Stark's accusations valid, or simply political grandstanding? Who knows? Thanks to masterful manipulation of the agenda and budget process by Mr. Cardinale and a readily manipulated Town Board, which has given the supervisor a pass on this, a public vetting of the supervisor's tentative budget didn't happen in time to be meaningful for voters. And it's coming too late for the weekly press to even inform the public of the content of the preliminary budget on which the board will hold a public hearing next week (assuming the board makes changes to the supervisor's tentative plan). Please remember to check our Web site (riverheadnewsreview.com) for a story on today's meeting.

Maybe the supervisor's budget is perfect and in need of no revision. Maybe Mr. Stark is all wet when he says if the Cardinale budget is corrected we're looking at a 30 percent tax hike. (I certainly hope so.) But the supervisor was slippery and the Town Board fell flat on its face. Board members should have insisted on public scrutiny of the tentative budget right from the beginning — and not waited until the 11th hour to ask that the budget be put on a work session agenda.

Surrounding towns have opened up their budget processes as the law requires. Riverhead — ironically, under the administration of a man who claims open government as his hallmark — has gone in the opposite direction.

Save EPCAL for industry

Indoor snow mountain mega-theme park or NASCAR race track? Which one?
How about neither?
The whole EPCAL site should be reserved for industrial development. The town should put in improvements, such as roads, and subdivide it so that it’s selling industrial lots and not 700-plus acre tracts. There’s no need to unload the land there all at once. They’re not making any more land, you know. Why have a fire sale? The land is money in the bank for the next generation.
When the town sells huge chunks of undeveloped land at EPCAL to private developers, it puts the fate of its economic development zone into the hands of private businesses that only have their own financial interests at heart. Look what happened with the sale of the so-called industrial core to a private developer. He flipped title to the buildings to eager purchasers before the ink on his deed from the town was dry, before he even had an approved subdivision. He did little to improve the site. And so it remains, dubbed “the Wild West,” a truly unappealing excuse for an industrial park.
The town should revisit the reuse plan developed for the site in 1997. It’s obsolete and unworkable and so is the zoning adopted to implement it. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think it was devised in a back room specifically to make sure nothing ever happened there. It’s been one of the most effective preservation plans ever adopted.
Eliminate the recreational zoning at EPCAL and develop the former Grumman site as the cohesive, high tech, light industrial center it should be. That’s what will fulfill the purpose behind the transfer of the property to the town: to reclaim the jobs and property taxes we lost when Grumman left. No theme park or hotel or race track or any of the other silly uses will do that.
The planned recreational district, if you look at the events of the past decade, is the source of most of the EPCAL fiascos that have made Riverhead the laughingstock of Long Island — and beyond. Over the years we’ve seen every cockamamie scheme for the site imaginable. The film studio plans. The failed Field Day rock concert, which resulted in Riverhead becoming a synonym for stupidity around the world. The air show “fundraiser” that had traffic backed up on Route 25 and William Floyd Parkway from EPCAL to Exit 68 on the LIE. The phony amusement park proposed by a group of NYC accountants who submitted a hokey business plan consisting of a three-ring binder filled with pictures of rides downloaded from the Internet and a phony letter of financial backing from a German investment company where one of the principals had formerly been employed? The Indian casino, courtesy of the Shinnecock tribe. And the water ski park on a man-made lake — where excavators, in their zeal to remove valuable sand, accidently struck ground water. Oops. The plan by Ken Wilpon to build a hotel/convention center and hundreds of homes there — which fizzled just after the last election. And along the way, proposals for sand mines disguised as golf courses, and even a zoo.
You could fill a book with the things that never happened at EPCAL. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few, including at least one or two car racing complexes.
So when word came of a Scotsman proposing to build a 350-foot-tall indoor ski mountain at EPCAL, I shook my head, laughed and thought, “Yeah, sure, what’s next?” A lot of people had the same reaction. We’ve learned to take this stuff with a grain of salt. For good reason.
Will Riverhead Resorts ever really happen? If history is any guide, the answer is no. On the other hand, indoor ski trails are in operation and under construction all around the globe. They’re not as far out as you might think. But then, this is Riverhead. And Riverhead is just ... different.
Already there’s some confusion about exactly what Riverhead Resorts is planning — for real. Supervisor Phil Cardinale says the ski mountain isn’t critical to Riverhead Resports’ plan; it will go forward with its complex of multiple themed resorts with or without the artificial mountain. But the developer told L.I. Business News last week that the mountain is critical to its plan — as an “anchor” attraction. So which is it? In an interview with News-Review editor John Stefans this week, the developer’s rep tried to backpeddle, claiming he wasn’t correctly quoted in the other newspaper. The quote was “taken out of context” he told us.
But — whatever. The notion of eight theme parks at EPCAL — with or without a manmade mountain — is, to my mind, one of the more preposterous things I’ve heard proposed for the site. And that’s no small feat. How are all the people going to get there? The site has no suitable access. You think traffic on surrounding roads is bad now? Just wait. On a recent Sunday afternoon, traffic on Edwards Avenue was bumper to bumper from Route 25 to Calverton Links — nearly to the LIE! And that was just the pumpkin picking crowd.

Barbara bolts

I was not exactly surprised when Barbara Blass called to say she'd officially left the Republican party. She's been estranged for some time. Supporting Rose Sanders in the 2005 primary was the end of the line for her with many of the committee people. Some of them were gunning for her. One of them told me a few months back that he couldn't wait to "do to Barbara" what they did to Rose. Would Barbara have gotten her committee's support for a third term in 2009? Who knows? But she says she feels "free" now that she's officially split with her party. She'll be able to concentrate on her work on the board, she says. And she's looking forward to it.

Rose made the switch too. They went to the Board of Elections together on Friday. Rose sounds like she's seriously contemplating another run for office. Will there be a Blass-Sanders ticket on the Independence line in 2009? I think that's a real possibility.

Read my news story about Barbara and Rose joining the Independence Party on the riverheadnewsreview.com Web site. Click here.

Coach Shay is back

It's official. The coach is back. News-Review sports editor Bob Liepa interviewed him at practice yesterday afternoon. We've got a preview on The News-Review Web site. And the full story in tomorrow's edition.

School superintendent Diane Scricca called Coach Shay a man of character. She's right. It takes character to admit you've made a mistake and apologize for it. While covering the cameras may have been a bad example for the kids, owning up to his mistake is a great example for the coach to set. I commend him for it.

In his interview with Bob Liepa, Mr. Shay called the past month the longest month of his life. He missed coaching and teaching so much, and the anxiety of his uncertain position, all made it very difficult.

But it was a big month for him too, in a happy way. I found out yesterday the coach's wife, Christine, gave birth to their second child, a boy, Sept. 24. Congratulations.

And welcome back!