What a scene this weekend: the finest radio station studio facility on Long Island was being prepared to be dismantled. The elements of WLIU radio — microphones, file folders, CDs, etc. — were in cardboard boxes waiting to be moved. And soon, the soundproof walls and ceilings, the little rooms where on-air personalities talked, conducted interviews and played music will be reconstructed for classrooms and offices.

Deadlines have loomed for months for WLIU, the last vestige of Long Island University’s Southampton College, to leave what is now Stony Brook Southampton.

It was good that after LIU shut down Southampton College in 2005, SUNY’s Stony Brook University took over the campus.

In recent times, an East End community-based organization, Peconic Public Broadcasting, made arrangements to acquire WLIU from LIU. This way, WLIU could continue as the only locally owned and operated public broadcasting station on Long Island. This, too, was good. LIU could have gotten more money from some outside entity seeking WLIU’s license — to broadcast who knows what.

Meanwhile, there have been differing views about Stony Brook University saying WLIU had to leave its campus. Some held Stony Brook administrators should let the station stay — and provide a home for it to continue to serve eastern Long Island. But the administrators claimed the space was needed for other things. Generously, they extended deadlines for WLIU to get out.

Walking through the station Saturday, seeing the shambles of what had been a gem of a radio facility, the reality sank in of what will be a lost radio studio resource. This is not good. The WLIU studios were of remarkable design. Their construction came under the chancellorship at Southampton College of Robert F. X. Sillerman, long-time owner of many radio stations in the U.S. He took special interest in the station. Lots of money and intelligence went into building its studios.

Not too long from now, Stony Brook Southampton will have a sizeable student body — its website says “about 2,000 students are expected to enroll within five years” — and like almost every college will want a college radio station. It’s one thing for Stony Brook administrators not to want to partner with Peconic Pubic Broadcasting. But gutting this extraordinary studio space instead of saving it for a Stony Brook Southampton radio station seems so unwise.

In any event, Peconic Public Broadcasting will be endeavoring to go on. WLIU’s general manager, Dr. Wallace A. Smith, steadfast amidst the relative chaos Saturday, said “we have completed lease arrangements” for the station to move to a building at 71 Hill Street in Southampton. There had been consideration of WLIU going to the former Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton but that didn’t work out. The Hill Street site had “always been seen as an alternative location,” he said. A quirky aspect of the 2,000-square foot space is that all the walls are covered by mirrors because it had been an “exercise facility.” To deal with this, wall coverings are to be installed, Mr. Smith said.

Last month, Peconic Public Broadcasting gave LIU a $150,000 down payment towards the $850,000 sale price of WLIU. By June 30 it will have to come up with the rest of the money.

That’s hundreds of thousands of dollars that will need to be raised and rather quickly. Dr. Smith feels it is doable because “the community rallied to support our bid to acquire the license for 88.3 FM and it created Save Public Radio for the East End. We hope people in the same spirit will now rally to support us for the funds we need to complete the purchase and operate the station.”

Also, he said, there was uncertainty among some prospective backers “until we made the first payment, until we had our 501-c-3 status [as a non-profit organization eligible for tax-deductible contributions] and until we had a place to move to … Now all the pieces are together. We have a viable organization. And we are comfortable that will be able to do the fund-raising needed.”

Dr. Smith mused about a “preservationist” aspect of having WLIU go on. “This is the last available piece of broadcast spectrum on Long Island,” he said. “It’s no less a threatened species than farmland or pine barrens. This is an asset for eastern Long Island. It’s the last hope for Long Island to have its own public broadcasting station owned and operated by local people.”

In the end, the studios from where WLIU broadcasts is far less important than what it broadcasts. It will take community support to insure this continues.

I’ve always had great respect for librarians and their mission of archiving history. Through high school, I worked 20 hours a week at the Queens Borough Public Library in Jamaica. Off at college, I got into journalism and have been at it ever since, dealing with the “now” for now 50 years.

It was a thrill two weeks ago to get an e-mail from Steve Spataro, head of reference at the  East Hampton Library, about how “in the attic” of the Islip Public Library he discovered a series of 10 half-hour television programs I wrote and hosted—in 1974. They had been broadcast on WLIW-TV/21 on Long Island, WOR-TV/9 in New York City and various cable stations. Titled “Can Suffolk Be Saved?” the programs were on three-quarter inch video cassettes, now obsolete but the kind used in professional television then.

Steve found a three-quarter inch tape deck at Suffolk Community College, viewed the first tape “and when I saw Robert David Lion Gardiner, I said, ‘Oh boy’!” Then came other prominent personalities on Long Island at the time, some in government, environmentalists, and just plain people, many old-timers.

“I saw the great value that these films have,” e-mailed Steve (who is 34, not even born when the series was done). “They show the history of Suffolk County and problems that were going on in 1974 that are still affecting Suffolk County today.” He asked permission to transfer them onto a DVD and put it into circulation. As noted, I was thrilled. Some fascinating figures in these parts, many who have since passed on, could be seen and heard from again. Also the series posed a question I think is still critical today to where we live. The programs were directed by Bob Civiello, the director of a show I did at WLIW, “Long Island World.”

I predicated the series—as I explain in a “stand-up” on Gardiners Island in the first segment—on there being a line that could be drawn from Boston through Connecticut through New York City down to Washington, D.C. that might be called a “megalopolis line.” Forty to 50 miles on each side of it there was sprawl. But Suffolk County, on the eastern end of an “island jutting out into the sea,” had until then recent years been “largely exempt.”

Involved, I emphasize, is an extraordinarily delicate, bountiful, beautiful part of the world—and I present Gardiners Island as a “time capsule” of what “all of Long Island” was once like. Other exquisite, preserved areas of Long Island are highlighted.

Then, in the second program, I jump into the development pressures that began after World War II. Evans K. Griffing, the former Shelter Island supervisor and chairman of the Suffolk Board of Supervisors, speaks of public works czar Robert Moses building the Long Island Expressway and other highways encouraging rapid development of Long Island.

The first Suffolk County executive, H. Lee Dennison, tells of trying to deal with the growth in what, when he took office in 1960, was a loose confederation of towns. He blasts land speculators and declares: “I am for change if it’s wise and intelligent and careful.”

The county’s first planner, Lee Koppelman, speaks of trying to stop “uncontrolled growth” while launching preservation initiatives. From just one county park in Suffolk in 1960 (Smith Point), by 1974, he says proudly, 16,000 acres of parkland had been acquired. And in 1974 the farmland preservation program of the second Suffolk County executive, John V. N. Klein, was launched and there’s great enthusiasm for it. Says Mr. Klein, in the last, summary program: “It’s going to take gutsy action” for “Suffolk to be saved from the suburban sprawl that has consumed the metropolitan area of New York and Nassau County and western Suffolk…It’s mechanically possible; I think now it’s practically and politically possible.”

It’s been 36 years since the series. How have things gone? The county’s parkland and farmland programs have meant a lot. Huge stretches of pine barrens and the pure water below them have been preserved. But these initiatives are now under threat.

Bill Farnum, a teacher residing in a house on the bluffs in Calverton and featured in the third program, which was about the way people live in Suffolk , comments that the eastward sprawl into Suffolk stopped at Route 112. Now it extends to the William Floyd Parkway.

The DVD of “Can Suffolk Be Saved?” is available, thanks to Mr. Spataro, at the East Hampton Library and he’d be happy to arrange for copies at other libraries in Suffolk. He’s also put the start of the series on www.youtube.com.

“It’s not true that nuclear power is safe and clean — it contaminates the Earth and all living things,” declared Peter Maniscalco of Renew Community Earth last week. “Nuclear power is a zombie energy technology that they they’re trying to prop up, something that doesn’t make any sense. No private investors are willing to invest in this technology; they know it’s far too risky.”

Mr. Maniscalco of Manorville said he had wanted to vote for consumer advocate Ralph Nader for president in 2008 but finally balloted for Mr. Obama “thinking he would gain a wider plurality and that would be in the best interests. I wouldn’t vote for him again, obviously.”

Terence O’Daly of Quogue, author of the award-winning website on nuclear technology, www.AtomDays.com, said: “President Obama’s decision means that taxpayers are now going to bail out a failing nuclear industry despite its poor track record and the fact that none of the problems associated with nuclear energy have been solved…It’s a deadly gamble we simply cannot afford,” stated Mr. O’Daly, a Long Island University professor.

Candidate Obama not only was negative about atomic energy but—unusual for a politician—indicated a detailed knowledge of its threat to life. As he told the editorial board of the Keene Sentinel in New Hampshire in 2007: “We dislike the fact” about nuclear power plants that they “might blow up…and irradiate us…and kill us. That’s the problem.”

Yes, that’s the big problem with splitting the atom. Using the perilous process of fission to generate electricity with its capacity for catastrophic accidents and its production of highly toxic radioactive poisons, called nuclear waste, will always be unsafe. And it is unnecessary considering the safe energy technologies now available, solar, wind and other clean sources.

Why has Obama changed his stance? Consider his two top aides: Rahm Emanuel, now Mr. Obama’s chief of staff, who as an investment banker was in the middle of the $8.2 billion merger that created Chicago-based Exelon. With 17 nuclear plants, it’s the biggest nuclear utility in the nation. David Axelrod, a senior Obama advisor, was an Exelon consultant. Candidate Obama received sizeable contributions from Exelon executives including John Rowe, Exelon president and chief executive officer.

Forbes magazine, in its January 18 issue, in an article on Rowe and how he has “focused the company on nuclear,” displayed a sidebar headlined, “The President’s Utility.” It read: “Ties are tight between Exelon and the Obama administration,” noting the contributions and featuring Emanuel and Axelrod.

Consider Steven Chu, Obama’s secretary of the Department of Energy. He typifies the religious-like zeal for nuclear power emanating for decades from scientists in the U.S. government’s string of national nuclear laboratories. He was director of one of these, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Established in World War II’s Manhattan Project to build atomic weapons, the laboratories after the war began promoting civilian nuclear technology – and have been pushing it unceasingly ever since. It’s been a way to perpetuate the vested interest that had been created. Dr. Chu, like so many in the national laboratory system, minimizes the dangers of radioactivity. If they didn’t if they acknowledged how life-threatening the radiation produced by nuclear technology is, their favorite technology would crumble.

Mr. Obama has desperately needed information from those knowledgeable of the dangers of nuclear power—but their access to Obama has been blocked in recent times while the nuclear proponents have done their work in getting him to change position.

Mr. Obama’s change is especially meaningful here, for it was in Suffolk County that LILCO planned to build seven to 11 nuclear power plants—with the Shoreham Nuclear Power Station 1 the first. Long Island was to be turned into what the Atomic Energy Commission (succeeded by the DOE) called a “nuclear park.” Long Islanders and their representatives became educated about nuclear power and stopped Shoreham and ended that multi-plant scheme. In the process, LILCO was eliminated. Does Mr. Obama have the wisdom and courage to hear from scientists and energy experts who can refute the pro-nuclear arguments that have apparently influenced him?

This is the winter I will remember for the snow and what that snow did to, yes, my finger. It also marked my entry into the world of finger and hand therapy on Long Island. Who knew that even existed?

It’s not all the fault of the snow. Amber had a role. Amber, our little indoor cat, likes to dash outside and swallow grass which, once back inside, she spits out. (I’m told that this is a common cat routine, a way to eject fur balls.) On this December morning, Amber’s quest for grass made absolutely no sense considering everything outside was covered with snow after our first big storm.

Amber cut between me and the front door which I had just opened. I tried to grab her with my right hand but I took a misstep and stumbled. The middle fingers on my right hand came down hard on the arm of a chair on the front porch. Ouch! I’ve been told since that I had “jammed” my fingers (ring finger and middle finger) in an injury not uncommon to basketball players.

The snow problem came in a few hours later. My wife was attempting to get her car out of the driveway but it couldn’t get traction because of the ice. We thought some sand might help.

With my right hand I grabbed a plastic barrel filled with sand, part of a pool filter system, and tried to drag the barrel up and out of a snow bank—to then get at the sand inside.

In the process, one of those hurt fingers (the ring finger) dislocated. I never thought fingers could do this. I thought fingers were firmly attached to you. But at the middle knuckle it separated. The top half of the finger hung there. I thought I had broken the finger. This was both scary and painful. I shoved the separated parts of the finger back together.

Then I called the wonderful orthopedic surgeon, Dr. John Hubbell, who had cared for me the last time I screwed up a body part. That was two years ago when I slipped on pebbles on a driveway at a yard sale (another potentially dangerous venue) and tore through the quadriceps muscle and knee tendons of my left leg. Dr. Hubbell performed an operation putting my leg back together again.

Now it was the finger. Dr. Hubbell’s office included victims of the snow and ice. He said an operation would not likely be needed this time. He fashioned a metal-and-foam splint on to the finger, “buddy-taped” it to my middle finger, and then secured everything with gauze. Over time, there should be recovery, he assured me.

That seemed to be the case when, a couple of weeks later, I did a stupid thing. I decided to take the splint and gauze off, to let my hand get some air, while I went to the post office.

At the Sag Harbor Post Office, with my left hand I held the door open for Deering Yardley, the distinguished and amiable director of funeral homes in Sag Harbor and East Hampton. In return, as a gesture of friendship and with no idea I had an injured hand, he shook my right hand—firmly. Crunch. It was a funeral for my finger!

I must have jumped up a foot. Mr. Yardley was upset. (Since this happened, if there is any possibility of anybody shaking my right hand, I have it fly to my back and extend my left hand.)

Meanwhile, the finger had gotten accidentally re-injured. It was no longer straight but now kind of s-shaped. It was back to Dr. Hubbell. This time the prescription was finger therapy. Dr. Hubbell recommended someone he described as THE finger and hand therapist in these parts, Neil Cash. His associate, Dr. Teresa Schully, a hand specialist, concurred.

It’s quite a scene at the Hampton Bays office of Mr. Cash. In front of two large posters—one of parts of a hand, the other parts of an elbow and shoulder (Mr. Cash’s expertise extends up to the rotator cuff)—people whose fingers and hands are in various states of disarray get therapy.  There are machines: ultra-sound, whirlpools, cold laser, electric stim, exercise devices and, for youngsters, a video game to provide fun while they exercise a hand. And there is much human care: massage and manual manipulation.

Mr. Cash is a professor at Touro College teaching courses including Hand Therapy, Kinesiology and Splinting. He made a plastic cast for my finger. I’ve been getting therapy at his office. At home, four times a day, I exercise the finger—bending it this way and that, seeking to get the tendons back to their correct positions. After a couple of months, the finger should be straight again.

And snow will be gone from here. Amber, the runaway cat, however, will remain.

The GOP “lost its way,” acknowledges Mr. LaValle who took over as Suffolk leader in September. “We became like Democrats. We left the concept of smaller government and less taxes. We started to buy into a concept of all these programs—and government grew and grew.”

This has been true under a series of recent Republican presidents and the last GOP New York governor, George Pataki, said Mr. LaValle, a 42-year-old attorney who was Brookhaven Town supervisor from 2000 to 2005. But the Democratic Party has “betrayed the trust” of voters and people “have very quickly become angry and upset” and are starting to translate that politically, said Mr. LaValle last week. “It’s a very exciting time for us.”

The Democratic administration of Barack Obama has been a “disgrace.” The president’s “words sound good but there’s not been a whole lot of substance behind the words,” he said.

He speaks of Obama having “broken more campaign promises than any president of the United States.”

He regards the Democratic losses of the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia in November and, last month, of Democrat Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat, as the reflecting a negative view a majority of voters now have of the Obama administration.

The situation is “even more pathetic” in New York State with Democratic Governor David Paterson. Even if Mr. Paterson decides to drop out and not run in November or is dumped, Mr. LaValle doesn’t see his likely replacement, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, as salvaging the situation for Democrats.“Cuomo is extremely overrated,” commented Mr. LaValle. “He and David Paterson operate from the same playbook.”

Mr. LaValle is supporting former U.S. Representative Rick Lazio of Brightwaters as the GOP nominee for governor in November. “I am certain he will be the Republican candidate. He is a fiscal conservative who knows the reality of our situation.”

As to Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, a Democrat who is seeking to run for governor—and, said Mr. LaValle, has “reached out” to him about GOP support—Mr. LaValle said Mr. Levy could “make a great comptroller or attorney general” candidate on the Republican ticket “but we’re behind Rick Lazio.”

On a county level, he cites East Hampton as a “perfect example” of Democrats self-destructing locally. In East Hampton “the Democrats came into power and ran up deficits and tried to cover up the deficits with inappropriate fiscal behavior.” Thus in a town where there are more enrolled Democrats than Republicans, the GOP won big in East Hampton in November, he points out.

A key target of Mr. LaValle is Democratic U.S. Representative Tim Bishop of Southampton who Mr. LaValle describes as the “poster child of betrayal” for supporting the Democratic plan for health care reform. “Virtually two-thirds of his constituents were opposed,” claims Mr. LaValle. Mr. Bishop should have reflected this, he maintains “This arrogance Tim Bishop possesses is exactly the Washington mentality that got us into trouble.”

He speaks of “extraordinary” potential candidates seeking to run against Mr. Bishop including: Christopher Cox of Westhampton Beach, a grandson, he notes, of former President Richard Nixon; George Demos, originally of Shelter Island now of Holbrook, a former SEC enforcement attorney; and Gary Berntsen, a retired CIA operative and author of Port Jefferson.

Another major LaValle target: Brian Foley of Blue Point who in 2008 ended a near-century GOP hold on all Suffolk seats in the State Senate. Mr. LaValle scores Democrat Foley’s vote on imposing a payroll tax to help finance the MTA.

It is vital, meanwhile, says Mr. LaValle, that the GOP not just criticize Democrats but “espouse the principles and ideals of our party. The party has to stand for something: fighting to make government smaller and that will lead to lower taxes for residents. People are standing up and wanting to see something new. This is the reason for these tea parties.  People are gravitating back to slightly right of center. It’s a process.”

Is Mr. LaValle correct? There are many months between now and the November election. But, for sure, in Mr. LaValle of Mt. Sinai (the cousin of State Senator Kenneth LaValle) the party now has a hard-charging leader.

The plan by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to end Long Island Rail Road service from Ronkonkoma to Greenport except for summer weekends — and this just after getting Suffolk County residents to provide it with yet more money — is being roundly viewed, correctly, as an outrage.

“This is the last straw,” says Suffolk County Legislator Edward Romaine of Center Moriches. The MTA, he calculates, is now receiving $520 million a year from people in Suffolk County. “That’s $347 from each man, woman and child.”

In return, the MTA provides little in the way of transportation for eastern Suffolk — and now it would be less.

“It’s taxation without transportation,” says Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell.

“It is proof positive that the MTA is one of the most tone-deaf organizations in existence,” says State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor. “After becoming the beneficiary of more money from us through the payroll tax and increased fees, this is the MTA’s response.  In the private sector, if your business is in trouble you find ways to grow your business. The MTA and the LIRR cut service and close stations. And they wonder why more people are not taking the train.”

Suffolk County Legislator Jay Schneiderman of Montauk calls the plan “unbelievable.” The MTA is “already taking hundreds of millions of dollars from eastern Long Island but at the same time further decreasing public transportation services.”

In addition to the Ronkonkoma-to-Greenport service cut, a peak Brooklyn-to-Montauk train would be eliminated, except for summer, under the MTA plan.

The $520 million Suffolk is paying into the MTA includes: $97 million in sales tax collected here; a $125 million MTA slice from the mortgage tax; and, as of May, $98 million in payroll tax money; $26 million from an increased fee for motor vehicle registration; and the list goes on. In return, the MTA “does not pay a penny in subsidy” to Suffolk Transit, the bus system here, says Mr. Romaine. Inadequate South Fork LIRR service led to creation of what is now a multi-million dollar business: the Hampton Jitney. As for Riverhead and the North Fork, Mr. Romaine last week related meetings with LIRR executives that could have led to more ridership.

At one, involving the commissioner of jurors, an appeal was made to get the train that arrived in Riverhead at 9:15 a.m. in earlier so it could serve to transport jurors who needed to assemble at 9 a.m. ”at the court facility less than a block away.’” Nothing happened. At another, an earlier train was again sought with an offer made of the county sending vans to meet it and bring workers to the County Center and students to Suffolk Community College “up the road.” Again, nothing happened. It was as if, he mused, the LIRR has not wanted more passengers.

And now, the MTA plan is, except for summer weekends, no train to Riverhead.

But, stresses Mr. Romaine, this new “challenge represents an opportunity”—moving ahead with the idea of a Peconic Bay Transportation Authority.

Indeed, the MTA move, says Mr. Thiele, “crystallizes what we’ve been talking about: creation of our own transportation authority. This is the time for the East End to take control over our transportation future with our own transportation authority and get improved public transportation.”

Suddenly, for some reason, there is some openness to the idea from at least one MTA board member and the LIRR president. Mr. Romaine said he has spoken to Mitch Pally, Suffolk’s representative on the MTA board, and he “indicated a willingness to explore an East End separation.” And Mr. Thiele said he has just had an “encouraging” conversation about this with LIRR President Helena Williams.

Mr. Romaine said he would appear before the East End Supervisors and Mayors Association at its meeting February 19 in Riverhead to press for action on a Peconic Bay Transportation Authority. Under the association’s auspices, a study has been conducted which proposed a system of light rail that would use LIRR tracks and tie into a network of busses and vans serving East End communities. It’s time, says Mr. Romaine, to “move on” from studying to the goal of implementation. He estimates $100 million of the $520 million going to the MTA yearly comes from the East End and eastern Brookhaven Town and this could be used as a financial base for a regional transportation authority.

Meanwhile, in the wake of complaints, the MTA has set a public hearing at the County Center in Riverhead on March 8 on its proposed LIRR service cuts. 

Meanwhile, Irving Like, a key figure in the creation of LIPA and a member of its original board, says that “more than ever there is reason now to why there should be an elected LIPA board.” A new key issue he points to: the estimated $600 million in work now underway to clean up heavily contaminated sites that LIPA’s predecessor, the Long Island Lighting Company, used to manufacture gas from coal. This includes a site where a giant blue gas ball stood in Sag Harbor and where the “remediation” has been completed. Another is along the Patchogue River in Patchogue.

 “If you had a LIPA board composed, as originally provided, of ratepayers representing 21 ratepayer districts on Long Island, you could be sure that these elected representatives would be representing the people in the areas of these toxic sites,” said Mr. Like.

Mr. Romaine in December introduced his bill to provide more light on LIPA through a county oversight board. His measure spoke of LIPA “rates and practices” not being “in the best interests of all of its ratepayers in Suffolk County” and said an “oversight” panel was needed to “determine if LIPA’s actions are adverse to the county’s ratepayers and may warrant the consideration of legal action.” The bill was tabled in committee.

 “It’ll be back,” says Mr. Romaine, “with some changes.” One change, he said, will be  having “more civic and community people” on the task force. “I’m very hopeful it will get broad support,” he said of the measure.  Mr. Romaine, of Center Moriches, said he expects to have it re-introduced next month and will endeavor to have it voted on in March. “We have to have someone analyzing what LIPA is doing and some of the choices we face,” said Mr. Romaine.

He acknowledged that LIPA has been upset by his bill. “I don’t know what they are afraid of,” said the legislator. “There needs to be some oversight of LIPA. The task force will take a look at rates, the possible purchase of power plants by LIPA and future energy needs of Long Island.”

The task force, he emphasized, would be in keeping with a 1999 measure passed by the legislature and signed into law by the county executive and, he noted, “presented to the voters in a referendum which they passed.” It is titled a “Charter Law Ensuring Consumer Protection Oversight of LIPA” and empowers Suffolk to serve as a watchdog on LIPA because, among a series of reasons, “an unelected LIPA board is incapable of providing consumer protection.”

That’s been a central concern about LIPA for Mr. Thiele and why he, again, is  introducing his bill to have LIPA return to its original vision and have an elected board through which Long Islanders can chart the island’s energy future. Having elections to LIPA’s board was postponed by Governor Mario Cuomo and then the election provision was eliminated by his successor, Governor George Pataki.  Instead, members of LIPA’s board have been appointed by the governor, the speaker of the State Assembly and the leader of the State Senate.

Having an elected LIPA board would give the agency “accountability,” stresses Mr. Thiele of Sag Harbor. He also supports Mr. Romaine’s bill. “As LIPA now operates, it has no oversight,”

Mr. Like, who was attorney for Citizens to Replace LILCO, the group that spearheaded LIPA’s creation, said LIPA was designed to have an elected board because that was seen as giving “transparency in the decision-making process and accountability and a voice to the ratepayers who would ultimately decide policy.”

As to the seven former LILCO gas sites, Mr. Like has been representing those impacted by the one in Bay Shore from which, he said, four plumes of cancer-causing contaminants, one plume a mile long, have been coming. Above the plumes are many homes and businesses. And this “legacy of LILCO,” being dealt with by principal LIPA energy supplier National Grid, is, he says, “the tip of the iceberg.” 

How to provide housing for homeless registered sex offenders in Suffolk remains a knotty problem. In recent years the county has placed them in trailers in Westhampton and Riverside —resulting in complaints from area residents. Southampton and Riverhead Towns brought lawsuits over the placements.

County officials have now come up with a new plan: the purchase of industrial buildings to be renovated for housing for the homeless sex offenders. This way, ostensibly, the offenders would be in industrial areas away from residences and, most specifically, children who some might molest, it is feared. The sex offenders include those in legal categories which identifies them as likely to repeat their crimes.

Among the industrial sites being eyed by the Department of Social Services are several in the Town of Babylon: in East Farmingdale, West Babylon and Wyandanch. But DuWayne Gregory, the county legislator who represents these areas, wrote just before Christmas to 300 civic and religious leaders: “We have enough homeless/emergency housing shelters, Section 8 housing, sober homes, etc. We do not need an entire homeless sex offender shelter dumped in our community, too.”

He has also suggested that the arranging of the housing for sex offenders in his district could be retribution for his clashing with County Executive Steve Levy. Mr. Levy emphatically denies that. And Social Services Commissioner Gregory Blass emphasizes that the locations in the Gregory district, some near cemeteries, the Babylon Town landfill and Republic Airport, were picked because of being in industrial locations distant from residential areas.

Race could be exacerbating sensitivity on the issue. Mr. Gregory is the only elected black Suffolk County official and his district has a large African-American population, especially Wyandanch. People in that hamlet for years complained, correctly, about not being properly served by town government.

Still, the county’s idea to use renovated industrial buildings for housing for registered sex offenders is, theoretically a good one. It’s “a great move,” comments Mason Haas, a Riverhead Town tax assessor active in protesting the trailer for sex offenders in Riverside. It is in the parking lot of the county jail, but across the Peconic River from Riverhead.

The Department of Social Services is applying for a grant from the state’s Homeless Housing Assistance Program to pay for purchasing and renovating the buildings. They would also serve as emergency housing for other homeless populations here. The homeless registered sex offenders, however, constitute the problematic category. There aren’t many: approximately 30, depending on the time period, out of 850 registered sex offenders in Suffolk.

In 2007, the county after having housed the offenders in motels, set up its first trailer for homeless registered sex offenders. It sits on Old Country Road in Westhampton on county property near the Suffolk County Police Department’s shooting range. County officials pledged in 2007 that the trailer would be moved every several weeks to different parts of Suffolk. That never happened.

The Westhampton trailer, instead, began being used for “overflow” from a bigger trailer set up the next year in Riverside. At a forum on the Riverside trailer, held last January at Riverhead High School, 300 people jeered county representatives. There were complaints about trailer residents coming into town and of one being arrested for indecent exposure. The locations nearby of schools and the Riverhead library were also noted. County officials stressed that Suffolk was mandated by the state to provide emergency housing for the homeless sex offenders. “Send them to Plum Island!” shouted one audience member.

State Senator Kenneth LaValle observed at the event: “In my years of experience, with the number of citizens who came out on a night like tonight, it’s rare that there will not be a solution of some sort.” The use of industrial buildings is the county’s attempted “solution.”

Dr. Richard Kreuger, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University who specializes in the management and treatment of sex offenders, has said that “sex offenders are almost labeled as nuclear waste; nobody wants them in their backyard.”

Media in the United States have been undergoing huge changes—and that goes for Long Island, too. Jaci Clement, executive director of the Fair Media Council and a former Newsday reporter and editor, outlined changes that have happened here at the annual meeting earlier this month of the Suffolk Cooperative Library System.

The biggest has to do with Newsday. Long Island’s only daily newspaper has “closed all foreign bureaus,” noted Ms. Clement’s PowerPoint presentation, cut its news staffs in Washington, Albany and on Long Island, increased use of Associated Press wire copy and “merged operations with News12.”

Commenting afterwards, Ms. Clement said the “basic premise” of Newsday now “is to be a local paper.” Newsday, although a regional paper, used to have major national and international reach. Also, since its purchase by Cablevision in May 2008, Newsday has increasingly, she said, blended its “content” with Cablevision’s news outlet, News12 Long Island.

The Fair Media Council was established in 1979 primarily to push for coverage of Long Island in New York City-based media. That’s still a focus of the Briarcliff College-based non-profit organization. But its broad mission these days, as noted on its website, is advocating for “quality local news coverage as vital for maintaining the community’s quality of life.”

Ms. Clement is extremely concerned about the Newsday situation saying it has “huge implications.” With a shrunken staff and coverage, readers “are receiving less information.” Highly problematic, too, is “one entity” now controlling cable TV on Long Island and owning its only daily.

As for other area dailies, the termination this year of the Long Island weekly section of The New York Times which provided “some diversity” is also “a big deal…A voice was lost.”  Meanwhile, the New York Daily News has reduced its Long Island coverage and New York Post does not “offer a lot of coverage” and tends to favor “sensation over substance.”

As for weekly newspapers, on Suffolk’s East End “the weeklies are very good. I wish they would expand.” In western Suffolk and Nassau County, the weeklies are not of such high quality. And in Nassau especially, most are owned by “chains” with an attitude of “let us put out 15 editions” with very few employees.

As to commercial radio, which used to be bustling with news operations on Long Island, she said that among the now 19 stations here there is only one full-time news reporter—David North at WALK. “In general, radio has gotten out of the news business entirely,” bemoaned Ms. Clement. “If you want radio news, it’s the city stations—880 and 1010.

Regarding the television scene, several of the New York City TV stations—which have long been heavily watched here—are now sharing their Long Island “footage” through a common news service they’ve formed.

Of Cablevision’s news coverage, News12 “is very small,” commented Ms. Clement. Further, it’s an arm of a cable TV company that  has “no mandate to work in the public interest” as do on-air television stations which must do so under licenses granted them by the Federal Communications Commission.

The Schmizzi brothers, owners of Wainscott-based WVVH-TV, “understand the importance of serving the public,” she said. (Full disclosure: I’m chief investigative reporter at WVVH.)

How does Ms. Clement see Long Island’s media future? She anticipates “more cutting back” at Newsday. The “whole concept of printing a newspaper and delivering it” is foreign for Cablevision. She predicted the departure of the paper’s editor which subsequently happened.

“If weekly papers would wake up, they’re the ones with the greatest opportunity,” said Ms. Clement, who has also worked in weekly journalism on Long Island.

On the national scene, in 1983 “50 media companies in the U.S. owned the majority of news outlets,” related Ms. Clement. “Now, it’s down to six.”  And people’s distrust of media institutions is “fueling the popularity of social networking. People are relying on social networking sites to share news and information with those they trust.”

What can you do? “Get involved,” declared Ms. Clement at the event in Bellport. “Demand more from…media outlets. Write letters. Complain directly to them or to the Fair Media Council.”

A bill to provide more light on the Long Island Power Authority was introduced last week by Suffolk County Legislator Edward Romaine. LIPA instantly began lobbying the legislature to reject the bill. What’s LIPA afraid of?

Introduction of the measure follows bipartisan passage last year by the New York State Legislature—and then a gubernatorial veto—of a bill aimed at bringing oversight to LIPA rate hikes. Governor David Paterson “at LIPA’s urging, vetoed it,” noted Newsday last week.

This bill would have required that any attempt by LIPA to increase customer rates by more than two-and-a-half percent in any 12 month period be approved by the state Public Service Commission. This “is the same standard that has applied to investor-owned and other municipal utilities for decades,” points out the Public Utility Law Project of New York in a critical report on the Paterson veto on its website.

“LIPA was supposed to become the people’s power authority. That has not happened,” declares Ian Wilder of North Babylon, co-chair of the Green Party of New York State, on his website. “When LIPA was first set up, there were supposed to be elected members of the LIPA board…That never happened. They are all appointed; with no accountability to the public…Vetoing a bill that the legislators passed to try to give some accountability is just another step backward.”

Mr. Romaine said last week: “Transparency is very important regarding LIPA.”

His bill speaks of LIPA “rates and practices” not being “in the best interests of all of its ratepayers in Suffolk County” and says an “oversight” panel should be established to “determine if LIPA’s actions are adverse to the county’s ratepayers and may warrant the consideration of legal action.”

Under the measure, a seven-member task force would be formed, co-chaired by the chairman of the legislature’s Consumer Protection Committee and Economic Development, Higher Education and Energy Committee. It would hold hearings and issue a report and “recommendations for action, if any.” All members would be unpaid. There’d be a budget of no more than $5,000.

A legal basis for the task force, the bill notes, is a 1999 measure passed by the legislature, signed into law by then County Executive Robert Gaffney and approved by Suffolk voters in a countywide referendum.  The “Charter Law Ensuring Consumer Protection Oversight of LIPA” empowers the county to act to watchdog LIPA because, among a series of reasons, “an unelected LIPA board is incapable of providing consumer protection.”

In response to the Romaine bill, LIPA issued a statement holding: “LIPA does not see the need to create another level of government and oversight as LIPA is already subject to stringent oversight by the New York State comptroller, attorney general, Public Authorities Control Board, and a 15-member board of trustees appointed by the state legislature, and we are also responsive to and appear before both Suffolk and Nassau [Legislatures’] County Energy Committees when asked.” It also mentioned the recent passage of a state Public Authorities Reform Bill.

“It would be a small, select committee with a limited budget of $5,000. If you are scared of that, what are you hiding?” commented Mr. Romaine of Center Moriches.

LIPA was set up after a long citizen’s campaign as a way to stop the Long Island Lighting Company’s Shoreham nuclear plant project. It was supposed to be a public power entity through which Long Islanders would—democratically—chart our energy future. It would be a counterpart here of the Sacramento Municipal District or SMUD in California.

As SMUD explains on its website, it was “founded with the idea that providing electric power to Sacramento was a job best done by a public utility overseen by an elected board of directors. For 60 years, we’ve done just…Our vision is to be a leader in customer satisfaction and a positive force in promoting community benefits.”

But soon after LIPA’s formation, election of its trustees was scuttled. In its opposition to elected trustees and its moves to limit oversight, LIPA has been taking on the colorings of the kinds of authorities and commissions that public works czar Robert Moses fashioned in New York State. Soundly defeated when he ran for governor in 1934, Moses emphasized instead getting and exercising power by establishing and running authorities and commissions insulated from the democratic process. With these, he rammed through his projects.

This kind of undemocratic arrogance is diametrically opposed to what LIPA is supposed to be about. What’s LIPA afraid of? And why can’t it return to its original democratic vision?