The Times of Smithtown - March 9, 2023

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St. James residents frustrated over proposed assisted living facility

BY RITA J. EGAN RITA@TBRNEWSMEDIA.COM

St. James residents are joining together to fight a proposed assisted living facility on the former Bull Run Farm, which takes up slightly more than 9 acres along Mills Pond Road.

An informational meeting was held Thursday, March 2, at the St. James firehouse on Route 25A to provide residents updates on the proposed two-story, 97-bed facility that will be called Whisper Mills. Approximately 150 people, many living on the road and right next to the property, filled the room, half of them standing, to air their concerns.

Attorneys David Moran and Deirdre Cicciaro represented Mills Pond Group, owned by Fort Salonga developer Frank Amicizia, to moderate the event and field questions.

Moran said the March 2 meeting was just the first step of the process. The assisted living facility proposal is contingent on receipt of all properties that make up the total parcel of land. Currently, the developer owns one lot and members of the Elderkin family, who once ran the farm, own the other two.

Cicciaro said the entire parcel was 9.02 acres and zoned as residential. The facility would need a special exception from the Town of Smithtown to be permitted. She said the client “shares the concerns about the preservation and the bucolic nature of the neighborhood.”

She added nearly 20% of the premises would be developed, leaving a little more than 80% of the total parcel landscaped, undisturbed, natural or vegetative. The attorney went over the development plans, including that there would be more than 800 feet of road frontage, and all setbacks will be more than required by town code. The facility would have 74 parking spaces.

Cicciaro said the plan was an attempt to “provide a necessary housing option for the community of St. James that does not currently exist while keeping with the character of the area and neighborhood.”

Residents took turns airing concerns at the meeting, including the proximity to the Gyrodyne property on Route 25A which also faces potential development; 24-hour lighting on the property; increased traffic; and the building not fitting the community aesthetics. Others were concerned about a sewage treatment plant that is proposed for the property. Concerns about the STP ranged from how it would affect local waterways due to the disposal of pharmaceuticals in the facility to the noise it would make. One attendee said the STP at Whisper Woods

on Route 25A across from St. Catherine of Siena Hospital makes noise 24 hours a day.

Moran said the facility would be 100% code compliant, including proper maintenance of medication on the site and a traffic study is being worked on.

One woman said that residents “would rather see broken down tractors” than the proposed building.

“This is by no means compliant visually and otherwise with any of these beautiful homes,” she added. “This is our paradise. We have worked to preserve this all these years.”

A few of the residents, as well as the Facebook group Save Bull Run Farm, St. James and Saint James-Head of the Harbor

Neighborhood Preservation Coalition, have encouraged people to attend upcoming Town Board meetings to let Supervisor Ed Wehrheim (R) and council members know their concerns.

“You are the ones who are responsible for putting the pressure on your elected officials whether you voted for them or not,” one woman said at the meeting. “You must reach out to them and tell them how you feel.”

As of March 8, a town public hearing was not scheduled. According to Nicole Garguilo, Smithtown public information officer, when a meeting regarding the development is scheduled, it will be held in the evening and at the town’s senior center.

Concerned residents, above and below, filled the second floor of the St. James firehouse on North Country Road to air their concerns about a proposed assisted living facility on Mills Pond Road. Photos by Rita J. Egan

THE FACTS ABOUT THE TOWNLINE RAIL TERMINAL

CarlsonCorp, Inc. is a family-owned business that employs more than 75 area residents and has proudly called Kings Park home since the 1880s. We currently have an application before the Surface Transportation Board (STB), a federal agency, to construct a 5,000-foot rail line into our Kings Park recycling property. The proposed project is called the Townline Rail Terminal.

While the STB will be conducting public information sessions in the community this spring to solicit public comment on the project, we have heard misinformation and a number of misconceptions in the community. We thought you would want to learn the facts:

The proposed Townline Rail Terminal only involves one train in and one train out per day (up to 27 cars maximum). That’s it. There will be no trains arriving or departing on weekends. The proposed rail line and sidetracks are for rail car storage and maneuverability — NOT the anticipation of additional arrivals or departures.

The rail cars themselves will not have engines so they will not idle or make continual noise when sitting in the yard. The rail cars will be moved by a small vehicle the size of a mini school bus.

The work site will be below the grade of the surrounding property to minimize disruption. We are also proposing natural berms and buffers.

The Townline Rail Terminal will load and unload materials into the rail cars during our regular hours, Monday through Saturday. This will not be a 24-hour operation.

Loading and unloading of incinerated ash will occur in a state-of-the-art transfer station which will reduce dust, noise, and odors. The rail cars hauling ash will have secure steel lids. The material being loaded and removed from the proposed Townline Rail Terminal is NOT classified as a hazardous material. These materials are highly regulated and tested continually by New York State. Any materials containing asbestos, by law, may NOT be disposed of at the facility. At present, there are six active or proposed train transport facilities on Long Island, all of which will provide local solutions to managing ash and debris. Townline Rail Terminal is a solution for the Towns of Smithtown and Huntington.

The proposed project is expected to save taxpayers HALF of what the cost will be to truck materials off Long Island in the future and result in a REDUCTION in the amount of materials turned into compost on-site.

The best option for the future

The Townline Rail Terminal is an environmentally preferred alternative to trucking materials off Long Island. It will result in reduced emissions and traffic congestion. The Town of Smithtown recognizes that rail is a better option to trucking once the Brookhaven Landfill closes in 2024. We are very early in the planning process and look forward to meeting with the community in the coming months.

The Townline Rail Terminal will save taxpayers money, create jobs, and benefit the environment. To learn more and find out how you can get involved, visit CarlsonCorp.com.

Proposed Townline Rail Terminal

Supervisor Wehrheim set to lead St. James parade

BY RITA J. EGAN RITA@TBRNEWSMEDIA.COM

After leading the town for five years, Town of Smithtown Supervisor Ed Wehrheim (R) will head up the St. James St. Patrick’s Day Parade Saturday, March 11.

Wehrheim, a native of Kings Park, said

when he heard the news, he was humbled and honored. The town supervisor added he is mostly of German and English descent.

“As I told the chamber for that particular day, I will be all Irish,” he said.

The honor will be his first time serving as a parade grand marshal.

“I’m pretty excited,” he said. “It’s great for the community when the chambers put the parades and events on. I’m looking forward to it.

Kathy Weber, president of the St. James Chamber of Commerce, said the board chose Wehrheim as grand marshal for all his work for the hamlet, including being instrumental in making possible Celebrate Park, which opened in 2022.

“From the roads to the park and all the revitalization, he’s really there for St. James,” Weber said. “We’re so grateful.”

She added it’s apparent how Wehrheim cares about the St. James community.

“It wasn’t even a question as to who should be this year’s grand marshal,” Weber said.

Wehrheim said the town is proud of what has been done in St. James.

“It has resulted in a huge success for the community and the business community,” he said. “To be the grand marshal and go down the newly renovated Lake Avenue will be a great honor.”

The supervisor said after COVID-19 protocols prevented or limited community gatherings for a couple of years, returning to parades, festivals, concerts and more was welcomed.

The St. James St. Patrick’s Day Parade was canceled in 2020 a few days before it was due to take place. In 2021 a car parade was held, and the 2022 parade was postponed until a few weeks later due to inclement weather on its original scheduled date. According to Weber, it was the first time there was a rain date.

She said this year planning and participation have returned to pre-COVID conditions.

“There are a lot of people and a lot of excitement,” she said, adding that several children will be participating as princes and princesses this year. A resident turning Sweet 16 will also be in the parade handing out candy after her grandmother arranged to make her wish to participate come true.

“It’s a great day to celebrate the supervisor and celebrate St. James,” Weber said. “The feeling in St. James, it’s such a close community feeling.”

The St. James St. Patrick’s Day Parade will be held on Saturday, March 11. The event kicks off on the corner of Woodlawn

and Lake avenues at 1 p.m. and continues to the train station.

St. James resident named Huntington parade grand marshal

BY RITA J. EGAN RITA@TBRNEWSMEDIA.COM

A former Huntington resident for many years and local financial consultant has been chosen as this year’s grand marshal in the town’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

The parade’s organizers, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Division 4, named Greg Kennedy to lead the 89th annual parade through Huntington

Sunday, March 12.

Kennedy has been a financial consultant in the town for more than 25 years, and while he has lived in St. James since 2010, he was a Huntington resident for decades before his move.

A St. John’s University graduate, Kennedy is the founder of the financial services business Atlantic Financial Group, which has been located on New Street in Huntington village since 2008. Before opening his own business, he was an adviser with MetLife and then joined A.G. Edwards.

Tom Dougherty, a Hibernian member, said Kennedy is more than a local businessman. This year’s grand marshal, who was president of the Hibernians division during 2015-17, is the president of The Townwide Fund of Huntington, and a member of the foundation board of directors of the Visiting Nurse Service and Hospice of Suffolk in Northport. He also is involved with the food bank at St. Patrick’s Church and other local charities.

“Our motto is friendship, unity and Christian charity, a model that we live by, and we try to pick somebody that lives by that motto, and those are all the things that he’s lived up to,” Dougherty said.

The Hibernian added that in addition to Kennedy’s contributions to Huntington he does a good deal for the division, including helping members who may need a ride to a doctor’s

office or grocery store.

“He’s a put-other-people-first kind of guy,” Dougherty said.

Kennedy said being named parade grand marshal is a tremendous honor for him.

“I was just humbled and honored to be chosen among such great past grand marshals,” he said.

Past Huntington grand marshals include former state Supreme Court justice Jerry Asher and Northwell Health president and CEO Michael Dowling.

Kennedy added because he’s adopted, he’s not sure of the exact percentage of Irish heritage he is.

The businessman attends the parade every year with his wife Cathleen and children Sara, a college junior, and Ryan, a high school senior. His daughter was a parade Colleen in 2020, according to Kennedy, and this year his son will march with him as one of the parade aides.

“My family has been with me since the beginning, since I started with Hibernians,” he said.

The parade

While the Huntington parade was canceled in 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions, a virtual event was held that year, and in 2022 the event returned once again to Huntington’s streets. Dougherty said this year there has been an increase in participants in the parade and ad journal, which helps the Hibernians raise money

for the event.

Kennedy had advice for those planning to attend the parade, including taking the time to visit a few stores and having lunch.

“Get there early, and long johns aren’t a bad idea because it can be cold,” he said. “Be prepared to enjoy a great day because the parade starts at 2 but it goes for a good few hours.”

Huntington St. Patrick’s Day Parade kicks off at 2 p.m. on March 12 on Route 110 and Church Street. It then continues to Main Street and ends at St. Patrick’s R.C. Church.

Supervisor Ed Wehrheim, below and above with Scott Posner, was announced the St. James parade grand marshal at the chamber’s Winter Gala. Photos by Rich Balter

Greg Kennedy, above left, with his children Ryan and Sara in a 2007 photo. Below, Kennedy at this year’s Grand Marshal’s Ball. Photos from Kennedy

The following incidents have been reported by Suffolk County Police:

Lake Ronkonkoma chiropractor arrested

Suffolk County Police arrested a chiropractor on March 3 for allegedly forcibly touching three female patients at his Lake Ronkonkoma business in 2021 and 2022. Three women contacted detectives to report Ronald Bernardini, a chiropractor at Lake Chiropractic, located at 201 Portion Road, allegedly forcibly touched them during their appointments between February 2021 and October 2022. The victims came forward after Bernardini was arrested in October 2022 for sexually abusing a teen at his practice.

Fourth Squad detectives charged Bernardini, 65, of Smithtown, with four counts of Forcible Touching. Detectives are asking anyone who believes they could be a victim of Bernardini to contact the Fourth Squad at 631-854-8452.

Man arrested for fatal hit-and-run

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney on March 2 announced the indictment of Qiulong Chen, 35, who is accused of allegedly leaving the scene of a crash that resulted in the death of Joseph Biggica, 59, of Ronkonkoma, and then replacing his vehicle’s broken windshield the next day.

According to the investigation, on October 25, 2022, at approximately 6:17 p.m., Chen was delivering food while driving his black 2015 Honda CRV in Ronkonkoma when he allegedly struck Biggica, who was walking on Remington Boulevard. Biggica was transported to Stony Brook University Hospital where he later died from injuries sustained as a result of the crash. Law enforcement recovered video surveillance from the scene which captured the crash.

The following morning, Chen allegedly had his car windshield replaced at an auto body shop in Suffolk County. Several days later, detectives recovered Chen’s vehicle, which still had damage to its hood, in the parking lot of his business.

After a joint investigation was conducted by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office and the Suffolk County Police Department’s Major Case Unit, Chen was indicted for Leaving the Scene of an Incident Without Reporting, a Class D felony, and Tampering with Physical Evidence, a Class E felony. If convicted on the top charge, he faces up to 2-1/3 to 7 years in prison.

CAUGHT ON CAMERA

Wanted for Commack petit larceny

Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and Suffolk County Police Fourth Precinct Crime Section officers are seeking the public’s help to identify and locate a woman who allegedly stole assorted household items from Walmart, located at 85 Crooked Hill Road in Commack, on February 5.

Man killed in seven-vehicle crash

Suffolk County Police Major Case Unit detectives are investigating a seven-vehicle crash during which a man was killed and a driver fled on foot in Holbrook on the morning of March 4. Police responded to a motor vehicle crash involving seven vehicles on Sunrise Highway, between Broadway and Lincoln Boulevard, at 4:35 a.m. Detectives are continuing to investigate the cause and sequence of the crash.

The operator of a 2002 Toyota Celica, Saula-Bueno Kelvin, 22, of Bay Shore, was transported to Long Island Community Hospital in Patchogue where he was pronounced dead. Three other drivers were transported to local hospitals for treatment on non-life-threatening injuries. Two drivers were not injured. There were no passengers in any of the involved vehicles. The driver of a 2012 Mazda fled the scene on foot.

The vehicles were impounded for safety checks. Detectives are asking anyone with information about this crash to call Major Case at 631-852-6553.

— COMPILED BY HEIDI SUTTON

Suffolk County Crime Stoppers offers a cash reward for information that leads to an arrest. Anyone with information about these incidents can contact Suffolk County Crime Stoppers to submit an anonymous tip by calling 1-800-220-TIPS.

Ronald Bernardini

Do you recognize this woman? Photo from SCPD

A Suffolk-forward vision to increase housing options

County in particular.

PERSPECTIVE

The cost of housing is among the most crucial issues facing Long Island’s future, and it is an issue I have personally worked to address. As chair of the Suffolk County Planning Commission, I eliminated red tape and helped to get shovels in the ground for housing developments. Now, I have serious concerns about an Albany-centric, one-size-fits-all plan to increase housing options, but I am confident that we can address our housing needs if we employ a Suffolkcentric approach.

We need more housing options to allow working families to thrive, young people to stay and seniors to comfortably retire in Suffolk County. However, the existing piecemeal approval processes have left us with too little housing which, due to simple supply and demand, costs too much. With a median home price of $545,000 and few rental units available in Suffolk County, our young people are compelled to move away. This exodus imperils our future and places Long Island businesses at a competitive disadvantage when needed workers cannot afford to live here.

The housing crisis has grown over decades and needs to be addressed with urgency. However, the proposed solutions from Albany don’t make sense for Long Island, and Suffolk

One-size-fits-all mandates that ignore local realities and discretion would be both ineffective and counterproductive on Long Island. Suffolk County is home to 1.5 million people spread across more than 40 municipalities. Requiring each municipality to increase housing by 3% over a three-year period cannot be done without seriously undermining other regional goals like water-quality protection and traffic mitigation. A state commission overriding home rule — Albany usurping zoning power from localities — due to a failure to satisfy this often unreachable mandate is a nonstarter.

First, we organize and plan locally. Through the Suffolk County Planning Commission — a representative body made up of members from each of Suffolk’s 10 towns and two from its villages — we should create a regional housing plan designed to maximize the needs, capacity and desires of each part of the county. In such a plan, we will identify areas for future housing development and encourage the redevelopment of underutilized properties.

By Dave Calone

Instead, we can set and achieve regional goals that meet the moment and maintain local governance, with the state serving as a crucial partner providing incentives and resources to help us reach those goals. Here’s how.

To execute such a plan, we need New York State to partner and deliver the incentives needed to facilitate development. For instance, the state can offer funds to municipalities that contribute most toward the countywide goal, that most quickly approve housing and that create housing for a variety of income levels. Moreover, it can provide necessary infrastructure investments that will allow future growth in municipalities that want to develop.

In addition to organizing a regional effort, the county must play its part by seeking innovative solutions to address our housing needs. For example, Suffolk County, our largest landowner, should audit all of its properties and determine which could be repurposed to develop housing at a reduced rate for our taxpayers. Moreover we must seek avenues to eliminate red tape, and specifically for homes that are consistent with the regional housing plan, the county Department of Health Services must streamline and prioritize the review and approval process. The county should also increase regional capacity for housing creation by helping to form other development tools, like land trusts, as well as providing planning resources and guidance to municipalities.

With major investments and opportunities coming to Long Island, this is an exciting time for our region, but we must act to capitalize on our opportunity. To support working families, provide local businesses with employees, and secure countywide safety and prosperity, it’s imperative that we address the housing needs across our region — and the best solutions will start here in Suffolk.

Dave Calone, a former prosecutor, business leader and previous chair of the Suffolk County Planning Commission, is a candidate for Suffolk county executive.

SBU’s Pikitch, others ‘optimistic’ about the U.N.’s High Seas Treaty

BY DANIEL DUNAIEF DESK@TBRNEWSMEDIA.COM

“This provides me with a lot of encouragement.”

WORLD

Determined, passionate and committed representatives to the United Nations, including the United States, spent over 20 years trying to hammer out an agreement to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030.

This past Saturday, after extending a deadline, representatives of 193 countries in New York verbally agreed to terms of a High Seas Treaty designed to reduce pollution, protect biodiversity and share ocean resources.

While individual countries still have to ratify the treaty, scientists like Ellen Pikitch, endowed professor of Ocean Conservation Science and executive director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, praised the agreement.

“It’s fantastic,” Pikitch said. “It’s been needed for so long.”

Lisa Speer, a marine scientist and the director of the International Oceans Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, has been working to educate and encourage government leaders to understand what’s at stake and how to protect the oceans.

“This is a big step forward for biodiversity conservation on a global level,” said Speer.

In addition to the educational and advocacy work she did over the years, Speer spent much of the last 36 hours at the U.N. surrounded by others who had slept on the floor or in various rooms and hallways amid the effort to get this treaty across the finish line.

“Everybody was really emotional,” she said, with spontaneous applause and cheers continuing for a long period of time. “A lot of us have been here since the beginning. There were celebratory hugs and thanks and tears of joy for the efforts of so many people” including some who were not in the room but had worked for decades on this treaty.

The view of the importance of biodiversity in the oceans has changed considerably over the last few decades.

“For most of human history, the high seas have been viewed as an empty wasteland,” Speer said. Now, however, people recognize that it’s “probably the largest reserve of biodiversity left on the planet.”

This treaty, Pikitch and Speer added, can and should help ensure that humans can explore and discover some of that biodiversity before it might otherwise disappear.

Speer is hopeful that United States senators, who will have a chance to vote on the treaty, recognize that the country has “a very strong interest in making sure it has a voice in

decisions affecting half the planet. It’s in our interest to be full participants in that process.”

Pikitch, who is an expert in the field of Marine Protected Areas, suggested that the process of coming up with a framework to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by the end of the decade involved considerable back and forth with various interest groups within each country.

“It’s not that easy to determine how this area would be managed,” Pikitch said. Various groups have “concerns that differ among different parts of the global community.”

Pikitch pointed out that a Convention on Biological Diversity late last year agreed that the world would protect 30% of the lands and waters by 2030.

Pikitch said such a goal was unattainable without this High Seas Treaty, which addressed the parts of the ocean that had previously been off limits to such protections.

The treaty and the establishment of marine protected areas will be “huge for biodiversity,” Pikitch said.

Piktich suggested that the commitment over two decades and the increasing public awareness of the importance of ocean resources offers her hope that this treaty, for which numerous details are still in the works, will offer effective protection.

“There’s a huge amount of passion and commitment by countries of the world to work this out,” she said. “They did not give up.”

The U.N.’s High Seas Treaty aims to reduce pollution, protect biodiversity and share ocean resources. Stock photo

Online scammers swindle North Shore residents

BY RAYMOND JANIS EDITOR1@TBRNEWSMEDIA.COM

Internet fraud, a worsening cybercrime phenomenon, has reached the North Shore of Long Island.

Through various tactics, online scam artists have successfully targeted storefronts and events throughout Port Jefferson, scoring hundreds of dollars in profits.

During the 4th annual ice festival in late January, scammers sold eight fake tickets for a mac ‘n’ cheese crawl organized by the Greater Port Jefferson Chamber of Commerce. On the day of the event, victims presented their fraudulent tickets.

The tickets “looked very official,” said Barbara Ransome, the chamber’s director of operations. However, when chamber staff asked those presenting these scam tickets when they had purchased them, their response revealed that something was out of place.

“They said, ‘We got them two days ago,’ and that’s when I realized this was a scam because we had been sold out … for at least a week and a half,” Ransome said, adding that the popularity of the event created an opening for scam artists. “My speculation is that this person saw that these tickets were sold out,

saw that people were looking for them and created this whole fraud situation.”

At Theatre Three on Main, a similar practice has gained traction. Although the theater sells tickets at $35 per seat, online ticket scammers have capitalized by selling back-row seats at enormous markups.

Douglas Quattrock, the theater’s director of development and artistic associate, reported one such incident where a couple spent nearly 10 times the going rate. “We had a couple that paid $672 for a pair of tickets,” he said.

Although only “a handful” of theatergoers have fallen prey to these ticket scams at Theatre Three, Quattrock considered the practice disruptive to operations.

“Being a smaller not-for-profit, we try to keep our prices very family oriented,” he said. However, he added that “scammers see this market as very attractive.”

But online scams are not limited to ticket sales. Jena Turner owns the Port Jeff-based gift shop Breathe, which offers nontraditional healing remedies and psychic readings.

In an interview, Turner reported that multiple phony social media accounts have emerged, using her photos and business name to solicit payments from unsuspecting patrons.

“Right now, I know that there are five accounts that stole my photos and are

We carry a full line of Men’s and Women’s Hokas

pretending to be me,” she said.

Social engineering

Nick Nikiforakis, associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stony Brook University, said internet fraud is becoming a growing concern for small business sectors, which are increasingly vulnerable to malicious cyber activities.

He contends that online criminals have shifted their sights on smaller boutique organizations because large corporations are investing more resources into cybersecurity systems.

“Effectively, you have cybercriminals who are customizing their attacks toward small businesses,” he said.

Turner’s case, according to Nikiforakis, represents a common social engineering scenario.

A social engineer “makes an online account for a company with a brick-and-mortar presence and then tries to take the recognizable name and the good faith that the business has built,” the associate professor said.

He added, “They are targeting online users, pretending to be the person running this business,” tricking their victims “to send them money, divulge information or in some way get people to participate in a scam.”

A downtown dilemma

Turner said she has reported her digital imposters but has received no relief in removing these scam accounts from the Instagram platform.

“I had reported it to Instagram several times — and by several, I can say probably more than 20,” she said. “Instagram hasn’t done anything about it.”

Nikiforakis noted that there are considerable technical limitations for social media companies in policing social engineering activities. While they could theoretically verify with storefront owners whenever a platform is created in their name, online scammers often find creative ways to

circumvent such safeguards.

“Things can be done, but this is inherently a cat-and-mouse game,” he said. Social engineers “are not attacking a security vulnerability. … They are abusing people’s faith and trust in institutions and recognizable brands.”

Lacking assistance from Big Tech, Turner said she took matters into her own hands, creating a video in which she wrote out her authentic social media handle by hand.

“I made that video, and I just keep reposting it on my story and on my Facebook so that people aren’t falling for it,” she said. “That’s been really helpful.”

But, she added, “We have over 8,000 followers, so not everyone has seen the video. Unfortunately, the scam is still ongoing.”

To respond to the number of ticket scam incidents, Theatre Three similarly released a statement on its website condemning thirdparty ticket vendors. “The only place to buy tickets from us should be www.theatrethree. com,” Quattrock said.

Still, he encouraged patrons to remain on guard for potentially inflated ticket prices and to approach online transactions cautiously.

For those who may suspect a ticketing scam, he implored them to call the theater directly before completing the transaction.

“If it looks suspicious to you, just call the theater and verify that they’re on the right website,” he said.

As online fraud persists throughout the local area, businesses and customers are not without recourse. Nikiforakis indicates that awareness of the typical social engineering strategies can help users protect themselves from participating in online scams.

“There are standard social engineering tactics, such as giving the victim a sense of urgency or taking advantage of their appeal to authority,” he said. “For both patrons and companies, by actively resisting this, you can slow down and potentially defend yourself against an attack.”

Pixabay photo

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Hundreds turn up for Kings Park parade

Despite cloudy skies and a short period of misty rain, hundreds lined Pulaski Road, Main and Church streets in Kings Park to witness the hamlet’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

This year’s event featured marching bands, Scouts, local officials, firefighters, business

representatives and more.

A tradition since 2011, the 2023 parade was led by grand marshal Michael Lacey, a decades-long resident of Kings Park who grew up in Ireland.

— Photos by Rita J. Egan

Indu Kaur was destined to rise from the ashes.

Kaur, who runs The Meadow Club banquet hall in Port Jefferson Station and the Curry Club at SāGhar in Port Jefferson, was born in Afghanistan and survived a series of tragedies to become the woman she is — dedicated to family, exuding confidence and poised to solve the next problem.

In the early hours of July 14, 2018, as she watched flames

Long Island business owner brings hard-won resilience to North Shore hospitality industry

earthen home in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, she shared with her parents, grandmother, great grandmother, aunts and uncles. Life felt simple inside the multigenerational Sikh home.

the family’s lifestyle improved. They had running water, raised wooden beds and a proper school, but also a backdrop of fear, with unpredictable fighting and bullets flying.

to pretend she was a cushion.

“My grandmother sat on me to hide me,” Kaur said, and she

remembered listening with horror to the threats and demands of the mujahideen.

“They beat my dad up, big time.”

shoot from the roof of The Meadow Club, Kaur made a promise. “‘The tragedy that happened to us will not happen to anybody else,’” she recalled saying to her father and business partner, Kulwant Wadhwa, thinking about the christening and wedding they were scheduled to host that day. “‘We will make sure everybody’s celebration goes on.’”

And she did, together with her father and sister Kiran, the club’s creative director. Within hours, they secured a new venue and redirected staff members and guests.

Long before Kaur was running hospitality businesses, she was a small girl gathering eggs for breakfast outside the

Kaur remembered the whole family eating meals together, sitting on traditional hand-sewn floor mattresses. After dinner was the real treat: “The whole family would do this beautiful dance, and then smile, laugh, just be free,” she said. Outside the home, things were not so free or peaceful. In 1979, when Kaur was a toddler, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The United States supported the antiSoviet rebellion of the Afghan mujahideen guerrilla fighters.

Kaur’s ancestors had immigrated to Afghanistan from India several generations before, and Kaur’s father, Wadhwa, who took over his own father’s job as pharmacist and family provider at age 15, remembered the nation with affection. “The country was very safe before the Soviet Union,” he said, recalling there were even buses of American tourists. “It all changed.”

Smaller communities like Jalalabad became hotbeds of fighting, so in the early 1980s, Wadhwa decided to move his family to the relatively safer capital city of Kabul, where his pharmacy business thrived and

“Seeing our parents not smiling or not dancing after dinner was something we really missed,” she said.

Worse, stray bullets twice hit close to home: One bullet struck a girl at Kaur’s school, and another killed her cousin Harpreet, who was only a couple years older than Kaur. “It could have been me,” she said.

Kaur’s grandmother shielded the children as best she could, trying to bring fun into daily life. “I used to look forward to coming home and wash ing dishes,” Kaur said, re membering her grandmother would let dishes pile up so the two of them could wash up together after school. “I enjoyed getting wet in the soapy water, and then she would get the hose and, you know.”

In February 1989, the Soviet soldiers withdrew from Afghanistan, and for nonMuslim minorities, life worsened further. Wadhwa remembers the mujahideen, predecessors of the Taliban, told the Sikh community, “‘You guys have three options: You guys either leave the country, or die here, or you can work to be a Muslim,’” he said. “They wanted a nation of only Muslims.”

Wadhwa made plans to uproot the family once again, but not before they faced danger one more time.

Early one morning while everyone was still asleep, mujahideen soldiers came into the house, and Kaur was too far distant to reach the basement hideaway she usually crowded into with the other women and children when soldiers came around. While her father stalled the men, her grandmother laid her on a bench, Kaur recalled, and covered her with a blanket

From Afghanistan to India and the U.S.

When safely in India, the family’s lifestyle improved again. Wadhwa restarted his pharmaceutical business and was more successful than in Kabul. They would once again, Kaur said, “rise up stronger.”

Kaur, 13 years old when she arrived in Delhi, attended a British school to fill gaps in her education and learn Hindi and English. She also learned what it meant to be a “country girl” refugee wearing big bows and flowery clothes, among young teens who had an eye for glamor. The bullying was brutal, and Kaur said she did what many adolescent girls around the world do — she plucked her eyebrows and changed her style to fit in. One bright spot was “a beautiful British teacher in a sari,” who inspired the confident posture Kaur still holds today, and also taught her what turned out to be a helpful survival tool — the British “stiff upper lip.” She remembered, “Always, spine straight, look straight, perfect expression.” No matter what emotion, “I could take control and just figure it out.”

This skill was vital when, at age 19 in 1994, she arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport as a new bride in an arranged marriage, a common custom in Indian culture. The day the marriage offer came, Kaur remembered Wadhwa asking if she was OK with it. Kaur reflected on how Wadhwa had led the family so far, and told him, “Whatever you do is always good for us, so [I’ll follow] whatever decision you make.” She faced settling into life in the United States the same way she faced that first meeting with her future husband at JFK: When things were overwhelming, she went with the flow. “I was very good

Delaware and then in Virginia, Kaur built skills, first in retail and computers, and then in banking, working her way up from teller to commercial loan inspector within a couple years. “I was a thriver, I wanted to learn,” she said. “I was eager and hungry for education and doing well.”

at smiling and keeping it quiet and having a stable face,” she said. “Emotions were always very internal.” Internal, but not gone. Kaur is a woman who feels deeply but acts decisively. When she tired of feeling lonely in

Kaur’s parents and younger sisters immigrated to Suffolk County as asylum seekers soon after Kaur’s wedding, once again leaving everything behind. Wadhwa built a completely new career in 1996 as a restauranteur serving Indian cuisine at The Curry Club’s first location in East Setauket, powered by family connections and the entrepreneurship he’d learned restarting his pharmaceutical business twice. But in the fall of 2000, tragedy came again, when Kaur’s mother Amargeet was walking the dog and suffered a brain hemorrhage, falling onto the tracks at Port Jefferson railroad station. A departing train severed her arms and one of her legs, but — incredibly — she survived.

Kaur remembered her father running to her when she arrived, devastated, in the waiting room. “He hugged me, and he said,

‘We are done, we are done. I’m destroyed. We are not going to live anymore,’” she recalled. “His heart just poured on my shoulder.”

The whole family was heartbroken by the accident, but they were not done. Everyone banded together to keep the family business running, care for Amargeet and raise Kaur’s youngest sister Kiran, who was only 11. Kaur drove nine hours from Virginia every weekend to help.

This back and forth continued for several years, but eventually the pull of family was too strong to resist.

In 2013, Kaur moved to Long Island and cared for her mother full time. When her father presented the opportunity to take over The Meadow Club with her sister a year later, she was up for the challenge. Kaur remembered feeling nervous since her two children, Sahiba and Sartaj, were still young. Wadhwa told her, “Well, we have each other.”

With Kiran’s contemporary, Americanized vision and Kaur’s practical determination, The Meadow Club was a success. Then, in 2018, it went up in

flames. During construction and permitting, Kaur continued to find venues for her clients and attend events to be sure clients were well served.

Meanwhile, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced restaurants to shut down in 2020, Kaur’s family survived as they always had, together. Kiran created a donationbased meal delivery service to

hospital workers, Kaur drove the delivery van and her father oversaw food packing. Kaur said they delivered hundreds of meals a day.

When The Meadow Club finally reopened in January 2021, no scars of the fire were visible. The sisters had crafted a modern, classy, better-thanever venue.

“It’s a blissful, blessed

feeling of knowing that, yes, everything is up and running,” Kaur said. “But the best part is that we are together.” And together is how she plans to weather any future storms. “I just keep going, just like my dad,” Kaur said. “We wake up in the morning: All right, it’s a beautiful day, sun is up, what’s next? What do we have to tackle now?”

Indu, left, with her family in India

Indu, right, celebrating Christmas with her sister Kiran and her mother several years after the train accident.

Indu, in chef hat, with her managers and sister. Indu runs the omelet station at brunches.

Indu, left, with sister Kiran Wadhwa at The Meadow Club’s new garden area.

Indu, third from left, with her father, center, and sister Kiran, third from right, at the first anniversary of the Port Jefferson location of Curry Club at SāGhar, last month.

Photos from Indu Kaur

Indu, center left, with her sisters at Kiran’s wedding.

Indu at her wedding

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Choose community choice: It’s sound economics

Community choice aggregation is a nationwide revolution in energy procurement with transformational implications for Long Island.

The benefits of CCA are threefold. It offers ratepayers an avenue for lower energy costs. It introduces competition into the energy marketplace, incentivizing public utilities to deliver a better product. And it places entire communities down a path toward 100% renewable energy.

The popular fiction is that fossil fuels are cheaper and more efficient than their expensive and immature renewable counterparts. CCA proponents challenge this thinking, stipulating that renewables can outperform fossil fuels with the proper economic structure, a structure supporting energy consumers instead of suppliers.

Classical economics indicates that one company controlling the entire supply of a given commodity constitutes a monopoly. Since the Industrial Revolution, vertically integrated utilities have exercised exclusive control over the supply of energy, setting prices arbitrarily and controlling the market at will.

CCA seeks to flip this dynamic on its head, introducing competition into the energy market using the bulk-buying power of a community of people. Though they are opted in automatically, ratepayers can opt out at any time at no expense. More importantly, CCA gives municipalities a choice over the energy source, with the option to select renewables over fossil fuels.

Competitors’ cheaper, greener power may incentivize utility companies to deliver a better product. If consumers want affordable and renewable energy, the utility’s rational choice would be to invest heavily in renewables and reduce rates. Competition spurs innovation and growth, benefiting all parties.

Here at TBR News Media, we hold that local governments must be highly active and potent and challenge the centralized bureaucracies in Albany and Washington when those fail to deliver meaningful results for our communities. For too long, state-regulated utilities have not done enough to counteract the effects of climate change.

A U.S. Energy Information Administration report notes, “In 2021, renewable sources and nuclear power, together, supplied 54% of New York’s total in-state generation from utility-scale and small-scale facilities.” For New York state to reach its energy goals under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, the report indicates that figure must climb to 70% by 2030.

To meet this task, local governments must do their part, negotiating on behalf of their residents for 100% renewable energy. CCA offers our local officials the means to fulfill this end.

The Town of Brookhaven recently instituted a CCA program for a two-year fixed rate on natural gas prices. Given the volatility of today’s international gas markets, Brookhaven’s program has potential cost benefits.

However, the town has only dipped its toe into the greater CCA dialogue. A gas-exclusive program offers merely the financial rewards of the CCA model without the reduced greenhouse gas emissions. We encourage Brookhaven leaders to study the Town of Southampton’s model, where electricity may soon be procured from 100% renewable sources.

In the meantime, other municipalities should take a close look at CCA. The portside Village of Port Jefferson — already grappling with the hazardous effects of coastal erosion and worsening flooding — could send a strong message by joining this effort. Other municipalities, such as the towns of Smithtown and Huntington, could do so as well.

CCA is a cost-effective, market-friendly and environmentally sustainable policy. For residents and the natural environment, it is time for all our local leaders to take it seriously.

Letters to the Editor

Nuclear energy is the last refuge of climate-change deniers

Almost every week, lately, George Altemose shamelessly unloads another batch of right-wing obfuscation. In “How to tackle carbon dioxide emissions” [The Village Times Herald, Feb. 23], he starts out saying every rational person wants to cut CO2 emissions. This is news, because for years he has been peddling climate-change denial in this forum, with the usual Big Oil playbook:

1. Global warming isn’t happening.

2. If it is, it’s sun output variation or something, and won’t last.

3. Maybe it’s CO2, but not from fossil fuel use — cows, maybe?

4. OK, it’s fossil fuels but renewable energy is so terribly uncertain and expensive, so let’s go nuclear — and while waiting five to seven years, at least, for new plants, keep on burning.

Repeated clear refutations don’t stop him.

In his Feb. 9 letter, “Sign of our times,” Altemose cited a for-hire consultancy, Anderson Economic Group, as (1) highly respected, and (2) having proved that a car owner paid less at the gas pump than an electric car owner had to pay for electricity to drive 100 “useful” miles (3% less, at $11.30). Altemose didn’t mention that to get this result AEG “assumed” that EV owners had to drive 960 “useless” miles per year looking for commercial charging stations that charged an arm and a leg. At current Suffolk prices, a mid-range EV car would cost about one-third less for fuel. And of course, we sweep environmental costs under the rug.

Nuclear energy is the last refuge of climate-change deniers, and claiming it is “clean” is sophistry. Building a nuclear plant is enormously expensive. Remember LILCO’s Shoreham boondoggle at a cost of $5.5 billion after an original projection of $65 million — and roughly 11 years to build, 1973-84? And run for one day, just enough to shift the white elephant burden from the stockholders to consumers. France’s nuclear park is 40 years old and being pushed to run for another 20 years, with costly, tricky repairs that keep about one-third of the plants offline regularly, because in the best of circumstances it will be very costly to decommission a plant, since operation makes almost everything

inside intensely radioactive. Superradioactive “spent” fuel rods have to be kept cooled in water for decades and guarded forever. And then we have Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. What could go wrong?

Arnold Wishnia Setauket

Democratic policies and pols bleeding NYS dry

Right after the personal political interests of New York state’s most powerful elected Democrats, the rest of us come “first.” Too harsh? Ask yourself if any of today’s top Dem “leaders,” along with their downballot groupies, have publicly argued against the failed policies largely responsible for NY’s last three major crises.

New Yorkers have suffered through a catastrophically mismanaged pandemic, a huge spike in violent crime and now a flood of illegal migrants. The first two came while the state was under single-party Dem rule, while the border “surge” came right after President Joe Biden [D] was sworn in.

No worries if you’re having trouble recalling Gov. Kathy Hochul [D] forcefully addressing any of these calamities as lieutenant governor or governor. She did nothing memorable or consequential. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer [D], who holed up in D.C. while senior living facilities were recording hundreds of COVID-19 deaths and NYPD officers were being attacked within blocks of his Brooklyn office, has remained MIA. Newly installed Brooklynite House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries [D-NY8] has mirrored Chuck’s 0 for 3 on the crises. Former NRA favorite Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [D], who notably bragged about sleeping with a gun under her bed, has remained typically invisible and thus consistently inconsequential.

But what would you expect from a political crew whose party’s programs

have been widely responsible for the Empire State’s dramatic downturn. Albany’s deadly push to fill nursing homes with COVID patients along with criminal-friendly cashless bail “reforms” have proved disastrous. And now a wide-open southern border is taking its toll on New Yorkers.

After Dem politicians proudly declared the Empire State a sanctuary, New York City alone has been flooded with almost 50,000 illegal immigrants, creating problems we’re not prepared to solve. Those would include infrastructure overload, violent cartels peddling deadly fentanyl, a further decline in our quality of life and a financial burden amounting to billions of dollars we do not have.

A clear symptom of the contempt our state’s “ruling class” has for its tax-paying citizens was highlighted when we learned that border crashers wound up in 4-star Manhattan hotels on the public dime, while hardworking New York families struggle to make ends meet.

This upside down, backward and failed governing approach taken by NY’s Democratic politicians has not gone unnoticed by hundreds of thousands of now-former residents. Numbers released by the Census Bureau, using data representing the two years since the beginning of the pandemic, shows our state has lost over a half-million people.

In spite of discredited political schemes, our shrinking population and even the surprising 2022 GOP gains flipping the House, there’s no indication Hochul, Schumer, Jeffries and Gillibrand, along with their party sycophants, have any plans to stop bleeding New York state dry.

That’s because, right after these woke, elitist, political masterminds, the rest of us come “first.”

Jim Soviero East Setauket

Chores I’d like an artificial intelligence to tackle for me

I’m really writing this. Or am I?

Now that I’ve seen artificial intelligence in action, I know that the system, such as it is, can write impressive pieces in much shorter time than it takes me to write a column or even this sentence.

Grocery shopping: I’m sure I get similar foods each week. Maybe my AI system could not only buy the necessary and desired food items, but perhaps it could reduce the ones that are unhealthy or offer new recipes that satisfy my food preferences.

Dishes: I’m not looking for a robot akin to “The Jetsons,” but would love to have a system that removed the dirt and food from my dishes, put them in the dishwasher, washed them and then put them away. An enhanced system also might notice when a dish wasn’t clean and would give that dish another wash.

over-the-counter supplies, such as band-aids. Perhaps it could also pick out new birthday and greeting cards that expressed particular sentiments in funny yet tasteful ways for friends and family who are celebrating milestone birthdays or are living through other joyful or challenging times.

Still, it’d be helpful to have an AI system that recognizes these regular needs and coordinates an optimal time (given my schedule and the time it’ll take to travel to and from these events) to ensure I don’t miss an appointment and to minimize the effort necessary.

For the inconveniences, an AI system would help by:

BY DANIEL DUNAIEF

And yet, I don’t want a machine to write for me or to reach out to you. I prefer the letter by letter, word by word approach I take and would like to think I earn the smile, frown or anything in between I put on your face as a result of the thinking and living I’ve done. However, I do see opportunities for AI to become the equivalent of a personal assistant, taking care of needed conveniences and reducing inconveniences. For conveniences, how about if AI did the following:

Laundry: Okay, I’ll admit it. I enjoy folding warm laundry, particularly in the winter, when my cold hands are starting to crack from being dry. Still, it would save time and energy to have a laundry system that washed my clothes, folded them and put them away, preferably so that I could see and access my preferred clothing.

Pharmacy: I know this is kind of dangerous when it comes to prescriptions, but it’d be helpful to have a system that replenished basic,

Staying on hold: At some point, we’ve all waited endlessly on hold for some company to pick up the phone to speak to us about changing our flights, scheduling a special dinner reservation or speaking with someone about the unusual noise our car makes. Those “on hold” calls, with their incessant chatter or their nonstop hold music, can be exasperating. An AI system that waited patiently, without complaint or frustration and that handed me the phone the moment a person picked up the call, would be a huge plus.

Optimize necessary updates: Car inspections, annual physicals, oil changes, and trips to the vet can and do go on a calendar.

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Send reminders to our children: Life is full of balances, right? Too much or too little of something is unhealthy. These days, we sometimes have to write or text our kids several times before we get to speak with them live. An AI system might send them a casual, but loving, reminder that their not-so-casual but loving parents would like to speak with them live.

Provide a test audience: In our heads, we have the impulse to share something funny, daring or challenging, like, “hey, did you get dressed in the dark” or “wow, it must be laundry day.” Sure, that might be funny, but an AI system designed to appreciate humor in the moment — and to have an awareness of our audience — might protect us from ourselves. Funny can be good and endearing, but can also annoy.

BY LEAH S. DUNAIEF

There is something new, and I hope you will find exciting, in this issue of the newspaper. If you will look at the advertisement for Elegant Eating on page 9 for those of you that get The Times of Smithtown or the back cover for The Village Times Herald, you will see a QR code within the border of the ad. Run your mobile phone camera over the code, and it will open up to a 30-second video.

The new addition, in effect, turns the flat, two-dimensional print ad into a talking motion picture, however briefly. This gives significantly extra punch

to the ad. It’s also fun for the reader.

We will repeat this for the other four newspapers, The Times of Huntington & Northport, The Village Beacon Record, The Times of Middle Country and The Port Times Record next week.

We can, of course, offer the same process for news stories. An article about someone newsworthy can carry a QR code that then permits a live viewing of that person speaking to the viewer.

For now, we will concentrate on providing this service to advertisers, refining the process as we go along. And we have priced this offering accordingly to allow many business people to afford coming aboard.

In addition to viewing the short on a mobile phone, the video will also run on the home page of our TBRnewsmedia website under the banner, “Video spotlight on

business.” Our website has approximately 150,000 viewers per month. Further, the advertisers can add the video to their own web page if they would like. Advertisers should check with their sales reps for more information and to get started.

In adding this new feature, we hope to have a meaningful interaction between print and the web. Print, of course, is being challenged as digital news and advertising have lessened to some extent the dominance of print. With this new service, it is our intention to bring the best of both worlds to the advertising side and also the news side of our media output.

The value of print, with its responsibility for vetting and fact checking both stories and ads, cannot be overstated in this present climate of enormous misinformation on the web. In bringing print to the web, and the benefits of the web to print, we hope to

engage our readers further and serve our local communities. We also hope, by being innovative, to help our bottom line.

We know communities need local news outlets to inform and protect them, as well as to hold a mirror up to record their daily lives and achievements. Towns where newspapers have failed in the last decade are now referred to as news deserts and have suffered for their loss. Ill-considered developments, poorly sited landfills and unfortunate actions by unworthy local government officials have been only some of the consequences, with no strong voice to give outcry on behalf of the people. Many energetic journalists have been thrown out of work. We believe the key to survival in this age is to embrace change and join with its best aspects.

Hence our latest enhancement for you.

D. None of the above

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