The TIMES of Smithtown
Volume 28, No. 33
Serving Smithtown • St. JameS • neSconSet • commack • hauppauge • kingS park • Fort Salonga October 15, 2015
$1.00
A bird’s-eye view with Jay Gammill
also: ‘The addams Family’ at the CMPaC, ‘Being There’ exhibit at Huntington Public Library
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St. James gets festive The Deepwells Farm Historical Society hosted a fall festival at Deepwells Farm County Park over the weekend. Civil War reenactors, blacksmiths, honey makers and more had booths, and a full petting zoo equipped with pony rides was available
Stuck in the bucket
North Shore fire departments help rescue Smithtown coaches from sky
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for all children at the festival. There was also plenty of food, entertainment, pumpkin painting, craft and gift vendors, hayrides and more. See more photos on page A13. — Victoria Espinoza
Photos by Victoria Espinoza
above, a girl feeds goats at the Deepwells Fall Festival. right, festivalgoers try their hands at decorating pumpkins on the sunny fall afternoon.
Kings Park chamber looks to change downtown By Victoria Espinoza
Kings Park’s Chamber of Commerce and Civic Association have joined forces to seek out improvements to downtown Kings Park. The Kings Park Chamber of Commerce has been working for years to try and revitalize the downtown. It has now partnered up with the civic association and together they have hired Vision Long Island to do a community vision prospectus with hopes of creating a bucket list of items that could transform the community.
“For a long time it has been a sore subject that our downtown is struggling as it is,” said Anthony Tanzi, president of the Kings Park Chamber of Commerce. “We’re hoping to create a vision of what they’d like to see. Hopefully everyone feels that they’re vested in the process. Then we will take that plan to the town board.” According to Tanzi, this includes a series of public meetings where they will meet with community members to try and get the broadest representation of what the community wants. Tanzi said he hopes to
see residents flooding those meetings and sharing their desires for downtown Kings Park. He also said he wants to engage as many groups as possible, including school districts, fire districts and more, to get a diverse amount of opinions. “I want to hear all the wants and dreams,” Tanzi said. “Whether it’s for more restaurants, housing, apartments or brick sidewalks.” The next meeting was set for Oct. 24 at William T. Rogers Middle School on Old Duck Road at 10 a.m. Tanzi said that the chamber
and civic are each paying $5,000 to Vision Long Island, and Vision is underwriting the final $5,000 for its overall $15,000 fee. Tanzi said he hopes Vision Long Island will identify Kings Park’s marketability and assets, highlight the resources and then couple that with residents’ desires for a new downtown. “Then, hopefully, the Town of Smithtown will have to make a commitment to implement these changes and identify sources of funding.” Tanzi said. Vision Long Island will be meeting with the town later in KINgS PaRK continued on page a12