Community Watchdog

Alex and Kathleen LePore say freight trains stored by the Deer Park Avenue overpass ruin the look of their community.

Graffiti-laden freight trains used by the New York & Atlantic Railway are constantly parked over the Deer Park Avenue-Route 231 LIRR overpass. It’s a major eyesore in our community. All we are asking is that the cars be moved off the overpass farther down the tracks to eliminate the eyesore. Our contacts with the company have gotten us nowhere.

We called New York & Atlantic Railway President Victor Paul who said he’ll instruct workers to move cars as far east as possible in an effort to ease the eyesore. If 10-11 cars are stored, they should clear the overpass. But if more cars have to be stored there, they will be visible.

Deer Park is his place of last resort for storing freight cars, used only when all other storage areas provided through NYAR’s contract with the Long Island Rail Road are filled.

Paul said if there are special events being held in the community, such as a parade, he will try to have the trains moved temporarily for aesthetics and return them when the event is over.

The number of cars stored on L.I. mirrors the economy, he said. The slower the economy, the more freight cars stand idle.

LIRR spokesman Sam Zambuto said in prepared statement, “The LIRR has had discussions with the New York & Atlantic Railway on the issue...in response to concerns raised by residents, elected officials and Newsday’s Community Watchdog. The LIRR and NYAR are exploring alternate locations for the storage of these freight rail cars and, in the near term, the NYAR is preparing protocols for the storage of the cars to the east and/or west of the trestle.”

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Susan Siarkowski says drivers have a difficult time exiting Glen Keith Road onto Sea Cliff Avenue at the entrance to Trousdell Village.

We live in Trousdell Village in Glen Cove. There is only one road, Glen Keith, to enter and leave. It is dangerous for drivers to exit onto Sea Cliff Avenue because SUVs and other vehicles park close to the intersection and we cannot see oncoming traffic. This issue was brought up at a Glen Cove town meeting at the Knights of Columbus Hall in July. We were told that a curved mirror would be installed across the street to try to alleviate the sight-line issue.

Crossed wires. Siarkowski’s understanding was that the city would be responsible for installing a traffic mirror. However, Mayor Ralph Suozzi remembers being asked permission to erect the mirror and giving the OK for the Trousdell Village Association to do it.

He wouldn’t have assigned it as a city project, he said, because a mirror isn’t an official traffic control device. Suozzi was surprised that Siarkowski called us about the problem because, he said, he had been asked twice about the mirror, had said "yes" twice and believed they had forged ahead with their plan. “They presented a problem and said they had a solution. They didn’t ask me to look at the problem and come up with a solution.”

Suozzi said if the association wants to install the mirror, they’ve been given permission to do it already. However, if the association wants the city to address the problem, members should contact him and he’ll get the process started. “Someone has to look at the visibility problem and design a solution. I would ask the police and the engineering department to look at this intersection and see if they can recommend a solution,” he said.

Siarkowski said she plans to contact Suozzi.

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A fence behind Evelyn Koubek blocks a portion of the Peconic River from public use.

On the Peconic River, where it passes beneath Connecticut Avenue in Manorville, I’m able to canoe east to Peconic Bay if I carry my boat over land in spots. But westbound, the passage is blocked by a chain-link fence owned by the Peconic River Sportsman’s Club. I thought there were laws in New York that precluded blocking a common waterway.

After we called, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) investigated the fence in Manorville, and it's an exception to the rule..

The state’s Freshwater Wetlands Act requires a permit for any obstruction to freshwater wetlands. However, since the fence was erected before the act was passed in 1975, there’s no violation.

“It predates the law, so it was grandfathered in,” said DEC spokeswoman Maureen Wren. “If the club were to change or replace the fence, they’d have to apply for a freshwater permit.”

The club's property covers about 400 acres that house several historic buildings, a game preserve, a 38.5-acre fishing lake, and archery, rifle and pistol ranges.

The fence dates to 1932, when the property was still part of the Woolworth-Donahue estate, according to the club’s secretary John Hall.

Long Islanders with concerns regarding freshwater obstructions should call the DEC’s regional office at 631-444-0200.

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Years ago, the Town of Brookhaven named a preserve in Ridge after Capt. Jonathan Bruce Bednarek, who died in the Vietnam War.

Bednarek had lived in Greenlawn, in the Town of Huntington, so it was unclear why a memorial to him was located Ridge. The passive park had been named for Bednarek so many years ago that officials didn’t have information on how it came about. The issue was revisted in the Sunday Community Watchdog column because the sign for the preserve with Bednarek's name went missing sometime between late last year and early this year.

Friends of the Bednarek family say that the captain’s parents lived in Leisure Village, which is adjacent to the preserve. One friend who worked with Bednarek’s father John at Chemical Bank wrote in an email, “John has since passed on, so on his behalf, I would like to offer whatever support is needed to insure that his son’s name is once again perpetually honored by displaying his name properly at the Town of Brookhaven preserve.”

The writer, said, “John Bednarek grieved the loss of his son and Captain Bednarek’s ultimate sacrifice for our country in the Vietnam war must never fade from our memory.”

UPDATE
Thanks to Ken and others who have sent us information about Capt. Bednarek. A short update is scheduled to be published Sunday in the LI Life section of Newsday.

Last week we got complaints from drivers heading south on Wellwood Avenue in Babylon, saying the change in traffic lights was causing tie-ups during rush-hour.

Instead of a green arrow-solid green ball, the traffic light was changed to green arrow/red arrow, causing a major backup of traffic because of cars trying to head east on Southern State Parkway.

Suffolk County Public Works Commissioner Gilbert Anderson looked into the problem and, “a lot of the traffic problems are due to the construction that’s going on at the bridge (the overpass for the Southern State Parkway on Wellwood) right now," he said, "We’ve gone out there and changed some equipment, revised the timing of the light. There should be a significant improvement as a result of these changes.”

We appreciate his quick response, especially if drivers are moving more smoothly and quickly through the area.

In January we wrote about a Ridge resident who was upset because the garden club of the Leisure Village retirement community excluded non-members from using part of the Town of Brookhaven preserve. The 50-acre park was named after U.S. Air Force Capt. Jonathan Bruce Bednarek who died in Vietnam during the war.

A few weeks after the item was published, the large gray sign with Bednarek’s name went missing from the preserve.

So many years have passed since the passive park was dedicated that officials are unsure how it came to be named after Bednarek, a Greenlawn resident known as Bruce to friends. According to information on the Virtual Wall Web site, Bednarek, a Purple Heart recipient, was downed and declared missing in North Vietnam after taking off from Da Nang Air Base. In December 1988, his remains were returned to the U.S. and buried in Calverton National Cemetery.

“We’ll be replacing the sign and move it closer to the road so it’ll be in more public view,” town spokesman Tom Burke said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a history of how the park got named after him, but for all those who gave their lives for this country, the town thinks it’s appropriate, whether he came from Huntington or Brookhaven, Islip or another town — the sacrifice the captain and other men like him have made — certainly the least we can do is to remember people like him.”

A cat altered at the Animal Lovers League shelter in Glen Cove last week recovers after surgery.

In late December, Ken Robinson asked for help with a feral cat problem in his Lindenhurst neighborhood.

On Feb. 13, 14, 15, volunteers for the Animal Alliance of L.I. and the L.I. Cat Project trapped a dozen feral cats in the area and took them to the Animal Lovers League shelter in Glen Cove as part of the trap-neuter-return program (TNR), which is widely recognized as an effective means of reducing the wild cat population.

Joan Phillips, vice president of the Animal Alliance, said the 12 cats were among 130 altered at the shelter last weekend in recognition of Spay Day USA, an annual campaign by the Humane Society of the United States to help limit the number of feral cats and pets. The cats also were vaccinated and “ear-tipped” for identification.

Phillips explained that while the cat is under anesthesia, “a little piece of the left ear is taken off horizontally. The ear is cauterized [so there’s not bleeding] and then you can tell from a distance the cat has been altered and has had its rabies shot.” She said squaring off very tip of the ear doesn’t hurt the cat and hasn’t discouraged families from adopting feral baby kittens that can be domesticated.

As the cats recover, they’ve been returned to Lindenhurst. “The people who have been feeding them will continue to feed them, but the colony can’t grown in numbers,” Phillips said. If the cats hadn’t been caught and fixed, she said, “lots of unwanted kittens would have been born this spring.”

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Dan Vaneck wants the Town of Hempstead to replace a fence

A Town of Hempstead lot between Martin Avenue and Natta Boulevard across from our Bellmore home is constantly littered with trash, graffiti and items that people don’t feel like taking to the dump. The town recently install a chain-link fence, but it was flimsy and dismantled by kids. We would like to have a stockade fence installed on the north side of the lot.

Soon after we called the town, the town contacted area residents to determine what type of fencing they would prefer. Homeowners differed, but based on their input, the town now has to decide which fence would best suit the job.

“Once that determination has been made, the fence will be up within a week or two,” said town spokesman Michael Deery.

The Martin Avenue parcel dates to the 1970s when the town installed a concrete pipe known as a box culvert to stop occasional flooding from Newbridge Creek. Since then, the parcel has had an assortment of fences that have been broken or vandalized.

The most recent chain link fence, installed late last year, has vanished, Deery said.

Vaneck has a theory: “The last fence was missing the top bar, so it quickly fell apart when kids climbed it.”

Town residents with fence problems on town-owned land should call the town’s help line at 516-489-6000.

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What’s happening at the Southern State Parkway overpass on Wellwood Road?

The new traffic turn signal for vehicles heading east on the parkway has been changed from green arrow/green ball to a green arrow/red arrow, causing major backups and delays at rush-hour.

We’re calling Suffolk County Public Works to see what’s up.

Stay tuned.

We're continuing to get complaints and problems by mail/email and many are about the same issues.

Old utility poles left behind after a new one has been installed is a common problem in Nassau and Suffolk.

Homeowners wonder why the street a block away has been repaved and theirs hasn't been touched. Or they want new sidewalks and curbs.

We try to vary the issues for the Sunday Watchdog column in Newsday (the issues are previewed here before they hit print), and hopefully, we'll get to your problem as soon as we can.

Please be patient. Feel free to send us a reminder email and let us know what you've done in the meantime, or whether there's been any change or improvement.

John Peguillan, chairman of Nassau's Assessment Review Commission, encourages homeowners to appeal their tax assessment themselves.

Nassau County homeowners who are thinking about appealing the tax assessment on their homes but haven’t yet started the process need to get moving. March 3 is the no-exceptions deadline.

In Nassau, tax assessment challenges are handled by the Assessment Review Commission (ARC), which is independent of the Nassau County Assessor, who sets the assessment. In Suffolk County, property owners have until May 15 to file, and the process is done by the towns.

Nassau is the only muncipality in the state where appeals can be filed online ARC Chairman John Peguillan (PEG’-A-LON) said. Go to ARC’s Web site and its link to AROW (Assessment Review on the Web) for the application and the Sales Locator that lists data on comparable sales in your area.

Click below the video player to read more.

Members of the Bay Shore Woods Civic Association, James and Wendy Green, Patti Blodgett, Shalema Ford, president, Kathy Dio and Rose Boone, want a cleaner worksite where a home is under construction.

We have been fighting to keep our quiet neighborhood of one-family homes from becoming overwhelmed by investors who tear down original homes to build “McMansions.” Some one-family houses in our area have been turned into houses for two, three and more families. A home on our street was demolished and is being replaced with an oversized structure that could easily be converted to a multi-family dwelling. We had hoped Town of Islip officials would listen to our concerns about its size. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Now, the front yard is always filled with construction debris and garbage that blows all over the neighborhood. It’s an eyesore and we want our neighborhood respected.

After we called the town, inspectors who have visited the site returned and saw the debris. The town was preparing a stop-work order, but before one could be issued, a Dumpster was delivered and the debris was contained. Acting on the concerns of the civic association, the town has followed the construction of this home, town spokeswoman Catherine Green said.

A stop-work order was issued after the tear-down of the original home and the builder was given summonses. While the case was pending in court, the builder applied for a permit to construct the new home, paying triple the usual fees as a consequence of seeking the permit after work had already started, she said.

Subsequent town inspections indicate the building is being built as a single family home and the town will continue to monitor construction to ensure it remains within the limits of the permit issued, Green said.

So many of the complaints we’re receiving are from homeowners who say their sidewalks and curbs are in serious need of repair or replacing, or from residents who feel their streets need repaving.

Readers in both Nassau and Suffolk Counties are bothered by these problems.

If you feel the streets and sidewalks on your block need to be addressed, contact the department in your town and ask whether there are plans for your neighborhood when the paving season starts this spring. Be sure to point out any dangerous conditions caused by the need for repairs. Jot down the name of the person you’ve talked with, their direct line telephone number the date, what was said and when you should be hearing back from someone. Your area may not be slated for repairs, but if a dangerous condition has developed, the town is more likely to squeeze in the work even if it's not on a master plan.

In most towns, the highway department is responsible for the work. In Smithtown, the parks department takes care of sidewalk repairs. Click on the town links at the left for telephone numbers.

The deadline for homeowners to challenge their property tax assessments in Nassau County is looming. March 3 is the absolute deadline and there are helpful Web sites to help homeowners to file their own appeal.

Check out the Nassau County Assessment Review Commission’s Web site and the Assessment Review on the Web (AROW).

The sales locator feature in AROW allows you to find comparable sales in your neighborhood. Use the information to determine whether the assessment on your home is too high. If so, you may have a good chance on appeal.

More on this to come.

You can’t please all of the people all of the time.

That’s probably never truer than when trees are involved.

Two items in Sunday’s paper (and previewed here last week) were arbor-related. A man in Shirley understood that a couple of acres of trees were taken down to allow for safer landings at Brookhaven’s Calabro Airport. But he wanted plantings or landscaping to replace the trees. The second item was a before and after update. Nassau County removed some trees on Stewart Avenue in Bethpage so the Town of Oyster Bay could pour new sidewalks in an area where the bulging tree roots had buckled the walkway and made them hazardous.

Blog commenters apparently didn’t like the tree removal in Bethpage. For the record, the woman who asked to have the sidewalks replaced had hoped the trees could be saved. But she’d seen enough people falling on the bulging, uneven sidewalks to want something to be done about the problem. If safety is involved, we think removing the trees is probably the better option.

In Shirley one commenter said there were other areas of Shirley that needed attention more than the location where the trees had been removed. Another called the item worthless.

Like I said, you can't please all of the people all of the time.

Robert Henck wants the Town of Brookhaven to replant the areas where trees were leveled.

A few months ago, Brookhaven Town leveled two acres of oak trees on Sunset Drive in North Shirley for Calabro Airport use. It looks like a war zone. People are using it as a drag strip, garbage dump, etc. Where you had the trees as a buffer from William Floyd Parkway to cut traffic noise, you now have an amplifier. The town should have planted small trees or hedges and other landscaping and grass.

The town had no choice about leveling the trees, town spokesman Tom Burke said. It was done to meet the Federal Aviation Administration’s requirements regarding trees and how high they can be in relation to airports.

The town program is on-going, Burke said. More trees will come down, but when the program is completed, there’s a stabilization plan to plant grass or other groundcover. Burke said the town would have to explore whether the FAA would approve planting anything more extensive.

The large chunk of wood caught in the wires behind Joanne Cintron has been removed.

This is in reference to countless numbers of phone calls I have made to Verizon’s repair department. In November I had a large tree removed from my backyard. One of the very large, thick branches had grown around the phone wires and became was embedded in them.To cut down the tree, the people I hired had to cut around the phone lines leaving a large portion of the tree branch hanging from the phone lines. This is posing a big hazard. I'm afraid at some point it will fall down, potentially harming an innocent child playing in the backyard. I called Verizon’s repair department numerous times and have documented the repair numbers they have given me.

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The wood’s gone.

Cintron had been told by utility workers that the wires with the trapped branch belonged to Verizon. But after we called the phone company, a crew was sent to Cintron’s home and determined that the affected wires belong to Cablevision, according to Verizon spokeswoman Heather Wilner.

Someone should have told Cintron that Cablevision was responsible, but obviously, that didn’t happen and she continued to call the wrong company thinking that the work order numbers she had been given meant that the job eventually would be assigned.

Almost immediately after we called Cablevision, the problem was fixed. "We did send a crew to the residence in Lindenhurst, and we did confirm that the branch was in our wires, and we did remove the branch," Cablevison spokesman Jim Maiella said.

Residents who have problems with Cablevision wires can call the customer service number on their bill, Maiella said. Or visit cablevision.com.

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Newsday photo by Gwen Young

Newsday photo by Audrey C. Tiernan

Kay Torrisi contacted the Community Watchdog because she was unable to get new sidewalks at the Town of Oyster Bay parking lot B7 on Stewart Avenue near her home in Bethpage after years of trying. The first photo shows Torrisi by one of the old concrete sidewalk slabs buckled by tree roots. The second photo of Torrisi was taken Jan. 31 after the Town of Oyster Bay and Nassau County collaborated to fix the problem after we called. Part of the problem was the shared jurisdiction. Town spokesman Jim Moriarty and Ian Siegel, deputy county executive for public works and parks, got things moving to remedy the problem. Siegel said new trees will be planted this spring and Torrisi declares the new sidewalks “beautiful.”

Based on emails to watchdog@newsday.com, readers welcome road-paving projects, especially on their block.

One town, the Town of Hempstead, has a listing for some of the planned road projects for the first half of this year. Click here to view the page. Seems like a nice idea to let residents know when to expect the pavers to come through.

We received the letter below in response to a Community Watchdog item that appeared Jan. 27 in Newsday. The complaint involved a home in Baldwin whose owner has been given summonses by the Town of Hempstead for excessive trash around the yard and other code violations. We didn’t name the homeowner in the column.The letter has been edited so that he remains anonymous here, and for length. The photo of Greco appeared in the column.

Dear Gwen Young,

After reading the Community Watchdog complaint by Della Greco... I felt compelled to write an neighborly response. I have known the owner of the property for years as a fellow resident of Baldwin. I have employed him to do odd jobs, as well as consulting with him on antiques and restorations. And while [he] may be one of the town’s more colorful characters, I have always known him to be an outstanding individual with an incredibly wonderful attitude about life and living.

He sees art and beauty in Americana and in our past. His home restoration project is a labor of love, and with many long term restoration projects time and patience is required. While Ms. Greco may find the property in disarray at times with wood, ladders, and old appliances lying about, these objects she gripes about are really unrestored gems from Long Island’s past.

All construction projects are messy. But this property is not dangerous and it is not a “pigsty” inside or outside. [The owner] has come a long way in completing his dream house; that of an 19th century homestead, but more time is required.

Unfortunately time may be running out for him. He has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and is now in poor health and suffering from the ill affects of the cancer and the aggressive Chemotherapy treatments he is currently undergoing.

As neighbors we certainly find it easy to complain and easy to pass judgment on our fellow neighbors. Their lawns are not cut. Their children are too loud. Their property is messy. There is always something to say, to gossip and stew about - that is in our natures. But in times of emergencies and strife we do have the ability to come together for the better. To that end, I have offered [the owner] help in getting his work site in shape, for him and for the community in general. The help he needs, but that he can no longer do by himself.

Perhaps if we all stopped complaining about problems and got out there to offer our support we might just accomplish something positive in the end.

I urge Ms. Greco and all [the owner’s] neighbors to rally behind him and lend a neighborly hand. It’s so easy to complain and to hide behind a letter, and I guess even harder to lift a finger to actually help somebody out. It would be a win, win for all of us!

Alan Matlick
Baldwin

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Thanks to the NY Giants for a fantastic Superbowl!

Joann and Armin Olivieri, with son Matthew, want new entrance markers for their development

We are homeowners in the South Setauket Park development in South Setauket. For the past four years, the homeowner’s association has been trying to replace four unkempt, dilapidated brick walls at both entrances. The lack of progress has to do solely with the Town of Brookhaven.

After four years, “lack of progress” is an understatement, but after talking to town officials and the South Setauket Park Homeowners’ Association, we don’t think the blame rests solely with the town. Delays came with changed plans and personnel. A lot of time is still spent waiting for a consensus from the volunteer advisory board which makes decisions involving the 671 homes within the special park district that will pay for the new markers.

Delays and politics aside, here's where the project stands:

Town spokesman Tom Burke said three things need to be done to move the project forward: The board must approve final specifications for the design and the project has to be put out for bid. Most important, owners of four homes where the walls will go must sign easement agreements after a surveyor marks the areas.

Marie Berkoski, the town’s special districts coordinator, said the original walls were erected without the agreements but new ones can't be built without them. The advisory board “assured me there were easement agreements but they do not exist,” Berkoski said. She has been waiting a month for advisory board members Ted Nienburg and Steve Amato to give her the final OK on the plans, she said. The project can begin when everything is in place.

Nienburg, who is also president of the homeowners’ association and has been involved with the project since the beginning, said the new markers should be up by the end of the year. “We know exactly what we have to do,” he said. “We have everything in place to get it done.”

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