Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone gives his second State of the County address Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013.

Suffolk County lawmakers debated Tuesday a proposal to merge the county comptroller and treasurer’s offices in a plan the county executive said will eliminate seven jobs, saving more than $1 million annually.

Treasurer Angie Carpenter told the legislature that the estimated savings are “bogus” and several lawmakers questioned the plan, prompting County Executive Steve Bellone to tweak the proposal before a public hearing scheduled for next month.

“If all the same duties are there and the same work has to be done, how would that $1 million be saved?” Legis. Lynn Nowick (R-Smithtown) asked Carpenter.

“It’s a fabrication,” Carpenter replied, calling the proposed merger “an injustice.” “If you eliminate those seven jobs, you can’t eliminate that work that’s being done.”

Bellone announced last week his proposal to have voters decide in a November referendum whether to merge the treasurer’s office with that of Comptroller Joseph Sawicki. He estimated that the plan would save nearly $6 million over five years.

But some lawmakers, including Presiding Officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook), expressed concern Tuesday about the Bellone’s proposed appointment of an interim chief financial officer to head the merged office before a replacement could be elected in 2014.

Vanessa Baird-Streeter, Bellone’s spokeswoman, said the proposal has since been tweaked to have Sawicki lead the proposed merged office before his term limit at the end of 2014.

“If it is voted upon by the residents of Suffolk County to allow the merger of the two offices,” she said, “Sawicki…would hold two titles, comptroller and CFO.”

Lindsay called a special legislative meeting July 22 to hold a public hearing on the resolution that, if passed, would allow a referendum for the voters to decide if there should be “a unified county department of financial management and audit.”

The public hearing is required before the legislature votes on the resolution at its next meeting on July 30. Bellone is pushing for passage as quickly as possible to allow enough time for the resolution to appear on ballots in November.

Newsday has reported that Suffolk County GOP leadership called plan by Bellone, a Democrat, “payback” for Carpenter running against the county executive in 2011. Both Carpenter and Sawicki are Republicans, but only Carpenter is running for re-election.

Sawicki did not return a call for comment.

The man, whose identity was not immediately available, was found on the left shoulder between the center median and the HOV lane between exits 60 and 61 on the eastbound side of the roadway, but not in a driving lane, at 5:30 a.m., police said.

He was taken to Stony Brook University Hospital, where he later died.  The Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s office will perform an autopsy to determine the man’s cause of death.

Vehicular Crime Unit detectives are continuing the investigation.

The LIE was closed in both directions for a half hour while investigators were on the scene. The HOV and left lanes were closed for more than two hours.

Supporters of the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe in Shoreham Monday, May 13. Left to right: David Madigan, former Assemblyman Marc Alessi, Jane Alcorn, and filmmaker Joe Sikorski. (Photo credit: Spencer Rumsey/Long Island Press)

The same day that Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced plans in Albany to overhaul the Long Island Power Authority, the executive board of the nonprofit Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe hosted an informal gathering for the media on the overgrown grounds and the decayed buildings in Shoreham, where visionary scientist Nikola Tesla once hoped to transmit free energy to the world.

The event on May 13 marked the first time since the 16-acre site was acquired from the Agfa Corporation for $850,000 earlier this month that the media was invited to view the laboratory that famed architect Stanford White had designed for Tesla, with financial backing from J.P. Morgan.

Built from 1901 to 1905, the brick lab was connected by an underground tunnel to a nearby transmission tower, which once stood 187-feet above ground and could be seen from Connecticut. Torn down in 1917 and sold for scrap after Morgan stopped funding Tesla, today only the foundation of the tower remains, plus an ongoing mystery about the all the other tunnels that Tesla reportedly constructed as part of his design electrify the ionosphere and “grip the Earth” with resonating chambers somehow connected to the aquifers.

Jane Alcorn, president of the Tesla group, told the Press she hopes to clear up that mystery soon because someone with “ground-penetrating radar” has offered to do some pro-bono exploration. For years, it’s been rumored that Tesla’s lab equipment was tossed into the tunnels as landfill.

The group had been unable to locate Stanford White’s designs for Wardenclyffe until recently when Alcorn connected with the director of the Tesla Museum in Belgrade, which has a large collection of Tesla’s archives.

“It turns out that all his papers, including the Wardenclyffe blueprints, are in Belgrade,” she says excitedly. The museum officials have promised to send copies of the significant paperwork to the board soon.  “We hope that it will help us with the restoration process and answer some questions regarding the tower and the tunnels.”

Those details would come in handy for filmmakers Joe Sikorski and Vic Elefante, who are working on a documentary about Wardenclyffe, “Tower to the People,” which they hope to complete by this summer “to bring as much attention as possible” to the project, Sikorski says. The filmmakers had donated $33,000—all the seed money for their fiction film about Tesla, “Fragments From Olympus”—to help the science center meet its original goal of $850,000. Online comic Matthew Inman helped spark an online fundraising campaign on Indiegogo.com that netted more than $1.3 million.

Tesla Science Center has to decide whether this dilapidated interior of the photo products warehouse will have to be torn down. (Photo credit: Spencer Rumsey/Long Island Press)

Helping the cause was a $400,000 state grant, originally set up by the former Democratic Assemb. Marc Alessi, which the Town of Brookhaven was administering. According to Alessi, who was beaming with pride as he talked with reporters at Wardenclyffe (while proudly proclaiming that he’s out of politics), there’s an additional state grant of “close to $600,000 that needed some matching money.”

The former Superfund site, polluted from decades of photo-product use, has been officially cleaned up, Alessi tells the Press, adding that “one thing the town could do is stay out of their way as they redevelop the property and make sure it’s done without a lot of red tape.”

The building’s interior is in very bad shape. This reporter was shown inside what had been an annex of the original lab used to ship products. Graffiti covered the walls, a 15-foot puddle was on the cement floor, days after it had rained.
Pointing into the darkness of a corridor that led to the original laboratory, David Madigan, president of a commercial real estate company in Holbrook and a member of the Tesla Science Center board, cautioned reporters from going further because of the high concentration of mold, asbestos and lead paint. The remediation will cost millions, the board predicts. They say $10 million, but that’s just a number “we plucked out of the air,” says Alcorn. Besides raising that daunting amount of money, the board will commission a feasibility study to determine what to renovate and what to demolish.

In the mean time, the Suffolk County police K-9 unit will begin using the site for training and provide security.
Interestingly, the job of transforming Wardenclyffe into a world-class museum was actually made a little easier by Peerless Photo, which bought the site in 1935, because “they boarded up the original arched windows without dismantling them,” Madigan says. “They created a labyrinth of other uses within the building but never tore the building down.”

Today there’s a large warehouse on the west end of the original laboratory, plus a storage area and loading docks attached to the east end.

“When they did build the surrounding buildings,” Madigan says, “they created a space between [them] so perhaps in the future, if a museum was ever created here, the original building would not have to be destroyed to take the other buildings down.”

Like the other board members, Madigan continues to find inspiration in Tesla’s vision and the mission of preserving “the last place on Earth” where Tesla actually did experimental work.

“Everything he did embodied embracing the future,” Madigan says, adding that the goal of the Tesla Science Center is to create “a living thing that looks forward rather than a static thing that only celebrates the past.”

But, of course, the Shoreham facility would honor the inventor of the x-ray photograph, robotics, wireless technology, desalination, bladeless turbines, as well as the induction motor for the long-distance transmission of alternating current, which, Madigan points out, “is the reason we can turn the lights on where we live today from a power plant miles away.”

Revamped Vanderbilt planetarium. Pictured above is a state-of-the-art planetarium projector. (Photo courtesy of Vanderbilt Museum.)

The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum’s Planetarium has been renamed The Charles and Helen Reichert Planetarium following the philanthropic Fort Salonga couple’s recent $850,000 donation—a move that some worry may cause confusion.

Suffolk lawmakers debated the issue Tuesday before they unanimously voted to approve a resolution changing the name of the Centerport facility, which saw nearly 10,000 visitors the first month since it reopened in March following a $4-million renovation. About 200 school children visit the planetarium and museum daily.

“We’ve spent a long time branding this facility, we’ve spent a lot of money on this facility…everybody knows it as the Vanderbilt planetarium,” Legis. Jay Schneiderman (I-Montauk) said before the vote. “I’m a little bit concerned. I don’t want to discourage people from being philanthropic. I just hope were not hurting ourselves in the long run.”

The donation, spread out of the next decade—$80,000 for the first five years, $90,000 for the second five—is the third largest in the history of the museum since William K. Vanderbilt II bequest the mansion and a $2 million trust to the county after his death in 1944 and his daughter, Muriel Vanderbilt, donated another $6.2 million.

Revamped Vanderbilt Planetarium Educates and Illuminates

“I’ve thought of that,” Lance Reinheimer, interim executive director of the Vanderbilt, said of the name change possibly confusing the public. “It’s a valid concern.”

He added that road signs will continue to just say “planetarium” and the Reichert family name will be used mainly in correspondence and publications. It will be informally known as the Reichert Family Planetarium at the Vanderbilt Museum.

“This is a private donation, it’s not a corporate donation, and we’re naming the building in recognition of the gift,” Reinheimer said. “So it’s a little bit different than Bethpage Ballpark,” he added, referring to the Long Island Ducks’ minor-league baseball stadium in Central Islip for which the county sold the naming rights to Bethpage Federal Credit Union.

Presiding Officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook) dismissed the concerns over any potential confusion.

“In all the years that I’ve been sitting here there’s been nothing but complaints [from] this legislature about the Vanderbilt bleeding money,” Lindsay said. “Here we got some money, what are we going to do, throw it back at them?”

Maria Cepparo

A Bay Shore woman has been accused of leaving her four children, one of them autistic, alone in a vehicle parked in a fire zone while she drank in a Holbrook bar.

Suffolk County Police arrested Maria Cepparo and charged her with endangering the welfare of a child.

Police said the 40-year-old woman was in Momo’s Sports Bar and Grill while her 13-year-old son, who is autistic, an 8-year-old son and 6-year-old twin daughters were left in her Ford Focus with no heat and the doors unlocked at 12:15 a.m. Sunday.

Cepparo will be arraigned Sunday at First District Court in Central Islip.

The four children were released to their grandmother.

Suffolk lawmakers are trying their hardest to keep energy drinks like Red Bull out of the hands of minors.

Red Bull may give you wings, but the energy drink companies’ attempts to reach minors may soon be grounded on the eastern half of Long Island.

Suffolk County lawmakers approved three controversial bills Tuesday aimed at keeping energy drinks out of the hands of minors, citing health concerns, over objections of beverage industry lobbyists who called it unfair. County Executive Steve Bellone has not signaled whether he will sign the bills into law.

The proposals include legislation prohibiting the sale and distribution of energy drinks to minors at county parks, prohibiting energy drink companies from mailing energy drink coupons and free samples to minors and launching a public awareness campaign about the potential health effects of such beverages.

“Far too many people are unaware of the effects excessive caffeine consumption can have on the body,” said Legis. William Spencer (D-Centerport), a pediatrician who chairs the health committee. “Excessive consumption of caffeine can aggravate preexisting conditions and contribute to a variety of health problems.”

He deemed the legislation the first of its kind in the nation, which comes as the Food and Drug Administration is investigating the health effects of energy drinks. Like-minded county legislation had been unsuccessfully tried three years ago.

Parents, doctors, county health officials and local substance abuse treatment providers expressed support for the proposals before the vote. But the energy drink industry lobbyists questioned the accuracy of the research the proponents relied upon.

“If energy drinks were so harmful we would have definitive evidence,” said Matthew Vishnick, an energy drink lobbyist who called the bills unconstitutional. A representative of the American Beverage Association made similar appeals to the legislature.

Leaders of the Suffolk County Quality Consortium, a nonprofit drug rehab umbrella group, suggested that children drinking high-caffeine beverages such as Red Bull, Monster and Amp are at risk for substance abuse.

Not all lawmakers supported the legislation. Legis. Tom Cilmi (R-East Islip) said that the county should give equal treatment to things he deemed as dangerous as energy drinks, such as skateboarding, soccer, coffee and breakfast cereal.

“There’s a lot of confusion when it comes to these drinks,” he said before voting against two of the bills, but for the one barring energy drink companies from mailing marketing materials to minors. “There seems to be science on both sides. I think there are better ways to be spending our time.”

Presiding Officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook) questioned how much the campaign may do to outweigh the $162 million in annual energy drink advertising for an industry that had $7 billion in sales last year. He later voted for the campaign.

“The Truth About Stimulant Drinks” will be a county-funded TV public service announcement created by whichever local student wins a planned contest to create the best message.

Two parents who blame the death of their teenage children on energy drinks cheered passage of the legislation.

They include James Shepherd, who said his 15-year-old son, Brian, “died from an unexplained arrhythmia the day he consumed what I believe to have been his first energy drink” that the boy acquired from Red Bull representatives giving out free samples.

Wendy Crossland, who blamed the death of her 14-year-old daughter, Anais, on caffeine toxicity, said she hopes “other counties, cities, and states will follow Suffolk’s lead to protect our children so they don’t face the same tragedy as I and other parents have.”

Bellone is holding a public hearing on the bills Tuesday, April 10 at the H. Lee Dennison Building in Hauppauge.