Some dads like to go fishing on Father’s Day.

Not every dad wants to sit home and watch the game. Some like abstract art, muscle cars, or fine wine. Others prefer beer and brunch. Either way, here’s 10 special events and deals across Long Island to get dad off the couch this Father’s Day, which is Sunday.

Special Father’s Day Cruise, Captree State Park, Robert Moses Causeway, Babylon.  1 – 2:30 p.m. Great South Bay sightseeing aboard the Delta Lady. Adults $15, Seniors $12, Children (12 and under) $10. Reservations recommended. 631-422-1060.

Annual Father’s Day Car Show and Swap Meet, Merrick Train Station, Sunrise Hwy and Merrick Ave., Merrick. 9 – 4 p.m. Cars, vendors, food, rides, and live music. $15 pre-registered, $20 the day of. 516-369-0122.

Father’s Day Celebration at Cold Spring Harbor, Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery & Aquarium, 1660 Route 25A, Cold Spring Harbor. 10 – 5 p.m. Fathers fish for free when accompanied by their child. 516-692-6768.

“Cheers for Dad” Father’s Day, Sparkling Pointe Vineyard, 39750 Country Road 48, Southold. 2 – 5 p.m. Gourmet barbeque, wine, local beer, and live jazz. $40 per adult, $10 per child. Reservations required. 631-765-0200.

Father’s Day Brunch, Inn at Great Neck, 30 Cutter Mill Rd., Great Neck. 12 – 2:30 p.m. Fathers receive a complimentary draft beer and a voucher for a future complimentary brunch. Reservations required. 516-773-2000.

Father’s Day at the Heckscher Museum, Heckscher Museum of Art, 2 Prime Ave., Huntington. 11 – 5 p.m. Free admission for fathers and grandfathers. $6 for adults, $4 for students over 10, free for children 10 and under. 631-351-3250.

“Cars and Coffee,” New York Restomod, 91 Milbar Blvd., Farmingdale.  8 – 11 a.m. Muscle cars and street rods. Free admission and breakfast for all. Free goody bags with advance registration. 1-800-913-3511.

Father’s Day BBQ Brunch, Allegria Hotel, 80 West Broadway, Long Beach. 12 – 5 p.m. Unlimited champagne, mimosas, and Bloody Marys. $57 per person. 516-992-3730.

Father’s Day Hike, Whiskey Hill, Bridgehampton. 10 – 11 a.m. Meet on Mill Path (off Lopers Path East) for a 1.7 mile hike with ocean views. 631-537-5202.

Father’s Day Grand Buffet, Three Village Inn, 150 Main St, Stony Brook. 10:30 am – 2 pm. $39 per adult, half price for children under 10. 631-751-0555.

Michael Fagen

A former Long Beach City Councilman was sentenced Thursday to 30 days in Nassau County jail for of filing for unemployment benefits to which he was not entitled.

Michael Fagen had been convicted in January of offering a false instrument for filing and petit larceny.

Judge Meryl Berkowitz also sentenced Fagen, who was removed from office after his conviction, to five years of probation and ordered him to pay restitution to the New York State Department of Labor.

Prosecutors said the 56-year-old ex-lawmaker began receiving $405 per week in Unemployment Insurance Benefits from the state in September 2009, two months before was elected to a four-year term as a city councilman.

The full-time position earned Fagen a yearly salary of $19,828 upon his inauguration in January 2010.

Fagen failed to disclose his employment with the government and as a salesman for a hotel membership benefits company while he received unemployment benefits.

Crews are working on the new Long Beach boardwalk, which will have new features that should make it more durable during future storms. (Rashed Mian/Long Island Press)

Michael Creaney was taking his daily bicycle ride through Long Beach when he cut a left near what used to be the seaside city’s iconic oceanfront boardwalk and pressed hard on the breaks, skidding to a stop.

The 58-year-old Long Beach native, who biked on the boardwalk for as long as he can remember, hopped off along Riverside Boulevard where crews were constructing a redesigned boardwalk after the previous one, built in 1907, was destroyed by Superstorm Sandy’s unrelenting storm surge seven months ago.

“I thanked these gentleman for rebuilding my boardwalk,” Creaney said, the buzzing of construction tools cutting through the air on an eerily quiet Thursday afternoon as crews bulldozed through areas where locals once gathered before spilling onto the beach.

The 2.2-mile-long wooden structure was completely demolished three months after Sandy and reconstruction efforts began four months after that. Crews are about two months into the rebuilding effort.

The city has made attempts to highlight the progression of its rebuilding efforts—first in January to memorialize the century-old boardwalk followed by an April pep rally to celebrate the first day of construction for the new wood structure rising from the sand. Both events attracted hundreds of locals, many lamenting the loss of their beloved boardwalk.

On April 4, the city agreed to a $44.2 million contract with Plainview-based Grace Industries, LLC to takeover the rebuilding effort. About 90 percent of the cost is to be paid for by federal funding, according to city officials. The remaining 10 percent is to be split roughly 50/50 between New York State and the city.

Long Beach’s agreement with Grace Industries stipulates that the project be completed within 210 days from the day that the first shovel hit the ground, and a $15,000 penalty for each day the company goes over that benchmark was included in the deal in an attempt to squash any thought of a delay. That would put the boardwalks grand opening sometime in November, but officials said the public will be allowed to access a half-mile stretch of the new boardwalk in July for bicycling, walking, and perusing the new structure.

But, only two months into the rebuilding effort, some residents are already questioning why the boardwalk hasn’t risen in time for the summer.

“Does anyone else think it’s annoying how the Jersey Shore is rebuilt but their just starting the boardwalk in Long Beach,” vented one Twitter user.

One resident at the June 4 city council meeting simply asked: “When is it going to open?”

City officials are asking for patience. A common refrain from Long Beach is the new boardwalk is being built “stronger, smarter and safer.”

But residents can’t help but compare the City by the Sea’s rebuilding effort to that of the Jersey Shore, which opened for business in time for Memorial Day. And, specifically, the 1.3-mile long boardwalk in Belmar, New Jersey, which cost $8 million and has already been completely rebuilt.

“I understand their concern but what the residents should know is that we surveyed the residents in Long Beach and 88 percent of the residents that we surveyed voted for a stronger and safer boardwalk and that’s what we’re doing,” City Councilwoman Eileen Goggin said in an interview along the construction site.

The iconic Long Beach boardwalk was demolished after it was crushed by Superstorm Sandy. Now crews are working to reconstruct a redesigned boardwalk that will open in November. (Rashed Mian/Long Island Press)

“We’re not just patching up the boardwalk that we had,” she added. “We’re using tropical wood, cement, which is what the residents voted for, so it’s a process. We’re building a boardwalk now that will last hopefully a hundred years. A stronger, safer boardwalk, and so it takes time.”

Mark Tannenbaum, executive vice president of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, understands why some residents have voiced concern about the project, but endorsed a new and improved boardwalk, which will be better for the city in the long run, rather than putting one together for the summer with “spit and gum,” he said.

“It won’t come down again,” Tannenbaum said of the redesigned boardwalk. “And if it does come down it will be at FEMA’s (Federal Emergency Management Agency) penny.”

The new boardwalk could also bring more opportunities for local businesses because residents have shown support for opening shops on the boardwalk, he said.

But city officials are focusing on their current challenges. The city has been touting the boardwalk’s durability under the new project, which includes mitigation designs to build a boardwalk that can withstand future storms. A concrete retaining wall on the south side of the boardwalk should serve as a barrier next time Mother Nature decides to unleash a storm similar to Sandy on LI.

“Waves will not be able to get through like the last storm and cause the destruction that [it] did,” Goggin said.

A new tropical hardwood decking, similar to those installed throughout the state and in New Jersey, will also help alleviate the problem of non-stop maintenance that occurred at the previous boardwalk, officials said.

The biggest change on the boardwalk itself, however, is a wood and concrete stretch from National Boulevard to Long Beach Road in the middle of the boardwalk where officials anticipate the heaviest amount of traffic will come from. Old fashioned lights will also sprout up along the boardwalk to create a “beautiful nostalgic feeling,” Goggin said.

“It’s unfortunate that it will be November,” she added, “but at the same time we’re building something that is going to last a long time so we can’t rush it.”

Creaney, the bicyclist, said he’s willing to wait, so long as the boardwalk is built as advertised.

“I wish it was there today,” he said, “but I want them to do it right and do it properly.”

Chaim Weiss

Nassau County police renewed calls for tips Tuesday to help find the killer of a 15-year-old rabbinical student in Long Beach in a case that has been unsolved for 26 years.

Chaim Weiss’ father, Anton, joined investigators for the news conference, where they announced that the reward for tips leading to an arrest and conviction in the mystery was increased to $25,000.

“We are reviewing everything once again just like we would on a case that just happened today,” Det. Lt. John Azzata, commanding officer of the Homicide Squad, told reporters at police headquarters in Mineola.

Weiss was beaten to death in his dorm room on Nov. 1, 1986. Azzata said that there is forensic evidence, but would not specifically describe the nature of that evidence. He added that tips have been coming in since the press conference was announced.

“In the homicide squad, we constantly review older cases,” Azzata said. “This is not the only older case we’re looking at at the time. This is just one where we believe there is someone out there that has a secret that can let us know or give us a piece of whats known out there.”

Detectives ask anyone with information about this crime to contact Nassau County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-244-TIPS. All callers will remain anonymous.

The 36-year-old victim was at the corner of Azalea Court and National Boulevard when a gunman walked up, pulled out a handgun and shot him at 1:15 a.m. Monday, police said.

The victim was taken to Nassau University Medical Center for treatment of gunshot wounds to his abdomen, thigh and arm.

Long Beach city police detectives are continuing the investigation.

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone joined Fire Island business leaders in Ocean Beach on Friday, May 10, 2013.

Rachel’s Waterside Grill on Freeport’s famed Nautical Mile celebrated its grand reopening about six months after Superstorm Sandy swamped the popular eatery. CJ’s Bar and Grill, one of the best known pubs in downtown Ocean Beach on Fire Island, has meanwhile been rushing to open its doors by Memorial Day weekend.

Both restaurants’ owners joined public officials in recent news conferences declaring that the waterfront tourist destinations they call home are back in business—although reconstruction may not be complete until closer to the unofficial start of summer in cases such as CJ’s. The comeback is the latest sign LI is not giving up after the catastrophe.

“It was hectic, and crazy, and busy, and fun,” Ivan Sayles, owner of Rachel’s Waterside Grill, optimistically told the Press while describing the April 26 grand reopening as an adventure. “It is like opening a brand new place. Business was phenomenal.”

Restaurants re-opening in hard-hit areas include Fatfish Wine & Bar Bistro in Bay Shore, Captain Bill’s Restaurant and Catering also in Bay Shore, View Restaurant in Oakdale, E B Elliot’s Restaurant in Freeport and in Long Beach: The Cabana; West End Pizza; East End Pizza; and Whale’s Tale, according to the Long Island Restaurant Association.

In the days and weeks after Sandy, it wasn’t clear how many local businesses that lost inventory and equipment to flooding would reopen. Nearly seven months later, the discouraging sight of debris has been replaced with ‘open’ signs on business doors.

“It has been inspiring to walk these streets where flood waters would have been at our waist six months ago,” Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said at a May 10 news conference in Ocean Beach. “All of these business opening and ready for the tourism season is nothing short of a miracle.”

Relief can be detected in the voice of the several business owners who have recently reopened their stores.

“There was three feet of water in this building,” said Chris Mercogliano, who owns CJ’s, the 40-year-old bar that was initially believed to be gone forever after Sandy. “We had to completely gut it; all new electric, all new plumbing. It was basically a brand new place. There’s not much left of the old place now.”

He and several other FI business and civic leaders launched the Revive Fire Island campaign to raise money and awareness of the barrier island’s comeback.

“It’s been a long, hard struggle, but as you can see we’re open for business,” said Ocean Beach Mayor James Mallott, who owns The Albatross bar. “We want everyone to know that we are here.”

Back in Freeport, where the local chamber of commerce told reporters that some Nautical Mile establishments will not return this season, the optimism was tinged with harsh realities.

The future of Rachel’s Waterside Grill became dimmer after the storm when government aid was not provided for the desolated business. But a $50,000 grant from National Grid provided well needed help to get the restaurant back on its feet, said Sayles.

Peter’s Clam Bar on Long Beach Road is among the local shops mounting a comeback after Sandy assaulted the eatery. Dominick DeSimone, the bar’s co-owner, describes the months after the hurricane as agonizing.

“[The work has been] very heart breaking,” he said, noting that they reopened despite renovations being one third completed. “We’re waiting for some aid, but there’s no aid at this point.”

Kurt Smith, owner of Flair House clothing store in Ocean Beach, said Sandy forced him to leave his winter job to oversee the rebuilding of his boutique.

“I was pretty much here all winter,” he said. “Seven days a week since February; just making sure that the finished work was done and get everything opened up close to on time. I opened up a week later than I usually do.”

Smith, like other small business owners who rely on a short window of warm weather on LI to draw customers, is banking on patrons returning from bygone seasons.

“Hopefully people will come back to and enjoy the Island again,” he said. “Probably my favorite thing to see is when people come here and they find out what it is and then they fall in love with it for the first time. It’s kind of like a tag line; once you come here you pretty much never leave.”

The entrance of the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant on Tuesday, May 14, 2013.

Nassau County officials took nearly 100 residents on a tour Tuesday of the embattled Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant to explain why such a stench is emanating from temporary post-Superstorm Sandy repairs.

Officials said they’ve gotten a head start on their plans for a $1.2 billion project to upgrade the plant and harden it against for future storms—nearly half of which would fund extending the outflow pipe from Reynolds Channel into the Atlantic Ocean. But a completion date won’t be clear until New York State and federal funds start flowing.

“Clearly, the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant has not been a good neighbor,” County Executive Ed Mangano told reporters and residents during a news conference at the facility. “Although operating, it is fragile.”

The apology tour came less than a week after the plant spilled 3 million gallons of partially treated sewage into the waterway—a spill the county blamed on a power outage at the plant—and two weeks after an environmental watchdog ranked Bay Park’s more than 2 billion gallons of Sandy spill the worst in New York State.

Parts of the Bay Park facility had been flooded with more than 9 feet of saltwater in the storm surge. The plant is still running on backup generators more than six months after its four engines were knocked out in the Oct. 29 storm. Temporary digester tanks that have been contributing to worse-than-usual smells in the area are scheduled to be moved.

“I’m hearing a lot of crap,” said Cynthia O’Rourke, a makeup artist and mother of two who took the tour with her 2-year-old daughter to find out why they still can’t return home since her family’s Oceanside home was flooded with sewage in Sandy. “Nobody’s taking responsibility for 20 years of mismanagement.”

The rickety state of Bay Park and its sister plant, Cedar Creek, had been the subject of a Press investigative series. The county later committed millions to repair the plant before Sandy hit and knocked it offline for more than a month, causing pipes to burst and sewage to flood some homes before pressure could be released on the plant.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to help get Nassau its sewage plant repair funds.

“This is a basic human necessity; this is not a luxury item,” she said. “Societies have lived and died based on their sewage systems.”

Assemb. Harvey Weisenberg (D-Long Beach) echoed concerns that the sewage spills into Reynolds Channel impacts fishing, swimming, the air and groundwater.

“There was no containing anything that was coming out of here,” he said of the Bay Park’s failure during Sandy. “This is an emergency situation that has to be addressed.”

Sandy damaged houses across Long Island, such as this one in Atlantique on Fire Island.

Superstorm Sandy went down in history six months ago as one of the biggest natural disasters to hit Long Island, irreversibly changing its landscape and washing away many residents’ sense of security.

While the widespread blackouts, lengthy gas-shortage lines, catastrophic flooding and mountainous debris piles are mostly just a memory, recovery efforts are still most visible on LI’s Atlantic Ocean-facing barrier beaches that suffered the worst damage.

“Sandy to some people is gone, it’s passed,” said James Mallot, the mayor of Ocean Beach, Fire Island’s unofficial capital. “We live it out there every single minute of the day.”

The village, like the rest of LI’s Sandy-ravaged beachfront communities, is rushing to prepare for Memorial Day weekend, the kickoff to the summer beach and tourist season that pumps billions into the local economy.

Meanwhile, a breach that Sandy caused in Fire Island’s federal wilderness area to the east of the residential communities remains open, which has become a point of contention between those who blame the breach on flooding in communities near the Great South Bay and others who argue it’s cleaning out the polluted waterways.

The storm, a massive hybrid of a category 1 hurricane that merged with a nor’easter, is considered the worst to hit the region since the infamous “Long Island Express” in 1938.

Looking to Katrina for Perspective on Sandy Recovery Timeline

In the City of Long Beach on LI’s westernmost barrier island, officials held a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday to commemorate construction of the new boardwalk to replace the old one that Sandy destroyed—although the Long Beach Medical Center is still closed.

“We came together months ago to mourn the loss of our boardwalk,” Scott Mandel, president of the Long Beach City council, told hundreds of residents who gathered for the event. “Today we come together to celebrate the rebirth of it. Long Beach is coming back better than ever.”

A five-mile stretch of badly damaged Ocean Parkway on Jones Beach Island just reopened last week after contractors rebuilt the roadway’s protective dunes that were washed away. Parts of Jones Beach itself are already reopened, but Robert Moses State Park is still closed.

And in the Hamptons, some millionaires have sparked controversy by building seawalls—work that may be challenged in court—in the hopes of protecting their oceanfront mansions, The New York Times recently reported.

Signs of a comeback can be found on mainland LI as well. Camp Bulldog, a makeshift support network in Lindenhurst that was a lifeline for residents coping in Sandy’s aftermath, closed over the weekend. On the North Shore, the West Shore Road seawall is nearing completion. And East Rockaway Junior-High School reopened Monday just in time to mark the six-month mark of the Oct. 29 storm.

Also on Monday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency reported that its four remaining disaster recovery centers in Long Beach, Island Park, Seaford and Copiague will become Disaster Loan Outreach Centers on Wednesday, indicating another milestone in the recovery process.

“New York has made tremendous progress in the six months since Sandy,” said Michael F. Byrne, FEMA’s federal coordinating officer for Hurricane Sandy operations. “But the work is not done.”

Grant Smith was playing golf as a single at white course when he made rude comments on the third hole to two men ages 66 and 65 and then yelled racial slurs at them on the fifth hole at 9:35 a.m. Tuesday, police said.

Smith, 48, then struck the 65-year-old victim with a golf club in the left calf, breaking off the head of the club and threatened to stab the victims with the broken club, police said.

The victims called 911 as Smith fled the course. The man who was hit was treated at an area hospital for a contusion.

Smith was arrested Thursday and charged with assault and menacing.

He will be arraigned Friday at First District Court in Hempstead.

Raymond Roth

The man who admitted last week to faking his own death was rearrested Wednesday on suspicion of pretending to be law enforcement while trying to lure a woman into his van, Nassau County police said.

Raymond Roth was charged with criminal impersonation, attempted kidnapping and attempted burglary. He will be arraigned on the new counts Thursday at First District Court in Hempstead.

“We received numerous tips through our Crime Stoppers line naming Mr. Roth as a subject and our investigation took off from there,” Det. Lt. Robert Galgano of the First Squad said, referring to surveillance video of the suspect being aired on News12 Long Island.

Police said the 48-year-old Long Beach resident had asked a 38-year-old woman to get in his van in Freeport, told her he was a cop when she ignored him and then followed her into a check cashing store. He reiterated to workers there that he was a cop and told them to let him into their back room, where she was hiding from him, police have said.

That was hours after Roth pleaded guilty at Nassau County court to fourth-degree conspiracy, a felony, in a plea deal with prosecutors. He’s suspected of trying to lure two other women as well, police said.

Roth was expected to be sentenced in May to 90 days in jail and repay authorities $36,000 for the time and resources wasted searching for him last summer.

Roth’s son, Jonathan, had reported Raymond missing from Jones beach in July, when he told police that his father was swimming when he disappeared. Raymond later was found to be in Florida, alive, and eventually turned himself into police.

Raymond had told the judge he’s taking medication for bipolar disorder and has attempted suicide. He was expected to face up to 15 years in prison if he had been convicted at trial of insurance fraud.

Jonathan also pleaded guilty to conspiracy and filing a false report last week.