Limba

Huntington Town Suprivsor, Frank Petrone -TBC
2003-12-12 00:00 (America/New_York)

Holiday Gathering
2003-12-19 00:00

Holiday -No meeting
2003-12-26 00:00

Holiday- No Meeting
2004-01-02 00:00

Charles Richardson
2004-01-09 00:00

Jerry Kremer Former NY State Assemblyman,
2004-01-23 00:00
Former NY State assemblyman, News 12 ommentator, LIBN columnist.

State Senator John Flanagan
2004-01-30 00:00
Mr. Flanagan will speak on a topic of his choice. However LIMBA will ask him of the political feasability of a new ferry service from Shoreham to New Haven, and a 3rd track on the main line of the LIRR to accomodate freight and a reverse commute.

Roz Goldmacher - LI Development Corp
2004-02-06 00:00
Roz heads up a not-for-profit quasi-government corporation that helps businesses get financing.

NO MEETING
2004-02-13 00:00, 2004-05-07 00:00, 2004-05-28 00:00

Victor Yannacone, Patchogue Theater
2004-02-20 00:00
The Pathchogue Theater was beautifully renovated. It is now a first class venue that Mr. Yannacone will speak about.

Political Debate /Discussion Ginny Fields vs Eilleen Peters
2004-02-27 00:00

James Dermody, Pres, LIRR
2004-03-05 00:00
One of the questions that were posed to Mr. Dermody concerned the proposed rail yards that will be required to improve service to NYC. This proposal has generated some controversy with residents close to the proposed yards. Backround: Presently billions of dollars are being invested in creating an east side access to Manhattan by having LIRR trains come into Grand Central Terminal. This access will be using a new tunnel that was built years ago and never used. Now the connecting routes are being funded and the LIRR will have to make infrastructure investments in yard storage to take full advantage of this tunnel.Here is LIMBA’s position on the yards. These yards will facilitate service that will aid in improving the attractiveness of rail use with a corresponding reduction of passenger cars on the roads. These are electric train yards and air pollution is not an issue. On the other hand continued increases in the use of private cars does raise an air quality issue. Therefore the communities that are involved and the LIRR will have to find out what is necessary to install these yards without having a large negative impact on the surrounding community.There were, of course, many other questions including questions from the rail freight president Fred Krebs, IBEW president Ralph Ranghelli, LIMBA Transportation Committee John Howell, Mark Serotoff and several others. Mr. Dermody fielded them all.

Angie Carpenter Checks and alances in local government
2004-03-10 00:00

Rod Zuch, Exec Dir, The Morgan Center
2004-03-12 00:00
This presentation was from Rod Zuch and Nancy Zuch,Directors of The Morgan Center.The Morgan Center was borne out of an experience with a child with Leukemia.
Young children cannot be assimilated with other children when their imune systems are compromised by Chemo-theraby. Rod and Nancy wanted to provide a pre-school
experience for their stricken child Morgan. The Zuch’s became painfully aware that they would not be able to provide that experience that is essential to a child’s development under any program that existed at that time.
Rod and Nancy set out to create the program that is known as “The Morgan Center” and have created a resource that is available to other children at no cost the parents.
Today’s presentation was a moving example of an initiative that was created out of a painful experience for this family.
One of The Morgan Centers benafactors, Smith-Barney in Melville sponsored this mornings meeting. The Smith Barney manager, Tom Brown, introduced the speaker.

Steve Levy, Suffolk County Executive
2004-03-19 00:00
Speaker; Steve Levy Suffolk County Executive
The county executive addressed LIMBA today and gave us an overview of his administrations stewardship. Mr. Levy mentioned many issues that he felt were in the interest of good government.
Among those issues were the witholding of accumulated sick days that are cashed out by retiring civil servants. These payments amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars over a career and there is no logical reason why they should be paid. His position is that you came to work, you were not sick, you were paid, why should we pay you again? A perfectly logical conclusion, that oddly enough, is being resisted by the county legislature.
Other topics were, removing superfluous cars, canceling bodyguard protection for the county executive, and reducing department head salaries while at the same time tapping into the best candidates.
Mr. Levy discussed the protection of open land while at the same time identifying land that can be developed thereby fostering economic growth as well as environmental issues.
He described his job as a great challenge and balancing act. This is a role that he appears quite comfortable with.
After Steve’s formal remarks there were many questions and he fielded them with the agility that we have come to expect from him.
Among the questions was “How can he help LIMBA establish new ferry routes from Long Island?” His answer was “to coordinate all relevent departments and expidite permiting.” As usual, we ran out of time before we ran out of questions, so we went 10 minutes over the usual meeting time.

Mike LoGrande "The Transformation of the Water Authority"
2004-03-26 00:00
This morning’s speaker, Mike LoGrande, gave an enlightening presentation on the “Transformation of the Suffolk County Water Authority.” Mr. LoGrande became chairman and CEO of SCWA in 1990. According to Mike the SCWA was a resting place for political leftovers. The organization was top-heavy, inefficient, and not at all attuned to the needs of the customers.
LoGrande changed all that, consolidated buildings, selling under utilized properties and building a first class testing lab. The lab has been such a success the EPA uses the SCWA laboratory to set protocol standards for them.
Under LoGrande’s administration water quality has improved, customer complaints have all but disappeared, and the number of employees have been reduced by about 20%. At the same time the number of customers that are being served has been increased by about 40%. Part of the growth has been the result of absorbing many under performing water companies. Water companies that had decaying and contaminated infrastructure when SCWA took them over are now operating at the same standards as the rest of the system.
Mike LoGrande was Islip Town Supervisor for three terms, County Executive, and President of the Association for a Better Long Island for three years before coming to SCWA. It was a pleasure to have him.

Gerard Fitzpatrick, Modern Ferry Technology
2004-04-02 00:00
Gerry Fitzpatrick VP of Harley Shipbuilding Co.Harley has designed a high speed Surface Effect Ship that can operate at 1/3 of the horsepower of a similar sized, conventional vessel, and travel at least twice the speed. Moreover the vessel can maintain high speed in rough seas.The breakthrough is based on two design advances. First the design of the hull and secondly the high strength, lightweight composite material it uses in the construction. An interesting meeting such as this generates a lot of questions. And there many. It was an extremely informative meeting.

GOOD FRIDAY No Meeting
2004-04-09 00:00

Ken Morelly Pres, LIFT
2004-04-16 00:00
Our speaker this morning was Ken Morelly, President of the Long Island Forum for Technology. Ken spoke about the future for technology companies on Long Island. He described the future years of ‘backlog’ of work already placed with major Long Island companies from defense contracts.In addition, Ken spoke about homeland security, touching on the organization of the federal agencies, how monies will be distributed, and some of the plans that have and will be made for Long Island. Ken’s deep knowledge of the technology, manufacturing and defense industries was impressive, and he fielded many questions from the LIMBA members and guests who came.

Patrick Foye, United Way
2004-04-23 00:00
Today we had a presentation by, Patrick Foye, the new President of United Way of Long Island.His presentation emphasized the efficiency of the organization with 85% or more of the raised revenues going directly to the agencies that benefit from a relationship with United Way.Pat discussed the size of philanthropy on Long Island in terms of revenue, which he stated to my surprise, was about 10% of the local economy, or $10billion. When it came to the Q&A some of the questions began to drift to issues about LIPA, because Pat serves on the LIPA board, but we quickly refocused the conversation back to the United Way.One of the agencies that Pat spoke about was “The Retreat.” This agency provides a “safe house” for battered spouses. This agency does not have easy access to funds, and is supported mainly by the United Way. Pat seemed to be proud to be able to help these smaller agencies. After the formal meeting closed at 9:35 Pat was gracious enough to spend time with many people who wanted to hang around and ask more questions one-on-one.

Jerry Kremer
2004-04-30 00:00
Long Island “Yesterday Today and Tomorrow”
Today Jerry Kremer was our speaker. After the usual announcements Bob Gaffney took on the responsibility of introducing his good friend. Bob expressed a deep respect for Jerry’ grasp of the budget when he was in Albany. According to Mr. affney there was little chance that Mr. Kremer would be caught not knowing what was in that massive document. Jerry was introduced and went on to describe the process of politics as it was under the ward system and how it has changed over time.Jerry was critical of the distance between the electorate today. He compared the relationship of the political workers and the voters with the impersonal relationship that exists today. He remembers when turkeys were given out to the voters in low wage areas. In other words the politcal parties kew who we were and knew what we needed. The Q&A was lively and Mr. Kremer is always intesting in his take on politics, not to mention knowlegdeable.

Dan Walsh, President of the Business Council, NY State
2004-05-14 00:00
Dan Walsh, President of The Business Council of NY was our speaker this morning at LIMBA. Dan is an advocate for the business community and has a multitude of issues to deal with.
Our meeting was too short to fully explain the scope of the Council mission, but he did talk about the need for reform of the state pension system that forces the expenditure of make up funds when the investments suffer a large downturn as has happened in recent years.
Another item discussed this morning were the electric line that the state of Connecticut has made unavailable to Long Island. We also discussed the murky politics behind that move by CT
Dan brought up the educational funding around the state and called for a comprehensive agreement instead of the piecmeal arrangements that wastes time and sometimes unfairly allocate funds.
The Council also handles tax issues, Workers Comp. safety regulations, and other major issues. While in a forum such as ours it is not possible to get to all the issues, the audience got a taste.

Senator Balboni "The Need for Homeland Security Planning"
2004-05-21 00:00
This morning’s meeting was thought provoking and cautionary. Mr. Balboni cited many concerns he has about the way Homeland Security is being administered. In some cases the threat is not being adequately addressed or not being addressed at all. Containers being shipped into the US are largely unsurveiled. First Responders in New York still do not have an adequate communications system in place. He also pointed out that the allocation of funds have been diverted by political “pork” from going into places like NY, and other large cities to rural and farm states. In addition railroads have no way of enhancing safety. Busses are not monitored either. Nor is likely they can be.
But it wasn’t all bad news, he did report that airline safety is much better. The East River tunnels will be upgraded by contracts that will begin 2006. Some containers are safe because of “port of origin” plans that are in effect now.
Mr. Balboni is an excellent presenter and his remarks evoked many questions making the meeting interesting and quick moving.
In our audience we had at least two of our corporate sponsors represented. That would be Keyspan’s Vincent Frigeria, and Northfork Banks Bob Gaudioso

Ben Parris, Exec. Dir. LIMSAT "The value of Connecting Educa
2004-06-04 00:00

Round Table Discussion dubbed "The Townsend Letter"
2004-06-11 00:00

Peter Mandelstam "Windpower Potential for LI"
2004-06-18 00:00
This morning’s meeting was as refreshing as an ocean breeze. In fact that was the topic. Off Shore wind generation of electric power is a technology of significant promise. Peter Mandelstam of Blue Water Wind was expected to speak to the LIMBA audience on the topic. However he had another commitment. Instead we heard from Kathleen Whitley, of AEP Power. Kathleen delivered an excellent presentation that was packed with good information, and was articulately delivered. According to Whitley, the cost of wind generation is more than fossil fuel generators, but when you consider that fossil fuels have been subsidized and they contribute to health impairments, the cost differential may not exist. In addition, the cost of fossil fuels is likely to increase over the years, while there are no fuel costs associated with wind. Whitley discussed the visual effects of wind generators. She pointed out that at three miles off shore the visual effects would be minimal. During the Q&A questions of ocean ecology came up, but the consensus was that marine life benefitted from ocean structures and that they would nurture marine growth. Also answered in the Q& A was the ability to use larger generators on the existing pylons as newer technologies are developed. That question was also answered in the affirmative. We closed the meeting on time, but many people remained to speak to Kathleen about questions that our schedule did not allow. Next week we will have a presentation on an intergenerational program delivered by Paul Arfin.

Paul Arfin "The Suffolk County Comm on Creative Retirement"
2004-06-25 00:00
The Intergenerational program addresses the needs of the very young and the elderly in a unique setting that benefits both of those groups. The director of the program, Paul Arfin, gave an overveiw of the program and how it works. The Suffolk County Commission on Creative Retirement is a group that County Executive Levy is establishing in his office. Mr. Arfinwill be Chairman of the Commission. He discussed ideas on how to involve more retirees in government and community service; how to counteract the negative stereotyping of generational groups; and how to better prepare retirees for their retirement years.
The text of Mr. Arfin’s talk is provided below:
LONG ISLAND CAN BE THE “NATION’S #1 REGION!”

Terry and I are committed to solving Long Island’s major problems by mobilizing support to exploit Long Island’s great assets.

We are confident that within the next five years through the application of SIMPLE COMMON SENSE SOLUTIONS Long Island can end congestion by using toll roads and ferries, reduce taxes by reducing bureaucracy through merger and consolidation, expand advanced education facilities to meet the region’s need for trained personnel, provide workers’ housing by rezoning for smart growth and mixed use of our surplus state hospitals and airports, and improve use of our decaying downtowns, single level strip malls and brown fields.

We are organizing “Long Island Benefactors” to fund special projects such as the Long Island Historical Pageant, the Long Island Collection of
Print, Films and Music, and a Long Island Data Bank to record gifts of $10,000 and up. Recognizing that the best prospects are past donors, the purpose of “The Benefactors” will be to create a climate of philanthropy to stimulate needed major gifts by giving recognition to major donors.

The first project of the Long Island Benefactors is a multi-media historical operetta based on Newsday’s “Long Island, Our Story.” Aimed at Long Island’s fourth and seventh grade students, required by the state to be exposed to local and American history, it will utilize Newsday’s book as its researched basis for 16 theatrical segments which include Indians, Flushing Remonstrance, Walt Whitman, Whaling, Teddy Roosevelt, Irving Berlin, Grumman and Republic planes, the LEM, Lindberg, Robert Moses, Alicia Patterson, Joan Whitney Payson, William Sidney Mount, Alfred and William Levitt, Felix Grucci, Dr. James Watson, and William K. Vanderbilt

The goal is to present Long Island’s exciting heritage of world renowned accomplishments to foster regional identity and pride. The $7,000,000 refurbished Patchogue Theatre for the Arts, with its 1200 seats, is the site for the pageant to be shown week days and Saturdays. We are analyzing films and music for background film presentation as well as a light and sound show. Start up would be sometime in 2005.

The “Long Island Historical Pageant” is designed to stimulate interest and enthusiasm for Long Island’s outstanding people and events that have made the island the Nation’s Number One Region. In agriculture, Long Island at various periods has been first region in pickles, potatoes, Peking ducks, lawn sod, Blue Point oysters and cranberries. Today, Long Island is first in number of horses, sport boats, marinas and golf courses. Long Island is the NATION’S NUMBER ONE REGION in sports event attendance and the Hamptons have made it the nation’s NUMBER ONE RESORT. It is one of the world’s great fishing capitals, with Montauk holding 30 of the world’s records for sports fishing. Long Island reached the top with the U.S. Open and has the Belmont Stakes, Hamptons International Horse Show, and U.S. National Tennis Center. In November, Touro broke ground to create the NATION’S NUMBER ONE LAW CENTER , building a $27 million campus adjacent to the 40 County, State and Federal courtrooms. And Central Islip became the NATION’S NUMBER ONE REVITALIZED REGION when the 25,000 mental patient warehouse facilities were transformed by Ron Parr into a mixed use development of houses, condos, college, law and recreation center. Long Island is FIRST IN LIBRARIES with FAMILY PLACE CENTERS, for children and toddlers in Centereach, now replicated in cities across the U.S.

With these many attributes already in place, Long Island can definitely be the NATION’S NUMBER ONE REGION!

4th of July Weekend Celebrated-NO MEETING
2004-07-02 00:00
