Feldman to be delisted

Feldman Mall Properties, a Great Neck-based real estate investment trust specializing in strip malls, is going to be delisted by the New York Stock Exchange and will move its shares to trade on the lesser-regulated Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board.
Feldman received the delisting notice because its market cap had fallen below the $25 million minimum required by [...]

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Fix it: The gas crisis

The steady rise in gas prices is much more than an inconvenience, it’s a serious problem.
Take this: According to an Associated Press survey, nine in 10 people say fuel costs will cause them financial hardship in the next six months. And half of respondents say the effects will be severe.
On Long Island, gas prices are [...]

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The time is now

The Business Council of New York State Inc. has created a Web site aimed at supporting a property tax cap. Now.
The cap is the brainchild of the Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi-led state Commission on Property Tax Relief and has been supported by Gov. David Paterson.
Paterson presented a bill to the state Legislature to cap [...]

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LIPA breaks it to us easy

It’s hard to be mad at a power company that’s such a gift to humanity.
Perhaps that’s the logic the Long Island Power Authority was following yesterday when it announced it would raise electricity rates by 3 percent.
In the statement announcing the rate hike - higher prices will further stretch Long Islanders already tied to the [...]

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Chateau des strange

Continuing to bring you news of the trend of beyond the pale and extremely expensive kennels for pets — and enraging the slow-witted among us — consider the recent opening of Riverhead’s Chateau des Paws.
A press release describes this place as “The Four Seasons of the Furry set.” It’s an “amenity rich pet hotel, doggie [...]

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The drills, the drills are calling

We live in a place that won’t abide moored gas barges or even the squinting view of a sea-based wind turbine, so I’m guessing President Bush’s call for more offshore drilling will not be considered locally.
Offshore drilling, like divorce, is best enjoyed when it’s happening to someone else, such as Florida.
The president’s brother, Jeb, opposed [...]

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McCarthy on the high court’s gun decision

Long Island’s most well-known advocate for gun control, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-Garden City, has issued the following statement in response the today’s Supreme Court decision upholding the right to hold guns. She also points to legislation she is sponsoring that would make it harder for criminals to get guns.
Her statement:
“Although I am disappointed in today’s [...]

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Suffolk Life says goodbye

Suffolk Life is gone, and publisher David Willmott, whose deteriorating health contributed to his decision to shutter his chain of weekly papers, offers this note of goodbye.
From Suffolk Life’s Web site:

They say life passes fast when you are having fun; that’s true, I can attest to it. Publishing Suffolk Life gave me great pleasure. It [...]

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Blast from the past

Get me a vanilla milkshake and popcorn with extra butter Betty Jo because Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi is bringing drive-ins back.
So bust out those poodle skirts and watch out for the cars with fogged-up windows as this summer Old Bethpage Village Restoration will be transformed into an open-air, old-fashioned drive-in movie theater.
Here’s the list of [...]

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A lie by any other name

If consumers didn’t question Cablevision’s advertising about its service versus Verizon’s FiOS, they’d believe Optimum online is faster, Cablevision uses fiber optic cables too, Verizon has changed its name to “the phone company” and people are actually persuaded by a glib, cocky knucklehead in a black sports jacket.
But they’d be wrong. Optimum is faster than [...]

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Capital One says it’s on top of local issues

Capital One may have bought out Long Island’s largest bank, but Lynn Pike, Capital One’s president of banking, said the credit card giant still cares about our local community.
Pike, who was at the Long Island Mariott in Uniondale for a “fireside chat” with Action Long Island Chairman Seldon Sackstein, was eager to tout Capital One’s [...]

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Long Island is getting another U.S. Open

Long Island has already started preparing for next year’s U.S. Open at Bethpage State Park’s Black Course in Farmingdale (and wondering if Tiger Woods will be to able win there again after taking time off to heal his knee and broken leg). But that’s not the only U.S. Open coming to town.
The United States Golf [...]

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Consider yourself WARNed

Now Patricia Eddington is looking out for the little guy.
Eddington, D-Medford, sponsored the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, requiring employers with 50 or more full-time employees to provide at least 90 days notice to affected workers, the state Department of Labor and local workforce partners before ordering mass layoffs, relocations or employment loss.
The bill was [...]

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Fax off

The state Legislature has had it with unwanted faxes.
Both the Senate and Assembly passed bills Monday, the last day of the legislative session, protecting consumers from unwanted faxes.
The legislation requires all companies who send out unsolicited advertising faxes to include on those faxes a cost-free way for consumers to opt out of receiving future advertisements either by [...]

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Newsday cleared for takeover

To anybody out there hoping something or someone will thwart the pending takeover of Newsday by Cablevision (Jaci Clement, can you hear me?), the feds have a message for you: Keep dreaming.
The Federal Trade Commission today gave antitrust approval to the deal.
From the Reuters brief:
Antitrust authorities completed their review of the $650 million deal without [...]

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When in the course of human events

These are the times that try men’s souls.
A week from Friday we will celebrate the 232nd anniversary of the actions of brave men who risked ending up on the wrong end of an English rope to remove the power of British arms from our country.
And tomorrow that military might is scheduled to [...]

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The new Dean of the Senate?

With Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno’s abrupt announcement last night that he will not seek re-election, the spotlight now turns to Long Island’s state Sen. Dean Skelos, R-Rockville Centre, as his possible heir apparent.
Skelos and Sen. Tom Libous, R-Binghamton, are expected to fight it out for the top spot, with Skelos appearing to be ahead [...]

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Suffolk to open clinic for vets

East End veterans will soon have easier access to physical and mental help.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy outlined plans for the East End Veterans Clinic to be built at the Riverhead County Center.
Suffolk will pay $500,000, matching a $500,000 state grant from the Dormitory Authority’s Community Enhancement Facilities Assistance Program, to cover the construction of [...]

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Burglars have nowhere to run to now

Can you imagine. In the past, if you stole a diamond bracelet from a Riverhead jewelery store, all you would have to do is get it across the county line, and pawn it in Nassau. The bracelet would never be tracked, and as long as you couldn’t be identified, you were free to plan another [...]

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LIPA receives federal funds for smart metering

The Long Island Power Authority has received $750,000 from the federal government for a Smart Metering Pilot Project.
The program allows the power authority to use new metering technology that will allow energy consumers to reduce or shift their energy usage, increase reliability and encourage energy efficiency by facilitating smarter end-user technologies.
The money will be used [...]

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Playing the shame game

Suffolk County Legis. Kate Browning, WF-Shirley, and about 30 union representatives held a rally Monday morning outside of the Southport Plaza Shopping Center, at 999 Montauk Highway in Shirley, protesting the developer of the Marshalls for hiring out-of-state workers to build the discount store.
Browning said she was contacted by two union workers who were at [...]

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Not the Hamptons, and lovin’ it

Mastic gets a bad rap, as we saw this year when WBLI-FM personality Randy spewed trailer park jokes at a woman from the South Shore village who called into his show. That was truly tasteless.
However, to be fair, Mastic is no Hamptons. And they like it that way.
AntiHamptons.com, a Web site devoted to touting the [...]

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LIPA giving businesses a break too

The Long Island Power Authority has amended its net metering program to allow businesses to take advantage of the cost savings as well.
The program will give full credit to businesses that install solar generating equipment. It gives the businesses an opportunity to sell back any excess power they produce to LIPA. Residential customers already are [...]

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East Meadow turned upside down

Things got a bit scary in East Meadow today.
At 9 a.m., two suspects robbed a Bank of America branch in the village. The police caught one suspect, but a second got away, prompting lockdowns at the Nassau University Medical Center and nine schools in the East Meadow School District.
Here’s NUMC’s statement:
I want to provide you [...]

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How not to act on an airplane

It’s not Christina Elizabeth Szele’s fault. She just comes from a long-ago time when smoking was allowed on aircraft and racial slurs were common.
Wait … scratch that … she’s 35 years old.
Queens resident Szele is in hot water for allegedly punching a JetBlue flight attendant who tried to stop her from smoking on the airplane. [...]

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Energy advice from the guys that know energy

It seems everybody has recommendation for growing green, from buying compact fluorescent light bulbs to making your own bread to starting our ow compost pile in the back yard (if you can handle the smell, of course). But when it comes to energy, here’s your opportunity to leave it to the experts.
The U.S. Department of [...]

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Teaching the test just doesn’t add up

I flunked algebra my first year of high school and barely passed the retake the following year, an embarrassed sophomore among freshmen.
There was something about the randomness of it all I couldn’t get, Theorem 7.This and 8.That, associativity versus commutativity, matrices and madulo.
I’m still pretty sure a polynomial is something served at a luau.
I did [...]

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What do we do with Shoreham?

The plan to build a nuclear power plant in Shoreham failed long ago, yet Long Island Power Authority ratepayers are still paying off the gigantic $6 billion debt the project racked up. But wouldn’t you feel better if you knew something was going to be done with the site?
LIPA today announced that an advisory committee [...]

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A shuttered Suffolk Life is a bad sign

Suffolk Life, a chain of community newspapers that have been covering the county for more than 4 decades, will close next week. And aside from the sad reality that many will lose their jobs in these down times, media appraiser Kevin Kamen worried that the news foreshadows a bleak future for the little guys on [...]

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Once divided, now united

Mr. Kaiman, tear down that fence.
Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi and North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman will announce this morning the formal merging of Bar Beach Park and Hempstead Harbor Park. The two parks, both located in Port Washington, had been separated by a fence and a few dividers.
Those dividers will be bulldozed at this [...]

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