What it Means to be a Freeporter

Howdy, Freeport!

Today...I have a difficult task ahead of me. I'm going to attempt, probably with only limited success, to crystallize my feelings on what exactly Freeport, New York is and, more importantly, the spirit behind those who call themselves "Freeporters." Before I can really do that, however, I have to inform you of the impetus for my choice of subject; and that is the toughest part, because its one of the most emotionally challenging, complicating the intellectual challenge of defining a town.

The reason for this article is that on the fifteen of this month I intend to move in with my girlfriend. This is undoubtedly a cause for great joy. For the purposes of this publication, however, the problem is that all of the apartments we saw in Freeport were either already taken or not up to the standard she and I required. We instead found a place in Hempstead that she fell in love with, and we've opted to go with it. Assuming that holds true, in less than a week I will cease to be a Freeporter.




...Or will I? You see, there's something rather unique about Freeport. I don't mean its demographics, I don't mean its architecture, and I don't mean its alleged dichotomy between north-and-south. I mean to say that Freeport itself is a cultural identity that anyone who has lived here for a few weeks will touch - but only those who have lived here for an extended period will fully understand.


What is Freeport, New York?

Freeport is a town that, despite some troubles in its past, has in general come together to form a solid identity. Oh, there's disagreements! We fight over politics (sadly, to a fault), and we all have our own way of doing things as individuals However, has this ever superseded the fact that when one of us says "Nautical Mile," the rest of us knows precisely what they're talking about? I don't think so. Whether we agree or disagree over a given administration's performance, we all share an identity as Freeporters.

Maybe this is more a byproduct of the fact that I'm comparatively young, when those who have lived in the Village since the 1960's have indeed observed change. It doesn't take me too long to find people at the high school where I work who observed Freeport at what is arguably its worst - race riots on par with those that took place in Westbury and elsewhere. Perhaps, looking further back, its true that Freeport has an unpleasant side in history - it was, at a time, a bastion of the KKK. Truly, Freeport has seen its share of inequality and prejudice, and thus at one point wasn't a very nice place to live.

No more.

Today, by and large and with very few exceptions, Freeport is a place of harmony. There will always be people who subscribe to racist ethnocentricities; people of all creeds and colors have succumbed to such unfortunate systems. But if you look at Freeport's youth for its future, not its present or past, you'll find a town filled with children who, for the most part, were raised in a multicultural context and are as close to "color-blind" as humankind can probably ever become. Those who seek to demonize Freeporters are racist, or as caught up in gang affairs, or as biased based on the area in which they live are wrong.

Being a Freeporter involves all of these things. As a paraphrasing of a classic statement goes, "you can take the Freeporter out of Freeport, but you can't take the Freeport out of a Freeporter." Or, something like that, you figure it out, but the point is: As I prepare to leave Freeport on at what will likely a one-year lease, I realize that wherever I live I will always be "from Freeport," and will always be a Freeporter. Its something that can never change, and while I hope to return to the Village in the future I also realize that, should I move near or far, I will bring Freeport with me to new people. I will bring that simple spirit of getting along with people and, with any luck, convince others that our way can work with theirs.


Future of Jesse Pohlman's The Weekly Freeporter

I suppose for some of my readers this will raise the question of whether or not I am going to continue this blog. My answer is that I don't know. I'll still work in the Village, and I will spend considerable time here...But I don't know if that qualifies me as someone really capable of speaking up about what's going on at the present day.
I'm sure that I'll write at least one or two more articles about what I think Freeport's biggest challenges will be going forward, but after that?

I've considered doing a sort of "correspondence" thing, where I examine my new home through the critical lens of the old; I think that'd be trite, and it wouldn't let me judge my surroundings for themselves. I will definitely not be passing The Weekly Freeporter on to another writer - I think that if it ends, then it ends. I also know that I won't be taking it down, since I think everyone should have access to everything I've said in the past because I don't believe in revisionism and deleted blogs make for easy historical editing.

Enough about what I know I won't do, lets talk about what I might. I most likely will use this space as a place to report on any experiences I have when I'm in town; that will be relatively frequent, at least for the immediate future, as my friends and family still live here and I will certainly see people on the Nautical Mile at times. My fear with that idea is that this turns into a "this is what I did" blog, not a "this is what's going on" one. My other potential idea is that I would endorse a new, up-and-coming blogger (or bloggers?) about the Village. I wouldn't make an endorsement lightly, as I would need to be convinced that said candidate(s) would hold to the same ideals I stand for.

For those who caught my radio interview on this subject, I'm a big fan of pursuing the truth, and that was The Weekly Freeporter's genesis. In the interest of disclosure, I'm definitely not the first person to think of writing about Freeport on the internet - this guy was. At least, I think he was; I could be wrong. It had its flaws and it was probably ahead of its time even considering those; it clearly died out in 2003! Yet, this website was indeed one of the first I've found about our Village.

It took a while for the internet to mature before such an endeavor could be nearly as fruitful as this one, but here we are. Did you know this is the 75th post to The Weekly Freeporter? Its been a long ride. And, in so many ways, its only the beginning - and that's how I'll leave this.

Take care!

The Weekly Freeporter Visits Halftime Howie!

Hello, Freeport!

I've probably already said this before, but on Tuesday I stopped into the Halftime Howie show on WGBB 1240 AM!




I only have a small piece of Howie's hour to myself, a few minutes at most, but I tell folks how I got into writing. Following that, I break into my reasons for starting The Weekly Freeporter itself. Its short but sweet!

Check it out by clicking this link! If you want to fast forward to see me, scroll to the seven minute mark (7:00).

Now then! If you like it and would like to see me back on to talk more about it and hyper-local journalism in general, might I suggest a plan? Lets make this their most watched, liked, and commented-on Youtube video ever! Get to commenting! I already started off on my new Youtube account, one that I've got big plans for in conjunction with my Liberty Free Media project.

Thanks for your continued support!

Plus, a -huge- shout out to Eddie Digital for introducing me!

Nine Years after Nine-Eleven

I was just starting my senior year of high school, and was a month and a day from the age of seventeen. It was third period, which at this particular point meant I had a free period that deserved to be spent in blissful sleep in the cafeteria. I can still remember my chagrin – three years after the fact – at the new and less-comfortable style of seating in the FHS food spot. I woke up, and was on my way to my fourth period class as if it were any other day in the history of the United States – or, at least, my high school career. That's when my friend Mike found me, and he looked worried. “They fucking hit us,” he said. I rubbed my eyes, found out I wasn't dreaming (or having a nightmare), and when I was given clarification on exactly what “hit” meant, my blood ran cold.


(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons, USCGC Eagle)


September 11, 2001. I could talk in great depth about my feelings that day – in my young mind, it was just the opening gambit by a “greater power” such as Russia or China, one that had planned it as a distraction for our armed forces so that they could launch a follow-up strike while our guard was down. To a young me, the truth really was just too simple, and there were just too few facts available at that point. It was just so much easier to imagine a cast of nefarious characters similar to James Bond's SMERSH (SPECTRE in the movies) – invisible, omnipotent, and dedicated to our destruction. For a budding fiction writer, I guess it made sense.

But like I said, I'm not here to talk about my feelings on that day. As powerful as they were, so many others suffered so much more that mine are virtually irrelevant. Just the same, its hard to be critical of anyone's opinion on the aftermath of the atrocity that took place – with so much loss and lifelong trauma, I get a nasty feeling in my gut when I tell myself that, in spite of the horror, the best thing we can do - what we have to do - is to approach its lingering effects on our country from an impartial angle; one as distant from emotion as possible, one whose responsibility isn't to people's feelings as much as the code of conduct that we as American citizens have agreed to abide by.

Over the last few months there has been an incredibly un-American backlash against Muslim citizens in the United States. While ludicrous “book-burnings” may be off the table, the biggest issue I'm finding myself at odds with folks I otherwise agree with is, of course, the “Ground-Zero Mosque.” It is, naturally, not at Ground-Zero at all, but instead a few blocks away. It also is not operated by a terrorist organization; Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf was selected by the Bush Administration to serve as a special envoy to Islamic countries as early as 2007 - far from a radical. It isn't even just a mosque – Park 51 is an entire community center which happens to be organized primarily by Muslim-Americans, but which will feature a 9/11 memorial as well as interfaith resources. In short, the entire concept of a "Ground Zero Mosque" no longer has few, if any holds on reality.

I say “no longer” because according to a recent New York Times article, the actual “Ground-Zero Mosque” was a prayer center that was destroyed during the 9/11 attacks; and this underscores the true sadness of this entire issue. The terrorists who murdered three thousand American citizens nine years ago didn't care if they were Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Wiccan, or even fellow Muslims – they only believed themselves to be killing “the enemy,” regardless of the enemy's creed, ethnicity, gender, orientation or age. They had a perverse religious and political philosophy that justified spending their own lives to end those of others – and the logic there is sick, twisted, and another example of the depths that humanity is capable of.

The depraved actions of these murderers were, of course, off-set by an example of the very best of humanity on behalf of the heroes of 9/11; the ones so often held up as both pillars of our society and, sadly, political footballs. It is, after all, their memories that are being invoked the most powerfully by those who have lost – and in cases like these its just not fair to say its all a matter of politics. Most people are so hurt that when someone claims that an action would harm the memory of their loved ones, they instinctively agree. Its so hard to find fault with them, because even when they are wrong they are wrong for the right reasons, and there's nobility in that.

But there are always those pied pipers, the ones who couldn't give a damn less about those who lost that day – the ones that see them as Machiavellian pawns in the struggle between political left and right. The ones that either latch onto a racist agenda or onto the fact that there is a lovely vehicle for ambition called the “Tea Party” - a movement that has, as a small but powerful portion of its membership, a number of true lunatics that would see the country reduced to a theocratic dictatorship.

So I'm going to come out and say it – so many of you, you who have never stopped suffering since the heinous attack on our country, are being deceived. You are being told to sacrifice your freedoms in order to gain some sense of security; and, as demonstrated by Jason James Lee's terrorist takeover of the Discovery Channel's headquarters, such things are impossible. Yes, this man was yet another “home-grown” terrorist. The sort of man that our present administration, under President Obama, has decided is worth fighting for the abominable cause of "extreme rendition" over.

Those who initially founded this country with cries like “Give me liberty or give me death” knew the price of freedom, and that price is that people will die in its name. Tomorrow a terrorist could strike again, or a year from now, and people will shout that there should have been stricter security – freedom be damned, Thomas Jefferson's advice on the trade between freedom and safety be damned.

The political leaders that promise these things are, at best, victims of this same emotional trauma themselves. At worst, they aren't even interested in their own power – they are driven by a religious or political philosophy that is far more destructive to America as the ones that caused the tragedy in the first place. Sharron Angle, for example, once hinted that if "Congress keeps going the way it it," people might resort to “Second-Amendment solutions” - and followed it up by suggesting that someone "take out" her opponent in a coming election, Harry Reid. Once, I saw on a Facebook group on about own Village of Freeport that a man called for “One good Marine with one good bullet” to “take care of” our Mayor – this abysmal post was deleted from the page in question, thankfully.

This isn't a joke, and this isn't a jest – this is the state of radicalization that our country has entered into, that political assassinations of duly elected officials are rational solutions, and it should never be considered a part of “normal” American discourse. Its nothing short of a political elite feeding on the pain and sorrow that their fellow citizen is suffering, and using it to transform the country into their ideal – whatever it might be. To leave it at a fine point, when called out on his hypocrisy on family values by the ex-wife he cheated on, Newt Gingrich remarked that it didn't really matter what he lived - he just needed to say what he said.

Whaddya say we tell people like him that their time is at an end? See if they listen to us, for a change, when we say that the memories of our heroes are only sullied by those who use them for political ends?

Goddess watch those that fell that day.

Freeport MCs Nice and Ill win the “Faces in the Crowd” Showcase!

Aside from being a home for both athletes and writers, Freeport has a history steeped deeply in the art of music. From Guy Lombardo to Lou Reed, musicians have been born in this Village and gone on to great things. Three of Freeport's younger musicians, collectively known as "Nice and Ill," took one step closer to greatness on Wednesday, July 20th, when they won the “Faces in the Crowd” Showcase, in Times Square.

Chris Mills, Joey Jack, and Jason Yarde form this powerful rapping trio. Chris Mills has already been interviewed in depth by a friend of mine, Amanda Stevens, but in light of this stunning victory I was able to sit down with Joey and Chris and get their thoughts on the victory.




"The thing that made us stand out was stage presence," Mills said of their performance. Their song, "She's smokin'," wowwed the crowd quickly. The rappers claimed the support of sixty of their fans, including the vital "beautiful girls wearing Nice and Ill shirts" demographic, was essential in pushing them to the top.

"I thought we were gonna come in Third," Joey said, acknowledging the competition was fierce. By winning the competition, Nice and Ill has the opportunity to join the ranks of rappers like Maino, lyricists who also won this contest. They'll have a huge chunk of help from Reality, the Universal Records worker who will be helping to produce their next track. They're also going to be featured on Digiwax, a world-wide disk jockey network with over sixty thousand DJ's, each of which can listen to and sample their tunes. They also get free studio time to work on their next single, and will be headlining the next competition. They'll lastly be on the "What's Hood" DVD that will be in Best Buy and other stores nationwide.


Overall, Chris summed it up best with a classic line: “No drama, Nice and Ill, all fun.” You can grab their contest-winning track, "She's smokin'," at ITunes, or at www.niceandill.com.

Assemblywoman Hooper Endorses the Incinerator

As reported yesterday by The Weekly Freeporter, I was contacted by our Mayor Andrew Hardwick, himself. He informed me, unequivocally, "No matter what is posted and said online, I am confirming that there will be no waste to energy facility in the Village of Freeport." Residents rejoiced that the dreaded incinerator thesis was reduced to ash.

And then, as reported and circulated by multiple Facebook groups, a Freeport resident received a letter on official letterhead from Assemblywoman Earlene Hooper. The Weekly Freeporter has obtained her permission to reprint the letter, but as a preface - today is Monday, meaning the letter was sent well before Mr. Hardwick's letter to me was received. What follows are scans of those letters - click on them and they will appear full-size.







Now, as the letter is pretty long, I'm not going to provide a cut-and-paste copy. I will, however, highlight a few key notes before I provide an assessment of the proceedings.


One: The letter is un-dated - a rather unprofessional fact! However, it references the BP oil spill, which began on April 20th. Therefore, this letter clearly does not date back before that. A hand-written note at the end offers an apology for a delay in the letter's dispatching, meaning that there is some room for the information within it to be outdated.

Two: The letter is does not speak on behalf of Andrew Hardwick, although the Assemblywoman makes an effort to tell the recipient that they may call the Mayor at will, and that Channel 18 will provide more information on this issue. She also states that Mayor Hardwick "will" take certain steps to make progress on this issue, but more on that...Now:

Three: Most notably, the Assemblywoman does not mention any concrete steps that have been taken to construct an incinerator thusfar, but -does- mention the ones "will be" taking. "The Mayor will be appointing a community advisory team to assist in the plans, ideas, and suggestions as he moves toward a Request for Proposal (RFP) to assure tax-payer input. He will also include the Board of Trustees in any and all decisions pursuant to this matter."



Why is three the most important segment of this letter? Without attempting to psychoanalyze what Mrs. Hooper expects others to do and what she "really" knows is going on, it states the current progress on this issue - there is, still, no proposal for an incinerator. There has not even been a request for one, and Trustee Kennedy made very clear that without a proposal there is only speculation.

More to the point: With the proposal comes technical documents, and with that comes on-the-record specifications about what a plant will and will not do. This information can be analyzed by independent specialists and laymen alike, including the administration itself and administrations from other political entities (Rockville Center, Merrick, etc). Once analyzed, the health and environmental impacts can be determined far more accurately, and a logical judgment about whether or not this project is "safe" can be made. Until there is a proposal, there is no way to know precisely what will be employed - although it is entirely fair to use other, comparable facilities the world over as a general guideline.


Now, The Weekly Freeporter has no objections to virtually any business coming in and making a proposal. If a chemical corporation wishes to propose a facility in the Industrial area, or if a small-business entrepreneur wishes to build an indoor paintball arena (Hint, hint...), that is perfectly fine with this publication. There is no reason not to propose something, because to say an idea is "off limits" is fundamentally unsound. Who decides what is off limits? Why? What -isn't- off limits? All of these questions and more make it impossible for us to state that nobody should make a proposal.

Here's the rub: With residents clearly opposed to even the thought of a waste-to-energy project in Freeport, why would anyone produce the RFP that Assemblywoman Hooper seems to believe the Mayor will? He has not, as of yet; and, based solely on the face-value of his letter to this publication yesterday, he will not be doing so. The simple answer is that Assemblywoman Hooper has failed to do her research - there are entire civic organizations in Freeport (The "Protecting Freeport Coalition" being only one) opposed to this idea. There are more complicated hypothesis floating around, but speculation about this issue is pointless until there is hard evidence to discuss.

In reality, submitting a RFP would be the worst thing the Mayor could do for a number of reasons, each of which builds into the others...

First: Assuming Trustee Kennedy's opinion (stated April 7th) about any company producing such a proposal is followed through upon, he would (paraphrasing) not provide any companies with a dime - they would spend their money on ecologists to study the impact, engineers to produce plans, and even on the Village's efforts to provide technical (road, waterway) data to them. In short - it should cost these companies a great deal of effort and money even to come up with a proposal. It should never be incumbent upon the Village taxpayer.

Second: Mr. Kennedy also outlined a number of governmental agencies that must approve the plan. Residents fear that patronage will push this bill through, however an open proposal that can be judged by the public will leave that notion vitally vulnerable: If even a whiff of corruption seeps from the incinerator plans, residents will almost certainly have the grounds and resources to sue everyone involved to kingdom come: Company, politician, and governing entity alike. This will bog the process down immensely, costing those involved both years of time (Enough time for my next point to kick in...) and a bucketload of cash.

Third, and finally: Lets assume it gets all the way through to the Trustees. At this point, a great deal of cash has been spent on the project, in accordance with Mr. Kennedy's view on how the proposal process should be treated. The Village has helped guide this proposal through multiple agencies, and has either done so with no legal violations or after some extent of lawsuits about it. Finally, its at the Trustees: They will have to decide if its worth risking their careers over. By this point, if the process has been bogged down at all, the proposing company may not be dealing with the same trustees (or Mayor) at all. The process may even have been set back to square one due to this fact. And it all comes down to a majority vote - The Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Trustees. Five votes. First to three wins.


Is a company -really- going to risk all of this time and effort just to be told no? Bearing in mind all of the cost, all of the opposition? Having hopefully done their homework and having read this very blog, and having undoubtedly seen that Mayor Hardwick himself has said it will not happen? Especially in light of BP making clear the need for real "green energy," and not "green paint?" All it takes is the screams of "NO!" to the very concept, roared by the irritated populace of the Village all at once, to answer this question.

The Final Nail in the Incinerator's Coffin?

First of all, I want to state how pleasantly surprised I am with the overwhelming support I've gotten from the Freeport community for my last article. Lots of people have been talking on Facebook about it, but what isn't as broadly known is that a lot of them have been helping to provide story leads for issues such as these. Today's spawned a new, more interesting development.




As you can see, I received a letter today from the Mayor, himself. And before I go further, thank you for the prompt response! In the event that the tiny print cannot be read, allow me to cut and paste his response:

"Statement of Mayor Andrew Hardwick:

When I was sworn into office in April 2009 I pledged to represent the residents of the Village of Freeport. Over the past few months the residents have told me that they do not want a waste to energy facility within the Village of Freeport. While I looked at various technologies, the residents have spoken in a united voice and I understand, respect, and have and will continue to honor their concerns.

No matter what is posted and said online, I am confirming that there will be no waste to energy facility in the Village of Freeport.

Thank you,
Mayor Andrew Hardwick"

So there you have it. Mr. Hardwick, I am assuming that there is nobody so crass as to impersonate you and issue false statements on your behalf - and, thus, I thank you again for your prompt and pointed response. Folks, you heard it here, first - Mayor Hardwick is on record that this plan is confirmed dead. "There will be no waste to energy facility in the Village of Freeport." His confirmation is given, his word is public.

Presuming this document stands, this day marks the end of a massive struggle between community activists and the perceived lack of acknowledgment provided from the Mayor's office on this issue. It ends not with a bang, nor with a whimper, but simply with a public statement of intent (or the lack thereof) - as it should be. I suspect there shall be some celebration, tonight, as this conflict comes to an end.

Tomorrow's a Monday, however, and there's always more work to be done on Mondays...

New Round of Worries About an Incinerator

As most folks who follow Freeport know, one of the major controversies that has surrounded the Village is the notion that a Waste-To-Energy plant would be constructed. While The Weekly Freeporter is all-but-unconditionally open to seeing business proposals in Freeport, it is not-nearly-unconditionally supportive of those proposals being approved - and an incinerator proposal would, obviously, be subject to vast scrutiny.

And herein lies the rub: Residents have for a long time complained that the Hardwick Administration has made an accurate assessment of the situation all but impossible.

As early as February, rumors began to circulate that the Village may construct an incinerator. On April 7th, a meeting was held wherein Trustee Robert Kennedy outlined the facts: No proposal had been submitted, it would have to be approved by a myriad of governmental agencies including the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers, and would be subject to a final vote by the Board of Trustees assuming said proposal - which was yet to be made - satisfied these agencies' criteria for a safely operating facility.

According to this article from The Business Council of Westchester by Laura Rivera, "Deputy Assembly Speaker Earlene Hooper (D-Hempstead) had agreed to supply the $60,000" spent by the administration on trips to China and Germany, home to Zhong-De Waste Technology. The disbursement of these funds have become a thorn in the side of Freeport residents who feel this money has now been wasted; but, there is a level of responsibility placed upon those who promised the money, one that could be argued to justify the expenditure. Its easy to say, "hey, I was told the money was coming - blame them." And "they" would rightly take the lions' share of the blame. And this was an article written in April about problems dating back to the previous September.

Next, however, is this LI Herald article by Scott Brinton on the Incinerator's status, dated May 13th. In spite of multiple denials of such a proposal existing or a project being under consideration, nobody who Mr. Brinton spoke to could confirm that the idea of an incinerator was completely trashed, to use a small pun. Still, there was little proof of any goings-on; just that the Mayor insisted it wouldn't happen.




And then there's this: Today, while looking into a likely-unrelated issue, I discovered an un-dated, un-titled clip from an interview between New York State Assemblywoman Earlene Hooper and Mayor Hardwick. The clip in question is the second one down. What was the topic? The incinerator. Upon previous examinations of Ms. Hooper's page, no such video was found - this indicates that the video is relatively recent.

For reference, this is the same Earlene Hooper who sponsored New York State Bill A10034, referring to the hiring of police officers, and who has just sponsored legislation that would sell the New York State Armory at 63 Babylon Turnpike to the Village of Freeport for one dollar, Bill AA11379. The stated purpose of this purchase is for the Police Athletic League to provide athletic and educational opportunities to the village's children - and that is a noble endeavor!

However, there are rumors circulating that the Department of Public Works (DPW) could be relocated to this area, and that the immediate fall-out would be the opening of more Village land to ZhongDe's planners. This rumor is at best a theory, but reports have surfaced of ZhongDe planners visiting Power Plant Number Two, the DPW's current base of operations and presumed home of any unproposed incinerator. Additional reports place the Mayor at the armory itself - and being shooed out by Armory officials - just before the bill came to light. Will the mayor be purchasing an abandoned building to use for childrens' athletics, or will he be deceiving residents and using it as a dumping zone for a department in order to start taking in trash.

In truth, its impossible to say. The Mayor and Assemblywoman Hooper have, at best, a record of serious misunderstandings of where and how to acquire state resources, but there have been no corruption charges filed, let alone concretely proven. It is easy to assume the worst of people with a spotty record, but I'd rather hear it from the Village itself - as would the residents of Freeport who are concerned about this lingering inconsistency. There are two issues that The Weekly Freeporter would like to see answered:

The first is this new video we've discovered where our mayor is quite plainly discussing the logistics of a "new business" - in transporting and disposing of waste.

The second is the acquisition of a possibly (or possibly not) abandoned building for a tremendously low sum of one dollar (if its really one dollar), to be used to fund an important childrens' program (that residents are under the impression you've cut funding to (and have you cut funding to it?)). In short, what -exactly- is going on with this armory, now?


There is much for you to explain to your fellow residents, but rest assured that we want to hear your side of the story. We at The Weekly Freeporter are perfectly willing to accept, answer, and publish (un-edited, I might add) any letter of clarification provided to us by the Hardwick Administration. You may contact us at JPohlmanWriting@Gmail.com, either to send a written clarification or to arrange for an interview to address both this and other issues facing the Village. We hope very much to hear from you, so that you can balance out the record.