TWF 333: NYS Attorney General James Sues Numerous LI Care Centers

Hello, friends,

First off, happy holidays for whatever you might celebrate!  Hell - celebrate more than one, if you're so inclined!

Now, then, on to business.  As first reported on her Twitter account, as well as her official website, and talked about by Newsday (which is behind a paywall), New York State's Attorney General Letitia James is out and about with regards to enforcing laws about how the people caught in such a place's 'care' are supposed to be treated.

And, honestly, that's basically all there is to say about it, right?  For example, CBS News reported on the Cold Spring Harbor case, citing the case of one victim whose wounds were deemed too horrible for TV.  There's more reporting out there, as well.

The bottom line is, Long Island is slowly getting older, especially as young people are priced out of the housing/apartment markets.  According to The Rauch Foundation's Long Island Index, between 2000 and 2013 the 55+ age range grew by about 2%/year.  It's legitimately hard to find data outside of the Newsday paywall, but according to this image that trend has only continued:

What that means is that there are more people who need care in a care home than there are people who can provide it, and that number is constantly growing more disparate.  When the need for care increases while the supply of it decreases, corners get cut.  Does that mean the wanton cruelty James has cited is necessary, or excusable?

Absolutely not!

But it does suggest that we need to make certain shifts in our economic system, on all of the levels (Local, state, federal) in order to retain young people, train them in how to take care of those who need it, and provide them a good lifestyle so that they can survive & thrive on Long Island.  I've talked about some things we can change on the federal level, like Medicare For All, and creating a "Care Economy," but those are Federal solutions that seem infinitely far away.  Passing the New York Health Act would help on a State level.

And for those who might say, "Well, my taxes will go up and I don't wanna!" there are two things to mention:

1 - You'll probably save more money off of not needing to pay premiums/copays/out-of-pocket bullshit.

2 - You'll be happier when you're 70 years old, break your hip, and have a care team that's experienced and well-paid so that they'll be extra patient and helpful.

Jesse Pohlman is a sci-fi/fantasy author, political commentator, and occasional journalist born and raised in Freeport, New York.  Got a bookworm in your life you want to buy a holiday gift for?  Check out his website!

TWF 332 - A Decade After Sandy

Hey Friends,

It's hard to really measure the timing of a decade, let alone the start of the events which happened beforehand.  We have leap-years which means something isn't *quite* 365x10 days after it happened.  Then, you have to ask whether the damage from an event starts accruing when - say - it generates waves that chip away at protective dunes; or, whether you start from the time a storm makes landfall.  It certainly doesn't depend on whether or not it's still called a "Hurricane," or if it's now a "Superstorm" or "Frankenstorm" because technically it doesn't fit the profile it used to.

If you're a Long Islander, you know I'm talking about Hurricane Sandy, a topic that's still hard for many to talk about.  If you're unfamiliar, I urge you to check the Wikipedia article to understand it's national impact.

If you're a reader of The Weekly Freeporter, you know that we (in this case, myself, and my friend/occasional co-conspirator Jason Bass, who controls the Youtube page) chronicled the storm from the first warning calls to being on the ground the day after the storm did its worst, all the way to checking in on the community when a Nor'Easter slammed us and froze us out right after Sandy.

I want to be up front:  I'm sorry for any offenses caused.  We've all grown a lot since then, and some of our approach/commentary may have been wrong and/or disrespectful.

So How Does The Anniversary Make Us Feel?

I can really only speak for myself, and a lot of it I've already said in a different way.

So let's start with the community.

To begin with, no, Freeport has not forgotten the damage that Mother Nature can do to a community if she decides to throw her weight into a punch.  Some people have surely got PTSD; I read one conversation on Facebook recently about how just telling the story is painfully taxing.  I completely understand that feeling.  It's hard to talk about what we went through, especially to those who might not understand the damage it did.

The community seems to have survived the incident relatively well?  But that sentiment comes with a question mark for a reason  Some buildings are now super-tall and it's a little hard to figure out why at first glance.  To be perfectly clear, there are still houses in South Freeport that are waiting to have their re-construction completed.  My dad lived down the block from one.  And, since this cannot be left unsaid, many people were permanently displaced from the community, being forced to move to other towns and even states, either because they couldn't afford to rebuild here, or because others they cared about had to move out. 

As far as prevention and mitigation goes...?  It's hard to say.  Sadly, we lack those (not-quite) futuristic, now-far-off sounding things like flood-prevention systems briefly discussed in this article.  I'm sure that the various dunes and ecological barriers we have to prevent us from having future flooding have been worked on and improved, but at the same time climate change has led to rises in sea level, offsetting their effectiveness.  We now know what to expect when a big storm is coming, and preparedness is important.

How About On A Personal Level?

Well, I...My thoughts immediately run to one thing:

As many of you are aware, my father passed away on December 3rd, 2021.  He fell to the eventualityof a liver disease he was diagnosed with in the immediate aftermath of Sandy.  He began getting sick soon almost exactly at the same time as the storm hit.  At the time, he had been working at the Freeport Schools as a maintainer, and he'd been lining up sandbags at Giblyn elementary (which would prove to be less-than-successful at keeping water out), so we feared maybe he'd contracted some kind of waste-water-bourne pathogen.

It turned out to be far worse; Hepatitis C-induced liver failure.  He danced with death more than once,.  He survived a liver transplant from a benevolent soul (Seriously, consider being an organ donor - I am!  And while we're at it, bring down the cost of drugs like Harvoni that cure Hepatitis C!!!), but it took damn near ten years for that shit to kill him.

Sadly, kill him, it did.

I have an awful lot of thoughts on the eventual outcome of Sandy's aftermath, and my experience post-Sandy.  It was one piece of a much larger mental puzzle that ended...Hmm.  For now, let's just say it ended BADLY.  Some day, maybe soon, I'll write more about that.

But I do still have feelings about it, and always will.  For me, it's heavily-compounded trauma from multiple directions at one critical point in my life.

All Of This To Say

With the ten year anniversary arriving to remind us of things lost - and, perhaps, still broken - it's worth giving you the reminder that it's okay to feel things.  It's okay to reach out to a mental health professional if you find yourself having trouble with the trauma that Sandy smacked us with.  That's all totally fine.

The best part of this entire disaster is that we have, as both individuals and a community, grown.  Freeport is far from perfect, and to my knowledge it still has at least one dystopian law it needs to change, but it's still a great community.  We come together in times of crisis and support one another.  You know, except for the seemingly-weekly debate over which pizza place is the best.

Here's a hint on that one, by the way:

Try 'em all, and then it's the one you like the best.

Jesse Pohlman is a sci-fi/fantasy author from Freeport, New York, and while The Weekly Freeporter is certainly no-longer weekly, it documents and reflects on critical events within the Village.

TWF 331: On The Incredible News Of A Shooting In Freeport

 Hello, Freeporters,

I wish I could be joining you with better news on this day, but unfortunately I cannot.  Yesterday, as I first learned from the news agency Daily Voice Nassau, and later saw repeated on sites like NBC 4 New York, a drive-by shooting took place at a house party located on Babylon Turnpike.

Four children were shot.

I want to start by offering my best wishes to these wounded children, along with my wishes for anyone who was present at the tragedy.  I don't know their physical condition, as the NBC 4 article notes that their condition wasn't known at the time of publication, states that they were expected to survive.  That is good news.

I hope these are relatively minor injuries, and that they can and will make a full recovery.  As bad as that still is, things are not going to be so easy as simply healing from wounds. I know they - and all those who were present - are suffering psychological trauma.  There's no escaping that, but it's still horrific to consider.

The Positive Response

Overall, the community response has been one of horror and support.  I've seen many a Facebook post about how tragic this is, and how they wish for the victims to recover.  That lightens my heart.  Moreover, after reading what someone related to a victim said (I'm only mentioning this because it's a public forum), that one victim is doing okay.  Just knowing that is a huge relief, and we again wish him a full and speedy recovery.

Again, on the whole, most people have condemned the violence, cheered on the victims' recovery, offered updates about those they are close to, and called out for what little excuse there is standing in for justice in such a horrible crime.  True justice would be that this never happened, but that's impossible, so all we have left is pain and preventing this from happening again.

But not everyone has handled this gracefully, and I feel there's no getting around the need to point out that some people are saying insensitive (at best) 

The Less-Than-Positive

I can always rely on the majority of Freeport and its neighboring communities to get things right in times of crisis, and I take heart from that.

However, not everyone has handled this situation appropriately.

I will be pointing out two comments, both of which were unacceptable, and both of which shall remain nameless because their authors do not deserve credit, and because I am not interested in creating internet brigades.  One is, in my opinion, suggestive of racism.  One is suggestive of attempting to make an unacceptable political point in an election season off of of dishonestly representing the law.

It's also my understanding that both of these commenters are either from outside of the Freeport community (with no clear evidence they've ever spent time, here), or are no longer even so much as in geographical proximity of the community.  In other words, it's easy for them to talk when it's not at all related to them.

The first was as follows:

I'm just gonna be honest:  Best case is that this is a projection of insensitivity, or maybe some kind of crude attempt to be an edge-lord.  Worst case (which is where my mind happens to go, these days) is that this is deliberately racist.  There's no expression of contrition, there's no giving a damn about how the kids are.  "No crime in the Hood" right?  To my mind:  I'm sure that thought might be followed by, "And we all know who lives in the Hood."  Also implied is, "We don't care about the Hood, or the kids that were shot."

We should rise above this pettiness.

We must.

Another post I saw that was distressing was a deliberate attempt at politicizing these childrens' suffering by ranting about New York State's bail reform law under false pretenses.

This is a lie.

According to the Brennan Center, a non-partisan law and policy institute, they write:

Very clearly, at least according to this analysis done by legal-world professionals, violent felonies are still bail-worthy offenses.  Now, the fact is that if this person has the money and/or means to get it from a bondsman, they can just pay bail and get out just like it was before bail reform was initiated.  But a judge can absolutely order them detained on bail.

Hell, for four counts of attempted murder, I would not be surprised if they were remanded without bail as an option.

I also noticed that, since the man brought up politics, he didn't talk about New York's actual, real laudable attempts to take illegal guns off the streets.  Because New York has been trying to keep gun violence low, and overall has a fairly low incidence of gun violence to begin with compared to other states.  Now, I might imagine some other things this person might believe about firearms, but I won't get into those.

So In Conclusion...

If you're one of the two people I mentioned, or if you're just someone who liked one of their posts:  Be better than this, especially if you left the town a long time ago and never looked back, or if you never lived here to begin with.

The rest of Freeport is carrying on with solidarity and love for those who were hurt, and with an eye intent on preventing another tragedy like this from ever happening.

May such lofty hopes come true.

Thank you for reading.  Jesse Pohlman is the editor-in-chief of The Weekly Freeporter, and spent his first thirty years living in Freeport. He still visits the community regularly (imminently after publishing this, in fact), with the intent to live there once again when all affairs are settled.

TWF 330 - Research Reveals Abortion Restrictions In Freeport & Other Municipalities

 Hello, friends,

We're going to start this off by saying all people have the right to control their own bodies at all times, and we'll be taking a strident Pro-Choice position.  If that's a Rubicon for you, now's a good time to close this article.

New York State Senator Anna Kaplan (NYS Senate District 7) and Assemblywoman Gina L. Sillitti (NYS Assembly District 16) recently took part in a review of Long Island's various municipal legal codes.  They were searching for abortion prohibitions, and they discovered five local governments which banned abortion under varying conditions.  Freeport turned out to be one such community.

It was a surprise to me to learn Freeport had such a restriction.  It turns out it was a surprise to others, as well.  This could constitute a ban on things like mail-ordered Mifepristone & Misoprostol being taken at home to induce abortion.  While current New York State law would appear to make these laws toothless, there is no guarantee that the next Governor (there's an election coming up in November...) is going to be a Pro-Choice Governor.  There's no guarantee of a Pro-Choice Assembly and Senate, either.  The rules-as-written can be changed.

It's my understanding that the Village is going to be reconsidering these rules; rules which were, according to Kaplan's press release, issued in the 1970's; rules which were lost in time, but unearthed through diligent research.  And, good!  Change for the better is progress, and such shifts get made by people who pursue it.

Thank you for reading.  Jesse Pohlman is a Science Fiction/Fantasy author born and raised in Freeport, New York.  The Weekly Freeporter is over ten years old, now, so you probably know what it's about!

TWF 329 - New York State Sues Freeport Over Cleveland Avenue Environmental Disclosures

Hello, friends!

I hope this post finds you all well.  Before we get into the news, I just want to note that the subject of our previous article, Hitler-cheerleading Carl Paladino, appears to have lost his primary.  I figured I'd start with that good news.

New York Attorney General Sues Freeport.

Well, we can start with a link to the court document (hat tip to Dawn de le Llera for posting the link on FB) which appears to have been filed yesterday by NYS Attorney General Letitia James.  I invite you to read it for yourself, but being as neither of us are lawyers (except those of us who might be reading this who might be lawyers?  In which case, hi!  Feel free to gently correct me where I'm wrong), I think both of us are going to labor in analyzing it.

Here's what I gathered from it:

Paragraph 22 sets out that the Village Board approved a "negative declaration," basically saying that there would be no negative environmental impact to what's apparently a 15-acre industrial development over previously green space.

According to Paragraph 24, the Village did not perform a required type of environmental impact study on their proposed sale of the park to developer PDC .  In fact, if I'm reading it right, Paragraph 24 lays out that Freeport did nothing whatsoever - no study, no research, nothing - to support its negative declaration.

First and foremost is that the sale simply doesn't pass the environmental sniff test.  Paragraphs 29-31 certainly lay this issue bare, but it also hits on another issue:  That the sale would have a negative impact primarily on lower-income residents of color.

Diving Into The Lawsuit Against Freeport

New York's lawsuit seems to have two main thrusts, then.  The first is about the environment, the second is social equity.  In many ways, these two are connected:  "What will the impacts be, and who will bear the brunt of them?"

One thing I found impressive about this briefing was found in Paragraphs 19-20, in that it has a familiarity with both Freeport's history (the Moxey Rigby's experience during Hurricane Sandy) as well as it's accurateness with regards to the hydrological cycle.

NY AG James seems to be asking Freeport, "Hey, have you studied how paving over a bunch of open space is going to impact the immediate neighborhood during a flood like, say, Hurricane Sandy's future reincarnation?"  And while Freeport's official answer is yet to be published (to my knowledge), the fact remains that so far, their answer appears to be "no."

I remember one of the earliest issues The Weekly Freeporter covered was Mayor Hardwick's proposal to build an incinerator in Freeport.  In the linked article, I paraphrased Trustee Robert Kennedy from a community meeting citizens had organized in neighboring Merrick.

At the time, Robert Kennedy understood that it was incumbent on a business making a developmental proposal to evaluate the environmental impacts the building would have.  NOT taxpayers.  In this case, it should fall upon PDC to perform a legitimate environmental impact study using independent experts and labor.

But, really...

All in all, this is an issue that should not exist.  Robert Kennedy from a decade ago recognized that this needed to be done.  Did Robert Kennedy of today forget?  Did the Board?  If so - how?!

Seems like this is just another fight that didn't need to happen, and you'd better believe that reading that brief has further moved me in the "no, I'd prefer we keep the open space" camp.  I've vacillated, mainly because the alleged tax savings would be a huge benefit to many families in Freeport (I'm certainly happy to pay less in taxes), but I also strongly doubt that apartments Village-wide are about to drop their rent by a commensurate percentage, and it's clear which parts of the community are going to make sacrifices and which other parts will be reaping the rewards.

It just seems rushed, and I don't like being rushed into deals.

TWF 328: Checking Back In On Carl Paladino And, Surprise, He's Called For Violence (NYS Politics)

 Hello, friends,

On the surface, this one isn't directly Freeport-specific.  It'll also (maybe?  I'm still writing it) be relatively short (about 1,000 words!).  It's political, so be prepared for that.  It's also not covering wholly new ground for The Weekly Freeporter:  We talked a lot about Carl Paladino before.  If you don't want to read two articles, just know that he's a racist, Fascistic pox upon New York State.  Don't believe me?  Don't like the terminology I'm using?  Read that article, then let's continue.

So how's he doing?

Well, here's an AP article where Paladino oh so kindly explains that his call for U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to be murdered was just facetious.  Really, it's no surprise he'd believe that a Brietbart interview was the perfect place to make such a "joke."  I mean, it's not like gunmen are making attempts at attacking FBI outposts or anything.  ...Right?

Oh, yeah, he literally said the United States needs a leader like Adolf Hitler.  Yes, the Nazi from the 1930's-40's.  That guy.  Adolf Fucking Hitler.  Paladino likes that guy.  Yup.  I don't work with the word "Fascist" lightly.

He's mainly relevant today because he's running for Congress as a Republican.  Because I guess that's what depths that political party has descended to, he's gotten endorsements from the likes of Elise Stefanik, which kind of establishes the whole racism/fascism thing as a party platform, but I won't get much more partisan than that.

Follow me on this adventure for another minute.  Maybe it'll give you some ideas.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Why is this relevant to Freeport, Long Island?

We're living in an era where the rivers of Europe are drying up, along with U.S. ones like the Colorado River, upon which millions depend on.  We're less than two years off of a coup attempt against our national government.  Ukraine's burning cities are a smoke signal that a world war is in the air, one which is already killing uncountable, unrelated Humanity via war-fueled famine.

What is the connection between Paladino, the above paragraph' dystopian setting, and Freeport?

Let's start by recalling that Freeport, as a seaside community, has an insurmountable connection with our oceans.  Climate change fuels storms like Hurricane Sandy, to say nothing of melting glaciers raising the global sea level.  Incidentally, as recently as 2016, Paladino didn't believe climate change was manmade.  Oh, and he's reinforced his stance on that recently - so much for eight years of clear evidence, eh?

If climate change has dramatically increased the risk of a major hurricane hitting us in the future, shouldn't we be concerned if a bloc of our state's Congress-critters are in abjectly naked denial of the reality that threatens millions of New Yorkers?

Yeah, we oughta care about this guy!

One More Plank And We're Done.

I want to point out one more thing, and then it's a wrap and you're free to go.  (I mean, you're free to go at any time, but you wanna sate your curiosity, right?)

Remember the recent, hyper-contentious school board election in Freeport?  Or maybe you've heard of the small issue that is the sale of Cleveland Avenue park to a private company?  These are local issues that people feel very strongly about.  It's their livelihood at stake - the proposed tax savings from the Cleveland sale, for example are no laughing matter; but, also, so is the value in having more open green space in our community than less.  It is a cost-benefit analysis that different people feel differently about.

It's okay to have strong beliefs.  I do, too!

But it's necessary that calls for the murder of the Attorney General coming from Congressional candidates be addressed as symptomatic of a larger problem, and it's a problem that adds fuel to the fire of civic unrest.  It is Stochastic Terrorism.

Stochastic Terrorism is best summed up as, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"  (Okay, it's usually written as "meddlesome priest.") It's when a person in power makes very clear they absolutely despise a certain person, or group, and laments that they can't do anything illegal.  It's basically a call for any "lone wolf" out there to take up violence on the person in power's behalf.  It's calling the FBI or the media or some other group "the enemy of the people."  Like...Sure, the guy in charge isn't gonna be the one pulling the trigger, but he knows damn well that what he says might inspire someone else to pick up a gun.

See also:  Tucker Carlson and other Fascist extremists inspiring the terror attack in Buffalo, this year.  Among many others.

Maybe you've heard about the Anti-Semetic flyers in our community?  How about the Proud Boys, a known Fascist terrorist organization linked to the January 6, 2021 attack on our government, marching around Long Island like they own the place?

People like Paladino are adding fuel to this fire, and you're a fool if you think that the Freeport community is magically immune to racist propaganda.  We take pride in our multi-cultural approach, sure!  But that doesn't mean that hostile elements won't try to find purchase in our town.

Perhaps worse still:  Those who can't be brought into "the cause" may become targets of "the cause."  Those flyers some Nazi trash sent out weren't some inert leaflets, they were a call to action - a call for people to target the individuals on the flyer.  They're calling for people (mostly limited to those who look like me, by the way - peachy white folk), to join hate groups and commit atrocities against whoever they designate as "the enemy."

And that's why it's worth shouting all the way upstate to Buffalo that they should vote against Carl Paladino in the August 23rd Primary.  And the General Election, if this Fascist makes it that far.

Because all we have are our voices, and we have to stand united to reject his hate.

Jesse Pohlman is an Sci-Fi/Fantasy author and avid anti-Fascist hailing from Freeport, New York.  Hey!  Did you know The Weekly Freeporter is over twelve years old?  It's sure evolved a lot!  It's no longer weekly, but it's definitely still alive when a cause calls out for it!

TWF 327 - Freeport's Nautical Mile Festival Is Coming Up, June 4th!

Hey friends!

I hope you're all doing well.  This is just a short notice to remind all of you (who probably already know?) that the Freeport Nautical Mile Festival is coming up, this weekend.  So make sure you wear your sun-block (skin cancer sucks, trust me first-hand on that one), wear a hat that keeps the sun out of your face, bring some water with you, and have a good time!

Oh!  And stay out of trouble!

Jesse Pohlman is an author from Long Island, New York, born and raised in Freeport.  He writes sci-fi/fantasy novels you can check out at his website.