By Scott Brinton
Richard of North Bellmore is a retired New York City teacher turned volunteer environmental activist. Since his departure from the city schools during the 1990s, he has pursued a series of big projects to protect Long Island's fragile ecosystem. And he has found unusual success, primarily by lobbying the right public officials to support his incredibly practical plans.
He courts favor with Long Island politicos not with campaign contributions. He does it the old-fashioned way he doesn't give up until he gets his way.
County Legis. Norma Gonsalves (R-East Meadow) is among the public officials who have come to know and support Richard and his numerous projects. He's the most dedicated and committed person I know to the environment, especially protecting open space and preserves, she says.
He's not doing it for any other reason than he wants to protect the environment, Gonsalves quickly adds.
For his unrelenting commitment to saving Long Island's endangered environment, Richard Schary is named the Bellmore Herald's Person of the Year for 2001.
Richard's home, which he proudly notes he refurbished by himself, is full of telephone books, state, county and town reports about Long Island's parks and preserves, and maps dozens of maps.
These are the tools that Richard employs to protect the environment. The maps and reports come into play first. He studies them assiduously. He looks at the big picture, developing ideas for new parks and preserves. He draws out his plans on the maps. Then, he starts making phone calls, again and again and again until he gets through to his targeted elected officials. Not their aides, not their chiefs of staff. The decision-makers themselves.
He makes his pitch and requests a meeting. By now, most elected officials from Nassau's South Shore know him well. He gets a meeting, and the project often takes off from there.
One of his early successes came in 1995. A sixth golf course was proposed at Bethpage State Park. The project would have wrecked acres of precious woodland at the park by felling a forest full of trees and displacing, perhaps even killing, hundreds of animals and birds.
Richard co-founded the Bethpage Trail Users Coalition. Working with the Long Island Neighborhood Network, a grass-roots, civic-minded group in Massapequa, the Trail Users helped block the proposed golf course.
Lisa Tyson of North Bellmore is associate director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition, another Massapequa-based, grass-roots group working to protect the environment. She first met Richard on the Bethpage project.
She says of Richard: He will not be bought out. He is constantly saying the things that need to be said, and he's not worried about the implications of it. He's really an individual. He usually knows the right position. He can see through all the garbage and get to the place where he needs to be.
Richard has also successfully fought state Department of Transportation plans to pave a bicycle trail through the Bethpage park. That project, too, would have obliterated hundreds of acres of natural habitat. He is now working with the DOT to develop an environmentally sensitive route, along with creation of a 12-mile-long Greenbelt State Park.
He helped form the Kings Park Study Group, which saved three-quarters of the Kings Park state hospital property from developers, converting it instead into a state park.
Richard has developed plans, which he's shopping around to elected officials, for new bikeways and hiking trails along established transportation corridors in Nassau, including a Sunrise Trail (along the Sunrise Highway/Long Island Rail Road right of way), a Meadowbrook Parkway/Nassau Hub Greenway, and a town/county/state park and trail system through Wantagh and Bellmore.
As a board member of the Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference, Richard oversees Eagle Scout projects, maintenance and trail patrol along Nassau's 20-mile Greenbelt Trail. Protecting the hiking path from vandalism is a constant struggle for him. He formed the Stillwell Woods Task Force with police and the Syosset Fire Department to reclaim an abandoned and abused Sierra Club trail along the Greenbelt.
In 1999, he graduated from the Nassau County Civilian Police Academy and now serves as Nassau's civilian representative on the Pine Barrens Law Enforcement Council.
He also co-founded the Friends of the Massapequa Preserve, a group that regularly volunteers time to clean up trash and put out fires at the preserve. Along with his wife, Lisa, also a former teacher, Richard often takes the Temple Beth-El of North Bellmore youth group to the preserve to help collect garbage.
This year, Richard has focused on fighting state DOT plans to widen the Southern State Parkway by two lanes, which he believes would force the state to straighten the thoroughfare and bulldoze hundreds of acres of greenery along the parkway's outside medians. He's already helped form a coalition of 60 civic groups to fight the plan.
Richard is a also a member of the Nassau County Open Space Advisory Committee, Long Island Transportation Plan 2000, Hub Citizens Advisory Committee, Long Island Drinking Water Coalition and North Bellmore Civic Association.
Need we say more? Yes, we must.
We must note that his wife, Lisa, is a constant source of inspiration and encouragement for him. The two have formed a dynamic team fighting for the environment. At public hearings, the pair can often be heard finishing each other's sentences.
Legis. Gonsalves said, He certainly gets a lot of support from his wife, Lisa.
Tyson said, With his wife, Lisa, they make a great team. It's really amazing how much of their own personal time they spend on trying to save the Island.
For all his work through the years, Richard was named the Long Island Sierra Club's Environmentalist of the Year for 1998, and this year, the Progressive Coalition honored him with its Award for Environmental Vision of Sustainable Development.
The Bellmore Herald proudly names Richard Schary as its Person of the Year. Richard, and Lisa, you are role models for us all. We thank you for all your work to preserve the environment, and our children's children will thank you some day.
