Field fees opposed
Leaders of Five Towns youth groups pleaded with the Lawrence school board not to charge them for the use of the school district's fields and buildings.
Representatives of the Inwood Buccaneers Football Club and the Cedarhurst Central Little League attended a special Lawrence school board meeting on Aug. 24, where they made impassioned pleas to the board not to charge fees, saying they could not absorb the additional costs.
The board restored the use of the playing fields, which had been cut under the contingency budget, by a 5-2 vote at its Aug. 10 meeting. The board determined that it could open the fields to the public even with the district's budgetary constraints.
With the district forced onto austerity for the second consecutive year after voters once again rejected its budget, the district has been required to change its fee schedule. Nonprofit youth groups that were using the fields free of charge will be asked to shell out some money.
In a draft of a fee schedule given to board members for a first review at the Aug. 24 meeting, the district proposed charging nonprofit youth groups $6 an hour for field use at all schools on any given day. The board was expected to vote on the schedule at its Sept. 7 meeting.
9/11 victims
remembered
Three years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the community now has a place to pay homage to the six District 15 firefighters and residents who died that day.
An estimated 500 people attended a dedication ceremony for the new Cedarhurst 9/11 Memorial at Cedarhurst Park on a picturesque afternoon. With mild weather and clear blue skies, the day wasn't much different from the lovely but tragic morning three years prior.
Bells rang in honor of each of the six victims before the memorial was dedicated. It pays tribute to Neil D. Levin, formerly of Atlantic Beach, who was the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; Thomas E. Jurgens, a Meadowmere Park volunteer firefighter and senior court officer for the New York State Supreme Court; Kevin O'Rourke of Hewlett, a former Lawrence-Cedarhurst and New York City firefighter; Bettina Browne Radburn of Atlantic Beach, a vice president of mergers and acquisitions at the AON Corporation; Joseph Rivelli Jr., an Inwood Fire Department volunteer and New York City firefighter; and Ira Zaslow of North Woodmere, an assistant vice president at Lehman Brothers.
11 students named
merit scholars
Several students from Five Towns schools were named semifinalists in the 50th annual National Merit Scholarship competition.
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation selected five students from Lawrence High School - seniors Tim Kolchinskiy, Gregory Levine, Sarah Mallik, John Schneider and Shara Yurkiewicz. Adam S. Dix and Samuel J. Tilin of Hewlett High were named semifinalists, and three students from the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway High School made the list: twin sisters Irene and Liann Moskowitz and Naomi Schoenfeld. Kyle Hansen, a student at Lawrence Woodmere Academy, was also named.
The students were among 16,000 scholastic talents who were selected on Sept. 15, and will compete for some 8,200 National Merit Scholarships worth $33.9 million, which will be awarded next spring. They will be chosen on the basis of their SAT scores, academic performance and recommendations by their principals.
Districts ring in new school year
Putting the summer of 2004 behind them, about 7,000 public-school students once again picked up their books and headed to Lawrence or Hewlett-Woodmere for another school year. They were greeted by several changes - in some cases, significant ones.
Students enrolled in the Lawrence Public Schools reported for the first day of school on Sept. 7, and students at schools in Hewlett-Woodmere started the following day.
The major change in Lawrence was the decision to close the Number One School and move those students, teachers and administrators into the Number Six School in Woodmere, in a consolidation plan to save money and make better use of classroom space. The district was operating for a second consecutive year on a contingency budget.
Prison added to injury
for burglar
A 43-year-old man who was shot and wounded by a homeowner as he attempted to break into an Inwood home in December 2002 was convicted in the break-in.
A jury deliberated for about three hours before finding the defendant, Edwin Murdaugh, of Almeda Avenue in Far Rockaway, guilty of second-degree burglary after a weeklong trial. Murdaugh, considered a persistent felony offender, faced a prison term of up to 25 years to life. He was sentenced to 16-years-to-life in prison on Nov. 10 by Nassau County Court Judge Alan L. Honorof, the Nassau County DA said.
According to authorities, Murdaugh was armed with a knife when he climbed through a screen window of a home on Monroe Street in Inwood on Saturday, Dec. 28, 2002, at 1 a.m. The homeowner, Mark Freamon, 46, said in a phone interview that he was home with his mother at the time, and had been hearing noises throughout the evening. When he went to investigate, he saw the intruder breaking through the window. Freamon said he grabbed his 22-caliber target pistol from an upstairs room and fired four times, striking the intruder all four times.
Police said that after the homeowner shot Murdaugh, the burglar stumbled away. Murdaugh went to a friend's house nearby, and police officers who were on routine patrol made the arrest.
Murdaugh was taken to Jamaica Hospital in Queens, where he was treated for his injuries. Freamon was initially charged with criminal possession of a weapon, and was given a desk-appearance ticket for a future court date. But the charge was later reduced to disorderly conduct, to which he pleaded guilty. No fine was imposed, although Freamon did have to pay a $60 surcharge, he said.
Cops: We will ticket cell-phone abusers
Fourth Precinct police have issued another warning to motorists: Abuse the cell-phone law and you will pay.
Inspector Richard McGuire, commanding officer of the Fourth Precinct, said his officers have written more than 1,200 tickets for illegal cell-phone use since the beginning of the year, which is a 50 percent hike over the same period in 2003. Most of the summonses have been written in the Five Towns, he said.
Besides the Five Towns, the Fourth Precinct takes in Atlantic Beach, Oceanside, Island Park, East Rockaway, Lido Beach and Point Lookout.
Arrest made near
Atlantic Beach Bridge
An eagle-eyed Fourth Precinct police officer averted a potential disaster when he stopped a Queens man near the Atlantic Beach Bridge who was in possession of bomb-making materials and a stun gun, officials said. Police were trying to determine what the man, clad in fatigues, was doing near the bridge with the potentially explosive material.
Police officer Patrick Cooke, of the Fourth Precinct, was on his way to another assignment at about 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 24, when he spotted a suspicious-looking van parked off to the side of the northbound lanes of Route 878 in Lawrence, police said.
The van was parked a significant distance from the roadway, next to some high reeds, 200 to 300 yards north of the Seagirt Boulevard exit on the north side of the bridge, authorities said. When Cooke investigated, he saw the man, identified as Hippocrates Koutsoupakis, 56, of 29th Street in Astoria, Queens, standing next to the van in the reeds.
The suspect was dressed in black fatigues, and was wearing a webbed belt, police said. A Nassau County police spokesman said the suspect was wearing military-style garb, along with a belt equipped with tools and a butane torch.
Officer Cooke radioed for assistance, and the suspect agreed to go to the station house for further questioning, officials said. Police said they also received Koutsoupakis's permission to search his van, where they found a stun gun and "some other materials that, when combined, could form an explosive compound," said police. The suspect's van also contained military bags and a map of the area, police said.
Police charged Koutsoupakis with first- and third-degree criminal possession of a dangerous weapon, police said. He was being held without bail in the Nassau County Correctional Facility after pleading not guilty to the charges at his arraignment in First District Court in Hempstead. The case was still pending, officials said.
Those who know the suspect reportedly described him as an emotionally disturbed Vietnam War veteran whose condition has grown worse since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war in Iraq.
Terror from the skies
Frozen sanitary waste from an airplane bombarded a home, destroying the roof of its garage and damaging another area of the roof, officials said.
The plane apparently had a leak in its sanitary system that led to the formation of an ice ball at high altitude, which then dislodged and pelted the home of Syd Mandelbaum, at 405 Oceanpoint Ave. According to police, Mandelbaum's Cedarhurst home was struck by 20 to 25 pieces of the ice, some measuring 10 inches by 10 inches, sometime between 10 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 10 and 7 a.m. the following morning. According to Fourth Precinct police, filed reports state that damage occurred to three other roofs in other areas, but they did not say exactly where.
Mandelbaum said it was lucky that the ice hit no one, since one of the chunks was the size of a bowling ball, weighing about 10 pounds and hurtling through the air from an altitude of 30,000 to 55,000 feet.
Federal Aviation Administration officials inspected the damage and concluded that it was a case of blue ice.
Dist. 14 private-school busing solved...for now
Private-school students in the Hewlett-Woodmere School District, whose day at local yeshivas don't end until the early evening, will now have a way to get home this school year, thanks to a state grant.
Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) has given District 14 a $35,000 special legislative appropriation to fund the late transportation, after 5:30 p.m., that had been cut in the initial budget. The late transportation for the yeshivas began in early October, according to district officials. This affects students who attend four local yeshivas, including the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach (HALB) in Woodmere, Rambam Mesivta High School for Boys in Lawrence, Yeshiva of Far Rockaway and Yeshiva Darchei Torah in Far Rockaway. The high school yeshivas of the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway in Cedarhurst and Stella K. Abraham for Girls in Hewlett Bay Park were not affected since they have dismissal times before 5:30 p.m., according to school officials.
OCTOBER
Bracing for
sticker shock
Larry Parks has lived in Woodmere for more than 40 years, but he said that with his property taxes escalating each year, he might not be able to keep pace with the high cost of living in District 14.
Parks and many other Five Towners anticipated some sticker shock when they received their tax bills. As a result of lower assessed values for upscale homes and homeowners in general bearing a higher proportion of the tax burden, both the Hewlett-Woodmere and Lawrence school districts - districts 14 and 15, respectively - have higher tax rates for the 2004-05 school year.
According to the Nassau County Assessor's Office, the tax rate for Lawrence's Class 1 properties, including the library budget, is roughly $125.70 per $100 of 1 percent of the assessed value of a home, a 13.47 percent increase from last year. Class 1 includes residential properties - one-, two- or three-family homes.
Hewlett-Woodmere's tax rate for Class 1 properties, including the library budget, is roughly $199.40, an 11.66 percent increase from the 2003-04 school year. This means that a resident who has a home valued at $400,000 would pay about $8,000 in taxes in District 14 and about $5,000 in District 15.
According to Deirdre Gambino, Lawrence's assistant superintendent for business, a decrease in the Nassau County assessments of certain upscale residential properties was a major reason for the tax rate increases. The tax base for Class 1 properties in District 15 is $43 million, compared with $45 million in 2003-04, Gambino said.
Fighting for the Fourth
U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy and her opponent, Village of Hempstead Mayor James Garner, were verbally slugging it out, with the winner-take-all-prize being the Fourth Congressional seat.
Garner said that running for a seat in Congress would not have crossed his mind two years ago. But he added that he has gained a "world of experience" since then, and was ready to take on McCarthy, in a bid to wrest from her the seat she has held for eight years.
Garner, a Republican and Hempstead's mayor since 1989, is challenging McCarthy, a Democrat who is seeking her fifth two-year term in Congress.
Schumer in 3-way
race for Senate
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) approached his campaign for re-election with confidence, as the polls showed he had a wide lead. But his Republican opponents tried to cut into that lead with a barrage of attacks on his record.
Schumer, a Democrat and the state's senior senator, was seeking a second six-year term in the Senate on Nov. 2, and faced a challenge from Republican Howard Mills, the deputy minority leader of the state Assembly, who represents upstate Orange County, and Conservative Party candidate Dr. Marilyn O'Grady, an ophthalmologist from Garden City..
H-W teachers land
new contract
After starting the 2004-05 school year without a new contract, District 14 teachers reached an agreement with the Hewlett-Woodmere Board of Education, which unanimously approved a four-year teachers' contract during the board's Oct. 13 meeting in the Woodmere Education Center.
According to Dr. Peter Weber, Hewlett-Woodmere assistant superintendent for business, the new contract includes a 3.22 percent increase for this school year. Salary increases for the remaining three years of the contract are unknown since they will be determined based on the salary scales of other Nassau County schools.
Dr. Weber said the district wants to have their teachers remain, as a group, the sixth highest paid among Nassau County's 56 school districts.
Town assists
hurricane victims
The Five Towns Community Center in North Lawrence and the Town of Hempstead were doing their part to aid the victims of four recent hurricanes that hammered the Caribbean and the southern U.S.
Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray and Town Councilwoman Dorothy Goosby (D-Hempstead Village) announced the town's efforts to collect supplies for the areas affected by the storms, which struck in August and September.
During a Sept. 29 press conference in Mineola, Murray and Goosby were joined for the announcement by representatives of the Five Towns Community Center, the Economic Opportunity Commission of Nassau County, Jamaicans for Action and leaders of a number of local religious organizations.
Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne caused many deaths and left thousands of people homeless and widespread destruction in their wakes. In Haiti alone, more than 300,000 people were left homeless.
Trustee: Hewlett
traffic 'horrific'
More than six months ago, the county's traffic engineers "improved" the intersections around Broadway in Hewlett.
But residents and shopkeepers said what they really did was turn the area into a traffic nightmare.
A petition was being circulated in an effort to convince county officials to reverse what they did.
The county had installed two additional turn lanes around Piermont Avenue and West Broadway in an apparent attempt to increase safety and improve traffic flow. But the sequence of traffic lights in the area are so messed up that traffic is backed up for blocks on Broadway, said Mark Weiss, a trustee of the Village of Hewlett Harbor, who spearheaded the petition drive. He said the re-calibrated lights have made the lives of residents and shopkeepers miserable, and he wants the county to correct the problem.
Lawrence raises parking fines again
For the second time in 15 months, drivers will have to shell out more money for parking violations in the Village of Lawrence.
In order to keep pace with surrounding villages, the Lawrence Village Board of Trustees unanimously approved a resolution to increase fines for parking violations, just over a year after voting for a parking-fine hike.
The most notable parking-fine increases, which took effect immediately, are for parking at an expired meter and overtime parking, both jumping from $15 to $20. Other increases include double-parking violations, rising from $50 to $75, head-in parking violations, from $15 to $20, and parking from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m., from $25 to $35.
Math scores add up
Fourth- and eighth-graders in the Lawrence Public Schools showed dramatic improvement on the state's 2004 math assessment exams, while Hewlett-Woodmere students' test results remained solid.
The math scores of Lawrence's eighth-graders jumped 11 percentage points, with 69 percent meeting state standards in 2004, compared with 58 percent last year. The proportion of fourth-graders meeting the standards set by the state rose from 86 to 89 percent.
Trio charged with arson
Three area teenagers were arrested and charged with arson, after they allegedly started a fire in two garbage cans in front of the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library that heavily damaged the library's exterior, authorities said.
Investigators said the trio set fire to papers and assorted combustibles inside the garbage cans near the entrance of the library, at 1125 Broadway in Hewlett, shortly after 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 13. The teens then ran away, police said.
The blaze quickly spread to the wood door of the library, its window frames and roof enclosure, and melted the two fiberglass garbage cans, causing more than $10,000 in damage, officials said. The Hewlett Fire Department arrived on the scene to put the fire out, according to officials.
An investigation by the Nassau County Arson/Bomb Squad and the fire marshal's office led to the arrest of three suspects that night. They were identified as Steven Ranucci, 17, of Franklin Place in Woodmere; Pedro Melgar, 18, of Peninsula Boulevard in Hewlett; and Jeffrey Okin, 19, of Sachem Street in East Rockaway, police said. They were charged with fourth-degree arson. The case is still pending, officials said.
Gas tanker overturns
Police evacuated 100 homes in Cedarhurst when a gasoline tanker slammed into two cars and overturned, creating fear of an explosion, officials said.
Residents said that police knocked on their doors and asked them to leave their homes because of the possibility of a severe gas leak from the tanker, which crashed at Peninsula Boulevard and Rockaway Turnpike at about 7:10 p.m. on Oct. 16.
According to police, a 2004 Mack tractor-trailer, used to transport gasoline and owned by Island Transport of North Babylon, was traveling northeast on Bay Boulevard when it collided with a southwest-bound Volvo on Peninsula Boulevard. The truck slammed into the Volvo as the car was making a left onto Rockaway Turnpike, police said.
After ricocheting off the Volvo, the tanker traveled another 100 feet and struck a 1999 Buick stopped in traffic in the southwest-bound lanes of Peninsula Boulevard, police said. The tanker then ran over two trees, two Town of Hempstead signs and a fence before flipping onto its side and onto a 2001 Ford SUV parked on Peninsula Boulevard, about 100 feet east of Rockaway Turnpike, authorities said.
Slamming the brakes
on car vandals
A string of larcenies involving cars - including a number of thefts of tires and rims - has plagued several Five Towns communities since the summer, police said.
Police hope that the recent arrest of two men will reduce the number of larcenies. One car owner saw the suspects attempting to remove the tires from his vehicle on Clinton Avenue in Cedarhurst at 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 18, and chased them away, authorities said. Police were called, and officer Tim McHugh caught the suspects, identified as Kenneth Nunez, 18, of Floral Park, and Johnny Tejada, 17, of Brooklyn, who were charged with larceny from an auto, police said. Their case has not yet come to trial, officials said.
Many of the crimes occurred in Lawrence, Cedarhurst and Woodmere, and some took place in Woodsburgh, police said. In some cases, a thief or thieves smashed vehicles' windows and grabbed stereo equipment or whatever they could find inside, and many resulted in damaged vehicles, officials said.
Police said the parts that are taken from cars are sold.
Hewlett traffic
complaints keep coming
Residents continued to sign petitions in an effort to persuade Nassau County officials to improve traffic jams on Broadway in Hewlett after the county re-timed traffic lights.
Petitions bearing more than 400 signatures were set to be delivered to County Executive Thomas Suozzi, as residents and shopkeepers sought some relief from what they called "horrible congestion."
More than six months ago, the county installed crosswalks, turn lanes and re-timed traffic lights near Burger King on Piermont Avenue, in an effort to improve safety for pedestrians and motorists. But residents said this resulted in waits of upwards of five minutes at some intersections and backed up traffic for blocks. Now residents were pleading for county officials to re-consider what they did and undo the mess.
NOVEMBER
Incumbents win big
Voters elected U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy to a fifth term in Congress as the Democratic incumbent scored a resounding victory over her Republican opponent, James Garner. State Sen. Dean Skelos and Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg both successfully fended off challenges from their opponents as well.
McCarthy (D-Mineola), the nurse-turned-politician, outlasted Garner, the longtime mayor of the Village of Hempstead. The unofficial tally showed McCarthy with a healthy lead, collecting 64 percent of the vote to 36 percent for Garner, in the race for a two-year term in the 4th Congressional District, which encompasses all of the Five Towns and several other South Shore communities.
The battle cry of "Fix Albany," directed by challengers at local state incumbents, apparently was not heard by voters, who overwhelmingly cast their ballots for Skelos and Weisenberg. Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) held off a challenge from Democratic candidate Josh Ketover, a personal-injury lawyer from Long Beach. Skelos had amassed 61.2 percent of the vote to Ketover's 38.8 percent. The victory earned Skelos his 11th two-year term in the 9th Senatorial District.
Weisenberg (D-Long Beach), who has held his 20th Assembly District seat since 1989, cruised to victory over his Republican opponent, Gary Spitz, a deputy county attorney from Long Beach. Weisenberg had collected 65.2 percent of the vote to his opponent's 34.7 percent.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, a Democrat, easily won a second six-year term by trouncing Republican Howard Mills, the deputy minority leader of the state Assembly, who represents Hudson Valley's Orange County, and Conservative Party candidate Dr. Marilyn O'Grady, an ophthalmologist from Garden City. The unofficial tally showed Schumer with 70 percent of the vote, 25 percent for Mills and 3 percent for O'Grady.
5T goes for Bush
The Five Towns showed a dramatic shift in support for President George W. Bush in the recent vote, compared with the 2000 presidential election.
Bush, who lost to Al Gore by a nearly three-to-one margin among Five Towners four years ago, garnered 1,397 more votes than Sen. John Kerry in this year's election. In the 2000 election, 9,511 more people cast votes for Gore than for Bush.
Many Bush supporters in the Five Towns cite what they describe as the president's strong support for Israel as a reason for his numbers locally. This is why, some suggest, Lawrence, Woodmere and Cedarhurst, which have growing Orthodox Jewish populations, voted Republican in such huge numbers. Bush carried Lawrence by 1,054 votes, with 2,227 to Kerry's 1,173. In Cedarhurst, Bush collected 1,616 votes, to 1,188 for Kerry, while Woodmere totals showed 4,027 votes for the president versus 3,164 for the Massachusetts senator.
The Five Towns numbers mirrored Jewish support of Bush nationwide, where he improved his standing among Jewish voters from 19 percent in 2000 to 25 percent in 2004, according to a New York Times survey.
Local rabbis react to Arafat's death
Uncertainty lingers over the future of the Middle East, with the death of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat, according to Five Towns rabbis, who express mixed opinions on whether Arafat's death will revitalize hopes for peace.
Many local rabbis agreed that the legacy the 75-year-old Arafat leaves behind is one of shattered hopes for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
"Since he did not lay down any groundwork or prepare a foundation for peace, we can lament that, at most, an impediment to peace has been removed," said Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, spiritual leader of Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst. "But we begin with having a long and protracted period of distrust due to the murderous nature of the PLO. We begin with him setting us back rather than bringing us forward. He leaves nothing behind upon which we can build."
Arafat, who spent most of his life, including his final two years, in exile or isolation, served as PLO leader from 1964 until his death in Paris on Nov. 10.
Cops make special
delivery in Inwood
For officer Arnold Rothenberg of the Fourth Precinct, the call for help he received on Oct. 28 strongly reinforced the reason he became a cop in the first place - to help people.
When Rothenberg got a call about a woman in Inwood who was nine months pregnant and going into labor, it was a change of pace from the typical 911 call he responds to.
Rothenberg said he got the call at about 1:30 a.m. and rushed over to the Lawrence Avenue residence to assist the 34-year-old woman. He had recently finished his training as an advanced medical technician, and on his way there he reviewed in his mind what to do. When he arrived, another police officer, Brian Byrnes, of the Fourth Precinct, was already there, trying to help the woman and calming her down. They were soon joined by another advanced medical technician, Kevin McInerney. They determined that the woman was too far along to risk taking her to a hospital, so they rolled up their sleeves and went to work. Rothenberg then massaged the baby's chest, and the infant started to make noise.
The officers rushed the mother and son to St. John's Episcopal Hospital, South Shore, in Far Rockaway. In the ambulance, Rothenberg partially covered the newborn's mouth and nose with an oxygen mask. At that point, Byrnes reported the birth over the police radio: "We're taking the proud mother and Nassau County's newest citizen to St. John's."
Traffic woes spur
closer look
Calling Broadway, Piermont Avenue and West Broadway one of the most complex traffic patterns in Nassau County, town and county officials met at the intersections to try to figure out ways to relieve congestion while maintaining pedestrians' and motorists' safety.
For months, residents and merchants complained that county traffic engineers increased traffic jams recently by installing turn lanes and crosswalks in front of the Hewlett Burger King and re-timing the traffic lights. The "improvements" were made to increase safety for Hewlett High School students who walk to get lunch. Almost two years ago, three students were hit by cars near the school on Everit Avenue in separate incidents over a few weeks' span.
Since the improvements were completed, the county reported, there have been no accidents involving pedestrians at Broadway and West Broadway. But residents said the traffic now backs up for several blocks on Broadway, and it takes them five to 10 minutes more to get to their destinations.
Nassau County Legislator Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside) inspected the complicated traffic conditions first-hand, and invited parent leaders and officials to join him in coming up with possible solutions.
Major push
to expand library
Proponents of expanding the Peninsula Public Library in Lawrence were intensifying an already all-out effort to convince the District 15 school board to set aside 100 feet of the Number One School property for the library.
Library officials and supporters attended the Nov. 16 school board meeting to blitz the board with their concerns and urge it to consider their needs when it decides to either lease or sell the school property.
Library officials have been trying for years to convince the school board to set aside 12 to 15 feet for a separate entrance and exit to the library driveway. Since the school board closed the Number One School in late June, library supporters have been lobbying to obtain .6 acres - 100-feet-by-250-feet - of the 3.6-acre school property to expand library facilities. The school board voted to close the school and move the students to the Number Six School in Woodmere as part of a consolidation plan that will save the district roughly $900,000 a year, according to district officials.
Robbery spree probed
Police were investigating a string of robberies of Chinese-food deliverymen, with three similar incidents reported in just over a week in Cedarhurst and Atlantic Beach, detectives said.
In all three cases, police said, the robbers placed phony orders to lure the deliverymen to certain addresses and then ambushed and mugged them when they arrived.
Investigators said the crimes shared several similarities, but the descriptions of the robbers were different in each case. Detectives at the Fourth Squad passed the information along to investigators at the Nassau County Robbery Squad to determine whether the crimes were connected and whether a pattern was emerging.
The latest incident occurred at 10 p.m. on Nov. 10, when a 53-year-old employee of Merry Land Chinese Food Take-out, at 913 W. Beech St. in Long Beach, was making a delivery to a specific address on West Beech Street in Atlantic Beach, authorities said. As he was walking up the driveway, the victim was confronted by two men and grabbed from behind by one of them, who used a chokehold on him and demanded money, detectives said. The second man also demanded money, and after grabbing about $300 in cash, the robbers ran away. Police said the victim felt an object pressed against his body, which may have been a handgun. The victim was not injured.
That robbery followed two muggings that same week. A 44-year-old deliveryman from Green Garden Chinese Restaurant, 569 Burnside Ave. in Inwood, was called to a home on Adele Road in Cedarhurst at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 2. Four days later, on Nov. 6, a deliveryman from Five Star Chinese Restaurant, at 456 Sheridan Blvd. in Inwood, was making a delivery to an address on Barnard Avenue in Cedarhurst at 9:10 p.m. when a man on a bicycle approached him, police said. The robber pulled out a handgun and grabbed $500 in cash before riding away on the bike, police said. The deliveryman was not injured.
Courtesy Rambam Mesivta
Photo #21364: Yonatan Schwab, left, and Yisrael Herzberg, students at Rambam Mesivta High School, flank the school's dean, Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman.
Students vie for $100K
Despite facing stiff competition, Yisrael Herzberg and Yonatan Schwab, seniors at Rambam Mesivta High School in Lawrence, exuded confidence moments before they presented their project to the judges of the 2004-05 Siemens Westinghouse competition in math, science and technology.
Their confidence paid off big time. They won the Middle States regional finals of the prestigious science research competition for high school students, a two-day event at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Herzberg and Schwab captured the silver medal in the team category, and split a $6,000 college scholarship for their research, which involved making nanoparticles from the element palladium, with the ultimate goal of producing an energy source that does not pollute the atmosphere. Contrary to accepted theory, they found that palladium nanoparticles are highly magnetic.
They were among five students from Long Island high schools who were named finalists. Rambam Mesivta won $2,000 for the project. Herzberg and Schwab advanced to the national finals at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., Dec. 3-6, to compete for a $100,000 grand prize. They finished in fourth place and came away with a $30,000 scholarship.
Yeshiva to help fallen
soldier's platoon
While Rambam Mesivta High School for Boys in Lawrence is half a world away from the U.S. forces fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the yeshiva students are doing what they can to boost the morale of the troops serving in the battalion of a fallen Long Island soldier.
The all-boys yeshiva was in the process of setting up a program that would enable its students to send care packages to the platoon of Jacob Fletcher, a former Long Beach resident, when the platoon arrives in Afghanistan after serving in Iraq.
Fletcher was killed in a roadside bombing of a bus in Iraq last November, while serving with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. As part of Rambam Mesivta's recognition of Veterans Day and the yeshiva's care package program, Fletcher's father, Marlowe, who served in the Air Force from 1967 to 1974, spoke to the yeshiva students at a full-school assembly.
After the moving speech by Fletcher about the pain of losing his 28-year-old son, Principal Yotav Eliach announced that when Fletcher's battalion moves from Iraq to Afghanistan, the yeshiva would adopt the platoon. Students will be given the soldiers' names and addresses so they can send care packages.
LPS board mulls bond
The Lawrence school board is strongly considering placing a mini-bond before District 15 voters sometime in the next few months to address some of the most critical capital needs in the district's school buildings. The trustees discussed the mini-bond at its Nov. 16 school board meeting, held at the Number Six School, and planned to vote on it at the Dec. 21 school board meeting.
District officials project a mini-bond will cost about $11 million to complete the number one and two capital priorities in the district, according to a five-year capital plan completed by the architectural firm, John A. Grillo & Associates, that was presented during the Nov. 16 meeting. To cover all building needs in the district's five-year plan would cost about $27 million.
According to Lawrence Assistant Superintendent for Business Deirdre Gambino, the mini-bond would cost $60 a year for a person with a $500,000 home.
December
Curbing double-parking
Police are continuing to take a no-nonsense approach to double-parkers on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst and Lawrence.
If there's any doubt, just ask a motorist who was handcuffed and brought into the station house after a double-parking incident that led to a confrontation with police, officials said.
Fourth Precinct police have been closely watching traffic-clogged Central Avenue, cracking down on scofflaws in an effort to keep traffic moving smoothly and to allow emergency vehicles to easily pass by.
Police began strictly enforcing the double-parking law in October 2002, when two teams of two patrolmen were assigned to write tickets for the infraction and issue warnings to others who were about to park in illegal zones. The crackdown has focused on Fridays and Sundays, when traffic is at its worst.
Police and Cedarhurst Village traffic-enforcement agents continue to hand out summonses. A driver was double-parked on Central, near Carman Avenue, when a police officer approached her and asked her for her license and registration. The driver refused the officer's request, according to police, and the officer had no choice but to make an arrest.
Late mayor's daughter dies at 101
Ruth Kahn Wolff, daughter of the late Cedarhurst mayor William Blumberg and valedictorian of the Lawrence High School class of 1921, died Dec. 1 in her Hewlett home. She was 101.
Wolff held the distinction of being the oldest living valedictorian of Lawrence High. She was the subject of a front-page story in the Nassau Herald on July 10, 1997, when she was invited back to the high school, one of a host of valedictorians invited to celebrate the school's 100th anniversary.
In the Herald story, Wolff vividly recalled her high school days, when she was a member of the 1921 Lawrence girls' basketball team that captured the Long Island championship. Standing 5 feet 6, she played center.
'Dream' homes
for Inwood
Fifty-nine-year-old Delorise Robinson has lived in an Inwood apartment since her early 20s, but has always dreamed of owning a home. She may finally get her wish.
On Dec. 8, officials from Nassau County, the Town of Hempstead and the Long Island Housing Partnership gathered at an empty county-owned lot on Harris Avenue in Inwood, next to Route 878, to announce plans for eight lower-cost homes to be constructed on the site, across from the Number Four School. A two-family affordable home is also slated to be built on the Inwood side of Lawrence Avenue, according to county officials. The Nassau County Legislature unanimously approved the project on Dec. 6.
The project calls for the Long Island Housing Partnership to construct four two-family townhouses at the Harris Avenue site as well as the two-family home on Lawrence Avenue. The Harris Avenue parcel measures 22,230 square feet and is zoned as Residential B.
CERT formed
Fearing that the Five Towns may be ill prepared for a terrorist attack, the wife of a Lawrence rabbi is organizing a team of local residents who would be trained to help the community in an emergency or disaster.
Susan Klaperman, wife of Gilbert Klaperman, rabbi emeritus at Congregation Beth Sholom, is appealing to residents in the Five Towns to join the local Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). The group has fewer than 20 members, but needs between 30 and 35 to make it a strong organization, she said.
Train hits car
A train slammed into a car stuck on the Long Island Rail Road tracks at the West Broadway crossing in Hewlett. The driver apparently was inside the vehicle when it was hit, but escaped injury, LIRR officials said.
The accident, which took place at around 3 p.m. on Dec. 16, caused a major headache for Five Towners. Train service on the Far Rockaway branch was halted for more than half an hour, and traffic was backed up throughout Hewlett and Woodmere.
The eastbound 1:59 p.m. train, scheduled to arrive in Far Rockaway at 3:03, struck the front fender of the 2000 Pontiac.
The driver of the car, who was not identified, was stuck at a red light and was unable to back up far enough when the crossing gates descended as the train approached, according to LIRR spokesman Sam Zambuto.
