Town Breaks Ground On Veterans’ Housing

Veterans groups joined town officials for the groundbreaking of the future Columbia Terrace in Huntington.

Construction of Columbia Terrace is officially underway following a ceremonial groundbreaking by town officials, veterans, and the construction company.

The groundbreaking was held Tuesday, Oct. 30, on the grounds of an affordable housing development for veterans. Huntington Supervisor Chad Lupinacci, Town Board members Joan Cergo, Mark Cuthbertson and Ed  Smyth, Community Development Agency Director Leah  Jefferson, Assemblyman Steve Stern, representatives from Lipsky construction and members of the American Legion, VFW and the veterans advisory board attended the groundbreaking.

“Huntington Station has been waiting decades for neighborhood and economic revitalization, which over the past several years has began to mobilize,” Lupinacci said.

The town’s Community Development Agency acquired the property in 2010.

“Affordable housing is so far out of reach for so many people living here on Long Island,” Jefferson said. “So the more than we can provide affordable housing and the gift of the American Dream of home ownership, I think is really important, particularly here in the town of Huntington. Not only can home cost be expensive, but the taxes can also put a home out of reach for individuals.”

Affordability was always a goal for the project but in 2015, the CDA earmarked the homes for veterans and their families. Those who have served our country will have a chance to own one of the 14 homes through entering a housing lottery.

“Our veterans and their families make many sacrifices to keep us safe,” Lupinacci said. “When they come home, we owe them the opportunity to have the stability of owning a home that they can live in.”

Lipsky Construction won the contract to build the homes with a $2.94-million bid. The goal is to have veterans moved in by Sept. 30, 2019.

For Lipsky, the project is special.

“We took special consideration of this bid when we gave our pricing, that it was for veterans,” Barry Lipsky, president of Lipsky Construction,  said. “Our company is in the third generation, my brother and myself are the third generation, and my grandfather started it, who was a World War II vet.”

“This is very exciting day and project for our community, but most importantly for those that serve all of us,” Stern, a member of the Veterans Affairs committee in the Assembly, said. “With the Lipsky family we know that can look forward to an outstanding project that will make all of our veterans and our community proud.”

Jefferson hopes it will be a model and inspiration for future projects.

“With all of the service they [veterans] have provided to residents here and across the nation,” Jefferson said. “They face hardships and issues with the healthcare crisis, coming back and dealing with war or maybe dealing with other obstacles. Home ownership might out of reach, so we want to provide them with the affordability of owning a home, especially first-time home buyers.”

The housing lottery will be held about two months before the project is completed, CDA officials said.

Robotics Team Readies For Competitions

Mentor, Donald Fisher works with Huntington High School students, Anthony Amitrano, Nick Bozsnyak and Patrick Langton to build a robot.

By Sophia Ricco
sricco@longislandergroup.com

You can create anything you put your mind to and the Huntington High School Robotics team is a prime example of this, with four World Championships in the bag the Robotics team is looking to have another sensational year.

But robot parts don’t come cheap. This is why Huntington Robotics Incorporated is hosting their third annual Robotics Fundraiser on Nov. 5 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Launchpad of Huntington, 315 Main Street. It will be a fun, casual cocktail party with beer provided by Six Harbors Brewery and food by Babalu Cuban Bistro.

Huntington Robotics Incorporated is a nonprofit that supports Team 5016 through fundraising money and providing mentors. President of the Parent Association of Huntington Robotics, Peggy Low, got involved through her son and daughter’s participation in the group. She admires the clubs values of building and involvement with STEM, their community outreach and the business skills it teaches students, but admits that the venture is a costly one.

“Running a competitive robotics team with the FIRST organization, our league, is a very expensive endeavour,” Low said. “The entry fee to a competition is $5,000 and we try to do two competitions a year.”

Huntington High School has been a great help to the team by giving them financial support for competitions and transportation, but this funding still is not enough to completely run Team 5016. This leaves it up to Huntington Robotics Incorporated to fundraise and the high school students to secure corporate sponsors. If a parent gets a lead from a corporate sponsor, they will tell the students and help make the introduction, but after that they step back.

“The students themselves have to communicate with the corporate sponsor, try to get an appointment for a presentation, make a pitch presentation and close the deal,” Low said.

It is truly up to the students to run their team, with advising from faculty members, Omar Santiago and Brian Reynolds. The kids have a business plan and voting procedures, along with governing themselves. This fall Huntington Robotics students have been planning and coordinating their community outreach, as well as crafting a method on how they will educate and train next year’s team.

For the team, their community outreach is a major component of their season. Team 5016 wants to promote STEM learning in the area through initiatives and meeting with other students. Coming up, the team will be holding a Women’s Empowerment Symposium on Nov. 19 that is open for all to attend.

“We’ve gotten a lot of kids involved in the community with STEM that didn’t think they were interested,” Low said. “The kids basically do everything themselves.”

From where it began in 2013, with around nine students involved, the Robotics team has grown with over 50 students, many of them female and spanish speaking students. In their six years as a team, Team 5016 has attended four World Championships. Their most recent being in Detroit last April.

Looking forward to this year’s World Championships, the group will not know any of the details of the challenge until January 5th, when the FIRST League releases it. From there, they have six weeks to build a robot that will score them as many points as possible. It is “a lot like a real world problem”, because it requires being solved quickly while also working well.

“Once they release the ways in which the robot can score points, the designers of the robots, the programmers and the developers, who are students, sit down together for a week or two to come up with a prototype of what they want to build,” Low said.

A team like Team 5016 gives students the ability to work together for a common goal, while showing them strengths they may never have known they possessed.

“Many don’t realize that their particular skill set that they already have - whether it’s leadership, the ability to do coding, or they’re just good builders - can be applied to a team effort like robotics,” Low said. “Robotics is sort of like a sports team for the mind.”

Parents of the robotics team, board of education members and administration members from the school district, and sponsors will be attending the event. All are invited and welcomed to attend and support Team 5016. Tickets are on sale for the event for $75. Purchase by visiting team5016.com.

Northport Man Arrested After 'Proud Boys'' Melee

Northport resident Douglas Lennan appears in Manhattan Criminal Court following his arrest on riot and assault charges for a clash that occurred between right- and left-wing extremists groups in Manhattan this month. Pool photo/William Miller

By Sophia Ricco
sricco@longislandergroup.com

A Northport man was among five men arrested in the wake of a violent clash earlier this month outside the Metropolitan Republican Club that made national headlines.

Douglas Lennan, 40, of Northport was charged with riot and assault by New York City Police after the far-right organization Proud Boys clashed with members of the far-left, anti-facist movement Antifa on Oct. 12. The fight broke out after Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes made a speech at the Metropolitan Republican Club on New York’s upper east side. Video of the brawl obtained by police and released to aid in the search for suspects resulted in additional arrests, including Lennan’s.

A spokesman for the NYPD Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Public Information, confirmed Lennan was taken into custody by police in the 19th Precinct at approximately 10:45 a.m., Oct. 22. He was arraigned that day in Manhattan Criminal Court.

Lennan was represented by a Legal Aid attorney at his arraignment. His next apearance is Oct. 30.

The all-male Proud Boys is an extremist organization whose members advocate against “political correctness” and “white guilt,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

On a show streamed on the Compound Media platform, McInnes claimed western culture is superior, racism is a construct invented to make white people feel guilty, Islam advocates for violence and feminism exists to take away men’s masculinity.