COMMUNITY UPDATE Infections as of Nov. 30
1,130
Infections as of Nov. 23 1,011
Eagle Scout shoe drive is a hit
Celebrating new artificial-turf field
An artist is laid to rest
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DECEMBER 4 - 10, 2020
VOL. 122 NO. 49
Town denies proposals. What’s next? George Baptista Jr., the town’s deputy commissioner of environmental resources, said Frank M. Flower & Sons, a t h e ap p l i c at i o n s commercial shellwere deficient fishing company, has because they did not leased roughly 1,400 contain financial acres of underwater specifics. The town, land from the Town he said, wants to be of Oyster Bay since certain that whoever 1994. The company’s it grants a lease to is 30-year lease will financially sound expire in 2024, which and can generate prompted the town revenue. “The subto issue a request for mission process has new proposals in changed,” Baptista June. Flower, along said, “to protect the with Mitch Kramer GEORGE taxpayer.” and Thomas ThornThe town’s new BAPTISTA JR. ton, Oyster Bay resiRFP allows for 800 dents from the Oys- Town deputy acres of underwater ter Bay Shellfish commissioner of land to be divided Company and the environmental into six areas to be North Oyster Bay fished separately. Baymen’s Associa- resources The maximum acretion, independent age that could be baymen, submitted applications leased to one company would be to the town. All were recently denied. CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
By LAURA LANE llane@liherald.com
T
he submission process has changed to protect the taxpayer.
Courtesy OBENSD
DR. FRANCESCO IANNI will serve as superintendent of the Oyster Bay-East Norwich Central School District beginning Jan. 1. He said he was pleased that the community supports the school district, and plans to move it forward.
Hardscrabble life has forged a ‘visionary’ superintendent By LAURA LANE llane@liherald.com
Dr. Francesco Ianni, 48, will become the Oyster BayEast Norwich School District’s new superintendent on Jan. 1. A Plainview resident, married with two grown children, he has been involved in education for 20 years. At New York University, Ianni earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathe-
matics. He went on to earn a professional diploma in education administration from Long Island University and a doctoral degree from St. John’s University. His resume is long on educational experience, but what it does not indicate are the extraordinary hurdles that Ianni, an immigrant from Italy, overcame. He might never have come
to the United States had he not met Anna Martuscelli, a tourist from Brooklyn who, vacationing in Italy, was intent on visiting Santa Maria di Castellabate, Ianni’s hometown. They fell in love, and he came to Brooklyn in 1994 to be with Martuscelli. Ianni planned to stay for only a month, but, he said, one month led to another. Certain CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
OUR COVID-19 TRACKER With the Covid-19 test positivity rate rising across the country, the Herald is adding a weekly coronavirus tracker to the upper-left corner of our front page to help you gauge what’s happening in your area from week to week. The number is an aggregate of the communities that this newspaper covers. Data is obtained from the Nassau County Covid-19 Dashboard, which provides the total number of cases reported in an area since the start of the pandemic, and is updated regularly.