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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

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.

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December 4, 2020 — Oyster Bay Herald Guardian

Ianni, Oyster Bay’s new superintendent, is ready to lead they should be together, the couple married that year. Life wasn’t easy for Ianni. “It was difficult at 22 not speaking a word of English,” he said. “Every day the English all around me sounded like one big sound.” But he was undeterred. He worked several jobs, in pizza parlors and restaurants, attending English as a Second Language classes at night at a community college. In 1995 he arranged for his high school diploma from Italy to be translated so he could start attending college at Kingsborough Community College. His English was still not good, but he tried his best, he said. It was hard for him to keep up, but what he did accomplish, he said, he found rewarding. And he had hope. “I could see every month that my English was improving and I was getting used to the culture,” he said. “My wife was a fashion designer and her days were long. My days were long, too, working in the restaurants and then going to college at night. Every day I tried to make an improvement.” He learned of a scholarship that would allow for one to attend New York University at night. When he arrived at his first class at NYU in 1997, he said, he felt a bit intimidated. There were 90 students, and the room felt like a big movie theater. Ianni said he felt lost. But another classmate comforted him, he recalled, telling him to take one day at a time. “I realize that I can’t give back to all of the people who helped me, and they really don’t need it,” he said. “I have learned that if I can talk to a person who is struggling . . . I try to live my life and say every day is an opportunity to do something for others. Why wait?” Attending college was like starting his life over, he said. He was always fascinated by math. “Some people look at it as addition and subtraction,” he said. “To me it is so much more. There are so many relationships. It is like magic.” As an undergraduate, he learned of a scholarship that required that he teach for one year. He taught mathematics at a high school on Manhattan’s Lower East Side during the day, and at night went to graduate school at NYU. He graduated in 2001, was hired as an adjunct professor, and taught math from 2001 to 2010. In 2009 he earned his doctorate at St. John’s. He became an adjunct professor there in 2010, and is still on the roster. Ianni heard of an opportunity on Long Island, at East Meadow High School, in 2001. He was hired as a leave replacement teacher for six months. He and his wife moved to Plainview on Sept. 10, 2001. While at EMHS he learned that there was a job available at Locust Valley High School for a math teacher. He worked there for five years. Ianni taught upper-level classes, including Advancement Placement and International Baccalaureate courses. He started doing presentations for open school night and worked with the students on the Mathletes team. Then he introduced portfolio writing for math students. “Math education was changing a bit, moving more into math being more real-

Oyster Bay Herald Guardian — December 4, 2020

CONTINUED FROM FRONT PAGE

Courtesy OBENSD

DR. FRANCESCO IANNI, holding the family dog, Mia, with his daughter, Alba, wife, Anna, and son, Vincenzo, said he was looking forward to his new post as superintendent of Oyster Bay schools. life applications,” he explained. “I expanded it. Portfolio was like a mini dissertation.” At that point he decided to become an administrator. “The idea was to reach way outside my classroom halls,” he said. “I always felt that math is seen as a mechanical thing, but the ‘why’ of doing it was always important to me. I saw math as a way to say that things could change. Why not be that person to make that change?” He began his administrative career in the Bellmore-Merrick School District in 2005, as the assistant principal at Mepham High School. The following year he was appointed assistant principal of Harborfields High School. Then, in 2010, he accepted a job at the Levittown School District, as principal of Division Avenue High School. Ianni returned to Harborfields in 2013 as its assistant superintendent for administration and human resources. Three years later he advanced to deputy superintendent of schools, and six months after that he became superintendent.

John Valente, the director of athletics, physical education and health at Harborfields, said he has always been impressed by Ianni’s leadership style, describing him as a “visionary.” Valente said that Ianni included all administrators when making decisions, because he believed that it was important to work as a team to be successful. Ianni, Valente said, had a different style. “Most kids don’t know who the superintendent is,” he said. “He defied that, walking the hallways, going into the classrooms, even taking off his jacket and playing with the kids in gym.” Preparing for his new job in Oyster Bay, Ianni said he has fallen in love with the hamlet. His hometown in Italy, he said, is the same size as Oyster Bay. “I love the fact that this small community is tight,” he said, “and that the community is very supportive of the schools. This is very appealing to me to see so many similarities to Harborfields, where I am now.” He plans to study the district’s test score statistics. Ianni wants to empower stu-

dents, he said, to achieve success. He wants to take the district to the next level by building on the foundation already achieved by the administration and staff. Laurie Kowalsky, president of the Oyster Bay Board of Education, said that out of 65 candidates for the superintendent’s job, Ianni stood out. It is a benefit to the district, she said, that he speaks Italian and Spanish. During his interview, Kowalsky said, she found him to be warm, and someone who wants to get things done. The board, Kowalsky, said, sees Ianni’s mastery of math and data analysis as further benefits for the district. “We have smart kids here,” she said. “Dr. Ianni dug into the data at his district. We want him to do so here, so we can improve our Regents and ELA scores.” As an administrator and as a person, Ianni said, he tries to get a little better every day. “I try to live my life and see every day as an opportunity to do something,” he said. “I believe that if you put your mind into something, anything is possible.”

Applicants have no idea why they were denied CONTINUED FROM FRONT PAGE 700 acres, instead of 1,400 as in the previous lease. The purpose, the town said, is to encourage competition among shellfishing companies. Baptista said the three contenders who submitted proposals were not disqualified, and could resubmit. And the town’s RFP will not be scrapped. “It was fashioned to receive as many options as possible to harvest shellfish,” he said. “I’m not sure if the acreage will change. Part of the intent of the RFP was to get alternatives to dredging and raking the bottom of the bay — off-bottom agriculture.” When he received his denial letter from the town, Thornton said, no deficiencies were noted. And his company’s method would be off-bottom agriculture. “We saw this as an opportunity to do something new,” he said. “The juvenile oysters would grow in bags or cages, which does not disturb the bay bottom like dredging does. The South Bay and Peconic do this now.” Baptista also said the town would like to expand its areas for conservation management, a spawners sanctuary. Although it would reduce public land for shellfishing, the town believes it is critical to restore clams and oysters to the bay, he said. This area would be off limits. The board of directors at Friends of the Bay, a nonprofit that advocates protecting the harbor, wrote in a statement that the town’s decision to begin creation of a bay management plan before it makes decisions on issuing new licenses, permits or leases for large scale commercial shellfishing is a major plus. “The town’s decision to reject the initial RFP responses reverses a cart-beforethe-horse situation,” the statement said. “The bay management plan has to look at more than shellfishing and needs to be a science-based study that addresses the long-standing protection and health of the bay environment and looks at issues such as runoff, cesspools, development regulations, habitat loss, etc.” Flower’s attorney, James Cammarata, said he did not have any information on why the town rejected the company’s proposal, and added that until he did, he would be unable to comment. Doug Rodgers, vice president of NOBBA, said he had not heard why its

Christina Daly/Herald Guardian

THERE IS CONCERN that the shortage of oysters in Oyster Bay Harbor may worsen if changes to leasing do not happen soon. proposal was denied, either. He thought it might be due to technicalities or deficiencies. “Mitch and Tom’s group had the most complete proposal and even theirs was not accepted,” Rodgers said. “It’s strange. When we went to one of our meetings with the town they seemed content with what we were proposing but asked for more information on what we would like.” But the next two meetings were cancelled, Rodgers said. Then NOBBA received the letter that it was denied. “We would like to know if we can move forward with a business plan but we can’t move forward without the lease. It’s like you have a business plan for a restaurant but you don’t have the building for the restaurant.” Friends of the Bay’s statement said that the town’s decision to reject all of the proposals delays a decision on future large-scale shellfish harvesting in the bay. “That means that Frank M. Flower & Sons, which says it has not operated its

Bayville hatchery for a year because of the presence of predators in the bay and uncertainty over its future once the current lease expires in 2024, will now continue with its declared intention to not put seed shellfish into the bay (other than indirectly through the small amount it is required to give to the town for its own seeding program under its town lease) for a longer period.” the statement read. Flower has not seeded the harbor this year with 1 million clam seeds, as was required under its current lease. Baptista said the town was working on an arrangement crafting an official request and would send it to Flower this week. The new RFP requires 1,500 clam seeds per licenses acre. The town is not requiring a hatchery. The reason, Baptista said, is that the town does not want to get involved in running someone’s business. Thornton said he was concerned about the harbor. “There is a real crisis in respect to oysters in Oyster Bay,” he said. “We have an iconic bay and are firmly committed to returning oysters to Oyster Bay. What’s going on now is not working.”

What’s in the town’s new shellfishing lease ■ Operators will be required to seed 1,500 oysters or clams per acre per year. ■ License for five years. ■ Option to renew license for five more years. ■ 800 acres are available ■ Proposals accepted for 10 to 700 acres He added that the situation was graver than residents probably realize. “The oysters sold at the Oyster Festival for the past few years have been brought in from Connecticut,” he said. “We don’t have them here.”

Table Showing High Tides Courtesy of

frank M. flower InC. HOW TO REACH US Our offices are located at 2 Endo Blvd. Garden City, NY 11530 and are open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.

MAIN PHONE: (516) 569-4000

Growers of Pine Island oysters Since 1887 Hatchery in Bayville

Boat Dock in oyster Bay

Timetable

friday 12/04