The TIMES of Smithtown
Volume 28, No. 52
SERVING SMITHTOWN • ST. JAMES • NESCONSET • COMMACK • HAUPPAUGE • KINGS PARK • FORT SALONGA February 25, 2016
$1.00
BY ALEX PETROSKI
BRIDGES A Resource Guide Featuring Many of the Healthcare Services Provided to the Community by Stony Brook Medicine
Anniversary
Times Beacon RecoRd neWs media • February 25, 2016
SBU & Local Business Resource Guide INSIDE
The Smithtown school board voted to close Branch Brook Elementary School at a board of education meeting Tuesday, effective June 30, 2017. Five board members, including President Christopher Alcure, were in favor of the closure. Gladys Waldron, the board’s longest tenured member, was responsible for the lone “no” vote. “For four years we’ve made cuts to the program, and it is not a proposition that I would like to continue,” Alcure said following the meeting. “We have declining enrollment. We have space in other buildings. Due to the fact that Branch Brook is one of the smaller buildings, and in my mindset we needed to close a building, and if we kept that open and closed one of the other ones and we had a sudden, unexpected uptick in enrollment, Branch Brook could not accommodate being one of seven schools. If we have an uptick in enrollment in two or three years when Branch Brook is closed, we’ll be able to absorb about 1,200 kids, and that was my deciding factor.” Closing at least one elementary school has been an intensely
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Smithtown votes to close school Members of the board of education just prior to the vote Tuesday.
debated issue between the community, the school board and district administration since the middle of November when Superintendent James Grossane presented the findings of a housing committee that was assembled earlier in 2015. Grossane presented the board with five options as cost saving measures. Closing Branch Brook was a part of four of the five options. Tuesday’s vote sealed the fate of Branch Brook, though Grossane will take his time in selected one
of the four options from his November proposal, he said. More debate is still to come about what happens to students in the seven elementary schools that are not closing to make room for those leaving Branch Brook. With emotions running high and a filled-to-capacity auditorium in the New York Avenue building that serves as district headquarters in Smithtown, the vote was received with anger and sadness from the community. Katie Healy has been one of the
Photo by Alex Petroski
most outspoken Branch Brook parents throughout the process. “If I choose to stay, I will hold each and every one of you accountable and likely pushing one of you out,” Healy said to the five board members who voted yes. “I will be okay, and I will fight for those that will have a tough time but I will be there to show you that your losses are greater than your gains. If I choose to stay in this state I will hold you SCHOOL continued on page A3
Plane crash lands into North Shore harbor West comes up short
Smithtown Bulls are eliminated after battle with Brentwood
PAGE A10
BY PHIL CORSO
Police are combing through the region where Port Jefferson Harbor and Setauket Harbor meet, near Poquott, after a small plane crashed there late Saturday night, authorities said. The small plane, which police said was a Piper PA28 carrying four people, went down shortly after 11 p.m. near the vicinity of 108 Van Brunt Manor Rd., Poquott Mayor Dee Parrish said. An extensive response from emergency personnel followed, during which three people were recovered from the water — but one remained missing, and that search was ongoing through the beginning of this week, officials said.
Emergency responders prepare to remove the airplane from the harbor.
Police said on Sunday that a student pilot, 25-yearold Bronx resident Austricio Ramirez was flying the plane when the problems arose and turned the controls over to his instructor, 36-year-old Queens
resident Nelson Gomez, who landed the plane in the harbor. All the passengers in the four-seater plane were able to exit into the water, after which Ramirez, Nelson and passenger Wady Perez, a 25-year-old
Photo from Margo Arceri
from Queens, were rescued by police. But Suffolk County Police Commissioner Tim Sini said the search and rescue operation remained in effect for CRASH continued on page A8