Text size:

New push for peace in Farmingville

BY BART JONES | Newsday Staff Writer

March 27, 2006

Two years ago, Louise Scarola had a starring role as a besieged homeowner in the award-winning documentary film "Farmingville." She flew to Utah for Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival, gave talks about her embattled community and became a regular at seminars on illegal immigration.

Since then, little has changed in her hamlet. Now, Scarola is launching a one-woman campaign to put aside the heated rhetoric over immigration and bring residents and Mexican day laborers together to find concrete solutions to problems entering their second decade.

"I still believe communication is the key to solving this," said Scarola, 45, a certified public accountant who has lived there for 20 years. "We can't solve the immigration problem. That's up to the federal government to do. But what can Farmingville do to deal with it right now?"

She has a few ideas, although she has no organized group behind her and is just starting on her mission. She wants day laborers and residents to sit down in a nonconfrontational setting and air their grievances, along with church leaders, advocates and elected officials.

She also thinks Suffolk County or Brookhaven Town officials could help by allowing the day laborers to gather each morning in the parking lot at the Bald Hill amphitheater or at Town Hall in Farmingville. Or, local churches could open up their parking lots. Currently, a few hundred day laborers line the streets each morning as they wait for work.

"There are people lined up on both sides of Horseblock Road and it's only March," she said. "It's going to be a big safety problem this summer. It's going to be disastrous."

Scarola lives near 33 Woodmont Place, which authorities shut down in June at the start of a crackdown on illegally overcrowded housing. Officials say the 900-square-foot house was packed with as many as 64 men. Neighbors said the cesspool often overflowed and the odor wafted into their yards.

Scarola wants the day laborers to stop overcrowding houses, start maintaining their homes better, and stop hanging around the streets if they don't find work for the day.

Irma Solis, a community organizer with the Workplace Project who works with the day laborers, said she welcomed the chance for renewed dialogue. But she said it also needs to be "a two-way street," because the day laborers have their own grievances.

She said they don't want local youths throwing bottles or other items at them as they walk down the streets or ride their bicycles. She also said the landlords must participate in the conversation, because they are the ones who pack tenants into houses to boost profits and are principally responsible for maintaining the residences.

Scarola said she is optimistic her nascent project can bring change. "Maybe I'm pipe-dreaming," she said. But "I still have hope things could ease so we don't have another hellish summer."