Suffolk speeds up plans for police presence at Mastic Beach library over crime concerns

Suffolk County officials have announced accelerated plans for expanded police presence in Mastic Beach, one week after the board of trustees voted to shut the Mastic Beach Library satellite branch due to concerns over criminal activity in the area.

A new police substation trailer on county-owned property will be installed within a week, directly across from the library at Neighborhood Road, County Executive Edward P. Romaine said in a news conference on Thursday.

Officers will use the new substation as a base of operations, "allowing for a continued presence throughout the corridor, including during inclement weather," according to a news release.

The trailer had originally been anticipated to go up early next year.

"The people in Mastic Beach, in Brookhaven Town and in Suffolk County deserve to live in clean, safe neighborhoods," Brookhaven Supervisor Dan Panico said. "And as the supervisor of this town, I stand behind our police and our county to ensure that is exactly what happens."

The expanded police presence will include dedicated foot patrols along Neighborhood Road and regular patrol checks in and around the library.

County officials said the accelerated timeline of the police substation trailer came after a recent walk-through of the area with Panico, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina and other officials, in addition to meetings with library officials, police and community members.

The announcement comes one week after the Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library board of trustees voted unanimously to temporarily close the satellite branch in Mastic Beach to keep library users and staff safe, board president Joseph A. Maiorana said.

Before the vote, the library announced it had shifted staff hours due to safety concerns as daylight hours grew shorter.

Maiorana told Newsday on Friday that the board will keep the plans to close the branch on Christmas Eve despite the enhanced police presence. 

It will reopen on March 1 without traditional services like lending books or offering access to reading materials.  

Instead it will be reserved for scheduled "controlled access" programs such as literacy and citizenship classes, educational workshops and other library-run programs, Maiorana said. 

Patrons would need to provide a library card registered for a program to enter the building.

"There's going to have to be continuous, demonstratable results that the area is safe for our patrons and our staff before we go back to operating as a traditional library," Maiorana told Newsday in a phone interview. 

Newsday previously reported that Suffolk police said officers had responded to 45 service calls at the library: 16 disturbance calls, 11 for alarms, four for undefined "criminal incidents" and two for larceny offenses, between 4 p.m. and 4 a.m. May through September.

While Maiorana hailed the announcement of the substation and praised police, he said it was disappointing the county did not ensure expanded security measures before the board voted.  

Maiorana said he learned of the plans for the expanded police presence at Wednesday's Seventh Precinct meeting, but the board was not notified of or present at Thursday's news conference.

"We certainly welcome it [the expanded police presence] and I hope that the county continues to work with us," Maiorana said. "But ... all could have happened three years ago, four years ago, two years ago, even six months ago."