Suffolk OKs ShotSpotter for more areas

Suffolk lawmakers agreed to a proposal by County Executive Steve Levy late Tuesday night to bring the high-tech crime-fighting-tool ShotSpotter to more communities in the county.

Lawmakers approved Levy's proposal to lease -- rather than buy -- the technology, in which sound sensors are used to immediately tell police when and where gunshots are fired.

Proponents say it helps police catch suspects and get help to victims more quickly, and neighborhoods dealing with gun violence have clamored to get it. Under the agreement, ShotSpotter would come to Wyandanch, North Amityville, Huntington Station, Brentwood and North Bellport this summer.

The plan will cost $450,000 for the first year and $334,500 for each of the following two years. North Bellport will receive ShotSpotter a fourth and fifth year, at a cost of $71,500 a year. A private donor bought ShotSpotter for North Bellport but wanted assurances it would stay in place for five years.

The proposal includes funding to continue a pilot program at Huntington Station, which had been the only community in the county that was due to get ShotSpotter.

Lawmakers and Levy had been at odds over how to expand the technology. Legis. DuWayne Gregory (D-Amityville) had proposed that Suffolk spend $652,000 to buy the equipment for Wyandanch and North Bellport. Either Central Islip or Brentwood, or both, also would have gotten the technology under Gregory's proposal. But Levy, who is skeptical of the technology, proposed the county try the ShotSpotter through a lease instead.

Agreeing with Levy Tuesday night, lawmakers said the lease deal would bring ShotSpotter to more parts of the county than buying it. Leasing would also mean that trained ShotSpotter staff will be running the technology.

Also Tuesday night, Suffolk legislators passed a measure requiring health care facilities to come up with a plan for disposing of medical waste. A 2006 study had found traces of drugs in 40 percent of groundwater wells sampled countywide.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign For the Environment, said the study, published in 2006 by the U.S. Geological Survey and Suffolk County, found only trace amounts. But she supported the measure, saying it would prevent the problem before it got worse. She said the tests most commonly found antibiotics and anticonvulsants.

"It's very insidious. You can't see it. You can't smell it. You can't tell it's here, but it's there," Esposito told legislators during public testimony before the vote.

Lawmakers, though, put off voting on a measure requiring drivers to clear snow off their vehicles before driving. The sponsor, Legis. Jon Cooper (D-Lloyd Harbor), acknowledged he didn't have the votes because of concerns in part that the elderly have a difficult time removing the snow.

Legislators also put off voting on another resolution that would have sold off land for County Executive Steve Levy's controversial mega-project, Legacy Village -- a move that would have effectively killed the development.

The legislature's presiding officer, William Lindsay (D-Holbrook), who has been pushing for the sale of the Yaphank property, said through a spokeswoman that he opted to table the measure because he lacked the votes to pass it.

Before the tabling, an opponent of the project urged lawmakers not to put the land up for sale, fearing it would simply be sold to another developer. Chad Trusnovec, 46, resident of the Yaphank Civic Association, said the project -- touted by Levy as a potential home for 1,200 units of affordable housing -- would "inundate our tiny hamlet."