The Island and the Isles

Daily Point

What was up when Isles last played for Cup?

When the Islanders dropped Game Five of the 1984 Stanley Cup series following four consecutive championships, fans approached then-Nassau County Executive Francis Purcell about a parade down Hempstead Turnpike, as had been done with their Cup wins.

Purcell declined, saying, "It would be inappropriate this year." But had he known the team, which still holds the record for all major sports with 19 consecutive playoff series wins, would be without another Finals appearance 37 years later, perhaps he’d have relented.

A lot has changed for the Island and Isles since that 1983-84 season, and a lot remains the same. And Friday night, if the team can skate past a very strong Tampa Bay squad, it can finally vie for another Cup.

The politics surrounding Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum were already hairy in 1984. Former Rep. Pete King, whose signature as deputy county attorney is on the original Coliseum lease, remembered that long before the failed Lighthouse plan, the original vision for the Coliseum included residential, commercial and entertainment development that never happened.

The dissatisfaction with the Coliseum itself was almost immediate. The building opened in 1972 to jeers that it was an eyesore outside and a crowd-flow nightmare inside.

By 1978, when a Newsday headline derided "Nassau’s $31 million White Elephant," it was losing money, the Nets had fled to New Jersey and owner Roy Boe was hinting that the Islanders might leave, too.

But in that 1978 clipping, county officials said they were "close" to succeeding in their negotiations for new management, better attractions and a major hotel linked to the Coliseum by a shopping mall. It never happened, and the Islanders will play next year in a new area at Belmont Park.

Said King, who by 1984 was county comptroller, "I think it was a positive, even with all the problems. I don’t think Long Island ever had a real victory parade of any kind before the Islanders. The construction was hurried, we’d never done anything like it here before. People were talking about building ‘Long Island’s Madison Square Garden,’ and it didn’t exactly turn out that way. But if there were no Coliseum … we never get the Islanders, and the four championships, and all the memories. Look at all the kids who play hockey here now, there was practically none of that before the Islanders. All the concerts, the circus …. And remember, those Islanders players became such a part of the community. They were really with us, it was very special."

— Lane Filler @lanefiller

Talking Point

Election winds

"Hi, this is Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone," the robocall began, "and I am calling to ask you to support my friend Peter Van Scoyoc, for East Hampton Town Supervisor in the Democratic primary on Tuesday."

The message to East Hampton was Bellone’s only political robocall this year, according to spokesman Jason Elan. In the call, the West Babylon Democrat highlighted Van Scoyoc’s work during the pandemic, "from ensuring enough COVID-19 tests were available to administering vaccinations." And for anyone who hung on the line long enough, Bellone ended by saying that "it’s vital that we have strong local leadership to keep our communities safe and further our efforts to protect water quality on the East End."

What accounts for Bellone lending his voice to incumbent supervisor Van Scoyoc, who ended up topping town Councilman Jeffrey Bragman in one of those typically messy East End primaries?

In texts to The Point, Elan cited Van Scoyoc’s partnership with Bellone through the pandemic, and the supervisor’s support for the South Fork wind farm initiative that has been met with repeated opposition from some residents of Wainscott upset at the prospect of a cable running under their neighborhood.

Opponent Bragman has clashed with Van Scoyoc on the wind farm issue. He tells The Point that he supports wind power as an important means to achieve energy sustainability goals, but "at the same time, I support diligent environmental review. I also believe that the cost of the project should make sense, as resources are limited."

A former Babylon Town supervisor, Bellone himself has in the past raised questions about wind power setups on Long Island, but these days he’s a big supporter of wind and its potential for the climate and economy. With renewable energies being a big part of New York’s plans in the coming years, the future of wind energy is also big business in the state, and it doesn’t hurt the term-limited county executive to be on that side of things.

In the East Hampton primary, Van Scoyoc was grateful for the support and celebrating his unofficial victory pending absentee ballot counts.

"I think it always helps to get the county executive telling your voters that you’ve done a great job," he said.

Still, it may not be the end of this squabble. Bragman retains the Independence Party line for supervisor in November.

— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano

Pencil Point

Sliding

For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons

Final Point

Defunding deflated

Not that "defund the police" ever attracted real support in NYC’s so-called outer boroughs. But the slogan seems to have been notably rejected, or at least ignored, at the polls this week.

For one thing, there was the better-than-31% plurality of first-choice mayoral votes for ex-cop Eric Adams, who explicitly pushed back against it.

For another, it doesn’t seem to have helped outgoing City Council Speaker Corey Johnson (D-Manhattan), in his drive for comptroller, keep up with the palpably lefty Councilman Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn).

While Lander also favored shifting funds away from the NYPD, as did mayoral candidate Maya Wiley, who finished in the first-choice top three, it’s unknown whether they would have done better had they not taken that controversial position.

Johnson as speaker was in a position more than the others to make "defund" happen. Last year, in the wake of George Floyd’s death, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Johnson had concurred, at least in principle, on slashing $1 billion from the department’s $6 billion budget, the true impact of which is still unclear.

"Black folks want to be safe like everyone else, we just want to be respected," one de-fund opponent, Councilman I. Daneek Miller, co-chairman of the Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus, was quoted as saying a year ago. "We can’t allow folks from outside our community to lecture us about Black lives and what we need in our communities." Miller (D-Queens), an Adams supporter, leaves office at year’s end due to city term limits.

George Arzt, a city-based veteran political consultant, said Adams, like the city’s first Black mayor, the late David Dinkins, is best described as a moderate. (Arzt worked for Ray McGuire in the mayoral race.)

"Don’t forget that [President Joe] Biden won because of Clyburn," Arzt said, alluding to Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), who delivered what many saw as a game-changing endorsement at a crucial time in the national primaries. "Blacks are the backbone of the Democratic Party and are generally moderate."

And with a national urban crime uptick now looking like it will last past the pandemic, it was a bad week in other ways for those bent on cracking down further on cops. On Tuesday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Laurence Love called the so-called "diaphragm" law passed last year "unconstitutionally vague," and ruled the law "void in its entirety." The law would have made it a misdemeanor for cops to restrain someone by "sitting, kneeling or standing on the chest or back in a manner that compresses the diaphragm."

— Dan Janison @Danjanison

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