Getting on the right track

Daily Point

A nod to DeMarco

It took President Donald Trump 29 months to nominate Vincent DeMarco as U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District, so the former Suffolk County sheriff should have had plenty of time to get his paperwork in order.

Once DeMarco submits the required information, mostly financial-disclosure forms, and the vetting process is completed, meetings with New York’s two Democratic senators will be scheduled, The Point is told. Certainly, if Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand — OK, really Schumer — green lights the nomination, Senate approval should be quick.

However, the tradition of allowing the home-state senators, regardless of party, to “blue slip” or put an indefinite hold on the nomination, has been all but blown up in the Trump era. But if either Democratic senator objects, the issue for DeMarco would be how skilled or interested the Trump administration is to push through his nomination. Especially if it gets tied up in the larger partisan wrangling that heats up with the 2020 contests for the White House and control of the U.S. Senate.

Republican supporters of DeMarco don’t see any background problems for him, but because of the political fighting in Washington that’s a firestorm no one can truly predict.

- Rita Ciolli @RitaCiolli

Talking Point

Giving voice to the Hub

The asphalt around Nassau Coliseum is strewn with failed development attempts — often in part because key players weren’t on board. This time around, it seems RXR Realty’s Scott Rechler and BSE Global’s Brett Yormark are making sure everyone has a title and a role to play before the shovels hit the ground.

That starts with the new community benefits advisory committee, a gathering of elected officials, community advocates, labor leaders, and others who will determine how to spend funds that developers RXR and BSE will earmark for the surrounding neighborhoods.

The committee, which is co-chaired by Long Island Association chief executive Kevin Law and Hempstead Town councilwoman Dorothy Goosby, has formed five working groups that would provide some insight into how the community benefits funds would be spent. Each group has two chairpersons — one who’s a member of the advisory committee, and one who’s an outside player with expertise.

Consider the list a who’s who of Long Island voices.

• The transportation and infrastructure workgroup will be led by Nassau County Legis. Thomas McKevitt and Long Island Builders Institute chief executive Mitch Pally.
• The workforce development workgroup will be chaired by Nassau County Legis. Siela Bynoe and Rosalie Drago, the regional director at the Workforce Development Institute.
• Walter Skinner, with the East Meadow Chamber of Commerce, and Theresa Regnante, with United Way, will head the youth and education workgroup.
• A workgroup on the environment and sustainability will be led by Jeannine Maynard of the Greater Uniondale Area Action Committee and Sammy Chu of the local chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council.
• And finally, Paul Gibson, with the Uniondale Community Land Trust, and Richard Guardino, with the Long Island Regional Planning Council, will chair the business development and economic growth workgroup.

Left to figure out:  Where will the money go?

- Randi F. Marshall @RandiMarshall

Pencil Point

Trump bucks

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

Reference Point

It's Still Rock and Roll To Me

As Long Island celebrates Billy Joel’s 70th birthday Thursday, May 9, The Point took a stroll down musical memory lane to when Newsday’s editorial board had a somewhat different reaction to rock ‘n’ roll.

On May 9 in 1958, the board weighed in on actions by New Jersey authorities to cancel a planned rock ‘n’ roll show at a Newark armory hosted by Alan Freed, the pioneering disc jockey known as the “father of rock ‘n’ roll” for his role in creating the rock craze.

Six days earlier, Freed had brought his Big Beat show to Boston with acts like Jerry Lee Lewis, Frankie Lymon and Chuck Berry. What happened at the concert at the Boston Arena is still the subject of controversy. Freed was charged with inciting a riot, charges that eventually were dropped for lack of evidence, after Boston police either did or did not interrupt the show several times to make the young crowd stop dancing and sit down, and after Freed either did or did not tell the audience that “It looks like the police in Boston don’t want you kids to have any fun,” and after the crowd either did or did not start fighting with each other and/or police, and after stabbings, robberies and rapes either did or did not occur outside the arena afterward.

Boston Mayor John B. Hynes prematurely and incorrectly announced the end of rock ‘n’ roll in Boston, another version of “banned in Boston,” and Freed’s career essentially ended less than two years later when he was fired from his radio and TV shows for accepting payola.

Newsday’s editorial board, which called rock ‘n’ roll “a sort of uncontrolled stomping to loud music,” applauded New Jersey’s actions in cancelling Freed’s upcoming show. It acknowledged the right of “teenagers in pony-tails or black leather jackets” to enjoy a rock show, before ending its sermon with this:

“But fond as we are of civil liberties, when music produces a riot, it is time for us older folk to put down a restraining foot. Can’t some enterprising producer come up with a band that plays nothing but the minuet, the mazurka and the schottische?”

For the record, Alan Freed was in the first group of inductees in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in 1986 and Billy Joel was there, presenting Fats Domino. Joel himself was inducted in 1999.

To the best of our knowledge, he did it without playing a schottische.

- Michael Dobie @mwdobie