The power of contributions
Suffolk Democratic chairman Rich Schaffer in an undated photo. Credit: Newsday / Alejandra Villa
Good afternoon and welcome to The Point! Not a subscriber? Click here.
Talking Point
The chairman’s circle
Sometimes political contributions can be as much about communicating ideas as they are about funding campaigns, particularly when they come from a political party boss’ personal pocket. And that’s part of the impetus behind some of Suffolk County Democratic Party Chairman Rich Schaffer’s recent donations to several Democrats in races totally or partially in his realm.
Schaffer’s recent personal donations include contributions to candidates who have claimed he is not fully supportive.
Lane Filler
Final Point
Summer reading
The Point is doing some election season summer reading this year, and in an effort to separate truth from fiction, delving into the writings of Rep. Pete King.
King’s novels explore the career and exploits of one Long Island Republican Sean Cross, who lives in Seaford and cares deeply about Irish issues and safeguarding New York from terrorism.
That is to say, the works are pretty autobiographical and afford an often fascinating behind-the-scenes look at King’s/Cross’ worlds and beliefs.
Beyond going along for the ride with plots about a made-up post-9/11 terror attack on Long Island (“Vale of Tears”) and Irish Republican Army-related skulduggery (“Deliver Us From Evil”), one parlor game that Point readers might enjoy is guessing who’s who.
Some national and local political figures show up with their real names: Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has had his own recent ups-and-downs with truth and fiction, MTA chairman and former mayoral candidate Joe Lhota, former Town of Oyster Bay supervisor John Venditto, plus President Bill Clinton and former U.S. Sen. Al D’Amato.
Others have tweaks. There is pollster John O’Laughlin, diplomat Constance Reese, Newsday columnist Mickey Brannigan, and congressional staffer Kevin Finnerty. In real life, they are known as John McLaughlin, Condoleezza Rice, Jimmy Breslin and Kevin Fogarty.
See if you can read between the lines and figure out who is “Joe Mondero,” the chairman of the Nassau County Republican committee introduced in the first line of “Deliver Us From Evil” as “puffing on one of his trademark cigars.”
Mark Chiusano
Pencil Point
Feeding the beast
Talking Point
Stony Brook invests in LI’s future
Long Island business and political leaders often like to talk and debate about how to keep young people here, how to build the Island’s tech sector, and how to attract new companies.
But in a corner of Stony Brook University’s campus, it’s more than talk.
In a visit to the university’s Research and Development Park on Tuesday, The Point found a potential model for how Long Island can turn research into economic development, and grow start-ups into full-fledged companies that employ graduating students, and give them reasons to stay. There, small companies use office and research space to focus on energy and education, on biotechnology and health care software. Altogether, the university’s incubators employ about 400 people, and many are Stony Brook graduates.
While incubators are not new to Long Island, Nassau and Suffolk have always had difficulty answering this question: What happens to those companies once they’re ready to leave the nest? Too often, the answer has been for those companies to leave Long Island.
Soon, Stony Brook plans to have a better answer, in the 60,000-square-foot Innovation and Discovery Center scheduled to open next year.
Stony Brook Vice President of Economic Development Yacov Shamash calls it the “Mezzanine,” because it’ll be a home to mid-stage companies that have grown too big for the university’s Long Island High Technology Incubator or its Center of Excellence in Wireless & Information Technology. Shamash says the new building likely will be full upon opening — because there already are companies ready to move.
Shamash has big plans. After all, what comes after the Mezzanine? Shamash gestures to the 245-acre research park, only 10 acres of which is in use, and notes that the companies he’s nurturing eventually could become large enough to develop their own large-scale facilities on site, making the park “an engine of growth for Long Island.”
“The potential is here,” Shamash said. “The potential is really here.”
Randi F. Marshall
