EDITORIAL COMMENT.......

Islip Pool Questions Ducked by Islip Town....

Nearly a week after the Town of Islip put the $1.3 million dollar Maintenance Bond for the Benjamin Beach Pool  in Islip in default, newly hired Islip Town Director of Communications,  Inez Birbiglia,  spoke to Newsday.  Her comment was that repairs to the numerous cracks were only delayed by the weather, which needed to be dry to seal and paint the pool which has been in disrepair since last year. The week before had been raining for the most part.

 I guess the record of over 100 days without rain this spring, causing wildfires on Long Island, wasn't dry enough for Sydney Bowne, the actual project engineer, to make sure it got done.


The Town has asked Sidney Bowne not to answer any of the many questions raised by an exclusive story published by Freelance Investigations the day before the default was approved.  Perhaps the pending lawsuit for an injury to a child at the pool, less than a month after the park opened in 2010, due to a problem with the water jets -which the Newsday story failed to mention... could be the reason why.

Questions with the bid process and dozens of municipal workers working on overtime to finish the pool on time, were issues not addressed by the Town for the record, nor by the assigned Newsday, Islip reporter. The night of the Town Board meeting about the default...the reporter did not think the $1.3 million dollar default was worth tweeting about...but tweeting through the entire meeting, revealing the age, and birthday of a little girl who sat with the press, a relative of a Town employee, was big news for her apparently.  Four days later, the default was finally mentioned by her on the Internet, and six days after the Town of Islip put the Bond in default, Newsday put the story in the newspaper.

By the way...Newsday reporters used to dress in a professional manner when attending Town Board meetings. I see lately there is no dress code since a Newsday reporter attending a recent Town Board meeting came in Ugs and what can only be described as a "comfy pajama-like" outfit.  Other Board meetings I see Newsday reporters in jeans and dirty sneakers and torn t-shirts. Is this appearance what Newsday considers appropriate for a professional journalist attending meetings these days?  I guess since they think they are the only game in town, it doesn't matter how they present themselves to the public anymore.