Pigs Do Fly

Principals offer optimism on Lighthouse Project

John Jeansonne

Newsday.com

Principals in the ongoing, not-entirely-hockey discussion about the Lighthouse project powwowed privately for the first time Friday. And no fight broke out. With Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi presiding, Town of Hempstead Supervisor Kate Murray at last met with Lighthouse partners Charles Wang and Scott Rechler and afterward assured that their 55-minute communal campfire had produced the kind of efficient teamwork that long ago made the Islanders team, now owned by Wang, the envy of its sport.

"Today," Suozzi declared, "is a symbol that we're going to cooperate. The county, the town, the developers."

After Suozzi announced significant new dates - July 7, for the town board to sign off on the developers' draft environmental impact statement; and Oct. 3, as the target in finalizing the approvals process - Wang added another: "I hope to put a shovel in the ground by April or June [2010]," he said. "Hopefully June, because we hope we're in the Stanley Cup playoffs [until then]."

Such optimism, on both the hockey and arena fronts, reinforced Wang's suddenly substantial leverage for the Lighthouse plan, which would use the renovation of Nassau Coliseum as anchor to essentially raise a small city on the Uniondale-Hempstead border.

The labor unions are solidly on his side. "With this economy, it's imperative that we move forward," Long Island Federation of Labor president John Durso said. The governor privately supported Wang's proposal at a Thursday meeting. The league backs the whole idea. Islanders fans have been behind it - especially when word spread in January that the team will play an exhibition in Kansas City this fall, and the attendant hints that Missouri could provide a new home for the franchise.

All the while, Murray was cast mostly as the party of "no," as she argued for following the town's mandated procedures. Friday's major leap forward was Suozzi's ability to lower the temperature on what had appeared to be a showdown between Ivory Tower (grand Lighthouse designs) and Practical (repercussions of traffic, environment, etc.). In effect, he applied the team's own ad slogan: "We are all Islanders."

Promising that the principals would work together in a "new spirit of cooperation and collaboration," Suozzi made a point of naming the parties, beyond Murray, that also must be consulted, from the state and county to school districts, villages and local government agencies. "There will be no more back-and-forths," Suozzi said.

Wang, who previously offered criticism of what he characterized as unreasonable delays by Murray, was happily on board. "This is unprecedented for us to be together," he said. "We are going in the right direction."

He insisted that, on Oct. 3, he does not intend to pick up his marbles and leave. He said he has not spoken to any city about a move: "Our goal has always been that we want to be on Long Island."

Murray, for her part, reminded that the Lighthouse plan "is a real estate project" that reaches far beyond hockey. But the tectonic shift toward cooperation, the result of a face-to-face meeting that labor leaders are taking credit for provoking, probably increases Wang's edge.

It might further brighten his outlook to know that Murray considers herself an Islanders fan. And happens to still have the Denis Potvin hockey stick she got for her 16th birthday.

Hilarious Moronic Media Quote of the Year Award goes to...

...SI's hockey writer Michael Farber, who said the following on TSN about the Islanders and their first overall pick in June:

"...New York Islanders, who have decided to poll fans about what to do with the number one draft choice. There are great hockey scouts right there, and they know what they're doing. This is an insult - one, to your scouts. ... But if you are listening to your fans, it's an insult because you're pandering people who don't know what they're doing."

Reminds me of the story Eric Bischoff had to tell Harvey Schiller after Schiller complained about the violence on a WCW TV Broadcast. Bischoff had to say, "Uh, Dr. Schiller...you didn't believe that was real, did you?

So an esteemed (cough) member of the mainstream media (cough) thinks that this Islanders contest if to help them actually decide who the team will pick with the draft pick? C'mon. We've all seen lazy journalism in our days but this one is unreal. A lazy writer goes on TV without looking into the real issue (marketing) and thinks it's real? Did any Islander fan out there who entered the contest (like me) to go to Montreal REALLY BEVIEVE THAT the Islanders were so perplexed about what to do that they has to turn to the paying customers for advice? Puh-leeze.

This is tough for me because I grew up reading Farber in Sports Illustrated back when it mattered. The only people who care about SI any more are the people who work there and the media-types who still think it's a call to the big leagues to get a job there. It's sad, but it's true.

I mean, hey, Michael--the Islanders have scouts! Lot of them! The assistant GM is a former scout who...get this...still does some scouting! Are we really thinking that they're going to discount all that travel and hard work just to chuck it all and go with the guy the fans pick?

It may be hard to see from Up There On High but this is why people hate the media, Mike.

In other great (but not surprising) news, would you believe that Kate Murray skipped another Lighthouse meeting on May 11? Would you? OK, that one was easy. But would you be surprised to learn that Ms. Murray has a father (not the surprise) who has a job paying $40 dollars an hour as a "part-time clerical aide"? And that he will be getting an annual public pension of $49,188 when he retires? And that the man is 83 years old?

According to Newsday's Eden Laikin, this is apparently all true. Maybe we should have a contest to select which of Kate Murray's relatives should get a new cushy job that they'll be way overpaid for! I'm thinking there have to be other Murrays out on the Island who can use a little money for nothing!

That's the real shame of government right there.