Rockaway Journal 03-05-2026

Oncology returns to Rockaway Peninsula

Episcopal Health Services announced the opening of the new EHS Cancer Center, anchored at the Walsh Ambulatory Pavilion, a state-of-the-art outpatient facility spanning more than 50,000 square feet across five floors and located directly across from St. John’s Episcopal Hospital.

The $18 million EHS Cancer Center expands access to comprehensive, coordinated cancer care for patients across the Rockaway Peninsula, the Five Towns, neighboring communities.

Medical and radiation oncology services are now offered at the Walsh Ambulatory Pavilion at 19-20 Brookhaven Ave., while surgical oncology services are provided at St. John’s Hospital, offering patients “a seamless continuum of care across the EHS campus, officials said in a news release.

This marks the return of radiation oncology services to the Rockaway Peninsula for the first time in more than a decade.

“The opening of the EHS Cancer Center represents a significant step forward in our mission to provide high-quality, comprehensive cancer care for the communities we serve,” Dr. Donald Morrish, EHS president and CEO, said in the release. “By investing in advanced technology, new facilities, and expert physicians, we are strengthening our ability to diagnose,

treat, and support patients through every phase of their cancer journey.”

At the Walsh Ambulatory Pavilion, patients will have access to medical oncology, radiation oncology, hematology, immunotherapy, clinical trials, and a dedicated cancer navigation program, supported by advanced diagnostic and treatment technology. The Cancer Center features a PET/CT scanner for precise imaging, a TrueBeam linear accelerator for highly targeted radiation therapy, and a modern infusion therapy suite designed for patient comfort and efficiency.

“A cancer diagnosis affects every part of a patient’s life, not just their health,” Dr. Marc Warshawsky, EHC chief of Hematology and Oncology, said in the release. “This Cancer Center allows us to deliver advanced, coordinated care locally, while surrounding patients with the support services they need. Our goal is to simplify the care experience, improve access, and provide a more integrated treatment journey.”

Along with clinical services, patients will benefit from a robust range of supportive care offerings, including social work services, pastoral and spiritual support, inpatient physical rehabilitation, a specialty pharmacy, and survivorship services —ensuring care that addresses both medical and emotional needs.

“The addition of a TrueBeam linear accelerator

and on-site imaging allows us to deliver highly precise, effective treatment while minimizing disruption to patients’ daily lives,” Dr. Mark Ashamalla, EHS chief of Radiation Oncology, added in the release. “This expansion strengthens our ability to provide timely care and improves continuity throughout the treatment process.”

The EHS Cancer Center is the first specialty service to open at the Walsh Ambulatory Pavilion. Additional outpatient clinical services are expected to begin this month.

To schedule an appointment at the EHS Cancer Center, go to EHS.org/oncology or call: (718) 869-7949 for medical oncology; (718) 869-7101 for radiation oncology and (718) 347-36-27 for surgical oncology.

— Jeffrey Bessen

Outcry at Peninsula Public Library board meeting

By MELISSA BERMAN mberman@liherald.com

Residents and members of the staff of the Peninsula Public Library, in Lawrence, spoke out about unsafe working conditions and the lack of needed maintenance at the library’s monthly board of trustees meeting on Feb. 19.

The meeting room was packed as 30 people gathered to share their thoughts and opinions.

The library has been operating without a director since Carolynn Matulewicz retired on Jan. 31, after 18 years in the position, despite the fact that Matulewicz had given the board five months’ notice.

Peri Caponi, the library’s head of technical services and a 17-year employee, was the first of many attendees to voice their concerns about conditions in the building and the lack of communication about the search for a new director.

“Our director gave ample notice when she was getting ready to retire,” Caponi said. “Nothing was done, and she offered her services to be an interim to train a new director. We still don’t have one.”

She added that in her opinion, the board is offering too low a salary, $70,000.

“They are offering a salary that is lower than some of the people that work here and our assistant director,” Caponi said.

“It’s very hard to find people that are competent enough to do a job for very little money. It’s virtually impossible. I wouldn’t be interested in that job for such little amount of money.”

Without a director, the library cannot order supplies or do any hiring. “We need a director,” Caponi said. “We needed it four months ago, and nothing has been done. The board claims they are looking for one.”

According to Caponi, the board sent an email to the community about the open position, but, she said, the library has a list of people that are qualified for the job and should have been notified. “Opening that job to anyone in the community is not how it goes,” she said.

Board President Akiva Lubin said the board is actively working on hiring a director. “We’ve only been working on it for three weeks,” Lubin said. “We’re imminently working on a director, between one and two people, and it will be done within a short time.”

program or the second floor,” she said. “Other accommodations have to be made, such as installing a chair lift and moving meetings like this to the first floor.”

An elevator that is out of order, Caponi said, is not only a health hazard, but also a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Trustee Joseph Lifschutz said he found the situation with the elevator unacceptable.

W hen you ruin the books and ceiling, you get mold.

“We made a mistake listening to a lawyer, and this was an emergency,” he said. “The lawyer said no, so the board members lost the protection with the long wait. It was a big mistake, and it’s embarrassing to me more than you can imagine.”

PERI CAPoNI Head of technical services, Peninsula Public Library

One of two other major issues in the building is the elevator, which has been out of service since late October.

“We’ve known the elevator was on its last legs for at least six months prior,” Caponi said. “The public was notified Nov. 4. That day is when the board should have called an emergency meeting to figure it out and get it fixed.”

According to Caponi, the board did not treat the elevator as an emergency, and asked for bids for the repair work.

“This is a huge problem for anyone who needs to use the elevator to go to the bathroom, a

The board said it is sending contractors to assess the elevator damage, and plans to have it fixed.

The other major issue in the building is the roof, which, Caponi said, has been leaking for years.

“Not only is the rain coming in, it’s ruining our books,” she said. “When you ruin the books and ceiling, you get mold. The whole place will be unusable soon, as the books will have to go in the garbage.”

Damaged books worth thousands of dollars have already been thrown out, she said.

“We’ve never heard anybody address this issue,” Trustee Miriam Statman said. “I’ve been here since last summer, and never heard anything. I believe

it, but we haven’t been made aware.”

The current board members, who have not been in their positions for more than a year, claim not to know about the issue.

According to Matulewicz, the roof has leaked every year, and this year it is worse as a result of the unusual volume of melting snow.

Raising another issue, Curtis Carson, a librarian, expressed his concern about a lack of security after he received a death threat while at work. “That, for me, is a problem,” Carson said. “We do have cameras and I’m grateful for that. I think it’s now time for security.”

A lot of people come into the library, he said, who are homeless and mentally ill. “They are coming right up to your face and arguing with you,” Carson said. “We shouldn’t have to deal with that.”

Davevante Young, who works in circulation, added that residents come up to the desk all the time, screaming, yelling and acting aggressively with him.

“We like our glass — it protects us,” Young said. “It keeps a broad protection from somebody being crazy. We have crazy people — they will spit on you.”

He urged the board to keep the glass in addition to hiring security to ensure employees’ safety.

“In the new budget, we’re putting an armed security guard in place,” board Secretary Rochelle Genack said. “That should be starting very shortly. There’s a lot of work being done, and every single thing you said is very important.”

Jean-Pierre encourages civic engagement

By ABBY GIBSON & KUMBA JAGNE Interns

Hempstead native Karine Jean-Pierre, the former press secretary in President Joe Biden’s administration, was the latest guest in Hofstra University’s “Signature Speaker” series.

Jean-Pierre, who served in the White House from May 2022 to January 2025, made history as the first Black and first openly LGBTQ person to be press secretary.

She is a graduate of Kellenberg High, in Uniondale, and Columbia University, and her involvement with Hempstead has not diminished: She gave Hempstead High School’s commencement speech in 2022, and was given the keys to the village by Mayor Waylyn Hobbs Jr. in 2024.

“This is very much home for me,” Jean-Pierre said on Feb. 12. “This is not unfamiliar ground.”

Sister members of her honorary sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., Hofstra students, community members and students from 18 area high schools attended the event.

Hempstead High senior Zeydi Guerra, 17, said that Jean-Pierre’s speech left her with more motivation to succeed in her own career. “She’s a Hempstead native,” Guerra said. “I feel like if she can make it, I can definitely do something as well.”

Speaking directly to the high school students, JeanPierre encouraged them to be curious, ambitious and passionate. A common thread through her speech, a panel discussion and an interview with student media was urging people to become involved in politics, even though the options may be imperfect.

“Your civic identity doesn’t begin at 18 — it begins when you start paying attention,” she said. “When you

notice what feels fair and what doesn’t, who gets heard and who has to jump higher just to be seen.”

Eleanor McKay, of Hempstead, president of the Long Island Cross County Chapter of the National Council of Negro Women, said she attended because she recognizes the importance of Jean-Pierre being a Black woman who held a high-profile government position.

“She talked about seeing someone touch President

Obama’s hair, a young [Black] boy, and realize that from the texture he was here and how real it is that he is just like us,” McKay said. “Sometimes it’s not really appreciated, or we don’t understand the magnitude of representation. It impacts us and the next generation.”

Hofstra University President Susan Poser introduced Camryn Bowden, a senior majoring in political science and journalism, who in turn introduced JeanPierre. Poser spoke so glowingly of Bowden’s resumé that Jean-Pierre said she would be working for Bowden one day.

“I had the opportunity to get her to sign my copy of her book ‘Independent,’” Bowden said. “She wrote in the book, ‘I’ll be watching you on the news someday.’ It was, again, just a surreal experience to hear someone who held such a high position of power in the White House say such sweet things.”

Jean-Pierre’s first book was “Moving Forward: A Story of Hope, Hard Work, and the Promise of America.” Her most recent, published last October, is “Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines.”

She empathized with young people’s feelings of being disconnected from the two-party system. “The two-party system often feels rigid, outdated and unresponsive,” she said. “It forces false choices and limits imagination. Questioning that system is not a failure of citizenship.”

She expressed disdain for the current administration, saying, “This too shall pass.”

“We have to work as a people to make sure that there is people power in this time, that our voices are heard, that we hold powerful people accountable,” Jean-Pierre said. “We are celebrating 250 years of this country, and that is a young democracy. If we don’t fight for it every day, we will lose it.”

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Q. We are suing our contractor and need some advice. A year ago, we finished our second-floor addon and first-floor kitchen and rear family room remodel by opening up walls to join them. Everything seemed fine until it rained the first time. The windows began to leak at the bottom, and then around the tops and sides. Our new sliding glass door did the same. The basement flooded, and we are not in a flood area. Then the air-conditioning company said somebody disconnected the ducts, and when we opened the ceilings, more water poured down. The house is now filled with mold, which we clean with bleach where we can get to it, but we couldn’t move out and have two small children under age 4.

Although we have many questions and hired an attorney, we’re wondering whether we should hire an architect to go over all the problems and identify them, with remedies, or hire one of the contractors who said they could fix the problems, or wait until the lawsuit is finished to make it possible for a jury to see the damage. The job architect, whom we never met, has now had their license revoked for the next two years, but we wouldn’t go to them, anyway.

A. Ugh! This is more common than you would think. It starts with not having the architect working for you and instead working for the contractor. I can guess that the contractor was contacted first, and you hired them to get their architect and provide plans. That was your first mistake.

Next, people are lazy, expecting that anyone they hire knows all the best techniques to build and knows all the rules, codes and laws. That was mistake number two. Even though you hire people, you should have gone over critical details, especially about waterproofing and structural techniques on the plans, to make sure that the building owner looks for those steps to be carried out. You, the building owner, I always say, are the “eyes and ears” on the job, since the architect often isn’t there at critical times, when waterproofing membranes and materials are joined.

Mistake number three was not doing a water test with a garden hose when the finish siding, windows roofing, etc., had been applied. Simulating rain by pointing a hose skyward so that the water cascades down — not a direct fire-hose hit — tells you right away if something is failing.

You’re going to need a licensed expert — an architect or an engineer — to work with your attorney. Document everything with videos during simulated or storm events to show the water coming in and whatever other failures, such as leaking and disconnected air ducts, and hire people who can do the job correctly as soon as you can. You need to have a healthy home for your family, and a lawsuit could take years while you possibly get sick from the mold and the chlorine you’re breathing. Good luck!

© 2026 Monte Leeper Readers are encouraged to send questions to yourhousedr@aol.com, with “Herald question” in the subject line, or to Herald Homes, 2 Endo Blvd., Garden City, NY 11530, Attn: Monte Leeper, architect.

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