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Friday, March 26, 2021
Vol. 9, No. 13
HEALTH, WELLNESS AND BEAUTY GUIDE PAGES 25-32
NEW HOME BUYERS LEGISLATURE APPROVES FEEL ASSESSMENT PAIN POLICING PLAN PAGE 3
PAGE 6
Three seek seats on Port school board District parents to challenge sitting president, vice president, trustee BY R OB E RT PE L A E Z A slate challenging the incumbents in the Port Washington school district’s election in May has been announced. The three aspiring trustees, Adam Smith, Adam Block and Justin Renna, organized an initiative last summer to advocate that the school district offer five-day in-person instruction to students. The district ultimately brought back full-time instruction for kindergarten through fifth grade in October after hearing pleas from a 1,000-person Facebook group, a petition with 1,200 signatures and a 250-person rally in August. The three cited the need to “rebuild community trust” and prioritize the needs of children and families as a reason for running. “The success of the school year has validated our efforts, and we are proud of our role in making that happen,” a joint letter from the slate to Blank Slate Media
said. “We represent parts of the community not represented on the current board, and have new ideas that will help revitalize the stagnant board’s impact on public education in Port Washington.” Smith runs strategic and financial planning, as well as dayto-day operations, of a New Yorkbased real estate investment and development firm. His expertise includes facility management, construction, financial analysis, budgeting and technology. He is also the emergency preparedness chair and serves on the board of trustees for a local religious institution and preschool. Smith and his wife, Jenny, live in Port Washington North with their three children. He also coaches youth baseball on the peninsula. Block is a graduate of Schreiber High School and received a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from Amherst College and a Ph.D. in health policy with a concentraContinued on Page 44
PHOTO BY ROSE WELDON
Elizabeth Fronckwicz and her mother Georgiana Coote-Fitzpatrick at the site on Brinkerhoff Lane in Manhasset where Patrolman Joseph Coote of New Hyde Park, Fronckwicz’s father and Coote-Fitzpatrick’s husband, was shot in the line of duty in 1961.
60 years on, community honors fallen policeman BY R O S E W E L D ON
He died in the line of duty. This week, nearly 60 years It was 1961 and Joseph L. to the day he died, Coote’s famCoote, a Nassau County police ily, including his widow, Georofficer, was chasing three bur- gianna Coote-Fitzpatrick, and glars down Brinkerhoff Lane in daughter Elizabeth FronckManhasset when one shot him. wicz, visited the site, where
a sea of officers in blue and Manhasset community members gathered to mark the spot where Coote had been shot. Kenneth Cortes, sergeant at arms of the Nassau County Continued on Page 45
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