14 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • APRIL 2018
IN THE NEWS
PAUL PONTIERI:
PATCHOGUE’S COMEBACK CONTINUES
By TIMOTHY BOLGER
Patchogue Mayor Paul Pontieri,
who’s currently serving his fourth
term leading the artsy South Shore
village, is a lifelong resident who’s
seen his hometown at its best
and its worst. He recently chatted
with us about Patchogue’s rebirth,
environmentally progressive
policies, race relations and the new
brewery in town. Here are excerpts
of our conversation.
Long Island Press: How does it
feel to be leading the village amid a
Renaissance?
Paul Pontieri: The fact that the
community has grown and become
a better place, is what it’s really all
about. I feel good for the Village
of Patchogue, the fact that other
people are prospering from it.
LIP: What is your vision for the
village?
PP: I grew up here. I was here since
the best of times in the ’50s, ’60s
and ’70s when downtown was 70
percent retail, new restaurants, two
theaters… packed every weekend. I
was here when it sort of slid off a cliff
with the big box stores taking much
of the business off of Main Street.
What I came into town wanting to
do was to make downtown active
again. And I thought the only way to
do that was to put what I call feet on
the street. Put people living in the
downtown. We have 700 residential
units circling the downtown within
walking distance. It’s about the
whole community prospering by
what happens downtown. It’s a
symbiotic relationship between
those two things that creates the
strength of the community.
LIP: The board recently approved
the creation of a cultural arts
district. Why is that important?
PP: You have the entertainment on
Main Street, you have the arts on
Terry Street. It’s about creating an
identity. It’s about having people
think about the village other than
just bars and restaurants on Main
Street. The arts become part of the
culture.
LIP: The village also banned plastic
foam cups and containers starting this
fall. What was the impetus for that?
PP: A year ago this past September
we banned single-use plastic bags.
You don’t find them in any of our
restaurants and markets here in town.
And it’s all about an environmental
push. We’re a waterfront community.
Styrofoam cups take 500 years to
degrade. We do a Patchogue River
cleanup in the spring and the fall
and more particularly in the fall, at
the end of that cleanup, you look at
what gets picked up, the amount of
Styrofoam cups and containers that
get wedged in the corners of the
marinas. It’s amazing.
LIP: Can you talk about the grants
the village received to improve its
shorefront?
PP: Three years ago, I had gotten
a call from a person here in the
village. She has a foundation. And
we had a discussion about what
does the village need to go forward.
The single thing that is taxpayer
driven in every community and
not really reimbursable…is parks
and recreation. She made a private
donation to the village, a grant of
$5 million. The first thing we did
was we went to three of our pocket
parks. Spent about $3 million.
That left us about $2 million. We
put in a Consolidated Funding
application to redesign Shorefront
Park…and we will be taking out
the bulkheading and creating a
living shoreline. My understanding
is from the environmentalists is it’s
less intrusive and with big storms,
less damaging.
LIP: Besides economic and
environmental improvements, the
village has also worked to improve
race relations in the wake of the
Marcelo Lucero murder. How have
things changed in that regard over
the last decade?
PP: Back then, when you walked
down the street, when a Hispanic
or minority person was coming,
you don’t know if they weren’t seen
or they didn’t want to be seen. But
people seemed to hide from each
other. And you don’t get that feeling
anymore. I think that we’ve fostered
a sense of trust, and we just have to
keep that up.
LIP: What’s next for the village?
PP: The Blue Point Brewery is
rebuilding the Briarcliffe College
into a full-blown brewery. They’re
talking about being ready to pour
beer for public consumption
somewhere around May 15 and to
start to brew around April 20. So
that’s very exciting. That’s going to
bring another element to the village
that most communities don’t have.
Paul Pontieri is in his 14th year as Patchogue mayor.
“It’s about the whole community prospering
by what happens downtown.”