We have been residents of East Williston for over 30 years and have always been extraordinarily happy about our decision to make this village our home.

Part of what makes East Williston unique is the dedication of its village board effectively governing and budgeting its myriad of departments, committees, and activities. It’s a challenging job juggling it all but fortunately there are those who voluntarily do this – for us, their neighbors.

At this time, there are several village positions available and we are most fortunate that Mr. David Tanner has agreed to run for the vacated seat of mayor.

For those people who have witnessed Dave’s tenure as trustee for past 13 years know that he is the perfect person for the position.

If elected (he is running unopposed) he will clearly need a team with whom he can count on to help him work aggressively to maintain those wonderful traditions that make this village so special. For this purpose, he sees two people who are very suited: Bonnie Parante and Bobby Shannon.

We have met and spoke at length with each of them, and can fully understand why Dave wants them on the board with him.

Their backgrounds are extraordinary and they will bring a fresh and energetic approach to the trustee positions. They also love the village as we do and will listen to its residents in order to make decisions which are in the best interests of the community.

Please vote for the team: Dave Tanner, Bonnie Parante and Bobby Shannon to the village board on Tuesday, March 15 from 12 noon to 9 p.m.

Ken and Rita Botensten

East Williston

As they go from door to door seeking support from their neighbors in the election for East Williston Village Board, the Community Party candidates say they are consistently encountering two issues at the top of most voters’ lists: rising taxes and restless teenagers.

“The biggest concern that we’ve heard is about the budget problems with New York State and the grant money that wasn’t delivered,” said Bobby Shannon, making his first run for village trustee. “The other concern I keep hearing is about the children out on the Village Green.”

Shannon, one of three Community Party candidates in the race, said he and his running mates are interested in developing ideas for safe activities for teens on the East Williston Village Green, such as a band night where local musicians might perform for free.

“We need a soft hand,” Shannon said. “You can’t have a heavy hand because they’ll just do what kids do. But at the same time, you can’t encourage situations where the village incurs liability.”

Issues about teenagers congregating on the Village Green or in the nearby Long Island Rail Road station plaza became the focal point of a series of village board meetings last summer and fall.

The independent candidate in the race for a trustee seat, Caroline DeBenedittis, said the primary concern among residents she has spoken to is the election process itself.

“The only concern some residents have brought up to me is the voting,” she said. “They are under the impression that they must vote the whole party ticket.”

DeBenedittis, who has a high profile in the village as chairperson of the East Williston Recreation Committee for the past seven years, was an unanticipated late entrant into the race.

Her primary focus is on developing new recreation programs for teenagers and improving the timeliness of information the village provides to the residents. DeBenedittis helped to create game and movie nights at the East Williston Village Hall, a program that she notes has met with middling success among village teens.

She has said she believes in “transparency in village government and acting as a steward for the residents, ensuring fiscal responsibility and accountability.”

Deputy Mayor James Daw Jr. proposed several local laws to curb the activities of teens around the Village Green, including one that would have prompted a summons for sitting on the war memorial. Ultimately, only one of Daw’s proposed statutes was enacted: a prohibition against skate boarders riding on village property, which was intended to prevent them from defacing wrought iron railings around the new East Williston Village Hall.

But residents at the meetings also criticized the behavior of police officers from the Nassau County Police Department’s 3rd Precinct. Residents said police officers were rousting their children from the train plaza for no reason and frequently using profane language in the process of ordering them to disperse.

“The treatment of teens is an issue,” said Bonnie Parente, a candidate for trustee also running on the Community Party ticket. “I am very aware that the issue needs to be further addressed. It’s not an issue that can be ignored.”

Parente, an attorney with the New York Racing Association, said there needs to be “significant improvements” on how the situation between teenagers and police officers is addressed in the future. She said she had some ideas she was ready to propose when she was in a position to do so, but declined to enumerate them.

“I find that there as many people who feel one way as do feel another,” she said. “There are very divergent opinions on this topic. It will be difficult to find a middle ground and difficult, if not impossible, to please everyone.”

David Tanner, who is running unopposed for mayor on the Community Party ticket, said he didn’t see a great deal of concern among residents about the issues that seemed to spark emotional exchanges at the village board meetings last year. However, he did indicate that he was hearing divergent opinions about the situation.

“There are quite a few residents looking to provide services to the kids when they’re out of the house for the evening and there’s also a significant group of residents who think the kids shouldn’t be hanging out,” Tanner said.

He said he believes that the primary concerns of residents in the village are predominantly financial ones.

“There are two issues,” he said. “People are really concerned about high taxes and the challenge of doing more with less.”

Tanner has touted his own record in working to improve the village’s financial profile in his 13 years of service as a trustee, noting that Moody’s had given village bonds an “A” rating when he was first on the board, while Standard & Poor’s recently fated the bonds at “AA+.”

Tanner ran for mayor after East Williston Mayor Nancy Zolezzi decided not to seek another term in office. Daw also decided not to run and Tanner’s term as trustee was up, providing two open seats Shannon, Parente and DeBenedittis to seek.

When Wheatley senior Christina Ames was selected late last year to participate in the YoungArts Week in Miami sponsored by the National Foundation for Advancement of the Arts, she was understandably excited to be one of 150 finalists in the week-long series of performances and workshops.

But the result of spending a week among musical theater performers like herself and young artists from other disciplines all being tutored by professionals was even more than she expected it to be.

“It was a life-changing experience. It was so inspiring. I never felt so lucky to be chosen for something,” Ames said. “It was really great to see such motivated people like myself. It gave me more confidence that I can do this when I’m older.”

Ames was selected to participate in the event from a pool of applicants from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.

A climactic moment of the week came on the second evening, when Ames performed an aria from “Aida” that she had prepared for an audience in Miami’s Gussman Theater. Seated onstage with the other young performers awaiting her turn – an unaccustomed position for a musical theater performer to be in – she definitely felt the jitters when she stood center stage to sing.

“It was nerve-wracking sitting there on stage waiting to perform. You didn’t have time to prepare offstage,” she recounted. “I was very nervous but I thought it turned out well in the end.”

Ames’ performance didn’t betray any sense of anxiety. Her voice was well modulated and she conveyed the emotion of the piece admirably as she finished to a spontaneous explosion of applause. (Ames’ performance can be viewed online at www.youngarts.org.)

But the main point of the week-long experience in theater – she also prepared a monologue and danced – with an exposure to other disciplines was the coaching she received, and the supportive interaction with her peers.

“It was so interesting to talk to people from all the other disciplines. It was amazing to see so many other things,” Ames said.

A veteran of eight theater productions at Wheatley, she’ll be playing the part of Eponea in the high school’s production of “Les Miserables,” with performances scheduled for April 7 to 9.

On April 29, she’ll be fronting the Wheatley Jazz Band in a performance for senior citizens in the community.

After her experience in Miami, she said she has a renewed focus to “hone” her craft as she aims at a career in musical theater.

“It’s just really important to commit to everything you do. I think I took a lot of that home with me,” the young actor said.

And she will doubtless take that same sense of dedication to her art with her when she starts her studies at Brown University next year, with plans for a double major in theater and economics.

An AP scholar and a member of the National Honor Society, the National French Honor Society and the All-State Vocal Jazz Ensemble and the All-State Women’s Chorus, she seems well prepared for the next step in her education.

Meanwhile, she’s keeping in touch with the theater people she met in Miami on a daily basis online in a continuing coda to what was an experience few actors her age have a chance to share.

Seven Herricks High School Science Research students have been selected to advance to the second round of the Charles Duggan Long Island Science and Engineering Fair later this month, with a shot at advancing to the prestigious Intel-sponsored world competition in May.

The seven students who have qualified for the next level of competition are seniors Julie Chang, Neil Pathak, Akhil Sharma, and Shyam Venkateswaran and juniors Sarah Chapin, Nirmita Doshi and Fahmida Rashid. Chang and Pathak were Intel semi-finalists in the national Intel Talent Search competition earlier this year. There were 10 Herricks students making presentations in the first round.

The seven students each made a 12-minute verbal presentation with a posterboard to visually delineate their projects for a panel of three judges in the intial round of the LISEF competition, according to Renée Barcia, a Herricks High School science research teacher who has been the students’ mentor.

Approximately 25 percent of 450 students who made presentations in the first round made it through to the second round.

“We were limited to 10 projects and seven of those projects are moving on. We’re very happy,” Barcia said. “The students worked really hard.”

Some of the students have been working on their projects for two years under the guidance of laboratory professors. They each produced 20-page research papers, and had to qualify to enter the first round by presenting their respective projects to a panel of three or four Herricks science teachers.

“It’s difficult just trying to select the projects that can compete well at this competition. It’s not easy trying to choose just 10,” Barcia said.

The initial round of the LISEF competition was held at the Crest Hollow Country Club on Feb. 14 and the next round will be held on March 22. The winners in the next round of competition – Long Island’s largest science competition – will win an all-expense paid trip to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair which will be held in Los Angeles on May 8 to 13.

The Intel ISEF brings over 1,300 students from 48 nations to compete for scholarships, grants and internships.

“It’s like the Olympics of science research, so the opportunity is great. The judges are at the highest level,” Barcia said, noting that the judges include Nobel laureates in their respective fields.

In addition to the prospective rewards, the high school students may also be invited to international conferences once they’ve been given a chance to introduce themselves to the world science community. Herricks students have consistently qualified to go to the Intel International fair each year, according to Barcia.

“It’s really an opportunity for these students to be introduced to the international world of research. And they are then recognized for their work in their field of study,” Barcia said. “It’s a big event and an important event because it means their work has been deemed significant.”

But to get there, the students must go through to Intel, they face a more rigorous second round in the LISEF competition. They must reprise the 12-minute presentations they delivered in the first round and also present the lab notebooks from their projects and answer questions about the projects and the field of study to which their particular project relates.

When the big moment came, and Herricks senior Kripa Bhagat met first lady Michelle Obama recently, she suddenly found herself at a loss for words.

That was an unusual moment for the articulate and multi-lingual Bhagat, who is concurrently studying Spanish, Italian and Chinese, with plans to major in international relations or foreign languages when she goes to Barnard College next fall.

The Herricks senior was among students and teachers from 21 schools that are part of the Asia Society’s Confucius Classrooms Network who went to Washington, D.C. last month to hear a speech Mrs. Obama delivered at Howard University about the Obama administration’s “100,000 Strong” Initiative. She attended the event with Lori Langer de Ramirez, who chairs the ESL and World Language Department in the Herricks District.

The Confucius Network seeks to further Chinese language and cultural education program in high schools throughout the U.S., linking those schools with partner institutions in China. Herricks High School is linked to a school in Shanghai, according to de Ramirez.

Kripa Bhagat was a natural candidate to attend the Jan. 19 conference, de Ramirez said, because of her “high level of maturity” and her foreign language advocacy as the only Herricks High School student learning three languages

The “100,000 Strong” initiative seeks to dramatically increase the number of American students to studying in the most powerful and populous country in Asia.

“American has no better ambassadors to offer than our young people,” Obama told her audience at Howard.

Obama’s remarks were followed by a roundtable discussion among students who spoke about their experiences in learning Mandarin while they were studying in China. The event coincided with the arrival of Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington that same day.

The student representatives from the respective Confucius Network schools then met Mrs. Obama, and Kripa Bhagat was at a loss for words in what she recalls as a “surreal” moment.

“I had no idea what to say to her. I’m a really outgoing person, but I didn’t know what to say to her. I told her I liked her dress,” Bhagat said.

And she said Mrs. Obama thanked her for the compliment, and the moment became an indelible memory.

But getting the chance to meet other students who share her enthusiasm for learning languages was equally memorable for Bhagat, who had a conversation in Mandarin with other Confucius school students.

“For me here, I have the passion for languages, but to meet other people who have that same passion is something else.” she said.

Bhagat spent the last two summers studying Chinese, which she started studying at Herricks last year. She spent six hours a day in a summer program sponsored by the China Institute in Manhattan, talking her way into an advanced program last summer that the institute previously had not offered.

She started studying Spanish in sixth grade and began studying Italian, which she said she learned readily because of the structural similarities between the two languages. But learning Chinese was a completely different experience.

“It’s a little bit tougher because the writing is more complicated and the pronunciation is more elaborate,” she said, adding she “wanted to hit a random wheel of languages.”

At home, the Herricks senior speaks Gujarathi, an Indian dialect, with her mother.

But more than just a random learning activity, Bhagat sees language as a way to bridge cultural boundaries.

“It’s a special thing to have a motivation to help other people through the study of languages. It helps to improve understanding of cultures,” Bhagat said.

Bhagat said she aspires to study abroad, believing an immersive experience to be indispensable to mastering a foreign language.

Herricks may eventually initiate a Chinese exchange program, according to de Ramirez, who visited the high school’s companion school in China last fall. She has yet to work out how the student exchange would be framed.

“We’ll sponsor whatever kind of trip the parents are comfortable with,” she said.

Over the past two decades, classrooms in the Herricks school district have become a thoroughly multi-ethnic mix of students who are learning the same basic subjects, and simultaneously learning cultural lessons from each other.

In an area once largely populated by Italians, Irish and Jewish immigrants following an eastward track from Brooklyn and Queens, the same procession has continued with a wave of Indian, Chinese and Korean families seeking a good education for their children in a school district with an exemplary reputation.

Asians now represent as much as 55 percent of the student population in the Herricks schools, according to John Bierwirth, Herricks superintendent of schools.

The emigration of Asians into the Herricks district was a well-established phenomenon by the time Bierwirth became the superintendent in 2001, but he notes that the influx of new families accelerated as the student population continued to grow by 1 percent or 2 percent in the five years after he arrived.  

“The only difference between us and other districts is we are further along than they are,” Bierwirth said.

A survey conducted in the district a few years ago revealed that 69 languages were being spoken by the students attending classes there. That suggests a cultural diversity that spawns a broader range of viewpoints than most students in most public school districts might never experience.   

“It’s not that courses are different. It’s discussions in the classes that are different,” Bierwirth said. “You’re still reading ‘The Great Gatsby,’ but you’re seeing it from different cultural perspectives. The differences are in the nature of discussions in classes and the fact that students have different perspectives.”

That range of perspectives is, in itself, an educational experience as many parents in the Herricks district see it.

“The gain has been that children in a school district like Herricks are almost traveling the world, getting exposed to all the colors of the world without the cost of airfare,” said Jonai Singh, who has two children attending Herricks schools.

Singh is co-president of the Herricks PTA Council and president of the Herricks Indo-US Community, a non-profit group that helps acclimate new Indian families into the district. She has gone from learning about the school system on her own after moving into the district with her husband, Tito, 13 years ago, to running for a seat on the board of education this year.

Singh said that journey has been well worth the effort for the sake of the multi-cultural experience her two daughters, Disha and Rashni, have enjoyed as part of the quality education that prompted the Singhs to settle in Searingtown.

“Kids are so tolerant of each other,” she said. “They make friends effortlessly and that has nothing to do with where they come from.”

Singh said the demographics of the district have not changed dramatically in the time she’s lived in Searingtown.

But Joyce Kim remembers her parents moving to the area 30 years ago so that she could attend Herricks High School. She said her parents moved to the area after researching school districts on Long Island and concluding that Herricks was the best.

She started as a sophomore, speaking only Korean and seeing only a handful of other Korean kids in her classes.

“It was a nightmare, but I got by,” said Kim, who is president of the Herricks Korean American Parents Organization.

Indians and Chinese students already had a strong foothold in the district then. But Kim said she’s witnessed a quantum shift in the intervening years, with many more Koreans arriving, along with more Chinese and Indians – the most numerous of the three groups – moving in as well.

Today, she said, her teenage son has a very different self-identity, with an ethnically diverse circle of friends.

“Even though my son is Korean-American, he is more Americanized. He has more non-Asian friends in school,” Kim said.

Her daughter is in fourth grade, learning Spanish as part of her art class in a novel combination of language and culture. The idea is to give students increased exposure to a language they’re learning, according to Lori Langer de Ramirez, chairperson of Herricks’ Global Language Department.

“It’s a way of reinforcing things in the language. And students love it,” de Ramirez said.

That’s just one of the differences in the educational experience Kim’s children have had in a school district that takes an increasingly globalized approach. Another difference is that there are far fewer Italian, Greek and Jewish children in her daughter’s classes than there were in her son’s classes.

“I don’t think she’ll be going to that many Bar Mitzvahs,” Kim said.

Juleigh Chin moved into the school district with her family six years ago. She sees her sons Justin, in grade school, and Jordan, in middle school, enjoying a vivid cultural education through programs like the Denton Avenue School’s Heritage Week, which gives parents from all ethnic groups a chance to celebrate their cultures in workshops and group dance lessons.

“Our district is by far just amazing with the amount of cultural awareness that they teach,” said Chin, who is a leader of the Herricks Korean Community and vice president of the Korean Parents Association of Long Island. “They’re showing these kids a whole new world, a world that a lot of schools and districts don’t show.”

Chin, who studied piano for 12 years, is particularly pleased that her sons are getting a musical education – both learning to play guitar – as part of their class work.

“With Herricks being such a musical district, I think that draws Asian families,” she said. “Most Asian families value a musical education.”

Teresa Louie, whose older son Ryan is now continuing his cello lessons majoring in music at the Royal Academy of London, seconds that sentiment.

“I’m grateful that he learned to have a passion for something. Music and arts are a very important part of an education,” said Louie, an active PTA parent who is also on the board of the Chinese American Community of North Hempstead.

She recalled that there were only one or two Chinese children in her older son’s classes when was in kindergarten, but now she said there are typically four or five Chinese students in her younger son’s classes.

“I think there’s a big change,” she said.

But from the start, Louie said her family felt the embrace of “open arms” among teachers, parents and students. And she said its extraordinary ethnic mix of students makes Herricks an exemplary district.

“What I love about the Herricks school district is the diversity. Everybody gets along,” she said. “It’s not just that it’s Chinese or Korean or Indian. It’s everyone getting along.”

Wheatley School alumnus Samuel Goldfine, currently completing his senior year at New York University, is weighing his options: going to law school or playing bass in a rock band.

The 20-year-old political science major plays bass in a band, Beast Makes Bomb, that could gain serious traction from appearances it will make later this month, opening for Queens of the Stone Age at the South By Southwest music festival in Austin, TX.

That gig, and a subsequent tour around the country are the fruits of Beast Makes Bomb’s victory in a “Get Out of the Garage” contest for rock bands sponsored by Guitar Center.

Meanwhile, Goldfine has applied to law schools for graduate work.

But first, he has a few significant gigs to play in concert venues around the country.

The Guitar Center contest started with more than 1,000 bands competing online, narrowed down to 100 bands and then 10 in three rounds of competition that started last fall.

“Thousand of bands were involved. You had to have people voting for you every day,” Goldfine said.

Winning the top prize also means $10,000 worth of equipment from the Guitar Center, $1,000 worth of clothing from Journeys. It also includes two days at Rubber Tracks, a recording studio where the band expects to make its first long-playing album after the two extra play albums it has recorded.

The tour after Austin will go to Los Angeles, Seattle and Chicago, opening for the Tokyo Police Club and Cold War Kids with a final concert in New York City at the Highline Ballroom on May 5.

“It’s exciting. We’re hoping this will kind of be the break,” Goldfine said. “We’ve done very small tours. This is definitely the largest thing we’ve done.”

All of Goldfine’s bandmates also go to NYU where they are music majors.

So the band’s future – and Goldfine’s career path – may hinge on what happens while they tour over the next two months.

“That would be great if that would work out. But if not, I have law school,” said Goldfine, who currently is awaiting answers from law schools where he’s applied for entrance.

His musical performance roots go back to the North Side School where he first played stand-up bass in 4th grade. Playing the bass remained part of his education through grade school, and beyond. He also learned to play piano at his parents’ urging. That didn’t really stick, but playing the bass did, according to Goldfine, who said his parents have also been supportive of his musical pursuits.

He played both classical music and jazz on the bass while at Wheatley, playing in orchestras and the jazz band.

And now, the rest of Goldfine’s musical resume will depend on how much buzz Beast Makes Bomb creates for itself before he is graduated from NYU in May.

Great Neck’s North Shore Hebrew Academy Lions and Little Neck’s Har Torah Hat Trix middle schools hockey teams, of the Metropolitan Yeshiva Junior High Hockey League, faced off in a doubly exciting game

Saturday night, February 19th, at Yehiva Har Torah, to benefit OHEL’s Hewlett House.

More than 250 spectators applauded as six special guests werecwelcomed from OHEL Children’s Home and Family Services.

Between the first and second periods, the two cross-town rival hockey teams, united to present their guests their own hockey sticks and custom-made hockey jerseys, bearing the logos of each team and that of OHEL. Each team then lead their

OHEL guests in a hockey clinic and shoot out, with cheering and encouragement from all the fans. The Ohel guests were given front row VIP seats to watch the rest of the game, won by North Shore Hebrew Academy 6-2, clinching 1st place in their division for the first time in the team’s history, catapulting them into the playoffs with a first-round bye.

The Lions, coached by Daniel Horowitz and Isaac Greszes, and the Hat Trix, coached by Rabbii Tuvia Fried, pride themselves on their dedication to Torah and mitzvot, in addition to their hockey skills.

The coaches motivated the players to raise funds for this wonderful organization through a goal-a-thon and selling snacks, raising over $1000.

North Shore Hebrew Academy co-captain Bailey Greszes exclaimed, “It is my belief that when rival teams come together to share in one event, as one community, to help challenged kids, we score real goals!

The regular season finished off with a bang. Three of the four Great Neck Bruin teams advanced to the LIAHL Playoffs.

All league playoff games will be played at the park district’s Andrew Stergiopoulos Ice Rink.

The Peewee Team finished on a down note by getting pounded by the Green Machine Ice Cats. The good news is they can shake the loss immediately since they have a rematch against the Ice Cats in the first round.

The Bantam Team finished off the regular season extremely strong finishing in second place in the standings.

The Bantams are also looking to wrap up a spot in the New York State Championship Tier III Playoffs. At press time, they were only a few points away.

On Saturday, Feb. 12, the Bantams, in a must-win, thrilling game, dueled against the Clarkstown Capitals. The teams battled back and forth for the duration of the game. When it counted, at the end, the Bruins stayed alive and snuck out a victory winning 6-5.

The Midget Minors beat the Green Machine Ice Cats to secure a spot in the playoffs. The Bruins won the game 5-2. Both teams played the game with an even amount of intensity.

These two teams have a history of physical play from their earlier games this season. Now the Midgets must get ready for a first round meeting with Aviator. Aviator is undefeated and clearly the dominant team in the league.

The Bruins have played many close, tight games with Aviator but have fallen just short.

All it takes is a weird bounce of the puck or a fluky goal to forget all those losses.

Stay tuned for next week’s article as I hope to write about the Bruins celebrating three LIAHL Championships!

It was a shame that the Nassau County Legislature could not come up with a balanced budget.

Because of that the county’s finances were taken over by the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority.

Now the county has made matters worse first by persuading a state Supreme Court judge to delay the takeover by NIFA.

The county can now postpone submitting the revised budget that was due by Feb. 22.

NIFA was put into place 10 years ago to keep one of the wealthiest counties in the nation from spending itself into oblivion.

The NIFA takeover was triggered when it was determined that the county’s $2.6 billion budget had a deficit greater than 1 percent. Last Friday, Judge Arthur Diamond stayed a requirement by NIFA that the county submit a revised financial plan.

The county insists that the budget is balanced. NIFA and others say that the budget gap could be as great as $176 million. That’s close to 7 percent of the total budget, far more than the 1 percent threshold.

Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano was elated. “Today’s court proceedings,” he said “further indicate the level of concern that both the court and residents should have over NIFA’s unfounded action to issue a control period over county finances.”

An attorney for the county argued that the NIFA takeover was “unconstitutional” and interfered with the county’s ability to govern. He went on to say that the six members of the NIFA board had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” when they voted unanimously in favor of the takeover.

The opposite is true. The law appears very clear: the takeover by NIFA is mandated when the deficit is more than 1 percent of the county budget. What is arbitrary or capricious about following the law?

As far as we can see the NIFA members had nothing personal to gain by the takeover. We don’t remember anyone objecting when the NIFA was created in 2000 in the wake of a fiscal crisis created by years of deficits. At that time the state bailed the county out. That cannot happen in 2011.

Mangano and his team are wasting time.

They should stop stalling and come up with a balanced budget. Even if the judge in Mineola finds that NIFA action was “unfounded,” his decision will be challenged in the Court of Appeals.

Meanwhile Nassau County will be drifting on very dangerous waters.

The principal isn’t complicated. The residents of Nassau County cannot spend more money than they have and neither can their government.

Blank Slate Media Editorial

Louis Panacciulli was still in high school when he knew that music would be his life’s work.

He had followed the lead of his mother, Pauline, who played the piano, and his late older brother Gerry and his sister, Lisa, who started taking piano lessons ahead of him.

By the time he was in high school, Panacciulli started playing clarinet and saxophone, eventually going on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees at New York University.

These days, he teaches elementary school and college students, and conducts the Nassau Pops Symphony Orchestra in the free performances of light classical and popular music it gives in communities around Nassau County.

“Our mission is to provide free, quality concerts to people who normally wouldn’t hear a symphony orchestra,” Panacciulli said. “We’re trying to further the cause of music on Long Island and give back to the community.”

Panacciulli, 60, struck on the idea of forming the orchestra in 1983 after several years of assembling talent in community theater musicals for churches and synagogues that presented Broadway musicals for fundraising efforts. He trained the singers and assembled the orchestras that accompanied them. A musician in one of those groups remarked on how much fun it would be to put together a group that would perform regularly, and the germ of the idea was planted.

The Nassau Pops progressed from playing three concerts annually at its inception to the 15 performances it gives each year now, starting each season with a June fundraiser at Westbury Gardens to benefit North Shore University Hospital in Glen Cove.

 “Many times we have a guest artist. We do a repertoire of light classical and popular,” Panacciulli said.

Two years ago, the orchestra worked with tenor Michael Amante in a concert aired on Long Island public TV station WLIW and, ultimately, 40 other public stations around the country. The orchestra also has performed with Daniel Rodriguez, the singing New York Police officer who gained some national notoriety after Sept. 11, and with Strawberry Fields, a Beatles tribute band. Last fall it performed with Martin Preston, a noted Liberace impersonator.

That range of collaborations suggests the range of the orchestra’s repertoire and the scope of Panacciulli’s own musical experience.

He also directs a 38-member Nassau Pops Wind Ensemble that he formed four years after founding the orchestra.

As a full-time music teacher at Howell Roads School in Valley Stream and an adjunct professor at Nassau Community College, conducting a symphony composed of accomplished musicians brings a particular kind of satisfaction. Many of them are public school music educators like himself, but one of the orchestra players is a dentist and its president is Dawn Manuel, director of physical therapy at St. Francis Hospital.

“You can’t really describe how you feel standing in front of such qualified musicians. You look at them and they do exactly what they want you to do,” said Panacciulli, who also is vice president and music director of the non-profit group.

The orchestra’s itinerary includes eight summer concerts, including two in Mineola’s Memorial Park, an annual fall fundraiser at the Tilles Center to benefit cerebral palsey and a winter concert at Chaminade with the Mineola Choral Singers.

But being involved in music at all levels gives Panacciulli satisfaction, starting with the fourth through sixth graders he teaches in Valley Stream.

“I’m making musicians. What better job can you have than that?,” he said, talking about the thrill he feels in introducing children to “the wonders to playing on an instrument.”

The role Panacciulli plays at Nassau Community College is directing the Community Band of Nassau County, comprised of both his students and members of the community.

“The advanced students are a different kind of satisfaction,” he said.

It’s the full panoply of his student orchestras, young and younger, along with the Nassau Pops that keeps his life filled with music, the music that first captured his imagination as an eight-year-old boy exploring the 88 keys on a piano.

Residents of Kensington applying for a building permit will no longer need to include scale models and color renderings in their initial request.

After 18 months of planning, and a recent public hearing, Village of Kensington Board of Trustees last Wednesday approved two new bills updating zoning laws.

“We were told by the building inspector and others that our laws were not modern and not keeping up with some of the new things happening in the community”, Village of Kensington Mayor Susan Lopatkin said.

Twenty years have gone by since the village zoning laws were last updated, Lopatkin said.

“The first bill approved changed the architectural review board section of the village code to no longer require applicants for a building permit to include scale models and color renderings in their initial request.

The architectural review committee could later in the building permit process require scale models and color renderings if they considered it necessary.

The second bill updated the Kensington code. The changes included allowing the maximum ceiling height of homes on the first floor to be 12 feet, and second-floor ceiling heights to be a maximum of 10 feet.

The height limitation will not apply to front entrance foyers, vestibules and one-story additions.

Additional changes included a catastrophe clause, which will allow the rebuilding of a house damaged in any sort of disaster over 50 percent, to be rebuilt as is, even if it’s zoning non complaint, provided that there are plans in place on file in the village hall.

“Now the catastrophe clause was a very big deal, because I’d say about half of the houses in the village, don’t have current plans in place,” Lopatkin said. “Either they were too old, they were destroyed, there is a myriad of reasons.

Lopatkin also thanked everyone for their efforts in bringing forth their concerns and believed many of the concerns were addressed.

“I also just want to commend Mayor Lopatkin who has done an unbelievable job of analyzing every square inch of this code,” Village of Kensington Deputy Mayor Gail Strongwater said. “She has every single comment that was made by any resident, she took to heart she investigated, there was nothing ignored, she wanted to make sure all the information was totally accurate.”