What a great night for Ronkonkoma, Feb 16th 2023. Improvements for the community centuries in the making. With articles on civic associations going back to September 1910, Ronkonkoma residents have been working through generations to develop a hamlet as best as it could be. Islip, Suffolk County, NY State and Ronkonkoma have worked together for several generations.
Ronkonkoma residents began paying their taxes to Islip and to the “Great State Of New York” in 1785 and an American ruled hamlet began to grow. Before 1785, residents paid their taxes to King George III, 9 years after 1776. The topic of Islip Town Board meetings was more about free roaming pigs destroying neighboring properties than any other subject.
Which brings us to today. Modern times, advanced infrastructures and more heavily populated regions. Islip is a very large town and Ronkonkoma is only a small but important region of Islip. Located in the top – east end of Islip.
Today, Ronkonkoma is facing many new challenges. In fact – just yesterday, Ronkonkoma hit the local news once again with an all important EPA ruling announcing the Long Island MacArthur Airport is now being considered a super fund site with dangerous contaminations. Now that the story is out, it’s being reported that this decision has been in consideration for years. The community had no idea and should have been a full discussion with those that live here.
Ronkonkoma and Lake Ronkonkoma faces (without this new epa ruling) over $4 Billion dollars in project development and the community has no way to understand what positive and or negative thing that means for us.
The Greater Ronkonkoma Civic Association (GRCA) is going to break each project down individually and then bring them together to help us determine what’s what. It was a great turn out on Thursday evening and we know it will only grow from here.
We need more membership to keep this going. Many involved have taken their own money to loan to the civic to get things started. To those who did lay out the hundreds possibly thousand dollars or more are exemplary residents and everyone thanks you. Look about for the Join page to get details. You can donate more than the membership and we are taking corporate sponsors for our new community events being planned.
Historical references show Civics have been active in 1910, 1920, 1943, 1975, 2011 and now 2023.
A big thank you to all our elected officials in attendance and speaking
Islip Supervisor Angie Carpenter, Islip Town Council (TC4) John Lorenzo, Suffolk County Legislator Trish Bergin, State Senator Alexis Weik, Islip Receiver Of Taxes Andy Whitman, Shawn Hyms (for NYS Assemblyman Doug Smith) Ronkonkoma Chamber President Ed McNamara, Oakdale Civic Association Jason Deluca and Judge Alfred C. Graf who performed the swearing in.
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