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Medal for "Distinguished Military Service”
Hauppauge. Suffolk Executive Steve Levy will preside over the county’s “Medal for Distinguished Military Service” ceremony Thursday evening.
The program will feature an additional captivating moment when Mr. Levy and his Veterans Service Agency present the recovered dog tags and the U.S. Army medallion of a deceased World War II veteran to the soldier’s only surviving son.
The county executive will present distinguished military service medals to the parents and families of two Suffolk soldiers who died in service to their country in 2009: U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Keith Bishop of Medford (October 26) and U.S. Army Sergeant Jonathan Keller of Wading River (January 24).
Mr. Levy will deliver to Robert Foster the long-lost dog tags and army medallion that belonged to his father, deceased World War II veteran William Foster. According to Mr.Levy's office, they were located largely through the efforts of the county executive’s Veterans Service Agency.
“We are proud to honor soldiers Bishop and Keller for their extreme bravery and to have secured the belongings of Private Foster, a life-long resident of Greenport,” said Mr. Levy. “Our soldiers fight for us without pause, and our efforts to recognize their selfless contributions are a worthy and endless cause.”
A Tribute to Pat Mansir
by Tom Horn*, presented by David Brown*
The average person, over the course of a lifetime or a professional career, will have several opportunities to make a difference in the lives of others. A few average people will care enough to take action and even fewer people will have enough experience or intelligence to do the right thing and make it work.
This is our opportunity to recognize one person from that select group. Patricia Mansir was a town board member, who recognized and remembered that town employees were still her friends and neighbors. She also recognized that the hundreds of volunteers that filled the ranks of fire departments, ambulance squads, and the dozens of organizations dedicated to serving the community were worthy of town government support. Finally, the third distinct buttress of her commitment to public service was the belief that the taxpayers’ investment in the infrastructure of the town was worth protecting with proper maintenance or replacement. Many of her predecessors did not maintain what was already built or support expansion of town facilities when the needs of our community changed.
Most of her labor was spent in relative obscurity. There were hundreds of meetings with union leaders, engineers, and so-called stakeholders. There were thousands of hours spent reading reports and studying the building plans that fell from a flood of manila envelopes. Several of her elected contemporaries failed to even open many of these envelopes, much less ask questions about the contents. Building plans, file folders, and loose papers that neatly filled her town office left just enough room for two chairs and a stool. Those two chairs were filled every day with members of the public or town employees who could not find anyone else to listen to them.
However, we can be more specific about what Pat did as a board member. We want to tell you about a few moments—times that are not widely known or appreciated for their far-reaching effects. So, step into a time machine with me, and listen to a good story.
The administration of town supervisor Jay Schneiderman was less than two months old when there was meeting of nearly a dozen people in his office. Pat was one of them. The mission for the group: to find a way to keep employees from leaving town service and at the same time fill the vacant 40 full and part-time jobs that no one seemed to want.
After a few minutes, Pat spoke up and suggested taking advantage of language in the contract between the town and the employees’ CSEA union. Language that not many people knew existed and only three people understood. At that moment, what came to be known as the “Re-grade” began.
Over the next eight months, Pat was in dozens of meetings as a member of a three-person committee. One member of the committee stopped counting the number of meetings after they reached 22 meetings over a three-month period. Many more hours were burned up on the work as each person worked individually at home on different aspects of the project.
At that time, there were over 160 job titles in the contract. The committee reviewed each civil service job description, almost every duty statement and dozens of spreadsheets that modified the steps and grades of the salary schedule.
As this was going on Jay Schneiderman and Len Bernard were finding the money. Pat repeatedly pushed her fellow committee members not try to figure out how much additional money the board might be willing to give, but just work on what was fair for each person, present the numbers to the board and give them the opportunity to do the right thing for the employees and taxpayers.
Eventually, as the year ended, the work was completed, the money was found, and the board approved. Raises went to every employee; they ranged from a minimum of 3 percent to a maximum of 39.9 percent. The lowest six grades of the salary schedule were wiped from the contract. Pat started a high tide that raised all boats.
On his last day in office as Supervisor Jay Schneiderman listed the regrade as one of the most significant accomplishments of his administration. Pat and Jay knew it was important because of what the employees did with the money. A CSEA survey taken before contract negotiations with the (Cathy) Lester administration was compared with a survey taken after the regrade. Fewer employees were living in illegal dwelling units, more were moving into homeownership, and a majority of people expressed pride in working to serve their community as an employee of the Town of East Hampton.
The regrade is not all she did for the employees; she regularly participated in creative solutions on the labor-management committee, advocated for the department heads and even worked for transfers within the town for individual employees who could not find happiness or satisfaction in their jobs.
Finally, we temper our happiness for having worked with Pat with the realization that as a board member she can be followed, but not replaced. Her deeds will likely fade from the collective memory, the difference she made for future employees, taxpayers, and visitors will be taken for granted, but those in this room know the truth and come together to say Thank you and Good Job, Patsy.
* Tom Horn is the Fire Marshall of the Town of East Hampton
*David Brown retired on 30 Dec. as Clerk of the Works for the Town of East Hampton
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