Long Island Business News – 40 Under 40

Gordon Tepper
City of Long Beach

By Lisa Josefak

Gordon Tepper’s desire to write and speak for a living made him a perfect fit for the public relations industry.

“Growing up, I always thought I would write for newspapers and be a radio talk show host,” said Tepper, who is director of communications for the City of Long Beach. “Working in public relations really isn’t that far off – I’m incredibly fortunate to have made that dream a reality.”

Tepper’s areas of expertise include writing, public relations and new media, and he utilized his fine-tuned skills during Hurricane Sandy.

“Working for the City of Long Beach in the wake of Sandy was the most amazing experience of my entire life,” he said. “From dealing with dozens of reporters and media outlets to consoling hurricane victims, I felt like I was part of a movie. It was a 24/7 effort and more rewarding than anything else I’ll ever do.”

During the iconic storm, Tepper was responsible for the city’s communication efforts, including facilitating television and radio interviews with local and national media outlets; daily phone calls to every home in the city; emails, text alerts, website and social media updates; paper flyers that were distributed daily for those without power; electronic message boards stationed throughout the community with updates; and even messages that were delivered by police officers, who used bullhorns while driving around Long Beach.

Tepper previously served as director of marketing and senior communications specialist for Long Island- and New York City-based professional service firms. His responsibilities included writing and distributing press releases, serving as company spokesman, editing newsletters, drafting content for brochures, launching successful social media campaigns and managing day-to-day website operations. Tepper’s public relations efforts led to his firms’ management teams being quoted in major publications and the firms receiving many distinguished awards.

Prior to his communications career, Tepper taught elementary school on Long Island and spent his summers as a government IT specialist.

After graduating from the State University of New York with a degree in communications, he went on to earn a master’s degree in education from Hofstra University.

Tepper’s primary goal in life is to maintain his focus on how he can serve others.

“No matter what your career is, no matter what your role is, I think it’s critically important to concentrate on helping others,” he said. “If you approach your day with that mindset, you’ll be living a purposeful and meaningful life. Surrender your ego, and everything else will work itself out.”

ABC 7 – Demolition begins on Long Beach boardwalk

Wall Street Journal – Region Chops Sandy Debris Down to Size

Region Chops Sandy Debris Down to Size

By Will James

The immense task of leveling the mountains of debris left behind by Sandy is coming into focus two months after the historic superstorm ravaged the East Coast.

In the end, the federal government estimates that 16 million cubic yards of debris piled up around New York and New Jersey—enough to fill the Empire State Building 16 times over—though more than half has yet to arrive at landfills.

Tons of refuse including sodden furniture, uprooted trees and smashed houses amassed at collection points in New York and New Jersey, where it formed towering monuments to the scale of the storm’s destruction.

For weeks, one trash heap had filled about a quarter of the parking lot of Jacob Riis Park in the Rockaways. By last week, it was all but gone, as Army Corps of Engineers contractors carted away 177,183 cubic yards of debris dumped at the park by city sanitation crews.

“It was a long haul,” said Jimmy McGovern, a deputy chief of the city’s sanitation department who is overseeing the cleanup of the Rockaways. “Now we’re coming toward the end of it. We’re seeing the fruits of our labor.”

Mounds of debris made the Rockaways look like a “war zone” in the days after the storm, but they’re now mostly gone, said Finbarr McDowell, 40 years old, of Rockaway Park.

However, he pointed to remaining work, including the removal of several burnt-out buildings and a lot full of demolition debris on Rockaway Beach Boulevard, near his apartment. “The cleanup is going to take time, you know?” he said. “It’s tough. You can’t blame anybody.”

Even as some cleanup projects are wrapping up, others are just starting. Last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the Army Corps of Engineers would begin overseeing removal of debris from Fire Island, the community of mostly summer homes off the South Shore of Long Island.

Cleanup on Fire Island presents a challenge because the infrastructure there is made up almost entirely of boardwalks and narrow dirt roads, the governor’s office said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved $30 million for the project.

All in all, workers have cleared away about 4.2 million of the six million cubic yards of Sandy debris in New York state, estimated Mike Byrne, the FEMA coordinator overseeing the state’s recovery. That includes about 90% of debris in New York City, he said.

The Army Corps of Engineers has overseen the cleanup of more than 330,000 cubic yards of garbage from sites primarily in the Rockaways, Staten Island and Red Hook, said Patrick Moes, an Army Corps of Engineers spokesman.

That refuse made its way to landfills in 10,813 truckloads, Mr. Moes said

In New Jersey, FEMA says the storm created about 10 million cubic yards of debris and three million has been picked up, according to Darrell Habisch, a spokesman for the agency’s New Jersey office.

“We had 1.2 miles of boardwalk destroyed, all four pavilions up on the boardwalk destroyed, and then we had flooding in approximately 1,400 houses or properties, so that meant 1,400 pairs of washers and dryers, 1,400 furnaces,” said Matt Doherty, the mayor of the seaside borough of Belmar.

The municipality worked to truck garbage out of neighborhoods and move it to the Belmar Marina as quickly as possible, Mr. Doherty said, because “the emotional and psychological effect of seeing debris just remain there day after day can be a detriment to the community.”

As of last week, workers had trucked almost all of it—about 7,250 tons—from the marina to a landfill in Ocean County, Mr. Doherty said.

On Long Island, a company called Insurance Auto Auctions is storing about 15,000 storm-damaged cars from across the island on a pair of airplane runways in Riverhead Town, said Sean Walter, the town supervisor.

The site will gradually clear out as the vehicles are auctioned off, he said. “They are moving off the property at a greater clip now,” he said.

In Long Beach, an oceanfront city on Long Island, almost every front yard was littered with ruined furniture and drywall in the days after the storm.

The city’s public works department spent six weeks cleaning up the mess, and last week, front stoops and yards were visible once again, said Gordon Tepper, the city’s spokesman.

Long Beach has received $24 million from FEMA for debris removal, but is hoping for more, because the city’s total storm recovery bill is estimated to be $250 million, Mr. Tepper said.

Still standing is what local officials call Mount Sandy, a mound made from much of the sand that once filled the city’s streets and parking lots after the storm. It towers over an oceanfront parking lot and rivals nearby six-story apartment buildings in height. The city is using excavators and dump trucks to chip away at the pile, hoping to get the sand back on the beach by summer.

This month, Long Beach will begin tearing down its entire 2-mile boardwalk, Mr. Tepper said. He said the hope is for that to be replaced by summer as well.

Reuters – Boehner sets House votes on Sandy aid after Republican attacks

Boehner sets House votes on Sandy aid after Republican attacks

By David Lawder and Ian Simpson

WASHINGTON, Jan 2 (Reuters) – House Speaker John Boehner abruptly reversed course on Wednesday and set a timetable to approve $60 billion in Superstorm Sandy relief, after fellow Republicans including New Jersey Governor Chris Christie heaped scorn on his cancellation of an earlier vote.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives will now vote on Friday on a $9 billion down payment for storm-related support to the National Flood Insurance Program.

Boehner also assured New York and New Jersey lawmakers that the House will take a second vote on Jan. 15 on the $51 billion remainder of the Sandy disaster aid package approved last week in the U.S. Senate.

“This procedure that was laid out is fully acceptable and fully satisfactory. It provides the full $60 billion that we require,” said Representative Peter King, a high-ranking House Republican from Long Island, New York.

Earlier, King had condemned Boehner’s adjournment of the House before the Sandy vote, saying on the House floor the inaction was “a knife in the back.”

Sandy, the second-costliest storm in U.S. history, devastated the northeastern United States on Oct. 29, smashing New York and New Jersey coastal communities.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, seen as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2016, said the vote’s cancellation reflected the “toxic internal politics” of House Republicans.

“There is only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent (storm) victims – the House majority and the speaker, John Boehner,” Christie told a news conference in Trenton, New Jersey.

“It is why the American people hate Congress,” he added.

Christie tried to telephone Boehner four times after 11:20 p.m, when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor told him the vote was canceled. The speaker declined to take his calls, the governor said.

President Barack Obama also made a last-minute overture to Republicans to pass the plan and spoke to both Christie and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo by telephone.

Angry New York and New Jersey lawmakers said the House delay marked a stark contrast to congressional reaction to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Then, a Republican-controlled Congress swiftly approved $62.3 billion in aid just 10 days after the storm devastated the Gulf Coast.

Local officials in battered coastal Long Island communities complained on Wednesday that they could not launch rebuilding projects without knowing aid funds were on the way.

Recreation and senior centers are closed and boardwalks splintered in Long Beach, New York, where $250 million in estimated repair costs far exceed the city’s $88 million annual budget.

“We need Congress to pass the bill. That’s how we’re going to rebuild,” said Long Beach spokesman Gordon Tepper.

After reversing course on Wednesday afternoon, Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said in a joint statement: “Getting critical aid to the victims of Hurricane Sandy should be the first priority in the new Congress, and that was reaffirmed today with members of the New York and New Jersey delegations.”

NOT A GOOD TIME

Boehner had called off the vote on aid after the House passed a budget deal.

But critics complained Boehner should have allowed the House to give final approval to the Senate-passed Sandy rescue package before the current Congress officially ended on Thursday, causing all pending legislation to expire.

Explaining the adjournment without a vote, a Boehner aide said it “was not a good time” to vote on $60 billion in relief spending as Congress dealt with the broad tax measure, which had few spending cuts.

With Boehner facing an internal House Republican leadership re-election on Thursday after a majority of his party members voted against the “fiscal cliff” deal, some Republican lawmakers said a massive, $60-billion spending bill would have been too much to handle.

“It was a horrendous day with some horrific votes that a lot of our conference was very unhappy with,” said Michael Grimm, a Republican from hard-hit Staten Island, New York.

Grimm and other New York and New Jersey Republican congressmen said they were satisfied with Boehner’s new plan and would support his bid for another term as House speaker.

Even King said late in the day that his earlier vitriol “seems like a lifetime ago.”

SHRINKAGE RISKS

But the new plan could still see some Republicans trying to shrink the aid package, as the $51 billion portion may be split into two parts – one for initial needs and another for longer-term projects. Fewer Republicans are likely to support the longer-term funds, but Democrats gained eight seats in the new Congress in November’s elections.

Many House Republicans had complained that the Sandy aid bill was loaded with spending on projects unrelated to storm damage or long-term projects that needed more scrutiny.

Among expenditures criticized in the Senate plan were $150 million to rebuild fisheries, including those in the Gulf Coast and Alaska, and $2 million to repair roof damage at the Smithsonian Institution buildings in Washington that pre-dates the storm.