The Long Island Index, an indicators project created by the Rauch Foundation to regularly gather and publish data about the state of the region, has spawned an innovative new tool to promote regional stewardship on Long Island.  Launched in January 2006, the Energeia PartnershipAcademy for Regional Stewardship at Molloy College will bring together a diverse group of regional leaders to confront and implement solutions for Long Island?s most urgent problems.

?Energeia? is a word Aristotle used to describe the action that turns potential energy into actuality, something that has been desperately needed on Long Island.  (See ARS Letter to You) The region is ?sadly short on regional thinking,? according to the editorial board of Newday, its daily newspaper. 

Molloy President Drew Bogner and Vice President Ed Thompson have worked with the Rauch Foundation since it launched the Long Island Index in 2002.  The small, Catholic college in Rockville Centre with a tradition of emphasizing leadership for service decided to take up the task of creating the institute. 

?Long Island possesses many wonderful attributes and treasures, but we also face many daunting challenges,? said Bogner.  ?We could see no better way to make a further commitment and contribution to the community than to form, fund, and launch a program for the education of advocacy-minded stewards and leaders for the Island.?

Paul Tonna, a former Suffolk County legislator with his own preventative health-care company, was hired to head the academy.  A ?connector? like the personality described by Malcolm Gladwell in his influential book The Tipping Point, Tonna has recruited a group of 31 members for the institute?s first class, which will graduate in 2008.  They include bankers, a Newsday columnist, construction and real estate executives, union leaders, elected officials, and non-profit activists.

Tonna envisions a group that will take on issues like affordable housing, the environment, energy, homelessness, transportation, health care, and others. 

?Participants will be encouraged to serve as advocates and originators of regional change; to connect new approaches and ideas to diverse community networks; to be persuasive communicators of possibilities; to raise aspirations; to articulate a positive picture of Long Island?s future in a compelling way; to denounce injustice and advocate for a vision of Long Island that lifts and provides opportunity for all Long Islanders; to serve as coalition-builders who build support from our elected representatives, our civil groups, our interest groups, and policy professionals toward a shared regional vision,? he said.  ?The stewardship idea is about building bridges between networks that already exist.  That?s how you create a movement.?

New Regional Planning Board

Another significant result of the Long Island Index has been a recommitment to collaborative planning by the region?s two counties.  In February, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy (D) and Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi (D) appointed six members to the newly reorganized Long Island Regional Planning Board (LIRPB)including Tonna and another member of the Long Island Index Advisory Committee, former Dime Bancorp chair and CEO Jim Large.

Levy and Suozzi proposed changes to the functions and duties of the LIRPB through legislation introduced in 2005.  While the measure has yet to gain approval in Nassau, the LIRPB passed an administrative resolution later in the year that adopted a significant number of the changes sought by the bi-county legislation.

The changes will expand the LIRPB?s planning focus beyond land use and regional data into a wide range of issues impacting life on Long Island, including: transportation, housing, environmental protection, economic development, energy planning, homeland security and emergency preparedness.  It will also conduct surveys and research programs on regional issues, work with other levels of government on regional planning issues, establish relationships with local universities and colleges and prepare a regional comprehensive plan for Nassau and Suffolk.

?We need more regionalizationnot Balkanizationin addressing the problems facing Long Island," said Levy.  ?We expect this new board will examine what has been accomplished over the past 40 years and translate that dedication and achievement into a revitalized mission for the future of regional planning for Long Island,? added Suozzi.

Read more about the Energeia Partnership