Full Transcript

Thank you. Thank you. I rise to the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I thought you wanted to pick somebody from the audience. I looked. I couldn't find anybody. What we're going to do is, again, we're starting at 9 today because we're going to exaggerate. We're going to do an executive session first, and we're going to be discussing, under legal, matters surrounding the possible sale of real property with Merrifield, Thomas, and Hurley, and matters surrounding acquisition of real property, Prudente, Hurley, and Thomas. Under personnel, it will be matters surrounding change to terms and conditions of an employee with Howard. And then we'll be back approximately at 1130 today for our open session where we will be discussing with Jeff Seaman. Matters surrounding SECRA analysis for downtown revitalization projects, that's with Dawn Thomas, and matters surrounding changes to Chapter 231-7, hazardous materials in Chapter 231-38.1, fire protection with Hurley and Smith, and then we will do resolutions. So if I could have a motion right now to close the open session and go into executive session. So moved. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Okay. We will be retiring to executive session and we should be back on the air at approximately 1130 this morning. Thank you very much.

Okay. Welcome back everybody. We are here live now for our work open session of our work session. And in a moment we're going to discuss matters with Jeff Seaman. Matters surrounding SECRA analysis for downtown revitalization projects with Dawn Thomas. And with that we're going to do matters surrounding changes to Chapter 231-7, hazardous materials. And Chapter 231, fire protection with Hurley and Smith. We have a couple comments or notes to make. Go ahead. Okay. Yes. This Saturday, March 15th at 1 o'clock is the East End Emerald Society Jamesport Parade. So there's still time to register if you'd like to march in the parade or walk in the parade. And we hope to see everybody there. 1 o'clock sharp Saturday, March 15th. Okay. And that's down at the end of the meeting. Okay. Thank you. And that's down on the main road in Jamesport. Very good. I think it's the 10th annual. Is it? No. I thought that's what they said the other day. No? Has it been 10 already? It's 11. [transcription gap] Oh. Cool. It's a great parade. Glad to have it. Denise? Yes. I just wanted to inform the public that the Park and Recreation Committee has obtained free skate nights for the residents at the ice rink. It's Saturday, March 20th from 4-3. To 6 p.m. And also Sunday, March 30th from 10.30 a.m. To noon. And also on April 15th, that wonderful day, from 11.30 a.m. To 1.30 p.m. The kids are off that week. They have the registration. Just sign up with the Park and Recreation Committee for the free skates. Also, I just wanted to let everybody know that the seniors have bowling night. This is also with the Park and Recreation Committee on March 20th. It's $45 a person from 12 to 2 p.m. And it's bowling at the All-Star. I'm sorry, All-Star Bowling. Okay. Thank you very much. Very good. Everybody good? Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. Let's move on to Jeff Seaman, Matters Surrounding SICRA, Analysis for Downtown Revitalization Projects. We just have a small switch. The fire marshals want to go first. Jeff's okay to. Okay. We're going to swap things out. We're going to have the fire marshals go first. Okay. Thank you. [transcription gap] Matters Surrounding Changes to Chapter 231-7, Hazardous Materials in Chapter 231-38.1, Fire Protection, Hurley and Smith. Good morning. Or Howard and Smith. And Lee. All right. So we're just trying to clean up our code a little bit. We wanted to change the definition of hazardous materials and what we can reimburse for it. With the addition to the battery energy storage facilities and all this new technology, EV cars, we feel that we want to elaborate on the definition to include those items and also add in the radioactive materials to cover us with that too. What this does, the fire department goes and says hazardous materials incident, they call for a HAZMAT team, which is our staff in the town of Southampton's fire marshals. We have the ability to build back on our resources for, you know, we know with these battery energy storage facilities we could be there for days. If there's a fire or something like that, we want to have the ability to build back for our time and equipment that we're utilizing at that. So adding it into the definition and then changing 231-14 to elaborate a little bit with the lithium ion stuff to include, like the fire departments are now buying these, they call them EV car blankets. So if we have an EV car on fire, we still extinguish the fire to the best that we can. There's no visible flame. But what we do is we put a fire extinguisher on it. We put a fire extinguisher on it. We wrap it with this blanket. It prevents the re-ignition and then we can get the car wherever it needs to go. But they're like a one-time use blanket and they cost a lot of money. So we want to be able to build back the car insurance or whatever so that we can replace that for the fire service. Mark. That's for the definitions. Liam will explain a little bit the fixed extinguishing code. He helped draft it. So back in 2015, the fixed extinguishing code, the extinguishing for flammable liquid fueling stations, gas stations, was in the New York State Code. The State Code Committee decided to remove it at that time, in the 2015 rewrite. Many municipalities on Long Island have put this code back into their town code because we see it as important to public safety. We've seen them where they've extinguished car fires here in our town. So we're just basically taking what the state code used to have in it and put it back in the town code to just ensure that it's safe. And all those systems are maintained and any new gas stations that are built still has that fire protection. So it's basically the same exact wordage that was in the fire code back then. State fire code, we're just putting it into our town code under a separate section. Okay. It's just to ensure the safety at our gas stations and stuff like that. Upstate New York, it's a little different. There's a gas station, there's nothing else around. In our town, we have these gas stations, our commercial corridor, there's exposures. We feel having this in the code will help us so that if there is a fire, the fixed extinguishing system operates nine times at a time, puts the fire out before we even get there. Especially what just happened at that gas station with that whole incident with the truck, right? Yeah. Exactly. Which one, Wayne River? No, isn't it? We had a gasoline tanker catch on fire at a gas station. Luckily, they removed it from the gas station, but we still had an issue with it. They just had a fire at the gas station in Wayne River. Did you? Yeah. Okay. Truck fire. We did that. All right. Nice. Just for a second, I found this interesting. I don't know how many people know this. What about your HAZMAT team? And who combines with, you combine with Southampton for that. Mm-hmm. But you could be used anywhere on the East End? Yeah. So we have MOUs with the town of Southampton and the town of Brookhaven. So we're actually just starting to do some training with the town of Brookhaven, something we've never done before. They have a little bit more advanced technology and stuff. Southampton is getting there also. We've been beefing up our HAZMAT team. But we can be utilized for both teams. Eventually, I'd like to have our own town HAZMAT team. It's just trying to find the personnel to be recognized. Right. Yeah. That's great. It's a good thing that the way it's set up right now that, you know, because I remember at the emergency meeting we had out in Southhold. Yeah. You were talking about that. And Southhold doesn't have that. They don't have anything. Yeah. So, good. Good job. All right. Okay. Well, thank you, fellas. Yep. We appreciate it. Have a great day. And you two, both of you and all of the volunteer men and women of the fire departments that responded to West Hampton, incredible job. Incredible job. That could have so been the 95 wildfire all over again. Yeah. I think technology and the fire service has come a long way since 1995. We have the drones. We had the Air National Guard played a pretty big role with their Bambi buckets getting water. Black Hawk. Yeah. They dropped the water. That's pretty awesome. They did a good job quickly. Yeah. Quickly containing it. Awesome job. It could have been way worse. Awesome job. Thank you so much. Yep. Thank you. Okay. Now we will have Jeff Seaman, Matters Surrounding SEPRA, analysis for downtown revitalization projects. I see Mr. Matt Charters, our planner, coming up, and Heather Chorjanovsky coming up, and Jeff Seaman. Dawn should be on the way. Dawn should be on her way down. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. How are you? Good. How are you? Good. Good to see you. Good to see everybody too. Happy spring. Yes. Yeah. For sure. I'm glad you have your green on. Oh, yes. I'm ready. Anyone have a Guinness? Brilliant. That's right. We should. Okay. Do you want to lead us off, Jeff? And I know this was a very comprehensive project, so. Yes. Thank you. And to start off, I'd like to thank both the, or among the members of the town attorney's office planning department and CDA for all of the input that they provided, especially their review. I used them as my second voice to pick up on any of the strategies, approaches, or assessments that I've conducted. And we shared a lot of the feedback on this project. As you all know, it encompasses what we want to describe as the whole action, which would be all of the projects. But understandably, they're all in different stages of development. Some are more advanced than others, both from the design standpoint, even perhaps from funding sources. So that made the review a little bit more complicated. Because I'm looking at how all these components fit together and whether or not their development creates any adverse impacts, both collectively and independently. So that began to set a stage where I could go deep dive into the area south of Main Street along the riverfront. Where, and I think this is something that's been going on for a long time. I think this is something that's been going on for a long time. But there's a lot of things that are sometimes overlooked. We're always looking at this from a development and revitalization standpoint. But the real thrust here is the Flood Mitigation Program. So as I analyze the part one of the EAF and get into part two where you try to determine whether the impacts are going to be significant enough to warrant a full environmental impact statement. And a positive declaration. Because that would be remarkable. that would be required under the Type I action, probably would have taken us to the generic environmental impact statement stages. However, the more I looked at it, when you weigh the benefits of the resiliency that's going to be created by flood mitigation, when you look at the social and economic benefits of that program, under CEQR, even if you did an EIS, and you did a finding statement, any adverse impact would be weighed against the benefits of that flood mitigation thrust. So I came to the conclusion that even though I independently and collectively looked for an adverse impact, I really could not reveal one. We're looking at a revitalization area that's already developed. It's basically urbanized. It's predominantly parking lot. We're not removing vegetation. We're not changing any historic facilities. So as I go through the checklist, I keep coming up with virtually no impact or very low impact. Based on the information that was available, as I said earlier, these projects are in different variations of development. So we propose this as a phased development project. And under SECRE, you're allowed to go ahead as a lead agency and proceed with your determination of significance. And I'll use the word segmentation lightly here. There is a justification for segmenting the review on the later phases. So what we've incorporated into the determination of significance is an approach that allows... allows a second review on those later projects. What's important about that is that the earlier projects actually trigger the later projects to take place. And if you can't start the early projects, you never get to the second project or the third. So we did receive some comments on the part one of the EAF. We've made a response to those comments as thorough as possible. And we've made a response to those comments as thorough as they would be in a full EIS review. So those have been addressed. They came from interested parties, not from involved agencies. We've received no input from the involved agencies. And I think what's unique here is this board has a very unique position that I've in 30 years never experienced in a review. So you are the governing body for the board of directors. You're the district for the parking district, for the sewer district. You're the lead agency. You're the site plan review authority because we're in an urban renewal area. You are the sponsor for the projects. You are also the applicant and eventually the funding source as the conduit for these projects. So you have complete control over everything that will transpire here. Even in the latest and later stages. And that's why we've built in this secondary review because you have the ability to control that. And no one else does. So it's very different than, say, a private applicant coming in and seeking various approvals from the health department, from Riverhead Water, etc., etc., where you have too many steps involved for one agency to be allowed to segment any portion of multiple projects. But we discovered that you have that authority and we're going to exercise it. So the final conclusion is this is going to be recommended as a negative declaration. No EIS is going to be required. We believe we have a very strong secret record, strong justification for this approach to it. And upon the approval of the EIS, upon the approval of the resolution and the filing with DEC in the ANV, we'll be ready to go. Also because some of these funding sources are inhibited because until SEPA is completed, they're not going to release the funds. Right. Jeff, we need another question. We talk about later projects because this is the second time that I'm concerned about the parking barrage on the north side. And that it's taking up. How many stories is that or is this part of the later project? It's described as probably a minimum two-story, 513 parking spaces. 504? Okay, so that's just under 200 additional spaces. My question is because somebody had called me a business and said did you see the parking lot design? And I said no, they said it's on your website. I couldn't find it. They sent me the link. And it's not going up, it's going across? It is not designed at all yet. That's what I'm asking. It's just sized. It's not designed. So how it's depicted here doesn't mean it's going from one end to the other? Correct. Okay. We should pull it off the website then because it was confusing. Well, there's a fundamental layout that we used as a conceptual design that was provided because you're also realigning First Street there to sort of straighten all of that complexity out. And that actually provides sort of a secondary conduit not only to get to the garage but also if you wanted to bypass anything on Main Street, you could do that from Roanoke through First, which is probably the way it once was. So again, parking. And we will be doing probably at a minimum we're going to do a traffic study as we get deeper into the design elements, a lot of visual impact analyses for that, landscaping plans to shield the garage. So yes, that's why we're taking this approach. But it is included in the whole. In the overall. Yes. Okay. Donors, is there anything you want to add? No. Okay. Yeah, this was nice to get this done. I know a lot went into this. Thank you. You had a lot of avenues and areas to look at to put this together as one project, so to speak. Yes. And the way you did it, I like the way you did it with the phases. And that helps us understand it better too. Well, thank you for the challenge. I think in 30 years, this is certainly up in the top three complexities. And surprisingly, resulting in a neck-deck at this stage because, believe me, I tried desperately to look for some trigger, and I can't find it. Again, the balancing, which is really what CEQA is asking you to do, is not to inhibit projects, it's to balance them. But mitigation and revitalization in a blighted area is crucial. Absolutely. Wonderful. I think we're off to a good start. Good. Board, do you have any questions? No. Okay. Okay. And we'll be back, you know, with the other projects as time permits. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. We'll see you at the next time, Board. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. That brings us up to resolutions. Okay. Thank you. [transcription gap] He's got a cool job. He knows his stuff. Good guy.

We have our chief of staff. Debbie Burkowski is going to be doing resolutions with us today. Let's see if I can do as good a job as Devin does. Want some lip gloss? Debbie, make sure the mic is right where you need it to be. I think you can hear me. Yes. Great. Okay. Resolution number one, highway department budget transfer. Would you like to take over? I mean, you know, you have your notes, so, you know, I didn't want the residents and town board waiting, so I stepped right in here. Thanks for jumping in. You got it. All right. Nice work. Okay. So we're up to resolution number two, right? Yes. Capital project number 12503, Wading River Highway Building fund balance transfer. Resolution number three, authorizes the supervisor to execute agreement with Rainer Group for highway building project. This is, of course, the building up in Wading River that the highway department so desperately needs. We're finally going to get that going. And they'll be able to keep their equipment indoors instead of outdoors and being ruined by the elements. And thank you to the highway superintendent and the water district superintendent who are working together beautifully on this. Working together on this. Resolution number four, authorizes transfer of fixed assets. The two Ford Explorers from the police department that will go into our fleet use for different departments here at Town Hall. Number five, public interest order approving a capital improvement for the proposed electrical upgrades at plant number seven, Riverhead Water District, Project 7.2. I'm going to go ahead and do that. [transcription gap] District project number 16.

Number six, authorizes employee attendance at fire investigator class.

Number seven, authorizes attendance at seminar. This is a seminar for one of our fire marshals to go to that the cost is entirely covered by FEMA. Right. Which is nice. Number eight, ratifies the amendment of a portion of resolution 2025-05. All right. All right. All right. 17 adopted on 1-7-25 to correct the rate of a call in recreation aid.

Okay. Just have a little my packet's just a little out of sequence. Just one second. Okay. Resolution number 9 ratifies and accepts the resignation of a part-time police officer. Resolution number 10 adopts a local law to amend chapter 229 of the Riverhead Town Code titled excavation and grading section 9 thereof fees.

Resolution number 11 sets fees for yard sales, attic sales, garage sales, and auction sales. Resolution number 12 sets peddling and soliciting fees. Resolution number 13 sets animal fees. Resolution number 14 authorization for the supervisor to execute an agreement with Encore Holdings LLC, Nunc Pro Tunc.

Resolution number 15 authorizes the supervisor to execute an addendum to an agreement with VHB engineering surveying landscape architecture and geology PC but I'm told this morning that we're going to pull this resolution. Dawn is not in the room but I think there's just a little question about this so I think this may get pulled and we'll advise the board if they can go back in for Tuesday or not otherwise it'll likely be on for the next meeting. Resolution number 16 authorizes supervisor to execute agreement with Riverhead Lacrosse Club Inc. for the referee umpire services for town Riverhead Police Athletic League girls grades K through 8 lacrosse program for 2025 calendar year. Resolution number 17 authorizes the supervisor to execute an agreement with Riverhead Lacrosse Club Inc. for the ! That is here. Authorizes the supervisor to sign engagement letter of Whiteman Osterman and Hannah LLP to act as special counsel regarding tax certiorari and related real property tax assessment matters. To renewal of a contract we've had with them prior. Resolution number 18 authorizes the chief of police to execute a student intern agreement. Resolution number 19. Ratifies the police department's application for grant from New York State Homeland Security Program. Number 20. Ratifies the settlement of legal action against Riverhead New York properties LLC. Resolution 21. Authorizes town clerk to publish and post notice to bidders for dry hydrated lame calcium hydroxide. Resolution 21. Authorizes town clerk to publish and post notice to bidders for dry hydrated lame calcium hydroxide. Resolution 22. Authorizes town clerk to publish and post notice to bidders for dry hydrated lame calcium hydroxide. Resolution 21. Authorizes town clerk to publish and post notice to bidders for dry hydrated lame calcium hydroxide. Resolution 22. Authorizes town clerk to publish and post notice to bidders for dry hydrated lame calcium hydroxide. Authorizes town clerk to publish and post notice to bidders for dry hydrated lame calcium hydroxide. Resolution 22. Authorizes town clerk to publish and post notice to bidders for dry hydrated lame calcium hydroxide. Resolution 21. Authorizes town clerk to publish and post notice to bidders for dry hydrated lame calcium hydroxide. Resolution 22. Authorizes town clerk to publish and post notice to bidders for dry hydrated lame calcium hydroxide. Resolution 21. 7% calcium chloride or equal. Number 26, extends additional bid for chemicals for sewer district. Number 27, awards bid for two-way radio service for highway department.

Number 28, awards bid for water service materials. Can you read that one in its entirety? This whole bid is short. I have nothing to do with this. Take a while to get through that. Number 29, bond resolution for the town of Riverhead, New York, adopted March 18, 2025, appropriating $2.350 million.

Resolution number 30, resolution granting the state of New York authority to perform the adjustment for the owners and agreeing to maintain facilities adjusted via the state-led contract. Number 31, approved special event, Chapter 255, application for Slow Food East End Earth Day celebration.

Number 32, approved special event, Chapter 255, application for Riverhead Rotary Charity Plant Cell. Get no springs around the corner. Number 33, approved special event, Chapter 255, application for the American Cancer Society, making strides. Make strides against cancer of Eastern Long Island Walk. Number 34, approved special event, Chapter 255, application for Chicken Kids LLC consignment event.

Number 35, pays the bills. Number 36, authorizes the supervisor to execute a license agreement with Suffolk County Council of Boy Scouts of America to utilize runway at EpCal.

Number 37, assumes lead agency and issues negative declaration pursuant to secret for town of Riverhead downtown revitalization projects. Number 38, grants Chapter 229, excavation exportation permit for Fisher Organization LLC, 836 East Main Street, Riverhead, New York, Suffolk County tax map number 600-127-6-7.1. And that concludes the resolution. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. [transcription gap] We went for executive session earlier, but we still have one more matter to take care of, and that's a matter of personnel, matters surrounding change to terms and conditions of an employee. It will be with Town Attorney Howard. Can I have a motion to close open session and go into executive session? So moved. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Okay, we are closed in open session. Everybody have a great St. Paddy's Day weekend. Jamesport is going to be hopping. I highly recommend you come down. I know there's some other events going on around town. Maybe Hallockville has something, but Saturday weather looks good for the parade, and happy St. Paddy's Day to everybody. We'll see you next week. May the luck and charm of the Irish be with everybody. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.