Full Transcript
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. First matter we have up today are matters surrounding the Agricultural Advisory Committee, and they have a proposed list of policy action items. Bob, you want to kick it off and invite up whoever? Sure. So after the last Ag Advisory meeting, the Ag Committee has put together a list of, a wish list that they were asking for. So what was the last to do back in, what was it, March or April? April. April. Why don't you all come up?
And because they're busy farming. No, they prayed for rain today. They got the rain. You're absolutely right. That's what Phil said to me. We're still busy. You guys have some clout with Mother Nature, I'm sure.
So, Phil, you want to just start off and just run through? Yeah. Through the issues? Yeah. Again, you know, thanks for having us back in April and coming out to the farms. We appreciate it. And we were asked at that time to maybe put something together. And we finally stopped procrastinating and got it done. I guess we'll just, you know, we're not here to really debate this stuff, just to, you know, let you guys know what we'd like to see. And hopefully, you know, we can work together and get this stuff done. All right. Thank you. Updates. Updates. for the TDR so that the TDR program works. There was one little discussion we had about it and something I'd like to see, something I talked about. When a farmer's ready to sell, I have 10 development rights I want to sell. Why can't the farmer get these TDR certificates or whatever they're going to be? But the land, you know, I think there's a problem with the land being preserved without the TDRs being sold. You know what I'm saying? So as I have... Can you just ask everybody to speak a little louder? We're not picking up in the back. If you could just speak a little louder. Can you put these mics on? To have the TDR credits ready so that when someone is ready for them, here they are. But if 10 years down the road he's still sitting there and he didn't sell them, it's, you know, just a thought, something going down. Bob was saying the TDR bank component is already in the works. Yeah, I'll just bring you up to speed on that. I've spoken to the comptroller and I'm working with Attorney Hurley and she tells me in about two weeks I'll circulate a draft to everybody so you see what that looks like. So basically what that is, is the town would set open an account, but it would only be incoming. So if somebody has to buy TDRs, they would land in that account. And if somebody wants to sell TDRs, it would come out of that account. I'm simplifying it as much as possible. We would not put out any money that's not there. We would only put out money that is there from the sale of TDRs. But again, I'll have that circulated in about two weeks to everybody. Somebody wants to be specific about a TDR. Can they select a specific location or list? How does one determine that? A developer wants to come in and says I need to buy 10 TDRs. Does he or she get to go and just select a particular farmer around town or is there like a first come first serve basis? Is there a list? What would happen is in this case, the bank would take this money into a separate account and now it becomes very, very easy to TDR swap. Farmers can leave a list of who wants to sell TDRs, how many. And that's the way it would work. First come, first serve. Well, I think it would... One of the things about a TDR, say for me, I have, you guys all know where my farm is, lots of road frontage, prime farmland. And when I go to sell a PDR, I'll probably get, you know, let's always say top dollar because of that. When someone needs a TDR, maybe they could, you know, head way in the back on a river road where you can't see it because it's less money, maybe not the best farmland. So yes, it's going to be on value. And that's obviously the buyer's going to want to pay less and the seller's going to want more. But, you know, that's probably the reality of it. There was a specific project and somebody wanted to buy a TDR that was from a farmer in a district. It was an adjacent parcel or something like that that may be more impacted than somebody else somewhere else in the town. Could they simply select that farmer and say this is where we want to purchase it? The purchaser certainly could. Yeah. Why not? If I could buy, if I needed 10, I could buy five for you and five from Eve. There's no... Okay. I don't know. I just upset you all the farmers.
Minor one is the burn permit. I mean, for years, farmers had burn permits. I don't know if they were on there, but they were annual or biannual or whatever. And all of a sudden, two or three years ago, it was every six months and now there's a fee. So, I guess... Yeah. I don't know why. We wanted to put some low-hanging fruit on this list. Not everything is complex and, you know, long-term projects. There's some really small things that could be done really easily that we feel are in the interest of both the public and safety and also help, you know, to reduce the population in a way that helps, you know, farmers that are really busy and not usually in the office a whole lot. So, obviously, the fire marshal, you know, wants to make sure everything is safe and the farm community wants to do the right thing. But when you have to be constantly renewing it and you really... You don't always... You're not always using it very much. It might be once a year or twice a year. You know, and then there's this fee, which is, you know, in the grand scheme of things, not a ton, but it's a little bit cumbersome, especially compared to how it used to be. I mean, we are an agricultural community, and everybody wants to do the right thing. So just make it easy for people to do the right thing. The problem, I think, is that there are a few people out there that do not do the right thing. And I think that if... I'm fine with eliminating the fee, but I still think that the fire marshal needs control over it, so there has to be some kind of application process, at least, so that the fire marshal is aware that, you know, you will be burning, and then the bad players also have to conform to that. We're not saying eliminate the permit. We're saying just go back to how it was, which was annual without the fee. And that's how it always has been. Generally, farmers will call. I give a call to the fire marshal and say, yeah, yeah, yeah. We always get to, as in, like, even when we get a page, you know, when somebody's burning in the area, because it just eliminates all the 911 calls that the smoke will burn. Oh, absolutely. We know where it's coming from. I know. I guess we've had ours too long when we first got it, but I think we had to get it from the DEC. And the DEC guy sent a guy out and looked. Were you going to burn? Okay, fine, you know. Oh, I'm sorry. Anyway. Everyone's hanging on every word you're saying. They want to hear you. I think somebody else wants to do the talking. Yeah. Go on. Next one is, I don't think there's really anything on that, but I guess, I don't know if there were talks about bulk storage. Someone heard around the town. We're just hoping that agriculture remains exempt. We already have the county that comes around and takes care of that and permits us and inspects the site and all that stuff. We don't want to see the town get involved with that. I mean, I don't know that there are any intentions to do that, but I had to read. Why don't you guys go ahead and take the next one? Here we go. I think the next one is just to enforce agriculture data statement requirements. So basically, when there's a real estate transaction near a farm, that there's some kind of notification to the buyer that they're planning on building near a farm. And I think that if I could just add to that, it used to be in the town that it doesn't necessarily have to be near a farm because somebody could be a block away and complain, right? So it used to be in the closing documents that people signed, the right to farm law. And you guys had come up with, I think, Supervisor, I spoke to you about this. I'm not sure if I'm positive, but I meant to. In many farming communities, like upstate, on every entrance to the town, there's a sign that says, in this case, it would be welcome to Riverhead, a right to farm community. This way everybody's aware that there's a right, we have a right to farm in this community. So when the air cannons are going off and the new people move here from up west and say, what is this? I can't live like this. Hey, it's a farm community. Be aware of it before you buy it. Or the diesel motors go off when they have to go off. I mean, you guys... I mean, you're watering at the right time of day, you know, which is at night. I was going to say, I feel that's incumbent on the buyer. They should just know that. First of all, they know they're in a farm community. That's probably why they moved out here to begin with. And second, that's something they should do their due diligence when they're going through purchasing the home. You know, I don't think that it's incumbent on any of us to tell them they know that moving out here is a right. And I think that's a good thing. They know that moving in. That's the thing. They really should, and they don't. Well, that's for their research to check. Well, we're the ones who pay the price. The homeowner doesn't pay the price. The farmer pays the price because we get the police calls and the visits and the complaints. They own their home. We're the ones who are actively farming. So particularly when there's direct neighbors, that's why this is really just to improve the flow of information to home buyers. Which, like Bob was saying, is required in a lot of agricultural places. So again, it's kind of low-hanging fruit because it's not really changing anything that anyone's actually doing. It's not changing farming. It's not changing home buying. It's just saying, you know, realtors, I mean, I'm sure you're involved, are not always honest with buyers. And, you know, when people come out on a Sunday afternoon to look at the farm field that's next to the house they're going to buy, they're not seeing a lot of the time the motor running, the corn cannon. They don't see anybody working. They don't see the tractors running. They don't, you know. So they just think this is how it always is going to be. And that is not how it's always going to be. So it's really just improving that information to prospective buyers and the legal awareness for them that we have a right to farm. It's not a negotiable thing. That used to be in closing documents. And, you know, a lot of it, you close down a house, it's this thick. You just go through it. You don't read anything. But legally it was in the document and it's a right to farm law and it's a recognition that there's going to be dust, noise, and something else. Odors. Odors. Yeah. Do you want like a book or something in like the planning department or something that if you're doing a particular operation that you feel may be loud or, you know, praying or something like that, you notify them and they put on a list of things. Or a public list or what would be your answer to that? It's usually just like a one-page thing that they, like you said, that they sign coming in or coming in from both directions. I don't have that. I mean, when you're saying about notifying, like in the closing documents they sign something that, you know, they know that this is a farm and community. So that is something that a farmer can go back to if there's a complaint. Well, you've already acknowledged that you're aware. You're just not on time. You're not on a daily basis like, you know. Friday will be for you. You're talking about just when you're closing because I was saying that would create an enormous amount of work. That's what I mean. It's like I don't think you really have that. Closing or we did talk about signage and stuff too in like a lot of towns and other places that do that.
The next thing was to consider the Gonzalo family farm there, the easement that's still on that property that they purchased. Hopefully we can figure out a way to. I know they've worked on it and worked on it and they just have not been able to come up with a way that we can legally do it at this point in time. We'd love to do it, but legally we can't as we've been told unless they, I mean, it's a conversation all the time. But at this point in time, I don't think legally we're able to make that happen as much as we would like to. So we'll keep working on it. We'll keep looking at it, but it's not the legal opinion we're getting says we can't. As far as it being a gift to him? Yes. Okay. Yes. What about if anybody applies for a variance or they get gifted those variances that are giving them more value on their property? More change of zone. You know, there's, and there are other legal opinions that. Yes, sir. You guys don't want to listen to like from the Peconic Land Trust and other people. So that's disappointing to us as an ag community. And I don't want to, we had a pretty good discussion about this last time, but as the ag, we're not really happy at that, whatever, because they want to put a municipal well there. That's really what it comes down to. So anyway, again, I don't want to hash this out. We did it last time, but we really think something could be done. I have said from the beginning, I'm 100% supportive of it. I want them to have that. And I'm willing to set that precedent because we are farming community and in waiting river where he's farming is right next to CVS and the King Collins Shopping Center. And it's like, you know, as soon as you come in, it's like, I want people to welcome. And the community would much prefer to see it farmed rather than a municipal well there. I'm sure. And he's done a beautiful job with the property. Like already it's cleaned up really nice. And, and, you know, he's, he's done an excellent job. I think that alone, the aesthetics of having rural farm community looks great. I'd rather see him farming and planting there than just a burn, you know, of grass. I totally agree with that. Go ahead, Eve. Well, just to go back, we had talked about maybe getting a strengthening the process for referrals of subdivisions and site plans that involve that are adjacent. To agricultural property or, or preserve property, getting them referred to our committee. We're not really clear what the, what the standard procedure is with the planning department right now. Are you, is there anybody who can explain that to us? Because a lot of time we're not getting informed about projects and most of the towns have kind of a mandatory referral system from planning that if something comes in and it is adjacent to farmland. Right. Yeah. Or a farm operation that it would manage, you know, the whole application would be referred to us for a review. Easy enough to do. Is there something you wanted to add to that? Did you want to add something? No, but that's something that makes sense. We've discussed about I farm next to communities, you know, and certain things were done right. Like the farm, say on West Lane to the west, there's a neighborhood for condos. I don't know what they are, but they got the road between me and them, which gives me a little extra buffer. But they also have the tennis court right against my property and the swimming pool. So they got the community, the communal areas to me, they should be out in the center of the, you know, so it does maybe make it, you know, I make dust or odors or whatever. It's, it's, you know, 20 feet away is the swimming pool, you know, so things like that, you know, I think, and I think that's easily solved. Yeah, I mean, isn't spraying doesn't, has a 40 foot, isn't that supposed to be 40 feet from where you spray? It's not 20 feet away, but it's very close. Let's put it that way. No, I'm saying, so that's inside of the 40 feet. You know, that's what I can remember. Anyway, if that was looked at beforehand, you know, it's something we also formed on Hartman's farm. And there's the same situation there. The pool and the community areas. Yeah. And the community was right against the farm, but there was, the road kept a little extra buffer, which that made sense. You know, I don't want to write in somebody's backyard. I mean, I have that with the houses on Roanoke. But anyway. So we would just respond in a timely way with a letter and any recommendations that we had, if we have any. A lot of the time there's not really, you know, not even always comments, but you know, there might be. And you're asking this for things that would be adjacent to farmland. Yeah. So you're saying that, like, a quarter of a mile away or half, just the borders to probably. No, we're here on behalf of agriculture. You know, what they do on Main Street, you know, we're not going to get involved with that unless it's a TDR issue that we're not happy with. But, you know, no. I guess I can mention about the farm stage. Sure. Yeah. Sure. So obviously, you know, we were aware of the hotel proposal. That was, I guess, last fall or summer or whatever it was. And, you know, as farmers and, you know, mostly family businesses, there's not any legal way for our farms to have any kind of overnight facilities or farm stays. So the thought is if you're considering, you know, 150 units, theoretically on a farm that's owned by a big corporation, we would love it if you would consider that. We would love it if you would consider a very small number of units that our family farms could have, like between one and five units was kind of the idea. It's something that's become very popular. It could be a source of revenue. You know, you're seeing a lot of land that really good farmland that's in Riverhead that's not being farmed because costs are up and up and farming is less and less profitable, even compared to 10 or 15 years ago. So that's a big problem. Yeah. So, you know, that's why people are going into agritourism. That's why they're going into all these, you know, additional sources of revenue. And farm stay is another source of revenue. So, you know, even if it's like, you know, a couple hundred dollars a night, a couple hundred dollars a week, whatever, it all really helps. And we have some ideas about how that can be done in a sensitive way and sensitive to neighbors, doesn't create a big impact. And, you know, and benefits the town and benefits farm, you know, the farm community as well. Are you saying something that's preexisting, like a farmhouse that's already on farmland? Or are you talking about developing part of the land? Well, I think, you know, there's obviously it's a much bigger conversation about the details, right? I think there are a lot of people who could convert like a couple of rooms, like I said, between one and five rooms in an existing structure or in existing barns. Garage. There's, you know, whatever existing structures absolutely could be converted. And sort of as a separate thing, you know, it also could be allowed that there could be, again, like a small structure that could be allowed, you know, very specific limits on square footage and, you know, on the number of units. Like I said, probably five or fewer units. That could be like a great idea. It's very common in other areas throughout New York. Upstate? They have it. You know, to stay at a winery, stay, I don't know how common it is to stay at a vegetable farm, but, you know, a farm stay. It's... Well, we're allowing now cottages on golf courses. So even a similar thing where if you have a large vineyard or something that, you know, just the sheer beauty of it to have like a cottage or something on there would be very popular, you know? Also in south. Permanent structures that can be... Like non-kitchens and so forth. Just, you know, that's what the cottages are. You know, so they're not, you know, it's the aesthetics of sitting out on a porch and looking out over the farmland. People will pay top dollar for that. I think you should be doing, I'm going to say it wrong, glamping. I mean, seriously, because there's a lot of people that... Yurts? Yeah. Put some yurts up and... Yeah, yurts. But in Southhold, I believe there are three operations that have, you know, they have meat, you know, meat and vegetables. You know, they have meat, Airbnb, I wouldn't call it Airbnbs, but they have weekend stays. And I think Sunino Vineyards has one. I can't remember the cider house in Southhold that has... No, the Rose, they make Rose in Southhold. I can't remember their name. Oh, Croteau? Yeah. Croteau and the other one is on Oregon Road. Oh, the former Shin probably? Yeah, the former Shin. Yeah. Yeah. So, and again, it's not uncommon at all. It's just uncommon to us. And I think it's great, you know, for you guys to derive extra revenue. And people do. I mean, some people pay to stay on farms to work. I mean, you know, they may work for a weekend just to understand, you know, to get, to learn what's going on. Yeah. So, you know, we appreciate your support with that. What do you feel like would be the next step for that? So, what is something that you would like to see done with that type of thing? Probably something to go to code revision. Yeah. Yeah. And you can go to code revision and put something together and hammer out, you know, how many units, how many acres of farm you would have as to how many units you would be allowed to put on and work something out, maybe get some information from other towns that are doing this and how they set it up. But it would be, I think, code revision would be the place to go. I think Supervisor . . . as a minute, you know, point about just looking at the codes from other town would like give us a bit of a leg up, you know, start on looking at how to do the code. Okay. So some, our committee to go to that committee or a few people from the committee to meet with them. Your, uh, the liaison from your committee would, would present it to the, um, code revision. Okay. Thank you. And Councilwoman Woskie and I are on that. So, um, I think it's a great idea. Okay. Thank you. Um, the last one. Um, yeah, I guess the last really is about some of the issues that have been with the controlled environment agricultural impediments we're calling them, but, uh, just hope as we said many times that the town needs to follow New York state. Yeah. And, and markets law as to what is agriculture is simply defined and, um, we don't need, uh, the town or other, uh, municipalities trying to redefine agriculture basically. Right. I think that's a really good point. And to that point, and we did take a tour and we, and we looked at controlled environment, um, agriculture, the environment, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's is the code that was done for those two, for the vertical farming, which is controlled environmental agriculture, where in the code it said you could start indoors, but then you've got to finish the planting in the soil, which completely goes against what this is. You know, it's like you start your tomato plants in a greenhouse, and then you've got to go transplant them outside. You and I both know, then you come under other scrutiny by USGA because now you're outside, etc., etc. Not only that, you've lost the environmental control of your planting. Could you imagine if somebody growing orchids had a, you know, they got this big, and they go, okay, you've got to put them in the soil. Or take greenhouses. Could you imagine if people had to start their plants in greenhouses and then finish them outside, dig them up, take the soil away, and if you look at how many years greenhouses have been out here, there's not too much soil left in Riverhead. When you look at the millions of plants that go out of here from Riverhead, out of greenhouses. So that's a good point. That doesn't exist in Riverhead. What? That doesn't exist in Riverhead, though, right? What's that? We're not forcing anybody to... No, we did that with one operation. We did that with one operation where a guy's doing vertical farming, and in the code, first of all, he got onerous setbacks, not normal, but normal setbacks, number one. Number two, was told that you have to start them indoors and then finish growing them in the soils. Yeah, with what he was doing, it made no sense. I mean, we do grow a lot of plants in our greenhouse and then transplant them in the field. I think I mentioned, well, you guys saw my tomatoes at a house. And I think I mentioned to you, you go to Pennsylvania, Lancaster in particular, almost all the tomatoes are grown in high tunnels. You know, and they have them, actually, I've seen them, which I don't think would probably require any type of permit at all. They were actually, there was no foundation. The greenhouses were actually on like skids, and they were 30 feet wide and 200 feet long. And then they would leave them here this year and then take two tractors and drag them down to some fresh soil next year. And they just take little, you know, what do you call them, little drill screws and movement and to hold the thing down. But they were all grown indoors because, you know, you have much better control of what's going on. Well, the example is Kirk Van de Wetteren. He's growing, he's doing vertical farming. And we all saw what that looks like, you know. Take any of that stuff and then transplant it is like, it's not going to work. Well, I think that the thinking behind that was to make sure that the land was still farmed. But, you know, I mean, the longer the soil rests without farming, right, the better it is for the soil. And when you're getting in one of those boxes, I think what is it worth, a quarter of an acre? You know, you're planting the equivalent of a quarter of an acre or something like that. However these farmers have to survive, plus you can farm all year long inside of a, you know, a container. And so you're getting revenue all year long. And you're not subject to the environment. It is expensive. But it's expensive, it's really expensive when it pours rain and your crop is gone after working for months. No, it's true. I mean, I was very impressed when we went to Van de Wetterings and actually was able to see what vertical farming actually looks like as opposed to looking at a picture of something from China, you know. It was impressive. I don't think we're saying like one type is better than another type or anything like that. I guess it's just... It's changing. Yeah, just a reminder. It's always changing. It's just changing. That it's... Yeah, like if someone's farming in, you know, whatever, in a container, whatever it was in. I'm not familiar with that one really. But that it's still farming and that it's not really, you know, for the... To say you have to do it this way or that way, you know. Just like you wouldn't say to a row crop farmer, like everything has to be indoors. When it is all indoors, you know, you have to do it this way or that way. But you wouldn't say it all has to be outdoors. It's like when you have that conversation and you don't get to actually see it. And you hear farming in a container and all of a sudden you think about all these containers just lined up on a farm field that once was plowable and now there's containers all over it. That's, I think, what the fear was when it was first introduced to the town of how do we make sure that it doesn't become container, container, container. And that's what people used to say about greenhouses, right? And they used to say about, you know, even, I don't know if vineyards ever got that kind of pushback. You know, so it's just kind of as things change. I just have a question. Back to the creating a legal framework for farm states, it says farm tourism bona fide local commercial farmers. Could you define that for me? A bona fide local commercial farmer? I think so. Well, the thinking is, as defined by New York State Ag and Markets. Which is what? It's seven acres, over seven acres with a revenue of, what is it, 10,000? 50,000. Or 50 now? I know it wasn't very much. I actually one time lobbied Farm Year that I thought it should have been higher. It used to be 10. Maybe it's 50 now? 50,000 income? No, 50 if it's below seven. I'm sorry. So maybe it is 10. That was what I remembered. Or if it's under seven acres, then you have to do something about it. So you have to have over $50,000 income. I guess the fear is we just don't want people buying two acres and going, oh, I'm a farm, and now I'm going to put up a hotel. So we just want to define what's a bona fide farm. Exactly. So you have to qualify, and then you could potentially, I can't speak to the legal aspects of it, but as for having been in operation for a certain number of years, so you can just start up your first year. Well, there's probably in Riverhead, too, and we're opposed to that. Like in Southampton, 50-acre farm, and the millionaire comes in and buys it and throws a horse out there. He's not farming. And it's ag land. And there's probably some of that in Riverhead, too, and we're opposed to that. It bothers us when we see good farmland sitting there going up in weeds or whatever, just turning it into a lawn for their pleasure. But... Anyway, I think that's, you know, in a nutshell, what we had. We took up more time than I thought we would. Can you give us a sense on the TDR, not so much on the bank, which kind of is in process, but I know you've been doing a lot of work with updating the industrial codes, and obviously downtown is always under discussion. What do you feel like is the next, because there was a separate TDR committee, it sort of met on and off. There's been conversations with planning staff. I don't know if you could kind of give us some guidance about where you feel like things are at and maybe what the next step would be in collaborating with the agricultural community. Yeah. So I'm the liaison to the TDR committee. So what we'll do is, and it was always kind of been my objective to make them a subcommittee of the Ag Committee. So what we'll do is have a meeting, and we'll have a meeting with planning, and go through it. We'll go through what's there now and what the plans are. Right, Greg? Yeah. We'll do that with Greg Bergman, and what I'll do is we'll get an email out, and we'll set up a meeting. Some of it's done. I mean, that was done early on involving industrial. But I think it's, we had a meeting on the last one on Northville. The TDR committee. But next meeting and every other meeting will meet with the Ag Committee and the TDR committee. So as far as the, you know, wrapping up kind of the end of that master plan process, I mean, the industrial code now at this point has been adopted. Is that correct? For the most part, industrial has, because that was pretty much the Calverton area, and that was pretty much done. So that's mostly adopted. Yeah. And the TDR is in there, and that's at 5,000 square feet for each TDR. The only thing in the industrial code that, to me, that needs to be changed is we allow indoor and outdoor recreation in the EPCAL area on industrial. We allow it on industrial outside that area, but where I think we, I don't want to use the word mistake, but we did that as a special permit, whereas inside on the EPCAL area, we did not do that. I would like to see the special permit expanded. We would like to see it subtracted on industrial outside. And like to require some TDRs or something? Well, no, those, the TDRs are consistent throughout industrial. So what would be the next kind of section of code that you're working on, or are you? I'll let you know. I'll speak with Greg. And we'll put together a meeting, and Greg can go through all of it with us, okay? Thank you. That's all we had. We wanted to, we've got some more work to do here. Just sending you the letter, but we thought, let's come down and. No, we didn't refer that. I didn't bother asking any of the formers to come because it was August, and I'm sure they would have shouted me, but. Thank you. And really, thank you, you guys. Thanks for your consideration. Thank you to all the fresh vegetables you guys are providing us. And thank you for taking all the 7 o'clock meetings. And I know you've been very helpful. Thank you. And I appreciate you guys. Everybody comes half asleep, including myself. So thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you. Bye. Yep. Okay. Before we go on to the next one, I just want to announce that we will be stopping this meeting by 1145 today. We have an event we have to run out to quickly at 12 o'clock. And then we will come back. So depending how far we get along, we will be stopping at 1145 and then continue probably within a half hour after that or so. All right. Next up, we have a monthly police report with Chief Frost. Good morning. Good morning. We should put him off to the end. Oh. What did you do? That's all right. You didn't give her a lollipop and now she'll night out? Okay. I think July 1st. I think July we're doing pretty well. Our criminal incidents dropped from June, which is good. If you go to page 4, the total is there. So that's always good to see. Our revenues are doing better, obviously. Again, thanks to the assistance of the town attorney's office, a lot of this is alarm fees. Okay. So they've been working diligently with the businesses to collect their arrears. So crime is going down. Criminal incidents went from 228 in 2024 to 141 in 2025. These are all the same reporting systems. Right. So that is true numbers. That's interesting because I saw, I think, one of the people running for office. Put out a video saying that crime is up in Riverhead. And I'm like, just another non-truth being put out by, unfortunately, I'm not going to get into the politics. But, you know, people deserve to know the truth. And this is the truth. These are the facts right here. Crime is down. Thank you for that. No problem. Just thank the members of my department. And in women of the Riverhead PD. Good job. Absolutely. We issued a lot of papers. We issued a lot of parking tickets in July. You know, obviously, probably the beaches and the various commercial properties. Other than that, we did have two non-fatal overdoses in July. One was a 39-year-old female. Another one was a male who was 33. We both had narcos. We both had narcos. Narcan doses. One was by us. One was by EMS. Pretty much what I have. I do want to speak a little bit about, obviously, you guys are aware, the department now has, everyone has body cameras. We're working through that. It seems, you know, the footage is very, very clear. And it's, you know, definitely will be beneficial to the men and women of the department. Thank you. And I think it's very important to the men and women of the department as well as, you know, of the public. Absolutely. So I'm glad that... Working well from both sides. I'm glad they're finally on. I think they've worked for like 604 sector. Do they have to, before or after their shift, do they have to return to headquarters to charge the camera or do they have separate ones they can... Everyone has their own. It's depending on... What we're seeing is the officers that turn out of like headquarters are leaving them in the rack, in the charge racks. The outline sectors are taking them. They're allowed to take them home. Okay. Perfect. So, yeah. They're not coming back. Driving. Yes. Back and forth. Good. Obviously, we are almost in the midst of the effects of Hurricane Erin. Our only, our only effects will be coastal flooding in the low line areas of Jamesport, Ackerbog, maybe downtown. The high tide, which is going to be the bigger times. So high tide is at 1136 today. And then the next high tide, which is in that area, it will be 1208 tomorrow. So just make sure you're aware of that. I'd like to point to our website, the town website, local links, emergency preparedness. There's a lot of information that's on that link. There also is an application for if someone needs to let us know, we keep track. They're required to do that. They're required to have electric because they're on a ventilator or they're on, you know, something that, you know, where we would need to get to them quicker in case of an actual emergency or evacuation. Suffolk County just also, it's on here. Suffolk County OEM just made two interactive maps. It lists where the shelters are throughout the county. Because I always get asked where the shelters are. That's on there. The public can go and look. There's a link on there. It's on our page. The only, this is the full list on the map. But if in an actual emergency, only the shelters that are open would appear. There is also an interactive storm surge map that they just developed and put up online. So you can go specifically to your residence and see what zone you're in. It goes from A being, you know, minimal, storm would be minimal. You still probably get flooding. Like down, probably down in Jamesport area, Ackerbock, with D being the highest. You know, with a lot of impact. But I just ask the public to go take a look. And if you are in need of notifying us that you need a special evacuation, please reach out to my office, extension 315, or take a look at the website. Chief, just how do people get to that interactive county map? It goes on our website. Links. Emergency preparedness. And then there's a whole bunch of good information. Good information on, you know, storm and preparedness. Thank you. So, thank you very much. Thank you for the way everything was handled at the Polish festivals, at the hall, and also on the street. It was terrific. It was a pretty big event. And I told you, everybody downtown is thrilled with the police department walking the beat and very happy with all of that. Thank you. Thank you. Keep up the good work. I had beach committee last night. Okay. And they rave about your department. Every time. They say, please tell the chief what a great job everybody is doing. We're trying to, the Weiden River area, we're trying to work on that. Yep. Thank you. Excellent job. Okay. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you, chief. Yep. Next up, we have monthly justice court report with counselor Pilo. Well, hello, Victoria. Good morning. You get me instead. So, we have a couple of questions. One is, what is the purpose of the police department? What is the purpose of the police department? So, Victoria and Rich Downs are meeting with the owners of 1099 Royal right now to discuss the status of that parking lot. They went out and did an onsite inspection this morning, too. So, I'm going to cover both justice court and code enforcement this morning. Okay. Good. So, getting to justice court, July 2025, the same sort of disclaimer as usual. We're just providing the total. We're just providing the totals on dispositions. That doesn't necessarily mean that those have been paid or fully collected yet. So, the total for July was 30,250 in fine dispositions, including surcharges. 12,600 of that is relative to blight mitigation, 1,190 relative to human services, $1,560 from parking. Okay. So, that's the total. So, the total for July 2020 was $11,750 from parking, 11,750 from tickets issued by the Fire Marshals, and then 3150 in other. Victoria, I wanted to note that the numbers are slightly lower this month and will be for next month as well because justice court was closed for a week in July and closed for a week in August as well. We had two matters set down for trials. One was the We had two matters set down for trials relative to illegal rentals and seeing a downward trend in public urination and open alcohol tickets, which is good and a little bit surprising given that it's the summer. I think it's probably traceable to increase presence of PD in the downtown area. Because that's probably where I'd say 95% of open alcohol and public urination tickets come from, if not a higher percentage. So I think that whatever tactics or assignments are being issued by PD on that are definitely helping that downtown. That's all I had on the Justice Court monthly report. If there was any questions? Yes, Eric. If you could just give an update on the house over in Waiting River since we've won the decision. What's happening next? Yeah, so the house wasn't vacated as of the date directed by the judge's order. Right, July 31st. So we put in an order to show cause to hold the owners in contempt. And that is, I'm not sure when that's going to be scheduled for argument, but that has been filed by Victoria earlier this week. And I understand also we're asking for fines for every day. Yes. But they're not out of the house. Right. That's good. So they do get daily fines every day. Well, that's what we'll be asking the court to issue based on the owner's failure to comply with the court's order. And this is the owner that has 21 homes throughout Nassau and Suffolk County, am I correct? The one that had... I don't know exactly how many homes he has, but that wouldn't surprise me. I know he has a lot. Okay. Thank you. Code enforcement? All right, so we'll move on to code enforcement. For... Okay. For July, we had 75 new complaints opened. Three related to illegal or unlawful apartments or overcrowding. A 12-no building permit. Four noise ordinance violations. Left-of-property maintenance. We had 70 total violations issued. Some of the highlights from that are no certificate of occupancy. No building permit. Unsafe structures. High weeds, grass. No rental permit. I mean, it's all listed in the report. There wasn't really anything notable for that month. We're out of the ordinary. If there's any questions or anything. No, they're very active. They have a lot of cases going on and taking new cases on all the time. So that's... They're doing a great job. They're doing a great job. They really are. Working with what we have. Yeah, and I was pretty happy with how quickly they got to the owner of, as I mentioned before, 1099 Royal. At the last town board meeting, the town board authorized the filing of the lawsuit. We'd actually filed that a week prior. And we're still in the process of filing it. We're still in the process of filing it. And that's really just sort of like a tactic to put pressure on the owner. To the public, I don't think a lot of people understand what that's about, like in terms of the parking lot. So maintenance of the parking lot is a requirement under their site plan. And the parking lot, we've been trying to get them to repave it and fill the potholes for at least a couple of years. They've been previously issued tickets in justice court. They've been issued a lot of money. They're not in the justice court. Sometimes they appear. There's been instances where they've been issued violations on property maintenance and garbage. And they've addressed that but still not addressed the parking lot. At one point they got a default judgment in justice court. So this time around we issued more violations but given the history of it, we felt that it would be better to simply proceed with a Supreme Court action. And that doesn't require in the case of a parking lot. So we're going to keep that in mind. So we're going to keep that in mind. So we're going to keep that in mind. immediate court appearances, but it does add a level of seriousness and urgency to it for the owner. And, I mean, as soon as we filed the lawsuit, the owner was calling Victoria trying to arrange something. So today they were out there with a representative from the asphalt company and the owner identifying everything that would need to be done to bring the parking lot up to the standards of their site plan and town code. Which parking lot is this? So this is the Staples, Big Lots, I think Fry Pan. I just want the public to know, and they've double-striped it, and it's very confusing. Yeah, it's a mess. I think the last time I was up here talking about it, I said that I had gone to Staples, and when you park, you can't tell if you're parking in the new parking spaces or the old parking spaces. So as part of the repaving, we'll be looking for them to fix all that striping as well. Because they created blighted... We created blighted look for the whole town when it looks like that. It's really, it is awful. And it also puts other business owners on notice. Take care of your properties. We're not going to let you just make it look like a disaster zone everywhere. And to your point, I know we brought it up here publicly about Walgreens, and they had a huge pothole. And shortly thereafter, because I had to go around looking at it, I saw that they had a lot of people parking in these parking lots. That's been fixed. I mean, you can break an axle in there very easily. That one in Staples is really bad. That's really... they're just... I don't know anymore. What's very bad is, you know, an ambulance hitting that, proceeding across the parking lot. And you got, you know, you can have paramedics, medics in the back of an ambulance working, and you hit something like that, and everybody gets thrown. Motorcycle. That's bad in West Hampton. That's true. You will. And we put up with it. Well, you're not going to see it anymore in Riverhead either. She said they fixed it. Yeah. That's great. That's a little court action to wake everybody up. Very good. Okay. Thank you, sir. All right. You're welcome. Next up, we have monthly town clerk report with Clark Wooten.
Sorry I don't have my jacket on. But I want to show you. I want to show off my Rothwell pink. There you go. Oh, yeah. Just pink weeks. You look sharp. Thank you. We had a pretty standard month for July. A lot of requests, again, are coming in for these enhanced licenses, so everybody needs to get copies of their marriage certificates and all that. So it's a boom to us, but it's a lot of work. So we got a lot of requests for marriage certificates. Twenty-two new births in the town of Riverhead in July. And 28 deaths. So actually, we got to get those numbers in. Actually, we got to get those numbers up. Marriage licenses. Twenty-five. We did a lot of marriage licenses. I had a marriage this morning as well. So it's great. You had a big marriage. No. I saw that. You had Zoom. Bright old party. And old. And upstairs room actually worked out well. Thank God. I try not to do it on Thursday mornings. Otherwise it's been pretty well. We were busy with the new software. As you know. You were working for it. You were working for it. You were working for it. You were working for it. You were working for it. You were working for it. You were working for it. You were working for it. You were working for it. You were working for it. And of course with all the movement the town's doing with the comprehensive plan and all the updates and all the publishing posts. So we're pretty active. It's exciting to watch on my end because I get to see the town as it's developing. But it's a lot of work on the back end with the publishing posts and the local law changes and all that stuff that we have to file. But it's pretty standard. And I've got a great staff. And we've got a girl working, our interpreter, our bilingual clerk. She's here every day, which is great. She's here between 11 and 2.30 every day. And even sometimes when she can't make it on time, she says, I've got to stay a little later. So she's here. And it really does help out a lot when we get a lot of people that we can't communicate with. FOIL requests are up. And we hope to be able to do that next request. I think we're just waiting. For the website to go online. So everything is just tying together. I think by the end of the year, we'll be moving real smoothly as far as all of that interaction with the community goes. It's going to be really great. We're working on the website now. And I know every department is trying to put in, I don't know if it's going to be AI, what they're doing. But you can ask a question, a frequently asked question. Like, how do I get a birth certificate? And boom, it's going to take you right to where you can tell you everything you need to do. So we're excited about that. But that's our role. RIT, RIT2, they're second to none as far as I'm concerned. And that's it. That's all I've got to say. I've got nothing more to say. Any questions at all? You can get those bingo numbers up. Bingo? Bingo numbers. Bingo. Month after month, you're hovering at zero, Jim. Come on. I'm sorry about that. That's another thing. Bring back bingo. Well, it'll be great. I like bingo myself. Your sales are way up. 54 for July. 54 yard sales. Crazy. That's the rate. Yes. Good? Yeah. Good. Thank you, James. You're welcome, sir. Appreciate it. Okay. All right. Next up, we have matters surrounding special permit and site plan for Duffy MX Motocross track, 2822 River Road, Calverton, with Greg Bergman.
All right. Good morning, everybody. How are you? Good. Everybody's got a car. I'm a regular. I have a couple extras if you need one. Yes. All right. When does it come? Yeah. Okay. All right.
Good morning. Okay. Good morning. Hey. Hi. How's everybody? Good. Good morning. Good morning. Just have everybody state your name, please, so people know who we all are. Daniel Duffy. Good. Doug Adams. Young Associates. Engineer for the project. Big. Per. Schanowski. 533 Elton Street. I'm here working with Mr. Duffy. All right. So for the board, I have a brief staff report detailing the CECRA status. So as you'll recall, back in the beginning of June, we classified the action as a Type I action pursuant to CECRA. Initiated coordinated review. The applicant did submit the revised EAF. eaf to correct some little errors that were in that we commence secret coordination on july 2nd we did receive responses from four involved agencies we got a response from the suffolk county central pine barons new york state dec suffolk county department of health services and the suffolk county planning commission so i just want to go over very quickly the gist of the responses from those involved agencies so for the pine barons the stat the proposal constitutes development pursuant to the long island pine barons act is embodied in new york state ecl law and is implemented by the pine baron's comprehensive land use plan in the town river zoning code the proposal currently lacks the conformance with the standard of the 40 open space of the site to be left as natural open space if the applicant is unable to provide that they would need to apply for a hardship waiver from the pine barons so i did get a response from the dec it took a little longer i guess they had some internal changes going on so it was assigned to a new reviewer so this was an email that i got last tuesday it was referred to the dec because it's in the wild scenic recreational rivers and there may be a need for a mineland reclamation permit there is language in the mineland reclamation law that uh some activities are exempt from required bind requiring a mineland reclamation permit uh they at the dec sent the language from the mineland reclamation law and they sort of bolded certain sections to sort of call it out so certain activities are exempt for my land reclamation law in order for them to be exempt the following criteria must be met all necessary local state federal approval shall have been obtained for the project the proposed excavation and regrading work is to be conducted solely in the aid of on-site construction and now this is bolded and is deemed necessary to prepare the site for approved construction the excavation takes place within the construction project area and bold is an integral part of the construction project activities and that objective evidence is provided which leads the department to reasonably conclude that the construction project is not speculative and will occur at the site of excavation and grading and will occur concurrently or soon after the excavation the grading is completed and they bold in that they bold this section objective evidence includes but it's not limited to copies of all relevant building permits grading plans and all necessary approvals from the local planning and zoning boards they did also note that it's in the wsrr they noted that there could be potential wetlands adjacent to the property although there are no wetlands on the property they may be within jurisdictional areas and they indicated that there have been sightings of tiger Salad in nearby wetlands, so they provided some guidance for the project to mitigate that. The health department response was pretty boilerplate. There was nothing really significant there. And then the Suffolk County Planning Commission came back. They had no objection to the town board's lead agency request, but they said that while earthwork is likely needed for the establishment of the proposed motocross track and may be necessary for noise mitigation, subject property is situated in the Suffolk County Pine Barrens Compatible Growth Area, Central Suffolk Special Groundwater Protection Agency, and a state-certified agricultural district, and is comprised of prime agricultural soils. Therefore, the excavation and subsequent removal of a significant amount of soil from the property may result in adverse environmental impacts. They noted, you know, we only have the completed part one of the full EAF. They said that an additional environmental review was required to provide the Suffolk County Planning Commission with a full statement of facts. They recommended the environmental review shall include additional information on the project's potential impacts to groundwater, vegetation, community impacts, clearance limitations pursuant to the Pine Barrens, stormwater runoff, as well as impacts to existing roadways. So with that said, those were the responses, and I've sort of been consistent from the beginning. You know, I, at this point, you know, the applicant did provide a sort of basic noise study, which I did refer to an outside consultant. I did get a proposal, but I didn't want to piecemeal anything and just look at sound. You know, I'm recommending based on the scope and scale of the project, I have a draft part two and a part three prepared. That's an assessment of the potential impacts and then a determination of significance. I am recommending a pause deck on this. The, you know, I'm not saying it's not necessary, but to say that the only method or proposed method of noise mitigation for this project is to excavate and export for sale 120,000 yards of sand. That could be done. That's a good point. You know, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's left with a big pit in the compatible growth area? Well, if anybody goes out of business that does something, we're left with whatever's there, right? For me, and just so you know, Greg, I've dealt with and been dealing from the beginning of this with some of the residents, and I know sand. I'm all in favor of going down deeper. I know they're going to be putting soil on top, you know, on top of the sand. But I've made a commitment to these neighbors that they will not hear anything. And in order to do that, that's, you know, the way to do it. And I mean, if they're going to be successful, they have to build a successful track in order to be successful. And also, I know the demand is there. When you look at an illegal one operating that's been operating for I don't even know how many years, and nothing's being done about the illegal one, and they're not going out of business, and the other one that's on, what was it, Edwards Avenue? Is there another one on Edwards? Some kind of racing thing. There's one that doesn't have any permits. So I want them to be successful, but I want the sound mitigation to be successful because I've made a commitment to those residents. So we're in the process of applying to the central pine barrens for a hardship case, and I know I was... I was there. I know what the heart... So we'll start with the central pine barrens. 90% of this property is clear, so I'm pretty confident that we'd probably get that approved. With the POS deck, I don't have a problem with the POS deck, but I would ask Greg if sometimes we do a one-and-a-half, where we focus more with the... We streamline the report that you're... I think that you just said that. You said... You're going to identify the things you want us to identify so we don't go off on a tangent, things that are not germane to this. In other words, if we expand in Part D of the EIF, the noise, the stuff that the planning commission brought up, all that would have to be investigated, but I just want to streamline it so we know what... So when the board issues a positive... As a lead agency, when the board issues a positive declaration, it goes through formal scoping. So the way to initiate... If the board... The board adopts a positive declaration, we set forth in our determination of significance the things that need to be studied. Applicant comes in with a draft scope. Again, that sort of provides a... The scope is essentially sort of like the table of contents for an environmental impact statement, and it limits... It addresses what needs to be studied. Obviously, noise is a significant concern. We've heard there's a daycare right down the road. You identify those things in the scope, and again, it's not just a... I mean, you know, saying you need an EIS does not necessarily need a, you know, 5,000-page environmental impact statement. I mean, you tailor the scope to study the project, you look at what the potential impacts are, present mitigation, and you look at alternative options. Now, again, an alternative option, I'm not saying you don't have to do some earthwork to... You know, the planning commission even noted this. It may be required, but a potential alternative may be instead of exporting the material for sale off-site, excavate, create a new one, and then you can do some other things. Create a berm, you know, if you need to do a sound wall on top of that where the materials are left on-site, where in the event the track closes, you know, you're not losing the prime soils, you're not losing the sand, and the site can be regraded or remediated to its prior condition. Again, you know, the fact that this is in the Pine Barrens Compatible Growth Area, the DEC, Wild, Scenic, and Recreational Rivers, again, I'm just using the term mining because you're excavating material, you're exporting it off-site. You know, that has the potential to degrade the quality of those environmentally sensitive areas and why they were established. Other sand mining operations within the Pine Barrens have required reclamations. Why does this not, or what is the barrier to require or not require? So the New York State DEC, the Mine Land Reclamation Law, if something requires a mining permit, that's when the DEC requires, you know, a Mine Land Reclamation Law, and part of that mining permit is a reclamation plan. You know, again, the way the environmental conservation law is written regarding mining activities, I can understand. If you're building a building and you need to excavate to put in foundations and basements, okay, that's not mining. But, you know, here, we don't necessarily have structures that are proposed. You know, the history of mining, you know, in Riverhead on the East End, it goes back a long time. I mean, I've read articles about when the Long Island National Golf Course was, you know, built out, the amount of sand taken out of that site, and, you know, people at the DEC had issues with it, and it sort of, it was a gray area. So, again, I understand why there is exemptions in there, but, again, they're pretty clear that, you know, objective evidence needs to be presented. The board, you know, all local zoning and planning approvals need to be in place before the DEC would make that determination. So, I mean, I just, it's kind of a problem on how we get to that point without sort of looking at... So... Okay. Cut to the chase on this. We have to show that the most efficient, and I know this from, like, 15 years ago, the most efficient way to achieve the soil noise mitigation is to do some going down and building the berm, which is what we're proposing here. We're not only just going down, we're also putting the berm. So, we were discussing it. We might be able to come to a happy medium where we can reduce going down and making the berm. The goal is noise mitigation. And if the noise mitigation is part of the site plan process, that's where we would need a mining permit. We have to show that. So, the only thing that, and I think we're all in agreement here, is that in our scoping table of contents, we want to just make sure that we limit the investigation on the issues that are germane to the project that the correspondents that we know... We don't want to go off on a tangent, because, you know, people are going, oh, well, how come you didn't investigate that? Because, to be honest with you, the more these reports are required, the more expensive they are. So, we have to do what we have to do, but I just didn't want to go off on a, you know... Elevation height at the start. So, like, how much will you be above, like, current grade level right now? I think the high point of the property is, like, right over here right now. It's not level, so it's... There's a hill. Yeah, so this is a hill. And, you know, the homes are kind of in the line of sight. On your start. I mean, the existing elevation. There's a hill here and a hole here. I don't know if you can see that topographically. This is up like this, so it's not flat. The question is, to me, like, the starting point is where you're revving up. That's right. And what we do for that is... We build a background. Like a structural wall in back of the starting gate, which all motocross tracks do. And we use the acoustic block material there to absorb that noise. So you could almost have a wall or a gate or something. Right, yeah, right across the back. And it's shaded for the riders where the starting gate is. All right, okay. And that's an integral part, because, like, you know, that is where all the sound is generated when the gate drops. Everybody accelerates right down to the first turn, and then you all shut down. You can't even hear them. Okay. But the elevation, 47, what does that say? Yeah, this is existing around 43 here, and then the lowest part of this would be around 31. Right. The lowest part. So you'll show something with how that silences, what exactly that you're building over there? Is that in your plans? Yeah. No, not yet, no. It was just going to be a fence. And you line up to start that. Right. So in other words, part of our report that we have to produce will have that. Perfect. Yeah. We have to, and again, knowing from my previous knowledge on this, and listening to engineers explain it to me, the most efficient way on structures like this is they go down, and they also go down with the big professional tracks like Las Vegas. They don't build a berm. They actually build the stadium around it, and it's sealed, and it pushes the noise up straight in the air. So in this case, we have to do both, probably have to do both, and plus he's got that mitigation wall that we're talking about. That's what I think, too. That's what I was leading up to, was that if the starting point is at a certain elevation, that the project has to go down. Yeah. That it's, you know, put this down wall or berm, and then there's this big high point. Right. So we already did a test well, and with the groundwater, we're fine. Young and young, we conducted a test well of the property, so it's not something... We're not going to have an island water park problem where we do something like that. So... You know, we also put the start this way, not near the houses that are over here. And we designed that in purpose, you know. We could also put it that way towards the state land, but it doesn't matter. So to Vic... To Vic, wait from houses. I was going to say, I have a problem with this in that I really do feel if you go out of business, we've just got huge... Huge hole in the ground. Second of all, there is an alternative. You could build sound walls all around this. Do it on the LIE. That takes care of noise mitigation. Yeah, but the problem is that... I'm just letting you know that. And you don't have to have, because this is not a necessary requirement for this particular operation. That would not require the reclamation project because it wouldn't be considered a mining project. So we'd be left with a hole. And I'd like to finish. And the last point is, in the last time you were here, you mentioned about how this is all going to go electric in a couple of years. So that will... No, and I was... I'm sorry. That that's something you discussed when Ken was talking about this. So that's already going to decrease the noise problem. I'm just very concerned about a huge hole with something that may go out of business, and we're stuck with that then. I think the wall will be a lot easier to take down if this doesn't work than a gigantic hole. This is just my opinion. So what about if we have, like, when we do solar projects, and so forth, they bond money for reclamation. Is that even a consideration or an option of what... So the commercial solar code, it's specific in that code. It requires decommissioning bonds to be posted. In our site plan code, there is, you know, we require performance bonds for public improvements. But there's nothing in our code that really requires or compels us or allows us to require... You know, I've never seen it before. I've never... There's nothing in our code that I'm aware of that requires a, like, a remediation bond. And again, to Vic's point on the part three, you know, I identified five sections. So the full EAF, the part two has 18 sections where you use to assess the magnitude of impacts. Okay. There's five items here. Okay. Again, it's a narrow scope. Again, you know, the purpose of an EIS is not to, you know, bog anything down. It's to identify impacts, identify necessary mitigation, and to look at potential alternative options. I mean, again, I am... Every project that comes in, I wish them success. You know, but our job here is to protect, one, the environmentally sensitive areas in which they're located, protect the residents of the town, and make sure that, you know, impacts from the project are properly mitigated. So again, it's not a never-ending, you know, environmental review that's going to take years and years. The scope is pretty narrow, identifies the, you know, five, four important things that needs to be, would need to be studied, and you go from there. Okay. Well, it seems like Mr. Pershenowski understands this, and moving forward with the DEIS would be the proper thing to do at this point. Yeah. I have... You didn't give us this, did you? It was... Yeah, it was included in the... Oh, I probably didn't bring it out. That's probably over here. Okay. Yeah, that pretty much answers my concern. That's all. I... And I... Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I just wanted to make... I call it a... Actually, we've done it on other projects. I call it a one and a half, and that's fine. And again, the goal here is the noise abatement. The future of the property is 15 feet from grade. It's not going to be what that... The guy at Calverton did up in... On Route 25. I remember it well. And it's nothing like that. This is a project. This is not a sand mine. Okay? And there will be some revenue that will be used to build the track, whatever sand we take off, and the town gets $3 a yard of that. Okay? So it's about $400,000 or $500,000 to the town at the current number. But we discussed maybe during our investigation here, maybe go less down so it's not... So in the future... In the future, if it's abandoned, it wouldn't be anything that would be atrocious for the town, and burning it around with sound. So that's what the investigation... We'd have to come with evidence to make our case. So for me, I'd rather go more down. And the reason is because you have... For the noise. That's one. Every business risks going out of business. So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... I've been doing this for 20 years. We had a track in Ronkonkoma, 19 years. First, I'd like to address the, I never said that it was going to go all electric. I was misquoted in the paper. Kawasaki Heavy Industries announced that they were going to be all electric by 2030. None of the other manufacturers. And they can always retract that. It's just a generalized statement. As far as the viability of staying in business, I'm not a rich guy. I have literally sacrificed my entire retirement program, sold my house. I am fully committed to this project. My son is an integral part of the motocross community. He builds tracks all over the country. One of our major investors know that there is a need for this on Long Island. Okay. My gross was $400,000 a year, or $380,000 a year at our old home. And I was able to run a facility, which was just a practice track, and it was only on five acres. Okay. We have already spoken to the AMA, and they are going to be an integral part of supporting us with our racing program. And, you know, can something go out of business? Of course. Yeah. I can't control that. I was more interested. I'm not, I was kind of being facetious about that. What's the current demand? Oh, it's off the charts. That's what I, that's my concern. It's off the charts. It continues to grow. There was an 18% growth in this sport over the last two years. And the television is what's generating it too now. Peacock has all the live racing on. Kids are all watching it. It's definitely growing. You know, the sport is growing. I wouldn't be even addressing this. You know, I wouldn't even be going, I was retired. I went to Florida, whatever I needed to do. But there's a huge need for this on Long Island. In fact, you know, there was something, what did you miss about Long Island on the internet? And we rated like number 41, you know, Corvette stores and all these crazy things they had. And we actually rated on there. We were a tiny little club. I had 5,000 people follow me on Instagram. You know, I have Excel lists with, I don't know, seven or 8,000 people who were members at our track for the, you know, the past 20 years. Kind of like how the drag strip where they said that nobody was going to come. You know, I was a little bit more of a fan of the track. I was a little bit more of a fan of the track. Yeah. I was a little bit more of a fan of the track. And, you know, I'm not going to tell you that, you know, oh, I don't know about sand. This sand removal is an integral part, integral part of the buying of this. It's a $3.5 million piece of property that we're paying. We could not do it. Absolutely not. You want to put me out of business, bitch? That'll do it. Putting up a noise wall, you know, first of all, I- The problem is, Wayne, can I just say one thing? Sure. The one thing I know about sound, okay, the higher up you are, the more you're going to hear the sound, the more you're going to hear the noise, the more you're going to hear the noise. Yeah. The noise will carry sound. No matter what, the wind will carry sound. And that's why, you know, I've made a commitment to residents, so if it has to go down another foot or two, I don't really care. Because one, you'll never get any complaints. Two, that allows you to operate your business with no problems. And, you know, I know you don't want noise complaints. No. I looked into the walls, like on the L.A., all right? And this is 450 feet. So I priced out having it. It's $325,000, okay? But the problem is, that's a 20-foot wall, and you have a hill up here that's 30 feet. And it's line of sight. You got to- sound is about line of sight. It works like water almost. And if you- even a berm, even a natural berm, and, you know, you put some vegetation on there, that helps, all right? But the noise will actually bounce over that wall. You won't hear it right on the other side, but you'll hear it 100 yards away. That's where that acoustic fence right here comes in. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. You hear it. Elevation's below grade. So, again, it doesn't hit the line of sight. If I put a wall up here and put a jump up here, then the bikes are going to be above the wall. I don't, you know, build an 80-foot wall. Right, so it's, again, and I have experience in this because I got well-educated. It's unfortunate the town didn't accept our offer, but we'll come back, and we have to demonstrate that. We have to. That's the purpose of what we're going to do here, and I think you're going to prepare a resolution, right, Greg, and memorizing all that, right? The board agrees. It's in the direction of the board, yeah. And that's why we have to come back, and we have to make our case. I just don't want anything that is going to look like sand mining. Well, it's not a sand mine. We're not sand mining. We're not sand mining. I know what it looks like, and I'm telling you, I'm up front. I'm honest. I absolutely know what it looks like. It's not a sand mine. And we would be doing it if it wasn't sand. Well, I couldn't pay $3.5 million for the property, but no matter where we were, we would be going below grade. Yeah, below grade. Greg, at what point does sanitary systems need to be installed? So I think this would be a very popular project. I think you're going to have a lot of people in attendance. So at what point do you have to step away from porta-potties and actually put in, you know, the bathroom? Well, it's going to be... Oh, I'm sorry. I'm asking from the town. Oh, I'm sorry. I mean, that's a question. You know, I mean, again, the health department didn't really comment on that. I mean, there's an existing single-family residence on the property, which, again, I don't know in what capacity that's going to be used if they're going to abandon the single-family residence use. But, again, I mean, if this is a more... A single-family residence is going to be a single-family residence. So that's what I'm concerned about. We have a CO from the cash rooms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. there's not that many people. You might have 50 people on a weekend show up. It helps support the club, you know, it helps, but it doesn't, you know, make our business. Our business is when the races. So in order to get a building permit, if we're required to make application to the Suffolk County Health Department, which we are, we will and will guide by their regs. I go through this a lot of times, it's two different things. All building, most building permits, we have to go to Suffolk County Health Department regardless. So. It might even be financially viable if you have something popular. Right, and if we had to do, right, so. No, it's definitely cheaper. Definitely cheaper, but then you are. Why would you not provide like sanitary water and be able to wash your hands? There is no public water available to this site, which is probably an impediment to, you know, break. Well, currently, right. Also, is there an issue with an easement into coming onto this facility or something? Is there something, some piece of property? I don't, I'm not sure. No, this property is served by a flag lot. It's about 53 feet, but I mean, it's served by a flag lot as part of this. And if we build facilities on there, they, it's the new integrated organic system. So. I just think. Which is a mini sewer plant. And you're paying somebody, you're gonna come on a regular basis to pump out porta potties in there. I'm just, financially, you should really consider. That's my nephew. You'll be around Beth. Well, we might, we might, again. Again, it might happen. It really happens, Ken, and the good news is, for everybody that it's the new integrated organic system. It's not the, it's a. But you should mark it off on a site plan before you pave over, it looks, you know, where you're gonna place it. I think the thing with the IA systems is that they require regular use to be viable. And. The health department would look at this in the capacity of a regular use. So if it's more an event project, I think they would, you know, everyone would lean towards porta potties. But if it was something that could be, where a sanitary, the new sanitary system could be supported, you know, then they would go that way. But I don't know that they would recommend that here. What is an approximate value of 120,000? 20,000 cubic yards of sand today. 1.2 million dollars. 1.2? Yeah. Town gets $3 a yard. It's about, the town would get a. In addition to. Approximately $500,000 of that, Tim. Right. And the way that our code's written, whether you bring it on or you take it off, either way, the town gets paid. I know I went through this with Stop and Shop and the town gets, because we, with Stop and Shop, we had to take some off and then we had to bring some, you know, we had to bring some topsoil back on. We paid either, both ways. We paid both ways.
Could they bond money just until they get the CL? So not like a total, we want to make sure they get that. Part of the concern is that you complete the project. So the idea is that if you're making this money from sand lining, you. Sure. Would you consider to bond some of that money, to put it up as it's coming out until the project is. I don't understand how you do that bond. Well, you're selling the sand, right? Right. So rather than it go immediately into your pocket, it should go into. Oh, it doesn't go into my, it goes right to the seller. Yeah, so you reserve the money so that if you don't complete the whole track and have opening day and get your CO, that's only then that you can receive that money. You have to put a portion because if you just decide to simply sand mine and it's a pit and then you quit and you leave. No, I hear you. Then we have, there's nothing we can do. Yeah. We can do to restore the property in any way, shape or form. But if you complete the project, I feel even if you went out of business, somebody else would pick it up and make it into an ATV track or something. It still has a use, you know, for motorsports and things like that. But if it's just a giant pit, it has no use. I hear you. So, you know what I mean? Well. You'll get, you get all your money, but you just bond it till you complete the project. Now you've committed, the minute you start to dig your hole, you've committed that I'm going to finish this in its entirety. Right. The problem with that is, you know, just to spell it all out, is that that money is largely being committed already to the purchase of the land. Exactly. I think that's the problem to bond it. You can't bond it. That's not getting in my pocket. But you're looking for some mortgage until you get, you put a mortgage till you get your CO and then it's released and then you pay off your mortgage. I do have investors lined up to pay off the other half of the mortgage, you know. 1.3, and I put in about a half a million so far. I had a 3.5, so we're about half way there. And I do have an investor who's going to put in the balance to pay off the mortgage. It could be put a lien on the property. I know. Then you've got a big hole in the ground. Either way, you'd have to have that money for the property purchase before you can get any. And a bond isn't a letter of credit. You know, I. It's a small percentage. Right. Who else will take it over and build a tractor? To say that, I mean, kind of what I'm hearing, I mean, it seems like the, the. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.
me we don't allow mining in any zoning district within the town um and again it has no bearing on this application but there was a prior application by the there was an application submitted to the town to build a i went and had to go look back at this to build a 12 000 square foot warehouse building and in order to do that the property owner i think proposed to excavate and export about 40 000 yards of material which again to build a 12 000 square foot warehouse just didn't seem right to me that application ended up being withdrawn i guess because you know just trying to get to the bottom of this but i think to just say that you know the mining of the property is you know a critical financial part of a project to me i don't think i don't see how that obviates the need for other permits or approvals or to just say oh well that that's a fair assessment so let's just let's just move forward to me it's a smart move i mean you know it makes the problem if it makes the pro you know the pro everything viable you know maybe putting a warehouse there is not a good use of paying three and a half million dollars but putting a track there so is you know i mean i i follow up on what what greg said why the town charge in the old days town didn't get a penny of projects like this now you do number two i like your idea to make sure that we get a co for the track and it's not a sand line that's that's we're going to investigate that a little bit more but i think it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it it off you just don't throw it away you sell it okay so part of that i said right from the beginning part of the uh revenue from the sand is going to help finance the project which the town gets a part of and but i like your idea this way that to make sure that we get a seal for the project and it's not a sand mine so we'll have to investigate that you're going to dig i want to know that you're going to finish it exactly so we can we can work we can exp and that's we're going to have to explore as part of this report that would that would be something fair to look at and analyze in the eas so the amount of sand that you want to take out now if it comes to the point that we don't allow that amount of sand to be taken will you still be able to i don't know the numbers you know i'm i'm gonna have to i have another investor who naturally without a a special use permit is not going to give me a dime but they have kind of agreed to do the whole 1.5 million that i'm going to owe on the property and the seller is going to hold that as a mortgage for me that's like nine percent but i'm trying to buy that out all right so i do have that and that that would change my math so i don't know i would have to check with my my seller you know um you know believe me if this is some kind of a sand scam i am putting myself in the poorhouse i mean it does it's not it was never my intent you know you couldn't buy the property if it was a scam a sand scam i don't have the the means to to uh you know i would otherwise you know i would still have to put the place below grade though for right i i mean the noise the noise mitigation is very important because even if we did it at level then we have all the jumps and everything we have to create the jumps and that that that's what we have to invest we have to come back we definitely want to meet the noise orders better than the noise ordinance we don't want to just meet the noise orders we want to mitigate the maximum amount of noise that would be potential from this property so let us do the report and come back with uh we have to provide alternatives right greg okay okay so we'll have alternatives for you to examine and then once that report is done then we will sit down and finalize if we can finalize you know we'll come up with an agreement so right so just for the just to be clear for the board we'll sort of step you know right lay out the process i'll prepare a resolution for the pos deck the part three sort of sets the initial items for the applicant the applicant submits what's called the draft scope we review that for adequacy against the pos deck we accept that we have a public scoping session where members of the public can come in and raise additional issues that need to be studied thereafter the board would adopt a final scope and that is the final parameters the final items to be studied in the draft eis the applicant then has their sort of marching orders they take their time to compile the information submit that to us it gets reviewed for adequacy you have a public hearing on it you then adopt a you would adopt a they would prepare a final eis and then you adopt a finding statement so again the process you know once we sort of set the ball in motion the applicant is under you know their instruction to prepare you know the documentation submitted to us that's it all righty all right can i just one more thing i hear what you're saying i really don't understand the scope and the time frame of all this um the seller who i think you guys are probably familiar with he tried to take the sand off or whatever he you know is putting a lot of pressure on me to get this done he'd been waiting for over two years um again um you know um kind of staving him off a little bit you know i mean i don't think he's going to be able to sell the property or get it done any quicker but he's in a financial crunch to for me to close on this property and he's putting a lot of pressure on me and i don't know you know this this thing could all go south uh you know i'm in a lot of trouble here financially personally which you know that's the roll of the dice i get it because we're talking about time frame i think we have something but you guys could probably work on it a little bit better than me you know you know you know you're going to work with the planning department to get your time frame well yes there are there are there are certain time frames that are dictating you know once they submit a draft scope there are certain time frames that are dictated for us to you know review that hold the hearings you submit a draft dis there's a certain time frame to review that um but i mean you can communicate with the planning department on a regular basis i'm just letting you guys know you know because i've me and dick have been talking about this and you know i i just process is the process i know i i realize you you started this with the town how long ago uh two and a half years ago it was like april may march well the thing that the reason we're that long is because you put a moratorium on the industrial zone and then you change the code and said we had to have a special permit more than 20 that's why it's two years
by the way we when you did the moratorium we had our site plan filed and paid the town to check there's a case which we didn't make an issue of there is a case for the town of southampton which bill essex won went all the way up to the court of appeals and they define when you're grandfathered on a change of zone so if i ask this last time this is not only this is not only two-wheel this is four-wheel also like atvs and motorbikes and and motorcycles different classes right okay so we have our marching orders
okay yes we have uh next up is the rivhead in action video featuring the town clerk's office with clerk wooten
has hollywood called you jim or no has hollywood called yet yeah i love my job too much that's what i thought a limousine outside yesterday it said paramount on it and he was he was sitting in the back seat i'm all curious what hair makeup did for him
hi this is tim harvard supervisor of the great town of riverhead and you're watching riverhead in action a media campaign designed to highlight the incredible work of the 350 plus employees that comprise riverhead's 26 departments and sub departments town events projects job openings local businesses and other town happenings i hope you find this informative and enjoyable and thank you for watching riverhead in action
i am councilwoman joanne waskie and i am joined today by our town clerk jim wooten I remember when you first took office after you had been on the town board for so many years, and you actually made a comment that there's so much more that goes on in the clerk's office that you didn't even realize as a board member. So I'm excited to see what it is that goes on in your office. Great. And why don't we take a step inside and give us a tour? Okay. Good morning. Good morning. So what can I expect to be able to do here at the clerk's office? Well, most of the people that come into the clerk's office today are either coming in for a vital record, whether it's a birth certificate or a marriage certificate or a death certificate. We also offer marriage licenses, fishing licenses, dog licenses, handicap permits. But we also receive other things. We receive planning from the planning board. We receive special permits, special event permits. There's lots of things. There's lots of things that we handle here. Wow. It's a busy office for myself, and I have two full-time staff members. I have a deputy town clerk, Vanessa, and I have Carol DeVecchio, who is a principal account clerk, who has been with the town for well over 20 years and serving the people in this office for over 15 years. So they're very knowledgeable, and they've certainly helped me along my way as being a fairly new town clerk here in Revant. So, and I know that you have a new software system that's coming. We do, and that was one of the first things we had to work on because we had a system that was sunsetting and not renewing. So we had to go out and shop around for a new software program. It's going to be great for the residents as well. They're going to be able to be a little bit more hands-on. Well, a little bit more on to it. You know, it can definitely be a lot more inviting to the public, a lot easier for them to navigate through that particular meeting. There'll be time stamps along the way, video included with it. But I think it's going to work out very well. That's great. This is the vault, and only myself and the clerk and they're all registered as registrars are allowed in here. These are our sacred records. These are the records of our births, our marriages, and our deaths all the way back to 1881. Wow. And these are some of the books that we have here. These are the oldest books we have on record. And then, of course, they graduate all the way up into the current day in different formats. But we have every record. We get requests all the time. We have records for vital records. And then also, in addition to what we saw in the vault, we also keep records of all the town board minutes. We create the agenda, the resolution packet, and then, of course, at the meeting, we do the minutes. So here are some of the books that we've gathered. It goes way back to the 1800s with original town board minutes when we were formed and all the things that were plaguing the community at that time. Wow. At that time, we had a community of 8,000 people. But even then, we've got minutes from like 1905 that talk about the things that were really a problem then for people. And it's fun thumbing through. In fact, we're putting a display out in the front lobby, and these books will be there. They're not going to be able for people to actually flick through them, but they can read whatever is opened up at the time. This is particularly typed, which I find amazing from 1905 that this was actually typed. But some of the other ones are handwritten, which are the older ones. From the turn of the century. Wow. The penmanship is beautiful. Well, the penmanship is, well, I guess it was done with a quill pen. So some of it's legible, and some is not. I mean, you really have to be able to read cursive. And I'm glad that we've come a long way with computers. Yes. If you would not be able to read my handwriting one bit if I had to actually handwrite some of these minutes. But it's very interesting to read. It's very interesting to research. To see all the things that the town went through. It's all part of the development of the town. And it continues to grow and change and move in many directions over the decades. Can you tell us about FOIL requests? We get a lot of FOIL requests. Now, we don't answer them personally, but we have to navigate them. So everybody that does a FOIL request goes through this office, and we route it to where it needs to go. Whether they're looking for a deed, or they're looking for a CO, or they're looking for whatever they're looking for. We find more and more requests for FOILs. More people are starting to do more of their own backward searching. A lot of realtors are coming to use the FOIL system in order to circumvent maybe a title search. Which, you know, we do what we can, but it's very labor intensive. But we do it every day. Every day. And we answer them every hour. We check the FOILs to make sure that they get a timely response. Which is important. We have another thing I didn't touch on before was yard sales. And people say, why do I need a permit? You know, the permit, well, one good thing about it is we put it on our website. And I've seen people go to yard sales with a printout from the town computer of every place that was having a yard sale. I didn't know that that was available. People make, they make a day of it. People at yard sale, it's an event. And they actually bounce around from yard sale. And you can find a lot of good buys at yard sale. Absolutely. So, you know, for $10, which is what it costs for a permit, you're going to get your permit. You're going to get on the website. And, you know, for $10 you're getting advertising. You're getting advertising. Exactly. It's going to cost you more if you go in the paper and do it. You know, so, plus it alerts the public. You know, it alerts the police department. So, where there might be a traffic problem or whatever, it's all legit. And I thank you for helping support this office with the use of a bilingual clerk. Absolutely. We absolutely need it. You can only do so much with the translator interpreter on your phone. It's nice to have somebody that makes it feel welcome. Our bilingual is Karina Rios, who just joined us last week. She's jumping right to it and learning it. So, I can't be any more proud of the staff we have here. And believe me, everybody that walks up to that counter and the door is welcomed here. And whatever you need, we're going to bend over backwards for you. And I believe that to be true. You're doing an excellent job. Well, thank you. So, Clerk, thank you very much for allowing us to do this for your office today. Thank you. Thank you for taking this time. We learned so much. You're welcome. You really have a lot going on in this office. And we appreciate everything that you do. I appreciate you recognizing that. And it's not just me. It's like everything that most people that come to Town Hall, they're not paying their taxes or their water bill. They come in to see me or see this office. And I appreciate you recognizing that as well. Thank you. And if you got married, we're happy to meet you. No, we're not. Very nice. Very nice. Good job, Jim. Nice job, everybody. Nice job. Prime Video? Yeah, hold on a second. Jim, it's for you. He'll be taking autographs in the lobby in an hour. Okay. That does it for the open session of today's work session. In a moment, we're going to close the open session and go into executive session. And we'll be back with more of the work that we've done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. and Alan. Under legal, we have matters surrounding litigation with Crafted with Howard. And under litigation, we have matters surrounding potential litigation for code violations with Howard. So if I could have a motion to close open session and go into executive session. So moved. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Okay. We will be retiring to executive session after a short break that we take to attend a special event. And then we will be in our executive session. Everybody have a great weekend. I do have a couple quick announcements. Saturday and Sunday, August 23rd and 24th, the 35th Annual Riverhead Railroad Festival. Saturday and Sunday, August 23rd and 24th, Racetrack Not Streak. Gates open at 1 o'clock. Racing from 4 to 9.30. And Saturday, August 23rd, 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., the African American Educational and Cultural Festival. Benefit concert in the park at Grand Jubile Park. And that's on Peconic Avenue and Main Street. Everybody have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy the weather. We dodged a bullet with Aaron going out to sea. So we're very happy about that. And enjoy. Summer is still here. Thank you, everybody.
Thank you.