Full Transcript

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, first item we have on open session today is matters surrounding potential use of town property by the USGA. We will have match orders. And Jeff Seaman. And Danielle Hurley, come on up. And I think we will have gentlemen that are here from the USGA come on up.

Apparently you all heard about Bob's golf game. That's why we have the USGA here today. Okay. Ask him to stop playing golf. She went all about it yesterday. We like to grow the game, Bob. So would I. So I just wanted to introduce the topic today. About a month ago, the USGA reached out to the town inquiring about the use of up cow for overflow fan parking for the 126th US Open that will be hosted this June at the Shinnecock Hills. And they're here today to present the topic. The use of the property would require a license agreement, a special events application, and a road opening permit. And so they're just coming here today to introduce the topic and what the use would look like so that the public can have an understanding of what you guys are considering. Good morning. Gentlemen, you just want to all state your names to the public. Eric Steimer with the USGA. John Ryan Celebrity with the USGA. Mark Hinsley with the USGA. Okay. First and foremost, just appreciate the time this morning to be able to discuss this topic and look forward to advancing our plans here. As I often do, I'll just get right into it. I think for us, as we look at the US Open, as Danielle mentioned, it will take place next June. It's a full seven-day event, June 15th. It's the 21st of 2026, Monday through Sunday. And really, last time that the US Open was here back in 2018, I'm not sure who all maybe participated or came out or experienced it. But truth be told, there's a lot of similarities with what we're trying to accomplish in 2026 relative to what we accomplished in 2018. However, why we're here today is really to discuss the use of the Calverton Airfield as a potential parking lot. And why we're here today is really... it's really been the recent developments in recent years over at Gabrasski Airport. Whether it was 1994, 2006, 2018. We've generally use Gabrasski Airport for our general parking operation. But since 2018, anyone that has been over there has probably seen there's been some commercialization of the airfield. Amazon's built a distribution plant. I think they're working on their signature Atlantic aviation. New hub. over there that's really kind of eaten into the airfield that we generally parked so what you know amounted to about 50 acres 55 acres of land that we used to use there has shrunk down to potential 28 30 acres which really long term does just not make it a viable solution for us with this championship so all that background aside we reached out to the town of Riverhead to really discuss potential use of Calverton airfield which I think is a great opportunity not just for the USGA not just for this championship but also for the town of Riverhead knowing the potential impacts eyes and ears that it does bring to the town of town of Riverhead and before I kick it over to John Ryan just to maybe show a few maps of what we're thinking of trying to do operationally or logistically out at the airfield I just want to share a couple more quick notes I've jotted down here so with the US Open next June you know we are anticipating over 150,000 plus people over the course of the week that is a cumulative number I don't think anyone in here especially us do not want 150,000 people there per day that's that we're not gonna be able to do that but you know on a peak day out there probably that Thursday through Sunday our four championship rounds we're gonna have probably close to around 33 maybe getting creeping up towards 35,000 people on site per day during our busiest times with this championship Monday Tuesday Wednesday June 15th 16th and 17th those are practice rounds Monday's always the slowest day ramps up a little bit Tuesday and it just kind of builds up into those four championship rounds so you know I jokes aside not to say Monday's gonna be very light but it is gonna be it's gonna be very light out there it's what we saw in 2018 we probably had about 30% of the attendance that we saw on a Saturday versus on Monday and that's just the ebbs and flows of how this championship championship goes so with that I'll just say thank you so much for joining us and I'll see you next week. all that being said you know in 2018 we parked close to 5,000 cars out of the Kupreski Airport at which point that's a lot of vehicles we're obviously gonna be partnering with the LIRR again to be able to establish temporary train station partnering with some other local properties in and around the area to park cars and provide shuttle service and I think for us Calverton is really that that potential new general parking lot for us that Kupreski replacement for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for Sale for which is one of our larger sites this past June out in western PA, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where we conducted a study that showed 290-plus million of economic activity in and around the area for the championship. Truth be told, a lot of that is seen in the tourism industry. It's hotels, it's restaurants, it's other retailers in that field, which I think for us is always a hurdle, always a challenge out here. We look at the rooms that are available in Southampton. It is limited. The USGA, we have eaten up a lot of those rooms. As we start to branch out, whether that's further east of the golf club or even further west as we sit here today, we've contracted over 400 rooms per night during the week of the championship just in and around the town of Riverhead. There's still some inventory out there. There's not a whole lot of inventory closer to the golf course at this point outside of home rentals. But this is, I think, a great opportunity. As we think about the fans, the corporate clients, the volunteers, all the folks that are coming in to enjoy the championship, there's not a whole lot of options to stay out in and around Shinnecock Hills. And I think being able to utilize Calverton is going to help push a good amount of that traffic closer to home or closer to Riverhead here if we're able to market Calverton as our general parking lot for the championship. So I certainly wanted to mention that as the town of Riverhead stands to gain some, some economic benefit in that sense, if we're able to use the Calverton airfield. And then ultimately, you know, I'll just kind of close with this. Probably the biggest difference or biggest change since, from 2018 is really taking place on site at Shinnecock Hills. We had a more significant build in 2018, more infrastructure, more tents, more hospitality. We're scaling that back. And inherently by scaling that back, if we had, I think our peak day in 2018 was around 38,000, I mentioned we're going to be probably closer to that 33,000 number. So, you know, when we think about that, it's probably about 15 to 20% haircut in terms of total capacity that we're going to let on, on the golf course, which inherently impacts our parking transportation plans and everything else. So I wanted to frame all that. Certainly, in Nebraska, we parked a lot of cars. We're not expecting to park that many cars at Calverton in June of 2026. But really for us, it's just, you know, we're going to be able to get a lot of traffic. And really for us, it's just a matter of a lot of concerning logistics, not just parking, but traffic management plans, you know, continue to work with the DOT, with Suffolk County, with the local jurisdictions to really build out a plan that we feel we can execute and make sure that we're providing the best experience, not just for our championship goers, but also for the local communities, residents, businesses, and so forth. So all that being said, I think today what we'd like to be able to present a little bit further is really just kind of what our intended use is of the airfield. I know I think everyone's maybe had a chance to kind of look over the proposal initially, but I might kick it over to John Ryan here to maybe run through some of our maps and kind of the logistics we're looking to accomplish out of the airport. John Ryan, California Department of Transportation and Transportation Services, Yeah, absolutely. So kind of just give an overview of which would probably be easier to look at it this way first, but using kind of the eastern runway for our parking and transportation operation, I do know that the western runway is going to be the eastern runway. So our intention would be to use just the eastern runway, utilizing kind of the whole runway space for the parking of the cars and then the taxiway for more of our shuttle operation, which would kind of look a little more like this. Having all the fans walk on the pavement to our attentive facility where we would do security screening and then load the buses. So that's kind of what we're looking at. So I think that's pretty much it. Thank you. So we're going to keep the buses to be able to load about six buses at a time. The main thing that we would also need to do is open the roadway to connect to Janway there so that we can be able to have our buses enter and exit. We believe that it's wide enough to be able to have buses come both ways there so we wouldn't have an issue with them being able to pass each other. And then also we've had the opportunity to be able to have additional space for all of our staging of the buses. So overnight, all the buses would stay there and then be able to kind of, we would have one bus bring all the drivers to the hotels that they're staying at and then come back and be able to do it. So we're not taking those buses off the property until they're utilized for transportation of the fans. I'll quickly jump in on the busing front. I'm working with our USGS contractor to provide buses. We're estimating on our peak days, we're probably gonna have close to 130, 145 coach buses providing service to and from the golf course in Calverton Airfield. And that is a fairly significant bump relative to Gabreski, which incrementally comes at a significant cost to the USGA to make up those 20 additional minutes, 25 additional minutes relative to where we've been parking. So we are making the investment to make sure that we have the number of buses we need over the course of the week. You know, again, as I mentioned earlier, Monday morning, we're not gonna need 130 buses. It's gonna be, we're not gonna have that volume of people coming to the championship, but we are making some significant investment in our shuttle equipment to make sure we're providing the level of service we need to. Buses will take, what, about 50 people or so? About 55, yep, full-size coach buses. And then on top of that, everything that is listed on these diagrams are all temporary structures. So our tenting, as temporary, the fence lines are temporary. We're really utilizing that fence line more to kind of, as we like to say, the fans are clean coming into the championship, so they'll be security screened and then they're getting onto the bus clean. And then from there, you can also see that we're, for the protection of the grass areas, we're gonna make sure that fans are not walking through the grass areas. We're gonna stake and rope those areas off and then also add some signage along it to deter people from walking. So that's what we're doing. We're gonna add some signage along it to deter people from walking through those areas. But two other things to note is more of just the fan routing in into the championship, or into Calverton for parking. We will utilize the taxiway on the Western runway to be able to get those cars off the road and then be able to bring them across. Knowing how long of a distance that is, we plan on adding some elements to make sure that the cars are slowing down. And then, you know, we're gonna be able to, you know, and not speeding right down to that connection point into Calverton. But realistically, we're going to try to pull the traffic off of Sunrise Highway, bringing it up William Floyd Parkway, or off the LIE kind of this back road to be able to get to that Western runway. But you can see Calverton is 28 miles away from Shinnecock Hills. That red line is that shuttle route that we've been utilizing. And it adds up to that. It adds up to probably about another 25 minutes to our shuttle time from what it was at Nebraska. And on the note of routing here, the green lines being the fan routing cars coming into park, being the shuttle routing, this is one that we continue to work closely with our greater public safety team on this championship. And certainly we'll work closely with the town of Riverhead and the necessary parties that need to be involved in these conversations. To quickly note on that, town of Southampton PD, they are a lead law enforcement agency for this championship. And they're pulling in the mutual aid support of state police, Suffolk County, as well as some of the local jurisdictions, town of Riverhead included. And as we look at this map in particular, this is really where, you know, the USGA, we know how to grow grass. We don't always know how to best maneuver cars and vehicles. So we have enlisted the support of a traffic consultant, Greenman Peterson Incorporated, GPI, as the acronym, to really help coordinate this traffic management plan with the DOTs, with the Suffolk County DPWs of the world and as on the local front with the town of Riverhead as well. So we are in the process of really what's kind of been quarterly public safety meetings. But those are going to start to ramp up to monthly, potentially biweekly meetings once we flip the calendar into 2026. So we feel we have a great plan in place to mitigate some of the traffic issues, particularly closer to the golf course. But we're also mindful of the impact that we would also consider for various uses. for various uses. impact that we would have with not just the green and red lines coming in and out of Calverton and Haerkild as well. And just one thing to note is a priority for us is the fans' safety when it comes to the championship. So we try to make sure that fans aren't crossing in front of any buses, make sure that it is fully protected from people walking into those things. So you can see those green lines are separate from the red line on purpose. We try to keep our coach buses separate from where the fan traffic is coming into the championship so that it kind of keeps that whole operation as a different thing compared to our fans entering. And then the last things I've jotted down here, and then maybe we open up to discussion. If you go back to maybe the overview that kind of has where our parking area is. So when we talk about parking, as you see on the screen, that northern run, the 10,000 foot runway, is that the 7,000? 10,000, thank you. I'm gonna get that right eventually. The 10,000 foot runway is really where our parking would be, that's where the vehicles would go. And we contract with the group, Country Club Services, CCS as we like to call them, to really manage all of our parking lots for this championship. This is a vendor of the USGA that has been with us since the early 90s. This is gonna be, for a lot of them, their third or even fourth US Open if we go way back. But CCS does an excellent job. They'll recruit locally. Ultimately, they're gonna be in the market looking for temporary labor, individuals to help support their operations, working with local schools and all that, but essentially they run or manage the parking lot for us. This is not gonna be free for all. This is really coned out, lined out. They're gonna park these cars as tightly and as efficiently as possible. For us to maximize our space and to really kinda try to keep them more in this corridor that you see up on the screen here so people aren't parking a mile away, having to walk to our buses. We're gonna park them close and then branch out as we go. But CCS for us does a phenomenal job of managing our parking lots, which is the USGA's expense and everything else. Additionally to that, if we were to zoom in, you'd see two little purple dots. One is a CCS office trailer, the other is an EES, Executive Invention Trailer. And the other is a CPS office trailer. The other is an EES, Executive Invention Trailer. EES for us is our private security vendor. They're the ones responsible for really the security of our areas in this case. Also managing the security screening tent. So EES, they procure non-divest magnetometer walkthroughs, kinda like what you see at an airport. You come through the screening process, make sure you're not carrying any nefarious items on you. If you are, you're gonna return them to your car or potentially be intercepted by an officer. But EES manages the security operation, and that's where we really lean on, I think, Riverhead PD support to kinda be the backbone there, knowing that this is private security. But if something is going on, that private security is gonna have to elevate that to the police department. So we'll continue to work with the PD here in terms of really building out the proper staffing plan to make sure that we have the resources there. And if we feel like we're starting to tax any groups or any agencies in particular, that's where I mentioned Southampton PD has enlisted the support of state police, Suffolk County, who are ready and willing to support us as necessary. But certainly being on Town of Riverhead's property here, we wanna work with the Riverhead PD first, and then Pac-Phil as needed. And all of- I'm biased, but they're the best PD out there anyway, so. But I think that's it. A lot of what you see on the screen is just temporary infrastructure. We're not coming in. We look to build anything permanent necessarily. We'll bring in office trailers, tents, bike rack, as John Ryan mentioned, stake and rope. A lot of temporary infrastructure just to get it built out and make sure everything's organized. That build out, we have tightened our window from, I think our original proposal was May 11th to come in and start building the infrastructure. We have tightened that to June 1st. And ultimately, I've kind of tightened the tear down, clean out window as well. Where we previously, I think, shared June 30th, we have now tightened the load out, if you will, to June 26th. So really trying to tighten our footprint overall, just to help manage expectations and cost, not just from a Riverhead perspective, but also from a vendor side of things for us. So before we up, Mark, anything we missed? No. Anything else? Just in terms of traveling from Calverton over there, I see you're obviously trying to- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Take all the main roads down there. But why not, if you go through the traffic circle, why not take 24 down and cut off a significant distance? It seems like you're traveling much further to go all the way down the Sunrise Highway and over. When you look at the map, you can shave a lot of distance off by using Route 24. If you have one officer at the traffic circle with a CIS bus going through, you can get your people there a lot faster. Yeah. One of the concerns with us is just the number of coach buses that we're potentially putting on those circles. The red line that you see on the screen, we're going to be placing a lot of the CIS buses screen this was this is probably our primary route if there is an incident or accident something that would prevent us from using you know the north-south roads that were shown that's when we start to push over the circles but knowing knowing some of the traffic patterns there and the time it takes for some of these coach buses to get from zero miles per hour to up to speed could create some increased congestion there to better illustrate that point if you could highlight how often the bus buses leave and the frequency maybe you can get an idea of what kind of volume it's going to create if it was to go that way sure great question um for us I mentioned on our I'll just really stick to Thursday through Sunday here those are our busiest days where we get closer to that 130 145 coach bus number um the way that we have built out this schedule is is really based on the expected number of folks parking in Calvertown number of you know butts and seats for lack of a better term um at which in and in this case you know for us to do that red line commute back and forth we're really predicting about two hour round trip time on average and that's five ten minutes of loading five ten minutes of offload into the golf course and then just to commute time back and forth and certainly understand um really from the 24 27 interchange out out east is an issue of a challenge in the mornings from uh 5 a.m to seemingly 10 a.m but also the westbound traffic in the afternoon can be challenging getting past Tuckahoe Road and back on the Sunrise Sunrise Highway by the club so it's about a two-hour turn time for each bus bus leaving every 15 minutes you said um more so our more more is the answer um we run our buses continuously they're not on intervals so you know we'll probably be loading maybe four or five buses at a time out of Calvertown um during those peak arrival hours um and I'm gonna hit on peak arrival hours here in just a second but um for us the way the bus is run if there's one person on that bus and there's not another person in sight we're going to send that one person the next bus is going to pull up right behind it so we have the building redundancy with our buses to make sure again we're providing the level of service um that we want um but I I failed to mention uh um with the attendance with the projected numbers that we'll have at Calverton you know this this is not like going to a football game or a baseball game our our gates will open up around 6 00 a.m and then they don't close until the last putt drops for that day which is probably around 7 30 8 p.m so it is a full day of activity our arrival windows are traditionally around 7 30 to about 9 30. so about a two about kind of kind of coincides with you know your normal rush hour of a 7 30 9 30 a.m and then our exit Exodus time you know leaving the golf course and in this case coming back to Calverton is generally probably about 4 30 to 6 30. um during the weekdays on the weekends it's probably safe to bump that back 30 45 minutes just because we have cut the field to the low 60 players um at that point and um due to the cut field we just have later starting tee time so people are not showing up to a little bit later and consequently leave it a little bit later at night so and that's that's truly just Saturday and Sunday there was one point that I did want to make too I don't you recall but 2018 um the amount of uh the amount of traffic it generated traffic people um coming into West Hampton Beach because the proximity to kabrski um you know it was it generated an awful lot of custom for people down there and uh you know because of the locality up to you I think it's going to be a we want to make sure that we advertise um for the businesses in Riverhead that this is a this is a pretty good shot in the arm um and it's uh you know it's rare that something that's of this magnitude happens out here so it's a we want to make sure that they know the impact of that we looked into our office the town attorney's office looked into the relevant hotels for this time frame and they're all already almost booked all of our local Riverhead hotels are all almost booked so it's already working you've got a bigger town in West Hampton so which is great I think um that's a great point Mark I think you know as we're able to potentially Market Calverton has that general parking lot um it's interesting working with the chamber of commerce out here to be able to help promote what some of the other activities above you know the average US Open fan spends about seven to eight hours on the golf course you know it's it's morning to afternoon but it's not to say that they can't go into Riverhead after they come back to Calverton um in the evening so certainly would uh be interested to work with the chamber of commerce as well to be able to help promote what we can through our our communications channels as a part of this I will say I was able to have the opportunity to go to the US Open and we parked over at the airport in West Hampton it was so organized the shuttles were great it was a very pleasant experience I was able to see that you know the organization that was put into what to touch back on what you said about how you make sure that the cars are parked you know close and together and all of that is what I experienced when when I parked over at West Hampton so keep the vendor yeah it's the same it's the same vendors I had trepidations I had a meeting in South Hampton on one of those days but the way that they returned what is that 31 in front of Gabreski that road I mean in the way that they uh put cones down man I just zipped right through I was like wow so the guy that ran the cones all over that wasn't me I think that was Matt but you know yeah so but and your security's there 24 7 right during this the course of all this protecting correct your correcting the infrastructure correct I had a couple questions you mentioned earlier that you're going to be scaling back the tents why part of the arrangement we have with the club um to be able to better showcase the aesthetics of the golf course um if again anyone that was there in 2018 remembers we had a lot of white tented canvas and out on the course you know particularly around the closing holes 14 15 16 etc um we've we've taken a chunk of that out um which has its has its benefits and has its downfalls you know selfishly speaking from the USGA side but um I think for us it's a better chance to showcase the golf course and and really one of the big you know big changes since 2018 for us um we all dealt with covid 2020 2021. we had fans in 2020 at Wingfoot we were still able to host but no fans it was about 500 people there per day 2021 we had a scale back to US Open out of Torrey Pines in San Diego which we welcomed 10 000 fans during our championship rounds that's a that's a site that can hold 50 55 000 if we wanted to but as we progressed into 22 at the country club in Boston 23 at LACC Los Angeles Country Club um but being much smaller sites kind of similar to Shinnecock Hills in that sense um to come back to your question we you know we presented we got the buy-in from our leadership team to to say bigger isn't better you know better is better in that sense that having even if we scaled back you know 15 20 on our attendance numbers relative to maybe some of the some what we've done done in the past it just presents a better experience for those coming to the championship um I don't think anyone likes to stand 10 rows deep trying to look over someone's head seeing their favorite golfer so we're just trying to create a better experience on the site better flow on the golf course once you add all that infrastructure it makes it more challenging for people to get around I'll speak not on behalf of the USGA here but as a golf nerd um but it's um there seems to be there are certain sites where you have the open which are just so prestigious and just like you've got to have the national championship on a great great golf course and that is a great great golf course there are other ones but it doesn't have the capacity to be able to have tons of people come in so there are other opportunities like Torrey Pines or was Beth page years ago where you can get 50 000 people in there no worries so it makes it a much better experience you also mentioned I'm just curious about the number of cars because you're talking about the number of buses can you give us an estimate on the number of cars you're going to have let's say from Thursday through Sunday at those at that one runaway sure um Friday and Saturday are always our busiest days at which point uh I'll give you some point of reference here for gibberewski I'll just go Thursday through Sunday that's probably easiest gibberewski in 2018 we parked 4 700 cars in 2018 we're anticipating probably closer to 3 200 number for 2026. that's a product of us continuing to push people to take the train out to the train station we'll build out of Stony Brook um as well as securing some additional parking a little bit closer to the golf course relative to that in 2018. um so for Thursday 30 about 3250 Friday we'll see a bump or we're estimating probably around 3750 maybe it creeps closer to 4 000. um which would continue into Saturday and then probably drop off a little bit on Sunday back to around that 3 200 number which Sunday is uh always ends up we always end on Father's Day so we see a little bit of a little bit less ticket utilization that day um relative to some of the other days but um it kind of coincides with the message um I I mentioned earlier less fans are going to equal less cars and that's kind of why we're seeing or why we're estimating that that percentage cut kabrowski versus calverton for for this this go around so and how many acres would you be using at our airport at our airport the runway compared to gavrowski gavrowski was down to 50 right how much would we would our average be that we'd be using um 42 acres 42 acres okay if for us an acre equals about 120 125 cars my concern is the roadway I really think that maybe the highway superintendent should have been in on this meeting um the roads were not constructed for this amount of traffic for this amount of buses uh shuttle you know buses going through and I'm I'm concerned if the roadway will be able to support that without having any damage to it I mean that that's they're simply not used to that kind of traffic coming through so the highway superintendent was sent a copy of the proposal okay and I didn't hear any negative feedback on his end um I don't know if you spoke with him at all I haven't and but concerned about the roads in or generally speaking speaking the surrounding area of you know some of the route there yeah and I think those are old roads understood and in Epcal itself I would say uh for the majority of them they're concrete roads so they can handle way more than they can well that's industrial yeah right so with an Epcal I don't think we have too much to worry about the red route obviously as the team from usga spoke uh too it's somewhat malleable at this point this is their quickest route obviously we have our own ideas which we think might be a little faster which comes with rothwell rothwell touched on a little bit before uh I'm a little bit more in favor of waiting river Manor Road just because it's a more direct route to um 111 which is the fastest way to get there obviously this is going to have to be a broader discussion with the whole law enforcement team on how they can best manage traffic too because that's part of it not only the age of the road but how it's manageable well it's easier that way too it's less traffic more of a stretch from waiting on waiting River Manor Road to get to the major arteries it's less traffic if you're going to go on 25. you're dealing with it's a trade for it for a lack of a better term it's also it's chewed up already the state is supposed to be repairing that so that would be a mess I mean the buses would just kill what's left of that road over there it's already it looks like it looks like it's bad it's bad it's bad it's bad it's bad it's bad it's bad it's bad it's bad it's bad it's bad it's bad It's bad. You're competing with more trips in that case, too, so these roads are less traveled, understanding they're smaller roads, but there's less traffic conflicts. There's no right turn. My pet peeve is they did all that construction on Edwards and 25 over there, and they only built a left-turn lane, not a right-turn lane, to get to the expressway, which is where everybody you're going to want to go, to the expressway. It's a regional event with a lot of regional partners, I would say, so we're going to have to rely on their expertise a lot with our own expertise and the team. So this is what the USGA does for these sort of events, so I think we're in fairly good hands in terms of managing the traffic but not ignoring anyone's concerns. So that would be my only request, is that you reach out to the New York State Department of Transportation for Route 25 is to be repaved next year, so it's on the agenda. So the timing of whether they're doing that, whether they hold operations for the week of your event, but trying to just envisioning that, God forbid, they start closing down Route 25, because that's the week they're going to repave. It would be a disaster. So you just want to coordinate with the New York State Department of Transportation towards when they expect it. It's supposed to be done in the spring, so hopefully Route 25 will be an entirely new road by the time you guys arrive in June, but just to touch base with them on that project. So I learned a very valuable lesson of road construction in 2013, how to marry a golf club in Philadelphia. One of our bus routes did not work that week. So we have begun. I've been having initial discussions with the DOT, with Suffolk County DPW as well, to talk through their construction plans. The DOT has been advised that based on our routing, whether that's the fan routing into some of our parking lots, whether it's a place like Calverton or Suffolk County Community College, whether it's the fan routing or bus routing, to put a hold on work to make sure the roads that we are envisioning are usable. So I mentioned GPI, Greenman-Peterson Inc. a little earlier. They're our traffic consultants, and they're working hand in hand with the DOT and DPW in that sense. Certainly if there's any town or riverhead roads, as you mentioned, we want to be mindful of. If there are roads out there that are either deteriorating or present challenges or issues, that's probably in our best interest to avoid those. You make a great point, by the way. That's a case in point. I don't know if you remember in the Ryder Cup was that in Chicago? Yeah. And Rory McIlroy missed his tee time almost. Oh, yes. And I was there. And because they were redoing all the roads right around the golf course, the traffic was terrible. And they wouldn't let him through or something like that. It was really bad. It was really bad. He sort of ran up at the last minute. Yep. So there's lessons learned. Someone mentioned some of the traffic control pinch points. As Matt mentioned, I think working with our public safety team, we'll identify traffic posts for some major key intersections that takes place around the golf course, but certainly can expand out here on the local front as well. If there's the light at 25 coming into Calverton, if that needs some additional traffic support just to help the flow of traffic, the USGA is comfortable working with the town of Riverhead, or in this case probably the PD, to be able to deploy some resources there to help manage any potential pinch points. We will make it work. Absolutely. We're right there with you. I think for us, you know, Mark mentioned, you know, a little bit long term here. Shinnecock's a special place for the USGA. We come here for not just the golf course, but because of the support we get in the local community. And we know we got our work cut out for us here in about seven months, but we've already committed to coming back in 2036 for the next USGA. So then after we wrap up next June, and I dare say 2036 will be even more fun. We're contemplating two weeks of it with the women's open as well as the men's open back to back, which hopefully can be retired before then, but we'll see. But I think Shinnecock Hills, you know, the club's great to work with. Their leadership team is phenomenal, and we're fortunate to be invited back there to bring our championships. And, you know, as we have this conversation today, we're also thinking long term what this potentially looks like, from a viability standpoint as we continue forward. So I have a question for you. You know, the merchandise and the tents and everything at Shinnecock, you know, it's great. Is there any consideration to put a merchandise tent at the parking area? Even local people in River Island, like people just like to buy, you know, and it's the one time you can get that Shinnecock logo on it. You know, so is there any contemplation of putting a merchandise tent, you know, on that site region? To directly answer your question, there is not. I think for us, we don't allow tailgating. We don't allow hanging out. It's you park, you get on the bus, and then at the end of the day, you get off the bus and get back in your car. It's a moving cycle rather than having people stopping and buying and shopping. And I think a lot of what we see, and to provide some further context on that, is I mentioned, you know, our fans will spend on average seven plus hours on the golf course, but they're going to eat lunch there. They're going to, you know, a lot of them will do their shopping at the golf course to get the championship logo and so forth. And I think for us, just to be able to manage the parking operation, the safety of all the vehicles moving through there, it's in our best interest to just park them, get them on the buses, and go. Would you consider, you know, towards leasing a storefront or something within downtown Riverhead for selling merchandise for the U.S. in terms of just so that people within our area, our region, can come in and shop? That would add a lot more people to our downtown area if you guys leased a store on Main Street, you know, or it's on Newtown Square coming in, you know, that's currently under construction. But I just know from attending in years past out in Southampton, I mean, it's not uncommon to wait an hour in line to get through the merchandise tents. I mean, it's phenomenal. So if people thought local residents, you know, anybody on the North Shore here could get some of those merchandise. So, you know, what is the opportunity of having a site, whether it be downtown, ideally, but even, you know, in the Tengra Mall and stuff, where we can, you know, locals. So that would be, to me, more of a direct impact financially, you know, certainly. Like you've rented a space and then somebody comes to buy their polo shirts and everything else right there for the golf . I mean, then maybe they're sticking around and they're getting something to eat and they're walking around and they're walking downtown and all those things. I just think you could also help us with a little inject of . . . . Let me take that back to our merchandise team, our merchandise department. I can't promise anything here today. They have activated another. I don't want to control merchandise. I don't want to control merchandise. But let me take that back to our team and gauge their temperature. And you could do it early on. It's a promotional thing as well. It could be a site where people can purchase tickets. They can purchase all that. I know everybody's primary darn to be honest. It's the right time of year to do it. I just have one sticky question. I just want to ask if you can answer it. The DEC grasslands, what's going on with all that? Do we have a permit? Do we have anything for that? So when the discussions were in the preliminary stages, I reached out to DEC knowing that they might be the go, no-go decision maker here. But because of our history, in the past on the 7,000 foot runway when we stored the damaged cars from the flooding, we really had no incidents that impacted the grassland birds. This event happens to take place right in the middle of the bird nesting season, which runs from about the third week of April through the second week of August. But based on the fact that this is really just parking, there's a lot of things that we can do. There's a lot of things that we can do. There's not a lot of other physical activities going on compared, for example, to the raceway. And the history that we had in the past where we could show that we hadn't impacted the grasslands, they were agreeable to allow the town to work with the sponsor to put up a grassland protection program, which is shown up on the screen as the rope and stake. So we're going to be working on that. And we're going to be working on that. So we're going to be working on that. So we're going to be working on that. So we're going to be working on that. Some fencing will be in place. I'll work with the USGA, who has an excellent reputation in environmental stewardship, to walk the site as we're getting closer to the date. I'll provide DEC with some pictures and a brief inspection report, and we should be good. No takings permit is required, which was a big plus to let this go forward. And Jeff and I have worked on a bunch of things in the past, so we can make sure we coordinate that right. We certainly know the environmental hurdles. I know. We do have 8,000 square feet actively available downtown for merchandise. I know we're here to talk about parking, but why are we here at the table? 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 it is. But thank you for considering it. We appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate you all hearing us out on this idea. I think, you know, again, we had the vision of going back to Nebraska, but I think that ship has sailed for us on multiple levels. And, you know, we're excited about this opportunity to see how things go out at Calverton next June. And certainly any more information or details that we can provide. We'll work with it. with the team here to make sure this group is a preview on what we're trying to accomplish and kind of, Danielle, maybe follow your lead going forward. Yes, of course. If that's fair. And anything else we can provide or talk to, please let us know. All right. Hopefully we move forward. If we do, stay in touch with me about temporary labor. We'll work with the school system on that. And also with the various organizations, in addition to the chamber, with the Farm Bureau, the Wine Council, so that those people have an opportunity to figure out how they're going to promote during the duration of this. The USGA has a program for the local communities called our Open Works Program. Basically individuals that would like to be involved in the championship from a temporary staffing to also your local baker that wants to be able to have some products being with it. So we'll be able to put some contacts together. We've become the middleman. We're the middleman for them to our vendors and then be able to share their information with the individuals. So no promises that we'll be able to get that into it, but at least from that standpoint, we'll be able to make sure the connection's made there for the US Open. Yeah. Maybe we can get some wineries in there, some breweries. Maybe we can advertise. I don't golf. Sorry. I'm probably the only woman in the whole room here that doesn't, or person that doesn't golf. But would they be able to advertise? Let's say maybe the local breweries, you know, where you have the parking lot stage. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how that works with marketing agreements, but, you know, like, okay, this is very pedestrian, but you know how little they have the banners up where this particular group or that group, just to let the people that are in the cars know this is right nearby, this particular winery or brewery. I don't know how that works, but is that something you've allowed in the past? It's a good idea. It might even be worthwhile doing some sort of guide that you can hand out. So rather than having a bunch of banners, just. Yeah. This is what's local. It's locally in the area that you may not know about. We absolutely do that. Now there is, once we start talking intellectual property and IP, it gets a little bit tricky in terms of what's usable or permissible. But I think that's where we would look to build a relationship with the Chamber of Commerce to help educate the local community purveyors, the businesses, retailers, whoever, to be able to, A, make sure they understand what IP they can use, but also how we can leverage each other to be able to better market what is out there, and what's available for folks having the championship that are not at the golf course. And we do that everywhere we go. Yep. There are going to be out of towners who come to this who have no idea that we have wine up here. Right. None whatsoever. New York, what are you kidding? Right. Right. Councilman Kern, glad you mentioned that. As John really mentioned, the Open Works program has been a great tool for us. We started in 2022 with the town of Brookline. It just continues to grow exponentially. You're a big part of it. Thank you. We have a lot of good people who come to us every year. We'll have to hire north of 2,500 people to support us, not just for those seven days, but potentially for, you know, three or four months at a time. So there's a lot of opportunity that comes at the individual employment level, but also a lot of opportunity for businesses to support some of our more national vendors. It's a big deal. You know, it's great. Thank you. Any other questions? Board? No. Okay. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. Thank you. John, Eric, Jeff, Danielle. Thank you. All right, man. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Next time we'll have a golf ball. So I'm sorry. Keep on the back . I really forgot. Don't forget us. Thanks, man. I don't know if I can even sign one. It's so small. Did you do that? I'll show you. I'll be marking it. I'll be marking it. I'll be doing it.

Okay, next up, matter two on open session, matters surrounding 2026 recreation rates. Beach Stickers and Capital Improvements will be with Ray Coyne. And the Entourage. And the Entourage. Well, this is a treat. And the backbone of the Recreation Department. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. No, Ashley, this is Doris and Kaylee. They are the front lines dealing with the customers on the Beach Stickers. I figured they'd be the best to answer any questions on the Beach Stickers and the customer reactions and all that. It takes all the brunt of all the blame that comes up there when somebody's complaining about something. Sometimes. Sometimes. Everybody loves Doris. You handle it so well. Thank you so much. She's the top in our customer service complement. I'm going to put you here in this seat. Okay, everybody have a copy? I need a copy of this here? Okay. Okay. Okay. What we have is we have a few things we wanted to discuss. Captain Wilsey from the Police Department here is here as well to discuss. The main thing we want to get through to the town board today is the rates for 2026 on the Beach Stickers and the facilities. We also are introducing the Yodel Beach Pass, which is an LPR, License Plate Reader, model. But with Captain Wilsey, we're still talking about certain things. We have to both agree on to make it easier for the police before we officially ask the town board to move forward with it. So we can present some information on Yodel Pass today, or we can just wait. I was going to say, actually, if we have the captain come up. Yeah, yeah. So I have Dawn Thomas because I wanted to just mention to you, Ray, that we're looking into the parking committee. We're having presentations with the police department. If Dawn wants to step up as well. There are handheld devices that can be utilized all through the town, not just for parks. So that's kind of a program. So maybe just save the Yodel idea for later because if you'd like to come to the meeting, it's January 6th with the police chief. We have a parking consultant. And the device. Right. Yes, Kevin. Yeah, he's been in the Yodel Pass meetings. But the bottom line is the handheld device can be utilized for all different places in the town. And it would include the parks as well. Okay. So I think it's maybe a better idea to go with one unified system. So maybe hold off on the Yodel altogether for now. Yeah, whatever the town board wants to go. Because it doesn't seem to be a – I spoke with the PD personnel. They spoke with my staff. And they're indicating, too, they want to look at this. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. One unit used townwide instead of having to have a couple different units and whatnot. Yeah. That's the goal, Denise. Just so you know. I mean. That is the goal. I've spoken to Kevin. And, you know, so because we also want to look at the yard waste facility also. Cover everything. Right. And that device, it has all kinds of drop-down menus. The captain is familiar with it, too. It takes photographs of the violations. And you can pay it right there. And we don't have to worry about coming into court to pay. So it's a very efficient system that we're looking to do. We're all for that. Yeah. The main reason we wanted to get this out is because. We have to get the beach stickers in action. If we're not going to move forward with Yolo Pass or we don't have the parking system ready, we have to order the beach stickers to get them ready. We're ready to go with that, but we just. We don't want to place the order. That's why I'm suggesting that we meet the first week of January with all concerned parties. So that we can really look at this. And I already let Kevin know. January. Yeah. No, it is already set. So, you know. The problem is with. They. January 1st is when you need the sticker. Yeah, but if we. If we. Right. The beginning of the year. Well, the first day. Yeah. But the question becomes, if we're a week away, if we find out on the first week of January that we could be a week or two weeks away, why not just honor the 2025? We've done that in the past. You know, and then implement the new system rather than to, you know, not do this this year. So that, you know, we can cover all the bases. I think you're. I understand what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. that I don't know it's gonna be put it might be something to look for first 20 27 to actually implement it I think you'd be pretty simple with me it's a lazy blade reader but let you know they I'm gonna rely on the experts yeah definitely ready universal system especially better for the police department we just we just need the direction to go and that that's our big thing and we can we can hold off it's it's only one to two percent of people actually come in I mean they they are the same people every year coming in for that beach sticker they fight for me yeah but in the past we have honored the month of January if you have your 2025 sticker so I guess we'll wait for the January meeting and then we'll make a decision at that stage so basically the fee schedule here I have actually both models just in case we did not move forward with Yodel pass so we're proposing 2026 fee schedule adjustment for Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale all that would you know since they're right next to us and they have similar type beaches so what we were looking to do is continue to get within the structure of the surrounding towns and looking to raise their resident parking permit from 25 to 30 senior parking permit from 10 to 15. uh this is a big one because we feel with the supply and demand the resident 4x4 permit from 90 to 110 we feel with the high demand of these 4x4 permits from residents we can easily pass along to 110 that would move the senior 4x4 from 70 to 90. the resident boat launch trailer from 25 to 30. the senior boat launch trailer from 10 to 15. commercial boat launch we don't sell a lot of those but from 3 to 350. night fishing from 10 to 15. i believe neighboring towns charge a lot more for their night fishing permit uh and then we want to discuss a um um also community borderline passage we'll do that in a second so the net revenue for 2025 uh and don't forget we're still 25 still going so we don't have the final file number but this is just about it uh was 239 265. uh using the same formula uh the same amount of people because give or take as the amount of people that buy stickers each year that revenue would go for them go up to 2.96.304 then that increase would be a lot more because the net increase uh was considering the yodel pass fees implemented within the fee structure because they charge 2. per beach sticker i have to say i am not in favor of raising the parking um permit prices i believe that our residents were just hit with some pretty high tax bills um i think that they deserve to be able to utilize our beaches um i know that the uh permit was increased how many years ago was the last hit in 2019 we did it again in 2023 22 20 i think 2023. yeah i'm i'm i'm fine for everything else because those are kind of more of a luxury thing if you have a boat or or whatever but for a resident here in riverhead they should not be overcharged in my opinion to be able to go to the beach so with that how many beach passes do you sell what you said uh on the resident side that um it's it's over a ten about ten thousand i would say give or take um i so i look look at it I see the perspective that the councilwoman is putting forward but then you've got this 10,000 so you've got 26,000 people not using the beach right so what's happening is by not raising it those 26,000 people or their tax is paying is helping supplement the labor that's being used at the beach and within town hall so somewhere if we don't capture a balance you know the taxpayers are going to be paying supplementing town services that are being provided but whether beach pass or whatever it may be and I this is the why taxes continue to go up because we're not charging the proper fees that's great I'm sorry I didn't want to interrupt you but I was just gonna say there's also a fee for the seniors I don't want to see that go up that's a separate issue so we're totally fine with the board whatever the board wants to do where our job is to introduce you the numbers based on the the market rates and neighboring towns and our numbers and the board would let us guide us in the right direction so we're totally fine with whatever the board decides I would implement the resident 4x4 permit increase because to me that's more of a luxury to drive on the beaches and the demand is very high that was my point you know for for those things yes I can see that but for, you know, especially a senior to have to pay $15. That's a lot of money for some seniors. And $30 is a lot of money for some residents. I want them to be able to enjoy the beach and not feel like they're, you know, they're kind of being... Squeezed. Yeah, yeah. But again, there's seniors in our community that actively use the resources and go and play pickleball and do other things and use the parks and go to the beaches, and there are others that don't. And so when you have... There's a lot of people that don't have time. Oh, no, I wasn't. And so the idea is that, you know, sometimes those that want to use the amenities and use the parks, you know, it's a small... To me, it's a very small fee. It's a very small fee that we're talking about. And we have to run the town like a business in terms of, like, what is the cost of staffing the recreation department and putting things in place to have these? And this helps cover their overall office costs and fees and expenses. What would do it? But I'll lead into the one problem that we can't seem to rectify for years. We've done great. Bayberry Park, for example. But a lot of our parks are dilapidated and old and need refurbishing, and we need... We need to seriously look in different ways to bring in revenue to help restore some of these parks. And this is, you know, for five extra dollars a year, and everybody does their share, and you bring in another $240,000 in revenue, you can actively do a real project in one of the parks with that. Just on one... Can I just make a statement? Yes, please. This is a one-time fee for the year. It's not like they're paying $25 every time they go. So everything else goes up, and I'm not... And $5 is not asking a lot to go to the beach for the whole entire year. You can bring your family. We're not checking cars, who's in it. I just don't think that is an astronomical fee. And we sell more senior resident stickers than we do resident stickers. Yeah, this year the senior overtook the resident. Because this town is a senior township. Every time. Right. So a lot of the city people or the Nassau County people moved here, and a lot of those residents are on Middle Road. And I'm not saying anyone... There are some seniors who may have some difficulty coming up with it, but the ones who are utilizing it are the ones who are in good financial shape, and I don't think $5 is going to make or break anyone. This is the second straight year the seniors have overtook the residents in the amount of sold, and the gap is widening. It was $49.48. Now it's 49 to 47%. Seniors 49, and residents 47%. Just enough for you guys. You know, plus the cost, you know, goes up for employees. And if we don't follow the CPI, somebody's going to end up... It's going to fall on some taxpayers back to supplement this. And this is prevalent across everything that we do with this. Yeah. There's a fine. And to the councilman's point, if you don't run it like a business, you know, this is why we have... This is why taxes continue to grow up, because we've ignored fines and fees, you know, in some cases for 10, 15 years. Well, look at how many parking lots we have to maintain, clean, and garbage receptacles and everything in there. And I pay, you know, more than $30 to park at the UBS Arena to go to one islanding game, you know? I can show you free parking. But it's the idea, you know, what you pay for one day, one event, one time. And like you say, this gives you access, you know, for the entire year. Well, I would just say that... And it helps maintain those parks. I'm sorry. You didn't mean to speak. I would just say that we are working on legislation with the state, which I believe is going to get passed. It's a carve-out. I've spoken to you about it, right? Yeah. For Riverhead, so that we will get money to fix the repairs. And the current system, only allows for a site plan to have residential subdivisions put aside monies or land for parks, but capital projects. We're looking to revise that to have not just subdivisions for new subdivision plots for residential, but also for site plans for commercial over 25 acres and industrial over 25 acres to have them chip in for the monies set aside to go towards repairs of existing parks. So that would be able to help us. Instead of passing it on to the taxpayer, let's have those industrial developers, commercial developers, or the residential developers picking up a portion of the repairs to the parks. I'd like to, on a note, and I'd like to thank the supervisor of town board. The number one complaint this year was Bayberry Park, parking lot and pathways. And on behalf of the town, the recreation advisory committee and our office, who gets all the complaints, we'd like to thank you for finding the money. That's only taken 15 years. But we have a brand new parking lot up there, brand new path. It looks beautiful and receiving nothing but compliments. So I didn't get a chance to thank the supervisor and the town board for taking care of that. Thank you. But you look at just that one project, you know, all the funds collected for the stickers. Right. You know, it's just that's what you have to look at. And you know, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. You know, I think it's great that you're working on that legislation. I really do. And I know being on the rec committee, you know, they want to bond for over a million dollars. That's how much is really needed. And I really appreciate you two because I do go by there and see what you put up with. And you're front line. And to me, you have, you know, you've given me certainty for me about why these rate increases are fine. I would just say an area that we can work on is 255 applications. How many people come in a year for waivers for us? For the fee? For the late fees? And that's an area where we can really concentrate on helping with taxpayers. Making sure we don't give waivers anymore on those things. We would like to, as tradition, we always, we put the fees in at the first town board meeting in January. Is that something you want to do? Is that something you want me to hold back on? Is that you want me to, is there a certain, how does the board want to direct me with the fees? I think we need to do it because, again, it helps in the long run. And the parks have always to me, year and year, need to be restored and we need to put you in a better financial place to do that. So. Yeah, just I know Ken was the liaison to the rec committee. I'm the liaison now. I, and I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I know what is going on. You've got 47 parks to take care of. So. The cost of what things are today, a new garbage receptacle and other things, you know, even the picnic tables and things like that. Everything has gone up and so, and do we sit and we let them get dilapidated each year get worse? Or we bring in a little revenue and keep on a regular basis, start replacing them and doing things. Yeah. And you guys do great with all. But you don't, you're working on the limited means and limited funds. That's the biggest thing. So. One more pass we'd like to introduce. We track the complaints from all the residents throughout the year and then we have like a model at the very end. And one of the largest complaints, the most complaints that Doris and Kelly can attest is that they get beat up with this is passes for communities that are within the zip code of Riverhead. But do not pay Riverhead taxes. They pay the borderline taxes but they go to Riverhead School. So, on all facets of the, on the outsides of the town. So, based on that, the staff got together and what we came up is what we call a community borderline pass. It's on page two. So, it would be proposed for non-residents living within the zip codes adjacent to Riverhead. Are, you know, they're not going to be able to live in a town So, they're not going to be able to live in a town that they're not going to live in. So, they're not going to be able to live in a town that they're not going to live in. So, we would double the rates of the pass offered at a single flat rate of $50. No senior tier, just $50 flat out. That would satisfy those complaints and bring in additional revenue for the town. Our estimated units is 225 according to Doris and Kelly. I'm sure there's going to be a lot more. Like how many complaints do you really get Doris and Kelly on that? Not always even complaints. We just tell them flat out no, we don't offer it. So, we don't always write those down. Because it wasn't an argument. I just told them we don't offer it. So, then you guys, the algorithms you wrote down was the top complaint? We wrote down the ones that were complaints. Right. I received a complaint the other day which I spoke to Ray about. Somebody that lives on one of the outskirts of town. And they have children. You know, they can't bring their kids to the beach with the friends. And she was pretty upset about it. I've heard that in the past as well. And what I'm going to say is I don't think 50 is high enough. And the reason why is because we're asking, they're not paying the same taxes that the Riverhead residents are paying. So, I would prefer that we make that $75. Because we're not getting that again, that tax revenue going into our coffers. And we're not getting that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we need additional money to get in there. We could certainly add that up there if the board is agreeable to that. I don't think it will be a big complaint item because we're allowing them now to come to the beaches. And like I said, we get beat up on that. We do get beat up with nonresidence too, but it works. I mean, our beaches and the beach committee and everybody is happy with that nonresident rule. But if we do the community borderline, then I think everybody is going to be happy with everybody's happy yeah and I get you know to your point when I think about it over the years you know they're friends they can't go to the beach with their friends is everybody okay with us adding that to the resolution okay and then you want me to then add 75 I support 75 I don't know about everybody else even even if you're raising the resident parking to 30 to double do you still at 60 but I'm 35 is fine five okay and we'll have to be we'll track it and see how it goes we residents are paying high taxes so out of out of town could pay more okay the next page is the facility rentals which is on the same resolution which the resolution is at the very end again we try to compete with the we go by the numbers and then the neighboring towns so basically here the the key updates that we're going to be doing is we're going to be doing the !

months that gives a little bit more money to us because we charge a $25 application fee and it's much easier for Doris to handle it on a three-month basis quarterly basis than half a year basis we can schedule all programs yeah we have to schedule our programs on top of it so it kind of puts doors in a tough spot booking that the recurring rate would be then $15 $50 per three months period for Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale Sale are involved at these events. We usually just have one, the person that opens and closes and tracks. I'm sorry, you were saying other towns charge? Yeah, they charge. We're maybe a few percentage points below, like South Hold. Brookhaven charges a lot more. Their facilities are much bigger, though, than ours as well. But we wanted to increase the non-resident weekend rate of 100 to 120. The athletic fields, we're seeing a dip in the rental of our facilities, mainly because they're going to neighboring facilities with turf fields and better facilities, which goes back to our original argument. But to offset that, we want to go from 250 to 300 a day. This is for a tournament. Hourly rentals from 35 to 40, lighting fees from 30 to 40. Policy changes, this is the wording. We want to define weekdays as Monday to Thursday. We do get confused. We have a lot of events on Friday, which we should, I think, contribute the weekend rate to that. And then weekend defined as Friday to Sunday. That would put a little bit more money in the town's coffers. Town sanction groups exempt with approval. So if you're a sanctioned town group. The league, PAM. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That would be with approval from the recreation department. We just have to make sure. We check the rosters of people, make sure there's mostly residents on those rosters. And then we would approve that. So we just wanted to put that in writing. Goals and cages, no longer provided at Barron's Park. We have provided the goals and the cages. And it takes our park attendants. We have to have a park attendant there. So it costs us more money to do that. So we figured these are private groups coming in, let them supply their own stuff. Can they leave it there though, right? Yeah. They can chain it up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PAL actually does that all the time. This was just something the staff did. We wanted to look if we were allowed to rent the space downstairs. We just, I wasn't supposed to put that in there. We just wanted to thank Georgette Case for she's down there. And we make it the Georgette Case room. But we wanted to know if the town would be interested in and if we could rent space downstairs to groups to have. 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. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. just the cafeteria. The cafeteria is a great space. It should be utilized. I agree, totally. We have our EMT classes and so forth that are from September all the way to April. Yeah, obviously we schedule around that. You've got voting and other things. Blood drives. Blood drives, yeah. I think, I don't know. Go ahead, Ashley. I've been utilizing it fairly often with our perennials group. They're 55 and over, and we've been going down there and doing, whether it be a meeting or playing a game, or we just recently had like wreath and grave blanket decorating, small, 12 people or whatnot. So we've been trying to book things with upstairs to utilize that space. So we wanted to kind of see if it would be something that we could almost take under our umbrella where we would book. So whenever the EMT stuff, we would know that that's all the Wednesdays or whatever, or voting, we'd know when the drug test, whatever. But then utilize it more as a recognition. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. Sale it. who are like, well, this is perfect. One of the women came to the class and was like, this would be great for our once-a-month meeting for an hour with the Girl Scouts or the Boy Scouts, just to offer more community space, because GICC is very far for somebody who lives in Windy River to think of that as your community center. You don't really feel a part of that, even as your community, essentially. I think that's excellent thinking, and I think that that's a great way to increase your revenue for your department instead of the extra $5 for the parking. And we thought of Georgette because she's down there. I say in addition to the $5, make some machines down there and make some money. You know, I mean... We want to name it after her because she's down there, and that's her space where they said, you know what? She's here. She might appreciate it as her room. Paper into dollars is always a good thing. I love it. I have one question. Do you guys have, like, ID cards that, for Riverhead residents, like, how do we rectify, like, up at Veterans Memorial Park? So you have pickleball players from Brookhaven Town and a lot of other senior groups that come over and they're utilizing it. We have people from South Hold utilizing a lot of the space at Jamesport. Like, do we have, like, IDs of somebody that if another group comes in and there's just people playing there that you can say, you know, do any of you have a Riverhead ID, you know, to utilize the court? And if you don't... If you don't have it at the time, then you have to yield it to the Riverhead residents that want to play. We spoke to... We spoke about having membership cards for years. It's just the logistics of it. It's a possibility that we could do that. And we could charge people for it and then get the Riverhead. I don't even need to necessarily, if it's something simple, you know, if we're very inexpensive, we can go ahead and print, you know, cards. But the idea is that if there's groups up there that are playing pickleball and nobody has a Riverhead ID card as opposed to doing the whole, you know, people don't know if it says Wading River, whether, you know, you're in the Shoreham side of Wading River and you're not paying anything in there. And if you're not... I just want to know that our residents are getting priority at these, you know, this is a... Well, signage could take care of that, too. If you posted signs saying for, you know, use for residents on a first-come, first-served basis over non-residents or something along those lines. And then people say, I live in Wading River. And they go, where? And so you need something. And that's the story. So you got to start people putting... Just to pick a ball is a different animal altogether. We set up parameters for the people playing pickleball of, because I oversee that project. And there's rules for if you're there, you finish your game and the other people, and there's waiting things and paddle holders and all this. That should be hard because they're going to argue whether... Everyone's an adult, so it's crazy. You know, you're going to have a civilian ask another person, another civilian for ID, and it gets messy. It's not something unless you had a staff member there. You can't park there. Anyway. I don't think we've ever policed the parks. You don't need a parking permit to go to any town beach. You can go to Stotsky if you're from New Jersey. We've never policed that. Down at Brookhaven facilities. Well, it begs the question, what constitutes a private park? I know EPCAL, for example, has state and federal funding. So that might be a public park. But like Jamesport, maybe a private park, you know, that are in the town. I don't know the answer to that question. But as part of the beach, and you would need a parking permit for the beach. So that one is like the one that becomes the issue. But they can get passes if they're in a particular class. They get a pass to be parked in that parking lot from this time to that time. We usually give them like a little window before and after the class. And what was... Bayberry or the other ones, you don't need anything. Yeah, but at Jamesport also, you can park on the side of Peconic Avenue. You just walk in and just... You're parking by no permit only on those streets. You still need a permit to park on those streets. Oh, you do? On the grass? I think it's a touchy subject, too, though, because we're kind of being contradicting to what we're trying to make Riverhead. And that is a place for people to come and visit and bring their money and do this with just the U.S. Open thing alone. And then to say, like... Just at the pickleball court, like, we don't want you guys here because you don't live here first. Or it's not such a strong, like, argument, I guess, to say, like, well, we want you kind of, but not on everything. I don't know of any parks surrounding Riverhead Township that I couldn't go use. No. Unless it's a state park or a county park. That's a little different. The players travel from east to west together, in a sense. So a lot of them use the Brookhaven Park. They have a lot of pickleball courts. But we don't really get people having fights. But now it's, I think, everyone kind of figured out. Okay. The next page is just a synopsis, a summary of what I just discussed. And the pages after that would be the actual resolution that we'd be submitting for the first board meeting in 2026 with the changes. So if there's anything the town board would like me, to add, change, even if it's, you know, after this meeting, we can do that before we officially hand it in. And that's everything on the 2026 facilities and beach permits.

It was always talked about getting life rings down here at the boardwalk behind Main Street. Did we ever, we've been asked by. We still don't have those. We brought them. We brought them. We brought them. We put them at East Creek, because I know that was an issue. I don't think we have them down there. We don't. We need to get them down. Yeah, Jordan and I just inspected down there for the thorough inspection, and that was noted that we want to put them on the pedestals there. I think it's stolen. I'd rather risk that than somebody's life. How many are in your back seat?

I know Marjorie Acevedo from the recreation. She's the chair of a recreation. She's the chair of the recreation advisory committee. She had come to discuss the last topic. This was a topic discussed at the recreation advisory meeting. I don't know if you want to come up, Marge. And we just wanted to bring this attention to the town board for 2026. And yeah. Ms. Strange, I'm not retiring. Come over here, Marge. I'm good. Don't mess with Marge. That's how I've always learned that. Well, you all know that I thank you all for the care and support that you've given me. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. of that money coming to recreation to improve our parks as part of park improvement. It's very slow, the money coming in from any of the facilities that are being built in the town. And in order to keep up with our parks, Mayberry looks so beautiful and so does Two Bears. In order to keep up with beautifying our parks and making them safe for residents, we'd really like to get more money coming into recreation, whether it come through Ray or whether it come to the advisory committee, a percentage to the advisory committee, so we could push it towards any of the projects that we need, that we have. We have a list of projects that we've been working on with Ray, and we'd really like to see accomplished. Something more this year than what we've been able to do in the past. And I really think this is an opportunity to have a percentage of that cannabis money to make the improvements in the parks. Yeah, it's kind of a long list. I mean, there's, you know, from different departments needing different things, you know. And I said this. A lot of hands out. A lot of hands out. So I think that you got to take the hands out list and make a list and then prioritize it. I think, you know, the parks are something that everybody in our community uses. And that should be a priority over everything, I think, personally. Only because I've been on this committee now for close to 25 years, and I see the need. And it's getting more and more and more. And as far as the increase in the fees for people at the beaches, I have to disagree with you. That's fine. Really. But I think that $100 is going to make a big difference. I mean, I even listened to the PGA and all I thought of the, it was, you all got an email from you or a text from me saying, how much money are we going to get out of this? And how much, you know, can we put back into our general fund or the parks? That's my priority more than anything. Right. So I think that, you know, I mean, when you think 100, I think he said 30,000 a day. I think that's a lot. I think it's like $10 a day for a car to park there. Oh my gosh. I mean, we can really. This is an opportunity for us. I think we should look into. I'm sure we can contact somebody at the at the state level or even at the county level to find out what they charge at Bethpage for parking. I know that people were letting people park in their driveways for $100 a day at Bethpage. So it's just an idea that we really need to consider. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt. Are there any helt.

what we're doing like this for our advantage I think what Denise is working on and what we've been working on in the committee like we're gonna see more funds come in you know I'm saying that we would give a certain percentage out of the cannabis money that comes in we don't know if that if what we've had come in so far is kind of a honeymoon phase of this being something new we don't know what the future looks like so I don't think that we admit to that but I do think that if you put forth you know a few ideas of what your wish list is and we see that we do have funds that would be able to be allocated for that that at that time we would be able to say you know but of course you know we're not going to be able to say that we're not going to be able to say that we're not going to be able to say that we're not going to be able to say everybody's got a handout right now I think our main goal is to get on the radar I think yes and I think that a small percentage we do know that there will be quite a bit of money and whatever whatever it is it's just a percentage of that money that we're asking for we're not asking for you know I'm not greedy I'll take 20 no I'm only kidding you know but I think if we just have a resolution that okay when that money comes in here's 2% or here's 5% that goes to to park improvements that's not a big deal a resolution in the matter that first of all I don't support cannabis in the town of Riverhead and I think some of my other members of the board agree with that and when you put in a resolution that simply states that a percentage of this is going to go to the REC and then we we decide to put a moratorium on any additional facilities cannabis fillers is I don't want people to have to go to various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various really helps everybody but I don't want it to be a light item saying that oh well now they're putting a moratorium on cannabis and that's gonna hurt the recreation department I mean we go back to square one again but at the same time we you know whatever monies we find we find and that's it as far as recreation improvements and maybe by then some of this money will be coming in and for park improvements to the Advisory Committee to to make the improvements that we need and we we can say hey look we can you know we can you can amend that resolution and change it or whatever we've allocated money to Bay Bird Park that's exactly what we did we talked about a lot more because every year Ray comes with a list of top repairs top priority repairs and everything and that's just been booted down the road year after year after year so we've even thought about bonding at the committee I mean we really brainstorm to our financial advisor about it and she indicated we should probably rather than bonding we would use money from the general fund to do that because there is money in the general fund to be used for certain structure repairs and improvements so to me that was that's kind of my plan that I was looking to do rather than bonding and going out and have the money to pay it back long term I'll take the money from any yes Tim he's laughing because we were really brainstorming on this to be addressed and they haven't been so yeah I mean I Tim knows that you know at one point I was considering coming before a town board meeting and say we're gonna have to start closing down parks because they're just not safe you know he his budget is just he's doing everything he can Ray to increase what revenue he gets in to make the improvements if I can if somebody calls or I come to him and say Ray we really need this done it's from bar borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and that's it's just gotten to a point where it's it's almost embarrassing sometimes when somebody calls me and says I mean just as an example Bayberry was a disaster and from time and that's a that's our policeman's memorial park that's what yeah and yeah both of them got them done so anyway you know I have to tell you working with this department the recreation department has been a pleasure they've been very responsive to anything that the recreation committee has ever come to them and needed little things here and there that go unnoticed are always responded to so I thank them for that they're gonna department yep we've got a picture of Marge in our office now is it autographed I thought that was a warning look out for this person okay in conclusion then I'm going to submit the resolution as his but changed 50 to 75 for the community borderline pass but that be accurate statement I don't want to see that I don't want to see the seniors fee go up that's my position I don't know if how anybody else would agree with that but I think it's a good thing to do and I think it's a good thing to do and I think it's a good thing to do and I think it's a good thing to do and I think it's a good thing to do and I don't know how feels about that but I don't I agree I'm fine as the senior senior fee go up I don't want to see that I'm fine as is somebody's gonna supplement it I don't want the rest of the taxpayers to supplement it and to the point that you made earlier the strange that you know there's no problem and again this is why taxes go up for people that don't utilize services makes no sense to me so I'm for it as is I support it I'm not here to vote for it so I'm not gonna try man I will leave it like that so thank you guys for the time yeah I'll uh okay well thank you very much for your time thinking Kevin was becoming today and then we'll be in touch with the parking passes as soon as we can yeah January 6th thank you guys happy holidays thank you Merry Christmas I'm hiring I'm gonna shoot me with a shotgun

alright I just have a couple announcements before we close open session and first announcement is obviously happy Hanukkah to all of our residents who participate you're in the middle of the season so our best to everybody and a reminder the town hall will be closed next Thursday for Christmas and we will reopen Friday December 26th at 830 a.m. and this is our last televised session before Christmas so we want to wish all of our residents Merry Christmas happy holidays and happy new year but it be safe enjoy and you guys will be seeing them next year we have one more session yep alright um executive session we're going to go in to discuss under personnel matters surrounding terms and conditions of employment with strip Lenteo under legal we have matters surrounding litigation between the town of Riverhead and cat with Howard and we have matters surrounding contractual agreement between the town of Riverhead and the USGA with Hurley so I'd like to could somebody make a motion to close open session and go into executive session second all in favor aye all opposed open session is closed we're now going to go to executive session everybody be good and happy holidays happy

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