Full Transcript
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Thank you.
Councilman Rothwell, do we have somebody for the invocation? Yes, we are honored to be once again in the presence of Pastor Dave Cook from the Calvary Baptist Church. Pastor, if you would be kind enough to lead us in our invocation, and thank you for joining us. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Please pray with me. Father, we come before you this evening. We just thank you so much for this day that you have given us. We thank you so much for the institution of government, which you have instituted. And, Lord, we know that the intent of government is to do justice, to serve the needs of the community. And so we do pray, Lord, that tonight as this meeting goes on, that that is exactly what would happen, Lord. We pray that there would be unity here in this room. We thank you for all of those who are here that are a part of the community, who are looking to work together to make this a better place to live. We just pray, Lord, that, again, you would be with us here tonight, that you would put your blessing on this meeting, that you would be glorified in it. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Pastor. Under announcements, I'm going to pass it over to Councilwoman Waski for certificates of appreciation to volunteers of the Anti-Litter Committee. Thank you. So I am the liaison to the Anti-Litter. Anti-Litter Committee, and they're one of my favorite committees to be a part of. They bring in energy to the town to get others involved and do great things within the town. And we've had several members that have done things that deserve some extra credit for bringing to the table. So at this time, I would ask if we could have Gene Follett, Clayton Orhak, Lisa Gavack, and曲o Feo曲o Feo, and曲o Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo Feo together so this certificate is for you absolutely I just want to thank the supervisor and the town board for this honor it was my honor to serve as a chair for five years and during that time I feel that my committee and I accomplished a lot we organized two town-wide cleanups every year in the spring in the fall and we usually had a really good turnout of a hundred volunteers and I think that our committee in addition to helping clean up trash we raised raised a lot of awareness among our residents and that led to action where people that volunteered for us to clean cleaned up their own neighborhoods that was really great I want to thank the committee members who work tirelessly to make our town a better place Jeannie Jim minor key who's not here and Joanne Rizzo who's taken over the committee without them I couldn't have done it I wrote thank you so much for all your help and your passion this issue I also want to thank Courtney Blazel and you ! created our eye-catching flyer for many years and that flyer helped us sign up many volunteers and I want to take the council people who supported our committee first I worked with Jim Wooten then we worked with Katherine Kent Bob Kern and Joanne Waski and I just want to say thank you and I want to wish all the best to Joanne Rizzo who's the new chair thank you and曲 and曲 and曲 and曲 I think I gave you two. Sorry.
I'm missing one. I just had it. Well, you gave Jeannie hers. Oh, yeah. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. Take that back. Okay. So, Jean found the idea of the litter critters from Agobi the fish sculpture through social media. Is that how you found that? And she brought the idea of having these litter critters brought into town, and there's been two of them so far. One is the fish down at Iron Pier, and the other is West Main Street, and it's the big B, and the kids love it. Family love them. They're well utilized, and thank you for bringing that idea to the Anti-Litter Committee. We would not have been able to have them had it not been for Clayton Orheck, who was the creator of the receptacles, and we really appreciate your imagination, your vision, everything that you did to accomplish that. So, thank you very much. Thank you. This is, if I could just say, this is absolutely a community event. Participation, the feedback, everybody's involved, even if they're, just throwing a bottle of a can inside. It's very good to see kids at the beach, you know, telling their parents, hey, you know, put the bottle of the can in there. And then that's everybody here. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. And then we also had North Fork Environmental Council with Lisa Gavalis step in and help with funding, and we have Taki Turchin as well. And you guys were really, really inspirational in helping with the vision and funding. And you were so great. You called me up, sent an email and said, let's get this going, and we got it going. And we're extremely thankful for your contributions. So, that's . Thank you so much. I would just like to thank you, and by extension the board, and of course the Anti-Litter Committee. I don't know how many people know this, but we've been trying to get a couple of these on the North Fork. It has not been that easy, but because of, because of all of you, as well as the Parks and Rec team with Ashley, we really made it happen quickly. And it's great, and it's beautiful, and thank you all. Thank you. Thank you.
Our new chair, and she's doing a great job. So, this is the team. This is what does all the great things.
Squish, squish, squish. I think that's the answer.
Okay, everybody look this way. That's a great picture. Certificates. Oh, yeah. You get in front. No, that's okay. I'm good here.
I don't have any. Okay.
All right. Councilman Rothwell, do you have an announcement? I just have one announcement. I want to just take a moment on behalf of the Veterans Advisory Committee to put out a very special thankful, of course, to volunteers in the Veterans Advisory Committee, but also to Rotary here in the town of Riverhead. This weekend we had to take down over 150 veterans' banners. That's the honor or veteran banners that go and decorate throughout Main Street and all the side streets. It's a big task putting them up and taking them down. So I am extremely fortunate to have the assistance of Rotary International this weekend that spent time out on Sunday on a very windy day taking down those banners. And we got them all down, and they've been cleaned and put away for the winter, and they'll be up again for Memorial Day. So I just want a special thank you to Rotary and, of course, the Veterans Advisory Committee. Thank you. Okay. Any reports? I just add that thank you again to the Rotary. Being at Acadia, I was there with the supervisor on Veterans Day, and they do a wonderful job handing out basically very nice goody bags for the individuals at the facility there that are veterans. They put on a very nice performance. There was live music. It was a very nice day. Thank you very much to the Rotary for that. I can also thank the Rotary because they are great with the anti-litter. Just to piggyback off of... You know, what we just celebrated, they always show up. They're willing to help. They're such an asset to the town of Riverhead, and we are so fortunate to have them. So thank you to the Rotary. Bob, you have any announcements? Okay. Bob, just tell them how much you love the pancakes. The Rotary pancake breakfast. Tell them how much you love the pancakes. That's great. Okay. Okay, Clerk Wooten, do we have any correspondence and reports tonight? We do. We received several letters, most a request for funding in reference to the community block grant. Those all have been listed in the agenda and forwarded to the community development for sorting. We received two letters from John McAuliffe, one general comments and one about Town Square, and one from Cindy Clifford in reference to the 2026 budget. That's it for correspondence. They can be read on the agenda online in all of their glory. Under reports, we have the Town Clerk monthly report for October is $11,509. The Receiver of Taxes monthly utility report for October is $1,061,734.93. And the Building Department monthly report for October is $118,432. And that concludes our reports for this meeting. Yeah. Thank you, Clerk Wooten. You. Okay, that brings us up to the public hearing section. We have one public hearing scheduled for tonight. It's scheduled for 6-15. It is now 6-16. And the public hearing is dealing with rental dwelling units, and I believe we're going to have Senior Investigator, no? Yep. We're going to have Counselor Eric Howard? Yep, me. Okay. Go over that with us. A little bit of an audible. Thank you, Mr. Supervisor. This is an amendment to our Chapter 263, which regulates rental permits in the town of Riverhead. We currently have in place a prohibition on rentals that are 29 days or less, meaning that if you rent a house, a single-family residence in the town of Riverhead, it needs to be for 30 or more days. We have, for as many years as I've worked for the town, grappled with enforcement on this issue through people who operate transient rentals and post them on Airbnb, on VRBO, on HomeAway. And we get many, many complaints about transient rentals, and our code enforcement officers will typically go to these residences and conduct an investigation, and either there's no one there or no one answers the door, or they do make contact with someone who, you know, acknowledges that they're renting for maybe two days, maybe three days, a long weekend. And so they will issue the summons to the property owner, and when that's returnable in court, what we have run into is evidentiary problems because you can't just rely on the person who is maybe from North Carolina or Florida or Texas saying that they rented it for two weeks, that that admission can't be used. It's not admissible in court without that person being available to testify. So what we've done here is we have put in an amendment that seeks to sort of close that evidentiary gap and give our code enforcement officers a few more tools to enforce what we have long had on the books in terms of prohibiting transient rentals. So what this will do is it will create rebuttable presumptions, and those are going to be listed. Those are going to be listed in Section 21 of Chapter 263. They include a listing of property on a public rental platform with a stated minimum stay of fewer than 29 days. The rental listing, so, for example, on Airbnb, it allows you to go in, choose your dates. If it's allowing you to choose dates that are less than 29 days, that's... that would create a basis for the presumption. If the listing contains language like a three-night minimum or weekend getaway, this would allow us to reference the publicly posted comments that review the Airbnbs. In the past, we've had... I've dealt with the case over on Overlook where the users would just write beautiful reviews of the, you know, two-day weekend that they had there. And post pictures and thank the host. And, unfortunately, none of that is under... under the... our code currently is usable in court. So this... this would sort of bolster our case in a criminal prosecution and justice court. And, again, it would be rebuttable by the owner if they are able to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that they are not renting transiently. It would allow us to conduct investigations. Using the frequency of different vehicles going to the property, oftentimes with license plates that are out of state. Excessive... excessive trash being put out that's inconsistent with a single-family residence. And so that's just sort of a summary of the rebuttable presumption that we're creating here. It allows... it requires when you apply for a rental permit, if you're going to be issued a rental permit, that you sign an affidavit acknowledging that you're aware of the prohibition on transient rentals and that you're aware of the consequences and that it can be revoked. And then we create a section where if you are determined to be renting transiently, the code enforcement officer can make a determination to revoke the rental permit immediately. And the permit holder would then have the opportunity to appeal that determination to our zoning officer. And then we would have the opportunity to appeal that determination to our zoning board of appeals. And that takes care of sort of an administrative remedies requirement that we should have in the code. So we're putting that in. And we are increasing the penalties for offenses in a manner that is more consistent with what Southampton does. So if I can find that section.
So the penalties will be increased to a fine not less than $3,000, no more than $15,000 on a first offense, not less than $8,000, no more than $30,000 on a second, and not less than $10,000, no more than $30,000 on a third and subsequent violation. And really what this does is the way the code has been before, the penalties were lowered. And so we're going to have to make sure that we're not going to have to plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea It sort of becomes a cost of doing business because when you go on Airbnb, you see that these places are rented out for the weekend for $8,000 or $5,000. Or that was the one on Overlook. That one was almost $8,000 a night, I think. But, I mean, the point is this makes the penalties more than just a cost of doing business for the person who is repeatedly engaging in this conduct. And then we add in civil enforcement options where we can go to Supreme Court and the penalties there would be $5,000 per day. And that's sort of the overview of the code. There's a lot of substance there. If anyone has any comments on it, that would be the time. Just to clarify on this, we had some people call the office. This is not changing. This is not changing the number of days of a transient rental. It's still at 29 days. This is just given the code enforcement tools to go out and affect a code violation, if you will, against the people that are violating this. So it's not changing the number of days. Now I'm going to open it up for comments from anybody. You have to come up to the microphone and state your name and where you're from. I'm going to kind of, well, first of all, good evening. Super. Supervisor Hubbard and board members. Thank you very much for having me here. I just want to kind of go over a little bit. Excuse me, ma'am. Your name, ma'am, and where you're from. Oh, I'm sorry. Can you hear me? We need your name, ma'am. Name and where you're from. Oh, I'm sorry. Eileen DeCasola. I'm from Wading River. Thank you. I'm just very happy to be here to speak of the proposed changes to the town, tightening up the rules relating to short-term rentals and improve language in the code to enhance the code. Thank you. We will continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue days in jail or the second within five years no less than $1,000 no more than $5,000 and or 15 days in jail to each violation to now they're saying with the new would be the first violation would be punishable by a minimum fine of $3,000 with the maximum of $15,000 or by imprisonment of up to 15 days or both each day that violation continues would be a separate offense the fines for a second violation within 18 months or conviction for a third and subsequent violation within five years of a conviction topping at a $30,000 fine per a violation per day I have lived in the town of the head for over 25 years and have not heard to date of any short-term illegal rent-disease going to jail has there ever been a condition has led to a jail time attorney on transient rentals yes not to my knowledge do you think that you still should incorporate that yes okay looking at just Airbnb within the town of Riverhead there are 54 this I checked yesterday illegal renters looking to rent for five days or less the current code prohibits rentals for less than 29 days now I was going to ask you supervisor I guess you are aware of South whole town and South Hampton town of the short-term rental code enforcement policy of 14 days correct okay but that's not what we're going that's not what we're talking about tonight we're not talking about tools for a code enforcement to go out and issue summonses and get these people into court okay with very steep fines okay well that should be because within the 54 short-term illegal rent-disease the total came to approximately 119,000 per week times 52 weeks that comes to over 6 million dollars per year and this doesn't take into account Burbo home-to-go and the other similar businesses since the boy is considering a change in the penalties for violation of the 29-day minimum short-term rental now you said how it's going to consider how it will enforce the code and penalize future offenders, we only have one code enforcement officer. Male Speaker 2. That's not true. Male Speaker 3. Male Speaker 4. Well, I called code enforcement and I spoke with the secretary and she said there's only one. They had two. They left. They have one. Male Speaker 5. Male Speaker 6. Male Speaker 7. Male Speaker 8. Male Speaker 9. Male Speaker 11. Male Speaker 12. Male Speaker 13. Male Speaker 14. Male Speaker 15. Male Speaker 16. Male Speaker 17. Male Speaker 18. Male Speaker 19. Male Speaker 20. Male Speaker 21. Male Speaker 22. Male Speaker 24. Male Speaker 25. Male Speaker 26. Male Speaker 26. Male Speaker 27. Male Speaker 28. Male Speaker 29. Male Speaker 30. Male Speaker 31. Male Speaker 32. Male Speaker 33. Male Speaker 34. Male Speaker 35. Male Speaker 36. Male Speaker 37. Male Speaker 38. Male Speaker 39. Male Speaker 40. We've budgeted for that to be an ordinance inspector as of January 1 next year. We currently have posted two part-time code enforcement officer positions and their function will generally be doing rental permit inspections and likely investigating transient rentals. And that would be when will they be hiring them? We currently have that posted. We've received probably at least 12 resumes. So we need to do interviews and then hire. So it would be a total of three code enforcement agencies actually going out? So the code enforcement personnel are the senior town investigator, the town investigator, the two ordinance inspectors, and then we'll have the two part-time code enforcement officers. And on top of, in addition to that, all of our code enforcement officers are going to be on standby. So if something happens over the weekend and they need to be called out, maybe they need to be called out to investigate a transient rental or some other illegal housing, they're on standby for that. And once the part-timers are hired, they will have weekend hours and PM hours. Okay. So if I was the call to say that I knew of a transient rental illegal home that was renting illegally. Okay. From my office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office to this particular resident, or how does that go about? Well, that would, I mean, it would depend on available staff, but they would take the information, they would take your name, they would take the property address that you're referencing, they would put it into our property maintenance system, and it would generate a CC, central complaint number. That complaint number would then be assigned by our senior town investigator to whoever's up on the rotation to take a new case, and when they are next available, they would investigate that complaint. So that at that point, with all that going on, these people could be out of there by then? Well, and that's part of the problem that we've been having, and that's what these changes are designed to help us with. Okay. So the thing is that what I don't understand is that why do you have to, why can't you just go through like these Airbnbs and you see them, you know, that they are, I mean, like they said, they have the headings. They have the house there. They have all the information there. You know, why can't you just go through the Airbnb and see that these people are illegally renting, go through these owners in lieu of why do you have to get the tenant, the illegal renters, why do you have to get them involved? They don't know that they're renting to an illegal home. Right, and so that's also been part of the problem in the past is generally you would need to get some kind of statement from them, and then in order to, you know, properly prosecute the case, you'd really need to have them available to testify in court. So while this will, you know, one of the bases for the presumption that this creates is finding those transient rentals available on an online platform. In terms of building a case that will, that we can sustain in a criminal prosecution, you know, I would recommend to the code enforcement officers that they go to the location and see if they can gather further evidence. So when you're looking through these sites, obviously you can see dates that are booked out. So if they see a weekend that's booked out in the next two weeks or something, you know, maybe they say, hey, I want to go out at 5 p.m. on Saturday, such and such date. Is that okay? And, you know, I would run it up the, you know, through the chief of staff, and then if approved, they would go out and they would do overtime. Right, no, because a lot of the people that I know that were doing this, they were doing it on the weekend because there was nobody available. So, you know, I think that's one way to stop them. And my question is too is that when you go there and somebody gets penalized, okay, fine. How long after the first time that they get penalized will they go back there again to penalize them again? Is there a record? Do they keep a record? How does that work? ANTHONY FAUCI. We don't have, I don't think we have, like, a set protocol for that. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. ANTHONY FAUCI. We would probably sort of tag that one for reinvestigation or some kind of monitoring. Female Speaker Okay. Thank you. No, I'm just also very much asking about it because in my neighborhood, unfortunately, I had a home that was built for the reason of short-term rental. They don't live there. They just bring in transients. We're in a development that we have a lot of seniors. They're very concerned about strangers going in and out. They've been putting their lights on at night. These people have been told on more than one occasion what the policy is in our community. We don't like it. It falls on deaf ears. And finally, they were, they got one count of transient rental and one count of renting without a permit, but they continue to do it. And I have been trying to call and have them. I have this stop since 2023. And anytime I call the office, I would hear, we don't have, we don't have the help. We don't have anybody to come out and look. We don't have the help. We don't have the help. And that's why I'm saying, I'm standing here to say you need the help before you can do any of these reinforcements. Female Speaker Ma'am, I can always say something with regard to that. That's what this rebut, these rebuttable presumptions are to help. They are to assist the court. This will give the court additional evidence without the code enforcement officers having to jump through five hoops. What Mr. Howard is referring to is when you have an individual that rents, let's say they're from South Carolina and they want to come here for the summer, right? You can't order them to come back to New York. These presumptions will make it a lot easier to prosecute these cases in criminal court without all of that additional evidence for the code enforcements to gather. That's what these steps are helping to alleviate, the need for the code enforcement officer to gather so much more evidence, which is virtually impossible. We want these particular presumptions to help make it easier to prosecute those cases. Female Speaker Ma'am, could you just tell me the address that you've been calling about? Can you tell me the address that you've been calling about? Female Speaker Ma'am, I can tell you. You don't. Female Speaker Ma'am, I'd love to tell you about it. Female Speaker Ma'am, Okay. Female Speaker Ma'am, You did great. Female Speaker Ma'am, He's very proud. Male Speaker Ma'am, Do we have anybody else who'd like to comment? Female Speaker Ma'am, Hi, good evening. Amanda Grams, Riverhead, Reeves Park. I want to first, Mr. Herbert, it's so nice to see you out and about. You always take the time to say hello. Shoot the breeze with us when you're at a craft fair or a parade. I thank you. Male Speaker Ma'am, Thank you. Female Speaker Ma'am, Well, I kind of think that the fines are fantastic. I think that's the way to go. It's a direction. But I'm going to piggyback with this lovely lady just said, because our community in Reeves Park, we do, there's a terrible amount of Airbnb, Vrbo, Rent My House, because it is a summer house. And there is no heat, so they're not renting in the winter, so the times that they're not there, they want to pick up these trees. They want to pick up these transient rentals. You mentioned if someone has a permit, is there a triple fine if the person doesn't have a permit? Because if they have a permit, at least they went through buildings and they have their, you know, fire detector and they have their sockets and, you know what I'm saying? But if they don't have a permit and these people are more brazen to rent their place out, I hope that you've had something back in there about that. We don't. That's not part of the current proposal. Right now, this creates a separate level of penalties for offenses for the transient rentals as opposed to your more common just rental permit violations. Yeah. But if, that's if a house went for the permit, you know? Well, yes. But if the house didn't go for the permit. Yes. So, whether it has a permit or not, it's subject to the same penalties set forth in this new Section 23. Okay. Okay. So, you'd be revoking the permit. Yeah, I got you on that. Right. Okay. I appreciate what you just brought up because I really think that that's important and something that we should be looking into. Yeah. And I will personally. Because if, you know, if somebody is doing. I know exactly what you're saying. With a permit, you go, okay, they screwed up. But now if they don't even have a permit and that house is not deemed rentable at all, now you don't even know what the people are even in. Yeah. So, we could, I guess, maybe create like some sort of aggravated offense category. Love it. You know, right now, if someone's doing the transient rental without a rental permit, they would get the violation for renting without a permit as your sort of base violation. Right. And then they would get the transient rental violation on top of that. If we were able to access the house and determine that there wasn't certificates of occupancy or, you know, appropriate building permits for certain build outs in the structure. We could. That'd be nice. We could ticket those as well. Great. And I mean, we currently do that when we do have access to the house. But that's typically how one of these investigations would go. Okay. I applaud you for trying to fill in these code positions. I mean, I know one just came up and they work very hard. I know they do. I've written letters on occasion and I know they've been able to shut down houses and move, move people out. And, and, and do the right thing. Wellness checks are great too. You know, they take care of even the aesthetic of the house and how it's been kept. So I truly appreciate the code enforcement going out and do those things too. But because a lot of these violations happen on weekends, some of these code people have got to work weekends so they can catch them because neighbor against neighbor really puts a lot of tension in the whole situation. And equation here. So I go out there, I take a picture of North Carolina plates on a Saturday, right? Code enforcement doesn't head over there until the next time. But I got the Carolina plate photo. What does that do? Doesn't do anything until I turn it over to code. So if we had a code enforcement person that worked on the weekends, I think that would be proactive. They'd be able to really catch a lot of these people in action. And my other two cents is, can you have a hotline? Can you have a hotline? So when we do find these things out, we just call because they're going to find it. Facebook marketplace, they're going to go rent my house. Your top five, they're not going to go on anymore because you've already said, if you do go on, you're going to get a $5,000 fine. So water sinks to its lowest level. And I believe that these people will be sneaky enough to go in other venues. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Like I said, Facebook marketplace and stuff like that, where do you have to then set up an account and you have to place a reservation in order to get them in the act? So years ago, I think we did have a hotline. For whatever reason, it was discontinued. We can certainly explore putting that back in. About a year and a half ago, or maybe a little more, we did have code enforcement on the hotline. We had a lot of code enforcement officers on the weekends. So we had a Saturday person, we had a Sunday person. Our Saturday person took a job in South Hampton, I don't know, four or five months ago. And then our Sunday person, as I said earlier, just took a job in Islip. So when we hire the part-time positions, those are currently the way we created the schedule. They will be on a rotation where the weekend is always going to be covered. Lovely. Wonderful. Wonderful. And the hotline would help because, you know, we're going to be able to get a lot of people to come in and see us. And so we're going to be able to get a lot of people to come in and see us. And so we're going to be able to get a lot of people to come in and see us. And so we're going to be able to get a lot of people to come in and see us. And so we're going to be able to get a lot of people to come in and see us. And so we're going to be able to get a lot of people to come in and see us. And so we're going to be able to get a lot of people to come in and see us. And so we're going to be able to get a lot of people to come in and see us. And so we're going to be able to get a lot of people to come in and see us. And so we're going to be able to get a lot of people to come in and see us. And so we're going to be able to get a lot of people to come in and see us. And so we're going to be able to get a lot of people to come in and see us. created the schedule, they will be on a rotation where the weekend is always going to be covered. Wonderful, wonderful. And the hotline would help because the person next door, you know, listening to music at 12 o'clock at night as a wedding party is, you know, doing their jig, would be able to call and say, hey, listen, you know, this is going down at such and such a street right now. And if somebody was working, they'd be able to pick up the call. If they weren't, then it would be the next day and maybe they could catch them at five o'clock in the morning with all their license plates. Right. When we do, as I said before, we do have, when we don't have someone scheduled now, we do have a code enforcement officer who's assigned to be on standby. So if a call does come in to the police department, they can be referred or even the fire marshals, they can be referred to code and then the code officer would come out. So that happens on Saturdays. I don't know if you know that, that if you call the police department, they're supposed to get code enforcement on the line and then they transfer the address and then the person goes out on a Saturday. No, that was, that was the case. That's been going on. That's, that's, that's been going on. You know, the one thing I would say about that is, you know, I would hope that it would be sort of reserved for more, more, how do I say this? Serious code violations. Yeah. So, you know, if there's like some litter in someone's front yard or someone's, you know, So we have, we had written their code a few years ago where our fire chiefs are on scene. Sometimes they're, they're around a structure and they see, you know, improper storage of propane tanks, gas things, something that's a, that's a absolute potential hazard. Certainly not going to put that off until a Monday morning. So the code enforcement officers are on standby 24 seven. So before the fire department even leaves the scene, they wait for a code enforcement officer to arrive. That's the same, same things are our ambulance companies are watching. Eyes or police department. Oh, I know they're out in the community. So they're there when they're responding. Shorter distance to the accident. Absolutely. But when a, a person rented for two, for a couple, for, you know, a couple of days and meanwhile, they have 15 of their family members coming in for the wedding. And so now what is me, the next door neighbor listening to all this and, and, and then they go down to our beach and have at it and maybe even have a ceremony on our beach. So we call the police and, and then they go, hold on a second. Let me see if I can get code enforcement. And they take your name and number and everything. And you know, depends how busy they are and what other things they're doing. I think a hotline would also help a lot of that because then the person on the weekend could just also check the hotline and see what, or, you know, get a tap and see, see what would the prioritize, you know, the severity of what's going on. What do you think? Thank you. Well, hopefully the increase in the fines will create revenue to be able to hire more. Hit them in their pocket, right babe? Hit them in their pocket. It's a start. It's absolutely the best. I love it. And I love the, the little jail time too, waving above their head. That's great too. You know? All right. I appreciate it. Happy Thanksgiving to each of you. Thank you. You too. Thank you. It's come a long way since the times where we had to, we actually had to take an undercover police officer with a town credit card, go and make a transaction with the owner of the BNB. We would've had to plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea ! Airbnbs in the town, it makes it hard to get to 54 Airbnbs when you have to do the investigation that way. So this should expedite the process. Do we have anybody else who would like to comment? Hello, Mrs. Hines, how are you? MS. How are you doing? MR. Good. MS. Hello, everyone. Good evening. Thank you so much, Tim Hubbard and the panel for being here tonight. I always see you guys out on the fairs, the Riverhead Country Fair that didn't happen this year at the East Wind, the Mosaic Festival, which is always a lot of fun. And I appreciate you for giving me this time. Just circling back to a person wanted to do a phone call hotmail, you might want to instead do like a website page where the information can be entered into the portal, and then that way it captures it in the backend and you can do a summary of where it's coming from. It gives you better detailed time data sequence versus a hotmail where somebody has to go back and look at all the numbers, just as a suggestion for that. MR. Yeah, we have that on the Code Enforcement page. MS. Yeah, that might be easier to provide that link. MR. Yeah, you can file a complaint on the Code Enforcement page. MS. And that way you have a better tracking system for where the complaints are coming from, the time, the date, and the frequency of the location. And I say all this to say is that I understand that the meeting today is about the penalties being played upon the violators. And we have to definitely honor the law that we have in place. We need to have enforcement to do that. And budget constraints have done that for Riverhead. MR. Thank you. Thank you. MS. Thank you. MS. Thank you. MS. Thank you. MS. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. MS. Thank you. MS. Thank you. Thank you. MS. Thank you. MS. Thank you. MS. Thank you. Thank you. MS. Thank you. MS. Thank you. MS. Thank you. MS. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. MS. Thank you. Thank you. MS. Thank you. MS. Thank you. MS. Thank you. Thank you. MS. Thank you. more money to cover the rising cost of insurance. We know property taxes are also going up and I wanted to put it in everyone's mind how we can find a medium when it comes to short-term rentals and I'm not talking about weekends I'm talking about 12 days or 14 days. What happened to me is that I have a rental in Connecticut. It's 29 days or longer. I rent to traveling nurses and they come to Yale University to stay there for three months to do an internship but in the course of the time what has happened is that I found people that needed to have surgery and needed a place for the family to come for two weeks for that surgery. I also found students that only needed three weeks to merge Yale closing for holidays to be able to do a internship from another university and be able to have like a partnership almost like a doubling of services. I also know that tourism remains one of Suffolk County's strongest economic drivers. 4.6 billion dollars in Suffolk County last year was spent just on tourism. 1.1 billion dollars was in lodging and we generated 310 million dollars in tax revenue. Folks our property taxes and insurance taxes keep going up. That is not going to change this year or next year but where can we find a middle ground? Is maybe a 14-day be a better middle ground where if a person coming to Peconic Bay to have orthopedic surgery like my husband is having orthopedic surgery I love my family but I don't want them in my house you know what I mean I don't want to mind getting them in a place that they can come and rotate with me and visit with me you know so we want to also generate revenue not just from fees and penalties we don't want to be that person to come down but speaking to hearing you speak about the grievances that you've had is very uncomfortable to live next to a person that continues to be a burden on you. 4.6 billion dollars in the state of California is a huge amount of money. We have to find a middle ground. We have to think about the fact that we have the lavender fields we have splish-splash inflation is going up family are living paycheck to paycheck they're not traveling on cruises to Disney World have you seen the price of going to Disney is astronomical I mean it was so expensive to go for a family of four but we want families to love what we have here in Riverhead. And a family of four a family of six having breakfast at home being able to still go out for drinks going to a vineyards going to splish-splash is a balance but how do we get there we cannot just think about axing it at 29 days what I've learned when I did this little review thank you for chat GPT so I must say these numbers show the direct connection between visitor accommodations neighboring towns demonstrate that regulation not elimination so I agree with the regulation. I agree with the fees having somebody on the weekends to be responsive to our needs because I feel that if the homeowners felt that they were being heard and that they were being addressed that would be more flexible to be flexible with a 29 days you understand what I'm saying if they felt that somebody was violating and that person had a fee that go along with it they could go to jail because they did a three-day and they did a party and we pulled the rental permit if they felt that they were being hurt in that matter there will be a change in the rental permit. So what is the next step in the reconciliation process? So the next step is to make sure that the residents are being more open and accommodating to be more flexible in a 14-day stay like Southampton just enacted. Southampton Village has adopted a two-week minimum and East Hampton maintains a rental registry and clear enforcement pathways. I don't know if you realize but the Strawberry Festival brings everybody from Florida they bring the whole team from Florida to manage the public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public And once we feel comfortable, we need to revisit this again and see if we allow a 14-day because Peconic Bay is increasing. That hospital has one of the best doctors now. And if somebody's going to come here for orthopedic surgery, they're going to need less than a month to be able to say, because guess what? That's not covered by medical coverage. You know, that rehabilitation, part of it is covered, but not your stay. It gets complicated. And we already know medical coverage is going up. My medical coverage went up already. So we have to be balanced. First, we need to be feel heard. So I'm sorry for what you experienced or anybody else experienced in short term . We need to reconsider the amount of length of time that we have, maybe 14 days, and looking at that as a way to work with Peconic Bay Hospital, to work with certain fairs and families, and eliminate those that are violating the law. Because they shouldn't be violating, they shouldn't have the permission to have the They shouldn't have the best medical coverage. So we have to be balanced. We can't do that without being sick and sick and sick and sick and sick and sick and sick and sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick taxes. If somebody has Airbnb and short-term rental, it is another way for Riverhead to generate income. And we need to generate income to stop piercing the property tax, to manage our insurance guys is going up and we're in a fixed income. And so as property taxes go up, we need other forms of revenue that can offset that. And maybe this can be a source of revenue that can offset some of our property taxes if it's done intelligently. And that's all I have to say. So thank you, everyone. Thank you, Mrs. Hines.
My name is Michael Mahan. I'm a resident of Riverhead. I agree with the lady that it seems quite often that people that are retired on fixed income can use this as a way to supplement their income. When first came out rentals, everybody joined back. A lot of people joined it and a lot of people abused it. And some people made business out of it. But some people only supplemented their income a week or two a year. A week or two a year is enough to pay half your taxes. Doesn't have to be a business. The two week would be very good for people who are looking to supplement their income. Because if taxes have gone up, everything has gone up. But the retirement payments have not gone up. And have not kept pace. Electricity, when you see the trucks, there's five trucks where there should be one. What are they doing? They're overcharging the consumer, the city, and everybody. That's what people are doing. I understand that the hotel has a very strong lobby. And this lobby has a lot of power. And the people who are in the lobby are the people who are in the board of Riverhead. They are building a hotel now. I believe they're not going to pay any property taxes for years. A new building is going to come up. There's a demolition going in. They're getting the money for the demolition. They're not going to pay any taxes for a year. Are they going to pay property taxes there? No. They're not going to pay property taxes. I don't think that's been determined yet. They have to go before the IDA. Does Target, Walmart, do they pay property taxes? They certainly do. They certainly do. All these people, they change their location every so many years to get a new deal on taxes. That's incorrect, sir. All those places you mentioned pay taxes. I don't want to get involved in politics, but I have a desire sometimes. Because I have a dream that you people would fight for me as you fight for the corporations. Okay, I think that we're getting a little off course here. I'm not getting off course. Because what's happening is that we're going to have to go back to the old way. We're going to have to go back to the old ways. We're going to have to go back to the old ways. And what's happening is there's a very strong lobby anti-rental. And that strongest part of that lobby and the finance of that lobby comes from the hotel. I had a business in the city before I retired. I know the people and I know what they do. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'll just say living in Waiting River, I've never been lobbied by any hotel on short-term rentals. As a resident of Waiting River, I have legitimate concerns about the quality of life in my community. And I don't want weekend parties going on and on down the street from me one after another and bringing cases of beer and food and leaving litter at my beach and destroying my beach. And then if that's one family on Friday and then another one comes in and rents Saturday and somebody else's Sunday, that's the quality of life. That's what I stand for. I've made that clear along. Nobody's ever lobbied me about that. I'm not going to be supportive of daily rentals in there changing the quality of life in the community that we live in. I'm going to ask you for day and money. It doesn't matter whether it be two days, three days, weekend. You want to rent it for a weekend? Then pay the 29 days and book out the 29 days, stay a weekend and go home and let it be vacant for the next three weeks. 29 days is oppressive. We can't hear you, sir. We don't go back and forth from the audience, sir. There was no hearing and nobody behind me or back. We give a privilege to them that you don't give to us. That's not true. Sir, go ahead. It is true. How are you listening? Dan Sack, what's waiting for you? I wasn't going to start with this but let me circle back to the last two discussions. I support the 29 days. It is a quality of life. And when you're living on the beach and you have people coming every two weeks, if someone's a month, we've joined barbecues with neighbors who have come there for a rental of 29 days. You get to know people in 29 days. When you have constant turnover, you don't get to know people in 29 days. You get to know people in 29 days. You get to know people in 29 days. You get to know people in 29 days. You get to know people in 29 days. You get to know people in 29 days. You get to know people in 29 days. You get to know people in 29 days. People coming every two weeks. If someone's a month, we've joined barbecues with neighbors who have come there for a rental of 29 days. You get to know people in 29 days. When you have constant turnover, you don't get to know people, and it's just a whole different circumstance. People aren't as courteous. Certainly the weekend bachelorette and bachelor parties have to go. We've been fighting this battle for seven or eight years now, and I do support the 29 days because it is different when you're a homeowner and you have constant turnover in the houses, either on one side or both sides across the street. And it's nice to know your neighbors. I understand we have to have some rental accommodations, and I strongly support the 29 days. That gives me the quality of life to live in my house and know the people who are next door to me. Even a month, you get to know people. Two weeks, it's just too short. And I understand there's arguments on the other side, but I'm the homeowner. We pay a lot of taxes. As I said, we get a lot of enjoyment out of our house, and I want to be protected on our quality of life. You would agree Creek Road was not what it was 30 years ago. Absolutely. And this legislation that's being put forth allows us to start making enforcements down there. I wanted to follow up on something Eric said, because we have sent over the last several years to your office, actually to you, copies of some of the printouts of houses with the reviews where, as you said, they had a great three-day party, and thanks to the homeowner, what a great renter it was. I believe you said that that can be used now? Yes. Just the fact that there were two or three reviews commenting the fact that we've had a great party for two days? I mean, ideally, there'd be six months or six months plus of reviews, a couple per month or something. Backing up. Yeah. Right. Because when we started civil cases in the past, I have used those as exhibits. And so, you know, when we're seeking a preliminary injunction or something, and I found that to be effective. So, yes. I mean, yes. The point is the answer is yes. We can use that now. In the four or five years ago, there was a lot of activity on this. And my understanding is that the fire department went in, and somehow there were a lot of code violations with illegal walls. And a lot of the homeowners had to undergo significant course to take those walls down and make the houses conform to code. Where was it? On Creek Road, there was some houses. Oh, okay. Yeah. I think. But outside of those few circumstances, I'm not aware of any significant code enforcement that was effective. And again, for many of the reasons that we're here tonight, to understand that we're changing the code so your job becomes easier. Is it possible that code enforcement could issue a monthly, quarterly, semiannual report on how many complaints, and how many complaints would be made? And if so, what would be the most effective way to address that? I mean, I think that's a good question. And I think that's a good question. And I think that's a good question. And I think that's a good question. And I think that's a good question. And I think that's a good question. And I think that's a good question. We would demand a monthly, quarterly, semiannual report on how many complaints, how many cases there are, how many fines issued, so that we as homeowners can understand that some action is not only being taken, but is being effective or is not being taken. Because we have no visibility now outside of seeing the renters. And it would be very helpful to get some kind of report back on a regular basis where we can come to one of these meetings and hear a report on the effect Code enforcement comes in once a month and gives Thank you. reported our work sessions on Thursday, which are televised, and they list all the numbers of everything, everything that they do. And included in that is rentals, illegal rentals, and everything else. So that's already being done. Female Speaker 1 Once a month, he does come in and give us that information. Male Speaker 2 Okay, during the work session. Okay. Male Speaker 1 Yeah, and you can go on our website, and all the videos are recorded there if you want to, you know, see a historical. Male Speaker 2 I have, but I didn't realize that code enforcement also would... Male Speaker 2 Yeah, you have to look up work sessions. Male Speaker 2 Yeah, they generate them on there. They have a monthly report that breaks down the type of complaints they've gotten, the type of violations that they've investigated, the number of tickets that they've issued. Male Speaker 1 But is it very general? Could code enforcement just have their own section where they would say, okay, we've had, you know, how many complaints and how many actions and how many fines and how many cases are ongoing? And can that be a robust report so we can really get a feel for what's going on? Male Speaker 2 Well, we try to combine it with a justice court report. So, you know, code enforcement does the code enforcement thing, and then justice court is where we prosecute the town code violations. And we do a monthly justice court report, too. And the deputy town attorney who handles that, Victoria Saru, she breaks down all the different types of violations that she's, you know, successfully prosecuted and the fines that have been imposed. Male Speaker 1 Would it be more concise and just in terms of this one area that seems to be a major concern so we don't have to listen to six different... Male Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I can certainly ask them to, you know, break that out. Male Speaker 2 If they could just one section on code enforcement, all comprehensive. Male Speaker 1 Yeah, comprehensive in terms of what's going on. Male Speaker 2 Okay. Male Speaker 2 This way we don't have to tune into the whole thing and grab bits and pieces from different sections of the presentation. Male Speaker 2 Okay. I mean, they come in here, they sit down, and it's a different section, right? Male Speaker 2 Right. Male Speaker 2 They call up our senior town investigator. He comes up. He has a report prepared. He articulates the report to the town board. Then, you know, they'll call for the justice court report. The town attorney will come up. She'll go over the report with them. I mean, it's already broken down, so I'm not sure how much more you want it broken down. Male Speaker 2 Well, just pull it into one section of code because now you're saying we have to listen to different presentations to gleam how many complaints there were or how many fines were issued or how many court cases are going on. It sounds like what you're saying we have to listen to different speakers present their segment of their report. Male Speaker 2 Right. Male Speaker 2 But we just have one concise section on code enforcement. It's on code enforcement in terms of the rentals. They can go through ten different parameters, how many complaints there were, how many cases are ongoing, how many fines are levied, how many fines are complete, you know. Female Speaker 2 I would rather take that time and have code enforcement out there on the job doing the job than taking the time to do that. Male Speaker 2 Fair enough. Male Speaker 2 They give us the general numbers. In the breakdowns, we have all the general numbers, so we have an idea how many cases there were, and then it's followed up, like Eric said, with the justice court report, which shows then the number of cases that came in and what categories there were. Male Speaker 2 And keep in mind, the reason why we don't drill down into each individual one is because if they're in court, we can't comment on it. Male Speaker 2 Okay. Male Speaker 2 But you'll see how many violations are out there, and it's significant. Male Speaker 2 Okay. Appreciate it. Thanks for your time, and thank you for doing a great job on this issue. Male Speaker 2 Thank you. Have a good night. Male Speaker 2 Thank you. Male Speaker 2 I just want to remind us that this isn't a meeting about the number of days for rentals. It's just about the actual code changes that are going to be to help our code enforcement enforce these code violations better. A meeting for the number of days, I imagine, will be sometime in the future when that's looked at. Female Speaker 2 Good evening. Astrid Lehman, Bading Hollow. Thanks for having the meeting. On that note, I guess I'll just get right to the point. There were several articles published, I guess, about Gulf dwellings. Male Speaker 2 Okay. Local office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office office and they were rental units, golf units. Are those short-term rentals? Are they less than 29 days? I'd have to bring the code back up and look at it. I don't know what they were. Well, does the town attorney know? I don't think they were 29-day rentals. No, they were more like... Yeah, it was a discussion. Yeah, I don't think... Okay, so if they were less than 29 days based on what we're discussing here, then they would not be legal. They would fall more on the lines of a hotel-style development. So is a hotel then... Is it a hotel or are they golf cottages at 1,200 square foot per unit? Nothing ever really moved forward with that. It was an open discussion to say, is this something that we should look into? It's my understanding that they have cottages up there right now that are being rented on the weekends. Is that the case? Yes. Friday. Friars Head. Friars Head. Because you can't pick the winners and the losers. I mean, people here... You heard both sides of this issue. There are people here that have very good reasons for wanting to do a short-term rental, seem very responsible. I am a short-term rental owner in Vermont. I know what the deal for Airbnb is. I think that some people don't understand how this whole platform works. A little more information about what a short-term rental could mean to the town, regardless of the number of days, could be significant income, as the woman indicated. But back to the supervisor's point, this is not the topic of what this public hearing is about. But clearly, there's two sides to this issue. It always comes back to the granular level of what does Riverhead want to be? Hearing people's complaints about issues in the community for weekend stays, quality of life, those are all things that can be addressed through proper... enforcement and also consideration of permitting and criteria. Okay, so I really want to know, though, if there is a short-term rental, a friar said, because like I said, it would not be fair to start dangling criminal charges over private homeowners who rent their houses out and not have anything addressed at those places if they're doing it. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Astrid.
We'll take somebody online. We have two people waiting online.
You're up. Okay. Can you... Can you... Can you see me now? We can hear you. Okay, great. I guess my camera, you can't see the camera. Oh. Who is it? Okay, I'm going to turn my camera on. Thank you. My name is Bob Klein, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak this evening. I'm on the West Coast. Otherwise, I'd be there in person. And I just want to commend the town of Riverhead for implementing these additional steps for stronger regulations on short-term, daily rentals, the town of Riverhead. As was mentioned, I'm a resident of Overlook Drive in Aquebog, and I thought I'd give a little information of what it's like to live in a neighborhood that has a daily rental. You might have heard about Victorville. And this was a case where one neighbor was advertising for 45 people in his home, renting out 16 rooms. He hosted weddings, corporate retreats, and bachelorette parties. He served food and alcohol to large groups. It vastly increased the traffic in our area. Cars were parked on both sides of the street, and we couldn't get emergency vehicles through. We had strangers going through the neighborhood. We had noise from parties going to three in the morning. And trash eight times what a normal resident would put out. And once the complaint was filed, you know, and we really appreciate what the town of Riverhead did, but the legal system took 16 months from the time the complaint was filed to try to get a stipulation signed by the homeowner. All the residents, 13 of us, went to that owner and said, would you please stop this? And we appreciate that the town of Riverhead stepped in. So I personally don't want other citizens in the town of Riverhead to go through what we did. So I really appreciate the strategy that you've put forward to increase the penalties to these offenders, stop the advertising on Airbnb, rescind the rental permits, and it's in a very efficient way to enforce the regulations. I think it'll really cut down the time. It'll cut down the cost to the town of Riverhead. So, you know, I'm just applauding what you all are doing, and I hope you adopt this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Klein. Mr. Klein refers to one of the cases, I spoke about earlier, where we had to send an undercover in, and that lengthened that process for sure. And hopefully this will expedite things much quicker for us. So we appreciate that. Thank you, sir. Thank you. We have one more on line.
They can hear me. We can hear you. Yeah. My name is Michael Jones. I've been a resident of Riverhead for 10 years. So I do rent my property. I rent it monthly. I do have to say, I'm a little surprised to hear the extreme measures being taken against folks that rent homes. We pay property taxes. We're citizens of the community. You know, we do it to supplement income sometimes. Sometimes we do it to vacation and we're not there. Sometimes, as one gentleman said, you know, sometimes it's for people that need additional income.
And so, can you see me? Your ceiling looks pretty good. Yeah, so, yeah, sorry. I'm not presentable at the moment. So, you know, I just wanted to point out that, you know, I think it's a little egregious what the town is doing here in terms of the enforcement. A little extreme. You know, there's been times when Airbnb changes the way they do their calendaring or changes the way they do the way they allow you to host things for rent. And when that happens, you know, if someone misses it, I don't think they should be extremely frustrated. They'll be fine. They'll possibly have jail time just because they accidentally change the setting or VRBO changes the setting or Airbnb changes the setting on their own. So, there's that issue. And then there's also the fact that, you know, some folks also use this as a means to find out if there's anyone interested in renting for 30 days. And so, you know, this takes away that ability to find folks that are interested in 30 days. If they sometimes... Or if they are searching for a shorter period, but then when you explain to them there's a 30-day minimum, they end up renting for 30 days. So, there's that aspect. And I think, you know, you mentioned that this is not a discussion about the length of time. But I don't think you can have those conversations separately. I think they kind of go hand in hand. You know, there's obviously concerns about the weekenders. But I do think the lady that proposed the 14-day rental has a very good point. You know, there's... People that can afford the 14-day rental, they're not going to be a lot more respectful. I don't know if 14 days versus 30 days gives the gentleman that says, you know, it's time to introduce himself and meet the people. I don't know if 14 days is enough or if 30 days is the minimum amount of time to meet someone and get acquainted with them. But, you know, I think it should be taken into consideration. It should be consistent with other townships in the area. And I think it goes hand in hand with what the fines that you're implementing. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. ! Thank It will be kept open for 10 days until November 28th. All right, we're moving on to the next step, and that will be comments on resolutions. So now it will be a three-minute comment on any resolution that's on tonight's calendar.
Okay.
Good evening, Honorable Town Board, Honorable Town Supervisor. My name is Mark Krushelevsky. You have seen me several times here at this podium and have met with me in a session that was not public. I'm here to discuss what defines qualified and eligible. I mean, really, what does it mean? What defines it? The Jazz Loft reports just $286,000 in liquid assets and $850,000 in equity, yet the project requires multimillion-dollar renovation and at least $1 million in life-safety upgrades before opening to the public. They only have $256,000, and they are looking at... creating an endowment around this. Does that sound like a stable business plan to you? Not to me. Other bidders have approached the Town Board with feasible plans that require no county, state, or town money. Right now, we're looking at county grants totaling $375,000, $250,000 already allocated for the roof, and an additional $125,000 under consideration. Those are public monies. That's our money. Or a business model that relies on being a non-profit and grants. Taxpayers deserve to understand why a bid so dependent on public subsidy was elevated over self-funded projects of actual real business projects, not handouts. To restore confidence in this process, I respectfully request the Board of Governors and the City of Kentucky to report this report. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. board published the complete financial documentation used to deem the jazz loft qualified and eligible for me that as a taxpayer i want to understand how do you evaluate somebody that's qualified because in my book they are absolutely not qualified as a buyer number two i don't think they're qualified to run an operation like this and also i would like to see audited statements liquidity schedules and binding capital commitments this way we know they're real it isn't that they're going to why are we so late in the process with the jazz law they didn't have the money they were out there trying to find donors and that's going to be the continuing operation operating method that they have i would also like to have every public dollar itemized that's already committed or contemplated for the veil 11 with intended uses and timelines and require the jazz law to secure and disclose enforceable financing such as completion bonds escrowed renovation funds or irrevocable donor pledges covering purchase and purchase all the life safety upgrades and曲es and fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed of operating reserve. And in closing, I think taxpayer funding is for the good of the many. Child care, food and security, low-income housing, not for the good of an elite few. Thank you for your time. I'd like to respond to those remarks that you've just made. I find disagreement with many of them. You stated that this project was going to require millions of dollars. It's not true. At the qualified and eligible hearing, Mr. Manuel came and approached Mike and talked about the number of projects that he will be able to do. That will not require anywhere near the amount that you're talking about. Second of all, this is a registered historical landmark from 1888. You cannot build millions of dollars into this and change it the way your proposals. And I counted at least three times you came, whether it was an executive session or whether it was here at a microphone. And I'd like to say, sir, I take real umpires, and I'm not going to go back and forth with your last remark about the fact that this is taking so long in the process. It took so long in the process because you kept coming back, whether it was executive session or whether it was work sessions with different proposals one after another. Sometimes you were saying you were going to be a not-for-profit. Sometimes you were a profit. Sometimes you were with... We were never given the ability... Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, sir. Sometimes you were with Mr. Ray Castanova. Sometimes you were not. Sometimes you were with another individual from Live Nation. You kept... You kept bringing forth different alternatives. That's what slowed up this process. You say it took... It was delayed because he couldn't find donors. That's not true at all. It was delayed because you kept coming back and were granted an audience to keep coming back. And in fact, he missed grant opportunities, not being able to get in there because this board kept listening to different versions of the operation you want to do, which is not viable. You didn't even have an architect who could certify that any of the projects you want to do at this location could even be accomplished. And most importantly, to say that this is a business that doesn't know what it's doing, it's 10 years in operation already, fully functioning, huge audiences all the time. To say that they don't know what they're doing is really disingenuous. I'm sorry, but I have to call you out on those remarks. Okay, and I'd like to respond to that. Please do. We came in a number of times and we had... Drawings, plans, et cetera. No, you had sketches. You did not have an architect, you did not have plans, and you even stated that in the executive session. Be honest. I'm being honest. We did have... We provided 10 times more than the Jazz Loft did. And I'm going to... I do have somebody that also I know would like to speak on this, but what we are going to find out and we will see that this is a business that is going to be a success. And this will become basically a public taxpayer-funded project going in the future. There's just... And it wasn't us that was delaying it. I guess we needed to wait till the Jazz Loft got a $250,000 grant and to actually get that $256,000 bank account. The Jazz Loft has an endowment from Stony Brook University. It's a major philanthropist in this town. Ms. Emily Corey, Mr. Brian Stark. People with a real commitment to helping this town, to helping create a viable enterprise down in our downtown community to help our taxpayers with the revenue that will be created by the commercial ventures that this will help. The hotels, the restaurants, all of that will be helped by this ongoing business, which is a great success already. Not a maybe, not someday, as your proposals, suggested, but an actual performing group. My business is today. I have two venues. They're sold out. 1,100 tickets sold at Irving Plaza, 985 tickets at Warsaw. I know what I'm talking about. There will be no real economic development with proposed one show a month that's going to bring in 150 people. The restaurants and the hotels are not going to see any real pop, or really, I think that's a pipe dream. And thank you for your time. Thank you. One more caller? Thank you.
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experience is I have 15 years in the construction management real estate development industry. The last seven years prior to my last job at Live Nation, I did nine projects totaling $140 million. I'm very familiar with the building code. I went out there, I inspected the site. Our budget was a pretty solid budget that, you know, there is some serious issues at that building. So first of all, there's a sprinkler system that needs to be installed to reopen. You know, I read an article, to digress a little bit, I read an article that the pro forma for the business is 150 tickets sold for one show a month. They can make $89,000 a year, which that math is doesn't make any sense. And so it's quite perplexing to me that we're like, we were... We weren't given a full opportunity to show these financials. And I want to know if they have actually had an architect of record, an engineer of record go into that place, put together, you know, a set of plans and put it out to bid to the street to the contractors and got a hard price to know that like to reopen to meet the building code that they've got the right amount of money set aside for it. Because I know it's going to take at least $500,000 to $1 million to put in a new sprinkler system in the building. To put in an ADA compliant elevator, to put a mechanical system in to make it co-compliant. Right now the current capacity is only 74 people in the theater because there's only one legal means of egress or co-compliant, you know, egress coming out of the theater. So I'm assuming that in their proposal they capture all this stuff and they've got like, this has been really vetted like that. Can someone tell me that like when the proposal that was given to you guys from them that covers all this stuff? Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Yes. Is the proposal from the Jasloff, have they done a thorough due diligence of the property? I'll answer the question. The answer is no. I'll answer the question. The question, the answer is yes. We have an engineer. He's a contractor who specializes in historical restorations unlike your individuals who has years and years of experience at this and they did an entire plan and they have done that in this case. And that was presented at the qualified and eligible hearing. So this is something that has been done. Mr. Snodgrass is his name. Mr. Snodgrass is his name and he has recognized Joel Snodgrass throughout the state with regard to historical landmark preservation. And the project, according to him. And Mr. Emanuel is $300,000, not millions of dollars. So he's an engineer of what? He's a structural engineer or a mechanical electrical plumbing engineer or what type of engineer is he? This is open for comments, not questions. Yeah, but I'm just like to respond to that. We want to hear your comments on what you're trying to say. So my comments are to reopen the space. I'm telling you what it costs. And I've had an architect of record who knows the building code, who knows code requirements, do his assessment and his assessment is what I presented to you guys. An engineer can't do that assessment. An architect has to do that assessment. An engineer is specialized in one particular trade. An architect is the one who signs off on everything for the building to reopen. And so an architect of record needs to provide all the details scope to make the place code work. And so I'm going to give you a little bit of a rundown of what we've done. That was never done by the Jazz Loft. I have had it done by Laces Architects, Nathan Minnette, Wake Development. You could look them up. I can provide that information for you guys. We came and saw you guys at the end of May and that was it. We were going to come back and then we were told not to come back. We weren't given any further notification. If I knew we were going to have six months to sit around and do nothing, I could have put together a full set of plans and went out to bid to the street and show you. And I could have kept the project moving. We would have fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed it and fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed fixed That's my comment on it, and I think you know You you know you get what you pay for Thank you very much So I'm just gonna clarify that Consistent with the CDA's adopted rules in general municipal law We held the qualified and eligible hearing on October 16th as required by law at that time the jazz loft made a presentation the Evidence in the presentation including financial material was all submitted at that time This is all laid out in the resolution that is in the packet today resolution number 2025 939 it sort of painstakingly lays out the entire process and I will note that because this is Urban renewal area property the town board is not required to seek an RFP or put out an RFP The process is designed to be more flexible So that the town Board can identify a qualified knowledgeable sponsor that will in their assessment Have the have the best chance of redeveloping distressed property There's nothing in this process that has been done incorrectly The town board has followed the procedure with guidance from my office and that is what has brought us here today Thank You councillor do we have anybody else who would like to comment on any resolution Okay, nobody online mr. McCullough
McAuliffe rolling woods Roanoke landing I had not planned to speak to this but hearing the obvious deep feelings about it, I wanted to support the decision of the board from the qualified and eligible to go forward with the jazz loft as the responsible party to make the theater an Important not just a cultural center, but a place that community meetings can take place that are not connected to churches or or to Other more specialized places, but it having a you know, we used it during the ep Cal Discussion and had a couple of hundred people there and I hope that that also would be a ! Future but I mean I'm a little puzzled that The kind of presentations that are being made would have been logically part of the qualified and eligible hearing and and not Against the particular resolution which comes out of the qualified and eligible I do in principle think that requests for proposals both about the town board town square and about the This whole process I have some hesitation about but that's the process you're working from and and I think you've done a credible job in finding the process you're working from and and I think you've done a credible job in finding an entity that will lift up Riverheads regional role and and give that theater space the treatment that it deserves. Thank you Thank you, John Nobody online Okay Okay, let's move on to the resolutions
I'm getting there A resolution number one, which is 921 approves expenditure of trust and agency account funds and community benefit funds to riverhead cap 2026 to 2027 so moved second vote, please Waski, yes Merrifield yes, Kern. Yes, Rockwell. Yes. Okay. Yes Resolution is crazy. It's crazy
I'm sorry a Resolution is adopted My computer's being a little wacky here a resolution 922 authorizes the removal of fixed assets so the seconded Local office office Local office office Local office office Local office office Local office office Local office office Local office office Local office office Local office office Local office office Local office office Local office office Local office Local office Local office Local office Local office Local office Local office Local office Local office Local office Hissä. Yes. Okay. I'm sorry. Didn't show up on my computer. Okay, resolution is adopted. Resolution number 923. ratifies the authorization for the recreation superintendent to attend the 2025 NY SRPS conference so moved seconded vote please Waski yes Merrifield yes Kern yes Rothwell yes Hubbard yes resolution is adopted resolution number 924 appoints an automotive equipment operator so moved seconded vote please Waski yes Merrifield yes Kern yes Rothwell yes and Hubbard yes resolution is adopted I think resolution number 5 925 appoints an automotive equipment operator so moved second vote please Waski yes Merrifield yes Kern yes Rothwell yes Hubbard yes resolution is adopted resolution number 926 ratifies the appointment of a maintenance mechanic to so moved seconded vote please Waski yes Merrifield yes Kern yes Rothwell yes and Hubbard yes resolution is adopted resolution number 927 appoints traffic control specialists to the police department so moved seconded vote please Waski yes Merrifield yes Kern yes Rothwell yes and Hubbard yes resolution is adopted resolution 928 appoints a town board coordinator so moved seconded vote please Waski yes Merrifield yes Kern yes Rothwell yes Hubbard yes resolution is adopted resolution 929 setting resolution 930 setting Terms and conditions of Terms and conditions of employment for town board coordinators employment for town board coordinators demand plea plea plea air so moved demand plea plea air so moved second then we just do that one it's second then we just do that one it's just same sicko okay now is sick and just same sicko okay now is sick and I'm confused well that's different one I'm confused well that's different one appoints one appointer and then you appoints one appointer and then you fixed and one is two Terms we were Okay, yes. Second. Vote, please. Waske. Yes.
Merrifield. Yes. Rothwell. Helming-Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Hubbard. Yes. Resolution is adopted. This computer is going slow. Resolution 930. Authorizes the promotion of a detective. Congratulations. Congratulations. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske. Yes.
Merrifield. Yes. Congratulations, Detective Hogan. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Congratulations. And Hubbard. Yes. Congratulations. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 931. Ratifies the reclassification of a senior office assistant to a principal office assistant. So moved. Seconded. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Judge Feinstein. Yes, and congratulations, Heather. Well deserved.
And Rothwell? Yes. Congratulations. And Hubbard? Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 932. Ratifies the resignation of a code enforcement officer. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? I just want to wish Connor well. He was really great while he was here, and thank you, and yes. And Rothwell? Yes. Hubbard? Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 933. Ratifies the resignation of a water treatment plant operated to be. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Hubbard? Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 934. Ratifies authorization for James K. Talatin of Integra Healthcare and Senior Housing to conduct an appraisal of Wellbridge Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? I was just there last week. It is an amazing facility. I'm very happy it's here in our town. So moved. Kern? Yes. Sorry. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. And Hubbard? Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 935. Awards a bid for removal of household hazardous waste. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. And Hubbard? Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 936. Authorizes Goodman Marks Associates, Inc. to conduct an appraisal of Wellbridge Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center. An appraisal in connection with tax-grievance litigation entitled United Riverhead Terminal, Inc. vs. the Board of Assessors, et al. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. And Hubbard? Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 937. Authorizes appraisal economics to conduct an appraisal in connection with tax-grievance litigation entitled United Riverhead Terminal, Inc. vs. the Board of Assessors, et al. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. And Hubbard? Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 938. Approves extension of license agreement with United States Department of Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service access for high-fiber water level logging equipment at Wading River Boat Ramp, so that the boat can be used for the ! The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. The Board of Assessors, and also moved. Seconded. as the Vale Levitt Music Hall and described as Suffolk County Tax Map number 600-128.00-6.00-080.00 located at 18 Peconic Avenue, Riverhead, New York 11901. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskie. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Before I vote, I just want to say a couple of things. One is I agree with what was said earlier by one gentleman. There's no talk about a sound engineer. There's no talk about sound equipment. After I reviewed their plan, no, and I agree with the no ADA compliant elevator. There's no architectural, anything on the interior renovation, the bathrooms, et cetera, which I know I've looked at those. They're in desperate need. And there's nothing. Nothing financial there. There's no electrical engineers report. There's no painting cost. There's no sound system cost. There's no theater manager cost. And I don't see this. I don't. I think they're great at jazz in terms of running a performing arts center, which is going to benefit the town and for everybody to be clear. Yes, it's a town building. The taxpayers. The taxpayers own that building. And I am. And number one, number two, in order for it to be successful, I think it needs to be a true performing arts center so they can benefit the businesses downtown and visitors to Riverhead. With that, I vote no. Rothwell. I would say that I agree that there seems to be some financial concerns about how they move forward. But in the final hours, they have florent. This is in December. We will continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue to continue themselves in other projects within our towns that have become very successful. So I think with the proper guidance and backing of others the Jazz Loft could be successful. I vote yes. Hubbard. I agree with what Councilman Rothwell just said. The people that are backing this project know what they're doing and they would not have stood up in recognition of this project if they didn't truly believe that themselves and I think it's going to be a great addition to the downtown of Riverhead and I vote yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 940. Approved special event chapter 255 application for the Lions Club of Riverhead Christmas Parade and Extravaganza. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waske. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Hubbard. Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 941. The publication and posting of the
notice to amend the Community Development Block Grant CDBG budget for program years 2024 and 2025 and if anybody reads this they'll see this as money being that was allocated one place in the town and is now going to the Jazz Loft. So I'll move it. Seconded. Vote please. Waske. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. No. I'm sorry. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 943. Adopt the local law to override the tax levy limit established by and set forth in
Article 2, Section 3C of the General Municipal Law. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waske. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. No. I'm sorry. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Kern. Yes.
Rothwell. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. sicko sicko Yes. Kern? President Lee, yes. Rothwell? I'm just going to say, my answer is that I am voting yes, but I do want to say that we've put a lot of thought into this process. I do think that there is an additional tax increase to it, but the police chief has stood before us in work sessions, and he has stated that the crime rate is down. Our police presence is up. We've increased our police force to 100 officers. It does come with a price, but we are a better town. We are a safer town. And so, no one wants to see tax increases. Nobody wants to see this go up, but it does pay in terms of a quality of life. Vote yes. Hubbard? Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 945. Pays bills. Second. Vote moved. Vote please. Waske? Yes. Murrayfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Hubbard? Yes. plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea nine years. An update on that, September 17th we were we appeared at a court ordered settlement agreement between the sponsors the builders Riverhead Reeves and Beachwood and all their subcontractors. We were able to negotiate a settlement agreement that is dependent upon the town approving that agreement. The agreement was drawn up by our attorneys, Evan Gitter, and it was submitted to the the Deputy Town Attorney on October 15th and we've had I'll exaggerate a little hundreds of emails have gone back and forth phone calls and the latest as of this morning around nine o'clock is that is now going before the town Planning Board for the settlement agreement. We've had a discussion and executive session. We negotiated this the settlement basically to take care of deficiencies that we've experienced for the past nine plus years. The town has relinquished not you folks out there sitting in front of us but prior boards have relinquished a 2.4 million dollar I believe bond back to the sponsor without these deficiencies being corrected. We're also plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea plea we negotiated the settlement and now it seems like the wheels are spinning and we're not getting anywhere with the settlement um so mr howard i don't know if you could answer what the process is going to be after the the town planning board meets with it but um we're spending countless and unnecessary um homeowners dollars in legal fees trying to get this thing settled we would love more nothing more than for the town to call in the performance bond of the 843 000 dollars hire somebody to come in and fix the deficiencies and if it goes over that amount then you guys go after the the uh the sponsor but i don't think you're going to want to do that um we've been in this litigation since 2022 with the sponsor we've finally gotten to a point where they're admitting that there are deficiencies um we've finally gotten to a point where they're admitting that there are deficiencies and they are willing to put out funds to help us correct those deficiencies. And the bottom line is our attorney is looking for a clarification as to what requirements the town is going to put on the HOA to fix the deficiencies when to fix the deficiencies, if there are any requirements being put on the HOA. We understand that the town is not going to release the bond to the sponsor unless all parties are in agreement. So we'd just like some kind of clarification on what the requirements are. We understood that we would get the settlement money, the bond would be released, and there would be no restrictions in terms of timelines or a guideline of what needed to be fixed. And one. So that's what we're looking for, clarification. And this has gone back and forth between the deputy town attorney. I'm not sure if you were involved with it, Mr. Howard, or spoke to Mr. Gitter on it. You're done. Okay. So first, I'm going to note that it's my understanding that you're here against the advice of your counsel. Number two, I'm going to say that Ms. Hurley has been working on this diligently. She's exchanged multiple e-mails with your attorney, where she has been very clear in the language that we would be requiring. The next step for this is for us to discuss this with the planning board in an executive session on Thursday, because it is the planning board that has to approve, offer an approval on the settlement agreement and the terms thereof in order to make a recommendation for final release of the bond. This board here doesn't have any discretion over the final, the final release of the bond. So I'm going to ask you to give us a little bit of a general disposition of the subdivision. I had discussions with our attorney, and basically we're paying the freight. We're paying the bills for him to get this thing settled. And he has not received correspondence on a regular basis from Ms. Hurley. He's had countless phone calls and e-mails. I'm just going to stop you there, because there's many correspondence e-mails back and forth, all last night. We're being told that this is曲曲 and曲曲 and曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲曲 AND A HALF YEARS, THERE WAS NO CONCERN FROM THE TOWN AS TO WHAT WAS GOING ON IN OUR COMMUNITY. AND NOW THERE'S CONCERN. NOW THERE'S AN INSPECTION THAT BASICALLY REVIEWED WHAT WAS POINTED OUT IN 2017 ON THE ENGINEER'S REPORT STATING THAT THESE WERE THE DEFICIENCIES. IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. THAT'S ALL I'M SAYING. WE'D LIKE A TIMELINE. WE'D LIKE THIS MOVED ALONG. AND WE'D LIKE CLARIFICATION. AND AGAIN, IT'S NOT ONLY MR. GITTER WHO'S LOOKING AT IT. IT'S TWO OTHER ATTORNEYS IN HIS FIRM HAVE LOOKED AT IT AND THEY'RE NOT GETTING A CLEAR PICTURE. THAT'S ALL WE'RE ASKING FOR, A CLEAR PICTURE OF WHAT WE NEED TO DO. NEW SPEAKER. OKAY. I MEAN, IN MY ASSESSMENT, I THOUGHT THAT IT HAS BEEN CLEAR. BUT I CAN CERTAINLY TALK TO MS. HURLEY AGAIN. NEW SPEAKER. OKAY. NEW SPEAKER. WELL, MAYBE YOU SHOULD TALK TO MR. GITTER PERSONALLY INSTEAD OF HAVING AN INTERMEDIARY SPEAK TO HIM. NEW SPEAKER. WELL, THIS WAS ASSIGNED TO HER, AND I'M PERFECTLY CONFIDENT IN HER ABILITY TO SEE THIS TO THE END. NEW SPEAKER. OKAY. NEW SPEAKER. SO I WILL SPEAK TO HER ABOUT THE STATUS OF THIS PROJECT. NEW SPEAKER. OKAY. AND MY UNDERSTANDING IS THAT SHE WILL BE IN CONTACT WITH MR. GITTER ON FRIDAY MORNING AFTER THE TOWN PLANNING BOARD MEETINGS. NEW SPEAKER. I BELIEVE SHE DID CONFIRM THAT TODAY. NEW SPEAKER. OKAY. NEW SPEAKER. OKAY. NEW SPEAKER. OKAY. NEW SPEAKER. OKAY. Judgesein Judgesein Judgesein Judgesein Any other comments on any matter? John McAuliffe, Roanoke Landing. And this is what I had been planning on saying. First I want to, there are two letters that show up in the list because of my misunderstanding of the deadline and one of them is now a bit dated because it's responding to the work session. But I think the content is there and people might want to read it. Also Ms. Ivaletti and also Kathy McGraw responded also to that work session and I'll let it stand by itself. The point I wanted to make is the second letter. That was letter number one in the list. Number three is a follow-up to the election and a suggestion that the board might consider vote in the election as a reason to rethink the town square. I'm not optimistic that that will happen but I think it's certainly possible that if the vote stands as it is.
No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. now that part of what happened in people's reaction was to the closing of Crafted and the intended demolition of the building and the planning of the hotel and condo. I assume, Mr. Howard, there still isn't a date on the demolition. I doubt that you will return that around. But in the second letter, I inserted the picture from the pattern book as to what the original plan was for the town square and using the two-story building as the eastern end side of it. And I think it's worth looking at and comparing that with the way that the five-story hotel condo will affect the town square. If you go ahead with the demolition, this is an even more radical suggestion that you should leave the whole space green, that you should accomplish what was the intended language of the planning of the resolution, 399 in August 2020, the creation of a public gathering space with pedestrians. And that's the idea that the town square is going to have a pedestrian connectivity and open vistas from Main Street to the Peconic River. Leaving that as an open green space provides a lawn leading up to the amphitheater and the possibility of people having picnics for public concerts and so on. But at any rate, that's in the second letter and I appreciate this opportunity to say it specifically. Finally, I'm going to go back to the beginning of the second letter. I think it's important to note that the second letter is a reference to the beginning of the first two lines. I will be traveling the next two board meetings. I'm going back to Peru where I was a Peace Corps volunteer. So I don't know, they haven't announced finally the results, but if the results are as the preliminary results, I want to say to the supervisor that while we've had disagreements, both in style and substance, I have great respect for your commitment to Riverhead and to the future. Riverhead and appreciate the discussions we've had over the times of your tenure. So thank you. Thank you, John.
Anybody else? Comments on any matter?
Good evening. I'm Donald Fisher. I'm the president of the Railroad Museum of Long Island at 416 Griffin Avenue. And I want to thank you for this opportunity to speak to Supervisor Hubbard and the town board this evening. On Friday the 13th, August 1926, on a very stormy, great thunderstorm of an afternoon, the Long Island Railroad, Shelter Island Express, was traveling swiftly from Manorville East into the city of Long Island. Local Local Local It was on Railroad Avenue in Calverton. Sadly, the switch moved, and the second locomotive was thrown off the main line, propelling itself backward into the factory, pulling along with it the first car, parlor car, first-class car, and sadly demolished the pickle factory, and six souls were lost. Two employees, an engineer and a fireman on the locomotive, and four passengers in the passenger car. Another 15, 17 riders on that train were injured. First responders from Riverhead, Southampton, the surrounding area, and several hundred servicemen from Camp Upton responded and worked through the night into the morning to get the effect. They directed people out of the wreck. It was a horrific tragedy at the time for the railroad, and it changed the face of Calverton, and it really was tragic, but a part of our history here in the town. For some time, we have thought, as did Ron Zeal, a prolific historian and writer for the Long Island Railroad, that something should be at Calverton at the site as a memorial. So that the people who were lost are not forgotten, and that all of our citizens traveling our byways would notice this as a place of an important piece of our history. We're very fortunate at the Railroad Museum to have experience working with the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, and they present to communities, to nonprofits, historic, and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and public organizations and if the board is desirous of this and you approve of this idea we need a letter of authorization to place it on the town property alongside the road so that people who drive by and specifically as you come up River Road it would be at that intersection you would see it and that's approximately the location of the switch that took that train off to the side into the Pickleworks factory this would be a somber celebration a solemn celebration if you would to memorialize it and if with your approval and if we can pull a timing together with Pomeroy Foundation we would host a memorial this coming August on the 13th it's Thursday in the afternoon and hopefully we won't have any thunderstorms if we can pull this together where we would unveil the historic marker so with that I have sent you letters with some some pictures of proposed marker if you have any thoughts on the language text that we have on that marker the placement of the marker you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would to bring you in and have this discussion because I think it's very important for the history of our town. You know, that was a horrible day and a truly fascinating part of our history here in Calverton. So I will be in touch with you. I don't know if anybody has any. Yeah, I'm in full support. Thank you. Thank you for your support. I think we all are. I don't know if you even have to come in for work session to do it because he just presented his situation if we're all in agreement with it. Yeah, I would like to have a letter of support drafted for the Pomeroy Foundation. And we're familiar with the Pomeroy Foundation. They're a great organization. Now, this is, and I really apologize, their window, our window of opportunity to put the grant in place is this coming Friday. Okay. Well, let's see. We'll see what we can do tomorrow. If you can. You know, I don't want to stress anybody. I have spoken with Georgette Case. And if we were not able. I saw she was cc'd on that letter. Yes, I guess. And I spoke with her. So, I mean, I don't want to pressure you guys. If you could get a letter from me on Friday, we can move forward. If not, we'll wait for another window and we just do it later. I see a thumbs up from the attorney. Yeah. We'll have it by the end of the day tomorrow. Yeah. Thank you. And you've got my emails. You could PDF it over to me and then I'll send the paperwork up to Syracuse. Thank you very much. And I will be speaking with you and police department and so forth. We'll put in a request for a public assembly and everyone will be entertained and invited to come. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good to see you. Thank you. Any other comments on any matter? We have one online. Okay. Okay.
Thomas, you're on. Yep. I just want to bring to the board's attention that reading through the resolution on your guys' site, subsection B of the, was it the CDA rules? Was it business plans and economic analysis of the projects and past compliance with municipal laws, rules, and regulations? So the applicant sponsor who is saying what scope of work is required for the venue, to reopen Stewart preservation services is a contractor. So he's a general contractor who specializes in historical restorations. He is not a qualified person to speak about code compliance whether it be MEP structural or architectural. So I would just point that out to you guys that. Um, you should get an architect to confirm for you guys what it takes to reopen that space, not a contractor because he's not qualified to speak on those terms. Okay. Thank you. Yep.
Anybody else online? No. Okay. Not seeing anybody in the audience. We will, uh, I'll make a motion to close the town board meeting and go to the CBO. Okay. Okay. So we have a motion to close the town board meeting. So we second. All in favor. Aye. All opposed. Town board meeting is closed and I'll turn it over to Dawn Thomas to open up the CDA meeting. Good evening members of the board. Uh, we have no resolutions on this evening. We would just need to take, um, open comments from the public on any CTA matter. So if there are any, we can do that now.
You're going to vote to open it. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. I thought you were voting to open. Okay. Oh, hang on a second. By the way, congratulations. Oh, thank you. Uh, twins. Dawn is the grandmother of baby twin girls. Beautiful baby twin girls. I might add born yesterday. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. Very exciting news. Thank you so much. Uh, so we're going to, uh, that's why I'm a little bit off. So, uh, so we need to open the meeting. So we need a motion and a second to do that. Second. Waski. Yes. Maryfield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Howard. Yes. Okay. CDA meeting is open and the only matter on the agenda is, uh, comments from the public on any CDA matter. It comments from the public on any CDA matter. Anybody online, Justin? No. Okay. Not seeing anybody here. No takers. We can go ahead and close the meeting and, uh, we need a motion and a second to do so. Move. Second. Okay. Waski. Yes. Maryfield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Hubbard. Yes. Okay. The meeting is closed and we'll see you next month. Thank you. Okay. Everybody have a great night. Thanks for coming down to the meeting. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. Enjoy. Be safe and enjoy your family. Happy Thanksgiving.