Summary AI
The board approved site plan and special permit for the Peconic River Hotel project, exempted RVAC's proposed $14 million ambulance barn from formal site plan review, issued a positive declaration for a golf course cottage zoning amendment, and passed dozens of administrative and personnel resolutions unanimously.
Key actions
- The board unanimously approved a special permit and site plan for the Peconic River Hotel at 117–217 East Main Street (Resolution 746), despite public objections over Suffolk County Planning Commission environmental justice requirements and parking.
- The board unanimously determined that RVAC's proposed ambulance barn at 1121 Osborne Avenue is exempt from formal site plan review under the Monroe balancing test (Resolution 764).
- A public hearing on capital improvements for the Riverhead Ambulance District was scheduled for September 1, 2026 (Resolution 753).
- The board unanimously issued a positive declaration and accepted a draft scope for a GEIS covering proposed golf course zoning amendments that would create a new TDR receiving district for golf cottages at six golf courses (Resolutions 747 and 748).
- A public hearing on stiffer penalties for commercial sale of animals was held and left open for 10 days of written comment; proposed fines range from $500–$1,500 for a first offense up to $3,000–$5,000 for a third or more offense.
- The board authorized two separate professional services agreements with Sound Engineering PC for traffic signal design at Osborne/Harrison avenues and South Jamesport/Railroad avenues (Resolutions 756 and 757).
- A settlement of a tax certiorari lawsuit brought by United Riverhead Terminal Inc. against the town's Board of Assessors was approved unanimously; the settlement amount was not disclosed at the meeting (Resolution 760).
- Eleven special event permits were approved unanimously, covering events including the Polish Festival, Foodie Fest, Hallockville Museum Farm fairs, a Veterans Day 5K, a haunted house, and fireworks at Riverhead Raceway on August 8.
- The board adopted a gender-based violence policy related to federal funding and established or expanded the Wildlife Management Advisory Committee (Resolutions 733 and 732).
- The board ratified a budget adjustment to temporarily fund pay-down of the Town Square bond, and separately noted that Riverhead Town Square LLC exercised a contractual right to extend its site-ready period by six months (Resolutions 762 and 26-762).
Auto-generated from an unofficial, machine-made transcript. It may misstate names, figures, or votes. Verify against the agenda and the full transcript below.
Full Transcript
Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Today is Tuesday, August 4th, 2 p.m. We're here for a town board meeting. Before we start, anything else? Councilman Rothwell, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? Yes, I do. Thank you, Supervisor. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, sir. And also, do we have someone for our invocation? We do, Supervisor. We are honored to once again have Father Ralph Sommer from the St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church in Wading River here with us today. And Father Ralph, I'm going to just ask you as our pastor in Wading River, if we can include within our prayers today, I just wanted to let our community know that the Riverhead Town community as a whole lost a very instrumental person this past week. So Jessica Tomlinson was 95 years old. She served as the chairwoman of the Democrat Party for many years. But she also very much broke the glass ceiling here in Riverhead, and she became the first elected Riverhead Town Councilwoman for our town. And so we give our condolences to her children, Michael and Timothy. And I know that she was also like a mother to Marge Acevedo and many dear friends in Wading River. so our condolences to the entire family but she was a wonderful woman so if you include her in our prayers today father definitely will this is a great time to praise God this summertime so let's pray and thank you for inviting me blessed are you God for your good gift of the summertime for local peaches and corn and lettuce that's safe to eat we thank you for the farmers who grow so produce by the blessing of your hand for the field workers who bring it in even on difficult days of heat and smoke and deluge we thank you for their example so that we too may be strengthened to work hard to feed those and help those who are in need we bless you God for this summertime which gives us vacations from school and from work we bless you for all the other benefits of our summer protecting us from the storms so that we didn't have any major harm and we pray for other communities throughout the country and throughout the world who didn't fare as well. We thank you for our road crews who have cleaned up the roads so that there are no obstacles in our path and we ask you Lord to take away the obstacles from our hearts, the obstacles that keep us from forgiveness or reconciliation or peace or unity. We ask you to bless all those who are traveling on our roads at this time and especially we ask you to help those who are tempted to drink and drive or use other drugs keep them with your gift of right judgment from those bad choices to keep themselves and all of us safe and also turn our hearts from cursing the traffic to welcoming and appreciating all those who come to visit us appreciating because it lifts our economy up and welcoming because the gift of this beautiful town of Riverhead is meant for all to come and visit. So we thank you, Lord, for all of that. And we ask you at the matter at hand to bless not only these public servants, but also Jessica and all those who've come before us who have led with wisdom and grace this community. Bless this board that gathers this afternoon and may they be open to your wisdom and guidance and open to the will of the people, but most of all, your will, that it may be accomplished through their work. We make this prayer in the name of God who lives forever and ever. Amen. Thank you very much, Father Ralph. You know, Father Ralph, when I met you, it was really cool because you shared your story about how you used to come out in just summer, and then now you live here, and you're invested in our community, and so we always hope that's the cause for all of our people that come to visit that they'll love Riverhead and invest in it. So thank you so much. We have a few announcements today. We have our National Night Out poster contest winners which we are going to stop right now and do that so we have Lieutenant Clements if you'd like to come up and chief and if you guys would lead us in that that would be fantastic. Good afternoon. Just a quick background National Night Out is an annual community building campaign held on the first Tuesday of August every year. It promotes both police and community partnership and neighborhood camaraderie to make our neighborhoods safe. We invite all our residents to come join us between the hours of 5 to 8, 5 to 8 tonight in the parking lot right here at Town Hall for a Police Department Crime Prevention Unit will recognize National Night Out. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions or just socialize with the members of the Riverhead Police Department. Tonight we will feature free ice cream with the ice ice cream truck, a dunk tank where you could dunk a police officer, games and giveaways. We have free food, hamburgers, hot dogs, we'll be grilling outside. We'll have a canine demonstration, drone demonstrations, the police motorcycles, bikes, ATVs, our command post, our SWAT equipment, our dive equipment, one of our boats will be out there, police cars, and a visit from McGruff the crime dog. If you're interested in establishing a neighborhood watch team in your neighborhood, you can contact crime prevention unit at the river police department at extension 273 and that's where charlbert um this afternoon we're officially kicking off national night out and give crime a going away party by recognizing the poster board winners from the town of riverhead summer campers all the children who attended the camp look forward to a visit from our crime prevention unit who gave a presentation on the importance of neighborhood neighborhood neighborhood and home safety the campers make posters after the presentation and as you can see on the wall over here we have our first second and third place winners in all three age groups the supervisor the town board members the chief frost and myself would like to present each poster winner with an award certificate along with prizes which were generously donated to our winners here today from the long island aquarium roadhouse pizza dairy land ice cream and the rivette pba i would also like to take the opportunity to acknowledge and thank the many contributors who have donated to the river pial program throughout the year their contributions continue to make programs successful and possible for the youth in the town of rome as i call your name if you could just come up front and claim your prize i don't know if if everybody's here I know there was a field trip today so some of the children were not able to make it in time the five to six year old age group winners we have third place Maximilian Odell He got a $25 gift certificate to Target, courtesy of the River PVA, and a $10 gift certificate to Darryl. Oops.
Good job, Max. Great job, Max.
Second grade is Mateo Garan. Mateo Garan. Look at that, Bob is a . Where's Mateo?
What's that? It's not like Mateo. Okay, that's fine. Okay. Okay, I'm going to try to say his name properly. First place winner, two tickets courtesy of Long Island Aquarium is Hannah Vigervade. Take a picture. Hold on. Thanks, Hannah. There you go. Thank you, Grace. Good job.
Seven to eight year old, third place, Isabella Palacios. She won a $25 gift certificate to Target, courtesy of River PBA, and a $10 gift certificate to Dairyland. Very nice. Second place, Tiago Cabrera. Congratulations.
Good job. All right. Congrats. Turn around. Take your pick. Good job, Diego. Good job. And we have the first place winner for that age group is two tickets to Long Island Aquarium for Jessica Friedel.
You're very welcome. Good job. Congratulations. Can we do a picture together? Yes. Can we hold you? There you go. Keeps getting all set up. Thank you, Jessica. All right. Bye. Thank you, Jessica. Thank you. Good job. Great job. And we have the 9 to 12 year old age group, third place winner, $25 gift certificate to Target courtesy of PBA and $10 gift certificate to Dairyland, Elizabeth Dyken. Congratulations.
Alright.
Second place is going to be Noah Wally. Noah? Noah! Congratulations. I'm proud of you. And you have a prize. Great job, Noah.
Noah, Noah. Good job, Noah. Thanks, Noah. Good job, Noah. And our first place winner is Reagan Gilmore. Reagan? Reagan, are you here? We're going to keep the posters up for a while just so everybody can see them and then they'll be returned to the audience. Great job. Thank you so much. You all did a great job. And also with National Night Out, there are t-shirts that our PD will be having and also these really cool flashlights that I believe are available and also our PD is your biggest fan tonight, and so no need to do that. They have fans they're giving out. And so we also want to announce a Live on 25. I don't know if any of our council members want to talk a little bit about that, but it's this week. It is. We have a Live on 25 this Thursday night downtown. We have some great bands, some great vendors. It's going to be a beautiful night. I've been watching the weather, and I think we're not going to have to deal with a bunch of humidity. It's going to be perfect. So come on out. I can't wait to see everybody. It's one of the best events in the summer. So we'll see you Thursday. Thank you very much. It's like a week of partying here. It is. Go ahead. It's going to be great. And with that idea, one of the parties that we had, which you'll get to see in just a second, is our thank you video, which will recap America 250. It's been a month, and we're still buzzing. We're celebrating the birthday of our nation all year long. We're so excited about that. But part of that was each of my fellow council members and myself got the opportunity to meet Sherry Davis this year and just at least introduced her art. And what a magnificent piece of art that she has allowed the town to use and facilitate. And so we are going to accept that as a resolution later. So it's our number five. So I think we want to pull that up and do that now. And so if for some odd reason someone had a comment on that, we would want you to go ahead and comment on that just now. So I'll give you a couple seconds if you wanted to comment on it. But we're asking these guys to present it there. And is there anybody online that wants to comment on that resolution? Number five will ask. Yep. Nobody's online. So I'm going to ask one of my councilmen, men or women, to please move. I guess, yeah, Ken, if you would, George. Well, I'll just comment that it's a beautiful work of art here, and thank you very much. Accepts a donation of a fire hose flag from Sherry Davis for the town hall lobby. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waski. I am so proud that I got to weave just a little tiny, tiny portion of that, and it was a lot of work, and I don't know how Sherry did all of that. I know that her husband, Mark, had to have a little hand in helping her because it's such a great project, and it's reused fire hose. So it's a perfect reuse of material, and I vote yes. Marifu? Such a tremendous talent. I'm so happy she's in our town. Thank you so much, Sherry. Yes.
I've been informed that all fire trucks are still carrying an adequate amount of hose. Thank you very much for your wonderful gift. I vote yes. Thank you. Yes again, Sherry. We are blessed to have you and we're gonna have you come up in just a second and take a picture with us and our entire community is lucky to have this and this will be displayed out in our lobby and so thank you. Thank you for celebrating our country's birth. So yes. I have a suggestion. Yes ma'am. Can we have all the kids that won awards today come and take a picture? Absolutely. Sure. Let's go take a picture together. COME ON, LET'S SEE THAT. THAT'S FUN STUFF. GREAT IDEA, GENTLEMAN. COME ON.
THAT'S ME.
Thank you.
Thank you guys so much. That was great. Absolutely. Well, that's the end of the meeting. Let's just end there. And so while they're making their way out, I'm going to ask our IT department just to go ahead and run that thank you video again celebrating everything that's happened on our July 4th celebration. Thank you to our IT department, all the people that sent in pictures, our council people to make this happen, and Justin for working on this.
¶¶ Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Hi, I'm Supervisor Halpin. I just want to say a big thank you to everybody who made the America 250 Parade on 4th of July a great success in our town. I'm Councilman Ken Rothwell, and I thank everyone that participated in the parade and those that attended for a great day here in Riverhead. Hi, I'm Councilman Bob Curran. Excellent for all the people that worked on all the floats. Again, thank you all. Hi, Denise Merrifield. Thank you so much. Everyone in the town, all the employees, all the residents, making 250 a very memorable and happy day. Thank you. Hi, I'm Councilwoman Joanne Waski and I thank everyone for your participation in America 250. What a wonderful event we had together.
We thank you each and everyone for celebrating our 250th birthday with us and we look forward to another 250 years and seeing you all right back here and celebrate again as holograms. So with that in mind, I just wanted to open it up. I know we've extended the period of announcements, but if anyone else has any, I want to make sure we give opportunity for that. Well, just coming up on the 15th and 16th is the Polish Festival, Polish Fair. Also on the 12th, we have the concert in Grand Jebel Park. And those are just a couple of things coming right around the corner. Absolutely. Thank you. And we also have Blues on the River that will be taking place on August 28th. It's Friday. I'm sorry, August 29th, Saturday. It's going to be from noon to 6, might be 5, 6 or 5. But it's great to have the blues music back downtown, and we're very excited about it. So thank you. Thank you all for your announcements. I think we're good. And so we'll open it up to our correspondents and our reports with our town clerk, Mr. Wooden. Yes, thank you, Supervisor. Under correspondents, we received letters from Nancy McSwain, Colin Tooker, Kerry Flanagan, John McAuliffe, Thomas and Nancy McSwain again, Warren McKnight, Kathleen McGraw-Brien, Carol Desmond-Wong, Susan Reeve, and Lee Mendelson. Those are all published on the agenda. If you go to town board meeting on the website, they'll be at the very end of the agenda. after the adjournment is where we publish the letters, if you want to read them in their entirety. And the report, we don't have any reports for this meeting. There's been no reports for us. Okay, sorry about that. And so we'll move right into our first public hearing. It was scheduled for 2 o'clock. It is 2.26, which will be our Monroe balancing test for our RVAC barn. And to lead us through that is our senior planner, Greg Bergman. Can you turn up his mic a little bit? Maybe do your front tap to make sure it's on. Is it on? Is it red? Can't hear you out here. Oh, there we go. Now it's red. Now it's on. There we go. Okay. few Monroe hearings in the past. Just as a reminder, Monroe hearing is a method of determining whether and to what extent a government entity may be exempt from local zoning. In this instance, we have an application by the Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps on behalf of the Riverhead Ambulance District. The Monroe balancing test was established by the Court of Appeals in Monroe versus City of Rochester, and it directs the considering authority, the host community, to conduct a balancing test, and the balancing test is based on certain factors. There are nine of them. The factors are the nature and scope of the entity seeking immunity, the encroaching government, in this case the ambulance district's legislative grant of authority, the kind of function or land use involved in this instance it is the construction of a new ambulance barn the effect of local land use regulation would have on the proposed activity alternative locations for the facility and less restrictive zoning areas the impact upon legitimate local interests alternative methods of providing the proposed improvement the extent of the public interest to be served by the improvements and intergovernmental participation in the project development process and an opportunity to be heard. So those are the factors that the town board will be called upon to consider in determining whether Riverhead Ambulance District is immune from local zoning restrictions in connection with this application. And now with a more specific description of the application itself and the structure proposed as their senior planner Greg Bergman thank you so as for record Greg Bergman senior planner with the riverhead planning department as councilor Howard said this is the Monroe hearing for the proposed our vac ambulance barn which was submitted by the riverhead volunteer ambulance Corps on behalf of the ambulance district the project site is located at one one two one Osborne Avenue Riverhead New York more particularly described as Suffolk County tax map number 600-108-2-5 and is located on the west side of Osborne Avenue directly adjacent to the Riverhead Highway Yard and it's located within the Business Center Zoning Use District. The application that RVAC submitted seeks approval for the demolition of the existing ambulance barn and related improvements and is seeking to construct a new three-story approximately 25,300 square foot ambulance building which will include office space, meeting rooms, fitness and recreation rooms, a kitchen, restrooms, bunk rooms, as well as garage space for the storage of emergency vehicles. We have received a set of fully engineered civil engineering drawings last dated June 11, 2026, as well as a set of architectural elevations and floor plans last dated June 8, 2026, and those are included in today's agenda packet for the Monroe hearing. I will note that while the purpose of today's Monroe hearing is to determine if and to what extent our VACs project would be subject to local zoning that if the project were required to comply with local zoning it would require several variances including relief from the maximum allowable floor area ratio proposing thirty six point nine percent where a maximum fifteen percent is permitted relief from maximum building height forty five point seven feet where a maximum of thirty five feet is permitted and for building lot coverage proposing 17.2% where 15% is permitted. It is also important to note there are certain elements of development that are not subject to local zoning that the applicant will still be required to comply with and obtain the necessary approvals for including but not limited to Suffolk County Department Health Services, highway work permits, freshwater wetland regulations, sewer and water connections, as well as the requirement for a stormwater pollution prevention plan and then I went through the application and I looked at the Monroe the balancing factors the nine factors that councillor Howard enumerated and I will just sort of I put together sort of an analysis and kind of detailing those criteria so it is presumed based on the Monroe versus the city of Rochester that established a balancing test it is presumed that our VAX project proposed submitted on behalf of the ambulance district is presumed to be subject to the town code of the river head town code a town of the town code of the town of Riverhead absent an expression of contrary legislative intent the James Kuhn local government technical series promulgated by the New York Department of State instructs a municipality that is developing a project in another community to assume that the project be subject to the host community zoning requirements and that any disagreement between the parties should be resolved by the appeals process of the host community which is what we're doing right now the Riverhead Ambulance District is a duly established Ambulance District pursuant to New York general municipal law 122 B with the authority to provide emergency medical services to the town of Riverhead and the town of Riverhead has contracted with our vac to provide such services Riverhead town code section 301 dash 225 a states that municipal buildings shall be permitted in all districts provided that such buildings conform to all other provisions of this chapter for the district in which they are located i will just note for the board although that sentence seems to say municipal buildings are permitted in all districts it does include that catch-all that all other provisions must be complied with which i touched on those variances that would be otherwise required our vax proposed facility is located within the business center zoning use district which has a specific schedule of dimensional regulations which limits certain aspects of land development including but not limited to impervious surface coverage maximum floor area maximum building lot coverage and front side and rear setbacks the proposed facility and site improvements have been designed to meet the current and anticipated emergency services needs of the town of riverhead with the proposed improvements exceeding allowable floor area ratio building height and building lot coverage the redevelopment of the site to include a modern and adequately sized emergency services facility to serve the residents and visitors to the town of riverhead is not expected to have significant negative impacts upon local interests to the contrary it is actually required and necessary and they provide a vital service to the residents and visitors the rvac site is centrally generally located centrally within the town of riverhead and is owned by the town of riverhead making alternative locations or methods of providing emergency services undesired as the existing location is best suited to provide the necessary public services and benefits to the residents and visitors of the town and then regarding intergovernmental participation it is no secret councilman rothwell has said many times you know this riverhead town board has been active an active participant in the design process and has been involved in modern monitoring efforts to secure funding for the proposed project including negotiations to bond for necessary funds subject to the repayment by the Riverhead volunteer ambulance Corps so that really touches on the nine factors in the Monroe hearing at this point I believe any members of the public if they wish to come up and comment I believe that would be the appropriate time to do so and I'll just comment during this whole design process you know working with members of our back as well as architects and consultants. You know you're kind of given a list of things from OSHA safety hazards and requirements for safeguarding a workplace and you must provide certain facilities in there such as training and bunk rooms for men and women and restrooms and chiefs office and right now they have been working in an overly confined space where they started out in 1978 with a handful of calls and now as they approach 6,000 volume of responding ambulance calls over the course of a year, they can't fit the ambulances in their garage. And so there's situations where during the winter months, trying to keep medications and narcotics that are required and regulated by the state to be present on ambulances, trying to maintain them in a cool, climate-controlled environment makes it very difficult, leaving things outside in the parking lot. And these are very expensive vehicles, and putting them all inside one garage protects them, and it allows for safety during a winter storm so that they're not covered with snow and out there around the clock trying to brush them off. Our responders respond 24-7, and they put their own lives at risk to make sure that they can do whatever they can to help and aid us and ours. So this has been an immense project that has been long overdue. Our VAC committee established a donation group of intervals and together we have raised $6.4 million towards this project. You're going to eventually see a band that comes forward, which is basically essentially bonding the remaining amount. Band is higher because we listed around $14 million for the entire project, but the reason being so is that should there be cost of inflation of construction materials and so forth during the process. There's also just contingent reserves that are put in it, you know, for any unexpected things that may come forward as they begin demolition and doing their site work. All of that will be, the balance of that will be paid by ARVAC through their ambulance billing. So I always just keep reiterating, this is an incredible project that affects every single individual this town, and it's being built without taxpayer money. And people need to know that's pretty incredible for a volunteer organization to go out and raise $6.4 million to date, and we're still continuing. So send in those checks and donations and help us go further. But that's pretty impressive. And I have been honored to work and serve alongside these individuals who put their heart and soul on a daily basis to get this project. So I get excited when we have these hearings that I just feel like our progress is moving and our wheels are turning and it's really happening and so it's not just talked about this is the next step and then we expect later on in the summer for the the current RVAC building to come down through demolition as a new project is being built so I think this is just a great thing and and thank you for Greg for helping out and the town attorney's office and so many people have given us guidance throughout the whole way Absolutely. Anybody from the public would like to comment online or in our room? If you would like to comment in our room, you just come up to the podium, just state your name, what hamlet you're from, and then please bring the microphone a little closer to you so we can hear you. This is not why I came here, but since it came up, Reverend Patricia Chuppie, I actually live in Southampton town but I am a former volunteer but currently I am a volunteer for Suffolk County FREZ on the critical incident stress management team for the county I cannot speak for the you know for the critical incident stress management team I can only speak for myself but we frequently go out to all of the fire departments and ambulance corps to do counseling on bed calls so that we can keep our volunteers. And there have been times going out to Riverhead right now when to find a place to do that. I've gone down some stairs that I'm a little bit afraid at my age of walking down. So I can attest to the fact that they are extremely limited on space. and even doing simple things like trying to find a private space just to talk to some of the volunteers when they've given their time and they've experienced something that's really a crisis is sometimes almost impossible. So I just wanted to add that into the mix of why it really would be needed. As I said, that's not why I came here. It's just because it popped up. Well, thank you for putting that on record for everyone, and thank you for saying that, and thank you for your service. It means a lot what you do. All of us who know that ambulance barn well know that it is time and overtime, and we're thankful for all the work everyone's done. So thank you for sharing that. Reverend Chubby's husband, Dennis, has helped run the Southampton Fire Department for many years, and he knows what it's like to try to put together training quarters and to establish that and that's something that's lacking with our back is a place to gather to do that training and that will be part of this project it's I hate to say hi to Dennis okay no one else in our room all right so we're gonna do something today that we sometimes do but not we don't make a habit of and that is that we're gonna close this hearing today and we're actually going to completely close this hearing today so we can move to the next process to get this moving along because as we just heard and as we've been well aware the whole time something that needs to happen sooner than later so I'll be making a motion to close this hearing. Seconded. Right we need a motion to close the hearing. You can just close the hearing. Oh I thought since today okay so we're going to close that hearing and then we'll move on to right resolution number 2026-764. We will need a motion to pull that off the floor. We're going to make a motion to pull resolution number 764, determination that the improvements for the Riverhead Ambulance Barn located 1121 Osborne Avenue in Riverhead, New York, are, upon no balance test, exempt from formal site plan review in Chapter 301 of the Riverhead town code so moved I'll second that to take it off the floor oh please to take it off the floor my right on this Eric yes this is to take it off the floor yes sir ski yes yes to take it off the floor heard yes definitely Rothwell yes yes resolution is now active public comment we just need to allow you as the public online or here in person to have an opportunity to speak on this resolution number 2026-764 and so we want to give you a second if you would like to someone needs to look over it or is unaware or has a question about it we want to make sure that we do this right and we're all informed on this for you something that needs to happen so we will I will give a a small brief moment of probably silence but just give you a chance to digest it I don't want anyone to feel rushed the title itself should say town code not code oh there we go town there we go yes so we'll make that a that a bit meant to town code spelling sorry online any questions from the council people at all comments keep moving forward all right so if you'd like to someone like to make a motion to this time I'll make motion to vote on resolution number 20 26 7 6 4 determination of the improvements for the Riverhead ambulance barn located 1121 Osborne Avenue in Riverhead New York are on Monroe balance test exempt from formal site plan review and chapter 301 of the Riverhead Town Code so moved Second. Vote please. Mosky? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Hoppin? Yes, sir. That resolution off the floor is adopted. I want to thank everybody for their patience with that and we're excited again. Our next public hearing was... I'm just gonna say thank you to Wayne Alden who's sitting in the back there who's been instrumental in walking us through this process. So thank you, Wayne, for being here today. Our next public hearing was 215, scheduled for 215 to amend Chapter 207, Article 4, Commercial Sale of Animals. And, Counselor? Thank you. So approximately four years ago, we adopted legislation to prohibit the retail sale of cats, dogs, and rabbits unless they were sourced from specific places. This proposed amendment is intended to refine and expand upon that, and I'll just give a brief overview. It brings our local law into consistency with the general business law that was adopted by the state about a year after we adopted our legislation. and it centers the definition of what is a prohibited sale on general business law chapter 20 article 35d section 753f which I'll also summarize retail pet shop as defined in this article shall not lease sell offer to lease offer to sell barter auction or otherwise transfer ownership of any dog cat or rabbit unless they are providing sale. space to an entity that is a duly incorporated society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, duly incorporated humane society, duly incorporated animal protective association, or other duly incorporated animal adoption or animal rescue organization. So after formalizing that definition of what's restricted, we're also adopting certain record keeping requirements, which will require retail sales of animals to keep a certificate of source on file, information related to federal and state licensing, including registration numbers. They have to keep a complete set of all veterinary records for each animal. We are adopting certain restrictions. We are making contracts for the sale of animals, of dogs, rabbits, or cats by contract, unenforceable. We are giving a civil cause of action to people who have entered into contracts for the sale or for the purchase of a dog, cat, or rabbit. So if there is any kind of issue with the contract or what they contracted to purchase, they will now have a civil action against the retailer we are not making those restrictions applicable to animal shelters and those restrictions are not applicable to the tr the proper transfer of a guide or service animal we are adopting regulations related to the maintenance of animals kept for sale so animals will be required under town code to each have a primary enclosure those enclosures will have to be clean dry and free of vermin with access to food and water they will be required to assess whether certain animals display compatible behavior so animals that have aggressive tendencies will be kept separate animals that are friendly and get along can be kept in the same enclosure provided it's appropriately spaced they're They will be required to have certain human contact every eight hours to make sure that they are being observed and any problems with the animal being observed in time and making sure that they continue to have access to food and water. We are implementing regulations related to prevention of disease, so that also requires daily observation of the animals and providing that they receive appropriate veterinary care and quarantine requirements if they display any signs of illness additional additional restrictions will be that you can't barter or sell animals on the street you cannot offer for sale animals with artificial dyes or coloring of their hair and there are certain age requirements on how old the animal must be before you can offer it it for sale. We are increasing the penalties for violations of town code. For first offenses, the fine will be between $500 and $1,500. Second offenses, it will be between $1,500 and $3,000. And third and subsequent offenses will be $3,000 to $5,000. The enforcement and penalties section of the code also implements a procedure for us to pursue civil enforcement in the event that town code enforcement is ineffective or the offenses are particularly egregious. The civil enforcement provides for $5,000 per day penalties and allows the town to seek injunctive relief against retailers. That is a general summary of it. Really good. That's a great summary. Yeah, that was awesome. We want to protect our animals and our well-beings and our families. So open up for comment if anybody has a comment from the board or question or anyone from the public Make that available now I'll just say that this is a project that we worked on about five years ago when we first wrote this legislation I wrote this legislation and I always grateful to Carol Scalfani Who worked with us in the town board members at the time and she was such an advocate and still remains and always will be An advocate for the safety of all wildlife but we put forth this code at the time and we were surprised about the not just county or state you know but we kindly went full to the national attention and we had all organizations throughout the United States writing to us going wow Riverhead is like got it right you're taking the first step forward and I always say it was because we passed this initial code that it certainly motivated the state of New York to come out and and to draft this throughout the entire STATE AND SO I FIRMLY BELIEVE AND ALWAYS SAID THAT BECAUSE OF THE WORK WITH CAROL SCOFFANI AND MYSELF AT THE TIME AND THE TOWN BOARD MEMBERS AT THE TIME SUPERVISOR WE WERE ABLE TO GET SOMETHING YOU KNOW FROM A LOCAL LEVEL TO BE DRAFTED TO THE STATEWIDE SO I ALWAYS YOU KNOW WHEN ANY TIME IT CAME TIME TO YOU KNOW AMEND THIS CODE IN ANY WAY I JUST WANTED TO MAKE CERTAIN THAT WE WERE NEVER YOU KNOW LESSENING ANY RESTRICTIONS IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM BUT I THINK THIS DOES MATCH WHAT THE STATE DID PUT FORTH SO KIND OF CLARIFIES A a lot of legal entities of it. And I always still say, and we've gone still a step further than what the state has towards our requirements in protecting not just the town doing civil penalties, but just people in general that now that may purchase a dog that has these issues and things like that can create their own civil path to justice and refunds and so forth. So still proud of this, still going forward. And thank you, Carol Scafani, for always helping us get this motivated and get it going. Good stuff. I want to give the public an opportunity to continue as we have this hearing. Yes. So the state standard, incorporating the state standards in state standard ensures that we are operating at the strictest standard provided for by the state in areas where the state has not particularly legislated. basically all of the additional regulations that I discussed, that's what we're doing over and above what's provided for by the state at this time. Thank you for that clarification. Good stuff. I don't see any further comments online or in the room, and so we will close this part. We will definitely leave this open for written comment for the next 10 days. And so if someone would like to write in about that, we've received a couple of correspondence regarding that. which always good to have that support. And we'll close that. And so with that, we will move on to our comments on resolutions. So at this time, we ask if you come up to the microphone that you will have three minutes to speak. We ask you to state your name, Hamlet, and what resolution you will be speaking on so we can pull that to us and we can listen.
Hello. Good afternoon. The video was very nice for the 4th of July. I just have to say that the fireworks over at James Park were lovely, and I'm glad that they got off before all of the rain came. So it was really an enjoyable night. It's the resolution about the site plan approval. I do not have the number in front of me. It should be 32 or 31. It should be 31. 746. Okay. So I just have a couple questions about this. In the master development agreement in section line, I think it's like 630, it says that consistent with and in furtherance of the preceding sentence, the terms of the Town Square parking agreement and parking garage pay to park agreement shall be negotiated prepared by the Office of the Town Attorney with requisite approval by resolution of the Town Board and incorporated into site plan approval. I'm just curious how that happens and when that happens, if it doesn't happen now with the actual site plan approval. I think there's a couple agreements that have language like that, but particularly this one, just when we can expect that. Well, the parking agreement will be negotiated shortly. Okay. But it says it incorporated into the site plan approval. So I'm just curious how that works logistically. Yes. So when the parking agreement is done, we will incorporate it into the approval. Okay, but it's not an amendment then to the site plan, correct? An amendment? No, it wouldn't be an amendment. No, just an incorporation. It would be incorporated into the approval. Okay. And then, I just have a couple questions. And then my other question is, in the resolution it has listed that the SECRA was done and completed, yet in the resolution from the whereas from H2M architects and engineers sites that in order to provide public water for this new development hydraulic analysis is required to assess the impact of this development on the existing facilities of the riverhead water district and in addition based on preliminary review the project will require the extension of water mains and i'm just wondering if that creates segmentation for secret because the resolution is calling for the hydraulic analysis we don't know the results of that and or nor the impact of the development on the existing facilities of the water district and the extension of the water mains where those will go so how can they be evaluated if we don't know what they are so I'm gonna ask if he's willing to Matt charters one of our senior planners will come up and give us clarity I would not be supplementation because extension of water mains to approve approve lots in a subdivision are considered a type 2 action pursuant to seeker so the extension of a water main is a type two so it's not a separate action that requires secret review segment out type two and type one it's not segmentation if it's a type two because it doesn't require secret review okay we're going to give you a couple extra seconds if you had another question or comment or whatever okay i just have yet one more comment um and this is uh goes to another issue that i see in the resolution and i'm asking you not to vote on the site plan and special permit approval for the Peconic River Hotel today. This project sits in an area of New York State has designated a potential environmental justice area, and the Suffolk County Planning Commission said so directly in its June 3rd resolution and laid out specific requirements for projects here. All optional public hearings held, translation services provided, notice public at least 60 days in advance, notice in multiple languages, posting in a local non-English newspaper with an environmental justice summary included and at least 45 days of research after the hearing closes. I want to be clear about something though because I expect it will come up. Yes, one sentence in the county resolution uses the word should, but that word only applies to the general idea of the outreach plan. Each specific requirement that follows, the 60 days, the multiple languages, the newspaper posting, the translation services, the 45-day wait is written with shall and must. Those are separate sentences, each a command in its own right. One soft opening line doesn't erase six, I think it's five, or four mandatories that come after it. Now you look at what actually happened. Notice of this public hearing was authorized on May 20th, and the hearing was held just 21 days later, not 60 days, on June 10th. There's no record of multilingual notice, no non-English newspaper postings, no translation services, no environmental justice summary. The county flagged all this in a full flagged all of this a full week before the hearing was held and nothing in the record shows that the town responded to the county's what the county had posted in their letter. State law says that the town disagrees with the county recommendation. It has to explain why in writing and I do not see that anywhere and I do not see it addressed in the resolution. This community deserves the process the law promises. I'm asking you to table this vote and come back when the record shows real compliance. So, thank you.
John McAuliffe, Roanoke Landing. Good afternoon. This is on the same resolution. Surprise, surprise. I I just wanted to ask were you able to arrange for me to show my slides? Counselor? No. This is comment on resolution. It's not a presentation period. I see. So in the hearing it was not possible. What I'll say is if you want to submit any of that to the town clerk in connection with any written comments, I'm sure it would be appropriately published. No, no, it's of course already been submitted to the town clerk, as you know. It's attached. Photos were attached. Well, let me just say structurally that you have hearings, you let proponents of things do their dog and pony show, show their slides, but you don't offer an opportunity for critics to show audiovisuals to challenge those slides. The pictures I would have shown, and they are attached to my letter if people want to dig into it, that's on the agenda, or I can give copies to people today. We've all seen it. We've gotten your emails. Yeah, but you have an audience which is not just yourselves or the people here, but also the permanent record and people watching. The three pictures, one is one of the promotional pictures from the Petrocelli Company. If you look at it, you see in the distance the Suffolk Theater, way overshadowed. You of course don't see the Arts Council buildings at all. I did a couple of chat GPT renderings, primarily to give a sense of proportion. As people know, essentially the town square, about half of it is going to be occupied by the hotel. And it's then going to be concrete from Main Street down. And I also did a rendering assuming there was no hotel to do something that was more in the spirit of what Greenport has and other places have, and what I think was the original spirit of the town square. I'm sorry not to be able to show it. I think you do need to provide in future hearings an equal time opportunity for audiovisuals from critics, not just from proponents. In the letter I sent you, I raised particularly the question of the fact that there is this odd language which basically assumes a conclusion from the IDA, that the IDA is going to approve the special tax benefits for this project, this $34 million project, and that Mr. Petrucelli is basically threatening to withdraw if he doesn't get those tax benefits. The language is very odd, seems very unusual, and I think, not going to repeat all of the larger questions i have but i think that the board i think that what has been said about postponing is a good idea because the board has not really requested a mr petroselli to create a model so that you know what the consequence is going to be of this thank you mr mccullough very much all right just want to clarify the record in regard to comments from the Planning Commission there is a substantial difference between comments received and conditions so if everyone's aware it's on the seventh page of the resolution the hotel was approved by the Planning Commission at their meeting on June 3rd 2026 the resolution is included and what are included our comments on the resolution not condition so if there were conditions they'd have to be superseded by super majority of the town board with the finding to the reasons you are superseding these these are merely conditions this is not to say that they're not important considerations to be made i will note that at the public hearing miss thomas did brief the board and the public on the i would say very very long history of downtown revitalization in the town of riverhead you know almost as old as i am with studies and public participation and you know focus groups on how we've gotten to this point so to say that this is a surprise or we're trying to speed this through is just just not true um so i i believe it's fine the way it is thank you are there any comments on resolutions just share you come to speak if you'd like yep just make sure you uh say your name and your hamlet please sherry davis sherry davis riverhead new york um it's about resolution two zero two six seven twenty i just wanted to tell the board that I'm very honored that you accepted the flag and you're providing a wonderful home for it and I'm also really grateful for my partner Mark Aladip who helped fabricate it and the whole community who came together and wove it so it means a lot to me and I just wanted to come up and say thank you oh thank you sure thank you thank you very much Hi, Laura Jensmith. I would just like to point out also the resolution and the comments from the county say that administrative code in section 239-M6 of general municipal law and the referral municipality within 30 days after final decision shall file a report with Suffolk County Planning Commission and if said action is contrary to this recommendation, whether those recommendations were the 60 days, the 45 days, the reasons for such contrary actions. So you have to include a reason for not following the actions they recommend. That's only if they're conditions. Yeah. I'm sorry, say that again. That's only if they're conditions and the board adopts whatever it is, irrespective of the conditions by supermajority. Yeah, the comments are not conditions. The town board is not jurisdictionally bound by comments. And you're not bound by the potential environmental justice rules that the county and state have set forth? Not pursuant to this commission resolution. And not from the letter that the county gave you? You're not bound by that? I'm not sure what letter you're referring to. What I've reviewed is the staff report and the resolution. It's the resolution that has the letter dated on June 3rd that states as part of the land use process within a New York State designated potential environmental justice area, all optional public hearings for the land use process on the proposed action shall be conducted. Translation services where applicable shall be provided. The notice of public hearing to be published shall be noticed in well advance of public hearing at least 60 days before the hearings. Public notice shall be in multiple languages. Notice shall be posted in at least one non-English speaking newspaper. The summary of environmental justice impact must be included in the notice. The local municipality shall reserve judgment on project with the PEGA for no less than 45 days, which today is the 45th day. So actually should hearing should not be held till tomorrow, even if you were to follow after the close of the public hearing on the project, which was, I believe, June 20th within a PEGA.
Are you citing to a statute? What? You're citing to a statute? I'm citing that what the county provided to the town regarding a census block group identified as a potential environmental justice area and the rules that the local municipality must... So if this... So I got two things. First thing is this is a comment to the resolution that the Suffolk County Planning Commission provided. not providing you with the they're providing they're providing us with an explanation of what they think we should be doing what what it says is it says suffolk county planning commission approves site plan parcel with the following comments to be offered to the town of riverhead town of riverhead for its consideration okay that's it the town board is not obligated to follow the comments second thing if this was a tremendous issue that you're bringing up why are you bringing it up at the town board meeting instead of contacting my office well in advance of the adoption of or proposed adoption of this resolution the resolution was only posted yesterday well we did say at the last town board meeting that we expected to move forward quickly with this but the resolution was only posted on the town board yesterday so that's where i saw it was yesterday at two o'clock in the afternoon so if you're asking me why i didn't bring it forward was because i've only had access to it for a short period of time Understandable. That being said, I was in the office at 9 o'clock this morning. In any event, to the extent that this is a comment, I'm going to suggest that the town board is not obligated to follow the comment. I beg to differ on that. Okay. It is under the potential environmental justice area. It's which the town is obligated because it's a designated census block by the state, it does obligate the town to follow the conditions. We have done multiple projects downtown without doing this. So I'm just, I'm confused about why it's coming up now. Because you list it. So it's for review. The Suffolk County Planning Commission listed it as a comment, not a condition. You're the town attorney, so you're saying that this does not have to be followed by the town? I'm saying if the town board is inclined to vote on this resolution today, they can vote on the resolution today. Okay. Thank you. Warren McKnight-Riverhead, I just have a couple of questions. Warren. What resolution? Bring the mic down a little bit. Night Riverhead. I have a couple of questions on Resolution 746 and 747. Can you explain that to me? But, you know, about the golf courses. The golf course zoning amendments. What was your... I'm sorry, what was your comment, Warren? I don't understand the positive declaration for proposed golf zoning amendments. What's what's changing the amendments or how it is owning what in other words for golf courses? What's happening with to them you're changing them I can ask senior planner Matt charters to come up and walk you through briefly Greg Bergman is our lead planner on that and so he's not here. I'm I can give you a quick synopsis Way to help you a little be down here shortly, but to the extent that I can give it up and opinion is in order to do this so it's requiring the redemption of TDRs to to add a receiving area you have to do what's called a generic environmental impact statement to get to that GE is you have to issue a positive declaration so the first part is to issue the positive the second part is to adopt the scope for the GE is it's pretty small it's within six pages as far as I understand should be pretty easy to understand it tells you so a new zoning District that will allow golf cottages with TDRs just to help a little bit Warren I mean it's a comment period all right took the stairs on that one sorry so the two resolutions for the golf courses the first resolution issues the positive declaration calling for the preparation of environmental impact statement we are required to prepare an environmental impact statement because we're establishing a new transfer of development rights receiving district so excuse me first resolution issues the pause deck you didn't have to run down that's all right we love it we love it great thank you the first resolution is the positive declaration calling for the preparation of the EIS the second resolution accepts what's called a draft scope that draft scope is basically spelling out the parameters that are going to be studied in the environmental impact statement all right thank you Greg just make your comment this way to us Warren will probably show okay so this is for golf cottages if they want to put them on golf courses right right that's the end result yes well I first of all Riverhead doesn't need any more golf courses but the second thing is the Riverhead hotels could use the business instead of having these golf cottages on there. You know what I mean? Riverhead has a very bad housing problem. We have shelters. We have homeless people. I mean, this is for the elite. I mean, people want to play golf in Riverhead. They don't have to go out on a golf course right away. If they want to play golf, let them go down to the pine tree where the golf courses are out there. But I think this is extravagant and not necessary for what's happening nationally. It is a housing crisis. I don't have to tell you. And this is for the rich. Okay. Thank you, Warren. Thank you. For your comments. We have two online, so we're going to take one of them.
on our resolutions please
miss McGraw can you hear us yes I can can you hear me sure can sorry I didn't know my camera on I'm I'd like to comment on for resolutions I might have to come back. The first two are pretty brief though. 759, which is an addendum to the short-term runway usage agreement for track, racetrack, not street. It talks about digging up some of the asphalt, four inches, and putting in concrete pieces above them in like four different locations on the runway. And my only question about this is, there's no provision for undoing it when they're finished. Is the town willing to have these concrete pieces there instead of the normal asphalt for the runway? And if you want it restored to the asphalt of the runway, Why isn't that included in here? You don't care whether it's asphalt or concrete? Just wanted to give you time for your next comment. Okay. The next one is on Resolution 760. And this is regarding a tax cert case with URT, the oil terminal. And it is a challenge. That case was a challenge to the tax assessment for URT. And this is a settlement. And my only question here is, the fiscal impact statement accompanying this resolution says this resolution has no fiscal impact on the town of Riverhead. Can we, the people of Riverhead, assume then that this settlement does not involve any payments, changes in the tax assessments, costs for the litigation, no fiscal impact to the town of Riverhead? Again, I just want to make sure I give you enough time for your comments, so I don't want to cut you off. I'll come back on the other one but you're not going to tell us the answer to these things? Well that will go back on the chargeback line for the county is where that will be for the assessor's office and you could call our assessor's office and get more details on exactly what that will be I don't have that sitting here right in front of me at this moment but that is a chargeback line So the settlement doesn't involve any costs to Riverhead that's all I wanted to know It doesn't have a direct impact on our budget. It has a direct impact on our residents. No fiscal impact for the town of Riverhead. Okay, thank you. No. So it doesn't have any fiscal impact on this year's adopted budget. Also, we are not paying sort of out of pocket from the general fund for the settlement. It operates the same as any other person that wins a tax grievance. it is charged back, the assessment is corrected and it's charged back in the next year. Well then it seems that the answer to D on the fiscal impact statement it doesn't say when it will have a fiscal impact, it says it will have none. And that's not true. And when you vote on a resolution you should be considering whether it has a fiscal impact on the town of Riverhead and this says it doesn't. So I have a problem with how these forms were filled out and what the information you provided us who read these forms. Thank you.
Okay. Our next one online. Again, that does not affect our budget for next year. That will be a chargeback line that goes to the county, so it will affect your tax bill as a resident. just like it will affect my tax bill, but it does not affect our personal, what we will be taxing our people on, and Eric is 1,000% correct. It doesn't have an impact on this year's budget. It doesn't have an effect. It has an effect. And so I can ask our assessor to put out a statement, or you can call our assessor's office for that more accurate information. Mr. Herrera, can you hear us? I just want to be as clear as I can there. I'm trying to help you with that. Yes, I can. Thanks, sir. Ron Hariri of Aquabog. In my letter published in Riverhead Local recently, I asked the question, who is this town board actually working for? And I think based upon today's developments, it's clear that this board is not working for our citizens and our taxpayers. FIRST OF ALL, MR. SUPERVISOR, YOU AND MR. ROTHWELL SUGGESTED AT SEVERAL MEETINGS, ACTUALLY, THAT A CLOSING OF THE CRAFTED BUILDING TO MR. PETRICELLI WAS IMMINENT. AND THE DATES SUGGESTED WERE AFTER THE SITE PLAN HEARING TODAY, AUGUST 5TH BEING TOMORROW. YET IN RESOLUTION 26762, it provides an whereas clause that Riverhead Town Square LLC, the Petrocelli entity, notified the town of Riverhead that it was exercising its right to extend the period to ready the site by six months. Can you clarify whether or not that will delay the closing and whether, contrary to your representations, closing is not imminent? I sure can. So I have asked for a closing. We did have those discussions. I did ask for it. That is in the contract that was there. They have invoked that part of their contract, which was a legal arm that they were allowed to do. And so therefore, because it's in the contract, because it's allowable, it is allowable. I would like us to have already closed. And I believe from my conversation with the person, Mr. Petrucelli that he shares the same desire. And so they did reach out to our legal department and they asked for that extension. And because it is in the contract, it is allowable. And so... I love the double talk. So contrary to your representation, there's no closing. There's no closing. When I did say we were going to close, I said we were going to close. And so it is not at all double talk. It is what my desire was, what I was under the assumption of and what we were working towards. And then everyone has a contract. We have contracts in our lives all kinds of places. And if that clause was in there, so that contract was that statement was in that contract. And therefore, even though I may not think, I may not be like super thrilled, but that is that I'm fine with it because of the fact that it's in the contract that it was agreed upon. And so we have to keep things moving forward. So you asked for my reply and there's my reply. And now you can reply. I'd like to continue. You've interrupted my time. I sure did. So it's clear that contrary to your representation, that hasn't occurred. um moreover you know although i don't think particularly highly of the riverhead town board what i am disappointed about is a as a former supervisor pointed out you failed to comply with procedural requirements of the site plan approval and secondly it would appear that the board uh in its uh haste to push through this deal for one of the republicans consistently uh historic donors has enlisted the support of its financial advisor, who claims there's no financial implications on this site plan. There certainly are, including all of the infrastructure, as well as the nonsensical position of the planners, who further claim that somehow a massive hotel with nearly 100 rooms and commercial space, restaurants with at least the need for 100 parking spaces somehow is suitable. Moreover, I would urge you, because not being able to close a deal in a year is a red flag that there are problems with A, possibly the lenders, B, possibly other investors. and because the financials of Mr. Petrucelli were not made available for public review, contrary to the town's own rules and contrary to the general municipal law, you require that they be produced at this time so we can evaluate whether this individual, who hasn't closed in a year, despite representations that if he starts building in the spring, It's now the end of the summer. What problems will be created for the town when this deal falls through? And I insist, just like the town insisted in connection with Calvert and Aviation, that you allow Petrocelli's financials to be independently reviewed. And if you don't, we'll see you in court. Thank you. Is there anyone else online or anyone else in our room? I think there was somebody else in the room. Hold that person on line for a second. John McAuliffe, Rolling Woods, and continues on the same resolution. Just a practical question. This obviously means something to you but may not to lay people. When we're going in this process of a special permit and site plan, you approve the resolution. What is then the consequence on construction? What is the consequence on the actual sale of the property? Is there another resolution that will come up to approve the sale of the property that will have all the financials in it? So that's just an understanding of it. The second question, and I think that that goes to the point that I was sort of making, that is the whole way the IDA handles this may be reminiscent of the EPCOT situation in which we depend upon them to make a professional judgment about the reality of all of this. And so the next public discussion is going to be with the IDA. The second question is, as I brought up last time and was mentioned briefly today, is the parking. Have you, in doing this final plan, have you resolved the question of who's getting the priority for the parking spaces? Will it be the Suffolk Theater, Maximus, the beauty shop and the bagel shop, or will it be Mr. Petrucelli's clients? Who's going to have the parking spaces closest, those existing enterprises and businesses or this new one? Thank you for your comment, sir. Is there a decision on that? is that and can you clarify where we are well I'm sorry I thought you turned to go I'm sorry well where we are on the process if we if you pass this resolution when you pass this resolution what's the next step as far as the actual dollars and cents and sale and and the closing that's one question and the second is the parking issues whether you've resolved them okay thank you for comment I will personally assure you that I will make sure that the downtown businesses do not have a negative effect on parking and I don't believe that mr. Petrocelli has any ill intentions of hurting any of the businesses and taking away from their parking in a negative way and I again will personally oversee that to make sure that that does not happen I suggest you speak with the Suffolk Theatre because I know they're very concerned that they're losing their I understand and I have spoken with them. But is it resolved? I'm not going to say that it's resolved or not resolved. Okay. You asked about what's the consequences of this. This project is a catalyst to downtown revitalization for Riverhead. That's the consequence of it. It's a great project to finally renew downtown and restore and revitalize. My question on consequences is procedure. when you go from this resolution what do you do next what comes back to the board how do you get to the point of actually getting we eventually will be adding a garage to be built with 500 spaces no I'm not talking about the garage I'm talking about the actual hotel when do you sell the property to Mr. Petrucelli when does Mr. Petrucelli start I think it'll all be in the parking agreement, which hasn't been completed yet. Right? I think he means the property, not the parking agreement. The hotel. He means the hotel itself, the property. As soon as they're prepared to close, we're preparing as well. And so as soon as that comes back then to the town board as a resolution with dollars and cents attached to it. Parking agreement? No, no. He's talking about 127. The property, the actual property where the hotels are. So we're already in contract to sell that property. So we already had a hearing on the master developer agreement. The master developer agreement was already signed. So that's sufficient as far as moving on in terms of your outstanding. So it just depends on what the IDA decides to do. Whether it depends on the IDA or not, I can't say. Well, that's what Mr. Petroselli says. That's a separate application. what we've done is we've entered into a contract for the sale of real property and the master developer agreement for the construction of the town square that's what it is that it's contract that is already done it does all those things okay that's very helpful but again well if we did explain that a year ago when we did the public hearings on this again if you take seriously what the i what the agreement is if the ida says no then you're back at square one i have a comment that i'd like to remind everybody of i believe it was back in 2009 when the first apartment the summer wind apartment complex went up there was nobody parking down on main street they wanted a parking problem it is a good thing that we are turning the page to have a parking problem because it means that what has been happening downtown is working people are coming there this is this is what everybody has been working on for decades is finally coming together and the parking will be addressed it's been brought up in the comprehensive plan on how to fix this for remedial action, and that's what we're doing. That is why the state is giving us and federal government money towards our downtown revitalization so that we can be exactly where we are at this point. And everything that has come into play during all this time is what has been necessary to get to where we are. So I appreciate that there's a parking problem right now, And I appreciate that we're at a point that we do need to build a parking garage because downtown is on its way to thrive. And we should all be happy about that because that is what is going to help us in the long run. And I'm just going to add to that, John, because you are well aware for a good 15 years, everybody in Riverhead was complaining about the ghost town that downtown was, right? Anybody who's been around knows that. Now the ghosts are disappearing and people are coming. And I'm real glad about that. I don't know about you, but that's the way development works. Right? And I know you're aware of that because that complaint was year after year after year. And now it's starting to happen. So it's kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's starting to happen. And the beautiful thing about a problem, problems bake the solutions. And we are here with others, with staff, and we will come up with the solutions. We've come up with the solution to create the parking problem. Now we're going to come up with the solution to fix it. It's no longer a ghost town. Can we both agree that that's a good thing? Of course, but I think we're talking about different time frames. Thank you. Mr. Sandalewski, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Can you hear me? I can, yep. Just your name, Hamlet, and resolution number. Yeah, hi. Martin Sandalewski, 215 Roanoke Avenue, Riverhead, Resolution 746. Just stepping back on the last speaker, parking is certainly one of the most important elements of any successful downtown. We certainly don't want to create a problem, especially since the garage is likely years off. That's not going to happen anytime very soon. Both the applications for the special permit and the application for the site plan approval referred to an agreement for leased parking on the First Street lot. Now, parking an agreement is not required for the hotel. They are in the parking district. They can park at will within the district. However, it certainly is probably necessary for them to have an organized and successful valet service. At the June 20th hearing, it was discussed by the applicant that the application or the agreement was in process or in progress being discussed. It has been questioned at numerous town board meetings during public comment periods as to what the plan is, meaning the actual physical plan of where the parking is going, what the impact will be, what the rate's going to be, how it's going to be controlled. The MDA and the town square seeker both referred to the parking agreement. So it's really important. And matter of fact, those have happened, including the Seeker almost over a year ago. However, there has been nothing that I'm aware of provided to date for what that plan is. And this resolution is silent on parking. There's no conditions or anything noted about the parking. we certainly want development we certainly want this to happen the town to to be reinvigorated which is happening through the you know efforts of community development in the town of Riverhead but the question is how can you proceed with these two approvals without having the agreement or at least the the basic framework of an agreement established I just don't understand how you do that without even identifying it in any degree, what the agreement's going to include. In that both site plan and special permit refer to an agreement, but yet there's absolutely nothing on the table as to what that agreement is.
Thank you, sir.
I believe we have two more online. I believe Mr. Sandelsky, you had a couple seconds. I just want to make sure you're finished. Nope, he's still.
We're just waiting. Don't forget, National I.O. happens just in a little bit, and we're going to ask you as soon as this meeting is over to move your cars so they can utilize those spaces. So if you're here on site. Yes, Ms. McGraw. Kathy McGraw, Northville. Again, I hope Greg hasn't left the room. I have a couple of questions about the golf course zone district resolution. Greg, let's wait a second to see if it's comments here. Good. Okay. The environmental assessment form which accompanies one of these resolutions has checked no, that the project site is not within a coastal area. And I'm curious about this because it is a rezoning of six golf courses, one of which Friars Head appears to be in a coastal area. So that's my first question. My second question is the environmental assessment form, the determination of significance in part three, says there's no significant environmental impacts. And I just, these are questions really. If you look at the proposed zoning changes, it seems to me that they could result in significant impacts. And I'm asking this because the six courses right now are in three different zoning areas, RA80, RB80, and APZ. And I'm no zoning expert, that's for sure. But when I look at the zoning code, it has a bunch of permitted uses in this golf course zoning district. that such things as riding academies, retail greenhouses, bed and breakfasts, educational institutions with dormitories. And I guess my question is, if these golf courses go out of business, does it mean that all of these uses can then be imposed into these three different zoning areas. And it's just questions, Greg. I don't really understand. Just going forward, I think one of the best ways, Greg is asked to be able to answer your question, but this is a comment period, and we do want to be able to answer questions. If you could email those in too, that would be a great time for him to be able to give you a full explanation or even a conversation on the phone. But he is going to answer your question. I don't have an issue. It's for the information of the board, for the information of anybody watching. But so to be clear, the reason the GEIS is required is because we are creating a new transfer of development rights receiving district. In the absence of that, I kind of ran the rough numbers. The six golf courses comprise almost 40 million square feet in total. If every one of those golf courses was to build 18 cottages at 600 square feet, I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of about 68,000 square feet. It is like less, it's like a tenth of 1% of the land area. So when we talk about actual impacts, if it wasn't for the requirement for the GEIS for the TDR receiving district, it would probably be a negative declaration. I mean, we are talking about such a small footprint of development on such a large area. To some of the other points, I mean, Kathy, we will, this is going to go through a full secret process. you'll have your opportunities to comment on the draft scope the draft geis everyone will have their comments um i would welcome a phone call because basically the golf course zoning use district mirrors the exact uses that are already permitted in either the apz or the ra80 so i modeled it to essentially have no difference or no real increase aside from the golf cottages again this will all be made clear when the GEIS it is going to be written for the everyday person who is not a zoning expert to be able to read and should be able to comprehend it so again I would welcome a phone call we can you know hammer any of this stuff out I can you've emailed me previously I will be happy to do that anytime for you thank you very much thank you for your comments yep and you MR. HURRY, CAN YOU HEAR US? YES, THANK YOU. RON HURRY AGAIN. FIRST OF ALL, THANK YOU, COUNCILWOMAN WOSKI, FOR SPECIFICALLY ACKNOWLEDGING THAT THE TOWN has a severe parking problem. And thank you, Councilman Rothwell, for acknowledging that at some point in the future, you need to arrive at a parking agreement. The problem, however, is that at the last meeting, your CDA director acknowledged that you don't have plans, Although you've received some grants, you don't know what the ultimate cost will be, and you have had no discussion with Mr. Petrucelli about what his contribution will be to pay for spaces used for his hotel, which will include at least 100 rooms plus commercial and retail space. I have my own view of Mr. Petrucelli's enterprises, and I certainly don't believe, because I must deal with my mayor in New York at my New York properties, but I certainly don't think it's appropriate for the Republican socialists of Riverhead to continue to subsidize a private business venture for Mr. Petrucelli. That being said, even if you think this guy is the best thing for Riverhead since sliced bread, unless and until you resolve the parking issue, it is entirely premature to approve a site plan which would require that intensity of parking use. So you really need to go back to the drawing board if this individual's lenders or investors haven't already nixed the deal because of the inadequacy of parking spaces to service this massive hotel property. Thank you and have a great summer. Thank you for your comments, sir. Do we have any folks online? Anyone else in our room? I'm sure we have an opportunity there for anyone to speak on resolutions only. All right. With that said, it looks like we're finished with our comment period. Thank you all for your passion for our town and the comments. We'll move it to our town clerk for resolutions. Who, me? Yes, sir. Let's start with resolution number one, which is 716. Up New York 2026-2027 road resurfacing grant budget. So moved. Second. Please yes, very few. Yes Heard yes, yes, yes, yes, sir. That resolution is adopted resolution 717 paved New York 2026 2027 road resurfacing grant budget so moved seconded vote please Waski yes, very few. Yes, yes Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. The resolution is adopted. Resolution 718. Ratifies budget adjustment for street lighting repair. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 719. Ratifies budget adjustment for Water District Capital Project number 82301. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution's adopted. Resolution 5 has been adopted. Resolution number 6, which is 721. Ratifies acceptance of anonymous donations for the Recreation Department. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waski? Yes, thank you. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? You know who you are. Thank you. And Halpin? Generosity. Thank you. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 722. Authorizes the purchasing director and purchasing technician to attend 2026 New York State AMPO Fall Conference. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 723. Ratifies amendment to resolution number 2026-483 Appointing a temporary part-time account clerk to the Water District So moved Seconded Vote please Waske Yes Merrifield Yes Kern Yes Rothwell Yes Halpin Yes sir Resolution is adopted Resolution 724 Authorizes the promotion of a detective So moved Second Vote please Waske Yes, congratulations Merrifield Yes, congratulations. Kern? Yes, congratulations. Rothwell? Congratulations, Michael. Michael and Hoppin? Absolutely, congratulations, thank you, and yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 725. Ratifies the amendment of a resolution of resolution number 2026-442 approving a leave of absence. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskey? Yes. Very few. Yes. Kern? Yes. ROTHWELL. Yes. COUNSELOR TREMBLE. Yes, sir. ROTHWELL. Yes. COUNSELOR TREMBLE. Yes, sir. Resolution adopted, Resolution 726. RATIFIES THE TERMINATION OF A SENIOR ACCOUNTANT. So moved. SECONDED. VOTE, PLEASE. WOSKEY. Yes. MERRIFIELD. Yes. TURN. Yes. ROTHWELL. Yes. COUNSELOR TREMBLE. Yes, sir. ROTHWELL. Yes. ROTHWELL. Yes. ROTHWELL. Rothwell? Yes. Alpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 728. Ratifies the acceptance of the resignation of a part-time court officer. So moved. Second. Please vote. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Alpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 729. Ratifies and accepts the resignation of a part-time court officer. So moved. Seconded. vote please. Waske? Yes. Very few yes turn yes Rothwell. Yes, open. Yes resolutions adopted resolution 730 Ratifies the termination of a water treatment plant operator trainee so moved second vote, please Waski yes, very few yes turn yes Rothwell. Yes open. Yes, sir Resolution is adopted resolution 731 Accepts the retirement of a police detective Henry so moved Seconded. VOTE, PLEASE. WOSKEY. Mike, congratulations. You had a great career. Good luck with your retirement. Yes. MERRIFIELD. Yes. Congratulations and have a wonderful retirement. KEARN. Yes. ROTHWELL. Michael, all the best wishes. Thank you for all your guidance, support, and protection of our residents, Town of Riverhead. God bless. Enjoy your retirement. Yes. ANDHOPEN. I want to thank the detective. I also want to thank everybody who was here today. Thank you.
I also want to thank everybody in that area that has worked so hard, our accounting department, to make this retirement initiative a possibility, our town board for supporting it once again, a continuation of this. And yes, enjoy your retirement. Thank you, Michael. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 732. Establishes committee membership and increases membership for the Wildlife Management Advisory Committee. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Mosky? Yes. Berryfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Did we throw you off this committee? Heck yeah, they did. We tossed you off. Yes. That's right. Halpin? Yes, sir. Great committee. Great people. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 733. Adopts the Town of Riverhead gender-based violence policy related to federal funding assistance to local government entities. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Bosque? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted.
I'm on a computer freeze. 734. My computer's got to catch up. Resolution 734. Approve special event chapter 255, application for Riverhead Polish Independence Club, Polish Festival. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 735. Approve Special Event Chapter 255 application for Foodie Fest Productions, Foodie Fest 2, so moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 736. Approved special event chapter 255, application for Chicken Kids, LLC. Chickens consignment sale, Chicken Kids. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Murrayfield? Yes. Hearn? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Alpen? Yes, sir. Resolutions adopted. Resolution 737. Approved special event chapter 255, application for New Beginnings Community Center Soundstock Music and Vendor Festival. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waski? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 738. Approve special event chapter 255 application for Hallettville Museum Farm Country Fair. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waski? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Lots of things to do in Riverhead. Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 739. Approve special event chapter 255 application for a Hallockville Museum Farm Dan's White Party. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Hoppin? Yes sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 740. Approve special event chapter 255 application for Fine Fair Supermarket Customer Appreciation Day. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Kalpin? Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 741. Prove special event chapter 255, application for Water Drinker Farm Garlic Festival. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Rothwell? Yes. Kalpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 742. Ratifies approval of a special event, Chapter 255, application for Home Depot extension of plant sale. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 743. Approved special event, Chapter 255, application for the Greater New York Running Club Veterans Day 5K Run Walk. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Alton? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 744. Prove special event chapter 255, application for the Dark Side Productions, Dark Side's haunted house. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waski? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Well, if anybody's never gone there, this is really a great production every year, and they do it like superb. Absolutely, yes. I WANT TO THANK CAROL IN MY OFFICE. SHE HANDLES ALL THESE APPLICATIONS. I TELL YOU WHAT. I THINK SHE DID IT ON PURPOSE, BUT MORE ON ONE MEETING JUST TO SHOW HOW MUCH SHE DOES. ALL THESE GREAT THINGS GOING ON IN THE TOWN. GOOD WORKERS LIKE OTHERS. RESOLUTION NUMBER 745. APPROVES FIREWORKS PERMIT APPLICATION FOR RIVERHEAD RACEWAY, AUGUST 8, 2026. SO MOVED. SECONDED. MOVED. August 8th, 2026. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Berryfield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. And Halpin. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 746. Grant special permit and site plan approval for the site plan and special permit applications entitled Peconic River Hotel, 117-217 East Main Street, Riverhead, New York. PO Suffolk County tax map number 600-129-113, 14, 15, and PO Suffolk County tax map number 600-128-6-86.1. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waski. Yes. Very few. I'd just like to take a moment to make a statement regarding this. First of all, there's been a lot of comment on several aspects about this hotel. And I first want to remind everyone that this hotel, a beautiful tapestry Hilton Hotel, would be greatly helping the local businesses in our downtown area, as many of the other council people have said here today. Not only our restaurants, but also the music venues. The Suffolk Theater would benefit from people staying over for the weekend at such a hotel. Also, the Jazz Loft, which is now at the Vale Levitt. This would be a wonderful added amenity to our town, and it is part of our downtown revitalization, as Councilman Rothwell was just speaking about. This and our Town Square project are all part of the downtown revitalization. It's a tremendous asset. It brings people. It brings tourism. It brings local residents. And it also helps our commercial tax revenue for our town. In addition to that, it is not apartments. It is actually something that does not add to our school tax rolls. It does not add to our Riverhead School District taxpayers' taxes. It's something that greatly helps the town. And lastly, regarding the issue of parking, I have to say that I'm unpersuaded by the arguments, specifically because this particular location is on the same side of the street as what was the Suffolk County or the Riverhead Children's Science Museum. And I recall us having public hearings on that particular property, 111 East Main Street, which is on the same side of the street, just adjacent to this property. And I don't recall hearing one individual complain about the parking that would be a result of that particular entity going forward. Not one. Not in emails, not in letters, not at a podium. Not one individual remarked whatsoever about the potential parking issues that would be created by such a family entity. Yet many individuals spoke lovingly about that establishment, saying it will bring thousands and thousands of individuals to our town. So to say that 94 parking spaces is a huge detriment and problem for our town parking is just unpersuasive for me. So for those reasons, I vote yes. Okay. Kern? YES. ROTHWELL. SO FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS, FIVE AND A HALF YEARS SINCE I CAME IN OFFICE, WE HAVE BEEN WORKING ON THIS PROJECT FROM DAY ONE. AND I PROMISED UPON ARRIVAL THAT THE FOCUS WAS REVITALIZATION OF DOWNTOWN RIVERHEAD. THIS IS ANOTHER KEY COMPONENT AND A KEY STEP TOWARDS MOVING FORWARD AND KEEPING THOSE PROMISES. I SAT IN A RESTAURANT THIS AFTERNOON, HAD LUNCH, AND IT WAS QUITE QUIET. AND I JUST HOPE THAT, YOU KNOW, PROJECTS LIKE THIS MOVING FORWARD WILL PUT PEOPLE IN THOSE seats and fill those restaurants so that our businesses can survive. So this is a path moving forward, and it's promises kept. I vote yes. Halpin. Yes, sir. That resolution is adopted. Resolution 747. Assumes lead agency issues positive declaration for proposed golf course zoning amendment. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske. Yes. Murrayfield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes, sir. That resolution is adopted. Resolution 748. Accepts draft scope on proposed golf course zoning amendments and sets time period for submission of written comments on draft scope. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Otwell? Yes. Hoppin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 749. Resolution granting the State of New York authority to perform the adjustment for the owner and agreeing to maintain facilities adjusted via state-led contract. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 750. Approves the submission of a grant application to the State of New York Unified Court System for the 2026-2027 JCAP grant. So moved. Second vote please wasky. Yes Very few yes, Kern. Yes, well, yes up it. Yes, sir resolutions adopted resolution 751 Authorizes the Community Development Department to apply for Empire State Development NY kicks funding through the consolidated funding application so moved seconded Well, please wasky. Yes, very few. Yes, Kern. Yes, Rothwell. Oh get the money. Yes Yes, sir. Resolutions adopted. Resolution 752. Ratifies authorization for the Community Development Department to apply for a New York State EFC WIA funding to support the extension of Water Main No. 96 in Calverton. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes. This is awesome. Resolution is adopted. Resolution No. 753. Order calling for a public hearing to be held on September 1st, 2026 in the matter of the increase in improvement of facilities of the Riverhead Ambulance District. So moved finally. Seconded. Vote please. Waske. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. McAwell. Yes. We have to do a motion to amend this. We have to do a motion to amend. Yeah, we have to do a motion. Sorry. I might thanks Eric see for funding. Yep. Oh boy. I knew I had it highlighted for a reason. Oh Yeah, is it we have to amend the secret findings that we just did? so the motion the motion to amend that we need is in the first blank on the Three or fifth whereas that blank should read unlisted action
Read that whole thing Well, there's another blank. Yeah, and then the second blank should be action is not expected to result in any significant negative environmental impacts and not subject to coordinated review. I have to write that all in there. Can you write that in there? Action is not expected. Well, I have it written down. Can you give it to me? Okay. Well, you're not amending the title. Okay. Don't I need to say this? No, you don't have to say that. We just say a yes is amended. That's all. So read it again. Take a motion to amend as explained by. Eric, could you just read that section one more time just so everybody in the public has it? All right. So we are amending the fifth whereas clause to fill in two blanks. The first blank is going to read unlisted. Why don't you just read the paragraph? Yeah, that's what I was asking. Read the whole paragraph? Yeah. That's what I was asking. Whereas said capital project has been determined to be an unlisted action pursuant to the regulations of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation promulgated pursuant to the State Environmental Quality Review Act, SECRA, the implementation of which as proposed action is not expected to result in any significant negative environmental impacts and is not subject to coordinated review. Okay. Eric? So you just need to read it as amended. Oh. So we need the motion to amend? Yes. Okay, you know motion to amend resolution 753 second vote, please Waski yes to amend Very field. Yes to amend heard. Yes to amend. Yes to amend up. Yes to amend Resolution Has been amended Okay as amended So, let's see. Order calling for a public hearing to be held on September 1st, 2026 in the matter of the increase and improvement of facilities of the Riverhead Ambulance District as amended. So moved. Seconded. Pope, please. Waske? Yes, as amended. Very few? Yes, as amended. Hearn? Yes, as amended. Rothwell. Yes, as amended. Halpin. Yes, sir, as amended. That amended resolution is adopted. Resolution number 754. Authorizes the town clerk to publish in post notice of public hearing to consider a local law to amend Town Code Chapter 301, Article 16, entitled Business PB. So moved. Seconded. Sorry, vote please. Waske. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 755. Adopts a local law to amend Chapter 289 of the Riverhead Town Code titled Vehicles, Traffic, and Parking Regulations, Article 4, Parking, Standing, and Stopping. So, vote. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Murrayfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 756. authorizes the supervisor to execute a professional services agreement with Sound Engineering PC for the traffic signal design plans at Osborne Avenue and Harrison Avenue. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Owoski? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rockwell? Yes. Hoppin? Good job, Contesta, on finding this and making it fixable. Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 757. authorizes the supervisor to execute a professional service agreement with Sound Engineering PC for traffic signal design plans at South Jamesport Avenue and Railroad Avenue. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rockwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 758. Ratifies the authorization for the supervisor to execute a license agreement with East Coast Lumberjacks LLC to utilize the baseball field at the police office's Memorial Park. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rockwell? Yes. Alpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 759. Ratifies the authorization for the supervisor to execute an addendum to the short-term runway use agreement for racetrack, not street, 2026 Summer Motorsports Classic. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Better get ready to race, Grace. Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 760. Authorize the settlement of legal action in the matter of United Riverhead Terminal, Inc. against the Board of Assessors and the Assessors and the Board of Assessment Review, the Town of Riverhead and the Town of Riverhead. So moved. Second. Vote please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Alpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 761. Pay his bills. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Not so happy. Waski? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Alpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 762. Ratifies budget adjustment to temporarily fund funding source for pay down of the town square band so move. Seconded. Vote please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. And Halpin? I want to reiterate we want to close and they want to close as fast as possible so yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 763. Do we have the year to fill in of Brittany's employment? Jeanette? that? Do we have the year for employment?
I can't hear you. 2023. 2023. Do I have to move to amend this? Yep, you sure do.
I move to amend promotes an employee to accountant in the first whereas establishing the date of Brittany's employment being 2023. Second it as amended. To amend. Vote to amend, please. Waskey? Yes, to amend. Merrifield? Yes, to amend. Kern? Yes, to amend. Rockwell? Yes, to amend. And Halpin? Yes. Resolution has been amended. Okay. Promotes an employee to accountant as amended. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske. Yes, great job, Brittany. Good for you. Merrifield. Yes, congratulations. Byrne. Yes, really good job, Brittany. Thank you. Rothwell. Congratulations, Brittany. Yes. And Halbert. Tremendous asset to our town and that department. Yes, absolutely, sir. Okay. She's been promoted. At this time we will open it up to comments. Open comments. Warren, I do believe that you may have jumped the line if you want to ask for Mr. Zelnicki. He probably doesn't mind, but I want to make sure that... All right. So, thank you, Warren. Positive things. Thank you, sir. This is positive statements. One is the reference to the Resolution 759. It's important to note there are only two airports out here, Kabreski, which is used, and our airport at Grumman, which is used. It could accommodate large jets. In the event of an emergency, I think it's very imperative that we get funding or to have our airport in Grumman maintained. That's one statement on that because I think it's important. God forbid things happen. I don't have to tell you. Okay, next thing is I have some I think is wonderful news that has been adopted by the South Hampton Village Board of Trustees. Wait till you hear this. Seniors helping seniors. What does that mean? Sounds confusing, right? Like me helping you. I'll get right to the point again. senior graduates of high school helping seniors. They have adopted this program, volunteer program, for seniors to get together and seniors to get together. What a wonderful... I won't even go on farther, but it's a great thing that's happening. Generations, they can learn from us, we can learn from them, and I explained this to Mrs. Tachi at the senior center, and she's all for it. And the only thing, we have to all help the Riverhead School Board, and if everybody gets together in the senior center, to build a consensus and maybe to have this happen in Riverhead. Thank you. I like it. Thanks, Warren. I like it a lot. SENIORS. THANKS, BOARD. KEN ZELNICKI, RIVERHEAD. I HAVE TO BE BRIEF BECAUSE MY GRANDSON IS GOING TO MEET US OUTSIDE ANOTHER HALF HOUR OR SO. CAN YOU SPILL SOME NIKKI, PLEASE, SIR? THE TOPIC I JUST WANT TO TALK ABOUT TODAY IS THE INVOLVEMENT IN THE 4-H CAMP PURCHASE. One of the reasons I'm against it is because one of the largest reasons is the Nassau County only pays the town of Riverhead $1,400 a year for the entire 145 acres. And if Riverhead and the land trust in the county get in altogether, there will be no taxes under the non-for-profit status. And I don't think it is good for the town of Riverhead to lose 145 acres with no taxes forever. I just don't think that's great for the town of Riverhead. Now, the land trust had just offered through Riverhead Local $10 million for the entire parcel of 145 acres, which approximately is $69,000 an acre. BUT THE APPRAISAL THAT THIS BOARD WAS GIVEN, THE 36 ACRES THAT THE LAND TRUST WANTS RIVERHEAD TO PURCHASE, THE APPRAISAL IS AT $110,000 PER ACRE OR $4 MILLION. AND THAT DOESN'T INCLUDE THE CLEANUP OF THE 40 BUILDINGS THAT ARE ON THAT PARCEL. WHICH LEAVES 109 ACRES OR $6 MILLION AFTER THE 36 ACRES THAT LAND TRUST WANTS RIVERHEAD TO BUY. NOW THAT $6 MILLION OR 109 ACRES IS ONLY $55,000 AN ACRE. AND THEY WANT RIVERHEAD TO PURCHASE THE 36 ACRES AT $110,000 AN ACRE. I was pretty good in math, but nothing is adding up there. Now, the removal of all those outbuildings, the septic systems, the old electrical and plumbing, and backfill, I believe was a soft estimate of $500,000 to $1.5 million. And I don't think the taxpayers of Riverhead can afford that. now the zoning up in that area is RA80 if the 145 acres were sold to an investment group any group the zoning would be 2 acre zoning but it would be cluster zoned only 30% of that property could be developed 70% would have to be preserved that's 100 acres would have to be preserved, and this is the best part, at no cost to the town of Riverhead.
It's just, I believe that the land trust does do good work, but not in this situation. This is not the best outcome for the town of Riverhead. And I would love to sit down with any resident in the town of Riverhead and discuss this over a cup of coffee. And not to argue who is right or wrong, but what is the best for the town of Riverhead and its residents. And I know there's 36,000 residents in the town of Riverhead. That would be a lot of coffee, but we can work that out. Thank you for your time. SO MR. ZILNICKI, JUST FOR THE RECORD, LIKE, YOU KNOW, PACONIC LAND TRUSTS ARE ENGAGING WITH NASSAU COUNTY TO PURCHASE THAT PROPERTY. IT'S REALLY REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT RIVERHEAD PARTICIPATES IN IT OR SUFFOLK COUNTY PARTICIPATES IN IT. THEY'RE IN A CONTRACT WITH THEM. AND SO WHAT THEY ARE SEEKING FROM US IS TO PARTICIPATE AND ESSENTIALLY REIMBURSE PORTION of the expenses in which they're utilizing to purchase the entire property. So I just don't want you to feel like it's a direct action of what this town is board or where a decision-making body on this because we really are not, you know, in terms of whether or not it is purchased by Peconic Land Trust. The secondary is do we want to use some of our funding, you know, to soften the overall expenses you know and of that uh the kind of land trust would lay out as well as the county yeah i i but to assure you just the last thing is to assure you is that i wouldn't be an advocate of paying more per acre than in fact what iconic land trust is paying per acre what i would i wouldn't know maybe asked that this board consider calling the land trust to withdraw their offer and let nassau AND THE TOWN OF RIVERHEAD AND SIT DOWN AND DISCUSS WHAT IS BEST FOR THE TOWN AND RIVERHEAD AND NOT WHAT IS BEST FOR THE LAND TRUST. AGAIN THAT IS A PRIVATE DEAL AND WE ARE NOT PART OF THAT NEGOTIATION PROCESS AND THAT IS BETWEEN THEM AND NASA AND PURCHASINGLAND INDEPENDENTLY OF THIS BOARD. THANK YOU. YES, SIR? GOOD AFTERNOON AND I'L Bob Kelly Reeves Park, following up on that gentleman's statements. But as you know, we'd like to know what's going on with the purchase with the 4-H, if there's anything new developing, as you said. And why it is important that Riverhead does work with the Peconic Land Trust and Suffolk County. We know how the deal is supposed to be going on. And we wanted the town of Riverhead to help partner with them on that 36 acres. I reached out to Mr. Kern and Joan and people like that before. It's the CPF funds, and I believe it's just a small portion of how much money the CPF actually has. We've got preserving open space, which is really important for everybody in Riverhead. That's the most critical thing we can do is to preserve that open space. We talked about dismantling buildings and cesspools of that like. They can be done in small steps. we take over we take town of riverhead takes a certain percentage of that land behind the open space preserve and goes piece by piece i'd mention you can use the fire department you can use drills there's actually um preservation companies that would love to get their hands on some of those buildings and dismantle them probably at no cost you know the numbers that are being kicked around seem a bit high but i really think the opportunity to to take this opportunity and preserve that land is so important to the town of riverhead to the taxpayers to everyone to enjoy open space we don't need we don't need any more houses down there you know that it's it's it's getting overcrowded as it is to enjoy the open space and to preserve our our our town i think is the most important thing that we can do so just again to keep us in touch um i gladly have a cup of coffee with that gentleman i didn't get his name but uh i think the majority of the people in the town are in favor of preserving open space and making it work and we're not looking for anybody to go on the hook for extra money i think the price is is a good deal it's a real good deal so as the councilman said um this is a deal you ask where it stands right now the peconic land trust is in contract to purchase it and they've asked us to partner with them and so we are uh discussing that with our board here um and where where we were we had the men we plan on having them back in again to discuss that as we look at that piece and other pieces to continue to do exactly what you said and to be myself and I believe others on the board are very much active in pursuing and keeping open space farmland sitting on those committees so I think that's that's an active thing that we're doing and we want to be good partners with everyone kind of land trust the county so thank you for for voicing your opinion just as an update the Suffolk county is probably not going to finalize CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENT WITH THEM PROBABLY TILL ABOUT FEBRUARY. SO JUST IN TERMS OF LIKE CHECKING IN, YOU KNOW, I JUST WANT TO LET YOU KNOW IT'S A TIME. AND I'M GOING TO WANT TO SEE EXACTLY WHAT THAT AGREEMENT IS FROM THE COUNTY. I THOUGHT THE TIME WAS EXPOSED LIKE IN DECEMBER WHERE THE OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE THE LAND. YOU THINK IT'S GOING PAST THAT? YEAH, THE COUNTY THINKS THAT IT'S PROBABLY REALISTICALLY WOULDN'T BE FINALIZED THROUGH THE COUNTY LEGISLATURE TILL AROUND FEBRUARY. But I'd like to know what the county's paying per acre to determine what Riverhead should pay per acre and that we're all working together in sequence. Okay. Have you guys got an opportunity to take a look at that, at the parcel that you're going to go look at? Just got an invite this week to go over to the property, so I don't go on properties without being invited. Okay. I'll wave to you. The invitation was just sent. On my back deck, I'll wave hello to you all from there. Yes. But thank you. But just so you know, there is a lengthy process. I got you. But the initial process with Peconic Land Trust works directly. THEY'VE ALREADY GONE INTO CONTRACT. SO WITH NASSAU COUNTY. SO NOW THEY PROCEED AND THEN WE DECIDE TOWARDS WHAT'S AVAILABLE IN OUR FUNDING AND WHAT WE CAN PARTICIPATE IN IT. AND ACTUALLY WHICH PORTION OF LAND. SO WHETHER THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY TO PRESERVE LAND ON SITE THAT DOESN'T INCLUDE THOSE STRUCTURES. MAYBE THOSE STRUCTURES WOULDN'T BE PUT ON THE COST OF OUR TAXPAYERS, RIGHT? THERE'S LOTS OF THINGS TO LOOK AT STILL. STILL. WE HAVE THE FUNDS THERE IN THE CPF. THERE'S MORE THAN ENOUGH MONEY, I BELIEVE. IT WOULD BE A LITTLE PIECE OF THE PIE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT. MY HOPE IS THAT IF WE ARE ABLE TO PARTNER COMPLETELY WITH THE LAND TRUST, THEY WILL REMOVE THOSE BUILDINGS BEFORE WE TAKE TITLE TO OUR PARTS. WE'LL GET SOMEBODY IN THERE TO TAKE THEM. YEAH. BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE, YEAH. SO THEY DO. BUT THAT'S MY PERSONAL. OKAY. SPEAK FOR EVERYONE. THANKS FOR YOUR TIME. long meeting today. It's free ice cream outside. That's right. Hot dogs and hamburgers. What time does everybody have to move? We do need to I don't want to wrap everything up, but if everyone can be courteous of our PD, which is outside doing National Night Out. We have three people in line. I'm going to ask everybody to cut their comments to a minute and a half. And then you can write your letters. It's not going to happen. Okay, all right. Well, then I asked, but you didn't have to adhere to it. All right, let's go. Sorry. Colin Tooker from Riverhead. This past week, the Riverhead Rotary Club installed a peace pole downtown. Its message, May Peace Prevail on Earth, is also included in Spanish on the pole. The board, your board, supported the installation of the peace pole. And yet, you ignore the fear of immigrants who live here legally. You feign peace while you point fingers at the undocumented, and you tell them they aren't worthy of your representation. Fifth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution provide equal protection for all persons. This is a fundamental principle of the Constitution that each of you took an oath to. A few weeks ago, Ms. Waski wrote a letter that was published in Riverhead Local. She wrote, I believe our tax dollars should support our own citizens. I will continue to support policies that protect our community before anyone else. You refer to my Latino friends as anyone else, as not a part of our community. and that's coded language and it's abhorrent at the last board meeting mizwaski described a pecking order for who she represents she explicitly did not mention the undocumented not even at the very bottom of her list in violation of her oath she proudly provides them with no representation whatsoever and each member of the board in addition to the town clerk and the town attorney stayed silent while she did that, and they said nothing, nothing to correct her comments, nothing to mitigate the message of fear that was so evident in her diatribe.
You also took an unconstitutional, immoral position with your silence, a failure even more glaring for Ms. Merrifield and Mr. Howard, who are attorneys and thereby required to hold to a higher ethical standard. Equal protection for all persons is a constitutional right. It is not an opinion. You don't have an option to deny representation to the vulnerable people in town simply because you don't approve of them or because you would much rather they go away. When the town board explicitly ignores its vulnerable population, it implicitly puts a target on their backs. The message on the peace poll then puts salt in the wounds. I implore you yet again to put the proposed safety legislation on your work session agenda. Don't allow the peace poll to become a monument to this town board's hypocrisy. I'm going to take exception to those comments. I don't feel that I've done anything that would be contrary to the oath that I swore as an attorney. And the town board members are certainly allowed to have opinions. My job is to give legal advice. In my opinion, this town has not done or not done anything that is contrary to the United States Constitution. I'd be happy to discuss that with you at a town board work session.
Dawn Zabrowski, River Road. Having now a better understanding of the extraordinary fragility of the town board when confronted with frank but civil speech, I plan to speak very gently to you today in low, soothing tones. I imagine it would be quite intolerable for any of you or one of your loved ones to experience the repeated hostile, misogynist, sexually charged language deployed at me by your highway department last August. Which brings me to my latest encounter with inappropriate speech courtesy of Riverhead Town. I recently learned in a July 10 encounter with Mr. Wooten in the office of the town clerk that my religious faith is apparently a legitimate topic of debate. I am about to quote Mr. Wooten who actually said to me in that office at close distance with red-faced emphasis, you must not be a good Christian. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. I may or may not be a good Christian, but I do strive to be good. I am at least a good taxpayer, and I take great exception to my faith being called into question in a municipal office occupied by an official elected to serve me regardless of my faith, particularly in the same week as my constitutional right to free speech was abridged as I was escorted by RPD from this very room on July 7th. Some serious course correction appears to be in order, beginning with, but sadly not limited to, Superintendent Zaleski's highway department. Contrary to my actual experience, in the future, I expect to be able to identify any employee of the town of Riverhead for complaint of misconduct the same way I was able to immediately identify officer Cruciolo the day he was erroneously compelled to remove me from this podium in the future I intend that any complaint of misconduct made by a resident regarding a town employee will be properly received recorded responded to and resolved in a timely manner by the municipality and with the utmost most courtesy. As I have testified in a previous town board appearance, the price tag for such concierge treatment is as follows. Property tax increases of 22% over a 10-year period, 12% of which has occurred in the previous two years and for which we have most of the present town board members to thank. Thanks, but no thanks. If Brother Wooten's judgment of me is any indication, I am quite sure that you fine fellow Christians would all agree that I should go straight to hell, and according to Brother Zaleski's highway department, when I get there I should sodomize myself. See you next Tuesday. I can't hear that. I can't hear you. I couldn't hear you.
Basically, I see what's happening with the Hispanic community, and And I get an idea how they're feeling. If we could go back to Hitler's Third Reich, anybody that looked Jewish was frightened. Anybody that's Hispanic might be thought of here illegally. And these hardworking, wonderful people have to face this fear because of these ICE people. I mean, and they should come here and explain who and what and where they're doing. We need clearance because I'm totally confused and everything else and I hate to be Hispanic and have to go through this and see cars pull up just because I might look like somebody else. So, you know, this is a problem here and we should all try to work together to solve it, not be harming each other. You know what I mean? Guys, okay. Thank you for your comments, sir.
Mr. Warren. John McCollough, Rolling Woods, Roanoke Landing. First I want to unite with our neighbors that are concerned about what happens to the properties of the Scout camp. We're directly affected and we hope that if there's some risk of it going to commercial development that the town tried to stop that. I wasn't planning to go to the issue of migration, but I would move from, I think, the heartfelt feelings both of Mr. Tucker and Mr. Waski and the history in the past of Ms. Mary Field and Mark McLaughlin to say that perhaps the supervisor in his former professional capacity as a minister might want to convene a community meeting that would look at the questions of immigration look at the questions of race relations as frankly honestly as possible I mean that Riverhead is no different than anywhere else in the country and and I suspect your professional ministerial skills might help us move beyond the current conflict it's not just a question of law it's not just a question of what happens in a work session it's what happens in the nature of the town the last thing I do want to respond specifically to a couple of those Mary Phelps fields comments we didn't talk about parking for the Science Center because it's just assumed that parking would be for them as for anyone else catches catch can. The problem with the hotel is they want to sequester 100 parking spaces. So it's not an equal thing. I would be interested if there's any update on where things are with the Science Center and the eminent domain, but that's a separate question. The other thing I wanted to go to is the issue of what happens if there is a hotel. I mean, I think in principle we'd love to see all of the entertainment venues filled. But I don't think the putting in of the new hotel is going to change that. During the winter, I'm sure there are plenty of vacancies in the existing hotel space downtown. So if people want to pay another $200 or $300 on top of the admission charge for the theater, they can already do it. And that, so we're not talking about something that's likely to change. It'd be nice to think it would change the economics of downtown, but I don't think it's going to that much, that most of the people who come to a high-end hotel are not going to spend their money down the street. They're going to go to the high-end restaurants that are a drive away. Thanks very much. Okay, so we're going to ask anybody online, and I think there's a couple more that are in person, so, yep, go ahead. You can come right up in your three minutes. Again, if you could, just out of respect for a group that is outside, but I understand we want to make sure you get your right and you're allowed to speak, but if you're able to. The best I can. Yes, ma'am. Okay. As I had said when I came up earlier, I'm Pastor Patricia Chuppie. Can you just move the mic a little closer? Sure. Is that better? Okay, I'm Pastor Patricia Chuppie. I'm a retired local pastor in the United Methodist Church. Although I think you'll agree with me, Mr. Halbin, pastor never retires. I'm still, I've been on the New York Annual Conference for the Methodist Church's Immigration Task Force for over a dozen years. I served as the co-chairman during Trump's first term and I'm currently the secretary of the task force. So I've been involved with immigration for quite some time. When I saw the video of Ms. Waskie on Facebook last week, I have to say my first reaction and the reason I'm here was when I heard her say that her priority was only the legal residents of Riverhead. My first thought was, well, what about me? I'm not a resident of Riverhead. I only come to this town to shop. Does that mean all of us people that come into this town to shop and do business aren't priorities at all? And I heard a number of other people that said the same thing to that video. It didn't leave a very good feeling. And so I can imagine how it left our Hispanic people feeling who were the real people mentioned. So I don't know if you would like to address that at some point because I believe that that's a real bad taste that it's leaving for someone who's talking about revitalizing their downtown business district to have it out there that we're probably not important to Riverhead. The other thing is that if only legal residents are the priority, is there a way that you can tell who's a legal resident and who's not a legal resident? because I certainly can't. And I've been dealing with immigrants, like I said, for well over a dozen years, both legal and not legal. It's not really something that you can do. And most people's idea of who is legal and who is not legal is not even correct. As an example, our asylum law says that you can cross the border and it does not have to be at a designated border crossing area to request asylum. Most people would say because they crossed the border at a non-designated area that they were illegal. But our law says that they're not. That's just an example. I'm sorry you are out of time for now. and so we do get a three minute limit oh why did that was it started back over yeah thank you for your comments today appreciate you
hello Diane to achieve ever had resident business owner and the Riverhead bid district Chamber of Commerce member rotary member and so on first of all this is my first time on this side here at this podium I have to say it's a little intimidating even for somebody like me but everyone's got very serious important things to talk about but I want to talk about a little bit of the fun and thank the town board for full support in me and my team to produce a live on 25 this coming Thursday Joanne Bob supervisor Ken Denise we really appreciate your unwavering support and just letting us go at what we do best it It will be a beautiful celebration of Riverhead, local bands from Riverhead, food from Riverhead, local businesses from Riverhead with a little interjection of some other kinds of businesses. But at the end of a hard day and all this work that you have to do, we have to have a little fun and our community needs a little fun. And I personally want to thank you all for your dedication to the town. Being an elected official, no matter what party you're on or what position you're on, is not an easy task and you're subject to a lot of public comments regarding whatever they can make up about your own personal beliefs however i know what's in your heart and i thank you and see all thursday right thank you can't wait diane did you the best the best part is we all got together and we we made sure that the weather is going to be great on thursday of course it's going to be great you can bring a little raincoat okay but we are on fully and i really i hope everybody comes out to support because we really do have a lot of local businesses coming out and it's a great great way to support our local downtown by visiting it shopping and show you care well it's been great to have our first person online thank you i'm sorry i thought you said that was it i'm sorry i'm mindful but you're fine thank you diane thank you very much for the hard work and we look forward to thursday it's going to be fabulous hey good afternoon uh desmond wong Reeves Park. So my July 30 filing is in the packet, pages 318 through 326, and the proposed resolution is at pages 323 through 325. It was not taken up as a numbered board item today. That filing separates state law duties from Riverhead's discretionary choice about the OLA public safety law. I'm asking for three concrete things. First, identify Riverhead's operative general municipal law section 996a policies or procedures, cover town rules, verification protocol, and designated contact. Second, identify the office responsible for determining whether Riverhead has any arrangement described by Executive Law Section 170K, including categories beyond the 287G, and give its supported conclusion and any action taken or scheduled, if applicable, in light of Subdivision 7. And then third, give the office or offices public written output, location, and date for a function-by-function comparison between the state law floor, RPD policy 414, and companion procedures, documented practice, and the additional functions provided by OLA. Then state which existing controls cover each function and where a choice remains whether Riverhead will adopt or revise that function, use an equivalent instrument or decline it with cited reasons. So I ask, will any member commit to sponsor the proposal for a stated future meeting date, offer an equivalent dated public process, or state that they decline to advance either?
Is that all of your comments, sir? I just want to make sure we get all of your comments today. Well, if not a supervisor helping, I would like to know who would own each review, what it will produce, where it will appear, and when. I just wanted to give you an opportunity of 20 plus seconds left. I want to make sure you have an opportunity to speak. Okay. I mean, packet publication of my request, so it confirms receipt, but after repeated public requests and a filed proposed resolution, will the board leave the public record without verification of Section 996A implementation or any of the dated process for these reviews? I just want to say thank you so much, Mr. Wong, for your comments on that part. Just for the record then, so no member has identified a sponsor or equivalent dated process and no official has identified a responsible office. This is a comment period. I want to say thank you so much for your comments for today. And they were received because they were stamped in. So then all the requests that are in my July 30th. We are trying to get to everyone and allow them to have a comment today. So we are out of time. Okay, well, the requests that are in my July 30th letter will remain pending then. Thanks. Thank you for your comment. Our next person on line. Make sure everybody has an opportunity to comment.
I think we're getting there. Okay.
Weren't those kids great at the beginning of the meeting today? They're absolutely awesome. Yep, definitely. to see them, their artwork in our building. If you're watching at home, make sure while they're firing up the next person that you come in and check out their artwork.
Ms. McGraw, can you hear us? We do ask that you stick firmly to this time. If you can shorten it, that would be super, as we do have... Well, I've heard that many times, and you've just taken up eight seconds of my time telling me that again. I just have two quick comments. You approved the settlement with URT. Mr. Howard, can you tell me the settlement amount? What is the figure that URT will get back as a result of the erroneous assessment? I believe I said earlier that someone, I'm not sure if it was you, but could email our assessor's office and get that information directly. It's public information, and the people of Riverhead have the right to know. This is just like what happened at Friar's Head. Yes, ma'am. I was just saying in case he doesn't have it sitting right in front of him at this moment, we'd want to get you accurate information. That's all. So the assessors would have the accuracy? Yeah, the assessors are going to have that direct information. How about an estimate, Mr. Howard? Just an estimate. Thank you. Not going to hazard an estimate. Okay. My other question is I sent in a letter about videotaping the pre-submission conferences. It was my second request. And this is a request that I sent in after the site plan process review process was changed. And the pre-submission conference now is truly the first time residents, people of Riverhead, anybody will have the chance to know about development projects. are you considering and will you videotape those sessions because they're at 9 30 in the morning and many of them the public can't can't see them i i wrote before and i didn't get an answer and that was maybe four months ago i'm not going to get an answer again is the board going to consider that? Other members of the board, are you interested in having those pre-submission conferences videotaped? Do you have any thoughts about it? Guess not. Thank you. Okay, I just want to make sure you had enough time that states if you had any other comments. Okay, I thank you for your comments and we'll move to our next person.
I don't think we have anything here next Tuesday, do we? Can I hear next Tuesday? No, we don't. We're sitting alone. I don't know.
Yes, Ron Hariri. Yes, sir. Thank you. So Calverton Aviation has perfected its appeal from the Supreme Court order, which dismissed various causes of action with some surviving. I know the town has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in connection with this litigation. And although the Supreme Court had vacated, well, can you actually hazard a guess on the hundreds of the amount? No, but it's not hundreds of thousands. It's not hundreds of thousands of dollars. What is the amount, sir? I can give you the exact amount if you want to send me an email and ask for it. Thank you. And in fact, you actually consented, although the Supreme Court vacated the list of pendants, to extend it to make the property continue to be unmarketable. Is that right? Well, we consented because they were going to make a motion seeking that relief. And we negotiated an agreement whereby they would deposit $150,000 that would come to the town of Riverhead if and when they lose their appeal. Right. In fact, a nominal amount to tie up $100 million property. So thank you for your work on that. And by the way, in that case, the town is represented by the same firm that has represented the alleged Ponzi scheme developer, Greg DeRosa, who has since been arrested on fraud charges. Isn't that right? I don't know. And what's actually troubling to me... Who they're representing. It's a matter of public record, and I guess politics makes strange bedfellows. But what I find particularly troubling, sir, is that the continuing charges by the Grimesians is that the town has perpetrated a fraud in this matter, misled the Calvert and Aviation group. And the main actor in perpetrating that fraud and that, those political machinations, is your own father-in-law, Tim Hubbard, when he was supervisor. So I would really urge that you refrain from participating in advising the board on this matter. And since we know that... We have special counsel advising the board on this matter. I think you need to avoid any appearance of property. And also, just to clarify, on appeal, the Garmazians would be limited by all the arguments they made at the Supreme Court level, so it wouldn't be strange for all of their claims to continue to be related to fraud. But I will say there is one of their fraud claims that they did not perfect an appeal on. In fact, there's four total that they waived their ability to appeal on and didn't submit argument on those four causes of action. So the number of causes of action pending on appeal at this point are actually only 12 out of the original 17. Yeah, and the fraud actually is alleged to have been committed by your own father-in-law. Yeah, you said that earlier. Who you still live with, right? Is that true, sir? It's immaterial. Yeah, that's probably not relevant. Is that true, sir? I want to give you about another 20, 10 seconds. Thank you. So I think it creates an appearance of propriety. You need to be removed from participating in it. That being said, we know the Gramezians have achieved massive success despite multiple challenges with COVID, particularly at their American Dream Mall. All right, Mr. Guerrero, I'm just going to ask for 15 seconds. You can wrap it up. Okay, I will. I would strongly urge that instead of wasting more money fighting this, you go back to these clearly established successful developers and negotiate a resolution which would include more money for the property. Sir, you are out of time. I did give you that extra time. I did. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Harry, for your comments, I guess. Our last person on line, we do have one more. One more? Yes, sir. There is. That's what I just got notice of. This will be our last person unless something changes. I think Devin wants to come forward and speak again, and Grace and Zelnicki. We all have a lot of things to share. Come on up. Create a line, please. Come down to the part. That's right. I want to talk here. Good Lord. Marty, can you hear? Mr. Zelnicki, can you hear? Yes, I can hear you. Thank you, sir. Did you change? Did you change your outfit? What are you doing here? Are you the same person? I'm actually, I actually did change. I got some place to be in very shortly. So while all the resolutions were on, I got ready. Anyway, 250 Roanoke Avenue. I'm actually speaking this time as the chair of the Rivet Parking Committee. On the town website, it says that the committee's purpose is to advise the trustees yourselves on all matters pertaining to the Riverhead Parking District properties. We've been asking for over a year about information regarding the hotel parking lease. to date you know how much information we've received from the riverhead town trustees yourselves zero you know how much information we or visits or requests we receive from the developer who might have an interest in just coming down to one of our meetings and saying hey we're going to be looking at this parking can we work together what do you think you know how many visits we got or requests for info zero um i'm gonna request now uh on the record here and i will also follow up in writing uh that we're gonna request for our august 27th parking committee meeting it'll be the number one item on our agenda uh that you the board as the trustees of the parking district please provide us with any information with regard to the lease of the parking district in terms of its location how many spaces how it's going to be controlled and what the lease amount will be thank you thank you sir for your comments good writing i think that wraps up our public comment for today and so i would like to ask for a motion to adjourn our meeting all in favor i am buying everybody free ice cream we'll see you outside at national night If you're watching somewhere, go there. Thank you for being with us.
So with that, there's not enough parking on site. However, they can use the municipal parking. I will note that there is not really a crosswalk across the Union Avenue. So if they do park in the municipal parking, I would just suggest maybe possibly looking at trying to put a crosswalk across Union Avenue so pedestrians can get across safely. and other than that I did also notice when I was on my site inspection that there were patrons that were walking into the deli that were parking on a private property that is to the north so there is I believe it's I don't know if it's in stationable leads right I believe that it's that parcel there is a lot of parking there I do know people park there quite often so I did see that a lot of the patrons that were going to the deli were actually parking in that parking lot, which is a private property, and walking over to the deli. So one note that I did make is to possibly explore the idea of a parking agreement of some sort or something of that nature if it's going to continue being that everyone's parking there and walking over there, or we're just going have to dedicate that the municipal parking is and municipal parking is the only way to park and no parking on the private property that's to the north of it at that point um and then i overall i just had a minor little um things that should be addressed the if you look at page seven um the front roof of the commercial building um you can see that the roof roofing is in disrepair And then I have checked. I've been driving by to my way to work in the morning. I've seen since then that also there's other sections of the asphalt shingles that are actually coming apart. So I just made a note of it to rectify that that should probably be repaired and addressed because you don't want any further problems down there.