Summary AI
The Town Board adopted 32 resolutions covering budget transfers, personnel actions, committee appointments, and new programs, while a public hearing on a Business PB zoning amendment for the Roanoke Avenue corridor drew public opposition and was kept open for written comment through August 28. Immigration enforcement activity and a proposed special-events code affecting agriculture dominated public comment.
Key actions
- Three officers received proclamations for preventing a vehicle from striking pedestrians at the Polish Town Fair on August 16, 2026.
- The board adopted a budget transfer increasing the 2026 legal-fees appropriation to $280,000, up from $150,000 (Resolution 765).
- A Water District capital project budget for a Calverton property at 1001 Scott Avenue was adopted (Resolution 769).
- The board authorized $380,000 in Community Development assistance for eligible first-time homebuyers (Resolution 774).
- A Town of Riverhead Hazardous Materials Response Team was formally established and an emergency response plan adopted (Resolution 792).
- The board approved live music at Wading River Beach for 2026 (Resolution 772).
- Multiple Wildlife Management Advisory Committee members were appointed or reappointed, along with one Recreation Advisory Committee reappointment.
- The board rescinded two prior resolutions (2026-605 and 2026-656) via Resolution 776, with no explanation stated in the transcript.
- A license agreement was authorized allowing Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps to use Town Hall basement space for EMT instruction and an annexed building for medical billing and storage (Resolutions 795–796).
Public hearings & comment
- A public hearing was held on amending the Business PB Zoning Use District (Roanoke Avenue corridor) to add personal services as a specially permitted use with hours of 5 a.m. to 10 p.m.; the hearing was kept open for written comment until August 28.
- Multiple residents spoke in opposition to the Business PB zoning amendment, including a representative of the Greater Calverton Civic Association.
- A winery owner and the Long Island Farm Bureau executive director opposed a proposed special-events code, saying it is burdensome and unfairly targets agriculture; the Supervisor stated agriculture is being removed from the draft.
- An Ag Advisory Committee letter read into the record stated the draft events code was written without meaningful community input, is highly restrictive, and increases fees and penalties on farmers.
- A speaker urged the board to purchase a 30-plus-acre parcel adjacent to the Sound Avenue Preserve using Community Preservation Funds, noting the price per acre is less than what was paid for the preserve two decades ago and the CPF fund has sufficient money.
Auto-generated from an unofficial, machine-made transcript. It may misstate names, figures, or votes. Verify against the agenda and the full transcript below.
Decisions & Votes AI
Extracted automatically from an unofficial, machine-made transcript; votes are recorded only where the roll call is audible. Resolution numbers and titles are grounded in the official minutes. May contain errors — verify against the full transcript below and the town’s official record.
Full Transcript
Thank you.
Okay. Good evening, everybody. Today is Tuesday, August 18, 2026. We're here for a town board meeting. Before we go any further, let's stand and say the pledge. Councilman Curion, would you lead us in the pledge, please? 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, very much. Councilman Rothwald, we have an invocation tonight. Well, we had our chaplain from the Riverhead Fire Department, Justin Winter, but I don't see him here today. So with that in mind, may I ask our town clerk, Reverend James Wooten, to lead us on an invocation, please? I would love to. Thank you. Can we bow our heads? Lord, we ask that you be with our community, quiet our minds to the faithfully consider all of the challenges we face as a community please bless all those who serve and exercise their civic duties to bring us together be with our police and our first responders who dedicate their lives to the betterment of all be with our citizens who go about their lives and want to do the best for their families and their community as well. We ask all these things through our Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. So tonight we have a few special things to start off our meeting about, and our community is a special place. And we want to begin with a few proclamations that we have for the life-saving efforts that happened this last week. And I've asked Lieutenant Devereaux to come, and he's going to share a timeline, a narrative for us, and the town board will join me down front. As he does that, we're going to present these proclamations, After he's finished reading, we'll present the proclamations. On Sunday, August 16, 2026, at approximately 1026 a.m., Riverhead Traffic Control Officer Ryan Zaleski, who was assigned to the Polish Town Fair, observed a Hyundai sedan being operated erratically by a female driver. TCO Zaleski observed the Hyundai strike a parked vehicle on Sweezy Avenue and attempt to leave the area. As TCO Zaleski approached the Hyundai, the vehicle struck a second vehicle and continued its attempt to leave the area. TCO Zaleski approached the vehicle on foot in an effort to get the driver to stop. However, she fled the area at a high rate of speed, traveling northbound toward Osborne Avenue. The TCO immediately transmitted the vehicle's description, direction of travel, and license plate to the uniformed officers who were assigned to the festival. A short time later, several uniformed officers observed the suspect's Hyundai traveling southbound on Osborne Avenue at a high rate of speed toward the festival area, which had been closed to vehicle traffic due to the large number of pedestrians present. Several officers attempted to stop the vehicle. However, the driver continued around marked police vehicles and uniformed officers. As the vehicle continued toward the festival, police officer Matthew Neknez and Lieutenant Dino Isgru attempted to stop the vehicle. As the vehicle refused to stop, P.O. Neknez transmitted the vehicle's direction of travel and its immediate threat to the large number of pedestrians in its path. Police officer Stephen Addy, who was assigned to the fare, jumped in a nearby patrol car and responded to the suspect's vehicle location, which had been given out by police officer Neknez. After seeing the suspect fail to stop and the close proximity to the fair, police officer Addy made the decision to stop the vehicle by positioning his vehicle between her lane of travel and the fair. His vehicle was then struck by the suspect's vehicle. Police officer Addy's actions prevented the vehicle from further risk to the thousands of people at the fair. Due to the actions of traffic control officer Zaleski transmitting all the pertinent information, Police Officer Neknes advising the officers on scene of the gravity of the situation and PO Addy's selfless act of heroism, there were no injuries to any of the attendees of the Polishtown Fair or the police officers involved. Thank you very much.
So I'd like to ask all three if our TCS, our TCO, would come forward, our Traffic Control Specialist, Ryan Zaleski, Officer Stephen Addy, and if Officer Matthew Neknes would come to the front.
Perfect.
So we'd like to present these to you, Ryan Zaleski, because of your humility, your honor, and your speed. We don't know how many people will be saved because of what you've done, but we know that you've saved people. We know that you changed the lives, as each and every officer does. You put on that uniform each day. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, from our community, from each one of the town boards members, for what you did in fast acting. You did it with selfless reaction time, with humility, and with kindness. And your regard for everyone else around you will forever be appreciated. I hope for the remainder of your days you never buy a cup of coffee in Riverhead again. I hope everywhere you go people remember. Because, again, we do not know what was saved, but we do know that you saved. And so thank you very, very much for each and every one of your actions. Love for Nickness. Love for Addie. Thank you again. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you guys very much.
For the record, there's a super proud highway superintendent dad sitting right there. Very proud. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ryan, thank you very much.
I want to thank you to our PBA for showing up tonight and honoring those gentlemen, each and every one, and for our absolutely proud family members that are here. With that, the next thing we'd like to do is we'd like to invite our Little League winners from our 10u World Series team and present them with certificates each and every one so as the officers make their way out we have a great night tonight we'll make their way in and as they're doing that if any of the town board members have announcements that they'd like to make welcome you to make them as our little leaguers make their way in so everybody has announcements I do actually Justin do you have that flyer for the Blues on the river Maybe while Justin gets that, if somebody else has anything. I do. Yes. All right. Thanks. On Friday night, the 28th, we have the, at Wading River, we have the Summer's Not Over Yet concert. It's an 80s band that's going to be playing at the Wading River Beach. All residents in Riverhead are welcome, as long as you have a beach permit. And we're going to be waiving the parking requirement that you park in the lot, because we think it's going to be very well attended. Love to see everyone there. And I'd like to thank our town clerk, Mr. Wooten, who sponsored this event very graciously. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you. Also, besides Councilwoman Waski's event, the East End Arts is having their summer soiree on Saturday night, and that's at the Strong's Marina from 6 to 9 p.m. Please come out and help support the arts in our community. They would love to have you there and give some donations to them. And lastly, on the 30th, the American Legion is doing their 250th celebration for everyone to come attend. I just don't know the hours for that. Does anybody know the hours of that yet? I do not. The 250? Okay. American Legion? That's what I have. I think it's 12, but I'm not positive. It starts at 12. Okay. So as you can see on the screen, on Saturday, August 29th, beginning at noon, we will have the Blues on the River. That will be in Grangeville Park. We have several people coming to sing. One is our very own Chloe Halpin. I know her. That's the supervisor's daughter. So we're very excited to see her perform. I hear that she's quite talented. And I've also heard that the other singers are also talented, and they are promising to provide a great show. And there will be vendors, and you can go downtown and visit the local restaurants. We do have diggers participating in the event, so they will be on site at Grangeville Park. So hope to see you all there. And thank you, Councilwoman Wawrowski. I see your business is sponsoring one of the sponsors of the event. Yes. Thank you very much. Happy to give back to the community. I just want to take a moment to congratulate. late over the weekend I was talking to Riverhead Fire Department Chief Pete and he informed me and I don't think any of the board members were aware but they had a wonderful celebration for Bobby Sushimpanik who has completed 51 years of service. Wow. Really was 50 last year. He didn't get the acknowledgement last year but so it's truly, it's actually 51 but being a volunteer firefighter myself, that is an incredible achievement to go 50 years of volunteering within the fire service. So thank you very much for Bobby and the Riverhead Fire Department for everything you do. The only other thing I just wanted to let people know, we've gotten, I've gotten a number of phone calls in terms of people that are concerned about the, what the assessment is going to be on the county line for any of the tax assessments that currently take place in any of the settlements. So we want to have full transparency throughout the whole process. I'm going to work with the county to see if there's a way to extend the payment schedule so that it is not a one-time hit. But these are the court battles that we are seeing where we potentially have agreed to settlements. And we just want to be full transparent with everybody. And once we have an idea of what that dollar amount is going to be, it's really good. Obviously, everybody pays a different fee based on the assessment of your house. But we'll try to get a figure that will kind of give like more of an average What an average taxpayer in the town of Riverhead will be assessed on that to make up for those assessments So we'll just once we have information to share Will be forthcoming so just letting everyone know that I hear your concerns And we want to put that out as soon as possible so everybody will be aware of how it affects each and every one of us Supervisor I just have one more request. It's not so much announcement as a request I'm the liaison for CAP, and they are requesting that the cannabis owners, the people that own these shops, please be in contact with CAP. They're trying to speak to you. They'd like to work with you. They would like to have the lock bags for any drugs that you have. And they've tried to reach out to a couple of individuals, and they have not responded. So please be responsible business owners in the community and reach out to CAP. They'd like to work with you. Thank you. for us to maybe, as a board, we could send a letter together asking those businesses to do that as liaison. That would be awesome. Thank you for doing that. And I think that, unless somebody else has another announcement, we are at our section where we want to honor our Little League championship team. And so I have asked our deputy supervisor to read those names out. But we are so proud of the Red Little League 10U World Series softball team. They won the District 36 championship. So why don't we give them a huge round of applause. So proud of each and every one of you. You're coaches as well, parents, for putting in all the time. Thank you, everybody, for doing this. So what we're going to do is we're going to come down as a board. I will hand out a few of our certificates. We'll share them, and we'll have you guys come up together and do that. So if you guys want to come up, we're going to call your names, but the whole group can come up. We have certificates for everybody. So number 28, Julia Lopresti. Number 18, Anna Redfield. Number 23, Alexis Gatz. Number 4, Autumn Vlachy. Number 64, Kaylee Conlon. Number 13, Karina Caputo. Number 11, Emma Stein. Number 2, Genesis Geronimo. number one Harley cannon number 12 Josephina may mom number seven Liana Cruz and number five Mia Raspoli
fantastic how heavy are these how do you hold these up whoa those are the real Wow
great job ladies
Do you think it's up so your mom and dad can take pictures of us? Come on in, come on in. Except for John. That's just for me. You've got to go in the side. Apparently you girls are too tall for me. That's it, that's it. All right, girls, are you ready for next year's championship? All right, you ready? Okay.
Oh, me? Me? Okay. Little titties. All right, all right. He's all dressed up. Okay, we're expanding a little bit. Congratulations, stay cool. Thank you. Next. All right, it's gonna be about now. Thank you. They are accepting sponsorships already for this year. Absolutely. I love our little league. It is a great place to be, a great place to spend the summer, great place for families and uh it's a good deal that's right thanks John alright as they make their way out we just want to make sure everybody is aware that we have so many wonderful things going on in our town if you didn't check it out rewind and watch all the announcements that were made and see where you can be involved in Riverhead. And so with that, we'll ask our town clerk, Mr. Wooden, if you would do our correspondence and reports for us. Sure. Under reports, we have the receiver of taxes monthly utility report for the month of July at $676,798.67. We received the monthly building department report for the month of July at $113,078 even. And the town clerk's monthly report for the month of July at $16,773.50. Under correspondence, we received several letters from John McCullough about the Peconic Hotel, a petition that was circulated around an ice. We received a letter from Colin, referenced the HDEEC, which is the Hispanic Committee. Warren McKnight about ICE. Desmond Wong about policies and procedures. And Laura Jen Smith cc'd and copied us a letter that she sent to Suffolk County Planning in reference to the potential environmental justice area with the Peconic Hotel. All those letters are printed and published at the end of the agenda on the website. if you'd like to read them verbatim. And that concludes our reports and correspondence. Thank you, Mr. Wooten. At this time, we have a public hearing, which was scheduled for 6 p.m. at 622, to amend Chapter 301, Article 16, Business PB, Zoning Use District. And we have our Senior Planner, Greg Bergman, to guide us through that. All right. Good evening, Mr. Supervisor, members of the Town Board. For the record, my name is Greg Bergman, Senior Planner with the Riverhead Planning Department. tonight's public hearing is being held to consider a local law to amend Town Code chapter 301 article 16 entitled business PB zoning use district for the public's knowledge and it's up on the board there the business PB zoning use district is located on both east and west sides of Roanoke Avenue generally beginning just north of the intersection of Roanoke Avenue and Northville Turnpike and extends northward just south of the traffic circle at Roanoke Avenue and Old Country Road. The impetus for the proposed code amendment was initiated when an application for a use permit was submitted to the building department at the end of April for a property located on Roanoke Avenue where an applicant sought to establish a hair treatment studio which is akin to a hair salon. The use is not currently listed as a permitted use within the business PB zoning use district which currently allows for a range of professional offices as a permitted use. The code currently lists 19 different types of professional offices. Our current definition of professional office, which is located in Town Code Section 301-3, lists those professional offices as well as, quote, any other professional office determined by resolution of the Town Board to have similar impacts to those listed above, end quote. As the Board will recall, back on April 21st of this year, by Resolution No. 2026-403, the Board adopted a resolution finding that an esthetician's office, while not specifically enumerated in the list of professional offices had similar impacts to those that were specifically listed thus allowing an esthetician's office to be located at a property on Roanoke Avenue when the matter of the hair studio came across my desk it caused me to more closely examine those permitted uses and think of them in terms of impacts as that's what the code specifically directs the board to consider thus a code amendment was generated to allow personal services as a permitted use within the business PB zoning use district. Town Code currently defines personal services as quote a commercial use that provides specialized hands-on services directly to individuals as for personal or physical benefit. These services generally involve customer interaction and may include activities that focus on personal care, fitness, wellness, or leisure. Personal service establishments do not involve the provision of professional or technical services requiring specialized education, certification or licensure as seen in professional offices. Services provided are typically of a non-medical, non-therapeutic nature and do not involve significant office-based administrative or professional consultation functions. Personal services specifically includes fitness studios, beauty services, massage therapy, personal coaching, esthetician and skin care services, fortune telling or psychic readings, cultural or educational studios, pet grooming services, dry cleaning or laundry services, as well as any other use that the zoning officer determines to be similar in nature to those listed above. The nature of personal services are such that they are interior uses. They are generally not high traffic or trip generators and would not typically be anticipated to involve any outdoor activities or storage, which would create a detriment to the neighboring residential properties. The matter was initially discussed by the Town Board at a work session on June 9th of this year. Subsequently, went back to Code Revision Committee for further refinement, which included the proposal to make personal services a specially permitted use within the business PB zoning use district by special permit of the Town Board, with the exception of dry cleaning and laundry services, as well as the inclusion of limits on the hours of operation, which are proposed to be limited from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. so in summary the proposed amendments to Town Code chapter 301 article 16 would by special permit of the town board permit personal services with the exception of dry cleaning and laundry services and would establish limits on the hours of operation of business uses within the business PB zoning use district from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. it is worth noting that there are already several properties along the Roanoke Avenue corridor that have already been converted from single-family residential to some type of medical office or professional office any other property that would like to come in if they would like to convert to a commercial use or a personal service would need to make an application would have to undergo a site plan review by the Planning Board so here's point that's it in a nutshell I'd welcome it to public comment so open it up to the public in the room and online and again you'll be let's speak on this the subject to us hi good evening Laverne tenenberg Riverhead I would like to state that I believe that the proposed code change before you tonight is misguided and inappropriate Roanoke Avenue is a stately road with a 30 mile per hour speed limit lined with stately homes and bordered by Roanoke Heights development Roanoke Heights homes were built in the 1930s and 1940s before Whether it was a hospital or old country road, and they were placed on relatively small lots, often only 60 feet wide and about a fifth of an acre. Changing the zoning to accommodate personal services businesses will be a detriment to adjacent residential property owners and those homes in close proximity. Some properties along Roanoke Avenue struggle to provide the proper on-site parking, as evidenced by the situation on Northern Parkway. I believe parking in the front yard is acceptable already in the current zoning, and how is that appealing to neighbors or to visitors to our community? Allowing apartments on upper floors presents its own problems. Consider 1025 Roanoke Avenue. For many years, the second floor of the doctor's office was rented out as an apartment. I recently found out that the use of the second floor as an apartment was specifically prohibited on that property. The property has changed hands and there are three cars continuously parked there day and night. To suggest that the apartment dwellers were parked on the premises at alternate time schedules of the business is a red herring and no more than wishful thinking. No one can force tenants to leave the premises during the day. That would leave the business component to lack on-site parking, which would then force cars to spill out onto adjacent side streets and park in front of others' homes. Take, for example, the proposed use of a fitness studio or a Pilates studio. Those uses would generate many participants who would need to park a car in addition to the instructor and receptionist. Many Roanoke Avenue properties are not designed or equipped to accommodate that many cars. That would involve seeking a variance with the zoning board of appeals to allow more impervious surface or smaller parking spaces to allow for many cars at one time or even Even reducing the required step backs from a required 10 feet to 5 feet. Once that door has been opened, others will point to precedence as a reason for them to obtain the same variances. Additionally, permitting these personal services to operate from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. would be disturbing to the residential neighbors having to deal with car doors opening and closing causing their dogs to bark at the noise, headlights pointing into the yards at night, and dark sky issues with security lights not being properly aimed downward. It seems that these uses being proposed for business PB are widely available throughout the town. These uses are available in the following zoning districts. DC 1, Main Street. DC 3, Office. SC Shopping Center. BC Business Center. HC Hamlet Center. VC Village Center. Business CR and the Railroad Avenue Urban Renewal Overlay District. By the looks of it, these zoning districts cover the entire town from west to east. These zoning districts have all the necessary codes in place for lighting and parking, including handicap parking, do not border residential lots, and are specifically designed and zoned with these uses in mind. This town has many properties with buildings that have vacancies. Income-producing properties rely on an income stream to be successful. If you grant this zone change, it would adversely affect landlords where the uses are permitted. When vacancies occur and landlords are unable to fill those vacancies, the property owner then seeks a tax reduction. You could very possibly decrease property values by this proposed action. Why would this board add uses currently not permitted in the zone when a business owner has a plethora of opportunities to locate their business in a zone where it is permitted? Why saddle nearby homeowners with unnecessary nuisances? Why are we contorting ourselves to accommodate one person's request at the expense of many others? If you purchase property, you should do your due diligence and be familiar with the zoning of that property. One should not rely on zone changes or ZBA approvals to get what you want. Again, the personal service uses are widely permitted throughout the town. In my opinion, this request to include personal services and apartments on second floors should not be entertained by this board. Please remember the constituents you serve who rely on you for the quiet enjoyment of their homes. Thank you. Hi. Cindy Clifford, Riverhead. I pretty much echo everything Laverne just said. I'm concerned about a precedent setting that has, you know, we've seen similarities before where we have zoning and someone comes in and buys a property and they need the zoning change to do what they want to do. And that's sort of, you know, like a backward way of doing things, right? You buy the property if you know you can do what you want to do. So there's that. Houses, we're already looking at a problem with affordability and availability of single-family homes. There are still some on Roanoke, but if then it changes where more businesses come in take them over we're further reducing the option for homes riverhead itself the character of roanoke avenue is very symbolic of the town it's got the beautiful trees and it's a quiet road and it's supposed to be 30 it isn't always 30. but to further change the character or to risk changing the character of that road seems somehow like we're doing all this for a guy who wants to do a hair salon like laverne said there are a million places we'll help him find a place to do his hair salon they then they look at taking trees down to expand parking lots to put up more parking lots to add more non-pervious surfaces there are so many other options i have to ask do you really want do we really want to see a change to zoning to satisfy a single buyer who purchased a property and then realized or figured he could just get it changed thank you
I hadn't considered this issue before, so I just became informed of a lot of concerns with it. And I just, one thing that really stuck out to me was that. You just need to give us your name and your handle. That's okay. My name is Kimberly Wilder, and I'm from Riverhead, right by the Honda Apple. So I really hadn't thought about it a lot before, but I just became very informed about it. And one thing listening to it that I really reflected on is that the idea that businesses would be right next to residential from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. sounds like a really onerous thing. I mean, that doesn't take into account just the life of children that need to sleep a little later and children that need to sleep a little earlier. So I think that it sounds like the whole thing needs a big consideration and a big overhaul. overhaul, but if you're going to do something in somewhere that has so many residential, at least it seems like you should make the hours much more limited. I don't think most hair salons need to open at 5, and most businesses that are squeezing into a residential neighborhood probably don't need to open at 5, too. Thank you for your comment. Hello, sorry, Taki Turchin with Greater Calerton Civic Association, President. I'm a little late to the party on understanding this public hearing and the change in zoning, but from what I have read and what I've listened to the previous three speakers is that the The zoning change on Roanoke is an impetus that just kind of appeared out of nowhere. I don't remember it being covered during the comprehensive, sorry this is distracting, I was hoping to look, there we go, is that better? I was hoping to hear about this during our comprehensive update that we did in 24. Maybe I missed those conversations, maybe they did happen, but I don't remember them being written into the comp plan. And I'm not opposed to having new zoning made that didn't originate inside of the comprehensive plan update for very good reasons, right? But this one seems as though it's to accommodate one particular individual or property. And the holistic look at Roanoke needs to be considered. The idea that vacancies elsewhere where this zoning is allowed would happen and properties will lose value, it should be a sticking point for you in your decision making on how to keep the value in our businesses and our homes and keep the tax base safe. Thanks. CHAIR BAILET. Thank you for your comment. I just wanted to see if anybody else in the room. Okay. Does it appear that anyone else has a? MS. I just. CHAIR BAILET. Yes, sure. MS. Just so that there's some rhyme and reason for this, I just wanted to voice my thoughts on it of why I was considering it. We already have a lot of offices that are down on Roanoke Avenue that the tenants are moving out. Roanoke Avenue used to be big for attorney's offices to be in there. Times have changed where the attorneys no longer need the bigger area for their legal staff. They're doing everything remote. A lot of them are working from home now. The idea was, okay, if we wouldn't have those vacancies in buildings that have already been turned into a business, you know, the parking lot's already there. It's not going to go back to being residential. I don't see too many people wanting to buy a house that's been converted to a business. So So just to kind of keep the flow of being able to have tenancy in those properties was part of the reason that I was considering this. And I appreciate the concerns that have been brought forward. They're very good concerns and worth consideration. I just, when Takui said, you know, that she's kind of new to the whole thing, and I realized, you know, maybe it looks that way, but it really isn't. It was a thought process of how to be able to establish businesses still in these properties that have kind of restrictions on them. What's the difference between an anesthetician and then you have someone, the people, I believe that it said on their application that they want to do a scalp treatment therapy thing or something to that effect. You know, what's the difference there? It's kind of like there's a gray line. So that's where that really, this has come from. So it's not specifically to one particular person. It was opening up the uses for other things that could possibly go in the buildings that have already been converted from residential into a commercial business. So I just wanted to explain that to everybody. Thanks, Councilwoman. Anybody else? So with that, we'll close the hearing. We'll keep it open for 10 days until the 28th. Thank you for all of your comments. We always have these public hearings. We're listening to understand and to take that back. As Councilwoman said, a lot to think about there. But we will close it, keep it open for the 28th written comment, and we'll go from there. So with that, closing our only public hearing tonight, we will take comments on resolutions from the public. Again, for the remainder of our night, I just want to give this to everybody now. Our time is a bit allotted for quite some time here in Riverhead that it's three minutes and we ask that you adhere to that As respect for your neighbor and that when you come forward you state your name and your hamlet and then you speak from there And we ask again that you are respectful of the other people in the room and that you speak to us And that'd be great and we welcome our first person to the podium tonight. We are warm ignite Riverhead Resolution to 2026800 I've spoken to you on this problem. People, other people have spoken to you on this problem and the county executive office worked on this. Riverhead Town worked on this and even the Suffolk County Police worked on this and the only thing I could say, it should be memorialized. Too many people over the years have suffered death and industry there. I commend the town board for doing this and thank heavens they're going to memorialize this because maybe people will remember if they see something happening, do something and keep working at it and we'll save the lives and make a better community. Thank you, Warren. I think that's what the resolution is going to be doing. So thank you for your comment. Any other comments on resolutions? Anyone online?
Okay. Just another second. I don't want to cut anybody off. All right. With that said, we will move on to our town clerk to read our resolutions and vote on them accordingly. Okay. Resolution number one is resolution 765. Was it budget transfer for the 2026 legal fees? So moved. Second. Before we vote, I just want to make a note that this, at our work session, was originally $150,000, and it's just gone up to $280,000 in the numbers. And I know people have asked a lot, so we just wanted to, again, and as Councilman Rothwell said before, transparency, we want to make people aware. After going back and looking at that, our financial administrator, our attorney's office, put together a stronger number they felt like that would get us to the end of the year so we didn't have to do this again. For the reasons listed there so with that vote, please Waski yes, Maryfield. Yes, turn. Yes, well, yes, I've been sir Resolution is adopted resolution 766 Adopts highway department budget transfer for duck pond estates paving so move seconded. Oh, please waski. Yes, Maryfield Yes, turn. Yes, well, yes often. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted resolution 767. Authorizes budget transfer for Sewer District Vector Truck. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waske. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 768. CHIPS and EWR 2026- 2027 grant funds for highway, barn, capital projects. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waske. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 769. Authorizes budget adoption for Water District Capital Project number 82618 1001 Scott Avenue, Calverton, New York. So moved. Second. Vote please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 770. Authorizing the acceptance of Civil asset forfeiture funds. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Murrayfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Thank you. To the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office. Yes. And Halpin? Resonate that. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 771. Further amends Resolution 2026-107, setting fees for the Riverhead Sewer District. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Murrayfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 772. Approves live music at Wading River Beach 2026. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskey? Yes. Can't wait. Berryfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Jim, are you going to sing? Maybe. All right, then yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 773. Ratifies the authorization for the police department to apply for a grant. So moved. Second. Vote please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 774. Authorizes the Community Development Department to offer assistance to eligible first time home buyers. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. This is a great program. If you're not familiar at home, I believe you guys spoke about it at work session this past week. If you qualify for the county, you qualify for us. There's $380,000 available for first-time homebuyers through Riverhead right now, and this is part of what developers do. They pay a fee, so absolutely yes, sir. That resolution is adopted. Resolution 775. Authorizes the fire marshal to attend a New York State Fire Academy training. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 776. Rescinds Resolution 2026-605 and Resolution 2026-656. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskie? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Yes. Halpin. Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 777. Approve salary increase for part-time office assistant. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waskie. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 778. Ratifies the provisional appointment of a senior accountant. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskie. Yes. Merrifield. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 779. Removes provisional status for principal account clerk. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 780. Ratifies the termination of a part-time office assistant. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Alpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 781. Ratifies the termination of a Maintenance Mechanic 2. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Alpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 782. Accepts the resignation of a public safety dispatcher. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 783. Accepts the retirement of a network and systems specialist, too. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Congratulations. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Terry has been here 27 years, served as a union president. Thankful for her service. And Terry means a lot. She actually is the CSEA worker that brought the retirement initiative forward. And so her thoughtfulness has helped our entire town. So yes, and thank you. The resolution is adopted. Resolution number 784. Appoints Robert Dilworth to the Wildlife Management Advisory Committee. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Maryfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 785. Appoints George Salzman to the Wildlife Management Advisory Committee. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 786. Reappoints David, Cote, or Cody to the Wildlife Management Advisory Committee. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Too bad you know this guy. I do. I've met him a couple times. Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 787. Reappoints Justin Winter Sr. to the Recreation Advisory Committee. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Wosky. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Hoppin. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 788. Reappoints Tom Gabrielson to the Wildlife Management Advisory Committee. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Wosky. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes, sir. Resolutions adopted. Resolution 789. Reappoints Chris Witt to the Wildlife Management Advisory Committee. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 790. Reappoints Robert Gabrielson to the Wildlife Management Advisory Committee. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey. How many people are on this committee? I know, right? 14,000 and three
They're definitely not more than their ideas councilman Roth IRA current yes Maricu yes turn yes, Roth well yes, I'll fit yes, sir Resolution is adopted resolution 791 reappoints John Kramer to the Wildlife Management Advisory Committee so moved Second. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 792. Resolution establishing the Town of Riverhead Hazardous Materials Response Team and adopting the Town of Riverhead Hazardous Materials Emergency Response Plan and Resource Guide. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 793. Amends agreement with Main Street Agency for a live on 25. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? September 10th. That's the new date. Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 794. Ratifies authorization for the town of to execute a retainer agreement with Siegel and Sittler. P-L-L-C. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 795. Authorizes license agreement with Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corp. for the use of the Riverhead Town Hall basement for EMT course instruction. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Murrayfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Great use of our building, yes. Resolutions adopted. Resolution 796. Authorizes the supervisor to execute a license agreement between the Town of Riverhead and Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Inc. for temporary use of the annexed building lower level basement for medical billing and storage of medical billing records. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waski? Yes. Maryfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolutions adopted. Resolution 797. Authorizes the supervisor to execute a license agreement between the Town of Riverhead and Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps for the temporary use of the Armory Building vehicle bays and adjacent area to the west modular trailer and east heating equipment location for the ambulance storage. I'm going to make a motion. I think we just need to amend this because there is a little bit of a fiscal impact so we are where during a winter time we're probably going to have to rent heater units in there because there's no operating heat for the system and the ambulance do need to be in a climate controlled environment we don't have the final dollars on that but it's what they need to do you know to operate obviously throughout the year and while they're doing that there is a there is a savings as the current building that they're operating in obviously when they tear that down we're not going to have electric heat and everything else going over there so it's really about moving on them from one location to the other but there technically is a fiscal impact so just like to change the fiscal impact to yes please so I have a prepared changed fiscal impact statement and the funds will come from the ambulance district stuff so if we can make a motion motions made to amend second vote to amend please and this is to amend the fiscal yeah I have a copy of what Anne-Marie Hazard. For the councilor, I'll give it to you. All right.
Waske? Yes, to amend. Murrayfield? Yes, to amend. Hearn? Yes, to amend. Rothwell? Yes, to amend. Alpin? Yes, sir, to amend. Read the amended resolution authorizing the supervisor to execute a license agreement between the Town of Riverhead and Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps for the temporary use of the armory, building bays, and area adjacent to the west, module office trailer, and to the east where there will be heating equipment location for the ambulance storage. So moved. As amended. Second as amended. Vote please. Wosky? Yes as amended. Murphy? Yes as amended. Hearn? Yes as amended. Rothwell? Yes as amended. And Halpin? Yes sir as amended. The amended resolution is adopted. Resolution number 798. Authorize the supervisor to sign a consultant professional service agreement with D&B Engineers and Architects. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waspin. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 799. Authorizes the supervisor to execute an agreement with the Riverhead Youth Sports, Inc. for the Referee Umpire Services for the Town of Riverhead Police Athletic League Football Program for 2026 Calendar Year. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Murrayfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolutions adopted. Resolution 800. Amends 289-2A Chapter 289 of the Riverhead Town Code to memorialize an already existing stop intersection between Doctors Path and County Road 43, Northville Turnpike. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Alpin? Yes, sir. The resolution is adopted. Resolution 801. The resolution, because the Suffolk County Water Authority has changed from going down Sound Avenue over to Route 25, so we are grateful now that there's a little less of impact towards the farming community along Sound Avenue, but we do need to hold this hearing. So it authorizes a public hearing for the purpose of conducting the Moreau balancing test for the Suffolk County Water Authority's proposed North Fork Water Main Extension Project. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Hearn? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 802. Resolution calling public hearing regarding extension of the Riverhead Sewer District to include 840 Old Country Road, Riverhead, New York. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 803. Authorizes the town clerk to publish in post public notice to consider a local law to amend Chapter 255 of the Riverhead Town Code entitled Parades, Assemblies, and Block Parties. Article 2, Special Events. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Murrayfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 804. Authorize town clerk to publish and post public notice to consider local law to amend Chapter 231 of the Riverhead Town Code titled fire prevention, Article 13, fireworks and pyrotechnics displays. So, moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Stern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 805. Adopts a local law to amend Chapter 207 of the Revamp Town Code titled Animals, Article 4, prohibition on sales of commercially bred dogs, cats, and rabbits in the pet stores. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Again, this is legislation that I wrote probably about five years ago, and now I think we were certainly leading the charge there, and the state of New York then came out and passed very similar legislation, so this is really matching the town code to the state code. So vote yes. And Halpin. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 806. Authorizes the town clerk to publish and post a notice to bidders for one new Altec AT40G telescopic articulating aerial device with ISO boom on 2028 Ford F550 chassis or equal. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Maryfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? I believe it's a cherry picker, yes. Right. Halpin? Yes, sir. Okay. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 807. Awards bid for cues flexi-track C550C portable video pipe, inspection camera, or equal. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Murrayfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution's adopted. Resolution 808. Extends bid for 2025 annual procurement contract. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske? Yes. Murrayfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 809. extends bids for 2025 annual construction contracts. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 810. Approved special event chapter 255 application for Kutchog Lions Club and your favorite, Blues by the River. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes, it's going to be great. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 811. Ratifies designation of alcohol service vendor to serve alcohol at the Polish Independent Hall Festival 2026. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waski? Yes. Merrifield? That's why it's a ratified. Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 812. Authorizes designated alcohol service vendor to serve alcohol at the Blues by the Bay event in Grangeville Park. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Alpen. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 813. Hayes-Bills. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waskey. Yes. Very few. Yes turn. Yes. Well, yes, okay. Yes, sir Resolution is adopted that concludes the resolution portion of our agenda We do have a CDA meeting After our meeting tonight So in just a few minutes after open comment, we'll have our our CDA meeting But at this time we'd like to open our floor for open comments again you have we asked that when you come to know what ask if you're sitting in our audience that just out of respect for those sitting around you that you do keep your conversations of its quiet but we ask that you come up you say your name and your hamlet and then if you could also just again be mindful of your neighbors and as long as they're good I believe they formed a line you just want to ask the people behind you if that's okay ma'am oh I I didn't say that. She was Christa. Oh, was she? She was Christa. So, that's okay. Hi, I'm Mary Beth Andresen. I live on Church Lane in Acklebog. And actually, I'm going to, I'm probably at the wrong meeting. I should be at Traffic and Safety. But I'm here tonight because the traffic on Church Lane. Could you pull the mic a little closer to your mouth just so we can hear you real clear? This way? Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much. The traffic on Church Lane has become unbelievable. Unbelievable. The summer traffic is always heavier than the winter traffic. I've lived there 51 years, and we have multiple new developments on that road. We now have people walking on that road, which we never had 50 years ago, and they're walking on the wrong side of the road. But it's a very dangerous road. It's torturous, and it's got banks on either side, and you can't get out of the way of a moving car. And the speed limit was 55 years and years ago, has come down to 35, but nobody's doing 35. They're doing 45 and 50 as per everybody does, 10 to 15 miles over the speed limit when they drive. We don't have enough police to monitor the speed on that road, so I'm going to go to the traffic and safety meeting and give my blah, blah, blah to them because I don't want to see somebody killed on that road and it's just a matter of time you can't the road is just too torturous or winding whatever you'd like to call it and to be honest with you you can't get off that road if a car is coming down because the all the homes are built on banks because that is the way the water flows to meeting house creek so i'm sorry i'm at the wrong meeting but i just want to bring it to everybody's attention please be careful and be safe because sweden adopted a zero vision to maintain speeds that are safer because somebody hits you at 40 you're going to suffer great bodily harm thank you very much mrs andreessen you're not at the wrong meeting you're always welcome to come and to speak at our meeting and i think councilman so mrs mrs andreessen So you, just so you're aware, so the next traffic safety meeting will be Thursday, the 27th. It's in this room at 8.30 in the morning. Thank you. I'll talk to the chief. What we'll do is we'll put. I'm really, it's. Just, yeah. Well, as long as you go back to the mic for us. But, no, you're fine. You can. We didn't want you. You didn't have to leave. We will put you on the agenda. I don't think that Mrs. Andreessen has ever been told that she needed a microphone. I was going to say. Or a camera. I know you don't. Male Speaker 1 You're welcome. Male Speaker 2 Colin Tooker from Riverhead. Last night I attended an anti-bias task force meeting that was held right here in this room. I wanted to get a feel for what they did. So I asked the task force if they had discussed the impact of ICE actions on town residents and if they had been asked for or made a recommendation to the town board about ICE's impact on our Latino community. They said no, which seemed odd to me. So I asked them if the Ku Klux Klan marched down Main Street, would that be an issue that would fall under their purview and they said no which again seems rather odd for the anti-bias task force I've also been trying to find a record of what if anything the Hispanic Development Empowerment and Education Committee has done about addressing the prejudice being directed or at our Latino community there appears to be no record of any action of any type by this committee, including if they even meet at all. The Antibias Task Force and the HDEEC provide a great illusion that you are doing something for our immigrants. But in fact you provide no representation for them whatsoever. There are two questions that I have asked you numerous times and you've avoided answering them. So I think tonight they deserve an answer. Do you intend to take immediate action to mitigate the fears of town residents being caused by ICE actions? And do you intend to take immediate steps to address the safety concerns of all town residents being caused by ICE actions?
I just want to give you time to speak for your comments, Mr. Tucker. I'm waiting for your answer. This is public comment. I understand that. So you can utilize the last 46 seconds. I care not to. I care to hear answers to my questions, and I realize that I am not following your rules of order, but I have asked you these questions numerous times, and you don't answer, and I think the residents of the town deserve an answer. So I will ask you again. Do you intend to take immediate steps to mitigate the fears of town residents being caused by ICE actions? And do you intend to take immediate steps to address the safety concerns of all town residents being caused by ICE actions? So, Mr. Tooker, I constantly am speaking to everyone about safety in our town about everyone. So that would be my answer to that. It's not limited to any area and we're always constantly speaking to all of our things, of our officers and our PD. So I will mark that as no, you have no intent to take any actions. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Minerva Perez. I'm the executive director of OLA of Eastern Long Island. And I'm here, OLA has dedicated 24 years of service. What's your hamlet? My hamlet is the entire east end of Long Island. So we serve the whole east end of Long Island. What's your question? I'm sorry. The hamlet that I serve or the hamlet that I live in? I was asking the hamlet that you reside in. Okay, so I reside in South Hampton, and our nonprofit serves the entire east end for the last 24 years. We do a lot of work in Riverhead across the schools, also with elders and all kinds of other work that we do. All right, so I'll make that clear. And it is Riverhead on the right side of the river, supervisor. So I'm here because I don't understand why such an important conversation like this could not have been moved to a serious and meaningful conversation in a work session. I sat here for about three hours during one board meeting. About one hour of that was dedicated to whether or not a motocross should happen in the town of Riverhead. And it was a real conversation. There were proponents of it. There were people that did not like this idea at all. There was a study done, an environmental study. There were very deep conversations that were happening about a motocross. And thank heavens, because that's what a town board does. They hear from their constituents. They learn about the reasons that someone might want this or not want this. And they come to decisions based on that information. What I'm seeing right now is that there has been just this nonstop desire to mischaracterize what the OLA public safety and accountability law actually is. I truly believe many folks have not actually read it. It is the most simple thing ever. It does not replicate whatever New York State is doing. It is essentially also a love letter, and I can speak with law enforcement directly later, but a love letter to law enforcement and our towns about what we do together so that when there is a random ice raid that comes to town, as they do, and as they will again, that what we want to see is more presence from local law enforcement in a coordinated way with the town and with health care, with our schools, to make sure that there is not a rise in panic and chaos and possible injury, which we've seen in the past in other areas. So this is a law for a reason. It's not a place to dig around and find provisions that might exist in some deep space that might in a policy that might address a piece of here and a piece of there, it is a law on purpose. It makes it very clear to both the town board, all of our institutions, our law enforcement, and our people that live here, that visit here, that drive through here, that shop here, that there is a plan in action in the event there's something that could be causing panic and disruption because that's not something that you want and you ask for. No one's asking you to stop ICE. We're talking about public safety and having a plan. Let's have a real conversation about it with actual real information and facts. I'd love to do that with you. Wow! Thank you.
Kevin Shea, Baiting Hollow. First, I really hate following after such a good speech. Sorry. I'm only here because as a rapid response to ICE operations, There was a nice incident today, I'm not sure if anyone was aware of it, on Moline Avenue, another one that was also in another area of Riverhead. So they are here. You know, that's two. If they double, that's four. And if they double again, it's eight. Sooner or later, there's going to be quite a few. So I guess the conversation will maybe come up for you guys sooner or later. I hope that we do the right thing for us. I think you'll have all the people following behind me with the additional information, so I'll let them do it. Thank you so much for your time. Cindy Clifford, Riverhead. I know it's election season and here in Riverhead we've seen the migrant issue take center stage for at least the last five local election cycles. We see how scapegoating fuels the hateful comments online turning neighbor against neighbor. So it's understandable you haven't been supporting our Latino or Hispanic residents. You let people believe they're a threat and the enemy. use code wording like overcrowded housing and ignore that the landlords and circumstances create that problem. Yet many are legal residents, many pursuing paths to citizenship, many already citizens, and they're still having to be afraid. What is pledging liberty and justice for all if we're ignoring the height of prejudice and cruelty that ignores the rule of law that is the backbone of our constitution? Instead of liberty and justice, we're seeing people being harmed, targeted, essentially punished for how they look. And all the while, they're just trying to live their lives, take care of their families, and do the hard work that supports our local businesses and industries. Joanne, I know this was not a private post, so I'm going to mention that you put on Facebook that you feel like people are coming after you, and you're pleading for support because you want to be reelected. But imagine if people were— I did not say that I wanted to be reelected. Well, you were concerned that, you know, whatever. But you said people were coming after you, and you were upset. Yeah, I've had somebody talking. And I'm just saying, imagine if people were coming after you to grab you from your family or your home. What if brunettes were being targeted? What if balding white guys were being targeted? Imagine living with the fear and the real possibility of leaving your family in the morning and never getting back home when you've done nothing wrong, being incarcerated and subjected to abuse, neglect, and nothing and no one to help you, all because of how you look or because there's a quota to fill and people who could help aren't. If you don't believe what I'm saying, I ask you to verify what you read or hear to broaden your information base to gain a more factual perspective. As an elected official, your first responsibility should be to make sure every resident, regardless of their heritage, is safe and secure and knows that you and our police department are working for their best interest. The OLA resolution doesn't have to be accepted exactly as it is, but it cannot be any longer blatantly ignored. We want you, our town government, to put aside your personal bias and work to create a sense of safety so everyone is free to go about their lives, go to work, send their children to school, and know that they will all gather around the dinner table at day's end. Those who can help should. Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Brianna Hearn and I reside in Riverhead. I'm a concerned, heartbroken, and frankly enraged resident and American citizen, as well as a wife, mother, neighbor, and friend. I'm here again to urge the Riverhead Town Board to pass or at least consider the OLAW legislation for the sake of our entire community. We all deserve the right to feel safe and secure in our own homes and communities, and this is particularly true of children. In order for them to grow up to be healthy and happy and become productive, well-adjusted members of society, they must feel safe and protected. As a mother, the safety of all the children in our community is of utmost importance to me, as I'm sure it is to most of you. And I can tell you that our children, particularly our Latino children, do not feel safe. According to a border report from April of this year, 145,000 US citizen children have lost a parent and 22,000 US citizen children have lost both parents to ICE detention. This is most likely a severe undercount because the report came out in April and thousands more people have been detained since then. And when asked, parents do not want to reveal they have children for fear of a diverse consequences, which we have seen. Children in our community and across the country understand this is happening. They fear coming home from school, camp, or an outing with friends to find their parents and caregivers gone. Can you imagine that fear, that anxiety, that trauma? What kind of impact is this state of being having on their psyche? Furthermore, many of the children with detained parents witnessed their forceful and often violent arrest and removal compounding that fear, anxiety, and trauma. In the case of Johan Guerrero's daughter, she experienced the murder of her father in front of her eyes by our government's hands. Those who perpetrated this crime have not yet been held responsible. In fact, none of the ICE agents who have been who have murdered immigrants and citizens alike have been held accountable. The acute pain and overwhelming terror of that moment and this overarching situation and moment in our history is unfathomable. Right now there is no reliable data on how many detainees or deportees have children in in the U.S. nor what happens to them once their parent is taken into custody. And this is why, among many other reasons, that we must pass the low-law legislation. We have to take immediate action to minimize the fear, pain, anxiety, and trauma inflicted on the children in our community when one or more of their parents is inevitably detained and or deported by ICE. We need a local law that requires ICE to be transparent with and accountable to our institutions and local law enforcement. We as a community must understand who the affected individuals are so we can respond accordingly. If the law is passed, we will know if a child in our community is impacted by a detention and our schools and local providers will be mobilized to alert families and provide the necessary care. We must protect our children and we must strive to ensure that they are safe and cared for for our future. Thank you. Hi, Alison Matway, Waiting River. Alison Matway, Waiting River. A while back I started learning about a concept called radical empathy. Radical empathy means removing your own ego, judgment, and personal bias to truly immerse yourself in another person's lived experience while also examining the roots of your own prejudices and taking concrete action against injustice. Recently for me that concept has been put to the test. Working with a local group of young people right here in Riverhead, we have been educating our local immigrant population of their rights should ICE come to town. Through that work, I met a woman who lives and works right here in Riverhead with her two young children. She is hardworking, kind, and loving. She is also undocumented but going for her permanent status. Despite that, the three of them were detained by ICE and held in a detention center in New York City for nearly a month in December of 2025. She and her children were terrified. One of her children continues to have nightmares from the experience. She was sent home with an ankle monitor. She is all of 4 feet 11 inches. She is doing it the right way in seeking asylum and a new life here in our country with her kids. I visit them often to remind them that there is good in the world and that they don't always have to fear people here. But they are still afraid and understandably so. I have radical empathy for them, as I can imagine what it would be like if that had happened to me and my children, and so I let them know that they are loved, at least by me. We have become friends, and I am richer for having them in my life. That's what radical empathy brings. Ms. Waski, you and I share something in common. We both knew and loved Carrie Stromsky, a beloved Riverhead teacher who passed away, sadly, several years ago. I often find myself thinking of her when I think of radical empathy because she had it. As a teacher, she didn't ask her students to show her their papers. She did what she was legally and morally required to do, educate them regardless of their immigration status, regardless of their opinions. That's what teachers are legally required to do here in New York State. The same goes for other elected officials in this state, including this town board. You all swore an oath to the Constitution when you were sworn in. So despite your opinion, to which you are entitled as an individual, you are required to represent all Riverhead residents regardless of their status and it is not your job to ask. Please consider joining me and so many others here in expressing radical empathy for all of our neighbors. It feels really good to love rather than hate. Supporting the OLA legislation is a start. You might even make some new friends. Thank you. Sarah Reynolds, Riverhead. Hi. I just want to start by asking some questions. I'm sorry, can you just pull the bike up a little bit? Sure. There you go. Should our tax dollars pay for the federal government to act in secret within our community? Are you okay with it as long as it doesn't affect you? How do you know for sure it won't affect you if there's no transparency, no cooperation with local law enforcement, and no oversight on some level? To my point the last time I spoke here, we can see there is no accountability, transparency, or concern for public safety at the federal level because there is contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law by this administration. Rather, they seem to want the law to apply to some people and not others. There should not be two sets of laws in this country, one for Trump loyalists and another for everyone else, or one for wealthy people and another for everyone else. And yet, here we are. So what do we do if the federal government is going rogue? Do we not have the right to petition for redress of our grievances and protection for our communities at the state and local level? That's what we're doing here. And again, just because this culture of lawlessness doesn't affect you, just because the violence and brutality of families being torn apart and children being held in detention centers doesn't affect you, do you look away? Should our tax dollars be used to pay for the federal government to disrupt public safety in our community? Are you okay with it as long as it's happening over there to someone else? And how do you know it won't affect you if proper procedures have not been put in place locally, such as the OLA law, to deal with such disruptions? A person's immigration status should not matter in how they are treated because everyone is is supposed to get equal treatment under the law and should get equal treatment by anyone with moral values. No one deserves to be gunned down by a law enforcement officer acting as judge, jury, and executioner. I constantly hear people say, there's a right way and a wrong way in relation to immigration. But there's also a right way and a wrong way to treat people. And there's a right way and a wrong way to enforce the law. The right way is by not breaking the law yourself.
Biddeford, Maine is a small community like ours and a young father was shot and killed there by ICE last month, Johann Sebastian Guerrero. He was here legally on a work visa, legally on a work visa. This was not an isolated incident because we have seen this kind of violence used against American citizens, green card holders, documented and undocumented immigrants alike. So I want to know what you would do if this were to happen in Riverhead. What are your moral values in relation to how human beings should be treated? And what is your commitment to people in our community being treated equally under the law? Thank you. Kimberly Wilder, Riverhead, Riverhead, which is probably the best Riverhead. Who is an elected official in a democracy responsible for taking care of?
And also, which beings, which living souls in a democracy are meant to receive resources, concern, and leadership from elected officials? One of our council people has asserted on a personal or campaign media site that they are only responsible for people who are here legally. This line of reasoning leaves open many questions about who our council people should protect and whose rights they should honor. Is an elected official at any level of government responsible for people in that jurisdiction who are illegal in some way? What if someone resides in an illegal apartment? What if someone is living with, but not married to, a resident of the jurisdiction? At what length of time would our council people care about the health, safety, and human rights of the person newly moved here? Elected officials ultimately get their power from the voters. Does an elected officially technically or morally or in their heart represent only people who are registered to vote? Do elected officials represent people who are not registered to vote? Does an elected official technically represent children under 18 years old? Should elected officials care about tourists in their jurisdiction to make sure that tourists are safe on the roads and are protected from human rights abuses that might happen? Do the people from New York City and Nassau County who travel through here deserve safe roads? Would our residents be more or less safe by us having a good healthcare system and policies that prevent the spread of disease? What if somebody who's from Nassau County gets a cold? What if someone who's from Guatemala gets a cold? What if someone who is living in an illegal apartment gets a cold or someone who doesn't vote gets a cold? We care about all these things because all these things about all the beings in our community come back and happen to everybody in our community. I think that elected officials need to be responsible for every being in their community. And some of the elected officials in our community and in our town even work for animal shelters and help animal causes. And if they can help animal causes, then they can help people who traveled across the seas to come to our country.
Good evening. Carrie Flanagan, Riverhead. A few days ago I was parked in Riverhead when an older gentleman stopped and asked for directions to a location in Riverhead. By his appearance and his heavy accent, it seemed clear he was most likely not born in the U.S. As I gave him directions, he told me he had driven over 70 miles from Ridgewood, Queens to get to Riverhead. As he drove away, there was that thought in my head that this man could be someone that some or maybe all town board members would not select to be their first and foremost concern based on his appearance and accent if he was to need aid assistance or was involved in an incident with ice that thought is shocking to me now and it is a shameful and sad commentary on the state of our town or rather a shameful and sad commentary on the state of our town board members especially a town board member who expressed that sentiment during exchange with me on july 21st by the way that exchange has now been viewed over 20 000 times on social media 20 000 views from people not just in riverhead but from other areas of new york and across the country 20 000 times for people to listen and consider if they want to stay visit or spend their money here should I have warned that immigrant man of his possible peril should I have told him to turn around and go back to Queens where he might be safer or be prepared to show his papers these are not questions I would have considered before July 21st statements that went unopposed from the rest of the town board members crickets from all of you even our town attorney who doesn't appear to know the fine details of the Constitution to which all board members swore an oath did i mention that the gentleman asking for directions was white polish and spoke with a heavy polish accent should i have to mention that i hope he got to the polish festival and enjoyed his time i think the time period from now until the next town board elections takes place is a time for many of us to watch the town board's job performance and consider who we want to represent us, all of us, and who will always lead and consider anyone who resides in, visits, or spends money in our town. Maybe hotels on Main Street may sit empty if this town board's reputation gets beyond 20,000 views on social media, whether it's a Polish person, a Latino person, a Haitian, Jamaican, et cetera. If the town board leaders can't lead with open minds, void of their personal opinions towards certain people based on their immigration status and they can't be concerned with everyone they have failed as leaders and they should lead no one and be voted out thank you
good evening my name is tricia martinez and i'm a riverhead resident through my work i've had the privilege of working alongside families, parents, and students across the East End, but especially here in Riverhead. During that time, I've seen firsthand the fear and uncertainty many are experiencing because of recent immigration enforcement. So this is why I support the OLA public safety law. This is not an anti-ICE law. It does not stop lawful federal immigration enforcement. It creates clear communication, transparency, and accountability for our local leaders when immigration enforcement activities are taking place and can respond appropriately to protect our community. It helps ensure that residents can continue reporting crimes, seeking emergency assistance, accessing schools and healthcare without unnecessary fear. I urge the town board to review and support the OLA Public Safety Law and stand for a Riverhead that values public safety, respecting constitutional rights and the dignity of every single member of this community because you represent every single member of this community. Thank you. Sally Denellan, Baiting Hollow. Hi, Joanne. To begin, I support ICE operations if they're going after criminals who break the law. I worked as a teacher in Brentwood for 20 years, and we had a huge problem with MS-13. ICE came in, along with other agencies, and helped us rid us of MS-13. And I also want to share with you that a student of mine was murdered in broad daylight a block from her home by that gang. I liked ICE then. Not so sure what I think now. You can see the news. I'm seeing persons with just civil violations having their rights taken away. Congress is frequently denied access. Great. Now I was going to say a lot more. Oh, yes, I know the other point I wanted to make, because I'm reducing my comments. I've heard that it's a federal law is the reason that we can't question the circumstances that we are in now. I disagree with that. Please take a look at the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s. Laws were changed. You, yourselves, fought back against the Suffolk County Water Authority. So I really don't see that much of a difference. Other East End towns are looking at this. But not us. Not yet. That was always what I used to say to my students. Miss, I don't get this. Not yet. But you will. Now, a couple of board members have expressed their views and a couple of you have remained silent. Now we didn't create this mess, none of us in this room created this huge immigration mess. It's been a mess for at least two decades. Congress has not been able to fix it. Our court system is broken. But who's being punished? Dreamers dreams are smashed. Promised protection status is taken away willy-nilly. Okay, now I'm going to get really harsh. And forgive me, tough love. Town board meetings begin with the Pledge of Allegiance, with liberty and justice for all. These days, ICE does not adhere to that. They did when I had to fight MS-13, but I don't know what happened. Our meetings also begin with the Christian prayer, indicating a desire to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Jesus emphasized the importance of treating strangers in our lands with kindness and compassion. Sally. Clearly. I'm just gonna ask you to just a second if you just take a couple seconds and wrap up that would be great What do you want me to go on want me to finish I got like ten more sentences Or do you want to talk to me about something? No, I just wanted you to finish you over your time just a little bit. So it would be okay Just I only have about seven more sentences, please Thank you Jesus emphasized the importance of treating strangers. I already said that clearly this is not happening We can say the pledge, we can say a prayer, but that is not enough. Action is required. Please take action and have a discussion about OLA's proposal. Create a bipartisan task force to discuss this. Let's have those tough conversations. We can handle it. Bring it to a work session. Protect the principles of a nation founded as a democracy. This is our part as a grassroots level to support those less fortunate than us. It is a step to common decency.
Thank you for your comments. Warren, there's actually quite a few. Well, I was going to ask both of you, since you both have spoke, if you would wait until everyone has the opportunity to speak for the first time. I like your fairness. Okay, thank you. Appreciate you. And then you can come back up. That would be great. But let's let everybody have an opportunity to speak. So thank you. Good evening. I'm Charles Massoud. My family and I, we own Palmanok Vineyards and Palmer Vineyards. And I'm looking at this thing on the wall. It says peace and prosperity through progress. I would love to live in that town. but I don't see how we live up to the motto. Somebody in town has drafted this private events bill that is out circulating and I don't know what they're thinking. They want to look at our finances. They want to threaten us with penalties. They want to regulate our lives. And what problem are we fixing with that bill? I haven't heard anybody from town coming to me and say, hey, we have a problem. Let's sit down and talk about your business. What's going on? You come up as if we're all out there trying to create problems for town, and you restrict us 60 different. Have you read that thing? I mean, it's ridiculous that you can even think about putting something out there. It happens not to be acceptable because ag and market precludes you from doing this thing. So let me vent a little bit, but I want to leave with a suggestion. It's not enough to vent. We need to be constructive. The same way my previous colleagues who spoke, it's not enough to vent. Come up with ideas. What I would suggest to you as a board and you as a supervisor is if you really think you have a problem with the wineries, bring us in. Let's have a conversation. Let's understand what is the problem you're trying to fix. And let's see if we cannot come up with a solution that's good for everybody. But when you throw at us the book like that, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, this is unbelievable. You're living in another world. Wake up and start working with us. You're working for us. We're not working for you. If you have a problem, call us in. We sit down together. We help you figure it out. We know better than you what we're doing. And therefore, we can tell you what can be done. But don't come up. Have you read it that they want to look at our finances? Are you going to hire auditors to look at our books? Are you going to build up the bureaucracy to spend more money? It's our money you're wasting. So to what end? I've been doing this for 43 years now. We are a good neighbor. We have no problem with traffic. We obey the laws. we are a good public citizen. I speak for myself and for my colleague wineries as well. Why are you treating us in a way that feels like you don't want us here? Our business is down, as you know, wine consumption is down. Instead of the town helping us do better, you're trying to crucify us? I mean, come on. Wake up, guys. You're not doing your job by just sitting behind a desk and issuing laws and whatever. Call us in. Let's have a conversation. We can help you help us. But having your lawyers draft things that require us to hire lawyers to sue you is not the idea to run the town. Okay? So please wake up. Call us in. We'll have a meeting. We'll help you if there is a problem. We would love to solve it. We've been very good public citizens and we will be here after you all have left. So bring us in, let's talk, and stop this nonsense, please. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Just waiting for the clock. Okay. Hey, hi, everyone. Que tal? Rosario Rodriguez, or originally Rosario Rodriguez. Riverhead resident urge urging for a conversation and review of the Ola local legislation Many people that aren't convicted crim violent criminals Sorry, many people that aren't convicted violent criminals and are not receiving due process that are being picked up by immigration also known as ice With we had a situation like that already during Trump president Trump's second term We had community members on the east end here. Yes where we live That had no deportation order no known record of being a violent person professionally nor in the community and in fact their local police department provided the community member a sheet that proved that they had no criminal record. So there was also someone else that had a working permit so they were doing it legally according to what you guys like to follow and as we all should follow, right? These are people on the East End, East Enders, factual people, factual experiences. But how can we ensure that we remove violent criminals, convicted criminals, and not our innocent community members that are being falsely targeted on the East End? I immigrated to this country in 2001 from Guatemala. I grew up on the East End, K through 12. You can find me in the yearbooks. If you want, I could sign it, you know, for homies. You know, I went to college and I graduated at SUNY Oneana in 2019. And I'm here till this day. I was a permanent resident for over a decade. And then I became a U.S. citizen on almost a decade of that. So, Ken, Councilman Ken, you're the town liaison for the HDEEC. The chairman says the current immigration enforcement actions doesn't affect the committee. That was in the newspaper. But it does affect because immigrants do have businesses here in Riverhead, and you know that. You do all the permits and all the fancy stuff. And at one point, some of them, a few of them, have expressed the impacts and the presence of ICE on them and how that's affected them as a business. I love the East End with all my heart, especially Greenport, because that's where I grew up. It gave me the opportunity to achieve the American dream, and I know for sure that Riverhead can be the same. So if you guys are fighting for America, as you say, I hope that you consider the realities of all of it to everyone. God bless you. I appreciate you listening to me, and hope to talk to you soon. Bill, bring the mic up to you. I don't even need the mic, I think. I know, but the people, for recording it does. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Bill Zellicar. I reside in Medford. My office is here in Calverton, and I am the executive director for Farm Bureau representing Long Island and New York City regions. As I stand here before all of you, I can't help looking at the seal, as Mr. Massoud said earlier, and in the middle of the seal there, we have agriculture. Riverhead has always been known as the epicenter of agriculture on Long Island and of all of New York State. I've been on the state boards for New York and also the American Farm Bureau board, and everybody always goes back and refers to Riverhead as the epicenter of agriculture. such a heritage that this town and community has. The big question is, does the town want to keep agriculture? Okay. Our comptroller, Tom DiNapoli, points out that in Suffolk County, 65 to 70 percent of the agricultural income goes back into the community. We are the only county in New York State that has those kind of numbers. If we're worried about trying to find a money grab or funding for our towns out there, agriculture provides a phenomenal amount of money into our economy through either the farms, through tourism, the restaurants, whatever it may be. Over the years, just a little history, over the years agriculture has changed a lot. It's gone from wholesale commodities going into Hunts Point to now primarily direct-to-consumer. The days of wholesale are no longer out there. So much more is direct-to-consumer. Times change. Agriculture changes just like every other industry out there. Zoning concerns are a big issue for agriculture, and that's something that we all have to address. We have the right to farm, which is controlled by ag and markets here in New York State. The commissioner was with me here yesterday going through several entities in the town of Riverhead. The biggest concern we have is the proposed event code that Riverhead has been writing. Where this came from, I wish I really knew. I've gotten copies of it constantly. It's changed constantly. and every time I hear they say we're not targeting agriculture. But of the 31 pages of that draft, agriculture is cited on almost every single page. So you tell me, is agriculture targeted in there or not? Do you want agriculture in our community? My advice is pull agriculture out of there. And as Mr. Massoud said, we all have the opportunity to work together. We have the Ag Advisory Group, okay? Other towns that I go to, there's always the town attorney present and the town planning person. That's how we need to work together to make things work. So thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Bill, I just want to let you know one thing. the code is being rewritten and to your point, the reason why it's taking a while is because agriculture is on every page and they're pulling it out and addressing the code that way. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Jim, you okay? You okay over there? I'm rolling. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Sorry. nancy gilbert i live in jamesport and i'm here to talk about another community issue that is central to all of us and that is our relationship to the land the land on which we live i'm here tonight to speak to you as a representative of the open space committee our mission is to identify review and recommend to you the town board lands that should be acquired by the town and preserved as open space and to develop and recommend conservation plans for these lands full disclosure i'm a member of the peconic land trust board my husband and i have donated our development rights to the peconic land trust and we've put facade easements on all of our buildings with the peconic land trust the open space committee feels strongly that the town of riverhead should proceed with the purchase of the 30 plus acre parcel in the northeast corner of the forage camp based on the town's fair market value appraisal which is consistent with the treatment of all cpf purchases the open space committee has a rating system that we use to rate open space purchases i will tell you that we have never rated another parcel as highly as we have rated this parcel of land the 4-h camp has been at the top of our preservation list for years and thankfully the cps fund currently has the monies necessary for such a purchase perhaps most important is that the parcel the town is considering is contiguous with sound avenue preserve i hope you've all had a chance to go hike sound avenue preserve it's really lovely from sound avenue up towards the up towards the sound it's really beautiful if we buy this parcel of land it would extend sound avenue preserve to the bluffs of long island sound and it would triple the size of the preserve and i will tell you that the price per acre in the appraisal price the town has received is much less than what we paid for Sound Avenue Preserve 20 years ago. Significantly less. The opportunity to extend the preserve is one that will never come again. Walking north for the preserve not only allows you to view native birds and wildlife, but it is also a link to our geological past. As you leave the outwash plain and walk towards the Sound, you encounter the glacial moraine. The views are truly magnificent in both directions. Once this transaction is completed, it will be part of a contiguous parcel of over 200 acres of spectacular preserve land that will benefit the people of Riverhead for generations to come. What an incredible property this is. It has probably been almost a century since the town had a chance to acquire property overlooking Long Island Sound. Another opportunity is not likely to occur in our lifetimes and definitely not at the price of the appraisal. The Open Space Committee urges you to acquire this parcel with CPF monies as an open space property for the town of Riverhead. Our connection to land is truly at the heart of a community's identity. We owe it to future generations and to those who walked these lands long before us and to the flora fauna who call this land home to preserve this magnificent piece of our heritage thank you
good evening good evening matt pendleton riverhead i uh have a letter that i was asked to read into the meeting in re in regards to the event code that you guys in the microphone but thank you you want me to all right so if you can hold on a second if you're just if you're having a discussion in our room we just ask that you not do that so it's easier for everybody to hear that would be super helpful thanks so this is this is addressed to uh the town board on behalf of the ag advisory uh councilman kern asked that we write something up from ag advisory so there was no confusion from everyone because it seems like there's confusion dear members of riverhead town board we have continually voiced our frustrations with the proposed code and it seems as though we have not been being heard it is also deeply concerning that the code is being written without meaningful input from the community and does not represent the interest of the residents the types of extremely restrictive burdensome code and specifically targets agriculture ratchets up fees penalties legal actions against farms addresses exactly what special event crisis is happening with the town you can read this i'm just trying to do it fast i have three minutes we're merely economic for the town and the community development director oh sorry or is it merely the economic opportunity for the town that was stated by the community development director as a recent town board work session there are a few easier ways for the town to generate economic opportunity other than placing additional burden on the backs of the farmers this type of narrative is concerning to our farmers beyond the proposed code it highlights a profound disconnect between the town's perception of agriculture and our community and the actual reality that situations facing the farmers preserving riverheads agricultural and rural character and landscape is a priority expressed by both farmers and residents per town comp plan recently you all the town board have been working tirelessly to put massive amounts of financial resources to support downtown revitalization efforts and the business located you also took flexible stance on the land use of eskyle voting to modify terminate existing covenants and easements to support those businesses on july 7 26 you unanimously adopted changes to tango outlet zoning code restrictions support and most recently unanimously adopted two resolutions create a new golf course zoning which would grant course this enhanced use which further support the town business each of you have publicly supported the town farmers and and farms saying you support us and actually you are doing two different things respectfully we have seen the support and you are asking to support now and not by placing additional burdens on the farmers leaving the agricultural out of this proposed code we appreciate the town board and whatever else so that's coming from ag advisory and then i'll take one minute just to say I talked with Councilman Kern. I've asked, should I ask questions? He said, we can't have a dialogue back and forth. If you guys really support this code, then come down to Ag Advisory, like Masoud said, and talk with us. I've been to two work sessions with this. One up here where it was Councilman Rothwell and Helpen. Remember we were talking? You were talking about having like a pamphlet to help generate good for farmers. you didn't seem to remember the other the last time we were here when I was with Don Thomas on the last work session and the thing is it's a 31 page 30 something page it took 45 minutes for the town attorney to do a synopsis it's like a thesis statement if you just did what someone said and you do a Google search on it because I don't have that much time so I my wife did it fast there ridiculous hits time and time again with the agriculture is mentioned in it i apologize to mary field and waski if i come across really direct i work a full-time job we run a farm we raise two kids and then it just blows my mind that don thomas can direct the town board to do this because when i go and i ask kern he goes no one supports it and then all of a sudden there's this 31 page thing generated so if you have questions come right to us okay because no one on AG advisory supported it for this to be that way all right thank you I'm not that bad. Yeah, if you could pull that down. Thank you very much. There we go. That's better. Good evening, everyone. My name is Georgette Lozier, formerly known as Georgette Keller. Some of you may know me and some of you may not, so I'll give you a brief introduction of myself and let you know the special consideration I'd like you to think about. So I want to first thank you for having this public hearing or actually it's not a public hearing but listening to the public comments and testimony on a topic that affects many of our residents and I'm speaking directly to OLA's proposed legislation and issues. It is important to every single one of us that walks through this town, lives in this town, works in this town, owns property in this town, pays taxes in this town and even if you're child and especially if you're a child and i'm going to speak to that in a minute so i've had a long history of advocating for topics that affect our many residents some of you may know my long history as president of the james port greater james port civic association as well as being a member of the landmarks and preservation commission with mr wines over here for many years as well as other various civic and church duties as well as my public teaching position so i've had mr wooten's daughter and i've had lots of other students that come back through the years and they appreciate the life that they grew up here in riverhead with because it's different than the rest of long island the east end is its own burden because we know from the tourism and the traffic but it makes it worth it because it preserves our culture and now i advocate for the children of our town over the almost last three decades of living here and advocating for the community i have been publicly um honored by being news review's civic person of the year and mrs merrifield you may remember last year providing me with the martin luther king junior humanitarian award for my work with the students of our school district but my overriding message through all of those different things and age groups and even my work with saint isidore's church is that each of us has a voice and each of us matter and that we need all people to work together in cooperation in order to appropriately negotiate what is needed and what most we can get for everyone a high tide floats all boats right so as you may surprise surmise i believe that we should all be considered and we should all be considered valuable tonight i have two points for you to consider and both are tied to our entire town like i said every resident every property owner as a grandmother i have had to quell the fears of my granddaughter that she's had that her friends won't be there when she gets to school tomorrow morning or that they will be harmed because something happens to someone in their family um and and a lot of my students and her friends They're all very well documented. They're born here. They're citizens. But they've seen what happens on the television. And unfortunately, we can't help them unsee it. And we know that children in crisis cannot learn. And as a taxpayer, as well as a teacher, I want to know that the majority of my tax dollar that's going into our school district is being adequately and effectively used. And it can't as long as we have children in crisis. and the fear and the anxiety that I see in young children today is more than alarming because they're who will take care of us now in our old age. So I would like to remind you, though, too, that we love our rural farming culture and community. So you're over the time, if you could just sum up. I am. You stated you had two points to make. This is the second one, is that we need to preserve our farming and our rural culture, and immigrants are a great part of that and have been for more than a century. We're working on two centuries of that now and we need to remember no farms, no food. So no migrant farmers to help with the harvest and all of our farmers, no food. And what does that do to our economy? And what does that do to our tax base? And what does that do to the agritourism that we've grown over all these years? Thank you.
Hi, I'm Pastor Pat Chuppie. I'm on the executive team of the United Methodist Church Immigration Task Force for the Conference for New York State and part of Connecticut and also our cooperative parish that I happen to be in covers part of New York. I just wanted to state that this isn't just a problem for Hispanic people or it affects everyone. My daughter happens to be married to someone who's a Hispanic. And because of that, she is very afraid. He is very afraid to go out. They don't live in Riverhead. but the fact that they fear that they could get picked up when I asked them for their birthday last year what they wanted for their birthday present they told me they wanted passport cards I never in my life thought that's what my daughter would ask me for for her birthday but even then they're afraid to go out because they started seeing people getting picked up because they wouldn't take the time to let the people take the cards my grandchildren they're afraid that their stepfather is going to not be there when they've already lost their father because he has a hundred percent disability from the Iraq war and he has a psychiatric disability and he left so they're afraid they're going to lose another another father because of it so it has a way of affecting a lot of people that have nothing to do with that and so it's important that everyone is reassured that everything is being done that can be done for the protection of everyone. For myself, even now with these new electric shock gloves that are coming out, I'm concerned because I have a condition where if I were to be electrically shocked, it would be devastating for me and could stop my heart. I have a monitor and step in. And ICE this morning was in Riverhead, and they happened to have been right on Moline Street, right in the heart of BJ's and DMV and Dairyland and the bowling alley. I mean, if something had gone wrong, there's any number of people that could have just innocently been in the middle of all that. and that's where the problem comes in and you never know when that's going to happen they then went to East Cog where they arrested someone not too far from my house one last quick thing I wanted to note I know Ms. Merrifield you said that no one ever stands up and says anything about those that were killed by people who were here undocumented and that's actually wrong. We held not that long ago, a month ago maybe, a, let me just finish this, a vigil for unity for the entire community right here in front of Town Hall. This poster right here had pictures of people that were killed by them, and there's your picture standing up that you said never was held up. It was sitting right in front of Town Hall. Everyone was invited. It was well publicized. There were prayers said for everybody. It was for everybody, military, police, people like from the Gilgo Beach and everybody else, as well as ICE people, people killed by ICE who knew. Thank you. And I just wanted to say that the only ones that showed up were the people that show up for the candlelight visuals for those killed by ICE agents. And that's these people in the room. And so no one showed up for the vigil, the people that we supposedly cared about.
Silvina Vega Hello, my name is Silvina Vega, a resident of Riverhead, Wading River, brand new American citizen. Up to a week ago, I was terrified to come to Riverhead because I didn't feel that my town officials were protecting me. I was doing my passport. So when you do your passport, your brand new American passport, you have to send your certificate, your citizen certificate. So basically, I have no documentation that I was a citizen. So I was terrified to come to Riverhead. So imagine I am an educated person. I have a degree in Argentina. I have my own business here. I have my own home here. And I speak the language. And I am terrified. Thank you. ETHEL SUSMANN, South James Port, I don't get up here very often, but it seems to me that this is really a turning point. turning point in the country it's a turning point for Riverhead and we have to figure out what we're all about in this town as well as in the country I'm not I hear in in great support of the Ola legislation I won't go into all the reasons why people much more eloquent than I have have given more than enough reasons but it's shocking to me that this town this this town board and this town and the committee's that are supposed to be dealing with these issues are not even talking about it and it's your responsibility to talk about it This is one of the most important issues of our time, and I urge you to step up and deal with it. We need you. This is your responsibility, and we need you on behalf of everyone who lives in Riverhead, who works in Riverhead, who comes to Riverhead, who drives through Riverhead on the way to somewhere else. we need you to discuss this. Other towns have done it. River can do it too. Please.
So Warren, I'm going to ask, I know this is like a rerun, but there's three people that haven't spoken online. So yeah, I know, they're online. Thanks, thanks Warren. Yes sir, I promise I'll let you know. I promise, I'm not going to forget about you. You got it. You got it. I promise. Mr. Wong, can you hear us? I can hear you. Okay. Desmond Wong, Reeves Park. So my August 14th letter is in tonight's packet. It concerns the town's and police department's immigration policies and how they interact with federal immigration operations. My July records requests on that subject produced two different versions of policy 414, but the records did not identify which was current. So this afternoon, Chief Frost replied to my email and clarified that the August 3 version is current, and the other was in effect when I filed on July 13th. So I'd like to thank Chief Frost for that prompt answer. So members of the board, three questions remain for the responsible town officials. I understand that Mr. Howard is absent tonight. So if anyone from the town attorney's office or another responsible official can answer any of these, I'd welcome that. Otherwise, please identify who will respond and I'll pause after each. So first, who... First and foremost, Anne-Marie Predenti, Deputy Town Attorney. Second, this is a public comment. You can ask any questions you like. You're not necessarily going to get an answer, particularly if they're legal questions. I'm not going to respond to a legal question without, quote, doing my research and due diligence. So please proceed. I understand. Just repeating it for the record. And if you are able to answer it, I would appreciate that. So first, who approved the current policy 414? When did it take effect? And when will the town post it on the police department page where another policy is already posted? it's the use of force policy. It's on the police department page.
I don't have any answer for you. You're certainly entitled to submit a freedom of information request. That form is available online. I did submit the FOIL request and that was how I received the policy 414, which I'm asking about. So this is just a follow-up question on that document. But I'll go on to my second question, which is policy 414 bars holding an arrestee solely on an ICE request or administrative warrant. But another section of the same policy treats a removal order or a federal crime criminal charge as an exception. So if the person would otherwise be released, can a removal order alone let Ripperhead keep holding them or transfer them to ICE? Same question for a federal criminal charge. If either answer is yes, and under what legal authority? So, Mr. Wong, your three minutes are up. Were those the three questions that you had? Well, I'll say my third question, just for the record. So state law requires the town to have a procedure for relevant employees when immigration officers present a judicial warrant or court order for access to non-public areas of town property. And so what is Riverhead's procedure and who verifies the paperwork? Who is the designated contact? So your time has expired. Thank you for your comments and questions. well these three questions are in detailed in my letter so I would still appreciate detailed written responses to the requests in my letter by August 28th after your the town attorney's office has done their do research thank you TWO MORE, ACTUALLY. PARTICIPANTS? THERE'S TWO MORE. I'M NOT SURE WHO THAT IS. HELLO. CAN YOU HEAR ME? YOU CAN, YES. CAN YOU HEAR US? YES. HI. MY NAME IS ELLA ANGEL SNOW. I'M ALSO HERE TO TALK ABOUT THE Ella Engel Snow. I'm also here to voice my support for OLA's proposed East End public safety. Madam, I just need to have you say, if you could just please say your hamlet, where you live. Yes, I reside in Sagaponik. As others have mentioned, Riverhead is a place where many people, probably everyone on the East End has to go. It's where the DMV is, the Social Security Administration, Tanger Outlets. Also, I'm a community organizer and I work with kids. And so my work often reaches across Hamlets.
I also think that we need to work together across the East End. And I feel that every town should have already adopted this law. It seems like it's a no-brainer. It asks for the most basic protection and safety for all of the people of Riverhead and of the East End. And it's hard to understand why it hasn't very swiftly been passed across the East End of Long Island. As someone mentioned the gloves that ICE is planning on using soon, I just want to quote an NPR article. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is planning to give its officers high-tech gloves that deliver electric shocks to people they're trying to detain, according to plans posted by the Department of Homeland Security this week. The agency could spend as much as $20 million on the gloves made by compliant technologies. So I personally find this horrifying, and I hope that you all also find it horrifying. And I'm just sharing it to shed some light. You may already know, but just on how ICE is operating, we know that people across the country and right here in Riverhead and across Eastern Long Island are terrified as rogue ICE agents continue acting with extreme violence and creating chaos and acting outside of their constitutionally granted authority. The East End Public Safety and Accountability Law doesn't in any way undermine any agency's ability to do their job in accordance with their constitutionally granted authority. It's about protecting public safety and it outlines clear systems of accountability so that people's basic human rights are protected. The law recognizes that keeping residents safe is one of the town's primary responsibilities, meaning that it's your job as elected officials to take on these responsibilities. It's almost, it's also all of our responsibilities as East End community members to be proactive in our commitment to accountability and transparency while resisting participation in what will be remembered as grave human rights violations. The East End Public Safety and Accountability Law is designed to protect our entire community because we are all impacted by the chaos that has created the ruptures in public safety caused by random warrantless ice braids. Thank you for your comments.
I believe we have one more. I want to thank everyone for their comments tonight.
Mr. Hariri, can you hear us?
Mr. Hariri, there you are. Mr. Hariri, can you hear us? Good evening. Ron Hariri of Aqaba. after the Friars Head fiasco made the New York Post and our taxpayers were blindsided by the multi-million dollar screw-up by the town assessor's office, Ms. Waski actually stood up on this board and praised the assessor's office. I filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking information regarding the town's expenditures of legal fees. And in addition to the millions of dollars of judgments and settlements, taxpayers in the poorest town or one of the poorest towns and most taxed town on all of Long Island have had to suffer through. According to the records that I've obtained from the town just this afternoon, almost a million dollars, that's right, a million dollars has been spent on tax certiorari lawyers since 2020. A taxpayer and citizen previously asked the town attorney, and incidentally, of the almost million dollars spent just since 2020, Almost a quarter of a million dollars was spent in connection with the United Terminals litigation. The town attorney, the former supervisor's son-in-law, refused to provide information regarding the terms of that settlement with United Terminal. So, Council, can you advise us today, recognizing your duty as Council of forthrightness and honesty, what the amount of that settlement with United Terminals was? I cannot provide that information. I don't know that information. Okay. Can any member of the board that voted on a resolution approving that settlement advise us today what the amount of that settlement is? Considering, again, and I know there's another member of the bar on that day as tonight, recognizing your duty of honesty, integrity, and forthrightness to the taxpayers of your town, what that settlement was? Is there an answer? Mr. Harari, I'm going to advise the town board not to respond. As a deputy town attorney, I have to do my research making certain that there was a settlement and the settlement is fully recorded before any town board member speaks on the matter. Yes, like a good defense lawyer representing a potential criminal, you're advising your clients to take the fifth, and I appreciate that. No, I'm not advising you to take the fifth. That being said, Mr. Rothwell, I know you've expressed your concern to my better half about the increasingly precarious set of financial circumstances this town may be in. And I appreciate your concern and I appreciate your dedication to try to protect our community. I would ask that you and your assistants take all necessary steps to make sure that our taxpayers do not continue to pay for the mistakes of our clearly incompetent town assessor's office. Enough is enough. And the town should not be embarrassed by making the New York Post again in another scandalous tax increase. Thank you very much. so i believe warren it is your turn i don't envy the town board at all yeah yeah any case i'm here to help the town board and all of us with some positive information here warren just bring the mic positive information people at home want to hear you a positive of information. You all took vows of our Constitution. I love that. My Bible, the Constitution, and the Dictionary are my guides in life. Any case, I refer to Section 1, Article 1, Section 9 of our Constitution, which is suspension of habeas corpus. And what's going on in this country over the centuries, there has been since the Alien Sedation Acts of 1798 there's been you know de facto suspension of habeas corpus and I'd like to give you all the progress over the time that has come of course 1798 it did it but in 1814 to 1815 the Battle of New Orleans General Jackson suspended it and he went off the people but the U.S. Supreme Court found him guilty in contempt of court for doing this and fined him.
World War I Espionage Sedition Acts 1917-1918 anybody who was German was in trouble. The first Red Scare, Pomerades 1919, 1920. And now the biggest one here. You know, in Pearl Harbor, all Japanese people on the island were held in detention from 1942 to 1944. And of course, 120,000 Japanese people were held in internment out west. You know? And post 9-1, 9-11, Globoterrorical at Guantanamo Bay we had people from Pakistan, you name it, Afghanistan, that wound up in Cuba, you know, because they never had constitutional representation. Now, one of my best ones here is constitutional. In a case versus, Bomar versus Bush 2008, they said that constitutional habeas corpus, Listen to this. Extends to foreign detainees held in U.S. territories. So everybody has a right. Every little world. And the second thing is, as you know as a preacher, children are a gift from God. That's what it says in the Bible, right? Okay. And I have a warning to myself and everybody here. that the foundation of our country Mr. McKnight, I'm just going to ask you to sum up Okay, I'm going to sum up very definitely The ISIS is secret police Chinese have secret police, Russians have secret police North Korea has secret police We've got to make them unsecret I can't believe electric gloves Thank you for your comments. John McAuliffe, Roanoke Landing in Riverhead. This has been quite a civic education day. and it emphasizes why I think we really need a different kind of forum to go to all of the issues of immigration and race that have bubbled up in the last six months. I do want to note that I sent already three letters, and I'm not going to repeat them, but people will see it in the next agenda, or they can look at the New York Times on Saturday. And you will be able to be reminded of the legislation in 1924, which specifically was targeting Poles and Italians and Russians to keep them out of the United States. That's when we really got immigration laws that we're now seeing the effects of. so I think everybody has to recognize where we've come from and how we were able to be here and other people are coming for exactly the same reasons that our ancestors came for the other thing I want to say is first I would repeat I found it a little bizarre that we can't get the numbers of how much was involved in the legal settlement that we're all going to have to pay for and exactly what it covers. I mean, that ought to have been in the first piece of paper, not hidden behind some kind of legal process that is not explained. It's like when we, these kinds, this kind of data ought to be presented to people from the get-go. The other thing, and I was a little disturbed when Mr. Rothwell was speaking about it. First of all, the tone of his remarks were really, the content of a supervisor's remarks, not a council member's remarks. But they were spinning. They also didn't give us any information. So I hope that the supervisor will be able to get us all of that information, if not now, then before the week is over, because it ought to be in his hands. The last thing I want to talk about is the Summer Wind Farms story that was just in the local. I don't we are so lucky to have the local as part of our community the summer wind farms story the owner of that property is a person named Vincent Calvosa who is from Holbrook does anybody on the board know him has anyone on the board or any political party in Riverhead received any campaign donations from him I would like that question answered hopefully no because it and then what will his punishment be is he going to be forced to replant that area is he going to just be thrown out of the town because he's obviously been totally dishonest with us or do we just sort of roll over I'm glad that you guys did the order to stop him but what is gonna happen to him that discourages the next person from doing it when I Drive on Sound Avenue I see these large plots of land that are for sale 60 acres 70 acres living near the Boy Scout camp I hope that that land is preferred is protected but I think there's lots of of other pieces of land that are clearly about to be swallowed up and be used for commercial purposes. And so I would just finally wanted to say about Mr. Massoud, I was at his, yeah, I will just finish. I just want to note that I was at his vineyard or his store a few days ago And he did a very nice benefit for the, now I'm, of course, blanking on the name, the project for girls, the butterfly project. Thank you for your comments. He did a fundraising event for him. And I think I take very seriously the concerns that he brought to us. Thank you very much. Thank you.
I have one additional question, and this question will be very familiar to all of you, so I think we will be able to knock this out real quick. Do you intend to abide by your oath to the U.S. Constitution and represent all residents within the town's geographic boundaries, regardless of their citizenship or legal immigration status? And I would request that each of you individually respond. And Ms. Prudente, I realize I am outside the rules of order. You are. But I think this is a very important question that the town board has been avoiding answering. This is public comment. We have rules and procedures which fully explain it's public comment. I understand. Do you intend to abide by your oath to the U.S. Constitution and represent all residents within the town's geographic boundaries, regardless of their citizenship or legal immigration status? Do you intend to abide by your oath to the U.S. Constitution and represent all residents within the town's geographic boundaries, regardless of their citizenship or legal immigration status. Thank you for your comment and question. I have a minute. No, actually, under the rules, under the rules, you have three minutes. I'm operating outside the rules. I am knowingly operating outside the rules. You are appearing for a second time. Yes. We heard your comment and question. It should not be pulling teeth to get our elected town board to say that they will abide by their oath to the Constitution. This is insane.
Thank you. I have a minute and seven seconds. No, you've already gone over. Do you intend to abide by your oath to the U.S. Constitution and represent all residents within the town's geographic boundaries, regardless of their citizenship or legal immigration status? I request that each of you individually answer that question. Yes or no?
I'm going to ask that you yield the floor to the next speaker. I will in 35 seconds. Do you intend to abide by your oath to the U.S. Constitution and represent all residents within the town's geographic boundaries, regardless of their citizenship or legal immigration status? I'm going to say something now because, and excuse me a second, I'm going to say something. That's what we do every day of the week, seven days a week, is we address what is going on in this town. That's all I'm going to tell you, day and night, period. What do you think we do, live in the basement and just show up here? I would like on the public record to be noted that none of the town halls are in control. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're in the audience, we ask that you do not yell out. This is our, again, we're just asking that you, thank you for, if you'd like to comment, you've been given a second opportunity, you are welcome to come up and do that. Thank you. We do have rules for our procedures. Ms. Prudenti has gone over them. We do ask that during comment period. And so I would ask that everybody do that. And there is no reason for us. This has been a great meeting. We've had a great amount of comments. We've appreciated those. And once again, I would ask that we all continue to understand where we are. So thank you. CHAIRPERSON WONG. Hi, Alison Matway, Waiting River. Again, so, Mr. Kern, you said that you're aware of what's going on in our town and that do it seven days a week do you know how many ice sightings there have been in riverhead since the beginning of january in my mouth i know i am not a town council member i am a taxpayer i am a random citizen and i know that there have been at least 21 ice sightings in riverhead since january of 2026 and i can tell you on february 18th there were three one on arrowhead avenue at 7 a.m one in riverhead at 7 30 a.m on route 58 one on lake avenue at 10 22 a.m 225 flanders road 7 15 a.m 8 a.m route 24 february 27th harrison avenue 7 15 a.m Pulaski Street, 745 AM. Court Street, 8 AM. Osborne Avenue, 815 AM. Now we get to May. Doctors Path, 9 AM, May 13th. May 18th, Oakland Drive North, 6 AM. 630 AM, also Oakland Drive north oakland drive south may 25th at 9 00 a.m landers oak avenue 526 4 45 p.m osborne avenue 7 15 a.m riverhead june 17th oak avenue 6 15 a.m in flanders 7 2 riverhead osborne avenue 7 a.m 710 Riverhead 7 a.m. Northville Turnpike 716 Flanders 915 a.m. Priscilla Avenue July 30th 730 p.m. Oak Avenue August 2nd 745 a.m. Silverbrook Drive and today Moline Avenue Riverhead 645 a.m. there's no reason why I should know this information and you all shouldn't know this information and you would if you would support and meet with us. We have been asking to meet with you. We want to have a place where we can ask questions, where we can have a back and forth. Instead of us coming here and getting stonewalled that we're out of order, that this is public comments, we understand that. We're desperate. We want a question and answer. We want you guys to support people like the woman I described when I first stepped up here, because she is afraid, and her eight-year-old son is afraid, and her four-year-old daughter is afraid. Everybody is afraid, but you all sit up there and don't answer our questions. I shouldn't know this information alone. You all should know it. I carry a whistle with me everywhere I go. None of you do. You all should be. This is what you all need to do. This is what we elect you to do, is to protect and to serve all members of the community. You will keep your police force safe as well by supporting OLA legislation. So meet with us. That's all we ask. Thank you.
There are two people online.
Hey, Desmond Wong, Reeves Park. just want to follow up uh miss predenti uh you had suggested that i foil uh put in another boiler request um that was the full request that i put in uh it was from july 7th uh after councilman rockwell and uh supervisor helpen had suggested uh that i put in a full request uh to to get more information about this. And so from that, the full requests I put in, I got the two policy documents, the policy 414 and the newer version of it, and as well as the email thread between Chief Frost and ICE. And so my questions earlier and the ones that I posed in the letter just basic facts about those documents. I don't think they require an additional forward request, which by the way, those have since been closed and those are the only documents that I received. So town attorney office or anyone on the board, if you could just confirm after the sufficient research that you will respond to the written three questions in my August 14th letter if you could confirm that that those will be responded to in writing by August 28th I haven't reviewed them so I can't definitively state I don't know if all of those questions are appropriate for response legal response from the office of town attorney but we will certainly And if they are, is it possible that they can be responded to? I wrote them down. You stated it was recited in your August 14th communication. Correct? Okay. Great. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Wong. Thank you. All right. Thank you.
Ms. Golanet, and then we have one more online, and then I believe we'll be wrapping up. I don't see anybody else online. So, oh, I don't know if you could wait a second. That would be great since they already got it queued up.
Well, first of all, I have to say I find it, you know, particularly interesting from Councilor Prudenti to espouse on the importance of rules and protocol. This is the same attorney that actually had developers write legislation for her. And I think all of you know that I rarely have anything positive to say about anyone on this town board, but I want to take a moment to express my appreciation to Councilman Rothwell, who in my view has displayed a certain level of appreciation for the community and leadership in indicating his willingness to have a dialogue regarding these complex issues in immigration and public safety in in our town we are not sagaponic we are not east hampton that being said there are very legitimate concerns so i applaud you councilman i applaud uh uh councilman kern for at least suggesting that you may open the door to having that dialogue and if i I can be of any assistance in creating that dialogue that has the potential to be beneficial to all of us and protect all of our citizens in our town. Please count me in. Thank you again, Councilman. I wasn't going to speak tonight, but I think I need to share with you some information and encourage you to do some real deep thinking. I have a lifelong friend who was a Border Patrol agent who was murdered down in Arizona, right on the border, many years ago. We're not against ICE. ICE has a purpose. We need ICE. But the ICE agents in the past had extensive training. They don't now. They are not following regular protocol. They are given a gun and a quota. And when that happens, you have chaos. Chaos makes a very dangerous situation for anyone in the nearby vicinity, whether they're involved or standby, watching, walking on the street. I encourage you, I have not read that OLA presentation. I do not know what's in it. But if there's anything in there that could be useful to you to prepare and protect the residents and taxpayers in this town, I encourage you to read it, meet with them, discuss it, and enact whatever you feel necessary. But if there's anything in there that could help the safety of the police department that's wrapped up in this, unintentionally, and the safety of ICE and the safety of the people that they're going after. And what they're doing is wrong. They're not following protocol. Detention without due process is a concentration camp. Thank you.
So I do believe that is our last person for comment in those statements. And so does any council person want to make a statement at all? Anybody want to? Yep, I know that. We do have another meeting following this. We'll ask for a second in adjournment to go into a CDA meeting and have those resolutions. Before we close and ask for an adjournment, you know, you have said multiple times that no one has met. I did have Minerva, the head of OLA, in my office and did meet with her. So I just wanted to make that fact known that that has been there and for that. So with that, I have a motion to close our meeting. So moved. No, it is actually, it is my. Disingenuous, please. Oh, no, I think. I'm on my way here to stand up anyway to talk about something else. So you made a comment and I like you. I think. I'm sorry. You feel that way? It wasn't disingenuous? We are closing our meeting for tonight. We did have comment.
So.
It's not about my remarks. It's about the fact that I said we're going to take a first and second to close our meeting. I'm not going to argue with you about this.
I understand that we have open comment for quite some time. I said I'd be closing that. I'm sorry that's disappointing to you and we will be more than happy to have that return. But if you would like, Emory, again we're not going to have a back and forth with that, but Emory if you believe that I should allow that. Yeah, so why don't we resolve it. Give her 30 seconds. Yeah, if you would like to speak, I would like to allow you to. If you could keep your comments brief because we have the CBA. I did call for an adjournment. Thank you. And I'm sorry. I, you know, I wasn't, I was kind of surprised by that last comment. I'll keep it to one minute. I don't believe you were, but that's okay. Okay. Thank you. Oh, thank you for that. So I did have a chance to meet with Supervisor Halpin because he, I think, felt pressured to do so. He did not speak at all about the law. At the very end of our conversation that took up quite a long time, I asked him to please not speak about that. He said he didn't want to because he thought the police were doing a great job, which definitely outlined the fact that he hadn't read the law and he doesn't understand that the police are doing a great job and we want to support that. So it has nothing to do with our law. You did not want to speak about the law at all. Our meeting was about learning about what OLA did so that maybe we'd have a chance to work in Riverhead. We've been working and serving Riverhead for 24 years. I don't need your permission. We do great work here. We work with families. We gave $1.9 million to schools across the east end of Long Island during COVID to make sure that they had remote learning capabilities with their Chromebooks and the hotspots. We also worked with Suffolk County to make sure that ERAP funds went to landlords that were not getting their rent because people were not paying it during COVID. We got almost $2 million to landlords because of our work with Suffolk County that also supported Riverhead. Our work in Riverhead is a dedicated thing, okay? So I wanted to come up here and just simply say we love Riverhead But that last comment was disingenuous and thank you was not. Thank you for
Supervisor Like to make a motion So I make a motion to adjourn our meeting Second all in favor. All right our CDA motion Did you open the CDA meeting yes, okay, so we have only No, we need to open the meeting. We just closed our meeting. Oh, okay. So we need a motion. I'm having trouble. We're actually having another meeting. No, I'm going to get into the court. Get to the court. Yeah, but you should. I should come to you. You don't come to me. Call me over. Quite the evening of... Sorry. It's okay. We are having a CDA meeting, so... Just leave it anywhere. Okay. Leave it by Debbie. Thank you. You too. Okay. Do you need me to make a motion to open up the CDA meeting? She does. We just need a motion and a second to open the CDA meeting. I make a motion to open up the Community Development Agency. Second. Okay. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes. Okay. CDA meeting is open. The items on the agenda are, there are no resolutions, so there would be only one matter for the board to deal with, which is open comments from the public on CDA matters only. If anyone has a comment on a CDA matter, that's what she said, you may come and speak at this time. No one's online. No comments. Okay, then. Then we can entertain a motion and a second to close the CDA meeting. Make a motion to close CDA meeting. Oh, well. Seconded. Wait. You've got to be quick, John. You've got to be quick or yell it. John, you only get a half hour. No, no, no, very quickly. This is on the CDA. I'd like some update, and maybe Anne-Marie isn't prepared to do it, but we found out that $95,000 was moved for more legal processing on the case with the Germasians, but we didn't ever get an explanation as to what that $95,000 was for. And I would think that it would be also useful to get, there was some reference that somehow we exceeded to the pendency still, and I'd be interested in knowing, is the land clear now of the pendency? what is the current state of the appeal and our response to the appeal. Again, it's something that if you can answer it, it would be helpful, but I think my hope is that that kind of information could be regularly provided to the media. It could be. Okay. So what I suggest, John, if you don't mind, you could send an email to our office. Just with those questions. Okay. All right. As long as it's made public. I think this ought to be public information, not just between me and me. Got it. Thanks, John. We have one online. Go back. THE ARTICLE ABOUT THE DEVELOPER THAT WAS SHUT DOWN FOR OPERATING WITHOUT PROPER PERMITS, I noticed that his counsel was Tillman Balin in the matter involving the town, which is also the same. Mr. Harari, I think you were cut off in the beginning. Do you mind just starting from the beginning? Yes, thank you. I couldn't hear you in the beginning. Please repeat. Thank you. I appreciate it. In reading the article in Riverhead Local, and again, I am so thankful to Denise Civiletti. I hope she's feeling better. I know she's had some issues with, at a certain age, you know, things don't work as well as they do. But Denise, thanks for everything. But in reading her piece on the developer who was shut down, I noted that its counsel was Sir Tillman Balin, which is the same law firm that is representing the town in the Grameesian Calvary Aviation lawsuit. I also had noted that there are various allegations that that firm had previously represented the alleged Ponzi scheme developer arrested on fraud charges by the Suffolk County DA. There are also allegations of members that are former partners of the alleged Ponzi scheme developer. I would say that those type of relationships where one is simultaneously adverse to the town and representing the town creates serious concerns about potential conflict of interest. And I would urge, a council member, Rothwell, and the town attorney and the supervisor to look in whether that is even ethically proper under these circumstances. The other thing that I would urge the CDA to look into, and we're approaching the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Empire State Building, which was built in one year, 40 days. It consists of something like 3 million square feet, rentable square feet, built 100 years ago on 34th and 5th Avenue in Manhattan. What I was shocked about was that after 31 years of efforts to redevelop our downtown, your master developer has indicated that it may take three or four years to complete 70,000 square feet of hotel rooms, which by comparison is three one hundredths of one percent of the size of the Empire State Building. I think that coupled with the lack of a closing within the time specified, you owe it to the members and taxpayers of our town, which to some extent is subsidizing this effort and will be asked to subsidize it through IDA benefits to insist that Mr. Petrucelli be made available to the public in June. Your time is up, so if you could just add a closing sentence or two. Again, you all have a fiduciary responsibility. I think there are enough questions that make it incumbent upon you to make the financials that were withheld from public scrutiny available for review, particularly given the time and the circumstances and continued delay. Thank you for your attention. Thank you Good Any other comments and board can entertain a motion to Motion in a second Make a motion to close CDA meeting Okay. Hey, wasky. Yes, very failed. Yes, Kern. Yes, well Sure, yes Yes, okay. See the a meeting is closed and we'll see you next month. Thank you everyone. Don't you have another meeting?
Thank you.