Summary AI
The board held three public hearings covering an ambulance building bond, a sewer connection extension, and a contested Suffolk County Water Authority pipeline project, and passed a large slate of routine resolutions including retirements, bid authorizations, and a bond for the ambulance building; public comment focused heavily on the SCWA pipeline, the 4-H property preservation effort, and Roanoke corridor zoning.
Public hearings & comment
- The board held a public hearing on increasing and improving facilities of the Riverhead Ambulance District for a new building at 1111 Osborn Avenue, with an estimated maximum cost of $14.1 million, about $6-6.5 million raised through RVAC private fundraising and the remainder to be bonded by the town and repaid through ambulance billing revenue with no anticipated taxpayer cost; a resident asked about waiving copays for local patients but no formal policy exists.
- The board held a public hearing on extending sewer connection service to 840 Old Country Road, the site of a proposed retail cannabis dispensary.
- The board held a hearing on the SCWA Monroe balancing test for the North Fork Main pipeline project; an attorney for SCWA argued the Main Road route was chosen for engineering and public health reasons rather than cost, and asked that written materials be entered into the hearing record while objecting to using the hearing to expand the record of ongoing litigation.
- Multiple residents and board members raised concerns about the SCWA project, including lack of a bond to protect existing town water infrastructure, unclear tangible benefits to Riverhead, and criticism of SCWA's transparency and route justification; no commitments were made by SCWA representatives on bonding or local benefits.
Key actions
- The board adopted a bond resolution for the ambulance building project.
- The board accepted retirements of a police detective, a police officer, and a senior justice court clerk, and ratified the resignation of a wastewater treatment plant operator trainee.
- The board granted administrative approval for a site plan for the Peconic Bay Medical Center/Northwell Health maternity expansion and facade improvements at 1 Heroes Way.
- The board accepted an appraisal and authorized a written offer of just compensation for acquisition of property at 111 East Main Street, Riverhead.
- The board authorized publishing bid notices for water main installation projects for Forge Road and Summerwind extensions in the Riverhead Water District.
- The board authorized publishing notice to consider a local law amending the town's procurement policy code.
- The board authorized 2026 bow hunting for deer on several town-owned properties, including Enterprise Park at Calverton and sites on Sound Avenue and Middle Road.
- The board accepted the 2025 audited financial statements and approved a special event application for a 5K run hosted by the Riverhead Athletic Club.
Discussed
- Residents submitted a petition with about 179 signatures (targeting 300) urging the town to join Peconic Land Trust and Suffolk County in preserving the 145-acre 4-H property, while one commenter opposed the purchase, citing the town's existing 8,200+ acres of preserved land and potential lost tax revenue from development.
- A council member stated opposition to a proposed Roanoke corridor zoning amendment that would add commercial uses, allow apartments, and extend operating hours to 10 p.m.
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 agenda. May contain errors — verify against the full transcript below and the town’s official record.
Full Transcript
Thank you.
September and good afternoon everybody today is Tuesday September 1st 2026 We're here for a town board meeting and before we go any further We're gonna stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance, but councilman wasky. Would you like to introduce our leader for that? Yes, I have with us today TJ Andrews. He is Councilman of the day and I will explain why after we begin the meeting
and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Great job. That's quick. Keep going.
Councilwoman Woski, if you want to keep going with that. Oh, I'm sorry, we have our invocation. I'm so sorry. I was so excited for TJ. So we are very honored for our invocation today. we do have Father Gonzalo Oaxaca-Lopez of the St. John Evangelist Roman Catholic Church here in Riverhead. So Father, thank you for joining us. If you want to just come up to the microphone, then everyone at home could hear you as well, Father.
Thank you for your invitation, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here. As you say, I am the pastor of St. John's Evangelist here at Riverhead. Let us start with a little prayer asking the Lord all the graces that we need as a part of our community. Gracious and loving God, we come before you today with grateful hearts asking for your blessing upon the town of Riverhead, upon this town hall, and upon all those who serve our community. Let the men and women who work here give them wisdom in their decisions, passion in their responsibilities, integrity in their work, and compassion for all those they are to call to serve. Guide our town leaders and employees as they seek solutions to the needs and challenges of our community. We also ask your blessing upon all the people of Riverhead. Bring peace to our neighborhoods, unity among our residents, and understanding among people of different backgrounds and opinions. Help us to listen to one another, to respect one another, and to work together for the good of all. We pray as we will for peace throughout our country and throughout our world. In a time when there is so much division and uncertainty, help us to be an instrument of peace, justice, kindness, and hope. May your wisdom guide those who lead us, your strength sustain those who serve, and your peace remain in the hearts and homes of all our neighbors. May God bless the town of Riverhead, and may God bless all who call this community home. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you very much, Father. Thank you, Councilman. And now back to Councilman Woski with our... Okay. So we have T.J. Andrews with us today. I was working the Polish Town Fair at a Kabasi booth, and this young man came up to the booth to purchase a kielbasa sandwich and he was so extremely polite, well-mannered. He asked how much the kielbasa sandwich was and then he asked how much the perogies were and he did his mental math as to how much that would cost and made sure that he had enough money and politely said that he would take both. I started speaking with him and realized that I know his parents and I ended up calling or contacting his parents later on that evening I spoke with his dad and I said I would like you to know how your son acted when you weren't looking and told him how his son you know spoke to someone not having any idea who we were you know that we're just regular people working and he was with his friend and where most kids start goofing off and trying to act cool this young man was just extraordinary um and i thought this is the future of riverhead so i asked tj to come in today and be councilman with me uh we went and i walked him all through town hall and showed him all the different departments that we have here and uh superintendent mike zaleski came over with one of the highway dump trucks and he got to go on that but that's nothing new to him he actually helps out his dad working over the summer and he's not a uh not new to dump trucks so um he also got to do a ride along with the police department and i just think that it's so important that our younger generation gets to see the opportunities that are here in the town of Riverhead that maybe one day you might want to be a police officer want to come and work at the highway department want to be the town clerk want to serve on the town board there's so many great opportunities whether you graduate from college or from a trade school whatever you do if you want to go and take a civil service test there's so many opportunities so I thank you so much for coming in here today. And we have a certificate for you and would like to take a picture with your dad, Tommy. I know your mom's not able to be here today because she's working. And your two brothers, what are your brother's names? Braden and Weston. Braden and Weston, that's right. So your parents have done a fantastic job and they deserve a lot of credit. So good job, dad.
So TJ Andrews, this is for you from the town board and the supervisor. TJ is 13 years old. He starts ninth grade this year at Riverhead High School. And today is your special day. Thank you for being here. Absolutely, TJ.
Congratulations. Great job. Congratulations. You have to come up for five more minutes. You should come up through the comment period.
So in that same vein, Councilwoman Waski also has another proclamation that we're going to be presenting today. And I'm so excited. What a great group to be in front of to see what the future, as she said, of Riverhead and all of it is. that our kids should be proud of us when they go back and they watch these meetings of how we conduct ourselves together too. So thank you, Councilman Waski, for making this happen. Yes, thank you. So today we also have Brooke Meyer. She's 12, and she's going into the seventh grade this year. She is a fantastic race car driver. She is in the Bandolero car racing. she is she finished as one of three state championships across the country last year as a female she began her interest I believe she was around 7 years old when she first started this and she is ranked 8th in the United States and Canada in her division of racing I think that it's so important that we realize that we can follow our dreams whatever they are. It's such a great thing to be able to be behind the wheel of a race car at that age and be recognized throughout the country. It's fantastic. I would like her to come up and I'd like the town board to come with me to offer her a proclamation. Thank you.
Did your first act. Yeah.
Wait, wait. Shake your hand, TJ. Congratulations. Like that, Larry? Say congratulations. Congratulations. Absolutely. Congratulations. We'll take some pictures and then I'll ask you a quick question.
Can you put your paper down? Thank you so much. I'm sorry. Let me just read a little bit of this real quick. Whereas it is both fitting and proper that the supervisor together with the town board join with the residents of Riverhead in celebrating hometown Bandolero car racing standout, Brooke Meyer. And whereas auto racing is an integral part of the Meyer family, Brooke developed a passion to race after becoming enamored with the diminutive race car while attending Riverhead Raceway. With the support of her parents, Joe and Heather, and under the watchful eye of her father, Brooke began racing Bandoleros at the age of seven and has continuously learned the mechanics of her race car, engrossing herself in all aspects of the maintenance and operation of the vehicle, and it goes on and on and on that you can read at home. So I have one question. How fast does that race car go? I believe on our top speed with our open plate in, we are hitting 90 to 95 down the straightaway. Wow. Good for you. And I understand that you have a fundraiser coming up because this is a huge expense to your family to be able to have you continue on this journey. Do you know the date of that? September? September 17th at Village Idiot Pub on Indian Island Golf Course. So if anyone would like to support this young lady and her future in racing, come on down and be a part of it. So here you go. This is from us, and we're going to have your family come up. You have Grandma? Is that your Grandma? Yeah. Grandma. It's great to see you. Grandma's going to come up. Thank you. Congratulations. Are you sure? Come on in. Good job, honey. One more. Coming in? Come here. Are you sure? Just go to the brand. I'm sure she'll get us home. Turn it a little bit like this to get that chin in.
All right. Thank you very much. Congratulations. That's a great job. I mean, really. I appreciate it. I saw it coming. I'm glad. So we have our announcements now and so we want to make you aware of a few things. This coming Thursday the 10th on live on 25 will be 6 to 9 p.m. on our main street. And then TJ are you ready for your announcement? Yes, school started on Thursday. School starts on Thursday, so it's the most wonderful time of year, right? Depends on what chair you're in. I was told not to make jokes, but we're excited for that. Council people, do we have any announcements? We'll give you guys an opportunity. I do have an announcement if I can. So there's a lot of things that we're actively working on, so I just wanted to kind of give an update on a few things. A few comments before the town board meeting this afternoon. before the important Monroe proceeding on the Suffolk County Water Authority pipeline project proposing an alternative route on Route 25 just want to recognize a few things and I'll come back to the Monroe hearing. I recognize of our audience tonight that I expect some people here to comment later on this evening regarding the 4-H. I want to seize this opportunity to provide a status update at least for my part and perhaps others on the town board. I actually, actually all the town board members have considered the 4-H acquisition for the better part of three months. The first action was joining my fellow board members supporting an appraisal that was completed. I have since met and discussed with members of the town board, taking into consideration comments in support of our Open Space Committee for preservation and passive use, perhaps a continuation of a walking trail that exists on the two lots south of the 35 acres known as Sound Avenue Preserve. Consideration of other residents' comments and concerns, and most recently spent more than an hour discussing potential preservation opportunities with John Halsey, who's the founder and president of the Peconic Land Trust. I support the preservation effort on the Peconic Land Trust, and I will support and advocate for the town to participate in this unique opportunity to preserve this property. I also support limited passive recreation use and extension of the walking trail. I'm confident that Councilwoman Merrifield and Councilman Waski also support preservation of passive use along with Councilman Kern, and I know that Councilman Waski met with a few several community members just yesterday. As to the terms of the purchase, I do discuss with John Holsey as we, as town boards either are unified or majority, will continue to work with Julie Wesnofsky. The goal will be for the Peconic Land Trust to convey the property free of all leases and tenancies, removal of all dilapidated structures, including removal of beach stairs which present a hazard to the public safety without replacement. Next, unrelated to the 4-H or the Suffolk County pipeline, but important to many area residents, I just wanted to personally let you know that I did listen to comments on the proposed code and amendment to the last town board meeting regarding the Roanoke corridor. I've also had residents reach out to me expressing concern for the proposed code change with ads, additional commercial uses, apartments, and the hours of operation extending to 10 p.m. I and other members of the boards have shared our individual concerns and shared comments and concerns we receive from the public. I will share that I do not support this legislation and simply want to put that publicly on the record today. Finally, just thank every resident that took the time to review the pipeline project through the Suffolk County Water Authority, attended the hearing on the draft environmental impact statement and those who spoke at the library last week. I hope today that our community once again expresses and voices their concerns and supports for the importance of our local zoning, the safeguards and standards of our town code, be it site plan review, landmark preservation review, and wetland regulations. So I just kind of want to give it up. There's so many important things that are taking place right now in Riverhead that kind of pivot the way the town is going, and I just, I think it's important for the community to know how we stand, and sometimes projects are put forth for discussion, and that's really what they are. They're here to discuss and to learn about it, but we are taking in everything in which the community is relaying to us. So thank you very much. Councilman Mayfield. Yes, I'd like first of all to say, make an announcement that I'm so appreciative of our town clerk, Mr. Wooten. He sponsored a concert at the Wading River Beach last Friday, which was just phenomenal. It was called Summer's Not Over Yet. I'd also like to thank the Beach Committee for their acceptance of this and participation in this. It was a wonderful event, the Waiting River Sunset Beach. It was absolutely phenomenal that night. The crowd was great, very well attended, and I thank the town board and everybody for supporting this and Mr. Wooten for sponsoring it. It was terrific. On another note, though, on a much more serious note, I'd like to make a point clear. To be clear, school resource officers are very important, and they serve a useful role for the safety of the children of the Riverhead School District. But it's also very clear that while the Riverhead School Board states that it's important to them, their actions speak a lot louder than their words. You see, because they did not budget for their school resource officers in their budget. They say they're very important, yet they didn't budget for them. However, what they did do is create a manufactured crisis with the Riverhead School Board and the supervisor's office here. It was only last Thursday, for the first time, that one member of their school board, their superintendent, and their counsel, their attorney, came in to speak to us. Never before, and on the eve of school starting. I'd just like to give a timeline for everybody of what has transpired. The Riverhead School Board knew, way back as of January or February, what their proposals for their budget were going to be. They never included the SROs as part of their budget. They admitted that, and in May of 26, they passed their school board budget, $218 million. Yet they did not want to include the cost of their SROs. So my point is they intentionally omitted this from their budget, yet they claimed that they were so important and so necessary. Yet they purposely excluded them from the budget because they did not want to pierce their tax cap, and they didn't, and their budget passed. Supervisor Halpin and the school board officials met without the town board, and they discussed this. Mr. Halpin brought it up to us and the town board, and I declined to want to renew any contract with the school. We had a school. We had a contract with the school for two years. We told them when we did it, because of the extraordinary economic circumstances the school was in, we would support it. But that one time only. Yet, it is the supervisor's office that sets the agenda for matters that come before work session or town board meetings. The supervisor's office chose to wait until the eve of school for that work session to be here, presented to us. The Riverhead School Board comes in asking for the town taxpayers, all of the town of Riverhead taxpayers, to support the Riverhead School District in their need for school resource officers because they didn't budget for them. But the problem with that is there are many other town residents that pay taxes, school taxes, to a number of other school districts. There is the Mattatuck-Kutchog School District, there is the Eastport-South Manor School District, and there is the Shoreham-Wading River School District. There are approximately 1,865 residents of the town of Riverhead who do not pay school taxes to the Riverhead School District. Yet, what the supervisor and also the school board, the Riverhead School District school board is proposing is that all of the residents of Riverhead Town pay for this shortcoming of the Riverhead School District. That is blatantly unfair, unfair to all of our taxing residents who have to pay school taxes to other school districts. What they're being asked to do is pay not only their school district tax for their school districts respectfully, but also for a portion of the Riverhead School District that they chose not to budget for, chose not to account for. I don't think that's fair to all of the residents of Riverhead, and I feel that bringing that up on the eve of school is a manufactured crisis to somehow make the school board look as though we're neglecting the children, which we are certainly not. It is the Riverhead School District who has this obligation and responsibility, this fiscal responsibility that they purposely chose to neglect. And I cannot support something that does not benefit all of the residents of the town and make them pay for this when it is not their burden to share. And I quite frankly find it difficult that the supervisor ran on a party called Taxpayers First, and yet it's in reality the Riverhead School District Taxpayers First, and I cannot support that. Thank you. Does anybody have any other announcements? Okay. So just to clarify that before we allow TJ to go, I did not meet with the school district school board alone. I did not meet with them prior to that meeting. There was no sit down with them, so that did not happen. I'm sorry that you were misinformed on that, but that was not the case at all. So there was not a manufactured crisis there because I did not meet with them in that time period. In fact, when we met with them, we went through our attorney's office. When they contacted us, they spoke to our attorney's office, and we were going to communicate back to them. We asked to come back in, and we scheduled them at the first available time that we could have the week before. Because Congressman Lolota was in town, we did move that meeting. That was when it got moved, so that was the thing. So I did not meet with them, and I do support us coming together and paying our fair share as far as a school taxpayer, which I am. But as far as the town, I do believe that we've sat and listened to them, and we went back and sent something through our attorney, and I think they're working on it. In fact, I have our attorney making sure that we're following up on that. That's what I've done. So if we don't have any other announcements for today, we don't want to forget that on September 11th, we'll have our 25th anniversary of this horrific day, the terrorist attacks at our country. And so at 10 a.m. we'll be at the Calverton Memorial on Edwards Avenue. Town Hall will be delayed that day. We'll be opening at 1130 so that we can provide for our employees. I know some of them still have to do it, but we want to provide an opportunity for as many as can to express their remembrance of that day, a day that we all pause and remember. And then also this coming Monday, town hall will be closed for Labor Day on Monday, September 7th. So unless somebody has another announcement that they'd like to make, we'll go on to our correspondence with Mr. Wooten and we'll allow T.J. to go. Thank you, T.J. Thank you.
Well, Warren, we would turn around and give it to his dad. Yeah, there you go. So thank you, T.J. Another applause for TJ for coming in today.
You get your name plate. That's right. Pretty cool, right? You're welcome. Have a good day, first day of school. So we'll do, yeah, have a first day of school on Thursday. We'll do our correspondence with our town clerk and reports of mr. Wooten. Okay under reports There are no reports for this this meeting at the first meeting in September. Yes, sir September 1 we did receive a lot of correspondence I'm not gonna read all the names because that would take up the next hour but a lot of them the last two pages of the agenda and they can be seen on the on the website on the Correspondence we've got a lot of letters reference to Roanoke zoning the additional Possible added uses. We received some about off cottages and some about summer wind, some about the puppy mills. There's a whole hodgepodge of letters all about local issues, and they can be read verbatim at the end of the agenda on the website if you'd like to read them, and they are published in the agenda as well. And that concludes our correspondence and our reports. Thank you, sir. We'll go on to our public hearing. Our first public hearing was scheduled for 2 p.m. It is 2.30. It's for the increase and improvements of facilities of the Riverhead Ambulance District. And Councillor Howard is going to begin us there. All right. Thank you, Mr. Supervisor. This is a public hearing related to the improvement of facilities of the Riverhead Ambulance District, which involves the construction of a new ambulance building at the same location it's currently located at. 1111 Osborne Avenue, Riverhead, New York, 11901. Suffolk County Tax Map Number 600-108-2-5. The existing building and any ancillary or related work has a demolition of the existing building. Construction of the new building and ancillary work has an estimated maximum cost of $14.1 million. dollars the new ambulance building will be owned and retained by the district and the plan of financing includes the expenditure of approximately six million dollars provided by riverhead volunteer ambulance corps which will lease the new structure and they acquired that funding from private funding donations secured by the lessee and the expenditure of other available funds the remainder of the cost will not exceed 8.1 million dollars which will be financed by the issuance of bonds from the town with provisions which are set forth in the lease agreement that provides for repayment from rvac sufficient to pay the debt on the debt service on the bonds and with that we would invite any public comment on the proposal so council if i can just give in a little more additional information towards where we're at. So this bond that's put together is very conservative, and so there are contingent funds that are placed in this initial amount for the full dollar amount, just in case there's any unforeseen circumstances. You know, they're excavating and there's a giant rock or something in its place or whatever. And it says here that AARBAC has contributed $6 million to give an idea. A little over a year ago, I created a donation committee with ARVAC, and we went out and we seeked private donation and private funding. We're just shy of about $6.5 million now that we've raised through private funding. So that's going to come off the initial bond that's listed as 14.1. In addition, when I came into office five and a half years ago, we had sat down with ARVAC and we instituted ambulance billing. The idea is that every time they transport a patient to the hospital, don't quote the dollar amount, but let's say it's about $1,300 in that realm, based on the care that is given, they can bill that patient's insurance company. And so they are collecting revenues. With the collection of revenues through ambulance billing, that's what's going to pay for the remainder of this bond. So I want people to know how proud RVAC is, how proud I am that we have set this up. We expect this building to be built, and it says 14.1 million with contingent funds, but we expect it to be built using no taxpayer money. So RVAC, with their ambulance billing, will be able to pay off the bond through services that they render. And I'm so grateful to the number of people that have donated private funding to get us to that $6.5 million mark. We have to go through this process because it does, the bond is protected by the town of Riverhead. but i just want people to have a full grasp of what we're looking at here and how amazing this project really is and it really shows that when you put these volunteers together what we can do and it's not just the life-saving care that they give on on everyday basis it's going to all the other community events putting other donations and the rounding support of the community that have come forward to donate towards this project this is a long overdue project that probably should have been built 20 years ago but each year with the financial crisis just sitting before them and not wanting to put this towards taxpayers, we found a way. And so I'm just very proud of that. I just want people to know, as we read the spot, how actual the outlook is. It's really phenomenal. Thank you. That's really good stuff. Really good stuff. Eric? I didn't have anything else to add. So if anyone has a comment on that, I'll give you an opportunity to speak. Good afternoon. Mike Foley, Reeves Park. Ken, I didn't expect to talk about this. good job on the fundraising. In February, my wife collapsed at home and the ambulance guys were there in about three minutes, did a great job getting them to Peconic. About a month ago, I got a bill from somebody, I guess it was the Ambulance Corps, and they showed for the ride from Reeves Park to Peconic, they charged about $1,400. And out of the $1,400 between my Medicare and my secondary insurance, they covered $1,200. So they sent me a bill for $191. So I called the person up and just said, can you just explain the bill? And they explained the bill. So now that we went from not charging anyone to having a charge come in after Medicare and insurance covers it, is there any consideration of the Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps waiving the copay after it has been deducted from Medicare and from secondary insurance. I won't ask for a refund if it comes around, though. That's the only thing I saw, and it's because of you that I'm up here. I can sit down with you. We can go over all the billing. I don't know if it pertains to this public hearing, but essentially any patient that does not have the ability to pay, there's not going to be any type of collections process for them. I have the ability to pay. the amount of Medicare and secondary insurance granted. We're talking about a $1,400 bill for a 10-minute ride. I'm not saying it's excessive. The paramedics are phenomenal. There's a lot of overhead. I understand that. But if the Medicare and secondary insurance comes on a $1,400 bill, if there was a $191 bill, if there was something that could be explored by the Riverhead Ambulance Company for Riverhead residents, that if they go through this insurance policy and there's a a piece left over that they would consider waiving it. Like I said, I don't want a refund. Can't speak for our back, but yes. We'll talk about it. Thank you. Yes. Any comments? Of course you can. Absolutely. Mike, I hope your wife is better, Mike. Yes, thanks. Because of the health issues I have, thank God they come and they do a good job at my house. And when I get these bills, I pay approximately $500 a year a month for my insurance. And what I actually do is I ignore it. I can't pay it. And they haven't bothered me. Thank you, Warren, for that PSA.
Does anybody remember while that was on? Right. See if anybody else has any comments online on our room about the public hearing. Okay, a little bit different than normal, but to keep this moving along for ARVAC, as Councilman Rothwell said, this is long overdue and the can has gotten bigger. We want to make sure that we're moving this along. So we will be closing this hearing today and not leaving it open since we've not gotten any feedback that seems to be worthy. I don't know if one of our council people has a reason to. I want to make sure that I asked that. Okay. So we'll be closing that and then we'll be voting on it, a resolution that will incorporate this later on in our meeting today. So officially this hearing is closed. Our next public hearing was actually scheduled also for 2 p.m. is to extend our sewer connection at 840 Old Country Road, and I believe Tim Allen is coming up to explain that for us, our superintendent of sewers. Good afternoon. This public hearing is for the location of 840 Old Country Road is requesting the proposed retail cannabis dispensary development at the site be served by the sewer district. The proposed development is not located in the existing sewer district. IN THE EXISTING SEWER DISTRICT BOUNDARIES. THE RIVERHEAD SEWER DISTRICT AND A MAP AND PLAN HAVE BEEN DONE BY H2M ON APRIL 8, 2025. THE NECESSARY MEASURES AND COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH THE CONNECTION REQUIRED TO THE LATERAL MANES AND THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT PROJECT WILL INCLUDE THE CONSTRUCTION OF A 6060 SQUARE FOOT METAL BUILDING AND AN EXISTING 8,368 SQUARE FOOT MASONRY BUILDING. THE RESULT OF A TOTAL OF 4,428 SQUARE FEET TOTAL BUILDING. THE ESTIMATED WATER FLOW FOR THESE TWO BUILDINGS IS 536 GALLONS PER DAY. THE CONNECTION AND COMFORT OF THE RIVERHEAD SEWAGISTRIC STANDARDS AND INSTALLED BY LICENSED BONDED DRAIN LAYERS AND WILL BE ASSOCIATED COSTS WITHIN THE LATERAL SHALL BE BORN ON the land owner and will be required to pay $319,910. That's it. Thank you, Mr. Allen. So if anyone has a comment on this specific public hearing, I'll open that up to you. Also online, if anyone has a comment specifically on this public hearing, and we'll wait a second to make sure that we give everybody an opportunity to think through, to look at that. And if they have a comment, to make your way to the podium and say your name and your Hamlet and then where you are. So on this wonderful first day of September, see our AV and tech guys waving us off. I don't see anybody rushing to the podium. So with that said, hopefully you have an opportunity to read that. We'll leave this open for 10 days, so until September 11th for written comment. We'll be closing that public hearing as well today and moving to our next and final public hearing, which is our Monroe balancing test, which was once again scheduled for 205. For the Suffolk County Monroe balancing test and the councillor Howard is going to start us off and then I believe we also have senior planner Matt charters in the room. All right. Thank you. Mr. Supervisor. I will begin by reading the notice of public hearing Please take notice that a public hearing will be held before the town board of the town of Riverhead at 4 West 2nd Street Riverhead, New York on the first day of September 2026 at 2 o 5 p.m for the purpose of conducting the Monroe balancing test pursuant to the New York State Court of Appeals decision in matter of County of Monroe at 72 NY 2nd, 338 of 1998 to determine whether and to what extent Suffolk County water authorities proposed North Fork transmission line, in this instance a proposed alternative to the original, comprising a water main extension from flanders to south hold new york may be exempt from zoning and land use regulations of the town of riverhead relating to the sub-county water authority determinant determination of the town of riverhead and just as a matter of introduction the monroe test rises from a new york court of appeals case that set forth the method of determining whether actions of governmental units are exempt from local zoning regulations the test is designed to balance the various interests involved and determined based on balancing of consideration of nine factors of which no particular factor is intended to have greater weight than any other there is no sort of penultimate factor the nine factors are the nature and scope including size importance and community reach of the project seeking immunity. Legislative authority, which relates to the legal power or the legislative grant of authority given to the encroaching governmental entity, in this case, Suffolk County Water Authority. The land use type, so the specific kind of function or public activity involved. In this case, it's a proposed water main. The effect of regulation, how much local zoning laws would hurt or hinder the ability of the project to go forward alternative locations whether other less restrictive zoning sites or areas of the municipality are available for the facility local impact and this considers any negative effects the project might have on legitimate local interests alternative methods whether the alternative engineering design or operational methods could provide the same public improvement with less with less impact public interest extent the overall community benefit and public service value which the project delivers and inter governmental participation which is how much or the degree to which the uh the two governmental entities have communicated and worked together to address the or to create the proposed project and whether the host community has had a fair chance to be heard all right good afternoon everyone just by way of introductions for myself I'm gonna start and give you guys a description of obviously additionally why we're here where the root of the proposed pipeline and then the subject approvals that this would be like a subject to in the town should they be required to comply with our zoning and land use restrictions I'll then turn it over to Jeff Seaman who's a certified environmental professional who the town is retained to analyze this project we also have mr mancini the water district superintendent who can answer any technical questions on this so stated by mr howard today's hearing is for the express purpose of conducting the monroe balancing test to determine whether and to what extent the suffolk county water authorities proposed north fork transmission line which involves the construction of a water main beginning in flanders which is within the town of southampton through the town of riverhead to a connection point in the town of south hold may be exempt from the zoning and land use regulations of the town of riverhead it is important to note that the project being considered today is for what the water authority has identified as their preferred alternative route which the town was made aware of when the water authority released their deis for the project in july of 2026 the route is as follows so the initial connection point is located approximately at the intersection of new york 24 that's flanders road and county route 105 otherwise known as cross river drive within the town of SOUTH HAMPTON THAT'S ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE ROAD THE TRANSMISSION LINE TRAVELS NORTHWARD ALONG COUNTY ROAD 105 AND INVOLVES DIRECTIONAL DRILLING UNDER THE MOUTH OF THE BACONIC RIVER AND BACONIC BAY THE LINE EMERGES ON THE RIVERHEAD SIDE OF THE BAY IN THE VACINITY OF INDIAN ISLAND GOLF COURSE AND INDIAN ISLAND COUNTY PARK AND CONTINUES NORTHWARD AND CROSSES BOTH SAWMILL CREEK AND TERRY'S CREEK WHICH BOTH FEED INTO BACONIC BAY WHICH IS ONE OF 28 FEDERALLY FEDERALLY RECOGNIZED estuaries of national significance designated by the environmental protection agency i believe in 1992. as it continues northward to the county road 105 main road intersection the transmission line is proposed to enter the property located at 167 main road more particularly identified as suffolk county tax map number 600-85-2-112 which is a flag lot controlled by the ward authority on which the proposed booster station is to be located upon traveling northward from the booster station within the flag portion of 167 main road the transmission line travels under new york 25 to the north side of the road or turns to the east and continues eastward along what appears to be the northern side of the road and generally follows a similar path and is in close proximity to existing riverhead water district maine as well as the services that come off of it as well as other utilities including national grid gas main to its ultimate interconnection point in the town south portion of the hamlet of laurel approximately at franklinville road it should be noted that the new york 25 main road route does pass through the hamlet centers of aquabog which includes aquabog elementary school james fort and laurel all of which are active commercial nodes containing historic structures which could be particularly vulnerable if proper construction PLANNING IS NOT UNDERTAKEN ADDITIONALLY ALONG THE NEW YORK 25 MAIN ROAD ROUTE THE PIPELINE IS TO BE LOCATED IN PROXIMITY TO SEVERAL OTHER TOWN RIVERHEAD REGULATED FRESHWATER WETLANDS INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO MEETING HOUSE CREEK WHICH HAS RECENTLY UNDERGONE A FEDERAL AND STATE FUNDED RESTORATION PROJECT TO MANAGE STORMWATER FROM CHURCH LANE NEW YORK 25 TO REMOVE FRAGMITES AND IT'S CREATING AND UTILIZING BIOS OILS WHICH WILL GREATLY IMPROVE THE THE HEALTH OF THAT CREEK uh in consider next and in consideration the issue before the board if required to fully comply with the zoning and land use regulations of the town of riverhead this project would be subject to the following a special permit pursuant to town code chapter 301 225b for the booster station which is a reviewed and approved by the town board as well as an accompanying site plan approval pursuant to 301 304b which would be reviewed and approved by the planning board in regard to site plan the goal of review as we're citing the purpose intent of the chapter is to do the following assured that the design and layout of particular land uses on a lot whether such uses are permitted specially permitted or accessory use will ensure the public health safety and welfare will be compatible with certain natural and human-made features on and off the lot and will in all cases comply with the letter and spirit provisions of the code moving on to the special permit this can be understood understood and described as site plan plus in that there are additional considerations within the town code and additional controls and safeguards that may be required for these particular uses that will ensure that one the use will not prevent or substantially impair either the reasonable and orderly use or the reasonable and orderly developments of other properties of the neighborhood the hazards or disadvantages to the neighborhood from the location of such use at the property are outweighed by the advantage to be gained either by the neighborhood or the town the health safety welfare comfort convenience and order the town will not be adversely impacted by the authorized use such use will be in harmony with and promote the general purposes and intent of the chapter it should be noted that generally for an application such as these for a special permit site plan they would both require a public hearing one before the town board for the special permit one before the planning board for site plan uh this phase is typically also what we we would assess impacts referred out to involved agencies and where you know things such as traffic impacts would be reviewed and considered and mitigated the project would also require building permits for the town building department for the booster station wetland permits pursuant to chapter 295 from the conservation advisory council for any work within 100 feet of town regulated wetlands which includes but not limited to baconic bay sawmill creek terry's creek meeting house creek as well as any other town regulated wetland that they're within 150 feet of highway permits pursuant to town code chapter 237 4 for where the pipeline would cross riverside drive and hubbard avenue as well as any easement they would need to do that important export permits pursuant to town code chapter 229 review by the landmarks and historic district board for any construction plans proximate to historic structures whether listed or eligible to be listed by shippo or the national register of historic places and architectural review board for the booster station I know that's a broad overview, but I'm going to turn it over to Jeff so we can get a little bit more in depth on the issue unless the Board has any questions. Not at this time. Just excited to hear what Jeff has to say. And I believe Frank Mancini as well is going to answer questions. Good afternoon, Mr. Supervisor and Town Board members. Thank you for this opportunity to comment on the Monroe Balancing Test for the Suffolk County Water Authority's North Fork Water Main Extension. My name is Jeff Seaman. I'm the environmental consultant representing the CEQA review for this project on behalf of the town board i want to apologize in advance for the length of my presentation but please be mindful that it may be important not only for the monroe hearing today for your record but there is still a record that is open on the litigation brought against the town by the water authority on the prior Monroe findings and the secret record will remain open until September the 25th for comments so I'm trying to speak to a three-pronged record as as well as my comments for today so why is the environmental consultant involved in a Monroe hearing well that's largely because the lead agency which is Suffolk County Water Authority included in its final scope that Monroe was a requirement of the study and the assessment to be addressed in the EIS so Monroe is now included in the draft EIS and it can't be separated from the secret process so typically Monroe is conducted before secret begins so an involved agency and the required approvals are identified in advance of beginning the secret process however the lead agency the Water Authority elected to combine these two and now they can't be separated under seeker if an agency's status is in question as whether it's involved or not it is to be treated as an involved agency regardless until it can be proven it's not involved also an an intruder that might be subject to local municipal zoning and land use requirements should consider that it is subject to those requirements rather than to decide that it is not at least until the monroe issues have been finally either litigated or resolved collectively so approximately a year ago on august 19th the town board held a monroe hearing at which it received many comments from the public as well as from mr brody smith of bond shanak and king they are the attorneys that were representing the water authority at that time i'd like to just provide just a brief history of some of that early information and what's transpired since august 19 because it might be helpful to retrace some of that chronology. Last year, Mr. Smith's testimony included statements that his client, the Water Authority, has a commitment to transparency and will entertain public comments on the project, citing the secret draft scoping sessions that were held in West Hampton, Southolt, and Riverhead, well as the future deis which would provide added opportunities for public comments well public scoping for an eis of this magnitude and public participation in the eis are mandatory under secret there was no special communication provided to the public or to this BOARD OR TO THE TOWN REPRESENTATIVES BEYOND JUST PARTICIPATION IN THE NORMAL SECRET PROCESS. BUT WHEN THE COUNTY, WHEN SEFFELT COUNTY WATER AUTHORITY ADOPTED THE EIS, IT DID SO ON NOVEMBER THE 20TH, SOME 40 DAYS AFTER THE RIVERHEAD BOARD HAD UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED RESOLUTION 2025 860 which determined that the water authority was not immune from local zoning codes and land use regulations in the suffolk county water authority's final scope it was required that the eis conduct and assess the monroe's application for the project but then the very next resolution after passing the final scope the water authority adopted a monroe test and determined itself immune so as lead agency it adopts the final scope and immediately thereafter by resolution determines that it is immune six months before the dis was even released So that's to me somewhat unusual because the EIS was instructed to actually assess Monroe as part of the document's final scope. So we didn't learn until July of 26 that the proposed route that Matt had described, which ran up through Northville Turnpike and then onto Sound Avenue to a proposed booster station at Pier Avenue. We did not learn until July 24th, 2026 that the route is now being changed or is proposed to be changed through the EIS review process by selection of what is called the proposed alternative and that's what will take it from 105 down Main Road and continuing east. While some have stated that the reason for that change in the route has been because of the comments received about the Sound Avenue route, the fact is that hydrologically and hydraulically the Sound Avenue route was a failure from the onset. Having only one pump station to move the water from Southampton up to Sound Avenue required enough pressure to overcome an elevation change of some 70 feet. Essentially, it pumped the water uphill and then east onto South Hold and potentially at some future point to Orient. So when it was determined by the water authority's consultants and their engineers that that was not possible the only proposal that might make it work would be the addition of a second pump station however that second pump station is not identified in the EIS or on any of the engineering plants and without that essentially what they had proposed was equivalent to a no build because it did not meet the goals of the project so when i had said that the water authority was flying a plane while they were building it they were also designing it with only one wing so it was never going to fly in the first place now under secret there are two options to address that one is the avenue they have pursued which is to advocate for an alternative that was studied and the other would have been to provide a supplemental eis which would have reopened the sequer record for scoping at least to address that second pump station So under Monroe, one of the criteria that has been mentioned is the kind of function or land use that's involved. And this change in route to Main Road is significant because most people originally believed that the water main was destined to follow Sound Avenue. And those interested parties along Main Road may not have been fully engaged during the initial scoping sessions or the prior Monroe hearings. Why would you participate when you understand the project might be miles away from where your business or your home is located? AND THE POPULATION DENSITY IMPACTED ALONG MAINE ROAD IS GREATER THAN IT IS ALONG SOUND AVENUE AND IT INCLUDES AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, MANY COMMERCIAL BUSINESS ENTERPRISES, SIGNIFICANT HISTORIC STRUCTURES AND A VARIETY OF UNDERGROUND UTILITY INFRASTRUCTURE INCLUDING RIVERHEAD water districts 12 inch main its hydrants and other utilities that are potentially in conflict with the location of of the main the proposed main route includes tidal fresh and freshwater wetlands containing tributaries critical to protecting the volcanic bay a nationally protected estuary these include terry's creek sawmill creek and meeting house creek and as matt had mentioned meeting house creek's water quality is undergoing a significant improvement so that the water discharge to the estuary is cleaner than it was but suffolk county water authority has no enforcement authority in in riverhead therefore the mitigation that they're proposing in the EIS is simply that it's a proposal the water authority can't enforce compliance the way local municipal boards and code officers can for example if their water main install installation contractor places excavated debris 110 feet from freshwater wetland boundary the debris would be outside the dec's jurisdiction which is 100 feet however the placement of that same debris is within the 150 foot jurisdictional limits of riverhead's freshwater wetlands and the water authority has no ability or perhaps a vested interest in preventing this type of activity during construction even though the action is not legal under town wetland law so let's talk for a minute about the intergovernmental participation and opportunity to be heard one of the key factors in monroe at the towns monroe hearing a year ago again mr smith had quote promised the water authority or at least committed that they would be fully transparent and would coordinate participation with Riverhead to resolve the proposed project's impacts to the town's infrastructure, residents, and its natural resources. But throughout the project's planning, the Water Authority has refused any engagement with the town's officials and its staff to participate in the project development, The exception being only the attendance at public hearings required by CEQA or Monroe, and again, with a comment often from the Board of Authority that we're not here for any back and forth, and there will be no questions answered. Riverhead's governing body was not informed of this preferred alternative main road decision until after the EIS was actually published, and most learned about it through the local press. The lead agency, CIS, stated that the Sound Avenue and Main Road routes today are still viable. The lead agency has not conducted a valid environmental review on the proposed action, that's the original Sound Avenue route, or confirmed that a selected route has been chosen. They're simply improvising based on the engineering findings that they learned throughout the development of their EIS. So I'd like to ask if there may be representatives today from the Water Authority to please provide a list of meetings, dates, Zoom calls, letters, or any form of communications by the Water Authority representatives to fulfill their promise of transparency and cooperative efforts to answer Riverhead's concerns. Professionally I've been tasked to oversee and review just about every aspect of this project and I've yet to have participated in or have been made aware of any such cooperative planning efforts with the Water authority in contrast I've dedicated an enormous amount of my professional time and research to assist Riverhead officials planners attorneys outside counsel and the public all in the absence of the Water Authority I've now participated in three of the Water Authority scoping sessions three of their Monroe hearings that were held by their staff one of the Monroe hearings hearings here in Riverhead and three of the DEIS hearings that have been recently held this past month in August. So that's 11 hearings in total and that does not include our inter-correspondence among our team members, phone calls, meetings with the planning department, the legal department, the Water District, and the elected officials who are reviewing what I consider a woefully inadequate list of information provided by the Water Authority. How many of these interactions has the Water Authority Board of Directors as the lead agency attended? Zero. None. And while representatives of the Water Authority have been at these hearings, they have offered no independent coordination with Riverhead's professionals to meaningfully participate in the project's planning, engineering, and construction coordination. As per the EIS and its requirement to analyze Monroe, the EIS simply states that Suffolk County Water Authority is, quote, undisputably immune, close quote, which is clearly a false statement because the dispute is still underway at New York State Supreme Court. A professional preparing the EIS who must analyze a Monroe balancing test would have outlined all of the host municipalities' applicable zoning and land use codes needed for approvals. and then identified how the project complied or did not conform with those requirements. Where there were conflicts, it would be necessary to mitigate these by either amending the project plans or request relief in the form of a variance or some limited immunity. The DEIS did not such an analysis, and it only states repeatedly that the Water Authority is undisputably immune, and it ignored a reasonable analysis. That's not adequate under a secret assessment. If you accepted the Water Authority's universal self-imposed immunity, and at some point they decided to abandon the Pier Avenue site for a pump station, since without a second pump station the project would fail then the Water Authority could propose use of that site for virtually anything it could become a future maintenance facility perhaps a 20-story Water Authority office building or a junkyard for abandoned vehicles old pipes valves and hydrants simply because they feel they are immune from oversight. As proven over the last year, the Water Authority has now provided the requested information and cooperation needed for this large-scale project. It is the Water Authority's largest construction project in its 75-year history, where significant impacts are placed upon the Riverhead community. The Water Authority has no direct experience in managing project of this magnitude making quote intergovernmental participation in the project development and an opportunity to be heard perhaps the most significant of the Monroe factors you should consider let's look at the effect of land use and regulation on the project and alternative locations in less restrictive zoning areas two additional components of Monroe the concept of the The Board of Authority granting itself project immunity removes the policing authority of Riverhead. This eliminates the host community from enforcing its regulations and zoning ordinances enacted to protect the public's health, safety, welfare, and to protect its environmental natural resources. The town board's special use permit is required for the proposed booster pumping station or stations regardless of the zoning district that they are placed in additionally this preferred alternative route passes through several riverhead zoning use districts including the apz ra40 ra80 rlc hc and vc these zoning use districts are designed to preserve and protect riverhead's rural community character especially within the hamlets of james port and aquabock construction and traffic impacts upon this rural character of the community and potential loss or damage to street trees along the preferred alternative route will be extremely disruptive to these hamlets for an extended period of time estimated to be 12 to 18 months the dis tends to underestimate this impact and although general mitigating measures are proposed the eis actually lacks sufficient detail there has been no traffic impact study prepared by the water authority and no coordination with riverhead's emergency response professionals to select detours and alternative routes necessary to protect the public's health and safety the james fort fire department located on manor road requires more information to plan its emergency response action plan there are historic structures located along main the main road historic district which runs from aquabog to laurel this includes the fanning harold goodale farm an active farm with livestock located right on main road the young house many farm houses along the route that are 100 years old and the james port meeting house the oldest standing structure on long island dating back to 1731 the town's landmarks preservation committee requires additionally detailed information to assess the project impacts and proposed mitigation the water authority was instructed by new york state parks recreation and historic preservation shipo to develop and implement a construction protection plan when working within 90 feet of all listed and eligible historic structures the eis provides only a generic construction protection statement and it lacks accuracy, accountability, and details of acceptable protective measures. The Aquebog Elementary School, located on the corner of Edgar Avenue and Main Road, is expected to be adversely impacted during the school year. The Water Authority has provided no coordination or mitigation plans to avoid school-related concerns. For example, if one were to travel from Route 105 east to Edgard Avenue, it's a distance of approximately 4,500 feet to reach the school. With the pipeline's minimum installation rate of 300 feet per day, one could be delayed in traffic for 15 consecutive days during the daily commute to that school. And that commute could be further impacted during peak traffic hours or additional delays from school buses that might travel that same route. At Riverhead's Monroe hearing last year, I said, quote, the information prepared to date does not provide sufficient detail for Riverhead to accurately assess the potential impacts because no engineering drawings were submitted with the environmental assessment form and its narrative. Without this information, the physical location of the proposed water main cannot be determined. It is my strong recommendation the Water Authority be required to meet the requirements of the Town Code Article 56 Site Plan Review, and therefore determined not to be immune from these requirements. Well, that statement I made a year ago rings true today. The engineering drawings submitted with the EIS are at a scale of one inch equals 50 feet. And it shows the proposed water main as simply a dashed line on a map. There is no topographical information. There's no curb, no sidewalk, no edge of pavement, no defined roadway shoulder areas, no existing elevations, no utilities horizontal and vertical locations with the ownerships identified, with the exception of the Riverhead Water District's existing 12-inch water main and hydrants. There are no significant trees, grass areas, no tidal or freshwater wetland boundaries depicted either. There's no construction staging areas or limits of construction shown, no maintenance and protection of traffic plans, a requirement of state DOT, no detour routes, no golden nematode decontamination zones or a method of how they're cleaning the equipment, which would need to have an impervious structure to capture any of the decontaminated rinse waters, along with how and where that waste would be managed. The Water Authority has simply provided a stick figure as its engineering drawing for the proposed 24-inch water main. This is insufficient information to accurately assess the existing conditions, potential impacts and necessary mitigating measures for the compliance with CEQA and consideration by this Board. Having no traffic impact study performed, there's no vehicle counts or any way to establish how many vehicles are using Sound Avenue, Main Road, and Peconic Bay Boulevard, all three potential routes for this project. Without existing traffic volumes to determine traffic seasonal peak, weekday and weekend traffic peaks, and general traffic conditions, how could a lead agency and its environmental consultants justify and validate its transportation assessments which are based only on speculation and anecdotal information. Traffic is key because of the potential construction related impacts during the weekdays, weekends, and seasonal peak traffic conditions. Furthermore, the project is expected to take 12 to 18 months to complete. But it's unclear whether the Water Authority will construct the project over 12 to 18 consecutive months inclusive of the spring, summer, and fall, or if the work would be limited to the quote off-season months of December through March, but span a period of three years. Full pavement restoration, which is required of the project, using asphalt cannot be performed when ambient air temperatures are below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, yet the average temperature in Riverhead during the months of December through March is 40 degrees Fahrenheit, with average lows during those months of about 20 degrees. Snowfall, on average, is 26 inches during those same winter months. The Water Authority has not been transparent about the project's schedule for completion. Under site plan review, the Town will have the information needed to have input on the Maine's precise location, determine how adjacent properties may be impacted, locate areas where existing and future utilities are positioned, and where both temporary and long-term construction impacts can be minimized, especially to the Riverhead Water District's water main located on the north side of Maine Road. Site plan review brings other town approvals into the fold as well, including wetland permits under Chapter 295, excavation and grading permit under Chapter 229, building and special permits for the booster pump station, and highway permits under Chapter 237-4 for any open trench construction at Riverside Drive, as well as the directional drilling at Hubbard Avenue and any disturbance experienced along the sidewalks on Main Road. So there are currently two proposed, quote, viable locations of the Water Main booster pumping stations, with booster pumping stations, and each pump station location cannot conform to local zoning permitted uses and requires a special permit no matter where these are located in any zoning district. And each of these pump stations would require the town's architectural review board for their protection of community character and local property values. I further recommend the site plan review encompass the entire project within the town's municipal boundaries from the centerline of Peconic River to the terminus at the South Old Town boundary. Currently, we can't determine the precise location of the water main or the 10-foot-wide open trench construction staging areas that were proposed by the applicant and the potential impacts of that on the town's tidal and freshwater wetlands. Our position has been that Riverhead Town Boards must make many discretionary decisions and maintain their jurisdiction and authority over the project and be recognized under SECUR as an involved agency. and reasons supporting that include the letter from the DEC commissioner in deciding lead agency status who wrote, quote, this designation does not change or diminish the responsibilities or authority of Riverhead or other involved agencies with jurisdiction over the project. Monroe and CEQA are normally clearly independent procedures and conducting Monroe in the DEIS has I think severely complicated this project. And although the Water Authority in the past has provided some samples appropriate under Monroe to support their position, those examples were CEQA type 2 requiring no detailed environmental WORKS, NO EISs, THEY WERE GIVEN A NEGATIVE DECK, AND THOSE MUNICIPALITIES IN WHICH THOSE EXAMPLES WERE GIVEN WERE ALSO SERVED BY THE WATER PURVEYOR, AND THAT LOCATION THAT THESE IMPROVEMENTS WERE PROPOSED WERE TRADITIONALLY USED FOR THE WATER PURVEYOR'S INFRASTRUCTURE. AND OF COURSE THERE IS NOW AND and there continues to be a burden on the town, both financially and with staff time, to review this project through its completion. I won't restate the number of approvals that Matt has already covered in his presentation, but I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you. Jeff, that was a very disappointing report. I feel like Riverhead Town has been handcuffed, thrown in jail, and didn't commit a crime. And the only crime is by the water authority. I do have a couple of questions In Alternative routes, right Did they consider the railroad tracks and they'd have to deal with the MTA? No, that was not a consideration. Okay, the next one would be did they consider Coming across the bay right into South all that I understand the depths of the bay but they could have come in and and gone along and then you know connected into South Oak did they consider that no they did not but they have proposed directional drilling beneath the iconic River bottom and originally they said they would go a depth of some 30 feet beneath the bottom and at one of the hearing discussions, they said it could be as deep as 50 feet. So I do not believe the technology would eliminate a direct crossing through the Pagonic Bay from Southampton directly to, say, Matatuck. So the other thing I'm really concerned about, and I said at that meeting at the library, I don't see these roads. If they were to go down Main road, I think it's going to be a matter of years before it's patched up. And the kind of traffic it's going to cause, I just look at the gas company right here on Elton Avenue and the little turnoffs in there. It's a disaster and they've done nothing. I mean, this is a disaster. And What concerns me is that we have no say except for the fact that when you said the DEC commissioner has said that the town does have some authority on this. How do we put teeth into that? The town board, I should say. I believe and I think the board's counsel would be best equipped to advise you on that. but I believe that's what the Monroe hearing is about. In prior statements from the Water Authority, their position is if they needed to comply with any requirements of Riverhead, that somehow that would transfer over to all 42 other municipalities in Suffolk County that could require them to comply with their local land use and zoning requirements. However, that is what Monroe is for. Any municipality can hold this type of hearing and entertain the nine points under Monroe and decide whether or not it wants to, as a host community, grant immunity to the intruder, regardless of what entity that might be. And the intruder, I imagine, has the opportunity to contest that. They call that the first instance and the second instance to challenge that decision. And then the courts have to come up with some decision on that matter. We're not quite there yet. But yes, traffic is really critical. And the time frame to construct this is critical because they would be required on a state road to completely restore the straight state road to its original conditions and do curb to curve replacement so I don't see how that takes place with at least one rate one lane being closed temporarily to you know bring the pavement at least to the midway point of the road and then the next night or day do the other portion. So there's significant traffic impacts and lacking a traffic impact study for this was to me just uncanny to see that in an EIS. And we're making the assumption that everything under the road is in parallel and on the same side of wherever they're digging up where the road up. This has been a problem, you know, the old school of site plan engineering is everything begins with a survey. You need to establish the meets and bounds of the area that you're working in, and you need to do a topographic survey and identify everything that's within that parcel or landmass. Today, with drones and sophisticated software, you could fly that entire area and then send a field crew out to just do field reconnaissance to verify that and put that whole package together relatively quickly. None of that work has been done, and I don't see why they have advanced this thus far, especially when they advanced the original route up to Sound Avenue and realized very late in May and June was the date of the reports that found that it was hydraulically impossible to achieve. So there you have it. I think that's in part why our team has been somewhat frustrated and have really been asking for, if not cooperation, then the submittals on what would normally be a site plan action, as Councilwoman Waskiwell recognizes, is this is not a burdensome request. One would think you would have to do all of this engineering just to make the plan work in the first place. So, there's nothing draconian about the requirements that Matt read that need to be met. We're just trying to make sure that the mitigation, first of all, works, that it's feasible, and that it is enforceable through our code enforcement professionals who, if someone has done something that's not in compliant with the code and with the mitigation, which is normally how we do these things, we approve based on the following conditions. Those conditions are enforceable. Well, there's nothing to approve and there's nothing enforceable, really, even for the Water Authority, because I don't think they have until recently even considered the main road route until the other route failed. I call it three-card Monty. You've got Sound Avenue as one card, Peconic Bay Boulevard as a second, and Main Road as the third, and they just keep doing that until they come up with a solution that works for them. But that solution may not work for the community because you're merely shifting the impacts from one major east-west thoroughfare to the other. And whether or not it may have a larger right-of-way or a little bigger shoulders doesn't satisfy all those impacts. In fact, there are some here, like the freshwater wetlands, that did not exist on the Sound Avenue route but do exist on Main Road. Jeff, I'm glad that you brought up Peconic Bay Boulevard because Peconic Bay Boulevard, this will have a drastic impact on that road. They're a secondary road. They were not built to withstand the wear and tear that will be happening on the roads, especially forcing commercial vehicles to be going down that route of Peconic Bay Boulevard. I'm also concerned about, you brought up Goodale Farms. We have so many farms, so many of these businesses that rely on the opportunity of a timeline of when they're able to be able to be the busiest that they can. And they're going to essentially be shut off at certain times from having people be able to come to their businesses and help them survive through the winter, depending on what that timeline looks like. And also, Main Road is not like, you know, a main road up west. This is out east. You have homes right on the roadway. If they're going to be doing this work overnight, how is that going to interfere with the quality of life for the people that are living in those residential homes? So that's a very astute comment. FIRST, LET ME ADDRESS THE PECONIC BAY BOULEVARD PAVEMENT DEPTH ISSUE. UNDER NEW YORK STATE DOT DESIGN REQUIREMENTS FOR A STATE ROAD, THE MAXIMUM GROSS WEIGHT FOR A is 80,000 pounds. Under our roads, I've seen some maximum limits of 20 tons, you know, half that. And I'm sure, and I think Mike Zaleski would be best to ask, I'm sure Peconic Bay Boulevard being in sort of that high groundwater area, poor drainage, maybe mucky soils beneath a lot of peat, et cetera. is probably at the very low end of the weight limit. So when you detour anyone off of Main Road to any of our side streets that intersect with it, one would need to consider the weight of those vehicles, which is why they're taking Main Road to begin with. The quality of life issue is really the critical thing here. I certainly recognize that there's a problem in South Holt, and they're in need of water because their demand exceeds the supply. It's a simple analysis of the issue they're dealing with, and the fact that maybe the aquifer in that region is incapable of providing that level of demand. But when you run that pipe through Riverhead and along Main Road, that is really sort of a country, rural, downtown. It's not like Route 58, right? And it's got a lot of sensitive historic areas and houses that were traditionally built for rural farm community which later the road was improved and encroached upon those those those home sites not the other way around you know it kind of evolved from a wagon path to what it is today and so the maintenance of traffic and protection plan which is a formal plan required by the Department of transportation has not been prepared and submitted with the EIS. That would specify exactly where a lane closure would take place. As we know, you go along Sunrise Highway and they're doing construction or mowing, where they pinch the road down to a single lane from two happens maybe a mile and a half before where the guy's actually doing construction work or mowing. So that all gets laid out on a formal plan, and you would need that plan in order to go over that with the emergency response professionals here in the town to make sure that it's acceptable and that the routes would work for them, or they would at least be aware of what the potential future routes would be for their access in an emergency response. You know, the hospital is west of all of this activity. And I don't think someone who might have an emergency in Laurel would want to have to go all the way up to Sound Avenue and then come all the way back down south to get to Peconic Bay Medical Center by, you know, coming through Roanoke Avenue. As we all know, those moments are often critical in an emergency. And even the situation with the school that I identified, I was looking at it for anyone traveling east from 105. Once you're past Edgar Avenue and Meeting House Deli, at a rate of 300 feet per day, anyone traveling west would be delayed. And then the next day, another 300 feet, as they continue, as the project continues east, they continue to move west, and they're continuing their conflict with the construction activity. So it's truly a quality-of-life problem. And I would like the residents to know that I will continue to fight the Suffolk County Board of Authority on this. This absolutely is a disaster, and I will try everything in my power not to allow this to go forward. Go ahead. right on top of our pipe without the spacing absolutely will hurt us if there's a break, if there's all those things. Before you go, Mr. Seaman, I just want to clarify a few things. One, I just want to make sure the public heard you, that the Suffolk County Water Authority has never in their 75-year history done or completed a project of this magnitude. Is that right? That was actually a statement made by their chairman, Lefkowitz, It's in an opinion article that appeared in the, I believe, the News Review in response to some of the concerns that Rivera has. And yet this now preferred alternative plan will go through a plethora of small downtown type commercial businesses that will be impacted by the project, especially with the construction and extended traffic delays. And they have not coordinated, from what I recall you saying now, They have not coordinated with Riverhead Local EMS, the police, and the James Fort Port Fire Department to ensure the residents and first responders are involved in any of the planning processes. Is that right? That's correct. To my knowledge, that is correct. And they haven't made any accommodation or mitigation to avoid the impacts on any of this. Is that right? Yes. And my last question to you is more an engineering question. Do they have the capability of just going from Southampton to Mattatuck under the water? You mentioned depth, and I just wanted you to speak to that if you would, please. The technology called directional drilling that they're using to go under the river, if I understood one of their presentations, They used that to cross the Shinnecock Bay in order to service the water supply in Dune Road. Traditionally, the water pipe was suspended from the Ponquag Bridge, and in the winter it would freeze and people wouldn't have water for either domestic or emergency services. restaurants would shut down temporarily because of that problem and I believe they have solved that by placing it under the bay but also under the bay bottom. But they would need to verify that. But yes, it's a common technology and it would be available. And that they do have experience at doing. I guess they do. Yes, that's my point. So that they could do. Go across from Southampton to Mattapuck under the water. But that was not an alternative that was investigated. One more point, perhaps, is the sort of seasonality, and I think the supervisor brought this up at the last DEIS comment hearing. Riverhead is the only local municipality on the North Fork anyway, and probably the South Fork, that has the Route 58 retail corridor. you have BJ's and Costco and Home Depot and Lowe's and I'm not trying to you know leave anyone out car dealerships of every variety it is a major destination retail for everyone on the East End they don't have that type of large box stores or variety of these stores in in the other towns so there is no this idea of of a seasonal traffic thing if if you're an orient and you want to get lumber from riverhead building supply or lows you're going to riverhead you're not you know this this is a reality that you only have those two routes basically most people i think would avoid the conic bay boulevard because it's circuitous route and a lot of stop signs etc you just get on the main road with your pickup and head to Riverhead and shop, including Tanger Mall. So there's a thriving central need for that retail, and only Riverhead is providing that. So it doesn't matter what time of the year it is. People are coming here. And they provide no benefit to us, the Suffolk County Water Repair. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm sorry. I just wanted to have Frank if you could come forward and just speak about that about the pipe on a pipe Don't go away Jeff. Yeah Hi, I'm Frank Mancini superintendent of Riverhead water district and just to correct a record it was Hampton Bays who horizontally bill drilled under the bay So this is a project that's been on the water authority strategic planning for over 20 years there's five different paths and I always thought main road would be undesirable because main road the soft shoulder which is the side of the road that that's easy to restore is occupied by many utilities natural gas and us so I was surprised to see the drawing shows this very large transmission main as close as possible to our existing water main with a conflict that every single fire hydrant it's so close that it passes in between the fire hydrant our existing main and that's only a few feet of pipe and an isolation valve so when you excavate right next to an existing water main you could potentially for years decades to come cause settling and an increased failure rate on the existing water main which would be ours in fact the water authorities dealt with this with the Southwest sewer district where the Southwest sewer district installed its infrastructure while their piping was there and then for decades had massive water main breaks and decades of litigation so we're trying to avoid something like that I think separating the pipe by 10 feet would be a fair request but we've had no alternate opportunity to talk to them and communicate anything like that the other thing is if you live on main road or have a business there this will make our water services more complicated and more expensive as we'll have to offset around this really large 24 inch pipe a A one-inch service, which is done in K-copper, can be bent relatively easily, but large services for commercial properties that include fire services, large water services, use of conductile iron, mechanical fittings, you need a little bit of space to offset those around a big 24-inch main. So, again, the 10 feet of separation, I think, is a reasonable request if it ends up next to us, but putting it directly next to us, I think, is not fair to us and is a detriment to my ratepayers. But still, Frank, even if the forest goes down, for argument's sake, we'll call it the center of the roadway, it's still branching off, feeding these hydrogen storefronts, everything else. What promises do they make that in 10 years from now they're settling in some of those joint split and crack or break? And that's on us as the taxpayers. So is there any type of bond or anything in which they would offer to put up? That would be another good thing to ask for, to avoid future litigation. If a failure occurs that they would cover that would be a fantastic thing to ask for. But there's been no communication for years now, so there's no opportunity to do that. You did bring that up. You did put that on the record. Yeah, I did put that on the record on there is that a bond would cover that, and the 10 feet of separation would give us some room to work around it safely because this is very large in diameter, and there may be ground or dewatering, so it really could potentially complicate future services and make it more expensive for our rate payers. our water our water service our main is there and it's going to be dug up and tapped into for decades to come theirs will be buried once in the ground and then hopefully never touched again unless it fails so i think it should be put in a way our our keeping our service main viable should be part of this discussion but you're still thinking it's we're not our pipe is not necessarily centered in the center of the road no we're on the shoulder going and so if we're on the shoulder so then we're talking about potential damage you get as they dig theirs they pull tree roots and other things which shifts our pipes potentially it yeah pairs up sidewalks curbing offset strainage structures yeah what what is you know there's no outline of what the full restoration will be of the projects when they're when they're completed yeah and the soft shoulders basically first some first come first uh serve in the utility business so that's why it's already occupied. That was a surprise to me to see that was the plan to really run it directly next to ours. Right. You said they went, Hampton Bays, they went under the bay to get the water. So what's preventing, I mean, I understand you're happy if they move 10 feet out, but that doesn't solve the problem of that it could take them three years to fix up the road, blah, blah, blah, you know, it's still a traffic nightmare. But if they went under the bay to Hampton Bays, what's preventing them from going under the bay to get to Matatuck? I mean, that's really, I mean, anything's possible in this world. It would be an enormously large horizontal drill. The biggest drill I've ever seen was from the Smith's Point parking lot to about a half a mile in the ocean for the windmill project, and that was three 12-inch conduits strapped together, so that was a really large borehole. So anything's possible, but I wouldn't speculate as to what that costs or whether they've looked into that or not. And what about running along the railroad tracks? Again, anything's possible. I'm going to guess the rail wants a lot of money for that. There you go. Yeah, it's all about the money. I want them to fight the MTA. We pay $60,000 a year just to pass ours. We pay about $60,000 a year in fees just to have our pipes pass horizontally under the existing rail crossings in Riverhead. Anybody have a question? Thank you. It sounds like the Suffolk County Water Authority is selling us out. They don't want to pay the price. Just for a comment from Jeff Seaman, if I can. One of the things I pointed out, and I want to just thank Jeff for being so very thorough in putting everything on the record today, just for the fact that I truly believe this is the only Monroe hearing. when Suffolk County Water Authority held a hearing, as I mentioned during the last scoping session, that none of the Board of Directors were present. So we've had three public hearings today. And just imagine if this board sat here empty, you know, and then made and became the decision makers of the process. So I think it's a point to note out that your presentation was long and lengthy, but it was accurate. And I think we need to get as many things on the record, because I think from a legal standpoint this is truly the monroe hearing for the project and it should be deemed off of of what what was spoken today not what was a hearing that was held by them with no board members present so i just think that should be put on the record as well thank you um as i said in the beginning i'm i'm trying to serve multiple masters on this one um and you know provide a good record hopefully for both your deliberations and whether it's ongoing litigation, future litigation, EIS comments, et cetera. I suppose all those balls are in the air for a while. You did an excellent job. I've worked with you for many years and you're always thorough and today shines for you. Well, thank you. You really have to recognize the professional staff here at Town Hall that, I mean, we've been Eric will certainly confirm we've been in multiple meetings there's been Eric and Marie Prudente Matt myself Don and and we've all been pouring through every angle that we could come up with in order to strengthen your record but also as good advisors to the board for your your decisions thank you thank sure everything you say is comprehended. Do you mind just reading it all again? I have to submit it to the court. It's the abridged version. Tell him, that's the abridged version, right? It is. It's the scaled back version. So we'll take comments from the public if anybody wants to make a comment. Good afternoon. Mike Foley, Reeves Park. I don't know what we're paying Jeff Seaman, but we're getting our money's worth. He does a great job. phenomenal job so let's talk about the opposite Jeff Jeff Zabo Jeff from what I've seen and what I've heard is arrogance he's incompetent and at best he doesn't know how to tell the truth at worst he's a pathological liar so let me go into those three things let's talk about Jeff Zabo's arrogance where he's He's interviewed and asked about a community benefit for Riverhead. And he says, we don't give gifts. Really, Jeff? That's like telling a law firm that they're giving a malpractice award for somebody that lost a leg from a doctor a gift. He's inconveniencing this entire town. And he calls our community benefit potential a gift? Screw you, Jeff Zabel. As far as incompetence is concerned, I think Jeff Seaman showed every which way but Sunday how just the most basic information and rationale would have kept them off of Sound Avenue a long time ago. It was proven by Frank. It was proven by Jeff. Barbara Blass threw her opinion in there. And anybody that listened would have realized that was an abject waste of time. riled up the other people at Sound Avenue the people that holds the historic sound there in your corridor as part of our heritage to protect just just really mobilized everybody because he put that silly proposal up there so now we're talking about main road and we're talking about all the things that Jeff just talked about that you know we're talking about tearing up the middle of the road now we're talking about all of the inconvenience quality life and farm deprivation that would be held and i'm just going to go back to some basic stuff here why in the hell do they have a monopoly on water expansion to the east end why the best way to avoid this is to have frank take a look at the scenario and to hook up an extension from the riverhead town water department and go east through the exact same aquifer that they're drilling into. So I need to know what gives them the monopoly on expansion of water to the detriment of everybody that they go through. It makes no sense. And if it makes no sense, it needs to be changed. And if it's difficult to change, let's find out who's in the way and let's check their bank accounts because somebody's getting paid. It's that simple. So, and as far as their lying is concerned. You know, he was quoted, I don't know, Barbara Blass a dozen times on how the extension to Main Road was going to be less expensive than the extension to South Amnesty. His own report called that a lie. It's a lie. If they went through Main Road, it would cost so much money. So let's just understand something. their incompetence, their arrogance, is assisted by their perception that they have a monopoly on the expansion of water on the east end of Long Island. And I'll quote a movie that I quoted once before. We should be mad as hell and not be willing to take this anymore. We have to stand up as a group, not just you guys, but everybody has to stand up on us and say, show me the rationale where this incompetent, arrogant company is going to plow through our town when we can do it cheaper and we can do it better than them. That's what I want to know. I'll leave that for the record. I'll talk to you later. Thank you for your time. Thanks, Mike. Anyone else would like to speak? You just would need to come to our podium and say your name and your Hamlet again about this Monroe hearing. Warren McKnight again. Two things. The gentleman mentioned Riverhead Building Supply. People would have to come from the East End. Riverhead Building Supply has a branch in Greenport. It has a branch in East Hampton. It has a great branch here. According to Lowe's and Hope Depot, their grade of lumber is sub... You know, it's not inferior on an average. We could get all different types of grade of lumber from Riverhead Building Supply. You know, as far as that goes. And when I go to Riverhead Building Supply, instead of these other companies you go to, they don't know what they're doing. They advise me. Warren, Warren, Warren, Warren. But this is about the Suffolk County water. Yeah, okay, but that was it. MTA, we're talking about the MTA. MTA tells the MTA, you know how the MTA, I sold the MTA $16,000 worth of hardware. Six months later with my company, the MTA said they weren't going to pay, and we made them take it back. The MTA tells God what to do. You don't want to mess with the MTA, man. That's it about that. Thank you, Warren. I'm sorry. That's okay. Anybody else has a comment on this exact hearing, if you'd like to step forward? Are you going to read all that? I WOULD LIKE TO ENCOURAGE THIS BOARD NOT TO ALLOW THE SUFFOLK COUNTY WATER AUTHORITY TO BULLY US ANYMORE. THEY ARE INSULTING. THEY DON'T PROVIDE ANY INFORMATION, LET ALONE TRANSPARENT. The drawing that they described might have been done, should have been done in crayon the way it describes nothing. They have not done any kind of communication. They just think they can do whatever they want. And their Monroe balancing test was out of balance. We shouldn't let them push us around. They're not that big. Thank you. Thank you, Claudette. wasn't sure if anybody else had a you don't have to wait on anyone else you can go if you'd like to bring it to her yeah Eric you you're gonna have to read all that oh why did you need to see it right in the second what is looks like with Warren's lettuce. So don't worry, Mr. Supervisor. I won't read that. I haven't memorized, so I'll start now. My name is Brody Smith. I'm an attorney upon Schenick and King, and I represent the Suffolk County Water Authority. I'm just going to hit the highlights. For the purpose of the record, I provided everything in writing to the clerk, and I'd ask that that be included in the record for this hearing. The project we're talking about, as you know, is the North Fork Main Project. And I'm going to, rather than going over ground that's already been covered, I'm just going to try to hit a couple highlights of what's in the written materials. By way of background, it's been alluded to a couple different ways. There was initially a lead agency determination. The under seeker, the DEC, determined that the Water Authority would be the lead agency. So that was the first step in the seeker process. As it has been alluded to before, there's been a couple past hearings about Monroe. Your town had a hearing on August 19th of 2025. The Water Authority had hearings October 7th through the 9th on the same subject. Litigation then followed. There is currently an open combined declaratory judgment in Article 78 petition slash complaint that's being litigated. The town has moved to dismiss that motion to dismiss the town lost that motion to dismiss. The case will continue with that in mind for the just the purpose of the record. and because this is under litigation, I have to, for a tidy record, place an objection that with regard to the current litigation, I know a past speaker said that part of the purpose of what he's saying is he's trying to augment the record in the current litigation. Well, the current litigation has a record, right? That was sued and there was a hearing and that hearing had a record. So I have to, I don't want to belabor it, but I have to put in a formal objection that the idea that, you know, we can have a second hearing to augment the record, I think that is incorrect from a legal point of view. And I would, you know, I'd object to that idea that a previous speaker made that, you know, you can go back and get a second crack at that first hearing's record. Now, a couple other things that were mentioned, you know, with regards to Monroe, previous speakers stated that the DEIS had one line that said it was indisputable that the Monroe hearing, that the Monroe factors should be weighed one way or the other. I would point to the record there, the DEIS is included in those binders. Appendix C contains a nine-page analysis of the Monroe hearing. WAS NOT ONE SENTENCE OR ONE STATEMENT. IT WAS STATED BEFORE THAT THERE WAS NO THOUGHT PUT INTO WETLANDS OR PROTECTION OF THOSE SORTS OF THINGS. IF YOU LOOK AT APPENDIX G TO THE DEIS, THERE'S A WETLANDS PERMIT ISSUED BY THE STATE DEC THAT WAS APPLIED FOR AND OBTAINED. PREVIOUS SPEAKERS STATED THAT THERE'S NO THOUGHT PUT INTO TRAFFIC. BUT YOU KNOW THAT'S NOT TRUE BECAUSE EXHIBIT H TO THE DEIS AS CORRESPONDENTS WITH THE STATE DOT STATING WHAT WOULD BE REQUIRED TO BE DONE UNDER A STATE WORK PERMIT IN ORDER TO MAKE SURE THAT PEOPLE ARE MINIMALLY INCONVENIENCED AND WE ALL KNOW THIS BECAUSE SOME OF THE SPEAKERS HAVE ALSO ALLUDED TO THE IDEA THAT SOME OF THIS CONSTRUCTION WOULD BE DONE IN SUCH A WAY THAT IS NOT TO DAMAGE SEASONAL BUSINESSES AND BE SCHEDULED TO BE SENSITIVE TO THAT AND ALSO WOULD BE SCHEDULED AT NIGHT SO AS not to exacerbate traffic so we we know those things to be true they're in writing they're they're in the binders and i i just want there to be some clarity i know reasonable people can disagree i respect that but this project i i do want to make sure the facts are in writing and on the record now getting into the modification with regards to the the route the deis contains in In addition to the text and the executive summary and the conclusions and the analysis, there's also an independent study that's attached as exhibit B that talks about the reasoning for Main Street being a better option for the public rather than sound. And the reason- It's actually referred to as Main Road, not Main Street. Main Street is a different road. Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you. I'm not a resident, so I might miss a couple things like that. So the reason being, and I'll let the engineer's report stand for itself, but it's an engineering reason. The main route versus the sound route has a lot less of an elevation change. So it eliminates the need for a booster. It allows the pipe to be a smaller diameter. Age of water in bigger diameter pipes is a concern from a public health point of view. So if you can do that, you're going to make water safer. So as you read the DEIS, that's the driving motivation for doing that. Someone had alluded to, well, it's cheaper. It's actually not cheaper because we're going to have to do construction at night, and the DEIS says that. It's the safer option is the reason that that option was analyzed as part of the DEIS. Previous speaker says that all these things should have been designed ahead of time. There's the analogy about flying a plane when you haven't completed it yet. But to be honest, from a legal point of view, the State Environmental Quality Review Act requires any agency engaging in an action to engage in a meaningful study, to take a hard look about what the what the potential impacts of a proposed plan would be and part of that hard look is to look at the to make a meaningful analysis of the impacts through the deis process and eventually a final eis and the idea that by virtue of studying things finding problems and fixing them is a bad thing confuses me because that's the entire idea of being required pursuant to state law to study these things. That's point number one. Point number two, again, previous speaker rattles off all the hearings, the scoping hearings, the DEIS hearings, the Monroe hearings, and says, well, they don't count because they were legally required. Well, Well, there's some wisdom in these seeker laws that require agencies like the Water Authority to engage the public, to engage design professionals, to allow people to comment on the scoping, to comment on the DEIS, for those comments to be included in a final EIS, and for those comments to be addressed. So I don't think by virtue of the fact that our state is wise enough to have a robust environmental study process that somehow engaging in it means that you're not being transparent or that you're not listening to the public because you're doing because it's also mandated by law the thinking for the design is in those binders that i gave you and you see there's a complaint that there's no transparency but you see in real time through through these studies and through the information that's been developed through the deis process the decisions being made and why they're being made you can't be more transparent than that now i understand that reasonable people can disagree on conclusions but that's different than not being transparent i will touch on the monroe factors briefly i won't belabor them because you've heard me do them before about a year ago but um the water authority is the largest supplier of public water in Long Island. It's been around since 1934. It's got 1.3 million customers. It was created pursuant to the public authorities law title 4 article 5. And it was created to perform the essential government function of providing water to Long Island residents. That's what it exists to do and it's been doing it for a very long time. The system extends from Babylon to South Hole there's 586 wells there's 242 pump stations there's 6,000 miles of Maine so the idea that there's a better suited agency to engage in this project is confusing to me there has previous speakers have acknowledged there's a need in South Hold there there is not I think what he said was it's a demand exceeds supply it's a simple question you know something needs to be done to address these issues there's also people that are on wells that could be on public water would make their water safer from a PFAS point of view so the project is necessary the project is worthwhile the nature of the Suffolk County Water Authority indicates you know by virtue of being created by the the public authorities law to provide water to the public in the safest way, you know, also provides fire safety, not just drinking water, that I think that satisfies the first factor of the Monroe test in terms of the nature of the water authority. Second, the kind of function slash land use involved. Well, water is an essential government function. In the past, if you look at Hallockville and Herrick's, the town is not required, the water, the town did not engage in a Monroe analysis to say that the water authority had to comply with your land use laws. It just didn't happen. This is new. This is not what you've done in the past. We've laid water line, significant amount of water line in the past in Riverhead, and this is not something, a process that you've engaged in in the past. There's definitely a public purpose. It is important to provide people with safe drinking water. It is important to have capacity so that not just the drinking water is safe for getting some people off wells where the wells isn't safe, but also that there's enough capacity for the people who are already on the system during the months when there's increased demand. And then also there's a fire capacity issue. There's no doubt in my mind that there's a public purpose to a water project like this. The Water Authority is a countywide authority. And the whole idea behind Monroe, you know, we all talk about it. It's important to remember what the original case was. It was an airport case. They're trying to construct an airport that had a regional benefit and a locality wanted to regulate it because they didn't want it in their town, right? Well, THE WHOLE IDEA BEHIND THE MONROE TEST IS THAT YOU HAVE TO BALANCE THAT. IT DOESN'T MEAN JUST BECAUSE THERE'S A REGIONAL NEED THAT THE BIGGER AGENCY OR THE COUNTY ALWAYS WINS. IT DOESN'T SAY THAT. THAT'S WHY IT'S A MULTIFACTOR TEST. BUT IT DOES SAY THAT YOU NEED TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT REGIONAL NEEDS VERSUS LOCAL CONCERNS. AND SOMETIMES REGIONAL NEEDS ARE IMPORTANT. AND THIS IS AN IMPORTANT REGIONAL NEED TO PROVIDE SAFE DRINKING WATER TO RESIDENTS OF SUFFOLK COUNTY. Local interests in this case would not be impacted. When you compare that need to the local impact, I'm not saying it's not important. I'm not saying it's not something that needs to be mitigated. But the nature of the impacts are primarily short term. They're construction. They're things like traffic that people have talked about that are important and that need to be addressed. But the long-term benefit of providing people with safe drinking water and fire safety, from a Monroe point of view, if you look at the case law, is going to outweigh short-term construction-oriented inconveniences. So I'll stop there. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to provide these comments. And again, I'd ask that those written materials be included in the record. Thank you. comment to some of the things in in which you say you reality is by changing from Sound Avenue to route 25 main road it's an entirely new project you need like all new secret D is you you're starting completely over it has a total different effect and then when you when you held the hearings you still don't address that the board was not present for them we'll ask you are you going to bond any money to protect any of the infrastructure for riverhead residents when you sit and you talk about well you know the it's for for fire safety and clean drinking water and it benefits everybody where is the benefit for the people in riverhead because it's not you're benefiting potentially south hold And it's not that we're against that, but the disruption on Route 25 disrupts every business and every residence and every emergency route along that. And there is no benefit to the town of Riverhead. We have proven that the town of Riverhead can work with Suffolk County Water Authority. Together, we brought together clean drinking water to 64 homes up in Manneville. So we've proven that we can work together. but i i just i don't understand then there's there's uh you continue the lawsuit up in epcal to disrupt you know the riverhead process and yet we won't have any construction so any constructive um meetings to move that along in terms of like where the benefit for ever had can we you don't allow us to connect to the water that goes through here so you talk about oh the benefit to everybody that goes down Main Street, yet you won't even share the water or give us a connection at any point. You don't provide any potential funding, whether it be parks, park and recreations, or anything to try to say to the Riverhead residents, hey, look, we disrupted your town, we tore everything up, but here's some funding to help restore some of the parks or some of the programs. You still, you prevent us being able, through litigation, you prevent us from being able to subdivide the property up at EPCAL and you still don't come to the table. So my point is that we have asked and we have been very specific about how can we work together with Suffolk County Water Authority yet on every simple little task and every opportunity you have to say, hey Riverhead, we understand. We're going through your town disrupting your residents, your people. The impact is here. But you talk about what a great benefit is the South Hole, but the full disruption is in the town of Riverhead and I still want to ask when are you going to come to the table and sit down with us so that we can actually come to a better conclusion for this and and and find that somehow there would be a benefit to the riverhead town taxpayers and to piggyback on that um there's a few things that have been kind of insinuated insinuating that the five of us don't want clean water for the east end absolutely not true because of the narration of your board president saying this was going to happen regardless of our input. You talked about regional needs outweighing local needs. We are the regional county seat. We are fully aware, the five of us and our team here in this building, of what the regional needs are of Riverhead. We service so much of the shopping, so much of people's everyday life, their quality of life, and the emergency needs you spoke about, making sure that potable water would be available for hydrants and irrigation for people. But one of the things we know is that as our hospital continues to expand and offer life-saving technology, that as we know, the transportation of that, and Main Road, as Councilman Waski, I believe, said, is so vital to that. You know, on 58, our units have the ability to make sure that the lights are in their favor because of a tragic accident and happened years ago. And so we want to make sure that when we go home and we look our taxpayers in the eye, that we're able to say this. You made a very daunting statement about being the largest, therefore the best. Enron maybe other large companies that couldn't fail but that did fail the American people and the taxpayers I for one and I would want to believe that my board members alongside of me we believe every bit that the Riverhead Water District is the best on Long Island our water quality, our system our operations in fact we just moved to make sure that they They were brought up to scale. And I echo Councilman Rothwell's statement of sit down at the table with us because it seems to me that there's a lot more pressure being sent on. And lastly, I'd just like the record to stay because I know people will listen to this later. Your board sent binders to our meeting. We sent people and leaders to your meeting. And we were there. We were present. We spoke. and we want to have that engagement. We're not looking to not do this. We're not looking to do it this way. We're not looking to impede people's quality of life or stop them from having clean drinking water. We may see differently that there's other opportunities to do so and how to go about that, but I think that has to be, it's not a conversation so far. So you can state that you've had these hearings, but also understand that, as you said, that may not be the record for whatever reason you felt like someone who spoke here, what you're saying isn't really the record. I have a question, if you're done. You know, the first thing that you said is that we're seasonal. I don't know where you're getting that information from, because we're not a seasonal community. So I think that's number one. Number two is, the documents, those two loose-leaf binders, is that all the studies on Sound Avenue? Or is that main road? That is the draft environmental impact statement, the appendices and the figures and the studies that support it. And that draft environmental impact statement studied initially the sound, but also the preferred alternative. And in there, there's engineering reports that analyze both. So I think the answer to your question is both. So are you telling me that you've completed your study on Route 58? So that is a draft environmental impact study. There will eventually be a final environmental impact study after comments are received. So, all right, my other question is because it's one thing we don't get out of the water authority. The councilman asked you about EPCAL. You guys fought us. You guys prevented us from doing the deal at Epco, which at the time cost us $40 million. And where were you? Whose side were you on? And I got, you know, I share the same concerns as my councilman. My third question is, what other alternatives? Sound Avenue is one. Then you said 58 was an alternative you considered. What other alternatives have you considered? I know you're not going to try the railroad tracks because we look like, you know, we're the stick figure here and you're the Goliath, but next to the MTA, you're the stick figure and they're the Goliaths. So I know you're not going to go up against the MTA, which would make, and I'm not trying to be, you know, but I mean, I'm just being realistic here. Why didn't you look at the tracks? And what other alternatives have you looked at going under the water? We need answers. You know, we don't need stacks of paper. I could go. You know what I mean? I mean, you're the attorney. You've been through all this. You're dealing with the board of the Suffolk County Water Authority. What are they saying? What are the other alternatives? What have you explored? I think we deserve an answer there. I'll provide your question to my client, and you can see I'm taking careful notes. But I'm not in a position to – I don't know if what you're asking me is in the DEIS. So I'm not really in a position to speculate. Can we get the DEIS guy that made those folders here so we could ask somebody questions that we could get answers from? I understand you're their attorney. I totally get that. But we're just looking for answers. We're five people that have to answer to 36,000 people. and we can't sit here and have a wall in front of us you know that's i want to know did you did you look at going under the water did you consider a desalinization plant and and i'm not joking because as we know i know from our own water authority that there's salt water intrusion that is keeps happening you know did you look into that i have no idea this way you don't you know you're running pipe from a platform out in the sound somewhere, a lot shorter pipe, and then you do your pipe construction from Orient or wherever you want in further east. Can you get somebody in the room at that podium that can answer our questions? That's all we want to know. And that's what they want to know. I think it would make sense to talk to your attorney in executive session about some of those things because right now because it's under litigation. There's an order from the judge where you're going to have an opportunity to provide written questions. And so my ability to talk about some of those things where there's a judge's order is somewhat limited, but I'll do my best. I share my fellow councilman's concern. It's been very difficult to work with the Suffolk County Water Authority. You want to give us $2 billion? I'll talk to our water superintendent. You can have our water Department. I don't agree with that. Oh, no. I'm just saying. No. Now, I'm being facetious. Shh. Now, I'm being facetious. I think Councilman Rothwell. I think you're like, oh, that was a joke. I just said I'm being facetious. Okay. I think our Councilman Rothwell does have a serious point. So, how have you engaged at all with the Riverhead Water District about simply purchasing SEEING ADDITIONAL WATER FROM RIVERHEAD WATER DISTRICT BECAUSE THE REALITY IS THERE'S BEEN A NUMBER OF TIMES IN WHICH THE SUFFOLK COUNTY WATER AUTHORITY HAD TO SWITCH INTO AND ACTIVATE WATER CONSERVATION METHODS BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH WATER WHILE MEANTIME THE RIVERHEAD WATER DISTRICT DURING THAT SAME TIME PERIOD REMAINS STRONG AND VIABLE. AND SO WHY NOT CONSIDER THE POTENTIAL OF PURCHASING WATER FROM THE RIVERHEAD WATER DISTRICT? go through the whole town. I'd like to make a few points if I may. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'd just like to make a few points. There were no Suffolk County Water Authority board quorum present at the hearings that were held October 7th, 8th, 9th in 2025. Nevertheless the board is the lead agency somehow passed the Suffolk County Water Authority resolution finding itself immune from all local municipal land use regulations. Without a quorum the governing body body lacks legal authority to transact business, hold formal hearings, or pass binding resolutions. While the Board can delegate day-to-day administrative tasks or fact-finding to staff or committees, the core official proceedings and final binding action of the Board itself requires a valid quorum to initiate or ratify. In the absence of a quorum, attendees can only fix time, adjourn, adjourn recess, or or take other steps to gather a quorum. In the case of the three hearings I'm talking about, Charles Lefkowitz, Elizabeth Mercado, Portia III, John Rose, and William Davidson were noted as absent and not present. So my position is, based on the observations and research, the Suffolk County Water Authority Monroe Test appears to be severely flawed and therefore not legally even binding. That's a position I'm taking. Furthermore, you made a distinction earlier. You talk about how Suffolk County Water Authority provided water to Town of Riverhead previously. The big distinction here is you did give us a benefit. So it's not analogous. And part of the Monroe balancing test is you need to provide us some sort of benefit, and you're not doing that. With this water that you're supplying Southhold, it is not benefiting us in any way. So you stated earlier how the Suffolk County Water Authority gave water to Riverhead previously. Yes, and we benefited. There's no benefit here to us. So there's a big distinction between the case that you referred to earlier and this now. Thank you, Councilwoman. Thank you. Does anyone else in the room have a comment? If you'd like to come forward on this specific hearing.
Nobody online still. John McAuliffe, Roanoke Landing and Riverhead. First, I have to footnote something. Since both Mr. Rothwell and Mr. Kern brought it up, I think that their characterization of what spared us from the $40 million ripoff by the Jermasians was not simply the water authority. John, just want to... No, but they're the ones who brought it up. It doesn't matter. The wreck, yes. But I think... On the pipeline. Well, they are the ones who brought it up. Also, it's still, it's not right. Well, you didn't say that to them, did you? Just the pipeline. You didn't say that to them. I wouldn't say that to them. No, of course not. At any rate, my primary actually is to support your position of opposition to approving this project. And I think that this is one more test of what kind of place we want to live in and what we see its future to be. It's what will the North Fork be? What will the North Shore be? Who is it that benefits from this? My understanding is that South Hold has not asked for it. My understanding is that Orient has not asked for it. This is the initiative of a bureaucracy that wishes to expand its role and power and presumably wealth. I think we ought to look at what's going on is a question of what sort of resources will permit more development on the North Fork. Do we want, if there is a limit on water, that means there has to either be conservation or it has to mean that projects don't get done because it is the reality that you don't want to add more consumption of water. And now that may be disappointing to Mr. Soloviev and the 1100 acres that he's just dying to turn into luxury housing. John, we just want to stick to the water. John Szwedtowski- Okay. What it is clearly, this is the question, is why is this project being forced upon us? It's for the benefit of the developers, not the benefit of the people who are already here or our children or grandchildren and the kind of community that we want this to be. So I think that it's like the debate over the Sound Avenue recreation facilities or about what's going on now about the Flint 4-H camp. We have to fight the things that make it easy to turn the North Fork into the South Fork or looking west to Selden and other areas there and stopping the expansion of water supply that is beyond what the current need is, is, I think, a reason not to do it. Thank you. If there's anybody else in the audience. Blas?
Good afternoon. My name is Barbara Blas, and I live in Jamesport. I really can't add an awful lot to what has already been said. Everything is very thorough. I do have some comments that I would make to counsel, but perhaps they should remain unsaid at this point. I can get very animated about this because to me this is one of the most ultimate acts of dump on Riverhead but maybe that's not even accurate enough. I have several pages of comments on the Monroe test itself and not surprisingly I come to the conclusion that they should be subject to local authority. I will submit those for the record. I would also like to submit my testimony that was submitted at the DEIS hearing the other night in Riverhead because there are a lot of crossover issues with the authority putting the Monroe in connection with Seeker. So there's some relevant and crossover information. But just very quickly with respect to alternatives and is everything in those two documents, I heard, oh, yeah, it's all in there. Page S, I think, 14 of the DEIS actually acknowledges that the majority of the DEIS is on the Sound Avenue route. The majority, it says it. I think I quoted it during the EIS hearing or DEIS hearing. And with respect to traffic, yes, there's traffic correspondence. The DOT actually does say with respect to traffic impacts and intensity of impacts to the residents, you do realize that the Sound Avenue route is the preferred route. That's the DOT saying that to the project sponsor, the applicant. And with respect to whether Riverhead has been engaged properly, again, I have a lot of instances and specific examples of the fact that it was Riverhead that had a public information hearing in the very beginning about explaining the project, so that it would be the public would be informed there was never any kind of explanation along those lines I never came to a public your work session for example and at the hearings it was we all heard it several times having attended more than one this is not a dialogue we would get at the onset of a hearing yes we had the ability to be there you can make a statement but knowing they would not entertain questions and there was no ability to have a back and forth and with respect to Riverhead's interesting okay with it yeah I know I know I'm getting long-winded I said I was exactly not going to do what was I saying see that's why I can't do that oh with respect to transparency the authority did bring secret into the EIS process and the month and I should say Monroe into the EIS process but it's curious that they chose to include the notation about their Monroe test but they actually ignored the fact that riverhead had one there's not an incident our our resolution which was very thorough and contained a lot of factual information and reasons that we believe they should be subject to our rules and regulations it's not it doesn't exist it doesn't show up in that document at all they chose to admit it they basically said we're not listening to you we don't have to and same thing with the wetland yes you can point to a dec permit and it goes this far our rules in our town we play and you want to come and play in our sandbox, our rules go over here. And what you're saying is the wetland in between where the DEC's jurisdiction is and Riverheads is, it really doesn't matter to us. That's what you're saying. It matters to us. It matters to us that our jurisdiction should be what should be respected here. And that's just one instance. I apologize for getting a little animated, but I actually think I held back. Absolutely. You can just turn those into our clerk. Oh, somebody to speak? Two more people? I have two more comments, Claudia Bianco. I just want to remind you that when we had our Monroe balancing test, the town of South Hills supervisor, Mr. Krupski, came, and he wasn't even in favor of this, and he offered to work with our town board. So that's to be considered as well. And it was a little disingenuous to say, I just lost my train of thought. Oh, that you, never mind. Lost my train of thought. As a town, we did extend any information and help that we could be to Southhold through our legal department. All right. Everybody, we just need to talk about the LET THE MAIN ROAD WAS THE BETTER OPTION WHY DIDN'T YOU DO THAT FIRST WHY DID YOU GO TO THE SOUND AVENUE ROUTE IF THE MAIN ROAD WAS THE BEST OPTION SIR WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPEAK
GOOD AFTERNOON SUPERVISOR TOWN BOARD MY NAME IS STAN CARRY I'M A RESIDENT LIFELONG RESIDENT BATING HIGHLOW AND CALVERTON I'VE BEEN WORKING IN THE PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY INDUSTRY FOR 40 YEARS I work for both the Riverhead Water District and the Suffolk County Water Authority. I enjoyed working at both equally. I am a Riverhead resident. My loyalty does lie within the town of Riverhead. However, there's always one in the crowd, right? So that's going to be me tonight. The town of Riverhead really has never taken this approach on any project in the town of Riverhead before. By the way, I've also served as chairman of the town planning board. MR. KERN, YOU MENTIONED THE GAS MAINS ON ELTON AND HOWELL AVENUE. WERE ANY HEARINGS OR PUBLIC DISRUPTION CONSIDERED BEFORE THOSE GAS MAINS WENT IN? I DON'T THINK THERE WAS ANY FANFARE ABOUT THOSE PROJECTS AT ALL. THERE'S A LOT OF FANFARE NOW. OF COURSE THERE IS. AND IT'S WITHIN THE TOWN'S RIGHT WHO ISSUED THE ROAD OPENING PERMIT TO SAY THESE ROADS FAILED, ALL YOUR PERMITS ARE PULLED INTO RIVERHEAD UNTIL THIS IS RECTIFIED. have that authority and apparently you're not using it okay but my point is they also expanded the gas plant on west main street and mill road that was not subject to local zoning okay the the national grid whoever owns that we we actually held the monroe hearing on that project okay but did they get permits and and did you issue did they go through the place based on their zoning based on their plans it was reviewed by the planning department but we determined that they were at least partially but they didn't they weren't subject to planning on zoning they didn't enough to do full they didn't have to go fully through the planning board all right and then also on Edwards Avenue in Calverton when when I was on the planning board solar farms were the big issue and a lot of that power being generated did not have a complete benefit in a town of Riverhead it went over to Brookhaven on the other side of the river and tied into the grid over there and the high-tension wires I bring that up because lipa owns that substation the railroad tracks and i recall asking the direct question through the town attorney's office if that was subject to local planning and zoning because i wasn't happy that it kept being expanded and i was told that it was not subject to it because they were their own authority very similar to the suffolk county water authority somebody had mentioned that the water authority is a monopoly okay well they're really not a monopoly they were created by state law and they are giving specific authority under their charter by state law and you know the same speaker you know there is a difference between an aquifer and a water main they're not one in the same one one is the source of water one delivers the water so they they shouldn't be confused um about mr seaman who i respect very much i work closely with him on on when i was on the planning board but i i questioned you know um when he said that their engineering was a failure the suffolk county water Authority. I mean, that's complete speculation. I mean, he's not a registered engineer, and the Water Authority would not propose to spend millions and millions of dollars if it was a flawed engineering plan. I mean, did anyone review the design of this and say that they had the wrong amount of booster stations? I don't recall that being mentioned. Also, the transparency was questioned of the Water Authority. Mr. Seaman stated that he attended 11 meetings, some of which held by the suffolk county water authority so how could we question the transparency if he attended some of their meetings it just doesn't all add up and also i think it was a bit of a cheap shot to say that the water authority is going to put up a three-story office building on their property on sound avenue if they don't use it for a booster station or make it a junkyard i i think that was a bit of a cheap shot um and councilwoman merrifield had mentioned about you know a project never been done before when i worked for the suffolk county water authority we were doing 100 miles a year of water main replacement all over suffolk county this is this is nothing new to them they are equipped to do this um as far as the separation and concerns about the main road this is the country out here okay they're used to putting in water main in western nassau like they do in new york city where you have inches to put water main in there's plenty of room there to to coexist with with the Suffolk County Water Theory, and I say that from experience. It's a legitimate question, of course, but there's plenty of room to put the water main in. And the town doesn't ask for bonding from PSEG or National Grid, which National Grid is a much more dangerous utility than a water main. You don't ask that of them. So, again, I just, you know, as far as a disruption to the public, never been asked before on any of the other utilities. water main is put in the ground every day all over Long Island. This is nothing new. And to mitigate some of the concerns, it can be done at nighttime. When I first started working at the Riverhead Water District, the very reason I was hired was because they were expanding to a community called Reeves Park because it was a private water company who had contamination. And where did that water main go? That water main went up Osborne Avenue. A booster station was built on Osborne and Young's, and it went all the way down Sound Avenue into Reeves Park to give that community clean drinking water. And the same is said for later on in the 90s. They went down the main road, put a water main in through Ackerburg, through Jamesport, all the way to the town line, heading west the other way. Calverton, all the way to Waiting River. It was done all the time. The town didn't hold hearings and have the secret hearings for those projects. I know what determination they made for those, and it wasn't anywhere near this. So, again, I sound like I'm favoring the Water Authority, but really the scrutiny has never been done before. And to me it's a case of do as I say, not as I've done. So it's really unfair. This is a benefit to the residents of the North Fork. they desperately need clean drinking water. And to say desalination, that is just not feasible. And to cross the Peconic Bay, I'm saying this from experience. So, you know, I've been doing this for 40 years. I've done directional drills. I've researched desalination. It's not feasible. You'd never get approval to do any of that type of work. So, you know, I do think the Water Authority could do a better job with working with the town, no doubt. But really just, you know, the big picture and past history and my time on the Planning Board, this was never required when I've asked direct questions about authority for zoning and planning. Thank you. Mr. Carey, when you first opened up, and I appreciate your knowledge and you've helped us with projects and understanding but respectfully, when you talk about solar on Edwards Avenue we received a large substantial amount of community benefit funding that came from those projects. So there were direct benefits. Why did we get that money?
Because someone on the planning board asked the question to the planning board attorney if they were going to be considered an electric utility and needed to negotiate a franchise agreement with the town, and that was in lieu of a franchise agreement because they were a power utility operating within the town roadway. To my point, that project had a direct benefit to the Riverhead taxpayers and the residents. Because they gave you money. what Suffolk County is doing does not have any benefit to the Riverhead taxpayers at all. So you want, if Suffolk County wants to offer a community benefit, you know, payment, we're listening, by all means. I don't know that they're legally allowed to do that, but that's a question for the attorneys. But just when you say that it was a substantial benefit, just making that clear when you said... Right, but the power The power went out of the town. A lot of that power went out of the town. The community benefit was the money, the payoff to the town. That was the benefit. And the community benefit funding stayed in the town. It went to establish parks and projects. The purpose of the project was to tie into the grid in Brookhaven Town. That's the correlation I'm making. Well, that's where the transmission lines were. Right. But Riverhead taxpayers and residents benefited from those projects. They're not benefiting anything from these. That's all I'm making the point. That's all. So I don't know that the water authority legally has to do that. I'm not an attorney, obviously. I'm not saying, but we're listening. Right. That's what we're saying. That's all. Maybe Mr. Chardis could mention that. I just want to have one question for you because you started to say why, you know, talking about going under the bay and, you know. It's too great of a distance. It's just too far. So if you came, just hypothetically came under the 105 bridge and maybe came, I don't know hypothetically, 30 feet off the beachfront and just ran it up and then I can't speak for their design I'm not going to stand here and say it's impossible to do the drill but it would probably be one of the largest undertakings of a directional drill under that type of body of water in that distance probably anywhere in the northeast okay thank you sir i'm just going to clarify something quickly the uh when utility work is done on town of riverhead roadways the utilities do get road opening permits from our highway superintendent and he does routinely require bonds if it's substantial work right until the work is completed and it's usually a maintenance bond but that was a point i made mr kern said about the terrible condition of the roads on Elton and and how I'm so you have a bond that you could go after to rectify that that was the point I was making yeah my understanding is that roadway will be resurfaced all the way across but if you need specifically with that road if you want to call mr. Zaleski you can well I wasn't complaining about it I was just making a correlation that the example of councilman made all right I mean if it's bad and unsafe I mean it's within the town to do something about it right see but i think i think what we're talking about specifically is our water mains that are already buried under the ground in this instance we're not talking so when you're talking about alton avenue you're not talking about anything that's buried under the ground so once once they do their utility work they do their utility work they're responsible for the things that are done there and then they fix our road well like we're talking about is our our our actual infrastructure that's under the road that our water district superintendent perceives as possibly being at risk you have a water main and sewer main and and other utilities on Elton and how so I'm not understanding that point is this town facilities on Howell and Elton well okay true yes yes that's that's true um I I don't know why we wouldn't ask for something This is something that mr. Mancini came up with based on the diameter and the size of this watermen which is Not something that is I think anywhere If it's not on the town road, I don't know if you that would be the state that would ask for that, right? But it would still be our infrastructure. I Don't think that's ever been a precedent of anywhere of Protecting another utility by a bond first time for everything. Okay. Good luck Thank you for your comment. Thank you. Just to clarify the record for a comparison, and I hate to say the words never because you should never say the word never. If everyone's aware of the county fueling station on Riverside Drive, it's small. It was a county project. If the board is aware of 2005 or two, between 2005 and 2009, there was a legal case in which we initially lost, but one on appeal in which the county of Suffolk was compelled to file a site plan and a special permit for that fueling facility. To say it never happens is just not true. Furthermore, Mr. Chardis, I'd just like to explain to the public with regard to the Monroe balancing test. Yes. Is there a provision there that you, one of the things to consider is, is there a benefit to the municipality? It requires you to consider the public benefit of the project. That's what Monroe says. Okay. And as it stands right now, Riverhead is not receiving any benefit from this project. That is correct. there's no budget the town of Everett part of our balancing that's something to consider thank you mr. seaman Thank You Jeff seaman again just two points of clarification that I heard one from mr. Brody saying that there was a traffic study in the EIS that was presented to the town clerk I've been over that document multiple times there are no traffic volumes no counts no standard what we call traffic impact study which we often require in an EIS as Miss Waskie would recognize for even a 20 lot subdivision that information is not there there are a couple of letters from the Department of Transportation but they don't really qualify for that level of detail in response to my good friend and and former colleague on the planning board mr. Carey I didn't have to do an analysis of the hydraulics to run that that pipeline using only a 24 inch line up to Sound Avenue with a single pump station that was done by the applicant through their sub consultant CDM Smith, who is perhaps one of the foremost hydrogeological hydraulic engineering companies in the Northeast. So when they found that one pump station was inadequate and recommended a second pump station, I was simply reiterating what they state in the EIS on the original proposed route. Thank you. Thank you for bringing up about the traffic impact because when council for Suffolk County Water Authority came up and mentioned the traffic. You mentioned more about mitigation of traffic and not what the actual impact would be to our roads out east. So there's a big difference between traffic impact study and mitigation. You have the Jamesport Fire Department and an ARAVAC station in Jamesport, and when you're running that pipe down the center of the road, you're severely cutting off complete access for emergency response. That's detrimental, so it needs to be addressed very specifically how you intend to do that to keep the flow of emergency vehicles there. You cannot shut down Main Road. And we're not seasonal, and proof of that is the RVAC, and you know this very well, they're looking to have a year-round presence in Jamesport because… They do have a year-round presence in Jamesport, yeah. The station. So it's just absolutely so. Any other comments? Oh, Warren. Yes. You can recognize it's a matter of public record that I couldn't believe this years ago, the Suffolk County Water Authority appointed a person for purification of water who was just a political hack. He didn't know anything about it, and it was in the newspapers. It was horrendous. for that reason I have suspicion of Suffolk County Water Authority the only thing I know, Riverhead when I get my water bill I can afford it you know so we go on a computer tonight find out who that guy was and how many more people are pointing Riverhead if I wanted to work on Riverhead Water Department I'd have to be qualified Well, that's the difference. and give us what if you would what resolution number if possible that would be great hi Mike Foley reads Park speaking on resolution 815 the authorization for the appraisal I read the documents from Lawrence in the minute appraisal and looking at it you're going to get three appraisals one for the total hundred fifty five acre awesome one that would separate 18 acres that I guess are on Sound Avenue and another three-acre parcel on the northwestern part of that 155-acre sod farm. Certainly, doing an appraisal to investigate development rights or conservation easements is a worthy expense for us. We're always looking to preserve open space and certainly I support this authorization for an appraisal because just as a bonus it's on the historic Sound Avenue corridor. Thank you.
Laverne Tenenberg, Riverhead. Resolution number 831. Since the town board waived the requirement of a public hearing on this matter I'd like to get assurances from the hospital and its engineers and architects that the placement of the new HVAC equipment on the roof of the eastern part of the building closest to Burger King will not produce any droning humming or vibrations of the equipment that will run 24 7 while I understand the equipment will be shielded from view will it also be surrounded by baffling or insulation to silence any noise the home homeowners of Roanoke Heights should not have to hear any droning or humming that will disrupt the quiet enjoyment of their homes if they have their north-facing windows open on a hot summer night, or for that matter, any night. We all know how sound can travel, and the worst is low-frequency humming. This request and concern is similar to those homeowners who live in close proximity to the cannabis facility being proposed on Middle Road. The residents of Roanoke Heights share those same concerns about noise. Thank you.
just sort of a CYA in all of our site plan approvals we do can typically include conditions that will protect this so in this case it's condition number four that the provisions of the town code of the town of Riverhead which are not addressed by this resolution or other official action by the town shall at all times be complied with by the owner of the property covered by the plan so that would be 289 which is noise 289 well the noise is going to 251 sorry to 51 noise so they'd have to comply we have no information that it doesn't COMPLY WITH SIMILAR STUFF THAT'S ALREADY ON THE BUILDING. SO IF THERE'S AN ISSUE, IT WOULD BE ADDRESSED. HOW DOES THAT WORK OUT THOUGH? SO BUILDING DEPARTMENT INSPECTORS AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE PROJECT FISCALLY GO TO THE SITE AND LISTEN LIKE HOW DO WE I'M JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE WE'RE NOT JUST CHECKING BOXES THAT WE'RE ON-SITE CONFIRMING THAT. YEAH. SO THERE'S AUDIBILITY REQUIREMENTS IN THE TOWN CODE FOR SPECIFIC USES. I'M NOT GOING TO ROULE THEM OFF BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW THEM OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD. FOR EACH ZONE OR EACH TYPE OF USE THERE'S A MAXIMUM NOISE PRESSURE THAT'S ALLOWED SO IF IT WAS FOUND TO BE ACCESSIBLY LOUD I'M SURE A COMPLAINT COULD BE ISSUED AND RESPONDED TO YOU KNOW SOMEONE TRAINED TO USE A NOISE METER COULD RESPOND AND THEN THEY'D HAVE TO MITIGATE THOSE YOU KNOW THE SOUND POLLUTION ESSENTIALLY I JUST WANT TO BE CERTAIN THAT before CO was issued that looked into. Yes. You may meet the decibel requirements, but just like the people on Middle Road worrying about those fans going on that greenhouse, that that's going to be droning on and on. It may not meet the decibel level of violation, but to have the droning and the humming of an air conditioning unit, Roanoke Heights is one block south of the hospital. It was built before the hospital. Yes, the hospital is a great addition to the town. It's our largest employer. We've done a lot of things for that hospital. They have a 60-foot helicopter landing pad on top. The helicopters fly right over our heads, maybe 200 feet. So to have ongoing HVAC issues I think is a concern for the people that live near the hospital. So it may not meet the decibel level, but the humming and the droning is just ongoing. We hear the train idling at 3 o'clock in the morning. You can hear that diesel train idling until it goes boop, boop, and then it heads off. What does it do? Boop, boop. So that's all I'm saying. You can take a decibel meter and that's fine and that meets the requirements, but the people on Middle Road are going to have the same concerns about the fans going on that greenhouse, and those noises travel, and they travel at night when you're trying to sleep. So that's all I'm asking. Thank you. John McCalla, excuse me, John McCalla, Frohn Oak Landing. This is on resolution 832, the eminent domain for 111 East Main Street. I was actually surprised when I read the documents that there was apparently no opposition expressed by the Science Center to the eminent domain in the actual hearing. We had understood that they were going to contest it. If they didn't, I'm surprised, and I'd be interested in knowing whether they have any plan to use the $1.95 million settlement to locate the Science Center somewhere else. But at any rate, that's what my larger question is. And the reason I'm opposed to this resolution is I think we still don't have on the table what agendas are out there in terms of the use of the Science Center space and the West Marine Building. Whether there is, as has been rumored, an intention to build a high-rise or five-story building there. and you would wind up with two five-story buildings squeezing the town square area. I was looking back at the documents for the original planning for the downtown area, and in one of the surveys that was done, 75% of the people opposed five-story buildings. so I think that we have lost our way already on the Petrocelli Hotel and I hope we don't take this eminent domain as an ability to put in another five-story building on the west side of of the town square thank you yep one online two online actually resolutions well we have two on resolutions two online ONE.
GOOD AFTERNOON. I'M CHRISTINA JANIS. I LIVE IN RAVES PARK. MY ONLINE. THERE'S NO CAMERA. DO WE HAVE THE CAMERA YET, GENTLEMEN? HELLO. THERE WE GO. HELLO. IF YOU COULD JUST START OVER FOR US, THAT WOULD BE GREAT. SURE. GOOD AFTERNOON. MY NAME IS CHRISTINA JANIS. I LIVE IN RAVES PARK. I'M SPEAKING ON RESOLUTION Resolution 831 granting approval for the Peconic Bay Medical Center Northwell Health site plan. I want to begin by saying I support the maternity expansion and facade improvements. My main concern is around the planting plan. Locally native plants matched to site conditions not only benefit local wildlife and food webs, but may require less supplemental water and maintenance after establishment. With the East End water supply and infrastructure under scrutiny, prioritizing site-appropriate native plants is responsible design. The August 27th plans included in the Town Board Work Session Packet contain two planting schedules with different plant quantities. The Planning Board Staff Report characterizes the plan as a mix of native and ornamental species with no invasives proposed. Among the 21 species listed across both schedules, seven appear on the Long Island Invasive Species Management Area, or LISMA's, tier list, including high-impact maiden grass and fountain grass and moderate-impact Japanese hot leaf. These labels describe real ecological harm. LISMA documented maiden grass involving three grasslands along Whiskey Road and the Rocky Point Pine Barrens. The proposed cultivar gracilumus is regulated in New York and is not conditionally exempt. Using it in a new landscape is a plainly avoidable ecological risk. LISMA's guidance is to not plant tier-listed species like maiden grass, fountain grass, and Japanese holly. I am asking today that you amend the resolution before voting, before final plan approvals. Please require an amended, reconciled planting schedule. replace all seven list malisted species with native site appropriate plants i'm happy to follow up in writing with additional resources and qualified organizations like rewild long island who work with communities to create ecologically appropriate site plans together we can do better and be a model for other towns across the island and celebrating our unique native biodiversity thank you thank you so much for your comments thank you very much A lot to consider. Anyone else online? Anyone else in our room on resolutions? Okay, with that said, we will move into taking our resolutions from our town clerk. Turn it over to Mr. Wooten. I'm getting there. You know, I just need to ask one question. Could Mr. Charters come up and address that concern that that individual had? I did look at him. He gave me the... Is there a way to just remove those species off the? I think a simple additional condition would be to include anything to preclude the use of anything that's on the do not sell list. We like expediting this to just explain like is this under time constraints or something or like we just met with them the other day. So like the project has been under review since the beginning of the year. we've been working and they've been revising their plans to meet their needs so they've had to revise you know about halfway through the process to relocate each hvac hvac equipment that was going to be on the roof that's there now to go on a lower roof that's going to be enclosed so that is the version that you saw last week in terms of the scale of the project it's you know ongoing interior changes that they've been working on which they already have approval for this is sort of the outside and the is at the end um you know anything with the planting schedule is admittedly an oversight but it's easily solved so i was asking can we do that can we amend yeah you can amend to have to preclude the use of anything that's on the do not sell what is that the do not not sell list. So DEC promulgates that list.
What resolution is that? 831. I think I just want to make certain too, but it brings about a point with our elected town assessor brought up. I don't want nuisance either. So there is certainly ways to address noise nuisance of a humming or anything like that. That could be very DISRUPTIVE AND I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE'RE NOT JUST KIND OF GLANCING RIGHT ON BY THAT IF WE HAVE TO ADJUST THIS TO MAKE CERTAIN THAT IT IS NOT GOING TO BE IN ANY WAY QUALITY OF HAZARD ISSUE WITH SURROUNDING RESIDENCY BE HEARING A HUMMING THINGS LIKE I WOULD BE LIKE OH IT'S NOT THAT LOUD I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT YEAH THAT'S UNDERSTOOD SO AND I DON'T THINK THAT WAS MY ANSWER THEY THEY HAVE TO COMPLY WITH THE NOISE CODE AND THERE'S AN AUDIBILITY REQUIREMENT SO WHAT WOULD GENERALLY HAPPEN IS THEY WOULD DO A SOUND STUDY TO SEE WHAT'S AUDIBLE IN THE AREA AND ESTABLISH A BASELINE. I WILL NOTE THAT THIS NEIGHBORHOOD IS CLOSE TO 58, CLOSE TO BUSINESSES THAT ARE ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF 58. THIS IS NOT TO SAY THAT THE ISSUE IS NOT RELEVANT, BUT I DON'T HAVE ANY OTHER INFORMATION THAT THERE'S A HUM THAT'S TAKING PLACE. SO WHAT DID HAPPEN ON FRIDAY IS I HAD A DISCUSSION WITH MS. TENENBURG ABOUT THE EXISTING COOLING TOWER THAT'S ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE BUILDING THAT'S BEING ENCLOSED AS WELL. AND THERE'S TWO EVENTS THAT COME OUT. We, I, with the fire marshal's office, called facilities at the hospital to see what those vents were for. They're fresh air vents for the boiler, and there's a HVAC cooling tower that's behind it. What hospital facilities then told me is that on the north side of that is the patient care hallway, and on the south side is the executive suite for the hospital. So they have not gotten any complaints in the hospital of humming or excessive sound. I don't think they would want that close to their patient care. so I'm I'm fairly confident that they're abiding by town code I don't have information to believe that it's not about abiding by time code but that's why we have that catch-all condition to say you have to comply with the town code as it's written even if it's not called out specifically what section is that in mr. charges that would have four men do four and things yeah you can add a condition wherever you want so I would probably be wherever there's a required revision so there's a required revision for the lighting coat so we can add the do not sell for the landscaping plan so this was reviewed by town staff it goes to ARB because they do generally review landscape plans soon it's probably just an honest I just want to make it so that we can add it so would be I don't have the is it um I'll have the page numbers for your packet sorry you want to create number 10 in it in the resolution now so it my recommendation is 7a is where the revisions for the plans are so 7a and then there's Roman numeral 1 Roman numeral 2 you can add it as a Roman numeral 3 yep Eric is and it would be it would state amend to add a do not sell list of landscaping Do not sell, like S-E-L-L? S-E-L-L, like sell. The D.C. and Cornell have a list of invasives or potentially evasives. You guys are usually so good at putting that in. It happens to the best of us, as I can say. I appreciate the catch. Okay, so we're going to Roman numeral three, and it's going to be revised. Landscaping plan. To preclude plants that are on the do not sell list. All right. I can call them out.
Okay, thank you. Good work. Anybody online? Anyone else in our room on a specific resolution at all? All right, I think that's where we were, so we're going to... Yeah, we're up. I'm ready to pull it. All right, sir. Resolution number one, which is 814. Ratifies budget adjustment for air conditioning units replacement at Justice Court and Police Department. So moved. Second. Vote please. Waskey. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Hearn. Yes. Oops, stupid me. Rothwell. Yes. And Halpin. Just want to say thank you to everyone for being patient last week while we had to make those adjustments to get that up and running. And yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 815. Authorization for an appraisal. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Yes.
Police Department Vehicle Transfer to Code Enforcement. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Hoppin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 82017. Accepts donation of T-shirts for annual snapper tournament. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskey? Yes. Thank you. Merrifield? Yes. Thank you. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Hoppin? Yes. Thank you. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 818. Resolution 819. Removes fixed assets. So moved. Second. Vote please. Waske. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 819. Ratifies the authorization for police department employees to attend a training. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waske. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 820. Accept the retirement of Police Detective Anderson. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waski. Congratulations, Ricky and your family. Now you'll have more time to spend together and more time to spend with your retired officers as well and our families. So yes. Marichu. Yes, and congratulations. Yes, and thank you so much for your years of service to the town of Vervahead. Rothwell? Yes, thank you very much. God bless. Enjoy retirement. Halbin? May God bless your family and all your work. Thank you and yes. That resolution is adopted. Resolution 821. Accepts the retirement of a police officer, Troyon. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskie? Again. Pete, congratulations. Pete, congratulations for you and Virginia and your children. You have a lot of great stuff going on right now in your personal life, and you'll have more time to spend with your family. And, yes. Mary Field. Yes, and congratulations on retirement. Kern. Yes, and thank you for the years of service to the town of Riverhead. Rothwell. Thank you so much, Pete. Enjoy your retirement. Be safe. And helping. Absolutely. Thank you so much, sir. Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 822. Accepts the retirement of a senior justice court clerk. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes, and congratulations. Pern? Yes. Good luck, Mary Beth. Rothwell? Yes. Congratulations. Enjoy retirement. And Halpin? So many great people. Thank you. Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 823. Ratifies the resignation of a wastewater treatment plant operated trainee. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waskie. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 824. Approves the request for military leave of absence. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Thank you for your service. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Thank you and yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 825. Authorizes attendance at seminar by fire marchals. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waske? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 826. Authorizes employee to attend Civil Service Employees Association 116th Annual Delegates Meeting. So moved. Second. Vote please. Waske. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Halpin. Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 827. Ratifies the authorization for the supervisor to execute an end agreement with a town employee. Yeah. It's a type of employee. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 828. Authorizes Amendment No. 9 of the Agreement of the U.S. Department of Interior, U.S. Geological Survey. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 829. Authorizes the supervisor to execute a professional services agreement for engineering services for installation of water mains and appurtenances for boundary extension numbers 95, 96, and 97, Riverhead Water District. So moved. Seconded. Pope, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 830. Authorize the supervisor to execute a license agreement with Darkside Productions, Inc. 2026. So moved. Second. Vote, please. Waskey? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? I grant courage to our fire marshals during this training event. Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 831. Grants administrative approval for the site plan application entitled Meconic Bay Medical Center slash Northwell Health Maternity Expansion and Facade Improvements. One Heroes Way Suffolk County Tax Map Number 600-108-3-22.1. So moved. Yes, to amend. you know motion to amend oh i make a motion to amend hey would you like to read how it's going to be amended please motion to amend is going to be inserted at a paragraph 7a it's going to be a new roman numeral three and it's gonna read applicant shall revise landscaping plan to preclude use of any plantings on dec do not sell list Second to amend. Vote to amend, please. Waske? Yes, to amend. Merriffield? Yes, to amend. Kern? Yes, to amend. Rothwell? Yes, to amend. Helping? Yes, sir, to amend. The resolution has been amended. Grants administrative approval for the site plan application entitled Peconic Bay Medical Center slash Northwell Health, maternity expansion and facade improvements, One Hero's Way, Suffolk County Tax Map, and that number 600-108-3-22.1. As amended, so moved. As amended. Seconded. As amended. Vote, please. Waski? Yes. Merfield? Yes, as amended. Kern? Yes, as amended. Rothwell? Yes, as amended. Elkin? Yes, as amended. And the resolution is adopted. Resolution number 832. Accepts and approves the appraisal of the Goodman Marks Associates, Inc., establishing just compensation and authorizing the transmission of a written offer for the acquisition of the property located at 111 East Main Street, Riverhead, New York, Suffolk County Tax Map Number 129-1-11. So moved. Seconded. Vote, please. Waske. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes. Resolution is adopted. Resolution number 833. Accepts bond resolution for ambulance building projects. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Bosque? Yes. Merrifield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution's adopted. Resolution 834. Acceptance of 2025 audited financial statements. I'm going to read this out loud for everybody. So moved. Second. Vote please. Waskey? Yes. Merritt-Hill? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Halpin? Yes, sir. Resolution's adopted. Resolution 835. Authorizes 2026 bow hunting for deer on town property at Enterprise Park at Calverton. Suffolk County tax map number 600-135-1-7.33 ETAI 1751 Sound Avenue, Calvertines. Suffolk County tax map number 600-60-1-2 and Middle Road, Riverhead. Suffolk County tax map number 600-80-2-10.1. So moved. Seconded. Please Waski, yes Rachel yes, turn yes, well yes, how could this sir resolution is adopted resolution number 836 Authorized town clerk to publish and post public notice to consider a local law to amend chapter 115 of the Riverhead Town Code Titled procurement policy so moved back to the vote, please Waski yes, Mary field. Yes turn. Yes, Rothwell. Yes, how can sir? Resolution is adopted. Resolution 837. Authorizes the town clerk to publish and post notice to bidders for installation of water mains and appurtenances. Extension number 97, Forge Road, Riverhead Water District. So moved. Seconded. Vote please. Waske? Yes. Murrayfield? Yes. Kern? Yes. Rothwell? Yes. Alpin? Yes, sir. Resolution is adopted. Resolution 838. I'll authorize the town clerk to publish and post notice the bid is for installation of water mains and Apprentices for summer wind Riverhead water district so move second vote, please Waski yes, Maryfield. Yes, Kern. Yes, Rothwell. Yes, no That resolution is adopted. Resolution 839. Approve special event of Chapter 255 application for Riverhead Athletic Club. Riverhead Athletic Club run. The wave. 5K. So moved. Seconded. Please wasky. Yes, Maryfield. Yes turn. Yes, Rothwell. Yes, how about yes, sir? Resolution is adopted resolution 840 pays bills so move second vote, please Wasky yes, very few. Yes turn. Yes, well, yes, how about yes, sir? Resolution is adopted that concludes the resolutions for this meeting So we'd like to open it for an open comment period. Again, we ask that you use your three minutes, you honor that, and then you also state your name and your Hamlet. That would be great. Mike Foley, Reeves Park. I watched a work session in early August on Channel 22 that had legislator Greg Dorosky and a Peconic Land Trust project manager called... Julie Wisniewski. Thank you very much. And they were discussing in a very enthusiastic way the recent agreements reached between a Peconic Land Trust and Nassau County, where Nassau would sell the entire 145-acre parcel for $10 million. And as was explained by legislator Dorosky, that the lands that they envisioned whacking up would be the 4-H that would stay intact, the 40-acre working farm with Suffolk County, they would contribute towards the purchase. And 36 acres contiguous with Reeves Park on the western boundary of Reeves Park. And also contiguous with the existing 15 acres that we have for the town of Riverhead, which is also on the historic Riverhead Sound Avenue corridor. They were very enthusiastic. And the town board asked a few questions that seemed to get them a little sideways. And after a brief additional discussion, they were going to adjourn it to go into the executive session. And the next day, Greg Dorosky had an interview expressing a tremendous amount of frustration about the hesitancy of the town board to participate in this purchase. so I quickly I'm a member of the Sound Park Heights Board of Directors and brought this to their attention and they appointed me as a point guy in trying to inform the community of what was going on so very quickly I got a handful of great neighbors to come up with a petition that would circulate amongst the community in Reeves Park. So at the meeting that we had a few days ago on Sunday, as a matter of fact, I took a collection. We put a deadline of Labor Day to collect this so that we could present it to Jim next week so it would be in the correspondences in the following meeting. And the petition reads, we the homeowners of Reeves Park urge the Riverhead Town Board to participate with the Peconic Land Trust and Suffolk County in the purchase and preservation of the 145-acre 4-H property. Protecting this land from inappropriate development is key to preserving the historic South Avenue corridor. The 36-acre parcel offered to the town for purchase using the Community Preservation Fund is contiguous with our community. The undersigned support preserving this parcel as open space of perpetuity for the benefit of all Riverhead residents. Jerry, if I could have just one moment, please. Thank you. So as of Sunday, we had 179 signatures on it. And by Labor Day, I expect that to be somewhere around 300. Part of our strategy was also to try and get individual meetings with the town board members to discuss what their opinions are and positions were on the purchase of this land. We had one person at the time from the board that had already expressed his approval and support for purchasing the land and preserving it for open space. And that was Jerry. We thank you for that. Joanne yesterday met with us on very short notice, met with myself and two of my neighbors and friends, Jim Kelly and Mark Aladef. and Joanne also supports the purchase of this at a fair price. Obviously the conditions are important on this and it was my understanding that what came out of the executive session was that the Peconic Land Trust was offering this land at approximately $110,000 an acre to the Riverhead town using the Community Preservation Fund. They paid $69,000 an acre for it. I find it unfair that a town like Riverhead that has the greatest wealth of open space and the smallest community preserve fund would be gouged with a 50% markup in the price. So it's our position, and certainly we're looking to support anything that comes of this. It's our position that we want to get this at a fair price. We understand that there are concerns, valid concerns that you guys brought up about the conditions of remediating this land. It is important to do. I spoke to Julie Wisnacki and she assured me that private money could take care of that. So I think we're on the right path. And Ken, I really appreciate you coming up with your statement today. And it sounded like you were also including Denise in that statement. And we appreciate all that. We would welcome the ability to sit down with each of you for half an hour like we did to Joanne and continue this down the road. Lastly, on Sunday, I am not on social media. I was shown an Instagram post that Greg Dorosky posted that I find annoying. It is partisan. It is deceptive in its content. And it does nothing to forward the purchase of this land. So I'd prefer us to stick with the facts. The facts are on our side. Everybody here loves open space. And we'll get it done the right way. And I thank you very much for giving me the extension. Thank you, sir. Appreciate your passion for our town. Ken Zelnicki, Riverhead. And I'm not going to take much time. Everybody wants to get home. Why I'm in opposition of purchasing this land with the county and the land trust. in the town of riverhead we have over 8 200 acres of preserved land already i to say that anyone is against preservation especially myself because i'm also on the farmland preservation committee um i just don't like what's happening with the numbers that have been presented all right the town of riverhead which bought the nine acres for one million dollars i believe it's about eight to ten years ago no one uses that park all right it is filled with briars and ticks no one uses the park and i don't believe that the town of riverhead should pay another four million dollars for the exact same thing um if a investment group bought it it is the 30 70 percent situation. Only 30% of 140 acres could be developed. 70 acres would have to be preserved. And at that point, all the land would be taxable, even the 100 acres that has to be preserved. Now, when you do appraisals on property, you do comps on other properties that are near the area. You can more or less do the same thing with taxes. There are three brand-new houses built on Phillips Lane, only on an acre and three-quarters, but each house is paying over $30,000 in taxes. In the middle of the 4-H camp, there's an eight-lot subdivision, and the one house is paying over $35,000 in taxes. If only 20 or 30 houses were built on that 30%, it would be anywhere from $500 to $1 million in property taxes every year. And the 100 acres that has to be preserved also pays taxes. And I would say that, Mr. Supervisor and people on the town board, can you tell the people of the town of Riverhead that we don't need that possible tax money, that we're fine. And if you can do that, all right, that's fine. And I understand that there are people that completely want as much open space as possible. And being on the Farm Preservation Committee, we have on the agenda over 200 acres that are looking to be preserved. But every one of those owners will also keep land out for houses and barns. And that would be the same scenario that if you were able to sell the property to someone else. INSTEAD OF TALKING WITH THE LAND TRUST, TALK WITH NASSAU COUNTY. BECAUSE I DON'T THINK THE LAND TRUST, WHICH DOES SOME GOOD WORK, BUT THEY DON'T ALWAYS DO THE RIGHT THING FOR THE TOWN OF RIVERHEAD. AND YOU KNOW, JUST THEIR NUMBERS AND EVERYTHING ELSE JUST DON'T ADD UP AND I DON'T THINK IT'S THE RIGHT WAY TO GO. AND I JUST WANT TO SAY, NO MATTER HOW THIS TURNS OUT, I RESPECT EVERYONE ON THE BOARD HERE. WE WORKED TOGETHER FOR TWO YEARS. You guys have a lot of tough decisions to make. And I also want to say to Mike that we've had a great conversation on one day for about an hour. And even though we disagree, we respectfully disagree. And I wish more people in the town would do the same thing. How did you get out of a conversation with Mike in less than an hour? I just want to know. I understand that. And Mike still owes me a cup of coffee. I think I spoke to him once from here all the way to New Hampshire. Thank you, Mr. Zelnicki, for your continued passion.
Hi, John Cullen over in Northville. You guys really got to have public comments first before three hours of things. Just kidding. No way. Ken Rothwell, I'm looking to have him reconvene the helicopters and the seaplanes. Maybe after the holiday weekend we can start pushing out some dates. Yeah, we sent all the letters and I was hoping. I'm sorry? We sent all the letters in to Schumer, Gillibrand, and the load-up. I was hoping to be able to share some type of response from the FAA, you know, accepting it and adopting it or applying it. We haven't got any confirmation. They haven't received any confirmation. So it's sitting there. I was kind of wanting to bring, you know, good notice and whatever to you to share. But, I mean, if you want to sit, you know, and we'll gather again. I think we want to sit down and have a little. By all means, we can talk about it. We can come up with a solution. I've written the FAA 100 letters. I've never gotten a response. So, I mean, you've got a little more power. I'm not even going to say it to me. But, honestly, in the past, it's worked out very good with them when we reached out. And they responded to Chuck Schumer's office. And then we got written confirmation. It worked out well that way. So that's what I was hoping to have something for you. But I'll gladly sit down with you. We'll schedule a meeting. That would be great. Well, let's get going after the holiday. That would be wonderful. I'll reach back out to you again. The helicopters have been distributing a little bit further to the west, beating up on Rocky Point. Even as far as Stony Brook, they've been sneaking off just to try and give Wading River a little break. But they're still coming. It is toward the end of the season. Things are going to slow down, but I'd like to try and keep the power going throughout the season, throughout the winter. Thank you for your time. Mr. Cullen, I've noticed that too because they go right over my backyard all the time, and I have noticed a little bit more of a distribution not so directly, at least over my home, and higher. And I have noticed them being higher. They've heard the noise in the last month. Some companies are now trying to go around Orient Point versus cutting through. There will always be, unfortunately, helicopters going to Meadow Lane by Shinnecock Inlet and over to West Hampton. And if we can get them to all use the South Shore route, they're all landing over there. It's really a no-brainer, but it's hard to get the FAA, Eastern Region Helicopter Council, and even Zip Aviation to do the right thing instead of saving three minutes or four minutes. It's called Fly Neighborly. That's what all these people sponsor, and some of them just won't. Thank you for your time. We sat down two weeks ago and the Percy's meteor shower that was taking place, we sat out in Janesport and farmed that night. Unfortunately, it was more helicopters in a direct path than the flights. No, when the weather's like this, they can go anywhere. It's all safety on a weather day like this. And I have had my office reach out to the East End supervisors and mayors to put it on their agenda, and we have asked continuously, we continue to push that. And because of your bringing that committee back together and re-energizing it, I think it's pushed the helicopters, and now they all want to talk about it because at first they were like, they're not bothering us. And now it seems to be a conversation. We have shared your cell phone number with all of them. I'm sorry? We've shared your cell phone number with all of them. I'm sure I have. They have my house number. That's what they have. Thank you, sir. One last point. There's somebody earlier in this whole water thing. I didn't really want to get up and say anything, but there was somebody in Riverhead that mentioned the power lines. and I don't really hear much about that. She mentioned it early on when this started a year ago, and I think she was told that they can't use them, but it's another option. The power lines go right through to South Hole. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. There's two online. We'll take one online if there's anybody else in the room. If you would just at least identify yourself so we know. There you go. We just don't want to leave you out. Are we doing the online? All right. There we go. Hi, can you hear me okay? We sure can. Go ahead. Hi, Carrie Flanagan, Riverhead, New York. My comments are directed to those sitting on the dais who I believe are willing to receive this message, as well as to our Riverhead community members directly. I apologize for the dryness of my voice. I've been on hold all this time. To Ken, Joanne, and Meredith, I don't believe my words will mean much to you, so you can feel free to tune me out and continue on your chosen path of select representation. Our Riverhead community, like every community across the country, is built on a single promise that every single person who lives, works, and raises a family here deserves to be heard, respected, represented, and protected. But I say to our community, that promise is being broken by three of the very people elected to uphold it. We need to look closely at the words and actions of those three elected officials who are not upholding it. The painful truth is that they do not care about everybody in our community. They have chosen to serve only a select few. They have told us this on the record. They have held press conferences, and they have doubled down on it when given a chance to explain. Some of them say this publicly when they step away from the dais and away from the microphone and encourage their friends and followers to support their statements. They are dividing us by using appearance and status as weapons. They are making it clear that for some people in our community, your safety, your livelihood, and your dignity do not matter to them. When a local government is allowed to discriminate against one group, no one is safe. An elected official's job is to represent and protect the entirety of their community, not to pick and choose who qualifies as worthy of the representation based on certain criteria or circumstances. We cannot sit silently and watch this happen to our Riverhead community. If they discriminate against one of us, they answer to all of us. We need to use our collective power to vote out those who do not truly represent all Riverhead residents and replace them with leaders who actually see, hear, and respect every person who resides here. Our strength is not in our elected officials. Our strength is in each other. Let's prove that our unity is stronger than their division. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. I think we have one more in line. We'll take somebody in the room while they queue that person up. So if somebody wants to make their way over, we'll kind of go back and forth. Be great. Warren McKnight. Again, Warren. Yeah, okay. Riverhead. Just a little bit. Okay. I'm referring to the letter I sent you with an article written by Vice Chairman of the Southhold Republican Committee, Jason Targert, in reference to these Committee of Public Safety that makes the people calm in their area. And this is so important. It's not like in East Hampton where they, you know, there's them against us. This is something that if you have a committee like that, it sort of diffuses the, how would you say, the disharmony of people there. So I urge you to contact the South Hole Town Board and maybe the South Hole Town, just Jason Taggart. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about. So we won't have people coming on saying this, that, you're serving the, you know, just part of the people, part of people here. It'll make also a lot of people feel safe, People who are, how would you say, came to this country, and we need them. And, of course, there's always the people that we don't, you know, who are criminals, who come here and flee their countries. We want to make sure that we take care of them and maybe get them back or send them to Guantanamo or something like that. So please do that for me, you know, or think about it with that. Okay, that's it. Thank you. Warren, somebody online, and then we'll come back to in the room. So you're in the room and you want to speak. If you want to make your way over, that way we're ready for you. Hey, Desmond Wong, Reeves Park. So after months of comments, oil requests, appeals, and follow-up, my August 28th letter is in the agenda packet, which is 340 to 343. Simply publishing it is not a board response. My FOIL requests produced two policy 414 versions, but still no identified approver or local effective date. If basic questions return to FOIL, what town process actually answers them? Section 996A6B is state law. regardless of views on OLA or ICE. For relevant employees, it requires non-public access policies or procedures, a sufficiency review protocol for judicial warrants or court orders, and a designated contact. My pending FOIL request, 26-18-33, seeks those records. Mr. Howard, you were not at the August 18th meeting, and I have not received answers to the questions I sent to your office. Could you confirm today whether your office is reviewing them and when I should expect a written response?
Male Speaker 1 I'm not going to confirm anything. Male Speaker 2 Great. Male Speaker 1 I just want to give you time to use your time. Male Speaker 1 You cannot confirm that your office received the emails? Male Speaker 2 I have not gone through all the emails while I was gone yet. Okay. So, could you confirm that your office will review the questions that I have sent? Or at least confirm receipt? Michael Heaney If you send questions, I will review the questions. Michael Heaney Okay. And then, separately to the board members, please calendar a public work session comparing state law, Riverhead's rules, ola's may 29th proposal sublet's adopted minimums and alternatives that request reflects the principle raised in the board's discussion earlier today councilman rothwell you said when are you going to come to the table and sit down with us so that we can actually come to a better conclusion i agree that is exactly what residents have been asking for here today's record does not establish 996a compliance or show an ola work session residents have described fear and confusion and have asked for clarity that the response cannot stop at acknowledgement at minimum that requires clear public records written answers and a public work session separately I have also prepared remarks about the 4-h land acquisition do you mind if I just say those now you have 20 seconds just that would be well I could either stop and come back back as a separate client. JOHN MCCALLOUGHEY, Yeah, why don't we do that? Why don't we do that? So Mr. McCullough? One bite at that apple. JOHN MCCALLOUGHEY, John McCullough, Froenoke Landing. First, I want to thank Mr. Wooten for the whole formatting now of letters, but also criticize him because he adds concerns to us that we might not otherwise be aware of. And I'm citing specifically the first letter that is in your packet from the people, the neighbors of the Summer Wind Project, which has an odor even worse than the Scotts Point project of special privilege allowing people to ignore or an atmosphere in which they think they can ignore the requirements. I'm curious, I mean this letter is very substantive and asks specific things of the town board and of the supervisors. So I'm curious whether you plan to respond to that, meet with them, or in some way act on it. The second thing I wanted to say was, this is the second time that Mr. Zelensky has spoken passionately about using some of the land at the Flint camp, which is also the neighbor to where I live. And I think it's at least a question that ought to be asked whether he's speaking on behalf of himself in an abstract way or whether he has an interest in the development of that property and the construction that's going to involve a lot of money and a lot of profit for somebody if it goes ahead. And he could well have, and he's legitimate in speaking on behalf of that if he has an interest, but I think we ought to know if he has an interest. The third point was that in terms of Ms. Merrifield's earlier comments about the school budget, I hope that she will join us in opposing IDA tax benefits for the Petrocelli Hotel since those tax benefits will remove funding that otherwise the school system will have. Finally, as I started to talk about earlier, I was concerned the kind of revisionist history about EPCAL and the Jermasians that was beginning to creep into some of the discussions. And I think it's very important. This issue is still not entirely resolved until the last appeal is done. But I was a little concerned about almost an implication that if the water authority gave us what we wanted at EPCAL, then maybe we would look a little differently towards their expansion into the South Hole. I don't, that was never explicit, but it was an implicit criticizing them for that and sort of how can you expect us to treat you nicely if you treat us badly. First of all, I appreciate what they did. If that was an obstacle to the Jermasians getting that land, I'm all in favor of it. Thank you, John. Thank you, sir, for your comments. We're going to take one more in-house right here.
Dawn Zabrowski, River Road. August 25th was our unhappy anniversary. Since that day last year, I have attempted to resolve a complaint with the Riverhead Town Highway Department that a year later is not only unresolved, but has metastasized throughout Town Hall. I don't know why it would be thought advisable to have the town attorney continue to insult me with nonsensical correspondence months and months apart from, and in complete contradiction to, the insulting, nonsensical correspondence submitted to me by Ashley Striplin Teo back in 2025. Of course, it tracks. After being removed by law enforcement at the direction of Brother Halpin from the July 7th meeting, I went to collect my incident report. There was confusion and shuffling and murmuring before I was told by a lieutenant verbatim, this is very unusual. Your report is not complete. He called me a few days later to come down and pick it up. The completed report bore no resemblance whatsoever to the actual events captured on video. According to the report, after a brief disturbance, I voluntarily exited the meeting. We all know what really happened. I suppose next I will be told that Brother Wooten never accused me of being a bad Christian. I have spent a year, hours and hours and pages and pages of futile correspondence directed uselessly to all of you. If it is not apparent that your complaint process is in serious need of correction, perhaps elected office is not for you. I am awaiting overdue response to my FOIL asking for the official procedure for filing a complaint. Ashley Striplin Teo should consult AI if she is having difficulty finding this information in town hall. She will find that I have fulfilled and exceeded every requirement for filing such a complaint. But you know that. Did you also know that I have foiled a list of every Town of Riverhead employee and their salaries and cross-referenced their positions? This is how I determined the identities of Bucket Man and Ryan Nameless that you have continually refused to provide me. Despite your despicable treatment of me, I have been discreet to a fault. I will not be naming them today. However, my ability to obtain this information clearly demonstrates that Riverhead Town has absolutely no legal right whatsoever to withhold public information. Consult Sister Merrifield, the purported lawyer on the town board, who will state proudly and publicly that the answer to lawlessness is more lawlessness. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Sister Merrifield feels the same way about public information as she does about due process. She is unquestionably a bad faith actor as a liaison to the sham anti-bias task force and should resign that position or be removed. After a year of ongoing seemingly unending distress, disturbance and destabilization, what remains to be done still remains to be seen. See you next Tuesday. Eric okay so just to remind the town board this was a complaint that was submitted through the highway department to Mike's Alasky our personnel director Ashley stripling Tio investigated it she spoke with I'm not gonna I'm not gonna keep doing okay I think there's one more lines there there was a letter there was issued there was a letter that was issued to ms zebrowski on october 10th of 2025 indicating that her complaint was investigated and that it was addressed internally and that the highway department staff was reminded ma'am ma'am ma'am ma'am ma'am go ahead okay that the highway department staff there was a memorandum issued to highway department staff reminding them to communicate respectfully with members of the public and to in general uh you know be courteous be courteous in my mind and my animal of their enemies there uh sir ma'am ma'am ma'am ma'am beautiful ma'am you know someone said that to my wife so we uh having a conversation we will have to so i believe we have one more no that's that's that's not what i'm saying at all so ma'am ma'am that we didn't allow you to speak and i'm Asking you. Yeah, well, that's how this works. Unfortunately, is that we all have this and so we'd like to go to our online so with we have one more online, right? There we are. Last one. Hey, that's been one brief part just wanted to express my comment about the 4h acquisition. So I support Riverhead keeping negotiations moving to acquire the entire proposed eastern parcel, approximately 36 acres as permanent public open space. It can connect the Sound Avenue Nature Preserve to Long Island Sound, can protect habitat and support the farmland and century-old camp, carry the proposal through closing, protect the full parcel, expressly extinguish residential development rights, permanently bar commercial development, and record an enforceable conservation instrument at the community preservation fund hearing publish the exact map proposed town price and appraisal basis net liabilities and initial stewardship and access plan these safeguards should not delay negotiations apply one fiscal standard across projects account public incentives infrastructure and service costs and compare permanent public return not gross tax revenue alone please keep negotiations moving permanently protect the full corridor thanks and just uh again mr howard i look forward to your response on my questions thank you clarified that i said that i would read the questions i did not necessarily say that there would be a response well you've got a response every time you've written to me so you're just just not happy with the response. No, the responses from the FOILs were pretty inadequate. But as far as the questions that I've asked you in recent times, they're very basic questions about the state of the procedures that you have in place. So I'm not asking for any legal opinion or interpretation. It's just basic facts about what you have in place. Thank you, Mr. Wong. I appreciate you being patient and calling back in. I believe we have no one else online, no one else in our room. So with that, I want to thank everybody that was able to give those comments. I thought we had a solid meeting to a degree. And so I'd like to ask for a motion for us to adjourn. So moved. Seconded. All in favor? Aye.
Thank you.