The supervisor’s plan to change the leadership on the Riverhead Planning Board was put off till after the new year, to allow newly elected Councilman Tim Hubbard to have a say in the matter.
At yesterday’s year-end special town board meeting, Supervisor Sean Walter moved to table resolutions appointing Stan Carey as planning board chairman
He said he made the motion at Carey’s request.
Walter also moved to table a resolution appointing Ed Densieski vice chairman of the planning board.
“I had a conversation with Stan Carey yesterday and he asked me to hold off on voting on this until the new board is seated,” Walter said as he made the motion to table the resolution that would have replaced 14-year planning board chairman
Richard O’Dea with Carey, who was named to the board in 2014.
At the Dec. 24 work session, Walter offered the resolution replacing O’Dea, as well as a resolution naming outgoing Councilman George Gabrielsen to the planning board seat held by its current vice chairman, Joseph Baier, who has served on the planning board since 1986. Baier’s current five-year term was set to expire Dec. 31 and the Gabrielsen appointment would have taken effect Jan. 1.
But Gabrielsen, who initially said he was willing to take the appointment, reconsidered over the weekend and withdrew himself from consideration.
Walter said in an interview Wednesday he intended to move forward at yesterday’s special meeting with resolutions appointing a new chairman and vice chairman.
But he would be doing so over the objection of the board’s new councilman. Hubbard told RiverheadLOCAL Wednesday the appointments should be done after the first of the year.
“I should be done at the first meeting of the year, as it always is. It should be done after I’m on the board,” Hubbard said. “I feel like I should have input into who holds these positions.”
At the conclusion of yesterday’s special meeting, Hubbard said he told the town board that if they didn’t table the resolutions, he intended to get up to the podium and voice his very strong objection to the moves.
“It reeks of politics,” Hubbard said in a phone interview Wednesday.
O’Dea and Baier supported Councilwoman Jodi Giglio in her successful bid to secure the party designation at a fractured Republican committee nominating convention in May. Carey stood with Walter. The committee also passed over incumbent Councilman James Wooten in favor of Hubbard and fellow retired Riverhead police Lt. Bob Peeker. In September’s hotly contested party primary election, Wooten bested Peeker in a three-way race for two spots on the GOP ticket. Giglio squeaked past Walter, who then ran on the Conservative line and won re-election in a three-way contest with Giglio and Democrat Anthony Coates.
Walter denied his proposals for the planning board were an exercise in political payback.
“I understand it may look that way,” he said last week, “but that’s not what this is about.” He said he thought the planning board needed some fresh vision. He also said Gabrielsen’s understanding of and support for the EPCAL subdivision, which awaits planning board approval, was a motivating factor.
Baier said Wednesday evening that he would like to be reappointed to the planning board and intended to stay on as “a holdover” until such time as he might be replaced, if that should occur.
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