A group of parents whose children participate in youth lacrosse leagues are asking the Riverhead recreation advisory committee for a turf multipurpose field at the EPCAL municipal park.
About 25 people showed up at yesterday’s recreation advisory committee meeting at Riverhead Town Hall to support the request, which was articulated on behalf of the group by Aquebogue resident Chris Nentwich.
The town lacks adequate space for its youth lacrosse league, which has to schedule games and practices in a catch-as-catch can manner on fields used primarily by youth baseball, soccer and football leagues, Nentwich told committee members. Scheduling is difficult at best, he said.
A multipurpose turf field would serve about 1,000 kids participating in youth sports and could be used by high school and adult leagues as well, Nentwich said.
“We’re one of the only towns on Long Island that does not have a multipurpose turf field,” he said, ticking off a list of turf fields in other municipalities.
The installation of lights to illuminate a turf field would allow the town to expand the use and operation of the facility, generating revenue for the town, said Nentwich, a physical education teacher and coach at Rocky Point High School.
The cost of a turf field with lights and parking is about $1 million, according to his own research into the matter, Nentwich told the committee.
Councilman George Gabrielsen, former recreation advisory committee chairman and town board liaison to the committee, said the committee has been aware of the need for a multipurpose field for some time. The committee initially proposed four fields at the municipal park in Calverton, Gabrielsen noted.
Since the town already has parking and other infrastructure at the Calverton municipal park, the cost would come in at less, Gabrielsen said.
“It all comes down to the money,” he said.
New matching grant funds will be available
The councilman said the town will have additional grant funding opportunities in the next year, as existing projects funded by prior grants are completed and closed out. The town could have access to as much as a $500,000 in new grant money for recreation facilities, Gabrielsen said, though the grant funding would have to be matched, dollar-for-dollar, by the town.
To that end, Gabrielsen said he’s hoping the Henry Pfeifer Community Center could be sold and the town’s recreation fees fund would be reimbursed the amount spent to renovate the center, which had served the former Grumman facility as a guard house. Gabrielsen said the town invested upwards of $500,000 in recreation fees to renovate the Pfeifer center.
“And it was a bust,” Gabrielsen said of the community center. “It’s a remote location and a hostile environment and nobody wants to use it,” he said.
Future site of animal shelter?
Some people on the town board want to use the Pfeifer center for a new town animal shelter, Gabrielsen said, declining to name names. Gabrielsen is adamantly opposed to that, because he believes the center can and should be sold for use by a company that will build a power facility in the 95-acre energy park planned for land to the west of the old guard house.
The center adjoins the site of a concrete platform to be used by the EPCAL rail spur. Companies bidding on LIPA contracts to construct energy facilities were excited about EPCAL and particularly excited about its rail access, according to Gabrielsen, who said when energy company representatives toured the site, they were interested in the old guardhouse.
In the past, Supervisor Sean Walter and Councilman James Wooten have both advocated moving the town animal shelter to the Pfeifer center.
Wooten is open to a different location, adjacent to the Isaac Dog Park in Calverton, according to Gabrielsen.
“We had a map made up,” he said. The location is town-owned property south of the dog park. Wooten is going to take Riverhead Move the Animal Shelter organizer Denise Lucas on a tour of the site soon, Gabrielsen said.
‘It’s bye-bye to everything’
The supervisor has been in discussion with the North Fork Animal Welfare League, which operates the town’s existing animal shelter on Youngs Avenue, about relocating to the Pfeifer center.
In addition to the Pfeifer center site being a “hostile environment” surrounded by concrete, the adjacent rail spur loading/unloading concrete platform is a use incompatible with an animal shelter.
“Can you imagine those dogs going crazy with the noise of the freight unloading,” he asked.
The energy park will wipe away the town’s financial problems, according to Gabrielsen.
The energy park will generate “millions of dollars a year” for the town, the councilman said. “And then a lot of things will get built.”
If one of those companies is selected by LIPA to build the plant, which will be determined by December, Gabrielsen said, the Pfeifer center becomes not only very marketable but very important to the power company.
“But here’s what you’ve gotta understand,” Gabrielsen told committee members. “If the animal shelter goes there, it’s bye-bye to everything,” Gabrielsen said.
Development of Veterans Memorial Park in Calverton
The town struggled to get four grass baseball fields built and open at its new, 62-acre Veterans Memorial Park on Route 25 in Calverton. The park, in the works since 2004, opened the four fields there last spring. Their construction was delayed due to disputes between the town and the state Pine Barrens Commission (over land clearing), the county health department (over the use of temporary non-sewered toilet facilities) and the state transportation department (over the need for sidewalks along Route 25 and site access issues.) The ballfields themselves were installed by 2010, but sat unused for three years, awaiting completion by the town of the rest of the site work at the park.
For financial reasons, the Town Board decided not to install lighting for the ballfields, which Riverhead recreation superintendent Ray Coyne had sought. Coyne pressed for the lights — which carried an estimated $800,000 price tag, arguing that lighting would increase the town’s revenue opportunities for the new fields and would therefore, cover the cost of the installation and electric use.
The park also boasts a nine-mile, partially completed paved bicycle/walking trail as well as the Isaac Dog Park.
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