Riverhead Town Board meeting wrap-up: July 6

BFJ Planning of New York City has been hired by Riverhead Town to complete a new planning study for the Route 25A corridor in Wading River. The firm will be paid a maximum of $44,000 plus expenses of up to $3,500.

Local architect Martin Sendlewski of Riverhead objected to the town studying just one hamlet in the town, suggesting if the town is going to study one hamlet it should study the entire town. Sendlewski also told the Town Board it classified the study incorrectly under the State Environmental Quality Review Act. The study should be classified as a Type I action under the law, requiring a full environmental review, not a Type II action, Sendlewski said, warning that the town could be opening itself up to a challenge.

The town should undertake a review of the master plan as a whole, and do a full environmental review, Sendlewski said.

Riverhead Town planner Rick Hanley disagreed. “Data collection studies are clearly Type II actions under SEQRA,” he said. That’s exactly what a planning study is, he said.

“We don’t know at this point whether there will be implementation actions requiring environmental review as a result of the study,” Hanley said.

In a 3-1 vote, the Town Board approved the resolution authorizing the supervisor to sign a contract with BFJ, with Councilwoman Jodi Giglio casting the lone dissenting vote, and Councilman John Dunleavy absent.

Giglio said she did not see the point in spending more money on a new study when the town has already studied the Wading River hamlet extensively twice in the past.

“We have ample information from the two previous studies that we should be looking at and trying to implement,” Giglio said before casting her vote, reading from a prepared statement. “We should be looking at these studies in-house with community involvement and property owners and determining design standards and demanding responsible development of the hamlet as recommended to preserve the rural character of Wading River,” Giglio said. “Spending another $42,000 on a study at this time does not make sense to me,” she said.

Councilman James Wooten, also reading from a prepared statement, said he supported doing a new study because “it’s been more than 22 years since the Town of Riverhead took a hard look at this hamlet.” Wooten said “It’s simply our responsibility to Wading River and all of Riverhead. And remember this is merely a study, so I vote yes.”

New town website coming
Riverhead Town will soon have a new, redesigned website. The Town Board authorized a $15,000 contract with Municipal CMS of Smithville, Missouri to design and develop a new website. The fee includes the first year’s hosting and can be paid over a period of three to five years, without interest charges.

The town went out to bid for a website redesign late last year. The bids were opened in January, but the contract was delayed after Giglio asked the board to consider awarding the contract to a local bidder. Giglio voted against awarding the contract to the Missouri firm yesterday.

The town’s current web hosting company, Suffolk Online Advertising of Riverhead, will continue to host the town’s email accounts for $3,600 per year. Suffolk Online Advertising will also continue to support the Recreation Department’s “shop site” at an annual fee of $3,700. The town will pay the company $465 per year for “commercial web hosting” and $600 annually for “code adjustments and in-house technical support” according to a contract approved by the Town Board in May.

Municipal CMS will charge the town $2,400 per year to host the town website after the first year, according to a spokeswoman for the company.

[Editor’s note: See blog post by local web designer who didn’t win the bid. Click here.]

FOIL request ignored, says local real estate agent
Riverhead real estate broker Larry Oxman, who has been in litigation with the town over his alleged clearing of land on Route 58 without a permit, told Town Board members yesterday a Freedom of Information Law request he filed in April has been ignored by the town.

Oxman said he filed a FOIL request April 8, seeking information on fees paid to outside counsel and hours expended by in-house attorneys in the town’s suit against him.

“I never got any response,” Oxman said, noting the state Freedom of Information Law requires the municipality to respond to all FOIL requests within five business days, advising the person making the request whether the town is denying or approving the request or advising that more time is needed to respond.

Supervisor Sean Walter told town attorney Bob Kozakiewicz to make sure Oxman has a response to the request by Friday.

“I don’t know why there was no response,” Walter told RiverheadLOCAL today. “But that won’t do,” he said. Walter said the number of hours worked on the case by the town attorney’s staff may not available, since the town attorney’s office may not keep those records. “But certainly the vouchers approved for payment to outside counsel can be produced,” the supervisor said in a phone interview today.

The town is represented in the litigation — a criminal prosecution being tried in Southampton Justice Court — by the firm of Smith, Finkelstein, Lundberg Isler and Yakaboski.

The matter has been on trial in Southampton since November, Oxman said. The outstanding code violation made it impossible to refinance his mortgage, he told the board, and as a result he lost the Route 58 property — just east of Riverhead Raceway — to foreclosure in May.

The town charged Oxman and a co-owner with illegally clearing the 13-acre site in Oct. 2004. The charges were dismissed in 2008, but the town appealed the dismissal and filed new charges, which the town argued superseded the orignal charges. An appellate court agreed with the town in 2009 and the matter has been pending in Southampton Justice Court for more than a year.

“I know exactly how much I’ve spent on lawyers,” Oxman said, though he refused to disclose the sum. He said he has racked up legal fees billed for more than 1,000 hours of attorney time. “Multiply that by the going hourly rate and you have some idea,” Oxman said after yesterday’s Town Board meeting.

“The town has nothing to gain in this litigation,” Oxman said. “Even if it wins, the fines get paid to the Town of Southampton,” he said.

August 2 public hearings
Public comment is sought on a proposal to repeal and replace the town’s site plan review article of the Riverhead Town Code, setting forth new rules and procedures for the review and approval of all site plans, which are required for all commercial uses in the town.

The public hearing on the new site plan review code will be held Aug. 2 at 2:15 p.m.

The board will also hold a public hearing Aug. 2 on a plan to add professional offices as a use in the DC-5 zoning use district, which presently allows only one- and two-family dwellings, townhouses, places of worship and schools.

A third public hearing scheduled Aug. 2 is on the special use permit petition of R&K Precision Autoworks on Sound Avenue in Riverhead. The applicant seeks to reconstruct and expand a pre-existing, nonconforming auto repair facility on the site.