Civic group president and town supervisor spar over Wading River zoning

It’s the end of December, but things got mighty warm inside the Riverhead Town Hall meeting room during the final Town Board meeting of 2011.

A heated exchange between Riverhead Neighboorhood Preservation Coalition president Dominique Mendez and Town Supervisor Sean Walter ended with the civic leader and supervisor accusing each other of threatening the other person, and with Mendez calling the supervisor a liar.

“You had people from your group come and threaten me,” Walter said to Mendez during the exchange.

“That’s a bald-faced lie,” Mendez shot back. “One of many,” she said. “You threatened me.”

The unusual sparring match took place after Mendez took the podium to complain about the town’s alleged lack of response to the civic group’s requests concerning commercial development along the Route 25A corridor in Wading River.

Mendez argued that the town was supposed to have a “public workshop” meeting in Wading River to air alternatives for the 25A corridor, as part of a study commissioned by the town to look at updating the zoning along the corridor — something the RNPC and other civic groups had demanded.

The supervisor argued that the “workshop” meetings had, in fact, already been held.

“You squandered the opportunity,” Walter said. “You took it upon yoursleves to lambast town officials instead.”

The supervisor accused RNPC of “splintering the town” and Mendez of “spinning” the facts.

Mendez provided RiverheadLOCAL with a copy of a Nov. 29 letter to the Town Board, signed by her and by Wading River Civic Association president Sid Bail and Group for the East End president Bob DeLuca, requesting a public workshop meeting be held in Wading River during the evening hours.

The town’s planning consultants had held two “focus group” meetings in Wading River, which were not open to the public or the media and were supposed to be in addition to a public workshop meeting, according to Mendez.

The planning consultants hired by the town to update the Route 25A corridor plan will present their findings to the Town Board Jan. 12 at a public work session, Walter said.

“I’ve done everything you’ve asked,” Walter said.

“The town continues to refuse to adopt a moratorium, so what’s the point of a corridor study,” Mendez asked. She said another 40,000-square-foot shopping center site plan had been submitted for a parcel inside the corridor study. Walter blamed RNPC for the application.

“If it hadn’t been for your actions, he wouldn’t have filed this. He wants to lock in his property rights,” Walter said. The supervisor did not divulge the name of the property owner, but said he’d told him directly he wouldn’t have filed a site plan application had it not been for the RNPC’s stance.

RNPC last week filed a lawsuit challenging the town planning board’s approval of the Knightland retail mall on the corner of Sound Avenue and Route 25A— the day after that board approved Knightland’s site plan.

Walter said he considers the organization “a special interest group,” not a civic. He stood by his assertion, made just before the Nov. 8 general election, that the RNPC was behind a mailer sent to Wading River residents by the Riverhead Town Democratic Committee.

After seeing the mailer, Walter left an angry voicemail message for Richard Amper, who has joined the RNPC’s moratorium effort.

“You better hope that Phil Cardinale wins because you’ve sealed your fate, you and Dominique Mendez have sealed your fate,” Walter said in the message.  “You guys are no better than ACORN,” he said.