Coates: Riverhead IDA gives away the store

Riverhead is the highest-taxed, poorest, most-indebted town on the East End.

You wanna know why? In some measure it’s because we give out tax freebies like candy.

First let me say, I think the world of Tom Cruso, head of the Riverhead IDA. Tom and his wife Pat are two great citizens of Riverhead; they are both smart, caring people who give of themselves to this community. By way of disclosure, both have supported my campaign for Town Board. I like Paul Thompson, too; he’s a great guy to sit with and discuss the world. I don’t know Lou Kalogeras personally, but you can’t help but notice he is always there to help Riverhead.

Having said all that, I completely disagree with the stand the Riverhead IDA took last night to grant tax abatements to Allied Building Supply.

Allied Building Products played a game with Riverhead. Allied claimed that it was looking to locate either here or to Westhampton and by creating this fake bidding war they held us up for tax breaks.

First, the Suffolk County IDA never had an active application for Allied in Westhampton, in fact they didn’t even have an inquiry. More than that, when pressed by a reporter after yesterday’s hearing, Allied principals declined to say more about their efforts to locate in Westhampton than “we’ve spoken to brokers.” So, the Allied Westhampton claim seems to have all the credibility of pitting one date against another to ensure you don’t dance alone on Saturday night.

The second problem I have with all this is that Allied already has a spiffy new headquarters being custom built for them on Edwards Avenue. Yep, our planning board just completed the site plan process. And the developer unequivocally stated to a reporter he hasn’t negotiated with any company other than Allied. So Allied won’t come here unless we give them tax breaks? I got a 16,700-square-foot reason to believe they are coming here anyway.

I’m a guy running for office here in Riverhead, so you’d think I would be rooting for Allied to come here, right? Well, heck yeah, I’m quite happy they’ll be hiring a few new people in our town. Oh, and don’t worry, I get it, Riverhead has to compete with the free world to recruit businesses here and I recognize tax incentives can be an important tool.

The part I don’t get? What I don’t get is, whether it is this dubious deal or the way we regularly grant tax breaks to Route 58 box stores, why do we always seem to give freebies to businesses that have already loaded up the moving van and typed “Riverhead” into their GPS? We know they are coming so why give the store away? You don’t wave the cover charge to someone who desperately wants in to the party.

Anthony Coates is a candidate for the Republican nomination for Riverhead Town Councilman. He lives in downtown Riverhead.