County records show extensive work done on Beagle Club since April

A dozen county parks department workers began renovations at the old Beagle Club in Calverton after a motorcycle group headed by the county parks superintendent got the OK to use the facility rent-free — in exchange for making repairs and improvements needed there.

For a two-month period beginning April 17, when Suffolk County parks trustees approved a plan to allow L.I. ABATE to use the Calverton parkland, county workers were on site repairing and renovating the facilities on 39 work days, county records show.

County work crews installed a new steel overhead door on a garage and even constructed a brand new bathroom in the basement of the clubhouse — though the building already has two bathrooms on its main floor.

And a new $7,000 central air-conditioning system for the clubhouse was on order until the day after parks commissioner Greg Dawson and superintendent Jim Barr faced irate community members during a contentious Calverton Civic Association meeting. The parks department canceled the central air-conditioning order the very next day. Both Dawson and Barr had signed off on the central air-conditioning purchase order in late April, records show.

Documents obtained from the parks department through a Freedom of Information Law request also show the county parks department spent more than $5,100 for materials and supplies during that two-month period — in addition to paying the wages of the 12 parks department employees, whose annual salaries range from about $39,000 to more than $67,000 — hourly rates of $18.85 to $32.50, according to a Suffolk County public employee payroll database compiled by Newsday last year.

“Basically what the county did is the same thing we’d always do if we’re turning over a facility or renting a facility, whether it was for a fee or not, to a nonprofit organization,” assistant deputy county executive Justin Meyers said Monday evening.

“There are minimum health and safety standards that we have to meet in order to turn over the property,” Meyers said.

Meyers said the new bathroom was constructed in the basement because the bathrooms on the main floor — a men’s room and a women’s room — don’t comply with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“So ABATE was going to gut them and renovate them to make them ADA-compliant,” according to Meyers.

County workers built the new, third bathroom in the basement so that there would be a working bathroom in the clubhouse while ABATE members renovated the main floor bathrooms, Meyers said.

Construction of the basement bathroom required extensive work, documents show. Crews had to break through the concrete basement floor to install a wastewater pump; frame new walls; install electric, plumbing, sheetrock and fixtures, including sinks, toilets and urinals.

ABATE intended to let veterans groups use the basement for PTSD counseling, Meyers said. He said he did not know whether the basement was handicapped accessible, but it does have “a separate entrance,” he said. Both entrances to the basement are by stairways; there is no elevator in the building.

Legis. Al Krupski said he was surprised by what the documents turned over in the parks department FOIL revealed.

“I didn’t know they were doing any work there at all until I heard on June 11 that there were county workers there,” he said. See prior story.

Parks commissioner Dawson, when asked at the June 11 Calverton civic meeting what county parks employees were doing at the Beagle Club, said they were making the old clubhouse “somewhat habitable.” That meant removing moldy sheetrock and “fixing up posts on a porch,” according to both Dawson and Barr, superintendent and second-in-command at the agency.

“Obviously they were doing a lot more than that and I would like an explanation from the commissioner,” Krupski said yesterday. The premise of the use agreement with ABATE was that the group’s members were going to make repairs and maintenance at the site, in exchange for using it rent-free, Krupski said.

The legislator was particularly taken aback by news that a new bathroom was built in the basement.

“There are already two bathrooms there. If the county workers were going to do anything with the bathrooms, why wouldn’t they just renovate one of those? Why build a new one?” Krupski asked.

“I would like to know if the commissioner knew what they were doing there. I would like a full accounting.”

Krupski said he shared residents’ concerns that the parks superintendent is the president of a private entity that would directly benefit from work done by county employees under the superintendent’s control.

Barr’s position as president of L.I. ABATE may mean the matter becomes “a personnel issue,” Krupski said.

Barr, representing L.I. ABATE, pitched the idea of using the Beagle Club to the county parks trustees and to the legislature.

ABATE came to the legislature and asked if they could use it,” Krupski told RiverheadLOCAL last month. “The county owns the building. It’s falling into disrepair and they will repair it,” he said.

After the parks trustees voted on April 17 to approve Barr’s proposal, Krupski introduced a resolution April 29 authorizing the lease or license agreement with ABATE. The measure was approved by the legislature’s parks and recreation committee on May 7 and by the full legislature May 13. It was approved by County Executive Steve Bellone on May 29.

The day after the Calverton Civic meeting, Krupski said he would seek to rescind the resolution authorizing the use by L.I. ABATE. That same day, ABATE withdrew its request to use the Beagle Club as a headquarters.

“ABATE on their own decided they wanted to withdraw their request,” Meyers, the county executive’s spokesman, said.

“The county executive still thinks they are tremendous organization. They do a great job and this was a great opportunity to help their organization and help our organization as far as fixing up the facility and making it a better place. It really seemed like a great opportunity. It didn’t quite work out,” Meyers said.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to find something else for that facility,” he said.

Suffolk County acquired the 150-acre site in 2012 for $8.9 million for passive recreational uses.

“The purchases are being made without knowing how we’re going to maintain these properties and some of them are falling into disrepair,” Krupski said. “That’s a problem we need to figure out, because the county lacks the money and resources to take care of them all.”

Krupski said a resolution to rescind the legislature’s May 13 approval of the contract with L.I. ABATE will be voted on at the legislature’s next general meeting July 29.