Citing ‘poor leadership’ in town hall, supervisor’s former adviser plans website aimed at a ‘better Riverhead’

Onetime town board candidate and political adviser to the supervisor Anthony Coates plans to launch a website he says will be “an online civic association” for Riverhead Town, where information about what’s really going on in town hall will be made available to residents in the form of data, analysis and commentary.

“So often, town hall puts out information and there’s really no one that’s really equipped to challenge what we’re being fed,” Coates said in an interview yesterday afternoon. “There’s no one to counter what we’re told by town hall.” What we’re being fed is “the party line,” Coates said. “It really doesn’t matter what the party is, but there’s definitely a party line,” Coates said.

“There’s no legitimate debate.”

BetterRiverhead.com will provide an opportunity for what Coates says is missing in public discourse, he said.

Coates said he’s hoping that by providing information, analysis and commentary, as well as a forum for discussion, the effort will improve Riverhead, which he says has been suffering from “pretty poor leadership.”

He criticized the current town board’s “body of work.”

“They’re the people that brought you Route 58,” Coates said. “In the last two years, I don’t think we’ve advanced the football too much on EPCAL. We’ve spent down the cash reserves and the town still doesn’t have fiscal stability.

“The only thing they have to show for themselves is Route 58. What leads us to believe they wouldn’t make the EPCAL property Route 58 west?”

Coates, a lifelong Democrat who changed his enrollment to mount a Republican primary campaign for town councilman in 2013, changed his party enrollment back to Democrat last year. He has been increasingly vocal in his criticism of the all-Republican board he once sought to join — and of the current supervisor, who he served as a paid political adviser in all but his most recent election campaigns.

He says he’s not running for office — at least not right now — and denies that the new website is being launched to serve his own political ambitions.

“This isn’t about me,” Coates said. “I may want to run again in the future. Some days I want to, other days not. I don’t want to be disingenuous and say ‘never’ but I have no current plan to run.”

Coates said he hopes the website will cultivate new leadership from new voices in the community, increase transparency and provide better local government.

Asked if the effort will include the school district, since school taxes account for more than half of the property taxes paid by local taxpayers, Coates said he had not given that too much thought. “Probably, yes. But my bent has always been town hall,” he said.

Supervisor Sean Walter said yesterday the criticism of his estranged friend stings. “Honestly, it’s personally hurtful to me that someone I considered a very good friend and confidant would turn in such a fashion,” Walter said. He believes Coates is motivated by political gain and “some unresolved issues.”

The supervisor said he does not agree with Coates’ assessment of his administration’s record.

“Mr. Coates and I embarked on a journey together to grow the town out of this mess because you can’t cut your way out of it,” Walter said. “Our assessed value was up 3 or 3.5 percent last year.” Route 58 development is what fueled the town’s tax base growth, which he believes led Long Island last year, he said. “I think the residents are very happy with the stores on Route 58, even though the traffic is not wonderful.”

Walter said he’s made significant progress on the other goals he set, with Coates’ counsel, upon taking office in 2010: bringing the town’s audited financial statements up to date, selling the debt incurred by the prior administration, working to close the town’s budget gap, revitalizing downtown and developing EPCAL.

“Main Street is not completely turned around, but there’s an excitement downtown and it will continue to blossom, no matter who’s in this office,” he said. “It’s on its way.”

“The EPCAL subdivision is just about done. It mirrors almost 90 percent of what some of the environmental groups set out to do. We are on the cusp of hiring Pataki-Cahill and Cushman-Wakefield to market the site. We’ve already got $600,000 for the first solar project [at EPCAL],” he said.

But, Walter allowed, “all ideas are good ideas and we welcome his input as we welcome all input.”

Councilwoman Jodi Giglio, whom Coates tried to unseat in 2013,  and is considering a run at Walter this year, said Coates has “alienated everybody” on the town board. “Leadership is a process of social influence in which one seeks support from others,” Giglio said. “You need to be able to work with others and not unilaterally. I think that’s a problem with this administration. It operates unilaterally.”

Coates is hosting a fundraising event for his new venture on February 24 at the Jedediah Hawkins Inn in Jamesport. Admission is $20 per person, $100 for “donors” and $1,000 for “sponsors.” He’s inviting about 200 people, he said. The money raised will go toward website design and development expenses.

BetterRiverhead.com is not a non-profit entity, though it may become one.

“I don’t know what it’s going to morph into,” Coates said. “What I see it as right now is ultimately being a not-for-profit like a civic. I’ve gone back and forth on whether to make it a formal PAC.”

He said he has no partners in the venture but plans to ask people to contribute blogs. There will also be some type of forum for discussion, though, he said, he would be careful not to let the site turn into “another unproductive angry rant open comment website where people just call each other names.”

“We will sort of feel for the light switch as we go,” he said.

The betterriverhead.com website will launch in about two weeks, Coates said.

Top photo: Anthony Coates, left, with Supervisor Sean Walter, watching election returns come in on the night of a special election for county legislator in January 2013, which Walter lost to Al Krupski. RiverheadLOCAL file photo by Peter Blasl.