The county legislature won’t budge.
All legislative committee meetings will be held in Hauppauge this year, despite Legislator Al Krupski’s efforts to have some of them convened in Riverhead. Krupski’s motion to hold just one week’s worth of committee meetings in Riverhead failed, ending in a 9-9 vote at the very end of a 9-hour general meeting Tuesday.
The North Fork legislator originally proposed holding committee meetings in Riverhead in each of the weeks prior to the five general meetings scheduled to take place in Riverhead this year. He then attempted to gain support for his idea on a trial basis by dialing it back to just one week this year. But Krupski couldn’t get a majority of his colleagues to go for it.
“We should make government accessible to people as much as possible,” Krupski argued. “To drive to Hauppauge for the chance to speak for three minutes at a committee meeting is really a disincentive to participate in government.”
The legislature has 12 committees that generally meet during the week before each of its 16 general meetings. Eleven of the 16 general meetings are held in Hauppauge as are all of the committee meetings.
“Riverhead used to be the middle of the county,” he said. “It seems to have gotten further east. I don’t think it’s that much to ask to have committees meet in Riverhead one week of the year.”
Riverhead is roughly the geographic center of Suffolk County — the second-largest county in the state in terms of land mass. It is technically the county seat of government in Suffolk, though the offices of the county legislature, county executive and most county agencies were moved to Hauppauge decades ago. While Riverhead may be the geographic center, Hauppauge is at the center of the county’s more densely populated townships.
“This is the county seat,” South Fork Legislator Jay Schneiderman said. “I undersand the population grew in western Suffolk faster than eastern Suffolk, but Riverhead is the county seat,” he said. He commended Krupski for pushing the issue.
Holding committee meetings in Riverhead for one week would cost the county about $2,000 in staff travel expenses, according to an analysis prepared by the legislature’s budget review office. County legislators and staff would be reimbursed for mileage for travel from their Hauppauge offices to Riverhead, budget review office director Robert Lipp told legislators Tuesday. To support committee meetings in Riverhead on a regular basis with six computers and six cubicles would cost $38,200, Lipp said.
With the county struggling to close a “structural deficit” this is the wrong time to increase the county’s operating expenses, Legislator Thomas Barraga (R-West Islip) argued Tuesday night.
“The East End contributes roughly one-third of the property taxes collected by Suffolk County and one-third of the 1.3 billion that comes to the county in sales taxes,” Schneiderman countered. “This area is an economic engine for the county. A $2,000 expense to make government more accessible to the people of the East End is insignificant.”
“The commissioners are all in Hauppauge, they’re not out here,” Barraga said. He said it would be wasteful to have them sitting in Riverhead all day in case they were needed at a committee meeting. With meetings held in Hauppauge, commissioners and their staffs are all nearby.
“When someone says they have to travel 40 miles to come to Hauppauge, well then travel 40 miles,” Barraga said, apparently responding to the dozen or so eastern Suffolk residents who spoke in favor of Krupski’s motion during the public portion of the legislative meeting Tuesday morning.
“If there was a real need, an emergency, I’m all for it. If there’s something the East End has that they’re willing to give up because this is so important, I’m with you. But I’m not hearing that,” Barraga said.
“I’d just like to remind my colleagues that it’s not about the legislators it’s about the public,” Krupski said after Barraga finished.
Southold Supervisor Scott Russell and Southampton Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst led a small brigade of East End residents to the podium in the legislative auditorium in Riverhead, where Tuesday’s general meeting was held.
Russell said that while public sentiment on the East End sometimes feels the region’s needs are overlooked by the county government, he’s never felt that’s been the case. “The county executive and legislature have tried hard to represent the peple of the East End,” Russell said.
“There’s a lot of talent and knowledge on the East End of Long Island,” Russell said. “I think you should move some of these meetings to Riverhead so you can benefit from it.”
The Southampton supervisor said holding some committee meetings in Riverhead “would create a little more balance” for East End residents. “Having to travel up to Hauppauge is often very hard for people with work schedules and families,” Throne-Holst said.
Riverhead resident and civic activist Vince Taldone spoke of the hardship for someone who must rely on Suffolk transit buses to make the trek. From Riverhead, the bus ride is an hour and 45 minutes each way. “That doesn’t count the time it takes to walk to the bus stop or traffic.”
“Getting to Hauppauge for someone like me with a vision impairment, taking public transportation, to speak for three minutes, takes me six hours,” Taldone said.
There are nearly 300,000 people living on the East End and in eastern Brookhaven who are closer to Riverhead than Hauppauge, Herb Strobel of Center Moriches said. “An awful lot of legislative work occurs in committee,” said Strobel, executive director of Hallockville Museum Farm in Riverhead. “All county residents deserve a reasonable opportunity to provide input,” he said.
Legislator Kate Browning of Mastic noted that “quite a few of the peope who speak” before the legislature have county offices in Yaphank, not Hauppauge.
“I know my constituents would prefer to come here than drive to Hauppauge,” Browning said. “The traffic is horrendous. Coming west to east is always a much nicer drive.”
When the roll was called, three western Suffolk Democrats sided with six Republicans to make the vote a 9-9 draw, and the motion failed. One of them, Legislator William Spencer, a physician, said he believes the county should take advantage of existing technology to give citizens access to government wherever they are.
“The technology is there. We’re doing remote robotic surgery in India from a console 4,000 miles away, right now,” Spencer said. “Someone can come here to speak and be heard and we can see them and they can see us. It would get everyone access all the time. I’m introducing a reso to look at the feasibility of that,” he said.
Krupski remains determined to press on with the cause. “I’m not going to give up because I think it’s really important,” he said in an interview yesterday.
In January, Krupski also tried and failed to get his colleagues to split the general meetings equally between Hauppauge and Riverhead.
“It’s about access to government and that’s a very basic thing,” he said. The current situation, he said, is “almost insulting” to residents of the East End.
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