The 2017 local election season got underway last night at a downtown restaurant where Democrat Laura Jens-Smith of Laurel announced her candidacy for Riverhead town supervisor.
Jens-Smith, 54, who sought a town board seat in the 2015 election, came out swinging against the incumbent Republican Supervisor Sean Walter, attacking him for failing to deliver on the three goals he set for his tenure in office: straightening out the town’s finances, revitalizing downtown, and redeveloping the former Grumman site.
She read from a prepared speech that echoed the platform and complaints of the Democratic slate of two years ago, headed up by Anthony Coates, who finished third in a three-way race for supervisor that Walter, running on the Conservative line, won with 40 percent of the votes cast. Coates was in attendance at last night’s announcement event at Diggers on West Main Street.
“For almost a decade now, the people of Riverhead have hungered for the realization of [the town’s] potential,” Jens-Smith said. “But instead we’ve been led down a yellow brick road of dubious promises by Supervisor Walter and this town board,” she said.
“When the clock strikes midnight on Jan. 1 in a year ending in an odd number, Supervisor Walter starts dusting off artists’ renditionings on easels and he turns up the volume with talk of new projects and how prosperity is just around the corner,” Jens-Smith said.
Comparing Walter to “the man behind the curtain at the Wizard of Oz,” she accused him of “spinning yarns” about projects that never happen and prosperity that never materializes.
“Like an old Catskill comedian, in an election year, Sean puts his tired old plaid coat on and saunters up to the microphone one more time and feeds us the old tired lines, over and over again,” Jens-Smith told the crowd. “Well it just isn’t funny any more because in the end it’s all a mirage, a fantasy, a canard — the illusion of progress. And after election day… Sean’s promises melt away like the snow on a warm day.”
In her prepared remarks, Jens-Smith blasted proposals to build apartment buildings on Main Street and the zoning — adopted during the administration of Phil Cardinale — that allows the construction of up to five hundred dwelling units and five-story buildings. She said the apartments “are unaccounted for in our master plan” and “too much for Main Street to absorb.”
“If Sean Walter gets what he wants, downtown will become a sea of Queens-style, nameless, faceless, concrete brick towers that will dwarf Main Street’s quaint historic buildings, choke out our view of the river and forever change the look and feel of our downtown,” Jens-Smith said.
While her speech did not mention a moratorium on new apartments — which she and her Democratic running mates called for in 2015 — Jens-Smith said in an interview afterward that she supports and would pursue a moratorium downtown. She said she did not know if a moratorium could legally stop the currently pending apartment building proposals.
She will have a “downtown action plan” that “stresses the basics,” she said. “Get a handle on cleanliness and crime,” she said. “We will fill in the potholes, cobblestone streets, hang quaint street signs and patrol the downtown.” She said during Walter’s tenure, “buildings have been torn down, not built” and “businesses are closing, not opening.”
Jens-Smith called Walter’s management of EPCAL redevelopment a failure. She criticized Walter for failing to “even present a final map to the DEC for approval” and railed about the adopted zoning at the Calverton Enterprise Park, which she said could allow the construction of 600 homes and “50 super-size CVS stores” that would turn Calverton into “Route 58 west.”
She called Luminati Aerospace “a startup” that has “no track record” and criticized Walter for catering to it at the expense of a health care facility that would bring high-quality of jobs to EPCAL, which Jens-Smith said Walter “pushed away.”
In an interview after the speech, Jens-Smith said if elected she would pursue finalizing the existing subdivision plan. However, she cautioned against expecting the redevelopment to be the town’s salvation.
“I will take EPCAL out of the equation,” she said in her speech. “I will not offer budgets based on pie-in-the sky l at EPCAL. I will make EPCAL stand on its own two financial feet.”
Riverhead’s finances, she said, are no better than when Walter took office. Instead, she said, “Riverhead has become the tax capital of the East End. While Sean talks tough, our tax increases have been higher than any of our neighbors,” Jens-Smith said. “Your taxes have increased dramatically,” she said, noting “Riverhead is the only town in Suffolk that pierced the tax cap two years in a row.”
“Riverhead is Suffolk’s most indebted town per person,” she said. “The people on Wall Street, those closest to our finances, have bestowed upon us the lowest bond rating of any town in Suffolk County.”
She blasted “tax breaks” she said the Riverhead IDA gave away unnecessarily — unfairly placing “all of the onus for Riverhead’s future on the backs of our homeowners,” she said. She promised to “rein in” “the wayward IDA.”
Jens-Smith promised “a full performance audit of every department” in town government. The supervisor, she said, doesn’t have a handle on the numbers and promises “cost savings that never materialize.”
“By any measure, after eight long years, Sean Walter has failed: in downtown, at EPCAL, our finances are precarious. Our tax increases are among the highest in Suffolk County. Our water district is falling apart — the sewer district, too. And our disappointment grows,” Jens-Smith said.
“Like you, I am tired of the fairy tale that all is well in Riverhead, when in fact it is just the opposite,” she said, “and so today I announce that I am a candidate for Riverhead town supervisor.”
Walter said in an interview last night he was surprised by Jens-Smith’s declaration of her candidacy in January.
“It does seem a little early,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that a supervisor now gets only one year to do the job without being in the middle of a campaign.”
Walter said he will run on his record. “By every metric, we’re in better shape today than when I took office,” he said.
“EPCAL is largely complete. The DEC has added three years at least to this project,” he said, “but we’re just about there.”
The town’s subdivision map does not require approval by the state environmental agency, but the town is required to obtain DEC permits under the Wild, Scenic and Recreational Rivers Act and under a relatively new set of DEC rules — called the “incidental take” regulations — that require a separate permit for any action that will affect a species on the state’s endangered or threatened species lists. An incidental take permit is required where the proposed action affects the known habitat of such a species, too. The Town of Riverhead took the DEC to court to challenge the incidental take regulations and that case remains pending. However the town has been endeavoring to comply with the rules, which required additional environmental studies and habitat plans.
The supervisor said Luminati — which bought the former Skydive Long Island site — and has expanded to take occupancy of a larger building, is currently developing and building aircraft there.
“This is not made up. This is a real company, founded by people who are leaders in the aeronautics industry. We actually have a chance to bring aeronautics back to Calverton, which is amazing,” he said.
“Downtown is doing well,” the supervisor said. “If it weren’t, people wouldn’t be complaining about the parking.” He added: “And we’re dealing with the parking situation.” Walter said the town is drawing up plans for additional surface parking.
“What we’re doing downtown is not revolutionary,” he said. “And the zoning calls for it. Workforce and market rate rentals downtown will bring foot traffic and support business and make our downtown vibrant. A call for a moratorium just shows a complete lack of vision.”
“The town’s financial condition is in far better shape than when I took office,” Walter said. “In 2010, the town didn’t even have completed financial statements going back a few years under my predecessor. We got caught up. We stopped living on credit. We tightened our belts and we’ve balanced our budget,” he said.
“And we managed to grow our tax base during a very bad economic recession,” he said. “As a school board president, Laura should appreciate what that means.”
Jens-Smith has been a member of the Mattituck-Cutchogue Board of Education for seven years and has been president of the board for the past two years.
She and her husband Bill Smith have two children, Molly, 19, and Ethan, 17. Jens-Smith is a registered nurse but is not currently working in her field. She was previously employed by the Greenport-based North Fork Alliance, an organization to prevent and reduce substance abuse by local youth.
“I want to make this town the best it can be,” Jens-Smith told her supporters last night. “I love this town. I love public service. And I know there is a better Riverhead ahead.”
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