After coming under fire for meeting privately in New York City with representatives of the company seeking to buy the rest of the town’s vacant land at the Calverton Enterprise Park, Councilwoman Jodi Giglio gave an account of the meeting to the rest of the town board during Thursday’s work session.
Giglio said she and former Riverhead Community Development Agency executive director Christina Kempner attended the March 12 meeting with representatives of the Ghermezian family, owners of the Triple Five Group, which is the majority owner and managing member of Calverton Aviation and Technology.
The meeting came about, she said, because she attended a presentation given by the applicant at a meeting hosted by the Riverhead Chamber of Commerce on March 7.
The NYC meeting took place the day before the scheduled continuation of a “qualified and eligible sponsor” hearing that was begun on Feb. 27 and adjourned to March 13 after four hours of testimony. It was subsequently delayed to March 19 due to inclement weather on March 13.
Giglio’s meeting drew criticism from some, including the town supervisor, and led to a sharp rebuke at Tuesday’s town board meeting by Angela DeVito of South Jamesport, who demanded Giglio recuse herself from the upcoming vote on whether CAT is a “qualified and eligible sponsor.”
Today’s work session discussion of the subject grew quickly tense, with Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith asking Giglio whether she thought of asking the town’s special counsel if it would be advisable to meet privately with the applicant during the pendency of the hearing.
“No because I’ve been involved in five Q&Es before and we’ve always had open discussions during the Q&E process with previous applicants so I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it,” Giglio answered.
“In the middle of the Q&E?” Jens-Smith asked.
“Absolutely,” Giglio replied.
Since Giglio took office in January 2010, there have only been three “qualified and eligible” hearings: one on Skydive Long Island on April 20, 2010 concerning the extension of a runway use agreement; one on the YMCA of Long Island on July 17, 2012 concerning the possible sale of seven acres at EPCAL; and one on Luminati Aerospace on Oct. 20, 2015 concerning a proposed runway use agreement.
Each of the three hearings were held in one session and closed on the same day they were begun, with the hearing record kept open for written comment by the public in each instance.
Giglio cited Riverhead Resorts and Vintage Square as Q&E hearings she’d been involved in, but both of those hearings were concluded and decisions in both applications rendered by a previous board before she took office. The town board voted to terminate a contract with Riverhead Resorts during her tenure on the board. The Vintage Group’s qualified and eligible status, determined in 2008, expired in December 2010.
The councilwoman also cited her attendance with Councilman James Wooten of a meeting at Diggers with Vintage Group principal John Burke and representatives of the AFL-CIO as having taken place during the Q&E process. However, that meeting, a public presentation open to the press, took place in September 2012. Burke said in an interview on the day of the meeting he intended to file a Q&E application very soon after. There is no public record of any application being subsequently filed.
“There was no malintention in going to the city and meeting with the applicants because I have met with other applicants before,” Giglio said. “The project description did not change, the dollar amount of the project did not change and the outcome of the project and the project description did not change by my meeting with them,” she said.
Councilwoman Catherine Kent said she thought her colleague’s decision to meet privately with the applicants without consulting the town’s legal counsel was “arrogant.”
Jens-Smith asked why the former CDA director attended the meeting. Kempner left the town last May for a job at the Stony Brook incubator in Calverton and recently took a post as deputy commissioner in the department of housing and human services with the Town of Brookhaven.
“Because she’s a friend of mine and she’s an attorney and she’s very familiar with the property,” Giglio said.
Giglio reviewed questions she said she asked the applicants representatives, reading through several pages of handwritten notes on a yellow legal pad.
“This is all mostly stuff we were aware of. There’s no smoking gun,” Wooten said.
“It was all brought out in the qualified and eligible hearing,” Giglio said. “I wanted to dig deeper into some of it.”
Jens-Smith said the board had agreed at the conclusion of the first session of the hearing on Feb. 27 that the board members’ questions would be asked at the next session, in a public forum. Robert Hasday, attorney for Luminati who also represented CAT at that first session, asked if they could get the board’s questions in advance. Jens-Smith said no and Deputy Supervisor Tim Hubbard said, “Absolutely not.” None of the other board members replied to Hasday.
Today, Giglio said she did not agree to that condition. “You may have agreed to that but I don’t remember agreeing to that,” she said.
“I thought they were better prepared at the second hearing than the first,” Giglio said. “i think my questions probably made them say, ‘Oh, maybe we weren’t clear.’”
Jens-Smith questioned Giglio about the applicant’s statements at the second Q&E session that they would contribute $2.5 million for park improvements if their application is approved.
Giglio admitted she discussed the park improvements with Triple Five at the March 12 meeting.
“I asked them what the community benefit would be and they asked what does the community need,” she explained. “They were aware of the work session that we had the week before where we had discussed the recreation needs of the park so they said they’d make certain improvments to the park.”
Kent said she was “shocked and appalled at the arrogance of a council member going in and having a private meeting.”
Hubbard said he would not have done that personally because he doesn’t think it’s proper.
“Having spent the last 2 1/2 years or more working with Jodi, I don’t think there was a shred of malice in her mind in going in to do this,” Hubbard said. “I think what she has said about doing her due diligence is what she believed,” he said.
“She works hard and puts her heart and soul into it. But I understand the concern that it looks bad. I don’t think she in any way went to do anything illegal,” he said.
“It was a poor choice.”
Giglio replied, “In hindsight, I agree. The perception that I was doing something wrong was something I hadn’t expected.”
Prior to that meeting, Giglio had been a vocal opponent of the sale to Luminati Aerospace and, subsequently, to the new entity Luminati formed with Triple Five. In December, she voted against approving the contract with Calverton Aviation and Technology. In February, she even refused to support a resolution setting a new date for the “qualified and eligible” hearing — which had originally been set for Jan. 17.
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