Updated- 2:30 p.m.: School board president Greg Meyer in a text message at 2:04 p.m. confirmed that the subject of the special meeting is discussion of the possible purchase of the McGann-Mercy campus:
He wrote: “We are having an executive session meeting on Wednesday morning to talk about the possible acquisition of the Mercy McGann property.”
Original story:
The Riverhead school board will have a closed-door meeting this week to discuss “the potential acquisition of real property,” but mum’s the word on what “potential acquisition” will be discussed.
The board plans to convene an executive session Wednesday morning at the district office on Osborn Avenue, according to a notice sent out by the district clerk Friday morning. The meeting notice did not provide any additional information about the subject matter of the meeting.
Administration officials did not respond to emailed requests sent Friday morning seeking the specific subject matter of the discussion.
School board president Greg Meyer refused to disclose the subject matter of the meeting. In a text message responding to a request for information about the subject of the discussion, Meyer said, “I am not able to disclose that info at this time. When we are I will let you know,” he said. “I will clarify your request later this morning and get back to you.”
The meeting notice sent by the district clerk said there are “no public agenda items and the board is not planning to take any public action before the meeting is adjourned.”
The State Open Meetings Law does not require a public body to provide an agenda to the public prior to a meeting.
The Riverhead Central School District has been in negotiations with the Diocese of Rockville Centre for the 24.8-acre site on Ostrander Avenue since last summer, documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request in February disclosed. In response to an additional FOIL request in March, the district said it had an appraisal of the site in its possession but would not disclose it “because, if disclosed, it would impair present negotiations with the diocese.”
Last month, Schools Superintendent Aurelia Henriquez said the district and the diocese “continue to negotiate the terms of acquisition” by the district of the former McGann-Mercy campus,
“When the contract is finalized, it will be presented to the Board of Education for their approval at a public meeting,” Henriquez said in an email.
“Once that happens, it will eventually go to the voters for their approval,” she wrote.
The diocese closed Bishop McGann-Mercy High School in June 2018. It purchased the site on Ostrander Avenue from the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy in Brooklyn in January 2006 for $3.76 million, according to public property records. The site is improved with a two-story school building, a converted former convent, athletic fields and tennis courts.
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