Riverhead council members call for more board meetings, better communication

Update- May 19, 1:40 p.m.: In an email at 11:45 a.m. Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said a work session will not take place Friday, as she indicated last night.

“Disregard my last email,” the supervisor wrote. “Kent can’t make it.” She did not provide any further update and has not yet responded to a request for additional information.

Councilwoman Catherine Kent said she has a longstanding personal commitment Friday morning that she cannot change and she’d told the supervisor about it previously when discussing possible work session dates. Kent said she had not heard anything further about any possible alternative dates.

Original post:

Facing mounting criticism from Riverhead Town council members who complain that the town board needs to move forward with the regular business of the town, Supervisor Yvette Aguiar last night said she will schedule a town board work session for Friday.

All four council members yesterday called on the supervisor to schedule a work session this week. In a phone interview yesterday evening, Aguiar rejected the request.

“The next work session is going to on May 28, and it’s going to be long and hopefully productive,” Aguiar said in a phone interview yesterday evening. “I have communicated this to every board member,” she said.

But about an hour after the phone interview, Aguiar said in an email she had decided to schedule a work session for Friday.

Since the supervisor signed the first emergency declaration in response to the COVID outbreak on March 12, there have been three regular meetings of the town board and one work session. There are usually two regular meetings a month, plus weekly work sessions.

Council members say they have been asking for a work session and the resumption of a more normal business schedule.

‘I’m in the middle of a COVID war’

“I’m in the middle of a COVID war,” the supervisor said during the phone interview yesterday evening.

Aguiar said during the interview yesterday she has been working seven days a week to manage the COVID crisis for the town.

Working closely with Police Chief David Hegermiller, the town’s emergency management coordinator, Aguiar participates in daily conference calls with the county executive and other government officials, including the governor’s office and sometimes the White House. She said she has conference calls with other town supervisors as well as village mayors. They are working on plans to reopen businesses and government offices and facilities, she said.

Council members said they understand the supervisor is busy with those duties, but there’s still a town to operate.

“I know she’s inundated with the COVID stuff,” Councilman Tim Hubbard said yesterday. “But there’s a lot of stuff in abeyance right now,” he said. The town needs to make sure building permits and other applications are being processed so that when restrictions are lifted “we can hit the ground running,” he said.

“I’m concerned about things we’re not doing,” Councilwoman Jodi Giglio said. “I have a whole list.”

There are pending applications that can’t move forward because the planning department “can’t get before the board,” Giglio said. “These business owners have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in projects and they’ve had the rug pulled out from under them,” she said.

“I think we should meet,” Councilman Frank Beyrodt said. “There’s no shortage of items to discuss.”

‘Hazard pay:’ Comp time on top of salary for town workers

The council members all expressed frustration with having little information about what’s going on in town departments, how much work is being done and what the plans are for reopening town offices.

“We’re not even sure who’s working,” Giglio said. “I’ve asked the chief to send me a list of the number of people who are working.”

Some board members were surprised to learn last month that the town was paying comp time to employees who are working outside their homes while town offices are closed due to the COVID crisis.

Aguiar signed an emergency declaration March 12 that closed all town buildings and facilities to the public, except the police department, and canceled almost all town meetings. Town employees, who continue to receive their regular pay, are expected to work from home if the nature of their job allows.

But any town worker who is called to work outside of the home during the emergency earns one hour of comp time for every hour worked. People who are working from home do not get comp time.
The policy does not apply to police officers and department heads.

The employees can use the comp time as paid time off within a year, Hegermiller said in an interview last month. The accrued time cannot be cashed in, he said.

“Keeping people home was the right thing to do. I look at this as hazard pay,” Hegermiller said.

Hegermiller said the town’s contract with the CSEA requires the payment. He pointed to a contract provision that requires the town to grant compensatory time for hours worked during “excused absence from work for days of national mourning or other reasons acceptable to the Town.” This provision has been in the past used to grant comp time to employees who are called in to work during snow emergencies and storms, he said.

Board members interviewed said the full board should have been part of the decision. They also expressed concern about how the town will be able to deal with the amount of paid leave that has accumulated. Due to the length of the ongoing shutdown, the amount of accumulated comp time is already worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, they said.

“That’s another thing we need to discuss and get a firm handle on,” Hubbard said. “One week I heard $350,000, the next week I heard it was $1 million.”

The budget is already under stress, he said, and it’s only going to get worse.

“We need to sit as a board and discuss how to handle the fiscal impacts of this,” Hubbard added.

‘People need to hear from leaders‘

Councilwoman Catherine Kent said she offered to “coordinate work sessions” if the supervisor was too tied up with the COVID crisis.

“If ever there was a time when we should be working together, it’s now,” Kent said. “We’re a team. It’s really important that we keep things moving forward.”

Kent said the town board has a lot of important things on the table that require attention, from budget shortfalls to the status of the master plan, to the sale of land at the Calverton Enterprise Park.

Also, she said, the town board should be having public meetings because “people need to hear from leaders, to know what’s going on.”

Aguiar bristles at the suggestion that communication with the public needs improvement.

“We put a lot of information on the website,” Aguiar said. The town’s COVID-19 resource page is located here. As of last week, the town has begun posting a “Riverhead COVID Stats” graphic on its website.

The supervisor’s office issued COVID-19 updates to the public on March 20, March 23, March 27, April 2 and May 12. RiverheadLOCAL has archived them here.

On May 14, Aguiar issued an advisory titled “Guidance for reopening the Riverhead economy,” which outlines the state’s metrics for reopening by region and provides links to the state’s reopening guidelines and requirements.

“I have three regular time slots on radio stations every week to keep the public informed,” she said. Aguiar said she calls in to WLNG on Monday mornings at about 9:30, on WRIV on Tuesdays at 8:15 a.m. and on WPPB on Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m.