Calls on board allow public review & discussion of new EPCAL plan

An open letter to Supervisor Yvette Aguiar and members of the Riverhead Town Board :

I am a resident of Wading River/Calverton, a member of the Greater Calverton Civic Association, a taxpayer of the town, and an administrator of a public Watershed Trust Fund which covers the Peconic River running due south of the 1,600 (of the original 2,900) EPCAL acres under discussion as reported to be on the Town Board meeting agenda tomorrow. 

The change in plans being reviewed by the town Bboard appears to be highly complicated and requires an explanation to the Public. I am therefore respectfully requesting that this resolution be tabled until after clarification at a public meeting.

The proposed changes, however, are of interest from the viewpoint as possibly being a far greater benefit to the town and the region than the contract that currently exists. For example, of the destiny of the extraordinary 1,000 acres of grassland, being unique on the entire eastern seaboard of the United States, which Assemblywoman Jodi Giglio announced with great enthusiasm at Senator Palumbo’s Long Island Environmental Round Table last Thursday, reporting that, in her opinion, with this proposed change, the grasslands “will be preserved.” 

Of further interest is the destiny of the industrial lands which would be transferred to the IDA that the grasslands surround, required in the original transfer to Riverhead to serve as “economic development to replace all or a part of the economic activity lost at the Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant.” (Public Law 103-337-Oct. 5, 1994)

I am asking that any action by the board regarding this resolution be tabled to give the public and the town adequate opportunity for scrutiny. Please schedule a public meeting, after receiving a full venue of questions to the many obscure and unclear proceedings that such a resolution may bring. For example, the opportunity and assurance of adequate preservation of the grasslands, a concern in my capacity as administrator of a watershed trust which covers the Peconic, may be far greater and successful in the current proposal’s thinking, at least as I understand it from the press reporting. However the press is an inadequate source of public business for lands that we, the public, own. The proposed terms are unclear and many of us would like the opportunity to review them directly with the town. The assignment of preservation to CAT as the guarantor would seem highly inappropriate and should be scrutinized carefully, to include a consideration of an alternative option that, as a condition of any change in the town’s transfer, to require CAT or the CDA to deed the thousand acres over to the state immediately for preservation in perpetuity, in keeping with the assemblywoman’s enthusiasm.

The terms of what we understand from the press sound complicated but their outcome may in fact produce a far greater benefit to the town and the public trust than the current agreement with the purchaser. I urge you strongly to open this topic up to public discussion and scrutiny before any action on a resolution be taken.

Karen Blumer
Calverton

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