Baiting Hollow grower proposes planting a million daffodils along Sound Avenue

A Baiting Hollow grower has pitched a plan to plant daffodils along Sound Avenue in an effort to beautify the town. The stunning display would “help put Riverhead on the map,” Jack Van de Wetering of Ivy Acres in Baiting Hollow told the Riverhead Town Board at its work session Thursday

Van de Wetering said he can get the town a great deal on daffodil bulbs for the beautification project. A native of Holland, Van de Wetering said he would go there to place orders for the town with growers there.

Van de Wetering said similar beautification efforts have been done in Babylon and Huntington. He wants the flowers — which he said grow back every year and multiply very easily — to eventually be on the right-of-way of major roads all through the North Fork, including state and county roads.

However, there could be problems with executing his vision.

Van de Wetering proposed that the highway department plant the flowers. But Highway Superintendent Mike Zaleski, who was not at the work session, said in an interview that he is not in favor of the proposal, with what little information he has.

Zaleski said he had a brief call with Van de Wetering after the work session on Thursday afternoon, after the work session concluded.

“We never reconnected so I don’t know what his intentions are,” said Zaleski, who said he was not sent an invite to the work session by other town officials. “No one asked me or my department to plant anything. So I don’t know exactly what they have in mind, where they’re even planting on or how they’re gonna maintain them.”

Zaleski’s crew maintains the town’s right-of-way, which includes mowing grass where some of these flowers could be located.

“We’re not planting. We’re not florists,” he said.

The bulbs should be planted in November, Van de Wetering told Town Board members.

The other barrier to the plan is the financial aspect. Van de Wetering said he could buy 1 million bulbs for the town for around $150,000. That is an extraordinarily inexpensive price — about 15 cents per bulb — compared to prices available through U.S. wholesalers. Van de Wetering said in an interview that planting on both sides of the whole length of Sound Avenue, which also stretches into the Town of Southold, could require around 2 million bulbs.

Deputy Town Attorney Annemarie Prudenti said at the work session that the town could ask for funds generated through Suffolk County’s hotel-motel tax. The Suffolk County Legislature held a public hearing on a proposed law to increase the tax last month, with the additional revenue going towards the tourism industry in Suffolk. That includes a collective $1 million per year to East End towns “in support of cultural programs and activities.”

“It’s certainly related to the tourist industry,” Prudenti said. “We could make an application for those funds for this project.”

Van de Wetering said in an interview that he had been told that the town was looking at using Riverhead’s Community Preservation Fund, which is generated by a 2% real estate transfer tax and can be used for land preservation and water quality projects, to fund the project. The state legislation on community preservation funds does not authorize using the funds for beautification efforts or for maintenance of highways.

Council Member Tim Hubbard said in an interview that he is in favor of beautifying the town, but that the town has to weigh the cost of the project. Hubbard said he was not aware of the town attempting to use community preservation funds to finance the project.

“I’m still not 100% sure I’m on board with it yet, to spend that kind of money to plant bulbs,” Hubbard said. “I love the beautification idea. I really do. But I think we’ve got other issues that maybe $150,000 should be spent on, but let me see where they’re talking about getting the money from and we’ll take it from there.”

In addition to the money to pay for the bulbs, the Town Board would have to hire a contractor to plant them if the highway superintendent declined to take on the task.

Correction: A previous version of this article erroneously stated that Highway Superintendent Mike Zaleski was in favor of a proposal to plant flowers along town roads. He is not in favor of the proposal.