It’s official: Riverhead Town cancels contract to sell EPCAL land to Triple Five affiliate, CAT

The Riverhead Town Board wasted no time acting to cancel the town’s contract with Calverton Aviation & Technology following the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency’s decision Monday night to deny CAT’s application for financial assistance to develop the Calverton Enterprise Park.

The Town Board at special meeting Tuesday afternoon unanimously adopted a resolution declaring the town’s contract null and void, pursuant to the terms of a March 2022 agreement with CAT that gave the town the right to end the $40 million land deal in the event of a denial by the Riverhead IDA.

In a written statement this afternoon, drafted before the town board vote, a company spokesperson said in an email, CAT called the town’s action “indefensible.”

“RIDA’s determination is based on a series of grossly erroneous factual and conjured findings, issues not properly before it, and is contradicted by the evidence CAT submitted,” the statement said. “So too is the notion that Triple Five, a major worldwide developer with a half a century track record of raising billions of dollars to successfully develop some of the world’s most iconic properties, including, for example, Mall of America, lacks the wherewithal to complete the EPCAL project. Indeed, RIDA has been provided with audited financial statements demonstrating CAT’s undeniable financial strength to undertake this project,” CAT said in the statement.

“For over five years CAT the Triple Five Group [sic] have worked in good faith with the Town of Riverhead, and have spent millions of dollars of its own funds to work to develop EPCAL, a property that has sat undeveloped for more than 25 years,” the statement said. It went on to express confidence that the town would reject the IDA’s findings and “continue to honor its contractual obligations to CAT and will work with CAT, in the best interest of its constituents and the Town’s economy, moving this critical and much needed development project forward.”

The company’s confidence was misplaced. The five-member board was in lock-step when it voted to exit the deal.

Board members praised the work of the IDA in vetting the application and drafting findings that board members said were “very solid” and supportive of the town’s decision to terminate the contract.

“The EPCAL property contract of 2017 has cost the taxpayers tremendous amount of money. Unfortunately, what has occurred over the past five years was not in the interests of Riverhead residents,” Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said before casting her vote in support of the resolution declaring the contract null and void.

Aguiar said she personally negotiated the March 2022 binding letter agreement with CAT allowing the town to cancel the contract if the Riverhead IDA did not consider CAT’s application viable and finances were not in place.

Unlike the IDA meeting Monday evening, today’s Town Board special meeting drew a small crowd— mostly opponents of the deal and the Democratic candidates for town offices.

EPCAL Watch coordinator John McAuliff, a reliable presence at the Town Board meeting room podium voicing opposition to the sale was one of four people who addressed the board during the special meeting.

“I’m very positive about the conclusion. I’m not positive about how we got here,” McAuliff told the board. “And I think that we have to note in the finding by the IDA, which was a professional and totally credible finding, we have to note that they were responding to and reflected positively on the response from the community — one of the factors that led to their conclusion,” he said. McAuliff criticized the town’s “willingness to believe snake oil salesmen.”

“I also think that we now have a really important opportunity to involve the community at every level, and evaluate how that land can best be used for the economic development and the social development and the environmental well being of the town,” McAuliff said.

Aquebogue attorney Ron Hariri called for an investigation by the town into “how we got into this mess” and suggested that the town should refer the matter to an outside law enforcement agency” for investigation into “how this town wasted years and millions of dollars on something that never should have seen the light of day.”

Angela De Vito of South Jamesport, the Democratic candidate for town supervisor, said Tuesday was “a great victory… a victory for all of the residents of Calverton, all of the residents of Riverhead and the East End, who stood up again and again, year after year, starting in 2017 and going forward and said no to this deal.” De Vito said the Town Board’s rejection of the deal as board members claimed “they never really wanted it anyway” is “malarkey.”

Riverhead residents, she said, need to “remember this on Nov. 7. [Election Day] and they need to stand up and say that we are not going to give a chance to a Town Board that dragged us through six to seven years of misery, another opportunity to create a debacle such as the one we have had to sustain and fight against again and again,” De Vito said.

Aguiar thanked De Vito for a “commercial from the person running for Riverhead supervisor on the Democratic line.” She noted that her predecessor in the supervisor’s seat, Democrat Laura Jens-Smith, was the supervisor who signed the contract with CAT.

Mike Foley of Reeves Park said the IDA “came up with a really dynamite summary of just how bad a deal this was.” He urged the next town supervisor, whoever wins in the election now just two weeks away, “will bring the public in to talk about this.”

“There are a lot of ideas, a lot of good ideas about what we can do with this property,” Foley said.

“I just wanted to commend the board on saying no. I want to commend the IDA for saying no, and I look forward to seeing what we can do to maximize the positive impact that this land can have on our town,” Foley said.

The town’s outside counsel, Riverhead attorney Frank Isler, is holding the $1 million contract down payment in escrow and would “work out” the specifics of its return to the purchaser’s attorney, Aguiar said after today’s brief special meeting.