The biggest local news story of 2023 was the collapse of the town’s $40 million land deal with a Triple Five Group company.
The Riverhead Town Board on Oct. 24 terminated its five-year-old contract with Calverton Aviation & Technology, relying on a letter agreement with the company signed by the parties in March 2022 that said the town could declare the agreement “null and void” if the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency declined to approve financial assistance for the company’s proposed development project. The Riverhead IDA rejected the application on Oct. 23 and the next day, the Town Board at a special meeting voted unanimously to end the deal.
Or so it hopes. Triple Five Group representatives, including a high-powered New York City law firm, have warned that the fate of the 1,600 acres that were the subject of the contract will be decided in court — though they have also said the company wants to work with the town to revive the deal. Town officials have said they have no interest in negotiating with Triple Five.
Until Oct. 23, when the Riverhead IDA rejected the application — an application filed jointly by the town and Calverton Aviation & Technology in September 2022, pursuant to the March 2022 letter agreement — the IDA’s lawyers and other consultants were reviewing the application and documents submitted by the company to establish its financial wherewithal to develop the project described in the IDA application.
But even as that review took place, the company — and town officials — sought to back away from the project as proposed in the IDA application, which described an ultimate proposed buildout of some 8 million square feet of logistics and distribution buildings along the site’s two runways and the delivery by air to the logistics/distribution centers of goods and merchandise for sorting and over-ground shipping by tractor-trailers and rail.
The described project alarmed — and mobilized — local residents, who organized in opposition the deal and put pressure on the Town Board and IDA to reject it. It’s not clear that this was a factor in the IDA’s decision, since the agency’s board is appointed and not directly answerable to the public, but it certainly influenced the sitting members of the Town Board and the candidates seeking election to it.
Turmoil in the school district administration
It was a year of upheaval in the Riverhead Central School District central administration, with the superintendent suddenly taking an unexplained leave of absence, the school board vice president unexpectedly resigning amidst controversy over comments she made about Latino students, the district’s top business official unexpectedly leaving — also without explanation — and another top administrator being “reassigned to home” and investigated after allegedly shoving a staff member in the district office.
The district starts 2024 with an interim superintendent and an interim business official, both well-respected administrators alled in by the Board of Education to steady the ship.
See below: This year’s most-read stories on RiverheadLOCAL
Despite the administration turmoil, there were plenty of happy highlights in the Riverhead school district this year:
In May, district taxpayers elected three new trustees, re-elected one incumbent, and approved a $192 million operating budget, which included a nearly $20 million increase in state aid.
Forty-seven Riverhead High School students (both current and 2023 grads) were named AP Scholars by the College Board this fall.
Riverhead High School students took home three medals at the Eastern Long Island Regional Science Olympiad tournament in January.
To enhance STEM education in the district, educators launched makerspaces in all seven school buildings in the district this year.
Eighteen Riverhead High School sports teams earned scholar-athlete team honors this year: baseball, boys lacrosse, boys track & field, boys tennis, girls golf, girls lacrosse, girls track & field, and softball in the spring; and boys cross country, boys golf, boys soccer, competitive cheerleading, field hockey, football, girls cross country, girls soccer girls tennis and girls volleyball this fall. To qualify as a team, 75% of a team’s average GPA must be at least 90. Individual scholar-athlete recognition went to 261 students, who earned individual averages of 90 and above whether or not their team qualified.
Riverhead sports teams posted achievements in their games as well, with this year’s highlights being an undefeated season for Riverhead’s boys golf team, whose 10-0 record earned them a first-place finish in their division. The Blue Waves softball team finished the season with an 11-5 record, second place in League III. The boys cross country team had a 4-1-0 record.
The high school revived its long-dormant mock trial team this year.
The J.E. Young observatory was refurbished and reopened, once again providing students with the opportunity to view the night sky through the telescope inside the historic structure.
Riverhead’s Victory Bell was also refurbished, polished and reinstalled on its brick mount near the football field.
PBMC embarks on emergency department expansion
PBMC has embarked on an aggressive expansion effort to add much-needed space to the hospital’s busy emergency department. The Poole Family Trauma & Emergency Center, announced in June 2023, will increase the emergency department by more than 6,600 square feet. The larger emergency department will enable PBMC to implement more life-saving technology, including a dual bay trauma unit and additional cardiac response units, according to PBMC’s press release. The expansion is also expected to increase capacity by more than 75% to accommodate the rise in patient volumes.
Domed Ice rink opens at Veterans Memorial Park in Calverton
The East End has a covered ice rink. The Peconic Hockey Foundation celebrated the grand opening of its domed rink at Veterans Memorial Park in Calverton in November with ceremonies and a ribbon-cutting attended by members of the New York Islanders organization, including the team’s first captain, Ed Westfall, for whom the Calverton rink is named.
The Peconic Hockey Foundation raised more than $2.3 million to buy and construct the domed rink, a regulation NHL-sized rink. The foundation donated it to the Town of Riverhead, which has partnered with the foundation to bring the rink to the Calverton Park. The foundation is now constructing an outdoor rink adjacent to the site.
Before the rink opened in Calverton, ice hockey players from eastern Suffolk would have to travel long distances at all hours of the night and early morning in order to secure ice time.
Downtown revitalization moves forward
In the year following the announcement of the $10 million downtown revitalization initiative award to the Town of Riverhead, none of the projects funded by the state as part of that award have yet broken ground, but planning, design and infrastructure work has progressed.
Suffolk County awarded more than $3.3 million in downtown revitalization grants to projects in downtown Riverhead, including a $1 million grant to the Long Island Science Center, which was passed over by the state when it announced last December how the $10 million grant would be distributed.
Riverhead came up empty again in competition for a $25 million grant from the federal Department of Transportation, which it hopes to use for various downtown revitalization efforts, including a parking garage on First Street and flood mitigation measures for the Peconic Riverfront. Before the year ended, though, the Town Board authorized the submission of a new application for USDOT funding, hoping the fifth time’s the charm.
In other downtown revitalization news this year, the Town Board, hoping to encourage uses that, according to officials, will “activate” the downtown district and appeal to residents in and visitors to the area, adopted the Downtown Riverfront Overlay District. The overlay district, which takes in much of the downtown central business district, prohibits certain land uses that are otherwise allowed in the underlying zoning districts, among them: smoke shops and tobacco stores, stores those that sell smoke/vape paraphernalia; adult entertainment establishments; drug treatment centers, rehabilitation facilities, clinics, convalescent and rest homes; pawn shops; convenience stores; laundromats; residential group homes, and more.
The town also amended its “Zero Tolerance Zone” code to expand the existing area of the zone to take in all of the new overlay district, make certain activities (including smoking and vaping) unlawful in the zone and provide stiffer penalties for violations. It also increased penalties for violation of the town’s alcoholic beverages and loitering codes.
The town sued the Council for the Vail Leavitt Music Hall to reclaim title to the historic theater under a reverter clause inserted in the deed to the site when the town conveyed it to the nonprofit organization in 1982. The town’s lawsuit claimed the organization did not adequately maintain the historic building and did not fulfill its obligations to use the theater for the purposes for which it was conveyed. According to town officials, the council did not properly maintain the property, which had become dilapidated and is in dire need of urgent, and expensive, repairs. In October, the council’s board of directors voted not to defend the lawsuit and resigned en masse, allowing new board members to take the helm.
The 2023 local elections
Plans for the Calverton Enterprise Park issue dominated the 2023 local election season. Town Democrats — as they had in three prior election years — opposed the sale and called for termination of the contract from the outset, making it their central campaign issue. By the time the deal fell apart, less than three weeks before Election Day, it was opposed by the Republican candidates as well. The Oct. 24 action by the all-Republican Town Board “drove a stake into the heart of the Democrats’ campaign,” as one Republican official put it. The termination was certainly a factor — if not the factor —in the final election results in Riverhead Town: a solid Republican sweep — once again — by a wide margin.
Supervisor Yvette Aguiar announced in early February that she would not seek a third term of office. She did not provide a reason for her decision in a statement emailed to the news media. Her decision opened the door for two-term incumbent Council Member Tim Hubbard to seek the supervisor seat, something he’d expressed an interest in doing.
Council Member Frank Beyrodt also bowed out, after serving one term on the board.
With Aguiar not running for re-election and Hubbard’s term as council member expiring at the end of this year, his decision to run for supervisor, combined with Beyrodt’s decision to step down, meant there would be no incumbent running for three spots on the Town Board — a board majority. But Riverhead Democrats were not able to capitalize on that unique opportunity, and Riverhead Republicans retained control of local government — solidifying it with the election of Republican James Wooten as town clerk, replacing the lone elected Democrat in Riverhead Town government, Diane Wilhelm, who retired. Republican candidates won by wide margins. Republicans Meredith Lipinsky and Dana Brown, assessors, Laurie Zaneski, receiver of taxes, and Lori Hulse, town justice were all returned to office without opposition.
Riverhead Town moves to a new Town Hall
The Town of Riverhead made a historic move this year, relocating Town Hall from its longtime home at 200 Howell Avenue to a much newer, more spacious three-story building at 4 West Second Street, one of four buildings on a 4.5 acre campus the town purchased from Peconic Bay Medical Center in January for $20 million. Town officials celebrated the move with a ribbon-cutting in October.
The move allows most town government offices to be consolidated in one location, though the engineering department and the buildings and grounds division remain at Town Hall West on Pulaski Street, near Stotzky Park.
Town officials plan to renovate the former Town Hall Building for use as the town justice court. The renovation is expected to be a multimillion dollar project, since the building requires a new roof and a new HVAC system, among other repairs and renovations needed for its use as a courthouse. Hubbard, who takes office Jan. 1, said the town will tackle the project in the new year.
The town dedicated the future justice court building to the late Town Justice Allen Smith with a ceremony in October.
After the justice court is relocated, the building next door at 210 Howell Avenue, which has been shared by the police department and the court, will be renovated for use by the police department exclusively, according to officials.
The town is looking to sell the building at 201 Howell Avenue, which was occupied by the building and planning departments and the fire marshal’s office.
The fate of the former armory on Route 58, deeded to the town by the state in 2011 for “use by police department, justice court, public safety and recreational programs developed and operated by the Town of Riverhead Police Department,” remains unclear. The town was originally planning to renovate the former armory site for a police/court complex, but architects and engineers hired by the board put the estimated cost of the renovation at $13 million, which the Town Board in 2014 rejected as too high.
The Town Board in July authorized the community development department to negotiate with YMCA of Long Island to locate a YMCA at the former armory site, after Council Member Bob Kern said the YMCA’s board of directors has “accepted” the location. He estimated the cost of the renovation at $20 million, half of which would have to be put up by private donors, with the YMCA picking up the rest of the cost. The town would need action by the state legislature to accomplish this, because the deed conditioned the transfer of the property to the town for the uses described in the deed.
Retail marijuana shops still struggle to open in Riverhead
Riverhead Town cleared the way for retail marijuana sales in 2021 – when a resolution to opt-out of allowing the shops and lounges failed to muster majority support on the Town Board in July of that year.
But nearly all state-licensed businesses looking to operate in Riverhead — one of only four municipalities on Long Island that allow marijuana sales — can’t comply with the town’s restrictive zoning, adopted in November 2022.
Officials say they are looking into amending the zoning to ease restrictions and make more sites available.
Riverhead has been under a state of emergency since May 16
The town supervisor, claiming without evidence that a “high influx” of undocumented migrants were being sent to Riverhead from New York City, signed an executive order declaring the state of emergency on May 16 to prevent the placement of such individuals in motels, hotels and other lodging in the town. Her order came on the night of an on-air announcement by talk radio host Curtis Sliwa earlier in the day that he had “breaking news” that property owners in Riverhead were already negotiating with NYC. He did not cite sources or identify the property owners. Aguiar in an interview that night said she heard there were three locations in Riverhead that agreed to house the migrants. She said she did not know where the locations were and did not identify the source of her information. The next day, Council Member Tim Hubbard said the emergency declaration was “based off of” Sliwa’s statements on air.
In subsequent TV interviews, Aguiar’s rationale for the order evolved. In an interview with Newsday TV on May 17, the day after she signed the order, Aguiar said the town heard about the Riverhead-bound migrants from “law enforcement.” (The Riverhead police chief said his department was not the source of that information. In fact, he said he looked into it on May 16 and did not deem the information credible.) On May 18 in a Newsmax appearance with Curtis Sliwa, Aguiar said she “checked everywhere” — including “intelligence” — to verify what she’d heard about people being put on buses May 16. And in other interviews, her reasoning changed altogether. There were no longer people boarding buses. Instead the order was “pre-emptive.”
A week earlier, after NYC sent two busloads of migrants to a hotel in Newburgh, in Orange County, the county executives of Orange and Rockland counties had issued similar executive orders. Other counties across the state, including Suffolk, followed suit.
In early June, New York City sued Riverhead and 30 counties in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, asking the court to invalidate their emergency orders. In August the court issued an order splitting the cases against the various counties and the Town of Riverhead into separate actions and changing the location of the individual proceedings to the municipalities’ home counties. In September, NYC voluntarily discontinued the lawsuits, citing the time and expense of pursuing the actions individually.
Aguiar vowed to continue the state of emergency with new executive orders — by state law, a locally declared state of emergency expires after five days— through the end of her term, “to protect my community.” Altogether this year, Aguiar signed 46 executive orders declaring a state of emergency in the Town of Riverhead, including two this week. She signed one of Dec. 26, and another one on Dec. 27, apparently because the emergency declared on Dec. 26 would expire Dec. 30, leaving Riverhead without a state of emergency in place on Dec. 31.
Hubbard, the supervisor-elect, said Thursday he will continue the state of emergency after he takes office Jan. 1.
Riverhead named one of world’s top 50 destinations by Forbes
Riverhead was named to Forbes’ list of the top 50 travel destinations for 2023. It was one of 11 U.S. destinations to make the list this year.
Forbes journalist Robin Saks Frankel described Riverhead as “an historic town on the North Shore of Long Island with plenty of ways to while away the day.” She highlighted the Long Island Aquarium, Jamesport Farm Brewery, autumn apple-picking at local orchards and the Big Duck. The write-up notes that “no trip to Riverhead is complete without a picture with the famous Big Duck.”
Paumanok Vineyards awards
Saks Frankel didn’t mention Riverhead’s vineyards, and that’s too bad, since the town boasts some of the finest vineyards in Long Island’s wine region, including Paumanok Vineyards in Aquebogue. Paumanok took home two prestigious awards in this year’s New York Wine Classic: the 2023 Governor’s Cup (for its 2019 Sauvignon Blanc ) and the Winery of the Year award. It was the fourth time Paumanok won the Winery of the Year award at the competition. Paumanok picked up awards for seven of its wines at this year’s event — which coincides with the family-owned vineyard’s 40th anniversary.
RiverheadLOCAL’s 10 most-read stories of 2023
- Riverhead school superintendent on leave of absence
- Bed Bath & Beyond files for bankruptcy, will close all 360 stores
- Polish Town Fair canceled again this year
- Significant fire risk red flag warning (April 7)
- Riverhead named to Forbes’ top 50 travel destinations in 2023
- Riverhead High School Student, 15, fatally shot during fight in Calverton
- Bomb threat closes Route 58 shopping center
- Daniel Preston, an owner of company with stake in Calverton land deal with town, dies at 52
- Riverhead supervisor declares state of emergency, issues order barring local facilities from housing migrants/asylum seekers
- Stavropoulos family says good-bye after 32 years: Peconic Bay Diner closes its doors
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