‘Blue Ribbon Panel’ formed by civic group to tackle land preservation issues in Riverhead and beyond

The Greater Jamesport Civic Association has put together a committee of people experienced in land preservation “to tackle the critical and timely issue of land preservation in Riverhead and throughout the East End.”

Members of the committee, dubbed the “Blue Ribbon Panel for Preservation” by the civic group, are “committed to work together to address land use and preservation concerns, with a particular focus on farmland, shoreline and open spaces in Riverhead Town,” according to a press release.

Members of the volunteer panel are:

• Robert DeLuca, president, Group for the East End
• Tim Hubbard, Riverhead Town supervisor
• Denise Merrifield, Riverhead Town council member, alternate Riverhead Town representative
• Al Krupski, Southold Town supervisor
• Kevin McDonald, conservation project director for public lands at The Nature Conservancy on Long Island
• Kevin McAllister, founder and president, Defend H2O
• Juan Micieli-Martinez, president, Long Island Farm Bureau
• Janice Scherer, planning and Development Administrator, Town of Southampton
• Phil Schmitt, farmer and owner, Schmitt Family Farm
• Laura Jens-Smith, president, Greater Jamesport Civic Association
• Catherine Stark, Suffolk County legislator, First Legislative District
• Julie Wesnofske, senior project manager, Peconic Land Trust

The panel was established, in part, in response to requests by Riverhead Town officials for the public to present new ideas for land preservation. 

“We formed the panel after we started talking about the comp plan and the agritourism [code] and Joanne Waski and Tim Hubbard basically said, ‘Well, if anybody has a better idea, we’d love to hear them.’ So that was kind of the beginning of trying to figure out what to do,” Jens-Smith said in an interview today. Officers of the civic association discussed responding to that challenge and came up with the idea of the blue ribbon panel, Jens-Smith said. 

Civic Vice President Steve Green was “very instrumental” in assembling the committee with people who have the expertise and knowledge to come up with real solutions for preservation, she said. 

The panel’s mission is to recommend “methods and tools” that Riverhead and potentially other East End towns can use “to further the goal of preservation of farmland, shoreline and open space,” while recognizing the Riverhead Town’s fiscal constraints, the Greater Jamesport Civic Association said in the press release. 

The panel has already met a couple of times, Jens-Smith said. One thing already discussed was having a town employee dedicated to focusing on land preservation.

“We’ll see where that goes,” she said. Riverhead Town may not have the financial resources to do that, Jens-Smith said. But it’s something she believes will be discussed further. 

Hubbard’s participation in the committee will provide insight into what may or may not be feasible for the town, Jens-Smith said. Then members of the panel may be able to come up with solutions to overcome some of the obstacles to implementing its ideas, she said.

The supervisor said in a phone interview today Hubbard said the meeting was “very informative. It was good to hear different ideas and different thoughts on things and just different aspects.”

The committee discussed some ideas “that I thought sounded promising,” Hubbard said. “And I think we’re going to look to expand those and see what we can do,” he said.

“Sometimes you can get grooved into one particular solution and maybe it’s not the best solution, and you keep your eyes open or your ears open and you listen, and somebody in town may have a better idea, or maybe come up with something that’s going to work better than was what was originally proposed,” Hubbard said.

He said he does not think a committee on land preservation should have been formed during the comprehensive plan update process.

“Absolutely not,” he said when asked. “But the comp plan process, in my mind, was completely open, between the steering committee and all the stakeholder meetings. There was no necessity for something to be specifically done like that.”