As I was saying … when I got kicked out of the last Riverhead Town Board meeting

I was denied my First Amendment right to express my concerns about reckless spending by Tim Hubbard and his all-Republican Town Board during a public hearing on the Town Board’s proposed 2025 budget Nov. 7 .  

Story: Town Board critic ejected from budget hearing under police escort, threatens civil rights lawsuit

Although I’m a little bruised today,  it’s important for me to alert our friends and fellow taxpayers of the damage Hubbard and his predecessors have already done and what may lie ahead for our already over-taxed town.

Millions of dollars have been spent on the much-heralded town square project. Where does it stand? Nearly three years ago, the town designated a town square “master developer” — a major donor to the Riverhead GOP.  

The town has yet signed a master developer agreement — it’s still being negotiated, we’re told. The town plans convey to him a building it bought in 2021 for more than $2.6 million. The terms of that conveyance have not yet been disclosed to the public. 

The town has not even held the “qualified and eligible sponsor” hearing required by state law before the town can lease or sell property in a designated Urban Renewal District such as downtown Riverhead. Yet in May, the town even applied for a state grant of up to $2 million on behalf of the developer, who, according to the grant application, plans to build a 74-room hotel with 13 condominium units, plus retail shops and restaurants on the ground floor of the site, 127 East Main Street — which is still owned by the town. The proposed hotel site borders the green space created by the town’s purchase and demolition of two derelict buildings in 2021, enhancing the value of the site to be conveyed to the developer.

So, taxpayers, who are not privy to details of whatever deal the Town Board has cooked up,  are paying town officials to help create a private hotel project for a GOP donor.

Millions more have been spent on a hockey rink that Riverhead Local reported only nine Riverhead residents have obtained resident discount passes to access.  The town is cooking the books by not tracking the costs on this money pit; for instance, electric charges for the rink appear in the budget in the electricity expense line for Town Hall and costs like repairs and bathrooms are not segregated.

The town spent millions more for the Town Hall than the price it could have paid a few years earlier, even though the prices for office buildings have declined dramatically. It’s way too expensive to run—utility costs are  about $1 million a year, not to mention multiple cops staffing the place at the cost of several hundred thousand dollars a year.

While Hubbard falsely claimed Riverhead Industrial Development Agency benefits have nothing to do with the budget when he cut me off from speaking at the Nov. 7 meeting, millions in tax revenues are lost because of foolish giveaways by the RIDA, whose board is appointed by and serving at the pleasure of the Town Board, with the latest embarrassment being the project for an alleged Ponzi schemer developer— and donor to Hubbard and the GOP. 

The 205 Osborn Avenue apartment building sits boarded-up because its developer — embraced by the RIDA for millions in financial assistance for two downtown apartment buildings — is the defendant in numerous lawsuits seeking millions of dollars in damages. The Osborn Avenue property itself has more than $2 million in outstanding mechanics liens. 

But not to worry. The RIDA is going to ink a new deal with the wealthy investors in the failed developer’s projects, who say they will complete the five-story eyesore on Osborn Avenue if RIDA continues the financial assistance it extended to the deadbeat developer they are now suing for fraud. 

It’s no surprise that Hubbard needed to censor me as I aired his years of mismanagement in a public forum. Hubbard’s been on the Town Board for almost a decade and signed on to all these dumb decisions that are bankrupting our town.  Costs for raises and benefits pale in comparison to the many millions wasted.  It’s time for a change.

Ron Hariri is a resident of Aquebogue.

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