See author’s notes below regarding a correction to the statistic on Hispanic student enrollment in the school district.
A new committee has been formed in Riverhead to serve the town’s growing Hispanic community.
The Hispanic Development, Empowerment and Education Committee is dedicated to advancing the economic development, empowerment and education of the Hispanic community in Riverhead, Council Member Ken Rothwell said today. Rothwell introduced the committee at today’s Town Board work session.
Rothwell spoke of the diversity of the town. “We’ve learned that …about 78% of the enrollment in the Riverhead school district is from the Hispanic and Latino community,” Rothwell said.
“And so we want to make sure that we’re providing services to everybody,” Rothwell said.
[Author’s note: Rothwell said in a phone interview Jan. 23 that the statistic he was attempting to share during the Jan. 16 work session concerned new enrollment, not total enrollment, as he erroneously stated during the Jan. 16 work session. He provided RiverheadLOCAL with a table he said he obtained on Jan. 23 from school board member Greg Wallace, indicating total Hispanic student enrollment district wide is currently 66%. See more below.]
The town is working to make its own documents and forms available in Spanish and the redesigned town website’s content will be available in Spanish and other languages in addition to English, Rothwell said.
The new committee will provide assistance to the community, helping people navigate government processes and assisting residents who want to start a business, for example, Rothwell said.
With Rothwell’s support, HDEEC was founded by local businessman Alexander Escobar, owner of Cafe Victoria in Tanger Outlets. Escobar and five other members of the committee attended today’s work session, where Escobar read the group’s mission statement to the board.
“To establish Riverhead as a leading center for Hispanic economic development, empowerment, and education—where Hispanic entrepreneurs, professionals, and families thrive in an inclusive and supportive community,” Escobar said. “Through the HDEEC, we are committed to fostering economic growth, expanding educational opportunities, and empowering individuals
to become leaders and innovators. By creating pathways for success and encouraging civic engagement, we aim to strengthen local businesses, generate job opportunities, and celebrate cultural diversity, making Riverhead a vibrant, prosperous, and welcoming destination for Hispanic individuals to invest, live, and achieve lasting success,” Escobar said.
“This committee is designed to bring this Hispanic community into closer connection with the greater community, fostering unity and making Riverhead a better place for all to live, work and thrive,” he said.
Rothwell said town officials hope the committee members can help build a bridge between the town government and the Hispanic community, so the town government can “better serve everyone and represent everyone.” He said he often wonders if the government is really reaching everyone in the community.
“I want you to bring the concerns to us, bring things that we can do better,” Rothwell said. “How can we foster a great relationship with everyone in our community? Because we’re a wonderfully diverse community, and so I think this could be really a great step in allowing us as a Town Board and the government itself to represent everybody,” Rothewll said.
He said he hopes members of HDEEC will reach out to other town committees and departments too. “If there’s an issue or concerns about events that are taking place, or any bias events, then maybe they’ll go before the Anti-Bias Task Force and bring those concerns there. I think that you are really going to be an incredible bridge, you know, between residents and all of the committees within the Town of Riverhead,” Rothwell said.
“One of the things that we don’t think about but it’s out there, and it’s part of the Hispanic and Latino community. They’re afraid to come into the government. They’re afraid to come in and state their problems or ask for help,” Supervisor Tim Hubbard said. He said he hopes this committee will help with that. He said he wants residents to know that they can come to Town Hall. “You’re not going to get in trouble if you come into Town Hall. There should be no fear level there. And there is, there actively is a fear level,” Hubbard said. “I’ve talked to many Hispanic people. They’re like, I’m not coming into Town Hall. I’m afraid of what they might do, or what they might find out, what they might say,” Hubbard said. “And that’s not what we’re about.”
Noting the large Hispanic population in Riverhead, Hubbard said, “This is our community and we need to work with the community. I like to think of Riverhead as one community, and it’s really not right now,” Hubbard said.
“I’ll tell you a real quick story. I have two new neighbors, one is from Guatemala, one is from Mexico. And when they bought the houses and moved in, I stopped in to welcome them, and my first neighbor was like, I can’t believe you’re welcoming me. We were so afraid to buy in your neighborhood,” Hubbard recalled.
“It’s like, if I went to buy a house somewhere, I would be afraid that my neighbor wouldn’t like me because of who I am, or where I’m from? To me, it’s senseless,” Hubbard said. “I couldn’t have two better neighbors than the two I have,” he said. “So there’s a stigma out there, and that’s gotta be erased. Thank you for putting this together, and thank you to all of you coming together to help our community, because it is much needed.”
Other committee members at the work session today were Edgar Mejia, a former Guatemalan diplomat, Montserrat Ruiz, a dentist and businesswoman, Gary Vogel, managing partner of East Coast Nurseries, and a member of the Peruvian American and Salvadoran chambers of commerce, and Pastor Elias Salcedo, founder of New Jerusalem Church in Riverhead. Two committee members could not attend today’s meeting: Annnaly Kess, who works for the Riverhead Central School District and Daniel Sullivan, a businessman and green energy strategist.
Salcedo thanked the board for meeting with the committee. “I’ve been in Riverhead for 50 years. We’ve been established at a church for 30 years. Our church represents 17 different countries. My four boys are Riverhead High School graduates. One of my sons is a teacher in the middle school. So we’re from Riverhead,” Salcedo said. “And I think Riverhead is a focal point for a lot of people … not only Hispanics, for everyone,” Salcedo said.
Rothwell said the committee meetings will be open to the public and they will be interactive. “We’ll never have a closed-door policy,” he said.
The committee will meet at least monthly, Rothwell said. The town will publicize the meeting dates once they are established.
Rothwell said after the meeting he has been working with Escobar for about two months, locating and recruiting volunteers to serve on the committee. Escobar has been “amazing,” helping us make connections and getting it organized, Rothwell said.
“The best thing about it is that we’ve put together strong, prominent leaders in the community, within our Spanish community and now we have connections within our schools, within our churches, within our local businesses,” he said.
“I think that what has been lacking in the Town of Riverhead since I’ve come in office, is the ability to reach out to what is becoming the majority of our community,” Rothwell said. “And so by doing something like this, we create this open door policy, welcoming everyone from the community… Our job is to represent everyone in the community. The demographics in the community have changed. The woman from the school district said 78% — almost eight out of 10 children are Spanish or Latino. And I’m like, who’s helping them? Where do they go for help?”
The Latino community has had two or three generations in Riverhead, Rothwell said. “We need to provide the services so we are truly the government in Riverhead representing everyone in Riverhead Town.”
The Town Board will pass a resolution at an upcoming meeting to formally establish the committee and appoint members.
Author’s note: Subsequent to publication of this article, the Riverhead Central School District requested a correction of the statistic reported at the work session concerning total Hispanic student enrollment district-wide. The district said the correct number is 66%, not 78%. We contacted Council Member Ken Rothwell on Jan. 23 for a response. He confirmed that new information he said he obtained from a school board member on Jan. 23, that the correct number district-wide is currently 66%. He said the 78% figure he stated during the Jan. 16 Town Board work session was provided by the RCSD employee who is being named to the Hispanic Development, Empowerment and Education Committee and was actually the percentage of Hispanic students newly enrolled in the district, not total enrollment. He acknowledged that he might have misspoken at the work session. RiverheadLOCAL reviewed its audio recording of the meeting and confirmed that he did not refer to new enrollment during the work session when quoting the 78% figure.
Rothwell said the point he was trying to make stands, because the growth in the Hispanic community here has been significant and the school district now has a majority-Hispanic population and his initiative for the proposed committee is intended to help town government better serve the Hispanic community.
The school district then provided preliminary confirmation of the likely accuracy of the 78% new enrollment percentage, but said it would not be able to provide actual data on that until next week due to the absence this week of the district’s data services employee.
I regret not having confirmed the statistic presented at the meeting with the school district prior to publication of this article on Jan. 16. In retrospect, this was a failure of due diligence on my part. I will be sure to follow up with the school district next week for current data on new enrollment and will add that information here.
Denise Civiletti
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