Riverhead Town to renovate parking lot at Wading River park, using cannabis sales tax revenues

Infrastructure improvements are on their way for Police Officers Memorial Park in Wading River. 

Riverhead Town is planning to renovate the parking lot there, which is sorely in need of repairs and repaving, according to officials. 

The project has “the unanimous support” of the members of the Recreation Advisory Committee, its chairperson, Marjorie Acevedo told the Town Board at its work session Thursday.

“It’s so badly needed,” Acevedo said. “I mean, it’s been one of the priorities of our top five improvements that are needed in our parks,” she said. It’s at the top of the list. It’s almost dangerous.”

The Town Board met Thursday with Acevedo, Town Engineer Ken Testa and Financial Administrator Jeannette DiPaola to discuss the project. 

Testa told the board the engineering department estimates a budget of $325,000 for the project, which will involve milling the entire parking lot, grading it, adding drainage rings where pooling water has been a problem, installing asphalt curbing to prevent water from flowing onto a neighbor’s property, and then repaving and striping the lot.  

“It’s a reasonable plan that would provide a nice level parking lot with good drainage that’ll serve us for 20 to 25 years, at a reasonable cost,” Testa said.

Acevedo said handicap access is also an issue at the Wading River park (also known as  Bayberry Park). She suggested the town look into available grant funding to provide accessibility as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Testa said the engineering department is looking into paving an existing service road at the park that provides access to an area of the park that’s not currently handicap accessible. Handicap parking spaces could then be created in that area, he said. He said he believes this can be done within the $325,000 budget established for the project.

Supervisor Tim Hubbard explained that the park is “almost like a two-level park. The parking lot is basically the upper level, and the park itself is what we would refer to, I guess, as the lower level. There is a slope that goes down, and it’s this pretty steep slope, so it certainly could hamper somebody who had a handicap trying to get down there,” he said.

Testa said the town is looking to begin grinding work within the next two weeks. “Our goal is to get it done before the [asphalt] plants close sometime around Christmas time,” he said.

Cannabis sales tax revenues provide funding for needed projects

DiPaola said the funding for the project is primarily coming from the town’s cannabis tax revenues, with a small portion of the cost covered by fees paid by developers into a special recreation facility fund.   

There is a 13% sales tax on adult-use retail sales, which includes a 9% state excise tax and a 4% local tax. The local tax is split between the host county and the city, town, or village where the dispensary is located. The county gets 25% of the 4% and the town gets 75%.

The cannabis tax has been put to great use for some of the parks this year, DiPaola said.  “It’s wonderful to have some extra funding to be able to use so without that, we would not have been able to make these improvements,” she said. 

The town last month resurfaced the heavily-used pickleball courts at Veterans Memorial Park in Calverton, which had started deteriorating. The Town Board allocated $25,000 in cannabis sales tax revenue to fund that project. It has also used cannabis sales tax revenue to repair the bicycle trail there.

Council Member Ken Rothwell said he wanted to emphasize that the cost of this project is not coming from local property taxes. 

“We’re able to do projects like this through development fees, through cannabis taxes, and you know, we’re always looking for grants, and we’re looking for every other opportunity, but I think that’s the fiscal way to do it, and I’m just so proud that this project is getting done,” Rothwell said. 

Council Member Joann Waski said while she is opposed to cannabis retail sales in Riverhead, the sales tax revenue is “one of the positive things that has come out of it.” 

Officials have had “constant discussion” about work needed at Bayberry Park, but lack of funding for it was always the problem, Waski said. “So now that we have the cannabis funding coming in, we’re able to utilize it in such a positive way. And I’m so happy that Wading River is getting the attention that they so deserve.”

Council Member Ken Rothwell said he agrees with Waski 100%. “I was never supportive of cannabis,” he said, and the revenue is expected to fluctuate from year to year, so it’s hard to plan your budget around it. “But we’ll take it every time.” 

Rothwell noted that the funding allocated for this project consists of sales tax revenues the town has already collected for the first and second quarter of the year. “We do have additional funds that are going to be coming in for the third and fourth quarter,” he said. “We’re being conservative in terms of anything in the budget. But at the same point, once the money is here, after it’s arrived, then we can look at projects like this.”

Hubbard: Suffolk County supervisors seek agreement with state on home rule issues

Hubbard said cannabis tax revenue was a subject of discussion at the Suffolk County Supervisors Association meeting Wednesday. 

Hubbard said Babylon Supervisor Rich Schaffer  reported cannabis sales tax revenues of more than $4 million this year so far. 

“We know the market is out there. We know the money is very helpful in working with our budget and getting things done without having to go directly to the taxpayer,” Hubbard said.

“I don’t want to make this sound like a cannabis commercial, but a lot of the naysayers were worried that, you know, it was going to be negative by having dispensaries,” said Hubbard, who voted against a resolution opting out of cannabis sales — the town’s prerogative under the state law that legalized the retail sale of cannabis to all adults over 21 years of age. 

“And just like the uproar about medical marijuana when they first opened up, it just doesn’t happen. There aren’t people looting around. There aren’t people standing outside high. I rode by Strain Stars the other day,” he said, referring to the dispensary at the corner of Route 58 and Kroemer Avenue, “and I saw an elderly couple coming out the door. The man had a walker and the lady had a cane. There’s a lot of people that use cannabis for very different reasons. And it’s not — This isn’t the 60s, this isn’t the flower child era,” Hubbard said. “This is something entirely different. And it’s really been a plus for the town. It really has,” he said.  

“We’ve just got to work out a couple things with the state, “ Hubbard said, alluding to the current dispute with the state Office of Cannabis Management over the town’s right to set restrictions on dispensary locations. 

The state determined that Riverhead Town exceeded the authority allowed by the state law in local zoning regulations it adopted. A State Supreme Court judge  made similar rulings in two cases brought by two separate licensed dispensaries, which sued to overturn variance denials by the Riverhead Zoning Board of Appeals.

Riverhead Town has joined forces with Southampton Town, which is facing a similar issue, for hiring outside counsel to sue the Office of Cannabis Management for its determination that local zoning rules are “unreasonably impracticable” and, as such, are pre-empted by the State Cannabis Law.

A representative of Gov. Kathy Hochul was at the supervisor’s meeting Wednesday, Hubbard said.  “And she heard loud and clear our concerns” regarding the towns’ home rule authority and the towns’ ability to regulate the time, place and manner of cannabis sales within their jurisdictions, as provided by the State Cannabis Law.

“She’s going back to talk to the governor about that and see if we can’t straighten this out,” Hubbard said. 

He said other town supervisors agreed. “Don’t step on the town’s toes. Now you gave us the right to do this [time, place and manner regulations]. Now you’re changing the field on us, and that’s not fair, and hopefully we’re going to get a positive outcome out of this very soon,” Hubbard said.